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Post by Noa on Sept 21, 2019 13:13:32 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Sept 21, 2019 13:17:27 GMT -6
The old house. There it was. Weird place; Aster hadn't been here in a while, and he could sort of vaguely remember why. Something about it had always unsettled him--- the way it always changed, maybe. It reminded him too much of things that were haunted, and he wasn't sure how much he liked the idea of a place that had a mind of its own.
But over the years, the place had been observed going through all its changes, and by now, most of them were known. September wasn't a bad month, as far as the weird factor went. The worst he ever heard of anything happening to folks that went in were them getting spooked; no one, as far as anyone could tell, had died...
Well, not that he could remember, anyway. He was still a little concerned about taking Rhys here, but it was becoming more and more apparent that the Felusine was getting restless.
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Post by Noa on Sept 21, 2019 13:21:22 GMT -6
He supposed he was to blame for that one. The combination of the sheer number of big, dangerous creatures on the estate, and the fact that he didn't want Rhys to get hurt, compounded by the fact that it took time to teach Rhys how not to get hurt... The result was that there wasn't much for Rhys to do, which wore on a creature of any sort, much less one with human intelligence.
Funny how his solution for that was still to take Rhys for a walk. But, well, at least you couldn't say this place wasn't exciting.
{So you're saying this house doesn't always look like this?} Rhys said. The two of them were standing at the gate, looking in. The place seemed innocuous enough; September, as it turned out, was a time of... mostly apple trees, so far. There was more to it inside, he was sure, but he didn't remember the rest.
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Post by Noa on Sept 21, 2019 15:32:08 GMT -6
"That it does," said Aster.
{Why? How does it work?} said Rhys.
Aster gave a sheepish laugh. "Hell if I know. Ut just appeared here all of a sudden, one day. At least, that's what I think it did; it's been here a while, and I wasn't around for when it… arrived."
If they could answer the question of why the house was here or why it was like this, that would be something, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, Aster had no such answers. Maybe it was magic, or maybe it was even ghosts. Whatever it was, though, there were spoils to be gained too from wandering its grounds. People came here for that, sometimes.
"We can go in for a bit. See what we can find," said Aster. "I thought you might like it for a nice change of pace."
{I thought you were going to tell me that I'm not allowed in because it's too dangerous,} said Rhys.
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Post by Noa on Sept 21, 2019 15:32:53 GMT -6
There was a note to his voice that made Aster wonder whether Rhys was teasing him or sulking about it.
All he could do was laugh again. "I have been saying that a lot lately, haven't I?" he admitted.
{Well, since you didn't, let's go,} said Rhys. He darted off from Aster's shoulder with those words, flying over the gate and onto the grounds, where he turned back to wait for Aster. Aster wondered if Rhys thought he had to grab the opportunity quickly, before Aster could change his mind.
Maybe he had been a bit too strict after all.
He thought this as he walked through the gate, but he couldn't resist saying, "Stay close."
{Uh huh,} said Rhys, as though he wasn't really listening. Aster didn't like that, but there wasn't much more he could say without it becoming nagging, and anyway maybe Rhys really was just doing this to heckle him a little.
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Post by Noa on Sept 21, 2019 15:34:11 GMT -6
As long as nothing bad happened, it was probably okay, right?
At the moment there was nothing more frightening around them than apple trees, most of them laden with fruit. A lot of the fruit had fallen on the ground too, some of it in a worse state of rot than others. Some of the fallen apples looked perfectly edible. Aster knew that if he had found a place like this when he had been wandering on his own, he would have come right in and stuffed himself sick.
Rhys eyed the fruit too. {Wow, this is a lot,} he said. {Does anyone take care of this place?}
The question caught Aster off guard, though in retrospect he supposed it really shouldn't have. It was a logical enough question if you had never come here before or known anything about the place, which of course Rhys didn't, being new to the area as he was.
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Post by Renathan on Sept 21, 2019 15:37:06 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:12:10 GMT -6
And come to think of it, he hadn't ever seen any conclusive proof that there wasn't anyone taking care of the place after all, excepting that he had never actually seen anyone here. The house looked pretty dilapidated some months, but it was perfectly fine on others.
