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Christof's face was twisted in a look of misery as he tried to hurry his pace, but running often involved limping. He was a lurcher, not a galloper. He swallowed, "Calder... I wath glad you were there. I thought it would have been jutht uth, but I thought you would find it interethting. But you thouldn't have been tho rude to mithtreth! She wath the one left out, and it'th all my fault becauthe... becauthe I'm thtupid and.. .and I didn't want anyone to get hurt, it was jutht... jutht a thilly exthperiment and..." His shoulders were shaking, face trembling as much as it had after the lightening strike. "I don't know what to do. Mithtreth ith upthet and the'th gone and... and..." His hands curled up to hide his face. It was one thing to cry in front of Riley... it was another to show weakness like this in front of the Kelpie.




Up in the darkness and stillness of the dorm, the creature darted up onto a table top in the shadows. There was only a glint in it's eye as the lightening struck before with a powerful leap, it lunged, latching directly onto the bird-like head nearby to chomp down on goggles with sharp, bucked teeth, knocking the red hat in it's way to the floor.

Barth held the candle back up.

"Oh. Found it, then?"

Calder stopped. “You told me to shut up. That’s very unIgorly of you, Christof. I should be proud.” He turned around, his eyes shimmering green in the light, but starting to darken. Riley wasn’t the only one who communicated with their eyes. “…but I’m not. You’re experiment wasn’t silly. Barth and Malodore are very bright people and they would not feel so thrilled and excited, for Bath to actually get off a couch, if it was silly. You knew it. YOU are smart enough to know it wasn’t silly. I might not even know a percentage of what was going on, but when you told me to push that switch, I knew YOU thought it was important. HOWEVER, when Riley shows up, you belittle yourself. You make yourself look dumb. You have no confidence in what you did was smart. If Riley was so upset about not being there, don’t you think SHE thought your experiment was smart? Smart enough to want to be there.”

He adjusted the scarf about his neck, pulling it looser. “When I first met you, I thought you were a moron, but you showed on paper you were smart. Why do you constantly belittle yourself? If you think Barth and Riley are so amazing that you want to bend over backwards for them, protect them, speak highly of them, why is it that you act like they will kill you if you show a little bit of what you can do? You can do things without their permission. You don’t ask them to eat, to sleep, or what color thread to use when sewing yourself up. You can make those decisions. When they are not around, that’s free time. You can do what you want during that time. You don’t need Riley calling the shots every second of your life.”

He finally just undid the entire scarf, frustrated with it. He was quiet a moment. “…..You were happy before all of this. You SHOULD be happy. I’m not here to rain on your parade, and no one else should.” He watched the Igor crumble again. It was something he’d seen before. Crossing his arms, he sighed. “If you are upset about her, go after her. If she doesn’t want you there, then don’t stick around. Sometimes people need to be left alone. She doesn’t have everyone making the decisions for her, Chrsitof. Freedom isn’t all gloomy skies and lettuce patches.” Freedom had its upside and downside. Choices to create mistakes, learn, and take responsibility for them. Freedom was living, and sometimes living was hard.

"Jackin, Christof! You're not responsible for everyone! We're all capable of making decisions and yes, making mistakes! Its' called living. If I didn't make so many, I wouldn't know half the stuff I know about you now. I'm going to make a whole bunch too, but I'd rather DO something when I can do it than regret playing it safe later. We can all make decisions and we can all live our lives poorly. Sure, you want to look out for her. Fine. That's what being a friend is. I want to look out for you, too, which is why I worry. It's why I spend so much time just trying to figure out that frustratingly annoying brain of yours to the point of just want to rip your head off and throw it in the river. I've made SUCH an effort, Christof. I'm trying. I really am here, stal." ******


His eyes flickered to where Riley had been. "I WOULD make an attempt to Christof, but I haven't really seen much to prove to me what you say is true. I doubt a lot of what you say, and it's because you love her too much. You put her on a pedastle and I think you make her feel as perfect as she thinks she is. No wonder she thinks all her decisions are the right ones and she should be giving advice to every person as if it was the best. YOU help her! So pardon me if I let my opinion stay until I see evidence of one of those many great qualities she has with my own eyes. Until then, I'm free to think what I think. She didn't my master and ...." He gritted his teeth on this one. "....you are free to have whatever mistress or master you want. That's your choice." As much as he hated it.

He felt very deflated now. He had a completely different speech set in his head if Chrsitof bothered to follow him. Where did his angry speech go? It had been a nice one, too.


((****** Like saying "man", kelpies sometimes say "Stal" (or "Mar" for ghouls) as slang for 'man, girl, guys'. ))

He stood a moment, weighing his options, but really, when someone used the 'f' word, he was more or less helpless to resist. "Yeah....we're friends." He turned and started to head back, stopping beside the Igor. "Let's go before falls asleep and Malley is left looking for that dead lepus on his own." He had forgotten about the pair of them and wondered how they were fairing in the dark.

"Can it speak? Err, hello thing, sorry about that lights, it isn't usually this dark but we're having a few...issues with the power."

Barth made his slow way over to Maladore, holding the candle closer.

"...It'll be alright, won't it?"

"I think I have a minipet cage prototype somewhere around here from when Christof and I were working on...ah, here." Barth said, navigating the clutter with a strange kind of knowledgable efficiency.

"Buried under a bit, though."

The Lepus snarled and squealed, thrashing on Malodore's talons, but at least it was *apprehended*. At the sound of something at the door in the darkness, it quieted a moment, eyes swiveling around calculatingly to follow the direction of it's perked ears.

As Christof opened the door, it suddenly fell limp in the candle light. It stuck out it's tongue for good measure.

As the Hunchback turned from speaking to the Kelpie quietly in the hallway, his eyes fell on that spot of dim light and widened.