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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 16:14:50 GMT -6
He put his nose to the ground, again looking very much Felusine-like, even if his coloring and his scales made the action look a little more out of place on him. Bemused, Aster let him do as he liked, content to follow along behind him. As long as Rhys wasn’t bolting off, if he wanted to look for apples, then so be it. Aster wasn’t going to argue. It was pretty harmless, and the purpose of this excursion was to let Rhys have a little fun anyway, so who was he to intervene on this?
And sure enough, after a little bit of a meander, Rhys really did come upon the sliced apple that Aster had left earlier. It was covered with a few leaves, which was probably why Aster hadn't spotted it earlier. Having seen it, he could now believe that there were more apples buried about in a similar way.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 16:15:13 GMT -6
And Aster wouldn’t exactly have chosen to eat it again himself after this, but after Rhys unearthed it from its leafy covering, even Aster had to admit that it did look… more or less still edible. Certainly edible enough to offer to a pocketpet, especially considering they weren’t that bright.
A lot of them lived here too, and they had to be eating something. It may as well be apples, he supposed.
“If you really want to feed them that badly…” Aster said.
{Oh yes, let’s! Can you cut it up the way you did before? I think this is a little too big for them, even if they have such big heads for their bodies,} said Rhys. Aster’s suggestion was taken up very eagerly.
“You’re surprisingly into this, huh?” Aster said. Still, he did as Rhys had asked and picked up the apple, cutting into it.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 16:15:41 GMT -6
When he was done, he had produced several small slices for Rhys to use. He wondered what Rhys was even going to do to find a pocketpet in the first place. It wasn’t as though he had seen one since the blue creature had made its escape.
But Rhys was ahead of him on that too. He put his nose to the ground again and wandered about, sniffing here and there. After a while, his sniffing took on a more directional bent, and his pace slowed too, to the point where it… began to resemble a predator’s stalking once again. Aster wanted to say something, but at the same time, he was curious to see what would happen if he kept his silence.
Following Rhys’s line of movement, he caught a glimpse of something himself after not too long. A little… what the heck was that thing anyway?
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 16:15:52 GMT -6
It was a bit far, but from where Aster was looking, it seemed like it was a tiny, tiny… werewolf.
Right, this place was weird as hell. He wasn’t even going to let himself question it. It wasn’t worth thinking too deeply about this sort of thing. He’d seen weirder things from the mansion before, though he was hard pressed to remember any specific instance at present, since it had been some time since his last visit. There might as well be tiny werewolves living here.
But if it was a tiny werewolf, then that was bad news for Rhys. If Aster had to hazard a guess, he would say that apples were probably not their preferred food.
More interestingly, the little wolf didn’t seem to be as intimidated by Rhys’s approach. Or maybe it was, but its nature tended more towards fight than to flight, and as a result it stood its ground.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 17:18:49 GMT -6
Rhys made his way over, and at a certain distance his body language changed to be less threatening, but the wolf’s eyes never left his, and Aster could hear a tiny, high pitched growling emanating from that direction. Which more or less confirmed Aster’s guess that it was at least some sort of wolf, though as to whether it was a werewolf or not, that was probably something he would only find out if he got a little closer.
It was pretty funny. Even when they were kind of spooky looking, pocketpets really weren’t all that threatening. At least, it was hard for him to take any of their threats seriously, anyway. The ones with sharp enough teeth could probably break skin, and if that got infected… But that would take a lot of luck, and he doubted pocketpets were smart enough to try taking someone down by playing such a long game.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 17:19:58 GMT -6
The pocketpet in question would probably be dead by that point too, if someone really wanted one dead. So in the end, it wasn’t worth it.
Meanwhile, Rhys was starting to come to the same conclusions that Aster had come to regarding his choice of bait and the particular pocketpet he had actually discovered. {... I don’t think this one is going to want any apples,} Rhys said.
“Yeah, it looks like that one would prefer some meat,” Aster said. “You’re probably better off looking for another one, to be honest. It doesn’t look all that friendly either.” At this point, it was better to just cut his losses and start fresh with something else. Aster didn't think this was the sort of little critter that tamed easy anyway, which was probably what Rhys had been hoping for.
{I guess so. There does seem to be a lot of them around,} Rhys said.
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Post by Renathan on Oct 19, 2019 17:33:44 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 19:48:33 GMT -6
This was news to Aster, but to be fair he wasn’t really paying attention to whether there were or were not pocketpets around when he wandered around the mansion. There were usually other things going on. At least, there had been this time; his memories of his previous excursions tended to be pretty foggy, since it had been a long time… And quite possibly because he didn’t particularly care to remember them, though if that were the case, then it was a funny thing. There were plenty of things he didn’t want to remember that he remembered all too well. If only that worked on those memories.
