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Post by Noa on Jun 5, 2020 19:46:00 GMT -6
This street wasn't totally unused either. Plenty of strange things went on inside the mansion's grounds, but while they didn't stay contained within the confines of the house itself, they did stay confined to the limits of its property borders, funnily enough. Whatever bizarre enchantment held this place didn't extend beyond that barrier, even though people and objects could pass seamlessly through, so long as they acted on their own--- or in the case of the objects, were acted upon. So while it was hard to feel comfortable living right next to it, there was no harm living a couple of lots down, and there certainly wasn't an issue with passing by it on your way to some other location. The road wasn't in disuse at all.
"Alright, in we go," Aster said, pushing open the gate. It swung open with a creak, but that creak was almost inaudible--- not because it was quiet, but because the din otherwise emanating from the mansion grounds was sufficient to drown it out. Aster only knew it made a noise based on the resistance he felt when he pushed against the gate itself. But it did open. Aster had never yet encountered a month where the gate didn't open. If this was someone's home, he would have been concerned, but the mansion was the mansion. Anyone could come, and do as they liked, though the mansion could do as it liked as well.
With the gate open, he ushered the little Sarane through it.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 18:24:54 GMT -6
It was a little difficult at first to get them to go the way he wanted to. The Sarane hatchlings were still not used to being herded around, and they weren't, as a general principle, herd animals. As youngsters they might be inclined to stick together, but it wasn't a true pack instinct, and he did still have to watch them carefully to make sure they didn't get separated from one another when they were out and about. Raising the three of them together had inspired a certain sense of solidarity, and they did look to where the other two were, but there was still a real difference between them and a trio of Equillion, for example.
And Aster knew all that would go down the drain immediately as soon as they got a little older, and the hormones or whatever started kicking in. Even Abelia would get territorial since she came from a strong bloodline, and was likely to have full use of her wings when grown. Whether she would tolerate either Roland, as a lesser and unrelated drake, or Alioth, his being her brother, once she hit that age, remained to be seen. Aster had a lot of experience with Sarane, but he didn't have quite this exact set of experience. He'd had a third tier hen before in Arnica, mother of two of the current hatchlings, but she and her brother Aurelius had matured at somewhat different rates, which even clutch mates would do sometimes, possibly even as an evolutionary tactic.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 18:29:00 GMT -6
After all, if they were going to start squabbling in earnest as soon as they got old enough to, maybe it was simpler to have one hatchling born a little sooner, grow up a little faster, and leave the nest a little bit sooner, just to cut down on the number of simultaneously angry Sarane stuck in one territory at a time in the wild. Aster didn't know.
As for the hatchlings currently with him, getting them to move off in the one direction was hard, but once Abelia seemed to get herself sorted out and going in the right direction, it was as though a switch had been flipped. The other two quickly fell in line after her, and the three of them headed through the gate in a loose sort of triangle formation, with Abelia taking point, and her two clutch brothers at her flanks, almost as if this was a real arrangement that they had with one another.
It wasn't, but it did speak to the fact that she was the one who led them, which was a consistent pattern that Aster had seen, starting to emerge from the knot of unorganized whelps that they had been when they were younger. He did think it was sort of funny that, despite all that the literature had to say on the topics of the territoriality of drakes, and the relative passivity of their female counterparts, that it was Abelia of the three whelps who had taken charge, in the end.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 18:33:35 GMT -6
Here in the city though, that territoriality was pretty hard to deal with, considering they usually lived in closer quarters--- much closer quarters, even--- than they ever would have anywhere else, when left to their own devices. And walls and other methods to placate and deceive them were well and good, but it still wasn't perfect. He wondered what their relative stress levels were compared to their wild brethren. They were, on the one hand, provided with consistent food and shelter, which had to count for something in terms of alleviating their concerns... But on the other hand, the smell of other Sarane, and the sounds of such, were everywhere, which must inevitably set at least the drakes on edge. And outside of sanctioned fights controlled by people, they had no real outlet for any aggression they were building up, or at least not at their intended targets. And even if they did manage to vent those frustrations, the loser would hardly be driven off, considering they lived here too, and their owners would likely not be convinced to get rid of them on such petty grounds. Sarane, especially Sarane that weren't brown, were sometimes the result of very expensive breeding programs. Most of the ones that had been produced found a home that wanted to keep them around somewhere.
Once the hatchlings were through the gate, they stopped again to take another look around, assessing their surroundings as they huddled around one another, possibly for reassurance, with Aster trailing behind.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 18:52:43 GMT -6
Aster was content to wait until they were ready to move off though. Now that they were inside, he had no particular desire to push them to go anywhere. They could explore at their own pace so long as they did stay together, and that was only because it would be impossible to keep an eye on all three of them if they all went their separate ways. He did hope they didn't all go haring off the way the Malii from the last two months had sometimes done, but as he had experienced for the most part, Sarane tended to move in bursts of speed that were relatively short, before stopping and getting their bearings again, when they were on the ground. When they moved continuously, it tended to be at a much slower pace. They weren't long distance runners as a rule, so he had nothing to be worried about there.
