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Another day another doll-... well Ai didn't exactly get paid for her work but it had its benefits. For one she had a nice war-... er cold bed and sufficient food and shelter, power and a life away from those cretin on the street. Sliding out of bed the still undressed young chinese woman looked over to the suspiciously human sized icecube in her bed. 'What a shame' she thought to herself as she grabbed her patented hand made goth-chick wear from the messy pile she left it in on the floor. He was a pretty good performer but honestly the last thing she wanted hanging around her icecave was some clown... plus it was against the rules to let any visitors see the outside world again (a rule she conveniently forgot to tell any of her company about before they came over). Pulling her hair up and back into a high pony tail the chinese member of the Orochi was ready for work. Today was the day the rest of the heads got back from their little field trip down to the country side and she couldn't leave the place as it was, what with all the floors coated with ice and what not.

Thus one of the heads of the mythical snake orochi, whom the others had left behind, was cleaning the floors and disposing of bodies which had stacked like trays of ice in the hall just outside her room. None of her 'friends' ever asked questions though, she knew just how to keep their attention. As her mind continued to wander to her exploits over the last months Ai had become completely dressed and ready to get to work cleaning up. First she would defrost the main hall, then she would get Cesc's room cleaned up and after that Ray's... that firey girl wouldn't be very happy to see her room all frozen over and really... well Ai wasn't feeling the confrontation today, she was rocking more of a den mother feeling and her co-workers would probably prosper. If this was a bad day for the overly emotional orochi the other members probably could have expected a completely frozen base.

"Who are we?" Came the naturally grating voice of Alexander, sparing no one, not even their leader, of it's obnoxiously mocking lilt. "Who are you?" A gasp was heard, and tall limbs effortlessly spun the woman's form around, the tail of her suit jacket flying outward along with her. "Who am I?!" It was as if she had ambushed their leader out of nowhere, seeming to have formed from thin air. This certainly denied any sense of reality a normal person could ever possess, but if you were an Orochi member, naturally, you were more or less immune to such oddities. Or maybe not, it didn't really matter to Alex either way. "No, no, no! Don't give me that look I know you're giving me! I'm... serious." There was a pause as she snorted, barely able to restrain the jovial laughter that threatened to break from her mouth at any moment now. Serious? That was funny. "Have you ever just stopped and gave this sort of stuff a good hard thunk? It's really quite interesting the things you can come up with. I for one am quite doubtful that any of this world exists. Even if it does, it dies when I close my eyes." A sly grin spread over her features. "Is that why you're always sleeping? Because the world goes poof? Well I can assure you my good sir, I am still here, as the angelic voice you can currently hear must attest. Try sleeping a little harder next time." With a loud, and inevitably dishonest sigh, Alex slowly waltzed over to the arm of the couch Cesc currently occupied and seated herself on it with exaggerated motions, imitating someone in critical need of sleep. Or dying. Or both. "Sheep, sheep, sheep. All of them sheep. But not us, not me or you. We know all about the sheep making us... What's not a sheep? Uh... Not-sheep!" After that, there was a long bout of silence, and it seemed that perhaps Alex has stopped rambling about sheep or... whatever it was she had been talking about (no really, just what had she been saying?), but alas, anybody could tell you that humanity could never be quite so lucky.

...... More silence.

................. More... silence.

And then... It broke.

A low humming sound filled the room, then abruptly stopped. Feet began to kick, out, then in, out, then in, a soft 'thud' penetrating the silence each time her heels connected with the body of the couch. The humming began again. Then it stopped. She cast Cesc quick glance, before twisting her entire body in a rather animated, excited fashion to face him, arms waving up and down erratically. "Tell me then, as a fellow Not-sheep, do geese see God? I was never quite sure myself..." It was quite obvious that Alex was in a rather chatty mood. An irrelevant, rambling, buffoonish sort of chatty that everybody absolutely inevitably, undeniably adored, I'm sure. Cesc probably even more so than the rest of the general populace, what with his current irritation most certainly not showing on his face and edging Alex on. Most certainly. Harrumph I say, harrumph. "Harrumph indeed." What? "What?" And on that day... Nobody was really sure.

