[closed]

[heirring]

WHO: Flint, Bartimaeus, Wysteria, Fitcher & misc. guests
WHAT: Misc. socializing.
WHEN: Firstfall
WHERE: Kirkwall, etc.
NOTES: Catch all for closed starters. If you want something, hit my up by PM/discord/plurk/whatever and we can make it happen.

Comments

KITTY.

[reshapes]

The weather lurking outside the Research division's office windows is nearing the comically dreary category, the fire crackling in the hearth is just slightly too warm, and there is some faint pleasant smell in the air from whatever has been burned in it. All in combination, it is an environment somewhat tailor made for falling asleep on the job.

Not that Kitty Jones would ever be prone to such an impulse. No - straight as an arrow and severe as its point, that Jones. So the THUMP from somewhere inside the office chimney should not rouse her at all suddenly from a paperwork-induced stupor.

[rathercommon]

It is coincidence that, until that moment, she'd been slumped low in her chair. (Comfortable, soft, the cushion bowed under the accumulated pressure of many years of rears.) And a coincidence that at that moment, she lets out a snort, and lifts her chin, and blinks repeatedly as she tries to sort out whether someone had actually brought Benedict up from the cells to make popcorn on the stove (right, there's no stove in the Research office) -

Ah. She licks her lips, and pushes her hair from her face, and gives a little shiver in spite of the warmth of the air. She always feels cold when her...concentration is broken. Which is what just happened. Here.

What was it that had caught her attention? Had there been a noise...?

[reshapes]

Had there?

A soft rain of ash, nearly imperceptible, floats down the chimney and into the sweet smelling fire. A small bit of hardened grit or perhaps a little pebble of masonry falls, ticks off the heated stone and bounce, bounce, bounces from out of the fireplace and onto the floor. It's quiet.

And then, with a great unholy bang and a flood of black soot, something dislodges and comes crashing down the chimney. It tumbles through the fireplace and out after the preceding pebble in a hail of grit and embers with the mad flapping of oozing, tar-like wings, somersaulting end over sloughing end like some kind of gooey circus act before splatting unceremoniously in the center of what is possibly a very lovely rug (little holes now being charred into it by flecks of burning minutiae notwithstsnding).

The thing, inconceivably griffon sized and shaped despite the narrow space through which it had just passed and roughly the consistency of a cat dipped in pudding, writhes once and then goes still.

[rathercommon]

Kitty does not, of course, shriek. Shrieks are for girls who don't have nerves of steel. What she does is let out a noise of some surprise, and also she pulls out her knife because what is she, a fool? That's clearly a demon, with its impossible size and its horrifying visage -

Though it seems to be quite dead. Once her heartbeat returns to elevated rather than racing, and her knife-hand stops trembling, and she's able to take a moment to look over the dreadful foul thing, she slowly (slowly) takes a step around the desk, trying to get an angle that will let her see what it is. Aside from disgusting.

[reshapes]

In the grand scheme of words, disgusting is a rather strong one. Wholly inapplicable? Perhaps not. Grossly inconsiderate? Absolutely.

The wretched thing sprawled across the rug of the office remains quiet and rather still as she rounds the desk. If it moves at all, it is to ooze slowly outward in every direction like a too-wet flan spreading across a plate. At the center of the dark once-griffon, burning thin like a candle viewed through a thick window, pulses a slash of green light.

[rathercommon]

That catches her attention. She doesn't understand the significance of it, doesn't tie it right away to her own shard, but she has to investigate. So she takes a step forward - and then steps back, and grabs for a napkin she'd used at lunch, because she really doesn't want to touch it - and steps forward again and kneels close to it.

Carefully, cautiously, using the cloth, she goes to move it, to try to get a better look at that light.

[reshapes]

That glinting light pulses hotter in answer to her, the sludge about it recoiling briefly from the implicit tug of it.

From somewhere in the mess of it, something burbles weakly: "Excuse you." The inky substance sluggishly begins to reform - shedding as oil from water and leaving behind a series of jet colored feathers. "Keep those grubby hands to yourself."

[rathercommon]

What -

Kitty jumps back, eyes wide. That's a voice she knows. "Bartimaeus?" But -

Again, she moves forward, this time less cautiously. "What on earth happened to you? Are you all right? Why do you look like that? What's going on? Are you in trouble?" She doesn't touch him, but her hands hover, uncertain, as if about to disobey his command.

[reshapes]

"Always the questions with you," the rippling mass of feathers rasps. The sickly green glow at the heart of it snaps and pops, a pulse that sends the the feathers bristling and the viscous oil substance binding them together scattering in strange directions like the repelled side of a magnetic.

"Don't you ever get tired,"--says the boy's face as it emerges from the shroud of feathers; he is lying flat on his back, the rest of his guise remains yet an irregular crawling shape, a gently drifting sheet draped over the suggestion of a form--"Of asking them?"

The boy's face seems quite pale among the inky feathers. But let's be honest - it's not as if that means anything whatsoever.

[rathercommon]

"Ugh," she proclaims in return.

But her resolve breaks. She reaches down, then, looking for his wrist. It's a stupid move for a number of reasons - first, it's not like he's going to have a pulse, and second, her hand isn't going to be doing him any favors, not with her resilience. But she's desperate to do something, and sitting and waiting for him to recover isn't going to cut it.

"What can I get you? Tea? Or - "

[reshapes]

"Someone to eat might be nice," croaks the face wistfully from within the black mass while she plunks her hand into the fluttering shape where the boy's wrist should be. It's a bit like reaching into a jar of whispering beetle wings, the skittering shapes repulsed by the contact; the carpet at the bottom of it is damp and squishing.