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 Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:40 am
Karma had lessened her excursions to Gaia's ever-growing pool of shops as of late, opting instead to concentrate on the children and cesspool of pettery that she already had, save for bringing home the odd pooka now and then.
For the past two months or so, she'd been very good, in fact, and her animal companion intake had been at a minimum. However, it became apparant that this was a trend destined to be broken as her wanderings took her past Barton West Field on her way to do some much-needed grocery shopping. On a normal day, she wouldn't have paid it a second glance as it was most usually churning with activity, panhandlers, and other goings-on. Today, however, it had seemed oddly quiet and tranquil.
The reason for this became apparant as she looked up to find that a portion of the field had been fenced off and a half-finished cobblestone path cut through the grass, leading straight up to a modest-looking building that was still clearly in a state of being worked on.
"WORKING!" a hand-written sign that had been posted at the head of the path proclaimed. In smaller looping script beneath had been added as an afterthought "Future Shop Site - Please Come Back Soon!"
She paused there a moment, tail flicking curiously. This wasn't exactly the optimum environment for a shop, was it? It seemed very much out of the way of the main flow of traffic, in fact. Perhaps whoever had bought this plot of land had had it sold to them by a shyster who assured them that it was prime selling grounds.
Well...sadly, whoever it was would learn the hard way, she thought as she picked up her gait again, ready to pass it by.
"Milady!" a voice called behind her before she'd gone much further. Ignoring it, assuming it was one of the Renfest refugees from the guilds addressing one of his roleplaying partners, she continued to walk. "Milady! One moment, please!" This time it was accompanied by the sound of rapid footfall crunching on gravel, and it made her stop, blink, and turn on her heels just in time to see a raven-haired young man reaching the end of the path, pausing to scoop something up out of the grass and begin toward her with an unnaturally-bounding step.
"What?" she asked warily, quirking a brow as he caught his breath and straightened his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose before offering her a scrap of paper.
"You may be missing this later." he said good-naturedly. It took her a moment to realize that it was her shopping list the stranger was holding as her expression softened and she reached out to accept it from him.
"Probably would be." she smirked. "Thank you."
"Never a problem. I'd hope someone might do the same for me, really. It isn't easy being new around here when there's so many people."
"Well, if I get a chance to return the favor one of these days, I will." Karma nodded. "Thanks again." And saying so, she turned to leave.
"Jaden."
"Hm?" she looked over her shoulder quizzically.
"Jaden Silvermoon. And you're Karma, yes?" The foxcoon felt her tail bristle slightly at this.
"How did you--" she trailed off, her eye catching the stationary her shopping list had been written on. In a fit of smartassery months ago to keep Meka and Kendall from running off with her notepads, she'd ordered some that proclaimed "FROM THE DESK OF KARMA" at the top of every page. Idiot, she cursed herself. "Yes." she relented, nodding and turning back to face him as the small talk had already been initiated. "How long have you been here?" she asked, deciding it was a fair enough question
"Not long. Two days if you count today, and I do." he winked. It was not a lecherous sort of wink, moreso the sort one would expect to see from a leprechaun a split second before it vanished from sight. "And I know what you're thinking, its a bold venture to start a shop this soon after arriving. It takes a bold sort to go new places."
One of the foxcoon's eyes wandered to the unfinished shop nearby, even as she nodded. For someone who was convinced that he was going new places, inventing customer-grabbing tactics sadly didn't seem one of those new places he was intending to go.
Noticing her look, he grinned. "Not much to look at now, no, but it won't need to be. There is a certain sort of customer I'm looking to attract, you see. And those sorts of people will notice and come without needing any flashy colors or advertisements."
"I see..." Karma said carefully.
"They're the type who are always looking and never finding. I hope to change that."
"I'm sure you will." She took a step backward...granted, she was accustomed to dealing with strange people, but Mr. Silvermoon seemed to exude something more than the run-of-the-mill kook vibes. There was an unnatural sort of light that glimmered in his eyes, and it almost seemed as though if she were to look away for a moment, he might vanish completely on her.
He clearly had noted her step backward, but his smile didn't dim. Instead he brought up one hand and held it out palm-down. "I should be done setting up by tomorrow." he told her. And then in a movement too quick to see, flipped his hand palm-down, palm-up, palm-down, and then palm-up again. From nowhere, it seemed, he'd produced a small white card.
"Come and see us?" he asked, offering it out to her. Karma hesitated, biting her lip, and then accepted the card from him.
"All right." she nodded. And she had to admit, for what he lacked in attracting customers with his shop design and location, he made up for in the mystique that it seemed only old-fashioned travelling salesmen had once possessed. As she pocketed the card, Jaden seemed satisfied as he mimed tipping a hat to her.
"See you soon." he smiled. "Perhaps even sooner than either of us think." Another cryptic wink, and he turned, heading back down the path he'd come from as Karma watched him go.
How very....strange.
With her first encounter with Mister Jaden Silvermoon over, Karma had gone on to finish her shopping, the odd meeting dwindling until it was tucked neatly in the back of her mind.
She would not think of it again, in fact, until later that evening when, while searching for her chap stick, she found something rather odd tucked into one of her jacket pockets. Puzzled, she struggled to pull it out, not knowing what it was or how it might have gotten there.
The bridle was worn with age and had been doubled over on itself with its lead rope wrapped tightly around it to make it small enough to fit. Was this some sort of joke, she wondered? Tugging the final coil of rope from her jacket's pocket, something else fluttered out as well.
The white business card that Jaden had given her earlier.
Her first instinct was not to touch it, but her better sense immediately admonished her, assuring her that there had to be a rational explanation. The bridle didn't appear out of nowhere....it just wasn't logical.
But then, Gaia was never famous for being a place of logic, she reminded herself, fetching the card off of the floor and reading the front of it.
"Changelings" it said in ornate script, offering no further explanation...simply the address of the shop. Narrowing her eyes a bit in frustration, she turned it over, finding that a note had been written. A note where she was fairly certain, there had only been blank white before.
Hang it 'pon a nearby tree
Where the wee folk all can see
Open your eyes, bide your time
Find more than a bridle at the end of your line
.....what ever happened to the days when answers were straightforward and had explanations supplied, she wondered? A tree? Wee folk? What the HELL??
She looked to the empty bridle dangling from her hand from its rope and sighed. At the risk of provoking some strange curse if she didn't do what the note suggested, she was grateful that her backyard supplied a sturdy tree. And all things considered, she wasn't sure she wanted this strange thing in her house either.