Any sane person who had lived under the Orochi roof for any amount of time would know that when Cesc was not in a good mood, Cesc was not in a good mood. This roughly translates into 'Leave or die.' However there is one glaringly obvious flaw in this train of thought, this law of the universe; Alex was most certainly not sane, and she most certainly did not care. "Oooohh, the smile your grumpiness puts on my face! You truly have no idea!" No really, he didn't. Currently, Cesc was making out with the couch, so it was impossible for him to see her! But ooohh man, if he could... A smirk so wide and so crooked and so impossibly impish was plastered onto her sharp features, pointed teeth showing ever so slightly. Cesc would.... Well, er... Cesc would just sleep. Normal people might cry though! Right...? Right? No matter! "Cackling laughter filled the-..." Wait... No, no, that.... No. Cackling laughter filled the room, echoing off the walls and fluttering back into unsuspecting ears a second time, and if you could believe me, the grin on Alex's face grew wider. Was this at the echo? Was this at the fact that Cesc's (albeit, probably not legitimate) question got completely ignored? Or was it something else entirely, something so horrifyingly evil that even wittle ittle bunnies are turned into monstrous hell-beasts upon learning it? Probably none of the above, but wouldn't that last one be cool?! "Ya' know, you sure do sleep a lot. That must mean you dream a lot, too! What do you dream about? I, personally, dream about aliens, giant bananas, and poor, unfortunate chickens that somehow get involved. But also math. Math and fire... And clouds! And slaughtering people, I dream about that a lot too. Oh! Oooh, ooh, ooooh! Do you.... Have some chapstick? I really need some chapstick." Whaaaat? She did.

Getting a rise out of Cesc through annoyance was currently on Alex's "Things I want to do that I will probably end up reg-.... Too long! The Awesome Stuff' list! And if it's on the list, how could you poosssiibbly resist doing it?! By now it was fairly obvious that she was rambling on and on purposefully-.... Wait, no, no. Considering who it was that was doing the rambling, it probably wasn't, but-.......... Where was I going with this? The point is "...... Can I have a new car battery anyways?"

Well. That had certainly been an unexpected (and highly amusing, might she add) reaction. Not the one she had anticipated, and certainly not the one she had been aiming to provoke. No, no. What she had thought was going to happen was exactly what had been happening up until that moment. What she wanted was an angry explosion. What she did get... Well, that was just too funny. "Nice view. I can see like... 5 skin cells from here." came a muffled voice, wolfish grin never quite leaving her face, even as it was covered by warm skin. An ivory, skeletal hand weaved its way to Cesc's face, in what by all appearances, seemed like it was going to be a caress. But no, no! That was just too.... uh.... what's the word I'm looking for here? Intimate? Vulnerable? Disgusting? Yeah, probably (absolutely) that last one. Instead, a finger which could give Death himself a run for his money poked Cesc's cheek, sending a slight electric shock through that side of the man's face. Not enough to actually do anything more than tickle, mind you, but maybe it would be enough to make him show some sign of life. To twitch, or grunt, or breath a little effing harder, geez. He was like a zombie, and people like zombies were booorrrinnngg. Zombies themselves weren't since they'd eat you alive, but people like zombies? They'd only want to eat you alive but never actually act on these impulses. What a shame too. Do you know how fun it is to watch a horde of zombies just RIP everybody apart limb-from-limb from a zombie-free vantage point?! You probably don't, but Alex does.... Oh boy, Alex does. But let's not get into that one.

She tried to lay still for an amount of time to perhaps be set free, she really did, but.... My GOD, it was dull just laying there. "Ceeeesssc," she whined, the mumbled sound probably not reaching his ears. "How can you sleep so long?! This is terrible!" Earlier, I may have said such phrases as "an amount of time," or "She tried to lay still." Unfortunately, these were all lies, for she was incapable of doing anything deemed boring for any amount of time ever. As the saying goes "Fool you once, shame on me, fool you twice, shame on you." In other words, that was irrelevant and you are an idiot. Or something like that. Who knows? Whooo knooowwss? "Chatter, chatter, mindless chatter. Kill the children! Satan! Throw your puppy in a woodchipper! Metal music! Drugs! Jaywalk...-... Are you listening to me? I'm trying to have a conversation with you. Gosh. People these days, so ruuuuddee."

"Oof!" A loud, ungraceful grunt could be heard, alongside an equally loud 'THUD,' coming from Alex's bumbling form, which, upon falling, had flailed in the most refined way possible, knocking over anything in its path. The shattering of glass was proof enough of this, though nobody was really sure when anything breakable had gotten in the nearby vicinity. Best not to question it. "Owowowowooowww.... You know, that really hurt and-... hold that thought!" Awww, how cute! It was as if Alex really did think he was listening to her! She reached into her pants pocket and popped a couple of batteries into her mouth. She had been cutting it fairly close that time with not regularly ingesting the substance. The last time she got something as nice as a telephone pole seemed so long ago... No matter! "As I was saying-" But yet again, her words were cut short, but this time instead of due to her own idiocy/needs/whatever you wanted to call it, Cesc's voice rang loud and clear. How did he do that, anyways? She made a mental note to get him to teach her his mastery of ventriloquism sometime. That was just nifty!

