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From Barton to Durem... quite a long ways, especially for a being so small. This odd little creature must have gotten a bit too adventurous and ended up wandering a bit too far out of the way, getting itself somehow brought in to the strangely paranormal marsh that Isi's house rested near. For hours there it had wandered until it found a pleasant garden and ran into something that wasn't one of the usual orbs or spirits lurking about -- something a bit too solid to be completely a ghost, like itself. And before its nerves kicked in, it was picked up and brought into a strange new house by the... human-thing that looked as though he was torn in half and everything below his ribcage was thrown away.

Discovering that it could communicate with its little batlike clicks and squeals to the half-person calmed its nerves just a tiny bit, but it was still shivering in a cloth cocoon as a person who thankfully wasn't glowing and had his legs intact made a phone call to the 'one who is green like you except with legs and she's a woman' who owned the house that it lived in.

A slightly impatient voice answered "Yes, that's right, what can I do for you?" to Isi, and she quickly became more friendly as the situation was explained. A bit of staticy shuffling could be heard from across the line as she checked about the house for something that she might have lost. Everyone was home, and her chimera was resting contentedly on the house, so what could...

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, but come on over."



There was a bobbling flash of minty pale green skirting the corner of one of Mouse's windows, and it wasn't even two knocks before she had opened the door. Her expression was bemused and curious, though not enough to hide her now-constant stress as she waved the Raevan inside and held the door open so Isi could enter. "Hi there, glad you made it, don't touch anything that's either breakable or something you would leave alone in your own house. I'm Mouse," she quickly greeted, holding out a hand for the ghostly Raevan to shake.

The green girl then bent down to take a look at her apparent 'lost lamb '. "And this is the 'creature' Isi mentioned over the phone? I don't think I've seen you before..." It was indeed the sort of thing that would be hard to overlook. Even though it would only be as tall as someone's calves standing at full height, the kikimora had a distinct appearance, with a sharp face that seemed something between a bird and an insect.

There thankfully wasn't anything breakable to be seen in this house. It had a real low-maintenance air about it, almost like a college dormitory trying to disguise itself as a house... albeit with an indoor pool at the end of the hallway. Books were the main furnishing found in the living room that the trio and kikimora were now in, and they looked as though they'd all been read several times. A few that boasted paragraphs and theoretical illustrations of Laputa, Atlantis and other lost or sunken cities were sprawled open on the coffee table.

Said table was also graced by the presence of Mouse's fel essence - she had absentmindedly left it there while taking notes and doing some research. It roiled there in its jar, drizzling irately as everyone got acquainted.

"Glad to meet you, Eirdirsceol and Isi," Mouse replies, somehow miraculously able to navigate her way through the ghostly Raevan's full name. "And... that's Fredmitri there on the couch, he's also from the lab." A quick jab of her head pointed towards the squishy octopuss snoozing contentedly in one corner of the couch. One of his ears flickered upon hearing his name, but he didn't stir beyond that.

The small, beaky kikimora chose at this point to wriggle out of its blanket-cocoon, swirling up plumes of ethereal soot that hung in the air before disappearing. It (or she?) dropped to the floor and began to smooth out its skirts, chattering away about a hundred things as it did. The green girl knelt down on the floor in front of it to give it another close look. "Oh, you're a kikimora!" she grinned, and turned to Eiry to ask, "I hate to keep you and Isi here too long, but could you tell me exactly how you found her?"

The books, being inanimate objects, didn't respond to Eirdirsceol beyond continuing to display their pictures and paragraphs and footnotes. The Cloud of Despair standing near them proved to be much more responsive: it thundered threateningly as something sentient and emotion-feeling got closer. A few fat drops of nonphysical rain plinked down to the jar's bottom and quickly disappeared.

Fredmitri remained in his chimera dreamland as the Raevan slowly floated towards him... being part cat, he was very fond of sleep time, and his octopus half ensured that he could stay almost completely immobile in one place for quite a while before something provoked him. He remained a bundle of silent tentacle-paws even when Eiry's rune cast a minty green glow onto him, and probably wouldn't do much else until physical contact was made.

Mouse sighed bemusedly at how easily Eiry's attention turned towards the books and then her pet. Oh, to be able to drift one's attention over to something else without even trying - wouldn't that be nice? The green-one-with-legs had more of a fixative approach to things and didn't have such an easy time switching gears.

She listened intently to Isi's rundown of the situation while stroking her chin in thought. Looking back at the kikimora and humming for a few seconds, she began, "I see... well. Kikimora are house spirits if I'm remembering right, and one of the more friendly ones even though they're thought to be death omens sometimes. So... if she lives in this house, I suppose she belongs to me because I'm the owner of the house." Her hand was waving in the air at this point, expressing her mind's attempts to piece things together. "Didn't think this place fit the profile of a house that could be haunted, but I'm not complaining."

Hoping that the Raevan would still notice her voice while being distracted by her chimera, she asked, "Eiry, do you think you could ask her exactly where in my house she came from?"

Fredmitri jerked a bit at first in surprise, having been crept upon and touched by someone as quiet as a floating upper torso could be. However, he was quick to calm down and relax as Eiry petted him, and his tentacle-paws unfurled until he was loosely sprawled out into a purring spiral. A yellow eye cracked open in the Raevan's direction to make sure he wasn't going to stop the much-loved attention-giving anytime soon.

