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Disgrace Profile: "Haurvatat"


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(Name) Hauvartat
(Date of Birth) 02/07/06
(Sentinel) CoronaViridae
(Gender) Male
(Hair) Black
(Eyes) Brown
(Skin) Brown
(Burden) Chained Ankh
(Favorite Colors) ???
(Partial to) ???




(This Report Log is assigned to Haurvatat and his Sentinel, CoronaViridae, as a means to keep track of all relevent data involving this Disgrace. If you do not have permission, please do not post here. If you want to know more about the (Disgraces), visit this thread.)

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(Disgraces)
Books- all manuals and guidelines, strict regulations that commanded the things that an agent should and should not do given a specific situation- were spread out open-faced along the floor of the gazebo, with the stern-eyed agent right in the center of it all, staring intently at the tome before her and wishing away a headache.

Xemn hadn't slept a wink. And she only wished she could say it was because she had been hard at work all night, but the true answer lay with the bellows that permenated the otherwise peaceful air in Barton West Field.

At first, Xemn had tried to appease the small ones. But she had no food to fill their stomachs with, no toys to keep them interested, no blankets to give them warmth or comfort. No matter what she had tried, there was nothing that she had to offer them that would make them satisfied.

So, eventually, she'd set them in a corner and ignored them. Effective, but not without its consequences. They'd stopped howling after a while, no doubt growing tired... but after the sun had risen, they'd started again with renewed fury, waving their fists and screaming hoarsely for attention while Xemn had delved into her research with great enthusiasm, trying to find any sort of precedent for this kind of disaster.

As far as she could tell, though... there was none.

Dragging her sleeve over her tired eyes, Xemn stood from the epicenter of the books strewn about and yawned. The clamor increased, as if the babies sensed there was some chance of getting attention now.

"Fine, fine... (little monsters)." The agent stumbled and staggered her way over to the children, mentally cursing the feebleness of mortal flesh. How much longer would she have to be using this body, she wondered, in order to complete her assignment...?

One look at the babies, and her facial expression reverted smoothly from annoyance to professionalism. Something... was not right with these children, she could sense it... the tailed one especially. His throat was dry, his face was palish, and he seemed to be growing alarmingly weak; with a deep frown, Xemn stooped over and lifted the child up, looking him over to try and find out what was causing him to become so... faded, for lack of a better word....


Coronaviridae
While Nexeu Preston hadn't quite intended to be out and about in Barton, his home of choice being much closer to far-flung Aekea, fate had a way of guiding his wanderings whenever he decided to step outside the house. Fate, destiny, or kismet--whatever it was, he was inclined to listen to it, as more often than not it turned out fortuitous for him.

He'd had the urge to head to Barton to find his next batch of spell components; as it happened, his peregrinations took him through Barton West Field. Fortunately(?), he was also quite intent on his shopping list and not the world around him--so even as he wove his way around the tumble-down wall around Xemn's makeshift "headquarters", he didn't pay much attention to the sound of children wailing.

No, it was the taste of magic on the wind that caught his attention. Glancing up from the paper he was perusing, he turned his attention toward the Gazebo from which all the racket was coming... Before sauntering over and settling himself down on one of the walls around the park, placing a foot on the opposite knee and resuming his reading.

Powerful magic had a way of making itself blisteringly obvious if it needed his attention.


Arrien
A new presence in the headquarters drew Xemn's attention. Pausing in her attempts at diagnosing whatever the baby's problem was, the dark-haired woman peered over to where Nexeu sat atop the wall, a faint frown crossing her face. The last thing she wanted right now was for some mortal to start bothering her while she was trying to figure things out.

Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything she could do about the intrusion. It wasn't as if she owned the land that she'd set up base on- frankly, she wasn't sure who *did* own it, or if it wasn't just public property. Though she might be able to bluff the man into leaving, he seemed to be quite content reading his book on the wall. As long as he didn't interfere with her progress, she had no reason to care anything more about him than that.

Dismissing the distraction, Xemn refocused to the child in her arms.

There was no physical mark that could explain his weakness and discomfort. Though hunger might have had something to do with it, the baby made no attempt to suck on a proffered finger as an infant with an empty stomach would be wont to. No injuries, broken bones, bruises... nothing.