With a sigh, she padded to the backyard to commense hanging the strange artifact from one of the lower branches. Unless this was all an elaborate prank on Mister Silvermoon's part, she was sure she would recieve answers sooner or later.
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:33 am
The next morning, something strange has occured. There is a set of footprints at the base of the tree, beneath the branch... and the bridle itself seems to have been disturbed. It now hangs on a slightly different branch, perhaps a foot from where it had been before. The prints themselves are light in the soil, and trail off for a little ways into the grass before disappearing completely.
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Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:57 am
Karma awoke and, stretching, sat up on the end of her bed as her mind downloaded its daily intake of "Get The Hell Up - Version 2.0". Remembering the events from the night before, she peered toward the window in mid-yawn...
...and stopped. The bridle was gone. It shouldn't have bothered her as much as it did, really...she was still under the impression that Jaden had been having her on about the bridle and had been watching somewhere nearby, laughing to himself as she'd hung it from the tree like an utter ninny. Perhaps he DID have ideas in mind for how to pull in customers....sure. Give them a free sample, take it away, and when they come back mystified and wondering where the gift had gone, offer to sell them one just like it.
Well, she wasn't getting pulled into that, she promised herself. He'd had his laugh, he could go and pull it on the next sucker who happened by his--and then she looked again.
The bridle wasn't gone, it had been moved. From where she sat, she could see it just at the edge of the windowframe.
It didn't move her mind assured her. It was dark and you forgot where you hung it, that's all. But no...she remembered very clearly that the place she had hung it was squarely in the window's line of view. She remembered looking out and seeing the shadow of the rope before going to bed.
Then one of the pookas moved it. That's all. But that didn't work either. Granted, the pookas were imps when it came to getting into things, they also lacked opposable thumbs and the ability to climb trees. And why they would have gone to the bother of scaling the trunk, untying the bridle, and moving it to another branch escaped her.
Puzzled, she struggled into her robe and slippers and padded out of the room, straight through the house, and out of the back door. She was greeted almost immediately by dozens of dew-soaked furry paws and eagerly-snuffling noses as the pooka brigade bid her good morning. She shuffled past them impatiently and directly to the tree where the bridle hung, being.....a bridle, basically.
As she reached out, gingerly touching the rope and making the object swing slightly where it hung, the pookas all sat back, keeping a respectiful distance away. They didn't seem alarmed, but all the same this was unusual behavior for them, Karma noted....usually, NOTHING was sacred to the meddlesome furballs.
"All right, which one of yous guys is messin' with my bridle?" she asked, donning her best mobster boss voice as she scanned the blinking oil puddle eyes of the pooka posse that continued to blink and c**k their heads at her cluelessly. Smirking, she decided perhaps she'd imagined it after all and turned to go back inside.
Footprints...?
She'd almost missed them, but as she'd turned, she noted that there were places in the soil that had been indented perfectly and lightly to form a tiny set of toes and the ball of a foot. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she followed the tracks with her eyes. They seemed to overlap one another around the base of the tree as though the owner had circled it several times and then headed off into the lawn where they disappeared.
One thing she had noticed for certain was that they were far too small to have belonged to Jaden, as had been her first suspicion.
Then who....?
Deciding that this was entirely too much to deal with after just having rolled out of bed, she turned abruptly and went back into the house. She would sort it out later, she promised herself.
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:52 am
It was early one morning when it happened, the soft sound of footsteps and hushed voices... then the creak of the tree limb as the bridle was removed. Set in its place, beneath the tree was a small basket with a curious, wriggling bundle inside...
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:14 am
The sound of an infant screaming roused Karma from a sound sleep as she blinked, disoriented.
Dammit...the twins are supposed to be sleeping through the night now. was her first groggy thought, moving to get up with intentions of fixing a bottle grating through her head, before remembering that Kendall and Raven had long-since grown out of the stage of crying in the middle of the night when they needed something.
Huh... Maybe it was the TV, then...
As she inhaled to yell at Kendall, Meka, or whomever was currently responsible for the noise to turn it the hell down, the air deflated from her lungs just as quickly as she gathered it. The odd thing about the crying was it didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in the house, yet it was most definitely somewhere closeby.
She decided to dismiss it as one of the neighbors' kids and pulled the blankets over her head, grumbling to herself and hoping the parents would take care of it.
THUD
She jolted as the glass in her bedroom windowpane rattled and bolted upright in time to see a gray-brown blur move out of view. Before she could wonder what it was, it returned. Her mourning dove pooka, Reginald, flew at the window with both front paws outstretched as his undersized wings labored to keep him afloat.
As another thud resounded through the room, she threw off the covers and rushed to see what the trouble was. He'd never done THAT before.
"I'm coming, I'm coming..." she muttered through gritted teeth as she struggled with the window latch. A moment later, it gave and she threw it wide open, just in time to have Reggie collide with her chest, glance off, and land on her bed in a confused heap.
"Reg, what in the hell--" she didn't get a chance to finish as he quickly righted himself and flitted back out the window. As she watched him go, she noted that he went straight to the nearby tree and joined the colorful ring of other pookas sitting stoically at its base. It was from their midst that the crying seemed to originate and made the foxcoon's blood run cold.
Images of a toddler that had crawled through a hole in her fence and gotten lost filled her mind....or one of those horror stories you heard about on the news where some couple who didn't want their baby anymore randomly ditched him or her someplace and left.
Ohgodohgodohgodohgod....
The thought become a droning mantra in her head as she quickly threw on her robe and fled her room, stubbing her toe on the doorframe in the process and drawing a pained hiss over her teeth. Hobbling a bit, she made her way to the backyard and across the frost-laden grass. The pookas silently parted without protest, looking at one another in silent conversation to reveal what they had been ringed around.
Karma's heart skipped a beat at the sight of the basket and the sporadically moving white blanket therein as the infantile wailing continued. It was like some sort of surreal dream...things like this just did NOT happen....
Biting her lip, she reached out and gingerly tugged back the blanket to reveal the contents of the basket. A tiny baby...one of the strangest babies she'd ever seen, in fact, was nestled therein. His skin was the color of the ocean's water and his head was crowned with a tangled pouf of kelp-colored hair. His face, nearly purple from crying, was scrunched miserably as his arms and legs kicked feebly at the air.
For a moment, she simply stared, unable to do much else before, one by one, the pookas turned their heads toward her expectantly.
