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[mordredeschain]

*Mordred has discovered the Sign and has a question to ask.* Have ya ever had the sort o' day where ya wished the universe would just end already? If so, how did ya deal with it?

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[feathered_mages]

The Black Waltz lands on the back of an armchair, managing not to tip it in the process. "Only once. And I died." It's not a pleasant memory, one of fire and madness and rage. "I wouldn't recommend it."

[mordredeschain]

One good reason not ta do it, aye.

[feathered_mages]

"Yes. It's not really a good idea to destroy something you're currently standing on. Or in, in the case of a universe."

[mordredeschain]

In any case, there's still so much ta experience.

[feathered_mages]

Arashi chuckles at this. "That's definitely true. Especially when you start examining the portals. There's an infinity of new places to explore and things to do out there." He and his siblings spend a lot of time in a reality not their own, after finding out they could actually get paid for things like monster-hunting. It helped take the edge off the predatory instincts that came with being a Black Waltz.

[mordredeschain]

A chance of going to anywhere . . . many folk would kill for such, say true.

*Mordred disapproves of monster hunting on principle, of course.*

[feathered_mages]

"It has its uses." Sometimes it depends on who or what is defining the meaning of the word 'monster'. A Black Waltz would seem monstrous to some of the world they visited, but the Waltzes themselves... well, an enounter with them usually only turned lethal for the sort of monsters who were capable of malicious intent. The rest they just had to try to talk Mistral out of adopting. Arashi's thinking of their most recent entanglement, involving a mad druid and a lot of plant monsters. Luckily, Mistral had agreed to properly relocate various remaining creatures now that the druid was dead. Arashi thought Mistral had more than enough pets a dragon, a displacer beast, and eight gelatinous cubes ago. And the people who'd wanted help didn't really care as long as the attacks on their town stopped.

[mordredeschain]

Say very true indeed.

*Hearing that thought makes him wonder if he could hunt the real monsters with the other being some time. Also whether he could pretend to be one of the pets if he got bored.*

[feathered_mages]

Before Arashi can say anything else, they're joined by the other two Waltzes.

Blaze, the one with the white-tipped wings and flame-patterns on the edges of his blue clothes has large bags of potato chips, one of which he tosses to Arashi.

The other one, Mistral, is shorter. He's accompanied by a displacer beast. Which, of course, means that it doesn't visually appear to be right beside him, tho it isn't impossible to put the ruffling of the illusion's fur and ear together with the way the Waltz is moving his fingers and work out that someone is getting scritches.

"Are they gone yet?" Arashi asks, which prompts a 'ffft' sound that's suspiciously like a laugh from the displacer beast.

Mistral huffs and crosses his arms. "It's not easy to find good homes, even here. And I'm not giving them to someone who'll mistreat them again."

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred bows politely, the somewhat odd bow used in All-World. Then he frowns at the displacer beast before taking a quick check through its eyes.* Well there's a nice ability, say true. *He carefully puts his hand out where it seems most likely the cat-thing's nose should be, as one should greet a strange animal for the first time. Very strange indeed, n this case.*

[feathered_mages]

He'll find the displacer beast was perfectly aware of the brief surface intrusion into her mind, and after a sniff also has some sense of just what Mordred is. She'll make a low growl that isn't a threat so much as a warning - the feathered ones are hers, half-demon, especially the small one, and not for eating. Then she'll headbutt Mistral to solicit more scritches.

Blaze is the one who actually tries being polite. He bows back, though it's not of All-World's sort. "Hello. I'm Blaze. I doubt Arashi introduced himself properly, and that's Mistral."

"Mrrr."

"... and Kitty," Blaze amends.

Mistral chuckles and gives the displacer beast more scritches. "Don't worry, she won't try to eat you, especially not here."

[mordredeschain]

*He sends respectful agreement to the great cat. Not that he couldn't flip every switch in her mind-dogan if she tried to do him damage, but the mind of a cat isn't like a mutie coyote or a baby bumbler. Cats, he realizes, know they rule the world. They were gods once, and they haven't forgotten.*

I'm not scared, sai. I be stronger than I look.

[feathered_mages]

"That's not a cue for you to show off the rest of your menagerie," Arashi says to Mistral.

The smallest - and oldest - Waltz just ignore's Arashi's near-perpetual irritable temper in favor of using both hands to scritch Kitty.

"Do excuse my siblings' poor manners," Blaze says. "I'm really the only one of us that makes an attempt to integrate into polite society... Arashi's content to be left alone unless there's a fight, and Mistral's more interested in his pets than in people."

[mordredeschain]

Better manners than I, say sorry but say true. The first two palavers I ever had with flesh-and-blood folken involved cursin' and screamin'.