Once they were in the air, that was a different story, of course, but the wings on these guys had a long way to go before any of them would be going anywhere on them. Though they did all seem to be developing at a similar rate at present, funnily enough. So much for Aster's theory about how they would mature at different rates to prevent infighting. But he supposed he had the means to deal with a sudden influx of angry new adults, so it wasn't really any worse for him to deal with... Or not much moreso, anyway.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 18:57:28 GMT -6
They'd cross that bridge once they came to it, he supposed, and there was always Rhys on hand to help with anything should it go bad. The Felusine had recently learned how to calm agitated Sarane, which was one of the tasks that Aster had been hoping to have Rhys help with in the first place, so Aster felt much better about his prospects for the future. Which was just as well, since the Sarane were seeing a population boom again, and even he had gotten his hands on a whole gaggle of new hatchlings.
... He'd have to do something about that other lot soon too. But they were a little younger, so he had a little more time, and in the meantime these three were definitely doing some solid growing. If he didn't get some sense into them soon... Well. That was a problem for another day. There was no sense in trying to train them here, with everything going on around them as much as it was.
When the hatchlings did finally move off, it was with Abelia, once again, taking the lead for the three of them. She was the first who seemed to decide that all was well and that they could continue, and when she moved off, the others relaxed somewhat and also began to wander. This time they didn't all go in the same direction, but it was clear that the boys were still taking their cue from Abelia herself, at least on some level.
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Jun 6, 2020 19:43:54 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 20:05:38 GMT -6
Aster wondered how it had happened like that. It wasn't that he had any problems with it, especially since the three of them could hardly be expected to work together as adults anyway, given what their species was like. With any other kind of creature, Aster might have been inspired to teach them some pack tactics; that sort of thing could be taught to the creatures created by these labs, even if they didn't inherently have that going for them, so long as they didn't hate each other's guts by default. But there was no such solidarity between any two drakes, since they would almost inevitably come to blows if they were left to their own devices in the same space, and sufficiently powerful hens had much the same problem.
It was more that he had thought Alioth had the more forceful personality of the three of them... Or rather, of the two of them who would have been contenders for a leader position in the first place. Aster watched them walk on, and even now, Roland trailed the other two somewhat. He was of a meeker temperament than either of his foster clutch mates, and being around them seemed to have baked that into his personality full time. He was about as meek now as Aster had ever seen a Sarane at that age, and frankly he wondered if Roland would ever be a fighter.
Alioth, on the other hand, had been perfectly comfortable throwing his weight around from day one.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 21:00:01 GMT -6
Aster had seen him bullying Roland before the trio had settled into their current pecking order, and when the hatchlings were all together, Aster had definitely seen him trying it with the younger hatchlings too. The only one he didn't mess with was his sister, though Aster honestly didn't know if it was because he'd tried it once or twice and had been set straight so thoroughly that he didn't dare try it again, or if it was because they were true siblings, and he had somehow sensed the difference early on. She was of a similar size to him, being from the same clutch, so maybe it was something as simple as that. He had never encountered a larger hatchling before, that much was true.
But in the end, it was Abelia, who was no pushover but who didn't go out of her way to make sure everyone knew about it either, who had taken charge. Aster supposed the siblings must have worked it out between themselves somehow, since Roland definitely was a non-issue. But whether it was down to brute strength, or if it was something more like wits... It was a little too early for Aster to tell how clever any of them were, but once he began working with them in earnest, he supposed he would find out.
For now, he had the task of keeping them together. The boys were starting to wander off in different directions, so he surreptitiously hemmed them in with his own path.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 21:17:09 GMT -6
It was subtle enough that they didn't really notice him doing it at first, but the thing was, it wasn't as though the whelps were wary of him or of coming into physical contact with him. It didn't take long for that tactic to stop working, at which point he had to physically wrangle them a bit or tell them 'no' when they got a little too close to something or somewhere that he didn't care for them to get involved with.
Not that this didn't leave them with plenty of room to get into other mischief. The one thing that remained consistent about the mansion from month to month was the random clutter that they could find strewn about the place, often in places where the objects had no business being. The actual 'what' of what they found changed with the mansion's moods, but there were always things, in general, to be picked up if you looked around long enough.
It was Roland, nearly tripping over the thing, who had first stumbled onto the old violin. Aster spotted it before Roland, or more likely one of his adoptive siblings, could take a more destructive interest. He rescued it with deft hands, brushing off some of the dirt and dust. "Gee, who left you out here, I wonder," he said. Though of course he was sure he didn't know. It might have been another visitor, but it might also just be one of the mansion's things, though what violins had to do with... what, fireworks? He didn't know.
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Post by Noa on Jun 6, 2020 21:22:41 GMT -6
As with all things mansion related, he couldn't help but feel at least a little suspicious of it, though aside from the things that came out of the Wishing Well, most of the mansion's props weren't actually that... well, magical, or even interesting, aside from how weird they were. He'd found a jar of teeth here once during one of the more disturbingly themed months, and the less he thought about that kind of thing, the better. A fiddle, it was safe to wonder as to where it could have come from, but there was no good answer about the origins of a jar of teeth. They'd looked human too... No, he wasn't going to think about this any more.