Well...?? Their eyes all seemed to say. Fidgeting, and having her maternal instincts stomped on by the continued crying, she gingerly reached down and wrapped her hands around the strange infant, lifting him out of the basket.
"Shhhh...." she soothed, cuddling him against her body. No wonder he was crying...the poor thing was freezing. How long had he been out here like this, she wondered? The baby instantly nestled against her warmth, though he continued to hiccup and whimper as his strange bone-plated tail curled around her wrist as though to keep her there.
Bouncing him lightly, trying to calm him, she searched the immediate area with her eyes....as though that would do any good. Whoever had dropped him off was likely long-gone by now. The infant gurgled, sneezed, and began to wind down his noise to occasional whimpers as he stared at her through large soulful brown eyes that radiated innocense.
"Poor baby..." she cooed, looking him over for any abrasions or scratches. "Did your mommy forget you...?" She extended one padded finger to touch his nose and didn't get that far as it was seized in one chubby fist. In spite of herself, she smiled.
"Let's get you inside." she whispered, turning to carry him swiftly indoors. She noted, as an afterthought, that the bridle was now missing. It made her pause in mid-step for only a fraction of a moment as she absorbed this, wondering if there was a connection between its disappearance and the infant having been left behind.
Well, whatever the case, she would get to the bottom of it soon enough...and hopefully before the day was out. Without even thinking, she performed an absent gesture that she had become familiar with when Raven and Kendall had been tiny and checked the small white diaper he had been fitted with with the tip of one finger. It was impossible, however, to determine whether the baby himself had wet it, or if it had simply gotten damp from his being outdoors. It would have to be changed, regardless.
And...there was something else. Something that didn't belong. Fumbling her finger into the leg of the diaper a bit further, she found a neatly-rolled piece of parchment that, unlike the diaper, was completely dry somehow. Puzzled, she unfurled it and examined it.
Written in what looked to be golden ink, was a note.
Please is our baby. We can't. You must.
He is Artisan.
There was no signature and whoever had written it looked to have had a terrible time getting the words written legibly and spelled correctly. There were several frustrated scribble-outs riddling the paper and what looked to be water stains. Either the author wasn't horribly bright, or had written it in a fit of emotion...or perhaps both.
She read over the last line again. "He is Artisan."
"Artisan.." she repeated the name aloud. Recognition seemed to dawn in the child's eyes as he turned his head toward her, making her smile again as she stepped through the sliding door and shut it behind them. "Well, Artisan, let's see if we can't shed some light on a few things, hm?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:19 am
Arty's first outing and a discussion with Jaden Trio paused on her way to work, Sankouri and Levon beside her. She frowned, glancing down the cobblestone path leading to the shop she'd recently been given her harp at, then glanced back at her companions. Sankouri's face was serene, and Levon just looked amused. "Something's eating you," he muttered, reaching up to catch a wandering pixamouse as it approached his ear and tucking it safely back into his pocket. "You been there before?" Trio nodded, offering a quiet smile. "That's where the harp came from. The one out by the trees? I thought I might duck in... see if the owner's there." She didn't mention the footprints, but Levon didn't need to hear about them. The kitsune was very familiar with Trio's moods. "Go on. I'll head over and take care of the pixas. You go ahead and...," he paused then, tilting his head as he considered something before a slow, feral grin lit his face. "Take the day off. Do whatever... just don't let me see hide or hair of you in the shop today. Got it?" Trio snorted, sticking out her tongue and nodding before turning back to the shop. She waited until Levon was out of sight before reaching down to pet Sankouri. "We could ask about those footprints, hmm?" she murmured, and when Sankouri nodded, she rose again, striding toward the shop. "Yes." Unaware of Trio's arrival, someone else was on her way to the shop as well, though her arrival was far less dignified than the other woman's. Karma had quickly discovered that Artisan (Arty, as she had already nicknamed him) was quite a handful when he was not cold and miserable beneath a tree in her backyard. "Arty, stop kicking. Arty, don't. Arty, please hold still..." she said in a near-constant stream of words as she tried to keep a hold on the squirming infant in her arms. For as tiny as he was, that certainly didn't seem to slow him down much and he grinned broadly, his tiny hands closing on everything they could reach. Karma's jacket, her hair, his own ears, leaves of the trees they passed by, it didn't matter as long as he was grabbing SOMETHING... "We're almost there, if you could--" she cut off abruptly as he caught her nose and squeezed it as hard as he could, bringing tears to her eyes as she pulled back out of the baby's reach. Ow... "If you could just hang on..." she finished, trying to regain her composure. Having already raised two kids, thankfully, she'd not forgotten how to be patient. It had become apparant to her as she'd gotten Artisan cleaned up, fed, and dressed in one of Kendall's old sleepers that was far too big on him, that whoever had left him didn't intend to return for him. He was her responsibility now and she wanted to know why. And who better to tell her than Jaden himself since he'd obviously been a key player in this fiasco? She wasn't angry, per-sey, she just wished she'd gotten some say in the deal as she strode across the field toward the unfinished building therein. Trio had just reached the door when she heard the stream of words from Karma's mouth. She turned, watching the foxcoon's arrival with not-quite-concealed amusement. She couldn't quite get a good look at whatever-it-was twisting and squirming in Karma's arms, but she nodded to the woman. "Hello! Didn't expect to see you here. How are you?" Karma's ears perked at the sound of the voice as she looked up to see Trio and smiled in greeting. "Oh, hi! Well, its been a strange morning to tell you the truth, I--" she paused, finding her mouth suddenly full of chubby green fingers as she reached up and guided Arty's hand away from her lips. "I seem to have a visitor..." she finished. The baby in her arms gave a happy shriek in response and reached up immediately with his other hand, grabbing a lock of her hair and pulling on it hard, making her wince. "You wouldn't happen to know who runs this place, would you...?" she asked hopefully, trying to gently detach Artisan's grip from her tresses. "I've met him once, and I have some questions for him..." She managed to detach the hand from her hair only to have it make a grab for her nose again. This kid took clingy to a whole new level! Trio stopped dead, watching the odd-looking infant in Karma's arms through the eyes of someone long used to seeing the unusual. And then she did something any woman in the thrall of her maternal instinct would do. "Oh my god," she beamed, leaning forward until her face was near Artisan's. "He's ADORABLE!" She lifted a hand, tickling under the baby's chin as she lifted her eyes to grin at Karma. "Can I hold him?!" Arty seemed to answer before Karma got the chance to as he reached out to Trio with his tiny arms, the tips of his right fingers snagging the collar of her shirt while the left