Is it sick? A wild stab in the dark- but Xemn couldn't think of any sicknesses offhand that meant a baby just grew weak and fussed. Wouldn't there be some sort of sign, a... a runny nose, a cough, a fever, anything?

There had to be something she was missing. Nothing obscure- if it was some little-known cause or something that you'd have to be privileged to understand, she could figure that it was beyond her reach to know and therefore not worth considering. It had to be something obvious... something that she had no right not having picked up on already....

"... Oh. OH."

The woman's back stiffened, her expression was one of astoundment. She stood frozen, then whirled around. Her eyes captured the visage of the form sitting on the wall- securing the baby with one arm, she wasted no time at all in hopping over the railing of the gazebo and, landing with ease, quickly stepping to a position closer to the mortal.

"Oi- I'm in need of your assistance. Come down here, if you would be so kind." The words were polite enough, but her tone was not an asking one- that was an order, not a request.

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"Oi. I'm in need of your assistance. Come down here, if you'd be so kind."

Of all the many insults he was used to enduring, Nexeu Preston did not take being ordered about lightly. He dallied with his reading several moments longer after the woman had called out to him (for who else was there in the area, really?), before shutting his notebook with a resounding snap and stretching one arm over his head in imitation of a man awakened from a peaceful sleep. "Have you stopped beating that child, then?" he asked, not looking back over his shoulder at Xemn.

"Or--" In a flutter of white cloak, he'd leapt up onto the wall, turning himself about so he could grin down at the agent from this greater height. It was not a pleasant grin. "Is that what you're coming to ask about? I don't fix children, woman--just to get it straight from the start. But, oh--now I'm interrupting; how rude of me. What is it you want?"

He folded his arms across his chest, giving a jaunty upward jerk of his chin and watching her from his height advantage with an almost-sneer on his lips.
Oh, just wonderful. I've got a snarky, ultimate show-off of a mortal on my hands. Setting her jaw irritably, Xemn contemplated the man long and hard. This was not the sort of person she liked to deal with- quite the opposite! She liked people who were easy to manage, didn't talk back, followed orders to the letter. And she could tell already, none of that applied to this mortal.

If only she could afford to be choosy.

"'Rude' is quite right," Xemn bristled condescendingly, standing as straight as she could in order to negate the current difference in height, "but I suppose I could forgive it this once, at least. Now. As I said, I'm in need of your assistance." She held the baby out pointedly, letting the man get a good look at the squirming thing. "I want for you to take this- by which I mean, I want for you to take temporary custody of it in the name of my agency."

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"Snark" was Nexeu Preston's middle name. Or it would've been, if he believed in such things. In fact, it might have been somewhere in his true name--but that was not something he was thinking about at the moment. Instead, having had his holier (and higher)-than-thou moment, he leapt down to the other side of the wall, pushing back the hood of cloak to get a better look at the thing she was offering him. It revealed a face decorated with tattoos that had a ritual look to them, all entangled barbed sigils and ribbons of color.

"'Only' this once? I foretell a long and tumultuous relationship between us, in that case. Do you normally force victims of your abuse on bystanders?" The mage put forth hands as tattooed as his face, a mute request for the bundle. "What agency would that be?"

Keen garnet eyes assessed Xemn's current state of dress...or lack thereof, before Nexeu added, "Or did you just decide kidnapping wasn't all it was cracked up to be?" Long and tumultuous relationship indeed.
Xemn's eyes sparked at the not-so-subtle insults, her temper snarling and preparing for a strike. Oh, she'd show that blasted arrogant mortal exactly who he was dealing with; or, more aptly put, what.

"The PLIB," she rose her chin a few inches to give Nexeu a proper sneer. "Which, since you've obviously never heard of it before, is the Purgatory-Limbo Investigative Bureau. I am Special Agent Xemn, and I am here on business that you," the word was spat from her mouth as if it were poison, "would not understand."

"However, I am sure that you would be acceptable for the quite managable task of taking care of this child, which I cannot be bothered to do in light of much more important business I need to address." She huffed faintly before continuing on. "This being the case, I would be open to permitting you the title of Sentinel and giving you temporary custody of the child. You would be given due compensation for your mediocre assistance, of course."