A look of pure, unrestrained, totally-mocking horror twisted her face into an open mouthed frown. "The... The shoe closet? OH GOD CESC, ANYTHING BUT THAT!" Indoor voice, Alex, indoor voice. Hmm.... A good reason for him not to sleep? Plenty of those existed, such as watching the world, feeling that fuzzy warmth when you first slaughter a child, and so on, but Cesc wouldn't be falling for any of those. What to say, what to say? Oh puuull-eeaase. Alex would never give something like this thought! First impulse, awwaaayy! Heavy footsteps could be heard throughout the room, sounding like the belonged more to an elephant and less to a human female, though it's safe to assume this was done on purpose for the odd amusement of the party guilty of said steps in the first place. Again, mimicking her previous actions, a skeletal hand found Cesc's face and forced it away from its hidey-cubby in the side of the couch, just as Alex's chapped lips found their way to his own, very briefly. It ended almost as quickly as it had begun, and soon enough, she began to speak... even more.... "That good enough for ya', Cesc m'dear? Doubtful. But think about this... Is it easier to just stay awake and give in, or waste the energy of having to get up, lock me in the shoe closet, then put up with my incessant kicking and screaming for hours...?" She patted him somewhat roughly on the cheek and then bounded back to her original spot on the arm of the couch, arms crossed, and grin, as usual, wild. If she was silly for thinking that he paid her rambling any mind, he was silly for thinking she would let him sleep even if he locked her in the shoe closet.... Though.... the thought of being in there... with Shaka's shoes.... It was enough to make even Alexander the Great wrinkle her nose in disgust.

Ray Hale

It was the silence that was slowly choking her, it was the tension that was strangling her. For a long while she was getting no answer, going through the cycles of the what ifs, what she should've done, she she shouldn't have done. The usual thing while the sting of her eyes continued, the moist stream running down, her exhaustion making her pretend that it was sweat and not tears. It was getting to her, and with still having no answer from the man that laid before her she lowered her head down with a weak smile as if her patience was starting to get to her. She couldn't take anymore of this, she couldn't take the merciless strangle of her life slipping bit by bit just by the silence itself. Why the grin, Ray? Just get it over it. Do it already.

Stop crying.
.... ?!
I don't feel like killing you today.

Ray's eyes opened, staring at the floor and not seeing a single droplet of red on the floor as if it was the most blasphemous thing she could ever lay eyes on. A clean floor?! Her head suddenly perked up to look at Cesc, a rather shocked and confused look being obvious on that scarred face of hers. What was this? She.. she wasn't going to die today? He didn't feel like it?! Ray was trying to grasp this, finding it a rather serious and unhealthy level of laziness and just now she was starting to see the peek of it... if not that then what else? Was he giving her pity? Ray rubbed at her face with her sleeve, removing the tears as much as she can then tried to get herself up on her weak legs to stand, still staring at him with wide eyes. "...Rea...lly?" Really?Seriously? Something suddenly triggered into the pyro, a sense of a frustrated rage getting through her body as she kept on asking herself 'why?' She wanted to yell at him, scream even! Why wouldn't he want to?! He had every right to and she deserved to! Risking the group, forcing them a new home, come on if he had the strength to choke her to near death against the wall with what happened, then by all-- wait. Ray clenched her teeth, the blurry sight of him still focused. This was like another form of torture to her, she wasn't able to handle anything like this. Was he seriously deciding to torture her with another round of anticipation? Another go of fear? And if not that then what? Slow, heavy steps went over by Cesc's side, the pyro's lack of energy starting to kick in when she went on her knees again but still stared at him, her arms resting on the couch's edge. "..." What was it about him, then? What did it mean? Zippo was unsure of what to think now, her mind just boggled and throbbing over the thought of trying to figure him out, the sloth laying there right in front of her. Like killing her was another chore. Her laid her head down, just to rest for now but was still trying to think of something, even though the cushion was heavenly against her cheek. Say Thank You? "De...D.. Desculpa, Cesc." Her eyes closed, exhaustion taking its toll. She mumbled something, trying to say that she'll stay low or..something. Her head was too shock ridden, too tired, too confused, too frustrated to even say something clearly or to even try and muster up something that she could say. For all she knew, she just mumbled sounds. The gal was just too far gone now after getting the energy to actually mutter an apology. And saying thank you? ... too much energy. So tired...