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Post by Noa on May 29, 2020 16:57:10 GMT -6
And yet, Summer gave clear indications that she did understand what he was saying, and reacted to it in a way that Aster could understand in turn. She had... What was it they called it? Receptive understanding? She knew what he was saying when he said it, he supposed.
The Malii was still giving him no such indication, and maybe he hadn't spent enough time around people who were speaking to him to have developed an understanding of Common. That could be it. The other possibility was, as always, that the Malii wasn't capable of speech or understanding at all, since the ones who couldn't talk weren't smart enough to be on par with Summer anyway.
The Malii's ears twitched again, and he looked between himself and the door. He seemed to understand the concept of doors, at least, and if that was the case, he was probably wondering why Aster wasn't going in.
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Post by Fiera Ferella on May 29, 2020 20:04:45 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:22:27 GMT -6
Aster supposed that the Malii really did have him there. The simpler solution might really have been to forget about this whole thing and go through the door. Live a little. The doorbell might have been a trap anyway, and…
Well, then again, if he wanted to make impulsive decisions today, shouldn’t he just go for it and press the damn bell? With those thoughts in mind, Aster decided to just go for it. In this case, ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ didn’t really apply, since there were plenty of bad things that could actually go wrong here, but even so. He was just not going to think about any of those possibilities. Taking a deep breath, Aster regarded the doorbell, then lifted his hand up to it. He waited for a moment, then pushed the bell with one finger, and braced himself for the worst.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:22:52 GMT -6
Nothing happened.
Well, that was an anticlimax. Aster blinked, not quite sure he believed it for a moment. But he waited, and the seconds ticked by, one after another, as nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen. Well. Out of all the things he had expected, that certainly wasn’t it, though now that he was thinking about it, he supposed he ought to have considered the possibility. The theme of the month seemed to be ‘nothing is happening’ so far. Coins and pocketpets aside, of course, but even those weren’t enough to suggest a theme to him thus far.
By this point the Malii had grown past the point of idle confusion, and had fully resorted to going up to paw at the door. Aster hadn’t been moving this whole time. He had pressed the bell the once and then stood there, looking like an idiot, while nothing happened.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:23:17 GMT -6
Regardless of the Malii’s intelligence level, this must have been confusing to watch, since people didn't usually just freeze like that. And it was possible that the Malii was bored, or had otherwise run out of patience for whatever it was that Aster was apparently going through.
But it was only as the Malii did this that Aster realized that the doorbell hadn’t… actually made any noise. Usually, even on the other side of the door, you could hear the bell going off when you pressed it. The point was that the bell was supposed to be loud, to alert everyone inside the house that someone was at the door. It wouldn’t be out of the question to think that the mansion had some kind of exceptional soundproofing, or that the bell did something different than ordinary doorbells, but that would suggest that something strange was afoot after all.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:23:34 GMT -6
And if the mansion was pretending to be an ordinary house with an ordinary yard this month, well, this was a giveaway, wasn’t it? That the whole thing was still just a pretense. It was a small thread to have spotted, but it had happened nonetheless, and Aster found that he was feeling rather unsettled yet again.
But that was no excuse, for he didn’t know what exactly he had or hadn’t triggered, and there was nowhere else interesting to go but further in. The Malii certainly seemed interested--- he of the little to none in terms of self preservation instinct. He who had run headlong into a moving hedge maze just last month. Aster didn’t know if he ought to enable the Malii’s bad habits, but he was also a little worried about what would happen if he let the Malii out of his sights.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:23:57 GMT -6
This particular Malii had shown himself fully capable of taking matters into his own hands and going haring off on his own if the mood took him, and Aster didn’t trust him to behave himself at all, especially not here, of all places. Unfortunately, the only solution he had managed to find for this problem so far was just to chaperone the fellow.
“Alright,” Aster said, “let’s go in then.” And let’s hope that whatever that doorbell did wouldn’t be too inconvenient, he thought to himself, but that wasn’t a thought he wanted spoken out loud. Aster wasn’t a terribly religious fellow, though he had perfunctorily followed the religion of his homeland as much as any other street urchin. The queen had been a real thing, after all, and even street urchins could see her magic on display at some of the annual festivals and public proceedings.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:24:11 GMT -6
All the rest of the theological baggage, about descending from gods and the sacred beasts of old, well, Aster didn’t know anything about that; but some of the -populace were born with the traits. His own feathering had been a sign of that, though the older he got, the less it felt like a divine blessing, and the more it had begun to feel like some kind of curse.