[feathered_mages]

"Oh, some of our first interactions with people weren't very civil either," Blaze admits. "But then, we had orders."

Arashi almost has to suppress a growl at old memories he'd rather leave alone. "I prefer things as they are. Now we choose our own fights."

Kitty decides to give herself a wash, which leaves Mistral's hands free to open and start on his bag of chips, though the other two haven't opened theirs yet.

[mordredeschain]

I was just hungry. Well, mostly. Walter did want to cut off my foot because he thought my birthmark was a key to God's house, after all. *With that deeply upsetting comment, he sits down and crosses his legs. On his left heel is a red mark like an hourglass.* He was wrong there, of course. That wasn't the birthmark he'd have needed.

[feathered_mages]

"People do a lot of stupid things sometimes," Mistral complains, with a trace of One's grouchiness. It's one reason he prefers animals. You could trust them to do what their instincts told them, even if that meant trusting that they'd try to eat you unless you convinced them otherwise. People could be more deceptive.

"Well, if he attacked you there's nothing wrong with defending yourself," Blaze says.

"Are you hungry now?" Arashi asks. While he's fairly sure they can't be attacked here, it seems something that should be determined.

[mordredeschain]

He hadn't yet, but he was plannin' to. His mind was screamin' it, even through the tinfoil hood. *Not really tinfoil, no, but he had no idea how the thing had in fact worked. So it was close enough.*

As for whether I'm hungry now? Not enough ta kill people I'm havin' friendly palaver with, but iffen ya had a cow or summat I'd not say no . . .

[feathered_mages]

"It sounds like if you'd waited for him to attack, you wouldn't have had the chance to defend yourself," Arashi says. As far as he's concerned that makes it a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Blaze noticed something else. "You read minds, then?"

Mistral just sighs. "I still need to find out what some of the plant creatures eat, other than people."

"You're not keeping them," insists Arashi.

"I still have to feed them until they have homes," Mistral counters.

Blaze doesn't get in the middle of that, but it wouldn't be hard to pick up on his amusement at their old continuing squabble over the 'pets'. Mistral tends to spend most of his share of whatever treasure they have on food, and the dragon especially wasn't getting any smaller.

[mordredeschain]

Most likely would have had ta kill him either way, sai, and I've enough scars already. He'd likely have waited for me to fall asleep, aye.

Yes I do. A-strong a-strong indeed is Mordred Deschain in the mind-touch. *He looks to the animal lover.* I can read the mind o' anything as has one, near enough. Never tried plants, but I know I can mate to machines. Praps I could ask them?

[feathered_mages]

Thus far Arashi has found little reason to kill anything that's asleep. It can't get in his way either way. But when he thinks about it he finds the idea irritating. Three had killed those who couldn't fight back before, but it had been because he didn't think of them as worth it. They were just mindless dolls... It's not a thought he likes to revisit, which reinforces the decision not to kill anyone in their sleep. Just too close to old madness for comfort.

Mistral's happy to hear this, however. "If you can help me find out what they'd like to eat, it shouldn't be that hard to get an extra cow..."

[mordredeschain]

A cow? For me? Thankee-sai so. I'd be glad ta help.

[feathered_mages]

Mistral's grinning at this, though it can't be seen under the shadows that seem to cling to the faces of the Waltzes. "I've been keeping them in an empty building the Nexus for now."

[mordredeschain]

Well then, off we trot I suppose.

[feathered_mages]

Mistral's only too happy to lead the way back to a building in the back alleys that primarily consisted of a small entryway and office and a very large greenhouse.

His latest acquisitions and thus far not proven bright enough to use a doorknob. And Red, curled up in the entry room and keeping 'guard' didn't really care to. Don't worry, the hatchling red dragon the size of a small pony is mostly harmless unless Mistral says it's ok to be otherwise.

The greenhouse currently contains an assortment of plant monsters. The largest is a tendriculos scrapes the ceiling of the greenhouse and weighs almost two tons. Most of the other creatures present are unnerved by its presence and giving it as wide a berth as possible. The one exception to this is an assassin vine that's only aware in a vague plant-like way that it's sunny and no prey is touching it right now. It does prefer to twist away from the tendriculos from where it's hanging, but it's not intelligent enough to have any understanding of why.

The smartest creatures present are the four shambling mounds and the small 'grove' - 26 in all - of needlefolk. The latter look like some cross between anthropomorphic insects and mobile cacti. The Needlefolk could actually be compared to low-human intelligence - and the mounds very slightly smarter. They'd come to an understanding where they were and he'd promised to find them somewhere nice. And that this wasn't it yet, but that he was supposed to feed them until he found a new place. That bad druid... he'd coerced most of them into all crowding into the same forest, and then the food had run low. And the other 'human' food had fought too much.