hand flailed at the air seeking purchase elsewhere. Karma winced and rebalanced her grip on him before he could fall before giving Trio a somewhat tired smile. "Careful, he's kind of slippery." she warned, beginning to hand him over, trying to keep his tail from winding around her forearm like a monkey's and making the process more difficult. "He's gorgeous," Trio said, carefully taking him and tucking him into the crook of one arm as she lifted her other hand until the baby could see her bracelet. "There you go," she purred softly, as he grabbed at it, then glanced back up at Karma with a gleeful smile. She no longer seemed to notice that she was standing outside the shop's door, or that Karma had asked her something about the shopowner previously. "You look tired!" she did say, catching sight of the weariness in Karma's eyes. "He keeping you up?" "Hm...?" Karma was unaware of just how much in a disarray she was, but it likely would have explained the Albertsons clerk's face when she showed up earlier and bought several cans of infant formula and some bottle equipment as the twins' baby essentials had long been worn out and thrown away. Or maybe it had been because she'd obtained said items by literally running through the store like her hair was on fire and her a** was catching, having left Arty home with Meka and Kendall while she ran her urgent errand. "He hasn't really been keeping me up, per-sey, because he just got here today, actually." She kept a wary eye on Artisan as she spoke, making sure he wasn't going to get too out of hand. He, however, seemed perfectly happy for the moment investigating Trio's bracelet and cooed happily as he made every effort to wrestle it into his mouth. "That's actually why I'm here. Jaden....I THINK it was Jaden, I don't know who else it might have been..." she waved a hand dismissively "...left me with a bridle a few days ago. I thought it was all some sort of joke when I read the note that came with it about hanging it from a tree, but I woke up this morning, it was gone, and there he was." she said, nodding at Arty. One of the baby kelpie's oversized ears had flopped over his face, making him squawk and release his hold on the bracelet to deal with this unwelcome turn of events. Trio watched Arty battle with his ear, listening to Karma. "The shopowner? I never did catch his name... but he gave me a harp when I was here last," she noted, then considered, finally tearing her eyes away from the baby to peer at Karma. "Did your bridle have footprints around it at all?" "His name is Jaden Silvermoon....or so he told me, anyway." She was usually terrible with names, but really...how did you forget a name like Jaden Silvermoon? Especially when such an odd character went with it? She reached out, gingerly taking Arty's ear by its tip and moving it aside for him. The baby grinned at this, and then immediately grabbed the ear again and yanked it back over his face, stuffing the tip in his mouth. .....oh well. "Footprints..." she said quickly, getting back to the subject at hand. "I don't know about all around it, but yes. The tree I hung it from had some footprints at the base of it just yesterday, actually. I thought someone i lived with had left them there, but they were too small...and the bridle wasn't where I'd hung it the night before." The boy in question moved along the path in Barton's West Field, whistling softly as he headed towards the small house/shop settled amidst the trees. Upon seeing Karma and Trio there, he nodded to them politely with a grin. "Hello, ladies," he said jovially, then waved to Arty as he moved past them and disappeared into the house. Trio watched Jaden move into the house, muttering a soft, "Speak of the devil..." Slanting her eyes at Karma, even as she settled the squirming child a little more solidly into her arms, she asked, "Shall we?" She didn't wait for the foxcoon to answer. Instead, she ducked into the house after Jaden, Sankouri padding at her heels. She shifted Arty until he was up against her shoulder, using one hand to keep his head from flopping around as she called out to Jaden, "Um, excuse me?" Karma followed after Trio immediately, likewise wanting answers. From over Trio's shoulder Arty continued to grab at things. Her shirt, the doorframe on the way in, a futile reach for the inside wall... If he was this energetic as an infant, Karma was somewhat grateful his parents hadn't stayed around to introduce themselves...what -was- he? That question came a close second to "Why me?" on her list of things she intended to find out. "Yes?" Jaden answered, turning to face them. Inside the house, his appearance was MUCH different than either of them remembered. While his clothing stayed the same, and the long black hair was still braided nearly to his waist, the rest was far different. Beneath the cuffs of the shorts he wore, russet-furred legs could be seen, bent in such a way that they could not possibly be human. A pair of neatly trimmed cloven hooves rested against the floor, and one could see that he had HORNS, of all things, sprouting from just at his hairline. His ears were sharply pointed, and the bland grey eyes now sparkled almost a silver colour. He looked to the two curiously, as if not possibly understanding what they could need HIM for. Trio froze. While she knew intellectually that she had several friends who were demons, she'd never seen one who so resembled the stories of her youth... and it was a little unnerving at best. She hugged Arty a little more protectively, even as her brain finally managed to get a word in edgewise with her instincts. He's not a demon. He's just... something else you've never seen before. That's pretty damn common here!Outwardly, it took several moments before her smile softened into something other than a tense facsimile. "It's... about the harp..." "And I wanted to know, what--" her words trailed off, trying to grok Jaden's new appearance. Likewise, she knew all manner of Gaia's oddities, but there was something different about him. Not just in the odd appearance he took while in the shop, but in his very being. It was unsettling and intriguing all at the same time, creating a curious mix of feelings within her as she shifted her eyes to Trio, waiting for her to go first since she'd already asked. Only Arty seemed unperturbed by Jaden as he continued to babble and laugh boisterously, twisting in Trio's grip until he was facing the goat-legged man and reaching out to him. Apparantly he had already decided that it was now an unspoken custom that everyone he met must hold him and allow him to grab things before their friendship could be cemented. Smiling, Jaden took Arty into his arms and held the boy up for a moment, letting him see the world. He then lowered Arty into his arms and looked to the two with a smile. "Ah yes, the harp... I trust that you've put it outside, like I asked?" The satyr was nonplussed by the reactions... he'd gotten worse in the past, that much was for certain. "There were footprints around it this morning," Trio said quietly, relaxing a bit more when he didn't do something crazy with Arty. She looked at Karma, then back at Jaden, then asked the question that was likely plaguing both women. "...Why?" Karma's eyes shifted to Trio and then back to Jaden, having not much to add onto that as she waited for the answer and watched as he held Artisan in his arms. She was sure that there must be a reasonable explanation for everything....maybe not one she might agree with, but a reasonable one all the same. She HOPED so, at least... Silver eyes blinked at them for a moment, the boy tilting his head to the side as Arty grabbed hold of a horn and yanked on it hard. "Why what?" It took him a moment to catch on. "OH! The foot prints! They were likely Faeries." As if that expained