She tucks a lock of golden and russet behind her ear. Her feet swing off the side of her too lumpy trainee bed, fingers curled in the sheets. Eyes still sleepy from sleep, Clerise raises an arm to rub at them, her normally proud shoulders slumped in defeat.

It is another day.

Last night was another dream.


Sometimes, she wonders, and that wondering transforms into dreams, a butterfly taking flight in her subconscious.

Of what life could have been like.

The possibilities are endless (of course, how could they be anything but? the word possibilities implies it) and she makes it a point not to live with regret--

But--

Sometimes, these mornings, it is difficult.

Although. Morning is a loose term by anyone's standards, as a quick check of Balthazar (who is always four minutes fast and not a second more) reveals that it is 4:37 AM. She lays him back down on the nightstand, tucking him in to the ragged jerseyknit shirt that was his bed.

He did not take kindly to any of it, but Clerise was...Getting used to that. There were levels in the distaste that he had for her, degrees of disapprove, a deliberate disappointment in his tone.

For example: he thoroughly found the previous alliteration absolutely abhorrent.

She laughs to herself as he grumps sleepily, sliding off the bed and hitting the ground with a thud, with all the grace of a baby elephant. For being an acrobat, Clerise has the awful tendency to be heavy-footed, trampling everthing in her way.

Stomping from the bed to the small dresser, she produces a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, pulling them over her undergarments with drowsy clumsiness. Her coat is grabbed for warmth, Balthazar is soon deposited in her pocket.

She is not the kind of woman others wake up to. Nonetheless, she feels the ache for something more-- and a purse of her lips happens as she recalls that, well, she aches in general. A month on the island and it appears that she cannot, for the life of her, get laid. Not with a man, and most certainly not with any of the ladies, either. It's irritating, as Balthazar chooses now (and any other time Clerise thinks of her preferred distraction) to speak up, snapping at her to focus on a productive task or return to sleep.

So Clerise pads down to the Life Labs, relishing in the once alien sound of computers humming in the dim. Taking a seat at a computer that has become her usual, the acrobat types in her password with a slow and careful deliberation, and embarks on her search for answers.

Even if she's not entirely certain that she wants them, she feels as though she needs to at least try to work out the story. The full story, not the abbreviated version from an angry Scotsman. Especially since...

(Sandy's eyes and Barney's corpse.)

Thinking of that mission brings a lurching feeling upwards, an unpleasant roiling in her belly. She suppresses it with desperation, swallowing it down like a spoonful of medicine without sugar to help it down, fingers dancing over the keys as she attempts a search a second time.

Clerise eyes the returned results page, frowning. There is but one entry, and it is for an entirely different subject.

It is four in the morning, post nightmare. She has no coffee, and no guidance, either. Clerise barely knows how to text on Twitter, and has only just recently discovered the joys of emoticons. She admits to herself that, perhaps, it is not in her best interest to be here. Not in this state, at any rate. The thought of coffee makes her synapses itch, craving a fresh cup that doesn't taste vaguely of gritty chocolate.

Understandably, she is quite off chocolate for the time being.

She doubted anyone would truly fault her for this, seeing as Clerise had been one of the lucky ones in the most recent round of Julie's idea of an experiment, or a mission, or what have you. Clerise made it a note to renam Julie's contact to DO NOT ANSWER as...soon as someone showed her how.


Balthazar reminds her with lilting tones that she is losing focus. The words are crueller than the tone, as he is, essentially, passed out upstairs on a couch. She contemplates leaving to go and sit in the Minipets Lab, to surround herself with fluff and creepy things. She realizes, though, that if she passes out there, she'll end up with grey sludge and a tab on her bill.


Forcing herself to focus, Clerise opts to write down all of her available knowledge instead, and how it applies to her.

1. In 1999, there was a mission, and one on a grand scale. There aren't that many hunters now, are there?
2. In 1999, hunters that only used runic weapons existed?
3. In 1999, 198 hunters died. 2 survived. Who?
4. Casualties were expected. Heavy ones...Why'd they do it?
5. This mission was tied with the creatures from Halloween; the Horsemen.
6. There are 4 Horsemen clans, and, likely, 4 main figureheads? Do they have assistants like we do?
7. Horsemen have lairs. Lairs are strongholds, banks, holding cells, etc?

She reflects on the two lairs she has been to, wetting her lower lip.

8. One lair held an artifact of some variety. Very large...

It hits her a few weeks too late as to what the stone tablets actually meant...This isn't going to help the queasy stomach. Clerise is glad she hasn't eaten yet.

9. That lair had stone weapon tablets littered everywhere. At least ten?
11. A strange spiral symbol has shown up in two places: both on external missions. One mission was to monitor a lair.
12. The second lair led to...questioning about the location of the first. They didn't know where we went?

Sighing in frustration, Clerise decides to come back at a later time, with...help. Help would be a good start.

In her rush, she does not remember to sign off her computer.