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"You can come stay with us if you want," Lyrus offered, shrugging. "I bet Banda wouldn't mind. That guy he lives with might, but I don't care. I'm gonna stab him anyway for cutting up Banda's arms." He scowled, snapping his knife shut, then blinked and glanced up, nodding ahead. "Just through the trees now."

Lyrus had picked a narrow area of the forest to walk through, and thus it was only another minute or two before they reached the clearing and the House within it. Gesturing for Mignon to follow, he approached the center pair of double doors and pushed them open, waiting until Mignon had entered to let it close, then starting for the staircase at the end. "We need to find Chidez, then we'll go out back and find Umeri."

"I don't leave my room often," he admitted, glancing around the hall. "We can go see it on the way if you want. You might like it. It's kinda fancy." Not that the whole house wasn't, but Lyrus' room was, well...not the room one would expect of a male child. Far too neat and formal, for one. "And I'll show you Banda's studio on the way outside." It was near the back door, and they would have to go that way to find Umeri anyway.

"Chidez is a gryffon," Lyrus continued, shrugging. "Kinda like Kilah's Gizmo, but I think he might be bigger. He's Moo's, but he's pretty cool. He's gonna catch us. And then Umeri's Moo's pegasus, and she's a complete wuss, but she likes girls, so I think if you call her she'll agree to take us for a fly. Once we're in the air, she'll calm down. I think."

"Alright," he replied cheerfully, pleased. Changing direction somewhat, he turned down another hallway and led the way to the very end, where a set of double doors led out to a balcony. However, instead of going through them, he turned and entered the door at the end of the hall, holding it open for her and closing it behind them once she had entered.

"My room!" Grinning faintly, he gestured around the room, which Moo was far too lazy to describe, and can be found in his log if you're really that interested. "What do you think?"

He shrugged. "I don't like it being messy." And he didn't. Haven't clothes and trash and whatnot all over the floor just made it look nasty and cluttered and completely ruined the effect of all his glass stuffs. It was worth the work to keep it clean just to show off the glass.

"Thanks," he added, returning the smile. However, the look soon faded and he scowled, shrugging once more. "I dunno where he is. He's not worth the trouble, though. And his wrist is still broken, so it'd be too easy for the both of us."

"Will do," Lyrus replied with a grin. Normally he would have gone off about how he didn't need help in beating the pulp out of Jaxom, but this was Mignon, and Mignon had beaten up someone in her dance class with a baton. She was a good person to have around when things were looking to get bloody.

Good stuff, man.

"Let's go check out the studio," he continued, linking arms and steering her back out the door. "I think you'll like it. Banda's really good, and most of his stuff's still here 'cause Moo chased him away so quickly." Not to mention he had painted the walls of the studio. As he led the way back towards the stairs, Lyrus paused near another hallway, yelling down it instead of bothering to search out the actual inhabitant. "CHIDEZ. Meet me in the backyard in ten, alright?"

No response. But Lyrus knew the gryffon had heard him and would obey. Chidez was good like that. And once outside, they could find Umeri. Satisfied, he continued for the stairway. "The studio's down by the back door."

"I doubt it..." Lyrus shrugged. It was unlikely. "He tends to avoid the place, 'cause Moo chases him away when she sees him if Pod's not the to make her be nice. I'll make sure you meet him soorner or later, though," he promised, grinning.

It wasn't long before they reached the studio and, after messing with the lock for a bit, Lyrus shoved the door open and gestured Mignon inside. "Make yourself at home!"

The studio was a piece or art in itself. Each of the four walls was elaborate painted into a mural of one scene or another: a thunder storm over a lake, a forest clearing flecked with sunbeams, a vibrant coral reef, complete with hidden wildlife, and the depths of a natural cave, rock formations springing from both floor and ceiling. Each seemed to draw the onlooker in, until one was so caught up in the scene that the studio seemed to fall away and leave only the storm, or the cave, or whichever happened to draw in that particular person.

Certainly Banda was a much better artist than anyone had let on.

The SkullMonkey had even gone so far as to paint the ceiling, though for this he had gone out on a limb, depicting an astounding seen of a galaxy and the surrounding stars, picked from the heavens as if one were floating alongside it. Truely marvelous.

Once one bothered to turn away from the murals, he or she would notice the various smaller paintings set around the studio, some half finished, some completed and set aside for the new. Paints and brushes and forgotten cups of dirtied water were set on a small table in one corner or randomly around the floor, and the tiles were flecked with drops of paint. Banda didn't bother with cleanliness here. It was his studio. It would just get dirty again.

"Mmhmm." Lyrus merely grunted in agreement. Moo was stupid. No question.

And the grin returned, and he joined Mignon in looking around the studio, nodding. "Isn't it great? I told you so! It took him ages to get all this done, though. Months and months."

Turning, he approached the 'storm' wall scene, carefully tracing a finger over various rain drops. "Banda lost his hearing when he was really little. He told me that when he was growing up, he used to paint sounds... As he imagined them, anyway. It made him look at art different. And then when he got his hearing back, even though it was only for a little while, he started work on these." Pausing, he let his hand fall and shrugged. "His headphones got broken before he finished, though."

"Banda would spend just about all his free time painting when he was still here, Lyrus admitted, turning to admire the cave scene. "He'd have to leave this door and the back door open 'cause it'd always smell like paint and he'd get all woozy if he didn't." He snickered. That had been a funny sight. Poor Banda.

Glancing back to her out of the corner of his eye, he shrugged. "He's used to it, I think. Not happy about it, but used to dealing with it. Kinda like Kilah and her eyes. He doesn't want people to feel sorry for him." Again shrugging, he grinned. "Banda doesn't like painting people much. But maybe."