everything, he went back to toying with Arty, seeming to enjoy the boy's antics immensely. ".....but why us?" Karma pressed, fighting the urge to slap her forehead. She couldn't tell if he was being purposely evasive or just selectively dense about the subject. "I found him in my yard this morning." she said, gesturing at Arty. "And a note." She left it at that, deciding to hold off on asking him how the hell he'd slipped the bridle into her jacket pocket in the first place and stick with the more pressing issues for now. "Why you? Because otherwise, we would die." Jaden moved to sit in a plush chair that was against one wall, motioning the woman to sit as well. There was plenty of room. He balanced Arty on one furred knee, smiling softly at him. "That bridle was a relic of Arcadia... fey-touched, and attracted Arty's parents to you. Once they determined that you would be able to raise their child, they left him to you. You see, our land is dying... and without the people of this realm, we won't exist any longer." His expression sombered then as he looked to Arty and threaded his fingers through the boy's hair. "There are some humans... or non-humans, as the case may be... who are 'touched', as we say. They have the ability to see beyond four walls and realise that there is more out there somewhere. Those are the kind of people who we look for. Once one is found, and the child placed with them, he or she bonds to their new parent and with their assistance, adapts to this world... and therefore survives." "So....what you're saying is he's been left for me to raise for sure...?" she said, making sure she understood. She had mixed feelings on the matter, honestly. Part of her was honored to be trusted with such a responsibility and had started to grow attached to the infant, but another part of her...the tired worn-out disgruntled part of her...groaned at the thought of living through another stint of diaper-changing, potty-training, bottlefeeding, and late-night screamfests. She vented a soft sigh through her nose, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "....is there anything else I should know? About him? About his parents? Anything...?" "He's a Kelpie," Jaden said simply, grinning to the boy and lighting up when the gesture was returned. "He's a water Faerie, in the barest sense of the term. He'll love water. That's about all I can tell you, because each child is different." He glanced to the two then, lifting one brow. "After all... if my human caretaker believed everything she'd heard about satyrs, she'd likely have left me in the trees where she found me." Trio sat quietly. Once karma had taken over the conversation (with understandably more reason to be asking the questions, of course), she'd settled back, listening carefully. After all, whatever the woman beside her was going through, she would be, too. So she curled up as Sankouri settled his head on her lap, and stroked the soft blue fur while she listened and watched... and wondered just how long it would take for the faeries around her to decide whether she could be trusted. One thing Jaden had said that caught at her... obviously, if he was talking of surviving due to the bonding, these were very necessary steps... And between Aishiki and a few of the others in her home, she was beginning to wonder just how important humans... and, er, humanoid types... really were to this world. Well, not just one thing... "Satyrs?" THAT explained a lot. Karma, unsure if Trio was simply confirming what he'd said, or if she didn't quite know what a satyr was, turned her head to explain to save Jaden the trouble. "Satyrs are goat-legged men." she explained. "They're kind of infamous for their...erm....their 'appetites'. They're like fauns, I think..." She eyed Jaden out of the corner of her eye for approval or denial of this statement. She really wasn't sure about details, after all, having only ever read about satyrs in mythology books and the occasional bizarre fanfic. Trio nodded. While she wasn't completely clueless when it came to mythology, she was rather... less versed in it than many of her companions. "So... how much do you know about Kelpies?" she asked Karma, then frowned. "And... um... is there any way to tell what we're attracting? So that we can maybe... er... read up on them a bit?" The last went, of course, to Jaden. Karma looked to Arty somewhat worriedly. She DID know about Kelpies, and their description wasn't very flattering. "They're from Scottish mythology." she explained. "They're famous for pretending to be wayward horses, offering people travelling alone a ride home on their backs, and then running straight for the water, jumping in and disappearing. Sometimes they turn into handsome men and woo girls into the water for a swim and try to drown them.." Arty, if he bore any tendancies to these things, gave no indication of it as he made a grab at one of Jaden's horns, giving a high-pitched squeal before giggling happily, his tail lashing behind him. Trio's eyes widened as she regarded the adorable little baby currently playing tug-of-war with Jaden's head. "Well... nothing's guaranteed, right?" she hazarded, beginning to have images of her home overrun by a miniature hellion. "I can hope, at least..." she sighed, cursing her luck. "My neighbors look at me strangely enough as it is, the last thing I need to do is explain why phantom horses have been abandoning their kids in mud puddles..." But who knew? Maybe Arty WOULD be an exception to the rule...after all, it wasn't as though he was old enough to have absorbed the kelpie lifestyle, right? Perhaps a different sort of influence would create a different sort of personality. Trio snickered at the image, her grin returning. "He can always come play at my house after it rains. Plenty of mud puddles there!" she offered, grinning at Karma. "Do you think Kendall and Raven will take to him?" The foxcoon's brow furrowed at that. "Don't know..." she said quietly. She hadn't had much of a chance to think about it, in fact. Things were chaotic enough as it was between hers and Youko's twins without having to worry about whether or not they would accuse her of replacing them with this child that had shown up literally out of nowhere. "Kendall didn't seem too offput by him when i asked him and Meka to watch him while I went out to get formula and bottles, but I don't think he knew at that point we were keeping him..." Trio considered, wincing as she thought of what Karma might be facing on her return home. "I'm sure it'll work out, at least, right? At least they're not only children facing the first sibling... er, sorta... ever. Right?" She reached out, laying a gentle hand on Karma's arm as she spoke. "And Youko would probably help in explaining... He's got some experience with it recently, after all." Jaden was busy swaying his head from side to side, bringing shrieks from Arty as the boy clung to him and was nearly dragged along with each motion. Apparently, he was one who didn't mind roughhousing with children. He barely paid much notice to the two women, letting htem converse with themselves.
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Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 5:23 am
"So explain to me something..." Meka said, watching Karma as she fed Artisan a bottle. "Why is it that s**t like this always manages to find you?"
"Don't swear in front of the baby." she muttered absently, as she'd had to do many times when Raven and Kendall were young. It was startling how easy it all came back when an infant was back in her arms. "And I don't know, Meka, but he's my responsibility now."
"But why?" the raccoon pressed, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing the scene with clear distaste. "He has parents, doesn't he? SOMEONE had to leave him here..."
