Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kostya approached them with an itemized checklist of common facts, flash cards of species, and a dread in his heart.

Obadiah was significantly more content with the minipet around, and that would feed into his recuperative efforts. By his calculations, it increased the chances of success by a not insignificant 20%. To be fair, that was a 20% increase to a poor prognosis, but any added benefit would help.

"Hello," he said to them, clutching his clipboard, "am here to take minipet test. For keeping carrier for ever."

Kostya stared, with that dead-eyed, unfocused look that he was just so good at.

"Vhen borrow," he said, slowly, "is only one veek, da? Vant one carrier forever. Vill do what have to do." His gloved fingers wound tighter around the clipboard, hoping that he wasn't in the wrong. "Am not any sort of jesus," Kostya replied, lips pursing.

"Tell me. If not test, then how to keep cage?"

Kostya looked as though he were about to violently shake the pipsqueak, if only he could do it without actually touching anyone.

"Minipets," he repeated, and sniffed the air with disapproval. It was fine to imbibe in recreational drugs whenever you wanted, assuming it was while you were off duty, and didn't need to be useful.

"Should I ask Edith instead?" the Russian asked, blankly, "or vill you be letting me know how to get minipet cage for keep."

It was a good thing he was abandoning this division for a more efficient one, one that did not misunderstand the same sentence over and over again.

"Only if can keep cage, forever. Vant cage more than vun veek." Kostya spoke extremely slowly, as if they might magical understand him. Not for the first time, he cursed his accent and less than stellar grasp on the English language.

"Did borrow cage. Vant to keep cage. See?"

They clearly did not see. With gritted teeth, Kostya flipped open his phone, sending Obadiah a request, hoping he'd follow up on it.

"Am asking American to come. He is vun who carrier is for."

By the time Taym arrived, he would see Zoe coughing deeply into her deep dark black cloak while Oz was literally flat on the ground, clutching one side of his drapery tent with laughter.

Oz looked up for a second, took one look at Taym, and then simply dissolved into more wheezing laughter, face buried into the carpet.

Zoe coughed. "Yes, well, yes. All those who open themselves to the Third Eye are welcome. Darkness be with you, children of the night." She distinctly avoided eye contact with Kostya and looked at a point past Taym and at some point made another strange wheezing cough that suspiciously almost sounded like laughter. "What brings you here to this abode?"

- "Cage," Oz wheezed puckering his face, "Rasputin wants a cage for- for the homeless-" He dissolved into laughter again, literally, crying from laughing too hard as he buried his face back in carpet.

It was pretty obvious Kostya's words had not gotten to the two of them at all.

He had already dropped the cats back at the labs, and when he read the text it took a careful effort of willpower not to let the sudden traitorous welling up of hope show on his face.

"I'll give you a dimebag if you let us keep one of the carriers permanently," he said flatly.

Zoe paused, considering the offer. Then she remembered the last time this happened with Mark, and Taym looked an awful amount like Mark.

"No deal, I don't accept bargains from non-believers. You have to do things our way." She walked over, kicked Oz - he had rolled over to his side curled up, still clinging to one end of the tent-slash-blanket - and then pulled open her tent flap. From within it she took out two long black sheets of fabric made entirely out of lace, a bunch of spiked headbands, a spiked neck collar, fake nose piercing, a black tartan kilt, fishnet stockings, and her personal collection of makeup and then sat down next to her pile cross-legged. "Now who's first?"

Oz had nodded asleep.

Without any bravery, and only a half functional sense of self-preservation, Kostya pointed at Obadiah. It was for his own good.

"Him first. Cage is for him."

Was that eye-liner he saw? No.

Briefly, Syntax chirped a query about what was wrong with make-up, every good party scareling needed to wear a little bit of boiliner, issuing the information in a series of crude gifs that looked like a poor animation from the 90s re-enacted on an ASCII terminal.

There are no gifs for this kind of situation.