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YOU MIGHT NOT FEEL IT NOW
Out of boredom, the doglike hybrid girl was patrolling the borders. She wanted some action without actually endangering herself, and thought that this might have been a good way to relieve some of that pent-up energy that threatened to explode inside her. Unfortunately, as the girl was slowly figuring out, this assumption had been wrong. Border-patrolling was much the same as watching the tide come and go, minus the sitting on your ass part. But walking really wasn't very exciting either.
Sighing to herself, Talitha glanced about, stretching her neck to look behind her without actually stopping. To make things worse, this place was extremely dull -- there weren't even any trees or anything to look at, just a bunch of weeds half-hidden under a dead layer of snow. At least she'd be approaching the mansion soon, maybe she'd go digging in the garden. Or something. It was times like this when her frusturation was prone to turning into loneliness and self-pity; Talitha hated days like that, as she hated weakness, and saw this as being exactly that. It wasn't like she had many friends, but friends weren't necessary to survival, and so she would suck it up like a real woman and get over it. Desperate to distract herself, she began to count the skulls she passed as she walked along. She had always wondered how many of them there were.
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Is Talitha on four legs? Ryan is practically always in Optime.[html]
They don't tell you what to say
when your whole life has gone to hell.
Valkyrie had tired herself out and was fast asleep in the den. Ryan took the opportunity to do some wandering of her own. It had been awhile since she had been able just to stroll for no good apparent reason. Her child was a handful and always kept her occupied, but it was nice to have a moment like this to herself.
She had made it rather far, now rounding near one side of the borders. She kept expecting to see DaVinci outside of them, but knew that wouldn’t be the case. At least, not at the moment. The joy she used to find in the hybrid’s presence had long since disappeared; it was replaced by a supreme sense of guilt now, just as it had been when Ryan saw the boy along the shore of the bay. But she put him out of her mind for now, focusing instead on the lands that surrounded her. They weren’t anything beautiful, but it was home to her. It was nice to have some sense of reassurance just by being within Inferni’s borders.
The mansion loomed not far in the distance, having now rounded out the eastern side of the borders. Ryan stopped for a moment, studying the outline of the mysterious building. Hadn’t it been her own father who had warned her not to get lost inside? She had yet to go through its doors. Instead, she usually loitered in the garden and stole its roses. She made her way towards it now, with no real plans of what she would do there. However, something came to her. A scent, and then, another young woman. Ryan looked a few hundred meters to her right, noting the Lykoi whom she had never met before. She strikingly resembled Gabriel, however, and Ryan instantly assumed a connection. "Have you ever been inside?" she inquired, pointing a hand towards the mansion.
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Yep, Tal's four-legged. :o
YOU MIGHT NOT FEEL IT NOW
When the woman appeared, Tal felt a brief flare of excitement in her stomach. This was for no reason but the fact that she was bored as hell and maybe the stranger could help her change that. Almost instantly, whatever number she had counted to was wiped from her memory, and she forgot all about the skulls. Picking up her pace, she grinned at the woman as she neared; she was familiar in a vague sense, and Tal figured she'd probably spotted her in the garden once or twice, from her bedroom window. She liked to watch, sometimes, but hated to talk. Today wasn't one of those times.
"Yeah, I usually sleep in there," Tal replied cheerfully, her mood having taken a sudden change for the better. Behind her, her tail wagged lazily as she looked up at the two-legged lady, making eye contact. She wasn't overly surprised to find they had the same eyes. Red eyes were a pretty common thing around here, weren't they? Maybe it was a coyote thing. "It's old and smells like dust, but the beds are really comfortable, so I don't mind it that much, and there's lots of interesting things in there too. Do you stay there? I'm Talitha, what's your name?" Something in the back of the girl's head told her she was probably talking too much, so she ceased the questions and listened instead.
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They don't tell you what to say
when your whole life has gone to hell.
Ryan was rather surprised to hear that Talitha actually stayed in there. Though there had been a few times when Ryan had thought about venturing inside, Anselm’s warning would resurface. She didn’t want to get lost, just as he suggested she could wind up. Something about the building seemed malevolent, and Ryan wouldn’t doubt that it would swallow her up if on one night it particularly felt like it.
"You stay in there?" She asked, voice reflecting her surprise. "I’ve never been inside before," she admitted, glancing back towards the towering mansion. She studied its windows, wondering now if she might catch a glimpse of another of Inferni’s members gazing out. How many of them actually stayed in there? "No, I stay in a cave down towards the shore with my daughter, Valkyrie. And I’m Ryan," she introduced in return, "de le Poer."
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YOU MIGHT NOT FEEL IT NOW
Tal grinned and nodded at Ryan’s comment. The grin was fake; this had nothing to do with the situation, but more to do with the fact that everything that reflected happiness in Tal was generally fake. She didn’t even know the full extent of it herself, the depth of that hole she had festering inside; she did know she was good at faking it, though, and that was all that mattered. The house didn’t scare her much. She understood why it would be scary, but the girl possessed the strength of one who knew they’d already been to hell and back, and that nothing could possibly be worse.