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The child in question had discovered his newly minted Sentinel's fingers and was industriously gumming the knuckle of one, apparently quite content now despite the adults busily arguing over his fate. Nexeu didn't appear to mind the co-opting of his knuckles, instead paying most of his attention to Xemn. He arched one white brow at her venemous response. The--

"You mean they're getting out?" he said, tone completely innocent and eyes on hers.

He looked down almost immediately, examining his new charge in detail. Unlike his twin, he appeared to be--rather calm, all things considered, about being spontaneously handed a child and told it was his. Something dangerous may have been simmering below the surface, however. "More important than raising a child. That's why I never placed much stock in religion, you know. Always more 'important' things with you people than taking care of others. Compensated?"

Garnet eyes raised from the bundle in his arms, and the mage smiled. Toothily. "With what, the clothes on your back? Though the view might be nice, I wouldn't want to impoverish you."
((So sorry for the wait! ^.^;; ))

Amusing. For a moment there, it seemed like Xemn's eye might have twitched.

"I will not be the one to compensate you for your services," she detailed very clearly, doing her best to ignore the reminder of her less-than-pleasant appearence. "My agency will handle that, at such a time as they deem it appropriate." Which had better damn well not be before I get the supplies I've requested, Xemn thought sourly. That would be a surefire sign that one of the upper-ups held a grudge against her, compensation for the Sentinels arriving before the supplies her teams was all but dying for did--

Cut it out. Deal with the matter at hand.

"If you have an appropriate form of compensation in mind, you submit it to me at any time and I will review it. If I find it acceptable, I will fill out the forms required to have it reviewed by the resources department." Her previous sourness mellowed and faded, her words becoming professional and clean-cut. "If no compensation is requested, it will be the jurisdiction of the same department to decide what, if anything, you will recieve for your services."

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((Quite all right; we can be slow together!))

At this, the mage snorted, giving Xemn another condescending head-to-toe look. "Oh, it's the COMPANY, not you; I see. In that case, hang on to whatever you can get--it turns out all the same in the end, right?" He hefted the child carefully, causing it to burble and loop the leonid tail attached to its backside around his wrist. For some reason this made Nexeu smile down at the child with altogether less malice than he was showing Xemn; probably because the kid was relatively harmless, and more importantly, couldn't talk.

"If that's all that needs discussing, I'm going to go do my shopping and take the troublemaker with me." He turned away from her, sweeping up a hand to pull the hood back over his hair, to shade his eyes. A moment later he paused, looking back over his shoulder with one white brow quirked. "I'm going to assume you know how to keep in touch--unless you really don't want this one back, in which case I know a couple of wonderful recipes that call for very young human."

That was probably a joke. HOPEFULLY that was a joke. It was hard to tell.
"Oh, don't worry." The smug woman crossed her arms in a haughty manner and gave a thin smile. "If we need to contact you, we'll be in touch." Her attitude very much one of victory. After all, the man- annoying as he might be- had taken on the burden of childraising for her. More importantly, he had taken on the job and was now getting rid of himself for her, thus allowing her to get back to work. She could forgive him his unpleasantness, so long as she didn't have to deal with it for much longer.

Giving Nexeu a firm, almost salutory nod, Xemn turned her back to him. As clear a dismissal as could be imagined.

Now, Xemn thought to herself, pacing back towards the gazebo. Two more of these Disgrace children... it couldn't be too hard to find two more Sentinels for them, could it? Time would tell, no doubt.

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"Mmm," Nexeu mused aloud to his new charge, as Xemn stalked back to the gazebo. "Well. I suppose that means you aren't dinner, in which case I'll need to find something else to eat." He tweaked the infant's nose, earning a gurgle of amusement and an absent batting at his hand, like a kitten would.

"And a name, for that matter," the mage continued, shifting the infant to his other arm so he could hold him more comfortable while hopping back over the wall. "Black's named all his kids in Avestan--or he will, I'm not quite sure on that, you understand--so I suppose I could do the same. I don't suppose you came equipped with your own name, did you?"

