Arrangements To be Made

To my surprise, the common room is free when we emerge. I take the couch thoughtfully. A bang from Liam's room makes me glance up, but I dismiss it. If it's serious he'll cry out. I do hope he'll come out soon. It's time that we began making plans.

Kiou shifted as she awoke in her room with Sori wrapped around her. Disgust ran through her but she pushed it aside as she sat up carefully so as not to disturb her sleeping partner. The puppy, Beast, was quickly awake and eager to play as he tugged at her sleeve and moved to nibble her fingers. Though she tried to fight it, some semblance of caring instinct rang within her as she picked up the puppy. "Come little Beast, I will find you food."

Sliding out of bed, she made her way out of her room and into the kitchen. After quickly gathering a package labeled sandwich meat, she headed to the common room to feed the puppy in peace.

Ailin's flap of wings starts me from my reverie, and I sit up sharply. Then I relax, a laugh on my lips. "Who brought the pup? She yours, Kiou?" Unlikely, but no more than anything else here.

"Sori brought him." Kiou sad flatly as she slid into a free chair and began slowly feeding the puppy slices of sandwich meat. Occasionally she would try a few herself.

With a trill, Ailin launches from my shoulder, looking like a string of sapphires in the air. She lands just in front of the pup on Kiou's lap, and I can't help grinning at the charming picture of the coatl and the puppy nose to nose, each equally curious about the other. The pup yaps, and Ailin trills and spreads her wings. From Djhuety's shoulder, Isis makes a distinctly disapproving noise.
"Looks like the little thing will have no shortage of friends around here." I observe as the two young creatures butt heads.

Kiou watched Ailin with distaste as she was barely already getting used tot he fact that there was a puppy in her lap. Now she had some animal that she was unaccustomed to closer than she would like. "For now perhaps..."

Ailin glances up at Kiou, and raises her ruff of feathers, hissing slightly. I raise a reproving brow. "Ailin. Manners." The little coatl lowers her ruff sullenly, shooting me the look of recalcitrant young things everywhere. I point a finger at her. "Act respectably, ahn ghra."
She responds with a trill in minor key; a 'yeah, whatever' sound.
I smile at Kiou. "Sorry. I'm tense, and so she's acting out."

"If you are tense then you need to still yourself." She fed another piece of meat to Beast. "A bow which does not bend to coming wind, breaks."

I nod acknowledgement. "You have a point. But it's easier said than done. My mother's people are Dratsie; the otter-folk. When we face a threat, we deal with it immediately and then forget about it. We don't handle chronic stress all that well. But I'm getting quite a lesson in this place. It's like learning to relax in the currents of a flood." I shrug wryly. "Such is life."

I get up and notice im alone, i get up and go to the living room "morning honey" i say wondering what mood kiou's in today.

"I am not your honey." Kiou's voice is stern and to the point as she continues to feed Beast his meal. Shortly after speaking, she refocuses on Liv. "Relaxing in a flood is fine provided you do not fight a current. You either flow with it, or parallel to it. If you fight it, it will only consume you."

I give her a wry smile, snorting a chuckle. "I think, of the two of us, I'm probably the one who knows rather better how to swim a hard current."

I grab an apple from the fruit bowl on the table take a bite and say "ok Hon'" while chewing.

Kiou's face tinges red with anger as she clenches her jaw. Sori's carefree attitude does nothing but grate her nerves further. "As I know nothing of your circumstances, I must say that that may indeed be true." Kiou shifted uncomfortably. "Does this... creature have to sit on my lap?"

I whistle "c'mere beast" and he walks over to me i put the apple down yawn and put him on my lap scratching him behind the ears I say "nice of you to let me sleep in".

I raise a brow. "And I thought I growled when things annoyed me. Ailin. Perch." I hold out my arm. True to her training, Ailin wings to my arm with a cheep, winding up it to her favored place on my shoulder.
It's funny. Something tells me I ought to be paying attention to Kiou's emotions, but somehow it really doesn't seem to matter all that much. I can't seem to bring myself to care. Well, it's probably just a snit anyway. It'll pass.
"We'll need to be on guard the next few days. Things are going to get wild. So we're all going to need to be on our toes. Make sure you eat enough, get enough sleep, whenever you can." I stroke Ailin, glancing from the china-fine features of Kiou to the tough good humor in Sori's face. "And thanks, in advance."

"My loyalties lie with Kaija. If she is at your side, then I must reluctantly accept your offer." Kiou almost casually tosses the package of sandwich meat to Sori. "Beast was not finished with that."

I look up at liv "thanks for?" I ask as I poke beast on the nose followed by a playful bark as he tries to bite me.

"For what is to come." I state. "It will be dangerous. We'll be facing some of the worst of the Kindred, and the Mother alone knows what else. So, thanks. For standing here. For going forward."

I make my way to the common room, Looking for all the world like I stuck my tongue in a light socket. tossing a red object hand to hand "Hi folk, one second need to cool this" i say briskly, before getting it into the sink and cooling the object, coming back in it looks like some odd battery Aimee trilling at me disapprovingly "hush you I only have a couple pieces to put into place and my cheap trick is done"

Ailin perks up, then flits from my arm and after Liam. "If she bothers you, tell me, I'll call her off." I call from my seat.
There's a hiss, and the sharp stink of metal as a cloud of steam rushes out of the kitchen. What the?!
Leaping from my seat, I dash across the space. "What was that?!"
From the top of Liam's head, Ailin trills happily. Aimee makes an uncomfortable noise, telling her sister off.
Under the water in the sink, something froths.
"Tell me it's not going to do something interesting, messy, or dangerous." I say quietly, warily studying the whatever-it-is.

"ok I won't" My sentence is cut off as the water begins letting off more steam "oh it is done." my hand flashes back into the water to fish out the object, my hair sparking when i grab it. "i mean i won't tell you that." the water continues to steam and froth

I give him a hard look. "If that's dangerous, don't joke. What is it?"

"a battery" I answer smiling and letting it rest in my hand "needed it to be cooled from having the dampeners removed" my voice has a slight trill from the ambient charge " and wakes you better the coffee"

I wrinkle my nose. "It stinks like a foundry yard. Smells like burnt copper and tin. It's not going to spill any acid, is it?"
The look on his face makes me shrug. "I'm tech-impared, don't give me that look. Batteries get put in things to run things, and they have acid inside them, that's the extent of what I understood."