The violin looked like a normal violin. A couple of the strings would definitely need to be replaced. He wasn't an expert on instruments, but even he could tell that much, seeing as at least one was just straight up snapped. But as far as he could see, the wooden structure was sound, just a bit dirty. Somehow, miraculously, it had managed to avoid a fate of being crushed or otherwise deformed, despite the fact that Roland had sort of stepped on it just a moment ago. Well, Roland was still just a whelp, and he was small for his kind, at his age. He wasn't all that heavy.
The whelps all saw the commotion now that Aster had gotten himself involved, and the other two had come by for a better look.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 12:39:20 GMT -6
Aster made sure to keep the violin well out of their reach. It had miraculously survived this long, but he doubted it would survive being roughed over by a trio of Sarane hatchlings, and at this point he felt that it needed all the help it can get. How much luck could a single object have anyway? It had to have run out by now, right? So when the whelps came up to him, Aster held it high, despite their squeaking protests and the attempt of Alioth to scrabble up his leg. The sensation of it wasn't pleasant, but Aster was wearing full length pants in the June heat for precisely this reason, and after a while Alioth subsided when his efforts didn't get him anywhere. That was a sort of victory, Aster supposed.
It didn't take that long for them all to lose interest, actually, since it was pretty obviously not something they could eat. If it were meat it would have smelled like meat, and then they would have been much more interested. But it was just as well. Aster wouldn't have trusted any meat they found in this place, much less if it were still raw and just left lying around on the ground for anyone to find and... have. What kind of month would that have been, he wondered... But no, raw meat on the ground sounded like something that belonged in October, if it could be said to belong anywhere. After all, that was the month of the teeth jar.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 12:43:13 GMT -6
If anything else horrifying had to come out of the mansion, he had no doubt in his mind that it would be during October, when that was all that was on the menu here anyway. Come to think of it, he felt like he remembered seeing some sort of... living organ pocketpet at that time too, so the idea wasn't really that unusual. Maybe he would just skip that month this year. He had already had more than enough of that to last him a lifetime.
The whelps, having given up on their attempt to get Aster to show them the violin, were thus in need of something else to entertain them. They were apparently not terribly bothered by the noise, at least for the moment. It was a sort of constant thing, even if it did happen in bursts, such that if you stayed here long enough you could begin to sort of tune it out. It did also sound as though it was happening further away than where they were, rather than right next to them. Aster hadn't gone through a process to desensitize the hatchlings to noise, so if a flash bang went off right next to them, he was pretty sure they'd bolt, no questions asked. He was really hoping that situation wouldn't arise though, since he doubted they would all stay together if that happened. And tracking down three separate Sarane whelps in this area was going to be the mother of all chores to take on.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 12:48:35 GMT -6
He was sure he would have managed eventually if it came to that, but if it could be avoided, then he did hope to avoid it. It wasn't really the kind of way he liked to pass his time. Shepherding whelps, sure, but playing hide and seek with them? He'd pass on that if the option was given to him, that was for sure.
The mansion didn't skimp on entertainments for enterprising young whelps. Not long after they began looking in earnest, something happened to catch the attention of all three at once. A little white blur ran past the nose of one after another, and all three of them were soon on the trail of it, scrambling madly over the grass after... What exactly was that, anyway? Between the mish mash of Sarane bodies hurrying after it, and the obvious speed at which it was traveling, Aster had a hard time discerning what exactly they were chasing. But he was pretty sure, based on the size at least, that it was some sort of pocketpet. Nothing that could pose a real threat to the whelps, so Aster wasn't as concerned about them chasing it as he otherwise might be. He did hope they didn't actually manage to catch the thing though, if only because he didn't want them trying to eat it, and he would most certainly have to intervene if one of them managed to actually pin it down. Some pocketpets were probably edible, but not all of them were...
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 13:04:17 GMT -6
And determining what was and was not safe to eat wasn't always something that could be done at a glance. Some pocketpets were very ordinary things that simply resembled smaller versions of a larger animal, and were mundane past that point. Some were obviously hazards, like bits of living fire, or a turtle made out of actual rocks. And then some were just... weird. Like that living, what had it been, a spleen? He was sure he didn't remember. But whatever it was, it looked like meat, and just as surely, he wouldn't have trusted it to be edible because of the way it had moved. An organ wasn't supposed to be alive all by itself.
Sighing, Aster followed in the wake of the scrambling whelps as they chased the pocketpet. He didn't walk too fast, but he proceeded in more of a straight line, whereas the pocketpet and, by extension, the whelps themselves, were running back and forth in a zigzag pattern, probably all the better to throw off the pursuers. And the pursuers, to the pocketpet's credit, did seem to be having a hard time of it. They weren't natural runners by default as a species, and they had the bonus penalty of being whelps who were still growing into their legs. They got a little bit bigger every day, which sure didn't help their coordination. It was hard to get used to a body that went on changing even as you developed your motor skills, after all.
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