Rhys left off trying to bother the werewolf after all. It was probably just as well. As soon as Rhys backed off, the werewolf cautiously stopped growling, and slowly returned to watching them without any overtly aggressive posturing on its part.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 19:51:08 GMT -6
It could sense that they were retreating, and since it was no longer being threatened, then the display was also no longer necessary. As it turned out, it just wanted to be left alone.
What would Rhys have done with something like that anyway? Aster did wonder. He didn’t want to have one of those things running around loose on his property. This one didn’t seem to be up to any particular mischief at the moment, but who knew what it could get up to if uprooted and relocated, given enough time?
Rhys put his nose to the ground again, looking for a different target. At this point, given his history, it was beginning to feel like a different ‘victim’ might be the more appropriate word here. None of the pocketpets they’d encountered so far seemed to be very receptive towards Rhys’s apparent good intentions for them.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 19:54:12 GMT -6
They really weren't that bright, which might have contributed to it, but...
Aster didn't get to quite finish that thought. The next thing he knew, he was looking at Rhys jumping right up into the air, apparently startled by something he had found in the midst of all those leaves. "What? What is it?" he asked. Rhys had gone from the jump straight into flight, and didn't stop until he had reached the apparent safety of Aster's shoulder again.
{There's some kind of... thing over there,} Rhys said. A shudder passed through him, and at first Aster wondered if he had been frightened, but the shudder came and went, and then he was still. A closer inspection of the Felusine's expression revealed a nose wrinkled in distaste.
"You found something gross, didn't you?" Aster said. It was a guess, but considering the general atmosphere of the month, he wouldn't be surprised.
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Post by Jack on Oct 19, 2019 19:57:37 GMT -6
 A single wax leaf? Huh, odd. |
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 20:03:22 GMT -6
They hadn’t seen anything really viscerally disgusting yet, but Aster had glimpsed something like grave stones on the grounds that he had definitely not seen earlier, when they had first come in. It wouldn’t have surprised him at all to find a dead body around here.
Well, an amendment to that. He would have been surprised to chance upon it, and in the initial moment of discovery, he was sure he would have startled the same way that Rhys seemed to have done. But once he realized what it was, it wouldn’t have been a shocking development when weighed against their surroundings.
{I’m not going back near it,} Rhys said. Aster arched a brow at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
Aster posed the question, expecting an answer, but Rhys fell silent. Aster waited a few moments to see if Rhys would give him a response, but none came.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 20:03:52 GMT -6
Seeing that he really did intend to remain mum about the thing, Aster himself ventured closer to have a look.
Realizing his intent after seeing the direction they were heading in, Rhys took to the air once again. {If you’re going to look at it, then I’m going to stay right here,} he said, landing in the spot where Aster had been standing before.
“Suit yourself,” Aster said. “Just check around you first to make sure there isn’t anything else over there. I didn’t get a chance to have a good look myself.”
He grinned, and noted with satisfaction that another shudder had passed down along Rhys’s spine. {You… That isn’t very nice!} said Rhys. He glared at Aster, or at least did something that passed for glaring. It wasn’t very fierce, maybe because he was so delicately colored, and Aster didn’t feel at all threatened.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 20:04:23 GMT -6
He laughed it off, which only seemed to irritate Rhys further--- but not enough to completely discount Aster’s words after all. A moment later, he broke off from the work of glaring at Aster to look cautiously around himself, just in case there really was something.
Aster watched him for a moment, a little curious despite himself to see whether he would find anything. But when it became clear that he wouldn’t, Aster returned to the task he had originally set for himself, which was to find out what had actually spooked Rhys so much in the first place.
He went over to where he thought Rhys had been nosing around. The abundance of leaves made it sort of hard to determine exactly where Rhys had been. They all looked more or less the same, and there were crunched up ones everywhere, so it was impossible to say whether they were broken by Rhys's passing.
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Post by Noa on Oct 19, 2019 20:29:49 GMT -6
He was starting to suspect that he might have trouble finding it after all, but in fact, his luck turned around at that point when he heard a soft... squelching.
He looked down. There, moving through the leaves, was a... Well, he didn't know what it was he was looking at, actually. It was a dark reddish... greenish... color. Maybe it was safer to say that it was a dark red, with a greenish cast over the top of it, like a strange pallor.
He couldn't see the whole thing, since the leaves were still covering part of it, so he knelt down and brushed away some of the leaves. Once he did, and he saw the whole thing, he could see why Rhys had been as unsettled as he was.
It was some sort of organ. Aster didn't know exactly which one, but it was vaguely shaped like a liver...
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