damned_institute | Nightshift 27: M1-M40 block hallway

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Nightshift 27: M1-M40 block hallway

[From here]

Recluse turned the corner into the cell block hallway, still internally ranting about Landel. He was used to being the one in control of people like that infuriating doctor. There was a whole recruitment program for 'Mad Scientists' in Arachnos.

The vast majority of them ended up being killed by their on projects. Often in quite amusing, bloody, agonizing ways. That one little thought made everything seem just a little bit better.

[to here]

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River turned around, forgetting the invisible etchings in the wall and floor for now. The smile she smiled was a brilliant one, so was the prize when a girl was left flattered. Though she'd seen no sign of Ren yet, there would be pleasant company indeed. Maybe even pudding.

The girl jumped to her feet, pausing to give a quick thought to those that would be joining. "Not here yet. Coming." Hopefully, all would end well. Many times the group of numbers was barred entry from the house of one. But that wasn't that just yet. Now and here, here and now they stood. A group of three wanting for two more. It wasn't the same as five yet, but it would be soon.

"He's talked about me. Only because he knows he was in trouble and is trying to make up." A playfully stern look was sent in Daemon's direction before she turned back to Saetan, giving him a very serious once over before nodding. "Yes, you'll do. Do you know anything about the manufacturing pudding utilizing supernatural means of affecting reality?"

Daemon laughed as he came up beside her, reaching out to tweak a stray lock of hair. "Am I not allowed to talk about you, Lady?" he countered mildly. "And what is it with you and pudding, anyways?"

Slouching back against the wall beside the bathroom door, he settled himself comfortably to watch the hall around them and await Ren's arrival.

Taking Daemon's relaxed attitude to heart, Saetan narrowed his eyes only speculatively in River's direction. "Well, cooking never was my specialty, though I am much better at it than my daughter. There are usualy easier ways to make pudding or any kind of food than Craft, my dear." He knew that wasn't exactly her point, but he wanted to see how she responded. Her way of viewing the world was charmingly refreshing.

River laughed, both at Daemon's affectionate gesture and at Saetan's logical process of speaking the obvious in a world of riddles.

"Pudding," she began very seriously in answer to both the son's question and the father's conversation, "is relative. Could be speaking of pudding in the literal sense, but then what sort of pudding is she referring to? There's the sort that's a solid mass formed by mixing various products with a sort grain or miscellaneous binding ingredient. Eggs work well for example. Usually meant to resemble sweet sort of baked good known commonly as 'cake.' But then there are those that don't look a thing like they're meant to. The sausage puddings. And of course we can't forget the custard sort, or the suet filling in pies and the like. There's more than one sort. A dozen mysteries, and what's she referring to?"

River smiled at each of them in turn.

"'twas never asked what sort she was referring to. Or maybe it was just a code word for something else entirely."

"A code word, is it?" Daemon countered, arching an eyebrow at the girl and crossing his arms casually over his chest as he leaned back against the wall and studied her with an intent golden gaze, his lips quirking in an amused attempt to hide his smile. "Are you speaking in riddles again, lady? Very well, what sort of pudding are you referring to? Please. Appease my insatiable curiosity."

He had to admit it was trickier following her thinking than he'd originally thought, though Daemon seemed to be more adept at it. "I agree with him, both in being curious, young lady, and in saying that it is hard to produce or find a pudding of the right sort if we don't know which you mean."

Saetan stepped back, hands seeking trouser pockets, to watch. He adored watching verbal play between young people, especially when one of them was his verbally gifted son. It was a good distraction from their grim surroundings.

River opened her mouth, wry smile still twitching on her lips, to respond to the two. How strange it was when no words came out and only the expression melted away into something else entirely. Brown eyes glazed over, and the girl stepped back. No excuse for backing out of play, but there she was, somewhere else again.

"Feeding the cats blood and flesh tonight," she murmured in her quiet daze. "Picking apart brain parts too. Just like they did..." The dazed expression quickly melted away into a horrified one. There was only one they could save. Only one didn't have a knight in shining armor already coming for him.

But the nerve that it flicked and played with...

"Ren. Didn't realize he was composed of cat nip. He's. I've got to." So many things at once. Ashton. Ren. River backed away, as though confronting the very beasts that would shred her friends apart right then and there. She tried. She tried so hard not to fall into the woods. Tried so hard...

The little girl didn't even realize that she was backed against the wall, hands clutching her messy, brown hair.

"Lady!" Daemon exclaimed in sudden concern, straightening and pushing off the wall to approach. He'd seen this happen before, the first night he'd met her, when they'd been fighting leeches and suddenly, her attention had been somewhere else, on someone else. Someone in danger.

"River," he spoke, quietly but urgently, his hands stroking calmingly against her arms, reminding her of his presence in case his words could not reach her. "Where's Ren? Is he in trouble? We'll go find him, Lady. There will be no blood and flesh to feed on. Can you tell me where he is?"

The girl's condition alarmed Saetan, but Daemon seemed to know what to do. No wonder he treated her like witch, despite not being Blood.

Eyes narrowed, Saetan opened his inner barriers and his senses, noting at last something purely physical he should have noticed before. He'd been distracted by the engaging girl and led astray by how dull all his senses seemed here. The air reeked of blood, fresh, hot blood. If he'd still been a Guardian, the smell would have made him hunger for it. He'd needed very little, and the living used blood in their rituals, usually only their own, but the hunger would have been there. Now, surrounded by it, the smell only made him vaguely queasy. This blood didn't smell human or of any animal he could identify either.

His inner barriers screamed to be closed, so he did, still puzzled by what he'd felt. Darkness was suppposed to be comforting, maternal. Not this darkness. It was cold and alien and reminded him vaguely of the taint that mired so many of the Blood in Terreille. Evil. And it had gotten worse in just last few minutes.

"If you can tell us," he said, adding his own urging to Daemon's, "we can help them. This night is already full of too much blood."

The conflict in River's mind twisted and churned as what would be considered blood splattered the walls of her mind. Who to turn to? Who to help? That was when the instinct of the weapon, the frightful switch that turned itself on and off at will snapped to a conclusion.

One was closest. Most logical course of action considering the other had a savior at hand. Ren, and then Ashton. A hero's night, if she were thinking in a fantastic sense.

River's crying ceased as she stood slowly, hair hanging in her eyes in what might've seemed a rather frightening image of a specter from old ghost stories. Her lips moved in answer.

"Follow."

With the single word uttered, the girl tore herself away, sprinting off like a leaf on the wind.

Following River, though she'd darted ahead much faster than she'd anticipated she could even move, he had time enough to reach out and clasp his father's wrist in silent communication, switching his own flashlight on, the beam bouncing crazily on the walls for a moment before landing on the girl's retreating back.

"Looks like we're playing rescuers more quickly than I anticipated," he commented, meeting his father's gaze, his own glinting eerily in the light of the flashlight, before he, too, followed her.

[Following her over here.]

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Nightshift 27: M1-M40 block hallway

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