Poke it With a Stick | Day 9 | Afternoon [OPEN]

[seerchlight]

[Scenario A: for Aradia]

As soon as Lights has finished fashioning some sort of belt to hang mysterious treasure pouch (containing one particular eye shaped jewel) he goes off in search of one girl he knows for a fact will be very excited to hear about these kinds of discoveries.

He's not entirely sure why he feels the need to show off, or to impress her, but he ends up settling on the fact that life has been fairly boring as of late, and if they are going to find a room full of mysterious treasure he may as well invite the changeling with a noted preoccupation with such things. Also, he kind of likes appearing to know things that other people don't - so it's best to get this out of the way before news of the secret rooms gets blown wide.

So as soon as he finds the glass fairy girl, he is quick to approach her with the most tempting of inquiries:

"Hey. Wanna see a dead body?"

[Scenario B: OPEN]

Okay, so there is definitely one more corpse in this room than he remembers there being. Most importantly, the second corpse looks distinctly like Huo from the search party.

The bird woman they found on the table initially is still lying there, her chest covered in the same shimmering green blood. But now there is also Huo on the floor, with a spilled bottle at their side. They definitely seems pretty damn dead. He checked and everything.

With the initial hysteria passed, Lights is mostly trying to decide what to do. He's not heartbroken exactly, but he's unnerved. How do you deal with a corpse around here?

Meanwhile, the secret entrance to the Hearth Room is just hanging open, allowing any passerby to observe this predicament.

[Scenario C: OPEN]

A little bit later, Lights is buzzing around the rest of the house looking for a friend of his. He figures she should know that the fucking page is dead, after all. He floats here and there, occasionally calling her 'name.'

"Hey - uh...Brimstone? Something has kind of come up that you should probably take a look at. Kind of a big deal, here."

Comments

[seerchlight]

"I just don't get why they did it," Lights says. He's examining the body even as his face is turned in a different direction. "Like...what the hell did they think they were doing?"

[subtleserenity]

"Don't know," she says. "Probably weren't thinkin' on nothin' but fillin' their belly up with somethin' fine." They could have picked a better place to go rummaging for seasoning, though. She picks up and looks over the bottle, then the jar of herbs.

"Got half a mind to grab everything in here and put it somewhere fools can't find."

[seerchlight]

"Maybe we should. The bottles and shit, at least. Or something."

Not that he can really think of anywhere in the house that'd be safer, exactly.

"But where would people be actually less likely to find these things and poison themselves with them?"

[subtleserenity]

She considers the question seriously. Their base in the library isn't exactly secure. Those with sense and a common sense of decency probably don't go near it, but she's found her books shifted into different piles enough times to know people do get to poking around. A thought comes to her that they should hide the bottles in a panel in the wall, but isn't that what this room is meant to be in function, if not form?

"You ain't seen a safe somewhere while you were wanderin' around?" she asks. "Might could put 'em somethin' like that if we get the combination. Leave it just between the two of us." And perhaps Angel and Vinyl. They're both sensible enough. They seem it, anyway. As Trinity's already taken some things, there's no telling what she'll do with them.

[seerchlight]

He contemplates that for a long moment. He has put a decent amount of thought into the layout of the house, but all the options are filled with doubts.

"I don't know anywhere that locks," he says, looking up as a purely subconscious gesture. "But I could hide them somewhere up high, and then we'd only have to worry about other fliers?" He bits his lip a little with one of his oversized fangs. "But...then if something happens to me you'd be kind of fucked eheh, so maybe not."

He shrugs it off.

"We could bury it? But I don't actually trust those fucking trees to stay in the same place ever and like hell if I want to see what happens if one of those things leaks into the soil."

[subtleserenity]

"And there's always the trouble of Mason knowin' what's on his insides if we did find somethin'." She shakes her head with a sigh. "Seemed to be sayin' he does, anyway. We can put 'em up high for now, outta plain sight, at least." A quick survey of the hole in the bird woman's chest says inside her isn't an option unless they want to get to cutting on here more. Brimstone doesn't relish the idea of using someone she's probably already responsible for killing like that, though, and it'd be obvious to anyone who'd seen before that there was something wrong with her.