"His parents can't care for him." the foxcoon explained, repeating what Jaden had said at the store. "Things are changing too quickly for them to survive and they didn't want him to fade out like they were."
"So they find a complete stranger instead?" Meka asked, seeing if he understood this.
"Not a complete stranger...they were watching me."
"Watching you." The raccoon's tail flicked in annoyance. "Someone spying on you for a couple of days isn't grounds to trust that they'd give you a baby with no strings attached, that's grounds for a restraining order."
"Well, if you'd like to go look for them, be my guest." she said, tilting the bottle up a bit further so Arty continued to get formula instead of air. It was as though he never got full, she noted with a slight degree of amazement. An hour earlier, he'd finished off a full bottle and was making good progress on this second one as well...she ordinarily wouldn't dare try to feed an infant (especially one this small) so much, but he'd fussed and wailed until she'd given in.
Where was he PUTTING it all....?
"Do I have to call him my brother?" Kendall asked from where he was sitting on Karma's other side, legs drawn beneath him and peering over his mother's shoulder at the blue-green baby in her arms with a look that lingered between interest and distaste.
"You can just call him Arty." she assured him. "He's not your anything, I'm just taking care of him, sweetie."
Arty stopped suckling suddenly and screwed up his face awkwardly as Karma winced. Here it comes....he's going to spew... she thought with a sinking feeling as the baby kelpie's mouth opened.
An ear-splitting belch suddenly pierced the air, making her eardrums vibrate. For a moment there was utter silence and then Artisan eagerly found the bottle's n****e again and drew it back into his mouth to keep feeding.
"Awesome!" Kendall grinned.
"Excuse YOU, Mister Arty..." Karma muttered, unable to keep from smirking. Meka seemed to be the only one of the three who was unamused as he glared at the baby kelpie and then back at Karma.
"Whatever." he sighed, getting up and padding off down the hallway. Karma ignored the raccoon's departure, knowing that she was going to have gotten static from SOMEONE about Arty's arrival....better it was Meka than Kendall, at least.
"Can I hold him?" Kendall asked, reaching for Arty. As though afraid that the foxboy's intent was to take his food away, the infant's tail snaked out from beneath the blanket and wrapped around the bottle to hold it in place.
"Sure you can." Karma smiled, reaching out to gently arrange Kendall's arms into a cradle which she then placed Artisan in. She didn't even need to bother with the bottle as he was doing a fine job of holding it on his own, the tail serving as a sturdy third arm. "Make sure you prop his head up so he doesn't choke, now..."
As Kendall held Arty, Karma smiled approvingly and felt her worries that the new baby wouldn't be accepted beginning to dwindle. Her little family had this wonderful habit of bouncing back from setbacks stronger than ever before and she wouldn't trade them for anything.
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 1:44 am
Karma was learning new things every day since Arty had appeared. Today's lesson seemed to be "never underestimate the strength of a frightened baby" as she nursed her bloody nose and the kelpie clung to her like the world's oddest koala.
For the life of her, she still didn't know what had scared him so badly...things had been fine up until a moment ago. She'd been drawing his bathwater and Arty had been squirming and babbling happily in her arms, reaching out to slap at the water as it gushed from the faucet. As she'd twisted it off and moved to sit him down in it, however, he suddenly tensed and tried to scramble away from it.
As his toes grazed the surface of the stagnant sinkwater when Karma had tried to get him to settle in it with croons of "Its all right...its just water..." and other comforting fluff, Arty had given an ear-splitting shriek and kicked out mightily, one of his heels smashing into the end of her muzzle and dazzling her vision with painful little red stars. As she recoiled in surprised agony, she nearly dropped him. In fact, if it hadn't been for his tail, she very likely would have.
She could only imagine what must have gone through Talonfaust and Meka's heads when they ventured into the kitchen from elsewhere in the house, summoned by the dischordant duet of a baby screaming and a foxcoon cursing through cupped hands over her face. Blood from her nose dotting the counter and the floor, Arty screaming and suspended from her forearm like a monkey...they must truly have been a sight to behold.
Summoning as much of her remaining dignity as she was able, Karma had scooped Arty into the crook of one arm, using her remaining free hand to rip off a handful of paper towels to clean up the mess while telling the two men in a carefully-calm tone to please get her some ice. One of the joys of being a mother was trying to make it seem as though you had the upper hand in every situation....even if, in this case, you had just been on the recieving end of a roundhouse infant kick.
Snuffling a bit around the ice wrapped in paper towels pressed to her nose, Karma looked down at Arty with concern. The boy had quieted to more or less of a tranquil state and had resumed trying to make random snatches at the refrigerator magnets over her shoulder as she, again, wondered what had gotten him so upset. It was just water....and, as a kelpie, water should have been the last thing he was afraid of.
Experimentally, she edged toward the sink again and, once Arty realized what was going on, he immediately began to struggle and whimper. Reaching out quickly, before he could get out of hand, she twisted the faucet on again. It was as though someone had hit a switch as, instantly, Artisan's eyes lit up and he forgot that he was supposed to be frightened as he reached out for the gurgling water and the ripples in the basin, cooing happily.
Turning the faucet off again, his expression shifted from amused to troubled as he recoiled and buried his face in Karma's chest, hiding.
How bizarre....
Just to see if the pattern was consistant, she turned the water on once more, and was rewarded with Arty, again, trying to wriggle out of her arms to play in the sink. Apparantly as long as the faucet was running, he had no problems whatsoever with it, she thought as she allowed him to clamber into the basin to happily splash in the running water as she grabbed for the baby shampoo quickly before he could change his mind.
Clearly, being a parent didn't make her an expert and she had a feeling that the coming weeks would bring all sorts of things that she would need to be doing differently from what she'd done with Raven and Kendall.
Oh well, she thought as she worked up a lather in Arty's hair. Half of the fun was in learning, right?
.....right?
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:38 pm
"No."
"I don't recall giving you a choice."
"I said no."
"Talon, come on, its not like you're a stranger to dealing with kids."
"Kids that can talk and know better than to stick their fingers in electrical outlets." he snorted, regarding the little blue-green balogna loaf named Arty wrapped in his blanket and blinking his brown eyes with doe-like innocense at the two adults from his bouncer seat. Who, me? those eyes said.
"Its just for a minute." she sighed, already grabbing her wallet off of the table and stuffing it in her pocket. "I need to run to the corner store and get some childrens' tylenol and some benalyn."