The baby looked up at him with liquid brown eyes. "Wuh?" he managed, experimentally.

"That's not a name," Nexeu replied, expression deadpan.

"Wuh-huh!" The baby looped his tail around Nexeu's arm, fluttering his wings and reaching for the collar of the mage's cloak.

"Is not," Nexeu replied, laughingly.

Despite looking more like a lion's than anything else, the infant Disgrace's tail made for a surprisingly snug grip on the mage's arm. With one limb secure, he made a very daring grasp for the intriguing cloak again and missed. "Awh!" Darn. And he'd been so close, too. Nexeu steadied the adventuresome infant, giving a quiet cluck of his tongue.

"Well, since you're not being any help, I'll have to name you myself. You're far from being a strangler, so Sphinx won't work..."

While they walked steadily toward the heart of Barton, the mage worked through his short list of interesting names. Though the infant seemed largely uncomprehending, Nexeu thought he detected a faint thread of possibility--an eddy in the stream of time--tied tight around him. Especially the strange, heavy ankh the infant held and the chain it was attached to. Whatever else it was, that thing was a veritable knot of potential, though potential for what... Nexeu wasn't sure.

He heaved a sigh as the thought occured to him again that Xemn had no idea what she was doing, and he and anyone else she roped in to care for these misplaced children was going to suffer for it. But, he also had to admit to himself-- "It WILL be an interesting ride, don't you think?" he inquired aloud of the bundle in his arms.

By now they were well within the shopping district of Barton, which thronged with life during the early afternoon hours. At the sound of the mage's voice, so confidently loud as if he were addressing someone, several heads turned. Most noticed the infant and immediately lost interest. One woman in a particularly florid dress that didn't flatter her swollen waistline at all--now she, she only got more interested at the sight of the infant.

Said infant squeaked in surprise as two fleshy ring-laden hands clapped not far from his ears. "Oh, aren't you just adorable!" The woman's voice was enough to make even Nexeu's jaded ears hurt a little. He gave her a dirty look, stepping away as she advanced. Drawn by the bright colors, the Disgrace in his arms reached out toward her, babbling eagerly.

"Traitor," Nexeu muttered.

Undaunted by the glare, the fat lady plowed forward, holding out her hands and cooing. "What a perfect little darling you are!" she shrilled. The baby in Nexeu's arms reached back, intrigued by the brightly colored shinies all over the woman's hands. Nexeu perked up at something she said, stopping in place long enough the infant in his arms could latch onto the woman's fingers.

Something she said... "What did you say?" the mage inquired of the fat woman, fixing her with an unnerving stare.

She seized up in mid-coo, locking eyes with him a moment before retreating a step. "I, er--that he's a perfect little, er, darling--sir." Nexeu could've laughed, and--in fact--did when he gave it a little more thought.

"Perfect! That's it!" The mage leapt forward with inhuman quickness, freeing an arm from his squealing burden to grab the woman by an ear and haul her close. She gasped and wriggled, only to freeze in horrified shock as he leaned in--to kiss her on one flabby cheek.

Then he was off again in a swirl of cloak, leaving her bewildered and unsure of whether she should call the police--though to report an assault, a mental hospital escapee, or a kidnapping, she wasn't sure.

"Perfect~! That's it--Haurvatat it is."

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User Image The little egg that caused so much trouble... (From here.)

Coronaviridae
Huh. Well, that was certainly interesting. Accustomed as he was to weird things happening, Nexeu wasn't exactly surprised--per se--at the sudden appearance of picnic sites, an egg hunt, and the whole works around them, but he definitely did want to know how whoever else lived in this park with Xemn had managed THAT. That was a sort of sneakery on a high order that the mage could admire--nay, perhaps even envy, and hope one day to emulate. Right now, though, he was more than a little distracted with the fact his infant charge very much wanted down please, right now.

"DOW'!" "All right, all right, already." Good thing Xemn had something else to distract her; she'd probably be more than amused at the sight of the cocksure mage being ordered about by an infant. Nexeu took two steps away from where he'd been standing, looking for somewhere he could set Haurvatat down that wasn't either muddy or potentially dangerous--and on finding a nice tuft of overgrown grass, did just that. "There, see, dow'. Now what are you going to do?"