"Beauregard...?" the petite lady curiously asked. She knew that more chimera existed, but had heard nothing about hydrogen-filled rubber whales or any of the other sea critters that had been given out last Christmas. It might have been a stroke of luck that the whale was mentioned as it gave something more palatable to ask about: "Another side project from the Lab? And what's Shalbriri made of?" Of course, curiosity-inciting statements aside, she wasn't the type to pry into other people's lives and ask about their injuries unless it became necessary. Mouse was hoping then that she wasn't dragging Isi and Eiry down too much with these questions, curious as she was about what the Lab has produced besides chimera and Raevans.

On the subject of haunted houses, she nods and listens intently, standing corrected. "That makes sense. I guess I was thrown for a loop because I haven't had anything paranormal go on in my house before-- hold on a second," She dipped into the kitchen first and grabs a footstool, then carried it over to the hallway while silently hating one of the disadvantages of being so short. Oh, well- it got the job done, in any case, and soon the kikimora was squeaking and fidgeting impatiently as her 'owner' reached up to pull down the stairs to the attic. A similar chattering could be heard upstairs as its entrance was revealed. Motes of strangely animate dust floated down to the floor.

Chuckling sheepishly, Mouse explained, "I, uh, actually didn't know I had an attic until a little while ago, but it looks like they might have been sleeping or something until I opened the door." Her fingers ran through the foliage on her head; she was clearly a bit embarassed that an entire room in her house had gone unnoticed for so long. "Thanks for bringing the lost one back, in any case. I owe you both a favor for that."

The chimera became more animated and responsive as Eiry continued to pet and cuddle him. When he was picked up, he coile his tentacle-paws around the Raevan's neck and chest in an eight-limbed hug, with one even reaching up into his cool green hair. The kiss between his ears was rewarded by a loud bubbly purring and he affectionately tried to rub his large head against Eiry's cheek.

"I got Fredmitri's egg around that time a couple of years ago, but it took a long time to hatch because the souls used to make it were almost complete opposites," Mouse replied in response to Isi's (and Eiry's) answers to her questioning - more making conversation then anything else. She found herself unable to hide a small grin of amusement when Eirdirsceol interrupted, but didn't think that would cause too much trouble. He was so much like a kid! Would her own Raevan turn out this cute?

Isi's next statement, however, made the green girl chuckle outright. "You're kidding... if taking the time to come all the way up here so you can deliver a lost member of my household is nothing, then I'd really like to see what something is. You could at least let me give you ride home in order to save twenty minutes," she suggested, jerking a thumb meaningfully out the front window to an all-terrain vehicle parked at her house. It was slightly caked with mud, but looked undamaged enough to ensure that Mouse wasn't a reckless driver.

Mouse wasn't used to this kind of noise to express joy, however, and as Eiry chuckled and giggled away her pose stiffened for a moment as each punctuation of his voice was another prickle of her spine. She was just taking a deep breath to chase away those heebie-jeebies as his laugh suddenly intensified, making her shoulders jump in another burst of nerves. A hand shot up to adjust her glasses in a very sad attempt to hide this loss of composure.

On the other hand, Fredmitri didn't seem to mind the ghastly giggling and continued to purr and rub at the Raevan... when he abruptly stopped because of his owner's suggestions, the silence in the room bent against a watery meow from the octopuss.

"Really? Hmmm..." Mouse rubbed the bottom of her cheek with her thumb (partially because she was trying to encourage color to return to her face) as she absorbed this information. Eiry's facial expression made the situation pretty blatant; the poor third-of-a-guy was terrified. "'Brother'... is Rivener another Raevan?" She can't help to ask that, as the name sounded familiar: Kyou had included some information on already existing Raevans along with her fel essence and soul bottle, and she hadn't read over it as much as she should have. "Well, in any case, I guess I'll just have to--"

Thunder jaggedly coarsed across the room, stopping Mouse midsentence. Her eyes slowly drifted back towards her fel essence on the coffee table, though she knew in the more rational parts of her mind that it wasn't responsible. "...Uh-oh."

She closed her eyes and stroked her forehead with her fingers, trying to get her frontal lobe in action. Rain had began to sample the ground around the house, and soon enough it had invited all its friends and started a party. "Okay, there is no way I am going to let you try and head home in this rain. End of story," she first established, cutting the air at her chest with a flat hand. "Is there anyone back at your house who can pick you up and take Rivener along so Eiry will be okay?" That question was said with a concerned and hopeful tone. If Rivener was a Raevan, he had to have a guardian. Right?

Mouse nodded, looking thoroughly apologetic as Isi defeatedly made his decision. Holding up a finger in a wait-a-minute gesture, she slunk out of the room again, heading back through the small hallway broken by the stairs to the attic. It was only a moment until she passed through the living room again with a large (well, it looks large on her) brown raincoat on and opened the door that led outside. "Gonna warm up the car," she explained as she dashed outside. It sounded like a decent idea to get the large vehicle's motor running beforehand so the noise might have a chance of not bothering Eiry as much.

And so, the playful thunder that Eiry enjoyed so much was suddenly broken by a much less natural noise. As Mouse twisted the key in the ignition, there was a dry mechanical laughter emanating from the vehicle, until that was broken by an angry-- yet strangely satisfied-- growl. The mechanical behemoth purred calmly in wait for some action as its headlights yellowly illuminated the ground before it. The small woman came back inside and closed the door for now, ruffling some rainwater out of her hair as she checked to make sure Eiry didn't have a heart (or rune?) attack while she was outside.