”Yeah, it’s not really that bad, it’s just ugly on the outside.” Unlike her. Caught up in the moment, the girl was unable to stop her tail wagging briefly as Ryan introduced herself. Another de le Poer, they were all over the place, just like the Lykois. ”Cool, we’re probably related. My dad is a de le Poer too. And my brother.” Then, as an afterthought, she quickly added: ”I can show you around inside, if you want.”
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Sorry for making you wait. :3[html] http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j40/k ... ump/08.png); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
"And scary too," Ryan added as an after thought. Though, Talitha’s words made Ryan want to look at the building in a different light. It was ugly on the outside, and maybe if she took a look inside she would be able to appreciate it more. She looked back towards Talitha, studying the similarly colored gaze that met her’s. "Your dad’s Gabriel, huh?" It was a question, but the answer was obvious. Her appearance clearly reflected that, as Ryan had already observed.
"My father’s his cousin, or something, so we’re distantly related. Who knows what that makes us to one another." She gave a shrug. It didn’t really matter to her the specifics. Family was all the same. She turned her eyes towards the estate again, entertaining the idea of entering. When Talitha suggested it, Ryan smiled in response. "Sure, let’s do it."
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It's fine, I'm slow too D: also, this post kind of sucks.
YOU MIGHT NOT FEEL IT NOW
"Yep!" Talitha replied cheerfully with a grin as she hopped in the general direction of the mansion. In the back of her mind, thoughts of her father flitted briefly and painfully past; she hadn't seen him much lately, but it wasn't like she'd looked, either. On top of that, she had smelled something else around here lately, something she hadn't quite allowed herself to admit to yet. If her mother were here, she would've come for her daughter instead of avoiding her. Right? But whatever; Tal didn't like to waste time thinking about these things, and anyway, she was probably imagining it. She was probably just lonely.
"Second cousins, maybe? Or something? I dunno how it works," she replied, and she honestly didn't. One of these days she'd have to find out how to make a family tree just to settle these things. They got really awkward. As Ryan agreed to exploring the house, Tal grinned again, tail wagging like a helicopter blade as she leaned back on her hind legs. "Awesome, lemme just shift, it's easier in there with thumbs..." and as she spoke, she changed, her body morphing itself into something almost entirely different. The process wasn't painful for the girl, and it didn't take all that long; she did it frequently enough, after all.
Once finished, Tal stretched her arms, red-brown hair in her eyes, tail still wagging like crazy behind her as she headed off for the mansion's front entrance. "Have you ever lived in a house before?" As she spoke she reached the front door, pulling it open swiftly for her companion. The question she asked was laced with genuine curiosity -- at that moment in time, Talitha couldn't think of anything more interesting than Ryan.
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"Second cousins?" Maybe that was it, but Ryan genuinely had no clue. Talitha was family, a clan mate, and more so, Gabriel’s daughter. That made her higher on the ladder in Ryan’s eyes. She giggled softly in return to Talitha’s statement, waiting eagerly as the girl shifted to the form that Ryan spent almost all her time in. It was strange to see the transformation take place – it wasn’t something she did or saw often.
"No, never." She responded, taking in a breath as Talitha opened to front door. Her mother and she had spent the night in a big building – a barn – but Ryan knew it wasn’t the same as a house. She remembered that it was a terrifying place, and she would have preferred to sleep in the expansive outdoors. She took the first step inside, blinking at the transition of light. "Here we go," she exhaled, looking to Talitha with an excited smile.
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YOU MIGHT NOT FEEL IT NOW
"They're fun," Tal replied as she followed Ryan inside, ears perked at the prospect of an adventure, even one as simple as this. "Better'n caves and dens and stuff, I think. Humans had all these neat things they'd use, like toasters and TVs and... shoes." She paused before her mention of the last item, having lost her train of thought for a moment. But seriously, she did think shoes were pretty funny -- why the hell would anyone need them? Humans must've been really squishy.
Kicking the door shut gently behind her, the hybrid girl pointed down the musty hallway. "That way's the stairs and the living room and... hey, do you like reading? There's a huge library in here, with lots of books. Corona's in there sometimes." It didn't occur to her that maybe Ryan was one of the few who didn't read. If she had thought of it, she would've doubted it, anyway. She wore clothes -- who wore clothes and didn't read?
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Ryan had no idea what a toaster, a TV, or what shoes were, but either way, they sounded peculiarly interesting. She waited for Talitha, who had kicked the door shut behind them, before she took a step forwards. With the light from the outside now blocked from behind them, Ryan had to blink a few times before her vision adjusted to the dimmer light. The stairs, the living room, the... "Huh? Books? I... don’t read." In fact, she wasn’t quite what books were. She had seen them when she was younger, but she had never been told that that’s what they were referred to as. She took a few steps further inside the building, looking around at everything. It was all so strange – much different then the barn she had stayed in as a child for a few nights. "What else is there in here?" She asked allowed, already mesmerized by this place.
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