Haurvatat gave a determined flick of his tail and took off at a crawl through the lawn, pausing to babble at the occasional ladybug or flower he ran across. Fascinated by this entirely novel--to him, anyway, having never raised a baby before--behavior, Nexeu followed at a creeping pace, taking mental notes on every little quirk of his child's expedition.

It therefore came as a small shock to both of them when they ran across the Easter egg. Haurvatat drew back from the cold-shelled thing, thrashing his wings and making noises of shock. Nexeu blinked, hunkering down beside it before scooping it up and rolling it over in both hands. "Huh," he remarked to the baby, in an aside. "I suppose if you go hunting around on Easter..."

He extended a hand to Haurvatat, holding out the egg once more for the Disgrace's inspection. Hau batted at it with a clumsy hand, then drew back and nearly fell over as if it had burned him. Which Nexeu--cursing himself for a fool--supposed it had. "Hu'," the Disgrace whimpered, as his Sentinel hurriedly and with considerable dexterity tucked the offending egg away in his cloak. "Hu', hu...hu..."

Hau's face wrinkled up in a paroxysm of dismay as he drew breath for an all-mighty wail--only to find a finger laid across his lips. He blinked at it damply, lower lip quivering.

"Ssh, mon cher," Nexeu muttered. "Not here. Not right now. Please? For me?" His expression was positively pleading; oh, if Xemn could see this--!

Unfortunately, babies have a way of making grown men cry. Or maybe that's the other way around. Either way, Haurvatat took one long look at his Sentinel before letting loose an ear-splitting wail of hurt and dismay.

Nexeu gave an enormous sigh, hanging his head to hide the shame-faced expression. A moment later he'd scooped the sphinxlet up off the tuft of grass, attempting to distract his wailing Disgrace with a wiggle of his fingers and mumbled baby-talk. Damn it, damn it, damn it! He didn't need this right now!
Toddler Quest


Hehehe. Hau's got a little attitude going on, there's no disputing that. And he certainly seems to have Nexeu under control. It's hard to say much more than that... Hau certainly has a lot of growing to do. And fast, if there's anything we can say about it.....



In order to grow into her next stage, three things will need to be done. Firstly, Hau will need something to which he can relate his own wings to. This can be as simple as a found feather, or a model airplane, or as potentially destructive as a winged pet- anything to which he can compare himself and learn a little from.

Otherwise, Hau will need to accomplish at least one "baby" goal- a first word, a first step. Something that will make it clear that he is indeed ready for his next stage of life.

When this is done, immediately before he is to grow, a roleplay will need to be arranged between Hauvertat and a certain (Disgraces) NPC.

Good luck!

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"We had a visitor today," Nexeu confided to Haurvatat over breakfast. "Or have. Will have? I'm not sure, but I do know it's today."

His infant charge wasn't bothered in the least by his guardian's bizarre way of referring to time; instead, the Disgrace was quite happy to get about a quarter of his applesauce in his mouth and the rest all over the place. His guardian wasn't bothered in the least by this; frankly, Nexeu sort of envied the ability to make a complete mess of one's food, though he knew very well grown men didn't do that sort of thing.

It didn't keep him from doodling suicidal stick figures using the drying egg yolk on his plate. His favorite was the guy feeding himself to sharks, followed closely by the self-electrocution with the toaster in the tub, and then the voluntary dismemberment. "Any way about it, though, there'll be a gift, too. Has been a gift." Pausing, he tore a slice of half-burned toast in two, then in two again, before mopping up his artwork and eating it neatly.

After he'd swallowed, he added: "In fact, I think--" He was interrupted by an insistant tapping on the kitchen window.

Haurvatat looked up from distributing his applesauce more evenly over the table. "Burr'!" he declared, pointing with one chubby fist. Nexeu turned a little in his chair so he he had a better view of the window.

There was indeed a bird sitting in the picturesque little flowerbox under the kitchen window. At least, it looked like some kind of bird, though it had four wings and a reptilian tail and Nexeu was pretty certain birds didn't come in brown with barbed wire patterning. It turned its head to regard the inhabitants of the kitchen with one beady black eye, before raising a metal (definitely not a bird) claw, curling it into a fist, and rapping on the window once more.