Of course, coming to this place did rather put it in perspective. Bird people were, if not a dime a dozen here, at least a damned sight more common than they had been in his homeland. And a bunch of them were birdier too, than anyone he had ever seen back there. There were all kinds of people, from all kinds of places, and no one looked at you twice if you had fur or funny ears or a beak or anything.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:24:33 GMT -6
Or, well, some of them did, but the different kinds of racism and intolerance were as varied as the people themselves.
And they still had gods here, but they were different ones, and many people kept up the worship of whatever they had worshipped before they came here. So Aster didn’t know if he believed in any of that theological stuff, but he felt like jinxes might be real, at least. And even if they weren’t, well, it was always better to err on the side of caution if he didn’t know for sure. Especially in a place like the mansion. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if the house itself was alive and listening to his every word.
He tested the doorknob, with the Malii looking on. Aster had never spent much time with Malii before, and he hadn’t had any opportunity until now to notice just how unnerving their eyes were.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:25:02 GMT -6
Those eyes were totally white and devoid of any visible iris or pupil. If he hadn’t taken it upon himself to look it up, and if it weren’t for a few obvious signs that this particular Malii could see, Aster might have thought him to be blind. It was an odd quirk, though he supposed it wasn’t any stranger than some of the other things that creatures here would do. Now, though, he did find it mildly unsettling as he bore under the weight of his gaze.
The door might be locked after all, of course. That would solve his dilemma pretty handily, wouldn’t it? But he wouldn’t have been so lucky; and from what he generally heard, people didn’t have a terribly tough time making it into the house if they wanted to.
Whether they could get out as they liked was another story.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:25:26 GMT -6
That was what presented most of the risk, actually. Though if they were telling the tale, evidently they had managed to make it out somehow, eventually. So it wasn’t a death trap, per se, but there were still plenty of unsavory experiences it could inflict on you, especially once it had gotten you inside its walls.
The door, as Aster had more or less expected, was unlocked. It yielded easily under his hand, like a well kept and well used doorknob would turn, matching perfectly with the house’s pristine outward appearance on this occasion. There wasn’t even a noise as Aster opened it, the hinges apparently operating just as well. It wouldn’t have felt so unusual to Aster had he not been here on several other months when the mansion looked much less well kept. He was sure the door would have creaked if he had come here in October, for example.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 13:25:48 GMT -6
He pushed the door gingerly open… And was immediately forced to have to stop an eager certain someone from bolting right inside. It had taken some doing too, since the Malii was fast when he wanted to be, and was even a little crafty about it. He wasn’t as small as a cat, but he could certainly compress his body somewhat, and his fur was of a short, smooth, silky texture to boot. “Oh no you don’t,” Aster said, making a grab for the slippery criminal, and barely managed to get a grasp on the Malii before hauling him back from the door.
There, on the doorstep, Aster looked the Malii right in the eye and gave him a lecture. “Look, I don’t know if you can understand me or what, but that’s not what’s going to happen today, got it?" He did his best to sound stern and authoritative here.
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Post by Fiera Ferella on May 31, 2020 18:37:39 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 21:30:12 GMT -6
“We go in together, or we don’t go at all. I don’t want any of this ‘I’m running off by my lonesome’ nonsense today.”
The Malii didn’t seem as though it was all that eager to keep up eye contact with Aster, but Aster wasn’t brooking any arguments from the Malii right this minute. He needed the Malii to understand that he meant business. Of course, this would be easier if the Malii had had any training at all, but he felt as though by now he ought to be able to convey the idea of his disapproval. This was especially true if the Malii really had that kind of sentient intelligence, but it ought to be true even if the Malii didn’t.
The Malii struggled to squirm out of Aster’s grasp for a while, but eventually he gave up the game after failing to succeed.
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Post by Noa on May 31, 2020 21:30:34 GMT -6
And it was only then that Aster finally let him go. “No more funny business, got it?” Aster said. “Unless you want a straightjacket hug again.” He knew that rewarding good behavior, rather than punishing bad behavior, tended to be the best way to go for training, but in this case all he wanted was for the Malii not to do anything dangerous. And considering he didn’t really have a lot of time to work with here, he hoped that this would be enough, and that the Malii wouldn’t resent him unduly for it. There would be time to earn the Malii’s trust back later, if that was what Aster ended up having to do. If he lost the Malii to the mansion for good though, that was going to be it. There would be no changing that outcome, nor any further opportunity to reverse anything that had been done.
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