In the end, all he could do was shrug. "I'm not really sure myself," he said. "I've never heard of anyone, but who knows?" Heck, maybe today was the day they’d find someone, and maybe today was also the day that they became the first people to get thrown out of the Mansion’s grounds on account of trespassing… Though, come to think of it, there was really not much stopping anyone from just choosing to take up a position here squatting, if they really wanted to. And then they could bluff and say they were the real owner, or a groundskeeper, or something.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:12:30 GMT -6
And yet, no one did. Maybe it was because the city gave out free shelter, at least, to anyone who needed it. It wasn’t a luxury property, but you could live on it if you wanted to, and given the choice between that and this unknown, mutable place… He wouldn’t have picked the mansion either if he had known about it back then.
Slowly, the two of them wandered through the yard. {This sure is a lot of apples,} Rhys said. {Does no one come here and take any of them?} Rhys dropped down out of the air next to some apples and studied them, as though they were a thing of real interest. Aster watched him do it, trying to remember if he had ever gotten sick from eating the food here. He wasn’t sure that he had ever tried to eat any of it though, since it came from such a strange place.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:12:43 GMT -6
“Well, plenty of people take stuff home from here. There’s… a lot of stuff, I guess.” That was one of the curiosities about the place. People would take home some seashells here, some trinkets there, some fruit in the fall… And there would always be more. Or at least there never seemed to be any less of it when Aster came to look. Not that he had done that in a while, but there didn’t seem to be anything different about the place even now.
He shrugged. “What they do with that stuff is anyone’s guess though. I’ve got some old trinkets from here, but for the most part, mine just… collect dust.” There was a whole storage area in the estate specifically for items he thought might come in handy someday, but hadn’t gotten around to finding a use for yet. A lot of those items were from the mansion.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:13:26 GMT -6
{We couldn’t eat them, could we?} said Rhys.
“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask, can you have fruit? I’ve been feeding you mostly carnivores’ diets and supplements so far, but you know yourself best,” Aster said. Normally he wouldn’t have been so concerned, content to follow the care instructions for a normal Felusine, but Rhys’s modifications were extensive and thorough, to the point where he looked pretty much like some other kind of creature entirely. Whether he was still internally the same as a normal Felusine… Aster honestly wasn’t so sure.
{I’ve had some while you weren’t looking,} Rhys said. {You didn't notice, and I only tried a little, but it wasn't like I got really sick after or anything. They're just... kind of sweet. It wasn't bad.}
He sounded pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, but Aster felt unsettled by that revelation.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:18:45 GMT -6
The problem here, as far as he saw it, were really twofold. The first was that Rhys was doing this kind of thing, which might put his health and well being at risk, for the sake of what seemed to be no more than idle curiosity. The second was that he was deliberately choosing to take these risks without Aster's knowledge, so that Aster couldn't have interfered even if he should have.
... Which was probably the point, wasn't it? If Rhys had told him about it, Aster would probably have forbid it. And a lecture from him now was almost certainly not going to help matters, so he forced himself to tamp down on the urge to give one.
Instead, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know, I know it's boring at the house and I'm kind of a buzzkill, but you should still be careful about that kind of thing."
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Post by Renathan on Sept 22, 2019 18:31:55 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:37:27 GMT -6
{What? Oh, eating the fruit?} said Rhys, glancing up. He didn't seem to be particularly alarmed, which on the one hand meant that Aster had succeeded--- maybe--- on making this not a lecture, but on the other hand... It wouldn't kill him to take this a little more seriously, would it?
It had turned out alright in the end, so he supposed he should just let it go, but...
{It wasn't an apple, by the way. It was a grape. But I think I should be okay to have most fruit, and I'll let you know if I feel sick.}
That last part felt like something of a concession, so Aster told himself that he was satisfied with it. Crouching down, he picked up one of the less bruised looking apples, rubbing off the dirt from the skin on his sleeve. This was just the sort of thing Summer would have chided him for.
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Post by Noa on Sept 22, 2019 18:40:27 GMT -6
But fortunately for him, Summer wasn't here, and it wasn't as though any of his clothes were particularly nice anyway. Nothing that would be too good for a bit of dirt, which anyway would come off with a good wash--- washing that was Aster's chore to begin with, or occasionally Rabbit's.
... It wasn't as though he couldn't understand Rhys's desire to do things that Aster wouldn't have approved of. His own desire to circumvent what was, after all, merely Summer's concern for his appearance, proved that much. Maybe he was just having a hard time letting go, this time around.
"Well, what do you say then? You want to try it?" he said. Aster was fishing around in his pocket for a little knife as he spoke, and now he felt his fingers seize on the edge of it. Taking it out of his pocket, he flicked open the only blade.
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