Ridicuously, it had what looked like a tiny Easter basket clutched in its beak, in which Nexeu could see two round gems.

"Burr'!" Haurvatat insisted again, brandishing his plastic spoon in a menacing manner. Nexeu gave a shake of his head, getting up from the table and ambling over to open the window wide enough to admit their guest.

"Yes?" he inquired of the bird, voice somewhere between inquiry and amusement.

The bird took two hopping steps onto the kitchen counter, setting its basket down before folding its wings and staring up at the mage imperiously. "Long enough it took you," it croaked. Nexeu quirked a brow at the talking, but didn't seem all that surprised by it.

"It's breakfast. You can hardly expect us to be awake when our collective bloodsugar is low." The mage leaned over to close the window, before beckoning their visitor over to the table. "Toast?"

With dignity long-suffering, the bird picked up the basket again, winging over to the table before settling its burden with inordinate care. It didn't suffer to be handfed, though, stalking over to Nexeu's plate and picking up a piece of toast with one taloned foot. Haurvatat clapped and squealed, delighted by the sight; the bird, distracted from taking its first bite, looked up and rustled one of its many wings.

Nexeu sat back down at the table, folding his arms in front of him. "Burrr'!" his Disgrace trilled again, reaching for the creature with both hands.

"A bird I am not, little humanthing," it croaked, and took a bite of its toast. Spraying crumbs, it added, "The demon Chang-E I am, with a message to your father to deliver."

Once more, the mage quirked a brow. "Let me guess. It's from--"

"The Mistress of the Old House." Chang-E took another bite from its toast, ducking an applesauce-covered hand as Haurvatat got a little too close. Nexeu got up to remove his infant from the tottering high-chair, tsking softly. Though whether it was to the Disgrace or their visitor, it was unclear.

Infant and a dishrag firmly in-hand, the mage seated himself at the table again and got to work at removing Haurvatat's fine coat of applesauce from his face and hands. "Took her long enough to let us know she was still alive. Mother's laid up in a hospital somewhere after nearly killing Black," Nexeu remarked, taking another swipe at his child's face before beeping his nose playfully. Haurvatat squeaked, surprised.

Placing the crust of the toast delicately back onto the plate, Chang-E gave a raspy snort and another rustle of its wings. "My concern that is not. A gift, I brought you; to take care of them, she said." It swept one of its smaller wings toward the basket on the table. Nexeu took another look at them, setting the washcloth out of Haurvatat's reach as he did.

"Huh." And then, again: "Huh. So THOSE are what your eggs look like. They hatched--will hatch--"

"A day or two," Chang-E confirmed, before hopping toward the edge of the table--and turning a beady black eye toward the infant in Nexeu's arms. "Do not, I tell you, to your infant feed them. Make life very unpleasant, I will. They do break." Uncomprehending, Haurvatat reached again for the pretty bird, burbling eagerly.

"Wa', wa', wa'..."

Stepping deftly aside from an inexpert pass at its tail, Chang-E turned its attention to the mage. "For the toast, I thank you." It launched itself from the edge of the table with those words, flapping heavily over to the window. "Let myself out, I will." True to its word, it managed to open the window and disappeared into the summer morning with a rustle of wings.

Nexeu had picked up the cloth again by then, distracting Haurvatat from the disappearance of the "burr'" by rubbing the applesauce off his fingers. "Well, look at that. It seems we've got some new pets, mon cher. We'll need to give them names them once we've cleaned up from breakfast, hmm?"


+++

Familiar with the eggs of birds, Nexeu had expected the Dream eggs would make some sort of ruckus before hatching. Expected--in that way someone who lived a little outside of consensual time could expect, anyway, by pretending to ignore what his other senses were telling him. So he feigned surprise when, at dinner the next day, the little eggs popped like a pair of soap bubbles and disgorged their hatchling contents with no fuss whatsoever. Haurvatat, being young, was positively delighted when the brighter of the two hatchlings staggered his way and flopped belly-down next to the Disgrace's sippy-cup.