She rises from Huo's side and goes to examine the other corpse briefly. They still know frustratingly little about her. Why the Keeper would leave like this. "Wonder if it's somethin' about this room keepin' her fresh like this," she says at length, glancing back to the dead page. "Don't seem right leavin' that one to rot with this one here still lookin' like she ain't been dead but a minute."

[seerchlight]

"I think I know a good place," he says, after a moment. He doesn't elaborate quite yet, as he becomes distracted with her second query. "Maybe it's the table? Or maybe its some kind of herb treatment, I dunno. Could be a lot of things in a place like this."

[subtleserenity]

There's an easy enough way to see if it's the table, but she feels making an experiment of a dead woman's body is wrong. It's unsavory at the very least. Touching any of the herbs after what's happened to the page also seems like one of the stupidest things they could do to check that. They'd probably end up disintegrating the body.

In any case, Lights has an idea. "Wish there was more straightforward answers here. Anyway, you got a notion for somewhere good, I'm listenin'." Her eyes dart across the shelves as she tries to see if there's something she's missed. Probably considering Lights can see everything, but it doesn't hurt to have a second round off looking.

[seerchlight]

"The chandelier in the dining hall - I'm like one of the only people can get up there easily, right, and that's not somewhere people would usually think to go. I've been thinking about setting something up in there for a while cause...well it'd be thematic, at least."

He gives a little smirk, though its weary with the stress of the rest of the situation.

[subtleserenity]

She returns the look with a brief smile, trying to offer what support she can. There aren't really any words of comfort that come to mind for this. People die. It's unfortunate, but the page is dead by his own hand, even if it was the Keeper's poisons that helped him getting there.

"Sounds like a good idea," she acknowledges. "Thinkin' we should shift the lot sooner'n later. You want some help with it now?"

[seerchlight]

He nods a little, absently.

"Yeah okay. We probably need something we can put them all in to stash them for now. I wouldn't want to risk flying them all up outside of any kind of container lest they fall in the food and kill everyone."

[subtleserenity]

"Found some kinda iron vase with a lid out there." She jerks a thumb back out at the Hearth Room. "Not sure if it's big enough for all of them, but it's somethin' you could wedge up there without worryin' if it falls." Without further discussion, she goes to fetch the thing and brings it back. It's a tall thin rectangular vase, roughly as high as her knee and about as wide as a bread plate.

"Think that might hold the lot?" Brimstone begins pulling the potions from one shelf to compare their size with the opening.

[seerchlight]

He examines it for a moment, and then nods, slipping his fingers around the lip of the opening.

"Yeah, should work. Maybe we should stuff some cloth in there too so they don't rattle around. But yeah, I can fly this up there no problem. Keep people from sticking their noses up death's asshole."

He furrows his brow.

"...What are you going to do with Huo?"

[subtleserenity]

She smirks at the crude remark. It's accurate enough and colorful. For some reason it strikes her that something as colorful as that should be said another way. She's not sure how, though, and shrugs the feeling off for later contemplation.

Cloth should be easy enough to come by in the Dining Hall. They'd just need to be quick about their business with ripping or cutting up one of the giant napkins in there for use. Her eyes do stray to the velvet cloth holding the metallic shapes, but she doesn't particularly want to leave those out. They disturb her, though she can't say why. And as for Huo...

"Leave 'em here for the moment," she says. "They ain't doin' no harm lyin' in a state. Might be a decent warnin'." Brimstone knows how callous the words sound, but if the page can serve some kind of purpose in death, then there might be a little dignity to it. "I'll find a place to bury 'em later. Why? Were you plannin' on somethin'?"

[seerchlight]

"No," he frowns, staring at the corpse, something almost wistful about his tone. "I just don't have any idea what the hell you're supposed to do with a corpse when there aren't any animals around."

This looks like it might make a good wrap point!

[subtleserenity]

She glances at him, questioning, before it clicks what he's suggesting. The idea repulses her for some reason. It's certainly logical and efficient, but every part of her rebels at it.

"Burial or burnin'," Brimstone says, lips drawn to a thin line. The expression isn't directed at Lights, but rather Huo. "Gettin' eaten might be a kinda irony for that one, but it ain't nothin' safe or savory. C'mon. Let's find you somethin' to stuff in that can and get the rest of these bottles outta fools' hands.