"What in god's name FOR??" he demanded to know, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "He's fine!"
"He was a little croupy this morning." she explained, heading for the door. "Five minutes, Talon, that's all." she called over her shoulder. "He'll probably just sit there the whole time, just stay where you can see him and pick him up if he starts to cry."
"But--" the door closed, cutting him off as he gritted his teeth. "********!" he hissed. Talon, in many ways, shared Meka's sentiments about Karma's continual fostering of creatures...especially when said fostering was dumped in his lap to deal with. Though, if you asked the foxcoon, Artisan was not a 'creature', he was just as much her baby as Raven and Kendall were. Hell, Kendall had already slipped easily into the role of 'big brother', even if he wouldn't freely refer to Arty as his sibling.
To Talon, however, the baby kelpie was a shrieking shitmachine that threw up more than it ate and woke him up in the wee hours of the morning with its crying. Had the twins ever been that irritating? He couldn't quite remember. However, unlike Meka who had put aside his misgivings and simply accepted Arty as part of the household, Talon had remained carefully detached.
And all of his work, it seemed, had been for nothing as he found himself standing alone in the living room with The Beast. Artisan, if he noticed the Ijiuo's discomfort, didn't let on as he babbled happily at the ceiling, chewing on the corner of one floppy ear as he did so and coating it generously in drool.
Eyeing the infant warily, Talon seated himself on the edge of the sofa, watching the bouncer seat the same way one might watch a dangerous coiled snake.
"Blee!" Arty declared at no one in particular, grinning and yanking his ear over his face. The black-haired male watched with detached raptness as the kelpie then began to flail his arms and fuss noisily, apparantly unable to figure out why it had suddenly gotten so dark. Sighing, Talon reluctantly extended a finger and shooed the ear aside before he could start squalling, only to have the digit seized in a pair of tiny green hands. Before he could react, Arty was gnawing happily on his flesh with toothless gums.
"God dammit..." he growled, jerking his hand back and out of reach. The baby had begun to whimper almost instantly at the loss of his chewtoy as his eyes brimmed with tears.
"Engh!! Ennnnghhh!!" Arty fussed, reaching out with both arms and opening and closing his palms in tiny grabbing motions for Talon's hand.
"No." the Ijiuo snapped, wiping the saliva off of his finger on his pantleg absently. Honestly...just how much liquid could such a tiny baby hold? He seemed to be leaking constantly out of one end or the other. The tears began to flow almost instantly and Talon closed his eyes, sighing and preparing for the onsetting wails while cursing every drop of blood in Karma's body for leaving him to deal with this.
Arty, however, didn't wind up from his usual whining to a full-lunged wail the way he usually did. In fact, he skipped the middle-man entirely and, after a massive inhale, let out an eardrum-rattling shriek, his fists balled and flailing out at anything they could reach on either side as he kicked his legs madly.
Talon could do little more than stare as a moment later, there were footsteps in the hallway and Meka emerged from whatever he'd been doing to seek the source of the disturbance.
"What did you DO??" the raccoon demanded to know, seeing the purple-faced tantruming infant making the bouncer seat sproing madly up and down with the force of his kicking and screaming.
"I didn't do a damned thing!" Talon replied defensively. "He was chewing on me!" The words were nearly lost as Arty inhaled and let out another shriek.
"He chews on everything, you dumbass! He's a baby, its what they do!" Meka snarled, shoving past Talon to pick Arty up. He was stopped short as he was shoved from the side in retalliation.
"Don't talk to me like I'm a child." Talon warned, eyes glittering dangerously as Meka glared at him with reproach, having regained his balance a moment before he would have tumbled tail-over-teacup to the floor.
"Don't talk to you like you're a child? Are you, or are you not the one who needed the intricacies of using the bathroom explained to him a couple of weeks ago?"
Talon's blue tail began to lash on the carpet behind him in annoyance, mimicing the way Meka's ringed one twitched against the backs of his legs in similar frustration. "Don't you -dare- pull that up." he said, poison dripping from his voice. Despite the fact it was true, it was a low blow, considering what had happened to lead up to it.
"Or?" Mekakushi challenged. There was a beat of pause and then, at nearly the same time, both men grappled at one another...shoving, kicking, and biting. Talon's recent removal and replacement had upset the pecking order and it needed to be re-established, clearly. Arty, forgotten for the moment, had ceased crying and watched the tussle with first curiousity, and then delight as the ambiance noise of tantrumy shrieks was replaced with bright giggling and and cooing.
"TALON! MEKA!"
Both of them ceased simultaneously in a tangle of limbs, Meka with a fistful of Talon's black hair and Talon with one fist cocked back to land a punch to the raccoon's jaw. Karma stormed into the living room, past the two of them, and scooped Arty out of his bouncer seat, the plastic bag from the store dangling from her wrist.
"One thing! I ask you to do ONE simple thing for me and you can't even do that!" she scolded. Arty, for his part, remained oblivious to the sharp tone of her voice as he reached for her necklace and gave it a hearty tug. She opened her mouth to continue her tirade and closed it again, sighing. "You know what...? Just...forget it. We'll talk about it later." she growled, retreating into the hallway with Arty and out of sight.
"Where the hell did you learn how to fight? The girl's locker room?" Talon grumped, disengaging from Meka and rubbing at his scalp where his hair had been yanked. a*****e...
"Serves you right." the raccoon muttered, sitting up and looking to some degree embarrassed about the entire thing. "You okay?" His answer was a stiff nod as Talon brushed himself off and stood, heading for the door. "Where are you going?"
"Out. I'll be damned before SHE gets to chew on me too." Talon grumbled, slipping out the front door and closing it behind him. Meka, deciding that the Ijiuo had the right idea, likewise retreated from the line of fire and back to his room, not in the mood to be bitched at either.
In the makeshift nursery she'd set up in hers and Dave's room where the reading nook had once been, Karma sat feeding Artisan in the rocking chair and fuming. Idiots....she was raising her kids in a houseful of macho idiots.
It was all the more reason to allow those crocheting lessons Youko had offered Kendall.
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:42 am
Quest Time!
Artisan has been with you for about a month now, and things have finally stabilized. As much as they will for now, anyway.
He seems to be one giant ball of energy and attitude, and definately knows what he likes and what he doesn't. Your quest is to build him his very own running-water pool. It can be anything from a spring-fed pond to a circulating pool. It doesn't matter the size, so long as it's big enough for him to fit into.