"Nana!" Haurvatat trilled, abandoning his food in order to reach awkwardly for the baby Dream. Determined, the hatchling pushed itself to its points and latched onto the pudgy fingers thrust its way, peeping at its new dreamer. (That one, their committee of two had decided, was "Banana" for short, known more professionally as "Orinoco".)

Nexeu watched all of this with vaguely paternal amusement, head propped against one hand. He was interrupted by a demanding peep from near his other hand, and looked down to find the other hatchling (much darker in color, and decidedly more sinister-looking, if the mage were any judge of these things) standing there with wings unfurled and a look of demand in its red eyes. (On account of looking vaguely sunlike, this would be "Coriolis", though the best Haurvatat could do with that name was a sustained "Oliolioli!" that made his guardian giggle in a totally unbecoming way.) Obediently, Nexeu held out a hand to the little creature, who stepped onto it before promptly scrambling up the mage's arm to nest in his hair. It declared its satisfaction with this arrangement with a lordly squeak, before immediately falling asleep where it was.

"Nana" and Haurvatat were meanwhile busily comparing wings, something that brought an earnest smile to Nexeu's face. "Well," he mused aloud. "That went better than I thought it might."

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The day they found the dead tarantula was a milestone.

Alerted to the very near possibility/certainty of visitors to their home, Nexeu had begun cleaning out the spare room with singleminded intensity. It provided a distraction from things he'd rather not be thinking about, though it invited all kinds of other domestic problems in the form of roving dust bunnies and other little creatures knocked out of their homes and on the move. All of them had so far been quite lively, and Nexeu had more than a couple of empty jam jars, now full, stacked up in the kitchen with the new acquisitions awaiting rehoming. (Or conversion into spell components, though that--he had admitted ruefully--would be very difficult with Haurvatat's apparent aversion to death.)

Currently the Disgrace wasn't being at all troublesome, though; quite the opposite. He was doing a very good job of keeping Coriolis and Orinoco busy with exploring the far reaches of the room, while Nexeu dredged things out from the black hole under the guest bed. So far, the mage had found a box of wrapping paper, three very puffy (and therefore suspect) cans of soup, thirty feet of snarled ribbon (that his son and the Dreams had immediately seized upon to play with), and more dust bunnies than he could readily count.

Typical of anthropomorphized objects in a mage's household, the dust bunnies were happy to hippity-hop over and join Haurvatat and the dreamlets with their ribbon. Agreeable little creatures, Nexeu opined, so long as you didn't have allergies. It was a good thing he didn't, as he was right now belly-down on the carpet with most of his right arm under the bed, fishing around for the jar of loose change he'd seen back there. No luck so far, but he was pretty sure he'd seen it roll down toward the foot of the bed while he was getting the last of the ribbon out.

It suddenly went very quiet in the room, in the way that meant no good whatsoever when there were healthy children about. Nexeu sat up so fast he nearly brained himself on the underside of the bed, and as it was he was left rubbing at the lump on his skull. The dust bunnies zipped past him, scrambling over one another in their haste to get back to the safe darkness under the bed. This did not immediately bode for anything frightening; they were just bunnies after all, but still... The mage took his hand from his head, clambering to his feet and turning to look for the carnage.

"Carnage" in this case amounted to a very large, very dead spider that Coriolis was busy pecking to pieces--and eating, from the looks of it. Haurvatat sat off to one side with a vaguely shell-shocked cant to his wings that told Nexeu the screaming fit would be next, while Orinoco was plastered to his hair like an out-of-place jewel. The mage took two steps toward the ugly little tableau, putting out a hand and preparing to call Coriolis back.

"Dead," the Disgrace said, very clearly. It was the first word Nexeu had actually heard him articulate fully, and it made the mage pause.

"That's not a very auspicious first word, mon cher," he said, quite softly.

Haurvatat sniffled once. The dreamlet clinging to his hair sat itself up, fluffing out its wings and hissing angrily at its sibling. Coriolis jumped, startled, before hissing back and taking off to join the dust bunnies under the bed. "Is dead," Haurvatat repeated, and then burst into tears.

Oh, thought Nexeu. I am going to have words with Xemn...

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