Feel free to draw, post photos, or what have you... but make sure to RP it out either alone or with someone else!
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 11:07 am
"We don't need a koi pond." Meka groaned from the back porch as Karma continued to take measurements.
"Good, because I'm not making one. This is for Arty." she stated, pausing to scribble numbers onto the pad she had with her. The project had undergone several revisions...her first thought had been to install a pool. After seeing the prices, she had quickly changed her mind to a hot tub. When even those ran beyond her price range, the pond had been her next course of action.
To be perfectly frank, Artisan was getting intolerably restless. He enjoyed water which was, unfortunately, a limited commodity in the household. It existed in the sinks, in the fishtank, and in the bathroom...however the baby kelpie seemed confused as to why it could not exist everywhere all of the time and had succeeded in making several messes of astronomical proportions.
It was amazing, honestly...one wouldn't think that a little baby would be capable (or dedicated enough) to crawl back and forth from the toilet bowl, armed only with a small plastic bucket, in an attempt to transfer the water there onto the living room carpet to create his own private swimming hole. Arty had done it. And he had not only done it, he had attempted to do it more than once.
She couldn't help but sympathize with him...if his origins were drawn from the water, it must have been awful trying to live in an environment where it was limited in access. So, rather than invest in crib bars of cast iron to keep him from his hijinx, she had decided on this instead. The yard was big enough, she had purchased the inner plastic mold, the rocks, and the mechanics for the waterfall pump, all that was left was to dig and build.
"Doesn't the city have laws about things like this?" the raccoon asked, seating himself on the steps to watch as she picked up the shovel.
"They didn't have a problem with those idiots two doors down keeping beehives, I don't see why they'd have a problem with me putting in a pond."
"Maybe they'd have a problem knowing you plan to let a baby play in it." he pointed out, recieving a glare from her before she drove the shovel spade-first, into the soil, bringing up a scoop of earth, grass, and weeds. It had officially begun.
"Not as big of a problem as they'd have with me stringing you up from the chimney like a goddamned windsock." she growled. Meka made as though to reply and went silent instead. All right, point taken.
She dug out the outline of the pond first, stopping every so often to measure before continuing. When she was done, she had something that was vaguely Y-shaped, five feet across, and about three feet deep.
The entire process had taken about three hours of digging and her arms felt like they were about to fall off. She hoped, when all was said and done, Arty would appreciate it. But then....this WAS Arty she was talking about. She doubted 'appreciate' was in his vocabulary let alone something he practiced.
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 11:37 am
In the end, the hardest part had been transporting and arranging the rocks. She'd enlisted the help of both Meka and Talon, and by the end of it, all three of them had been complaining of a sore back. But after much blood, sweat, tears, concrete, and bitching, the pond was finally ready. Or as ready as it was going to get, at least.
"Okay, you guys ready?" she asked, her voice sounding both hopeful and exhausted as she placed her hand on the waterfall's valve. The response was an unenthusiastic growl from both the Ijiuo and raccoon as they watched with their arms crossed over their chests. If this didn't work, it would have been nearly an entire day of getting dirty and scraped wasted...
Biting her lip, Karma turned the valve and waited for the waterfall to gush to life. Nothing. "Whuh..." she said futilely. "But...but we followed the directions!" There was another growl from nearby and the sound of someone slapping his ******** waste of time..." Meka bristled, turning on his heel and storming back into the house. Talon, however, lingered. He was pissed as well, but was not quite as willing to give up after having spent nearly all evening hauling and arranging rocks.
"What the hell is -wrong- with it...??" she growled through gritted teeth, twisting the valve one way and then the other, and still recieving the same result. Why couldn't she, just once, win one for a change??
Talon went over the process in his head. They had hooked up the pump, they had connected the pipes and necessary wires. They had put on the waterproof casings. But had they--no, he didn't think they HAD. Padding to the back of the pond, in the vicinity of where Karma was currently wrestling with the valve, he found the pump's activation panel and experimentally punched the "on" button.
With a flush and a gurgle, the waterfall suddenly sprang to life, drawing from the pond to keep replenishing itself on a neverending loop.
Karma's eyes widened in surprise, but she said nothing as she scrambled back from the valve to watch as the water trickled and churned. They'd done it. It all really worked...!
"Think Artisan will like it?" she inquired.
"After all of this? He'd ******** better." Talon grumbled sourly. The foxcoon broke into a grin as she trotted across the lawn to go and retrieve the baby kelpie from his playpen to introduce him to his new toy.
When she returned with the blue-green baby in her arms a few moments later, he instantly began to squirm at the sight of the water, wanting to get down and crawl there as though it would get him there faster.
"Easy..." she warned as Arty made an indignant squealing sound and continued writhing.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Talon asked, watching as she set the baby down at the edge of the pond while staying warily close.
"We'll know in a minute, I guess." she replied, watching as Arty crawled to the edge and reached out, slapping at the rippling water with one hand and giggling. "I'll get him some floaties or something tomorrow and he can--ARTY!!!" she yelped as he tumbled forward suddenly, into the water and out of sight.
She froze for a moment, as though unable to believe what she'd just seen, and then delved forward up to the shoulders as she pawed in the dark water for her baby. "Arty? Arty???" she asked frantically. She couldn't see him anywhere...it was as though he'd quite literally vanished.
It was then that she felt something small close around her wrist and give a tug. Under normal circumstances it was something she would have easily overpowered, but these were not normal circumstances....it had caught her unaware. And unbalanced. With a strangled cry, Karma tumbled into the water as well.
From the sidelines, Talon watched, tail lashing against the backs of his legs like a scaley pendulum. Well, now what? Did he go for help or did he join the other two in making Idiot Soup?
A moment later, Karma broke the surface, sputtering and coughing. On her head, tangled in her black hair, was a familiar blue-green shape that giggled shrilly and clapped its hands.
"Beautiful." the ijiou said, remaining perfectly pokerfaced as he offered her a round of smartassed applause. "Can I get you a towel, Shamu?"
"Shut up, Talon..." she growled, frantically fishing Arty down from the top of her head. "Artisan? Baby, are you okay??"
Arty looked fine. In fact, he looked better than fine. He looked...bigger.
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Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 5:31 am
Sometimes, the unexpected happens. Artisan's parents have rethought the idea of giving their child to a new home and late one night, they came for him. While Artisan is no longer with us, we are certain another Changeling relic will bring an addition to Karma's home.
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