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_______Info
>> Name
Leeta
>> Gender
Female
>> Owner
Keppit
>> Scent
Carrion
>> D.O.B
10/30/08
>> Stage
Child

>> Likes
>> Dislikes
>> Personality
Shy, Lonely, Morbidly Cheery
>> Something Special

Keppit Kalhoun was born a normal human woman. However four years ago she was unlucky enough to be bitten by a frog carrying a deadly disease. Long story short, she became a flesh eating zombie, and underwent a series of experiments that were intended to cure her and eventually was 'separated' into two people. Her own self, with wits and intelligence but still a zombie in appearance... and another woman who looked just like her, only had very pale skin and white hair... the second woman claimed to also be named Keppit and could indeed remember all Keppit's memories and past... the two talked and agreed that the clone Keppit was essentially a sister and would go by their middle name... Ranald.

Ranald Kalhoun is a strange woman. *see keppit's descrip for origin details*. She delights in shocking others and generally being a nusciance. Ranald and Keppit call each other sister and both live in the same one room cabin with all Keppit's kids. There's acually quite a bit of mental past to Ranald, because she's basically had to let go of her kids. When she was cloned from Keppit, the three oldest children were almost full grown and she could remember them calling her mom, and being their mother... but they didn't call her mother anymore... they all called her aunt Ranald. And though Ran would never say this outloud, it was essentially like being demoted by her own kids in her mind.

Natanial Kalhoun is Keppit's only biological son. He's a really sweet kid, and is about three years old now. He has his mother's skin colouring and his father's pointy ears. Although Nate may look like a zombie it's really only his colouring that does it. He is completely alive, can see just fine, can taste hear and smell just fine, and usually smells like a normal baby. Keppit is very fond of him, since he's one of her few children remaining in her house. Nate and Willie don't really get along... in fact they pretty much ignore each other.

Annastasia Rashanine Willamine Canigi Kalhoun... known as Willie to the family. Willie is a very strange little toad girl. She's about 4 inches tall and tends to ignore the family in search of her own adventures and agendas around the cabin. Willie, being a velveteen by species, is imbued with certain powers, one of which is hallucination. So far Keppit and Ranald are the only two people that the little princess, adventuring, rainbow toad can make hallucintate without permission, but she is getting stonger all the time.

It was hours later, Ranald was fast alseap on the sofa as always, and Nate was sleeping soundly in the cot under Gus's loft. Keppit sighed and looked around her little one rrom cabin. There were three sleeping lofts in the ceiling where her three oldest children used to sleep. Then there were three cots under those. One was empty but the other two held her two youngest children, Nate and Willie. She glanced up at the three upper cots once more and thought about her eldest. Jen was safe and sound, living with Dan and their children at the Hq... but Gus was away on the Skull Monkey boat, and Satou was goodness only knows where. Keppit had almost given up hope of seeing her again. She turned back towards her own bed over in the corner and resolved herself a restful sleep... but the box that Ranald had given her earlier caught her attention. She walked slowly over to the counter and placed her bandage covered hands on either side of the box as if she were almost afraid to open it again.

She'd spent almost an hour in that Scent shop the other day. Every candle, oil, and burner had all been so pretty and so unique. She'd looked almost every one over, trying to imagine what they might smell like. After all, it had been years since Keppit had lost her sense of smell, gone soon after she'd been 'cured' of her zombie-sim. Not that she'd been cured at all, only that she'd been given back her senses, and no longer craved the flesh of others. She sighed... For all intents and purposes though she still looked and smelled like a zombie, and if she didn't take care of herself, then she fell apart like a zombie.... she had no sense of touch, no sense of taste... and no sense of smell. It plagued her mind. Certain things like Nate's hair. She knew that his hair must be soft, but no matter how many times she ran her fingers through it, she never could actually feel it.

And this candle... she knew that once this oil was lit it must smell horrid... but as she stared down on the closed box she knew that she'd love the scent that came from it... if only it meant that she'd be able to smell again.

She pushed the box back towards the back of the counter with a sigh and then took herself off to bed.

She couldn't sleep. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to make her head rest on the pillow right... couldn't get her eyes to stay shut. Over in the corner she could hear the soft snores of Nate and Ranald, and she could her Willie murmering her adventures in her sleep. There really was nothing wrong with this situation, so there really was no reason in the whole world why she shouldn't be able to just drift off...

Except that candle. That oil burner from the candleshop that Ranald had bought. Even though Keppit couldn't smell, there were times in her life recently where should would swear that she could. But Ranald and Fitz both had suggested that perhaps she was only remembering a smell... that perhaps her mind was supplying her with the information that she so desired... The saddest part of that was that they were most likely right.

But she had to test that theory.

So she slowly and quietly climbed out of the bed and went to get the candle. Once she had it in her hand she went into the bathroom and deposited the little green and brown thing on the countertop. The zombie woman spent no less than 7 minutes staring at it, trying to convince herself to light it, and 6 more minutes with several generations of lit matches in her fingers before she actually managed to set flame to the burner.

She let the candle burn for a moment before leaning in close and taking a slow deep breath... nothing. So she took another slow and deep breath in through her nose, trying desperately to smell what she knew must be a truely horrid smell. Still nothing. She sat back on the side of the tub and sighed to herself, watching the flame with a morbid need for distraction.

It was some minutes later before she noticed that the room was begining to fill with more smoke than she liked. So she leaned forward to blow out the flame, but as she did she thought she saw a skull shape in the smoke... so she stopped and stared, but the more she looked, the more difficult it was to associate the smoke with any shapes... so she leaned in to blow out the candle again... there was another shape like formation in the smoke... this time it was the face of a lion, or so she thoguht. As she stared and tried to see the lion face better, she caught sight of something else out of the corner of her eye. There was a deer or somthing in the smoke, only a shape still... but as she turned to look at it, the smoke lion moved, almost as if on the breeze, and enveloped the deer shape... once the two shapes were done mixing all that was left was a green and brown mass of smoke with small puffs of red in it... Keppit gasped. "carrion" She whispered the word, and watched in almost a fascinating horror as the smoke pictures developed and devowered each other, one by one.

Eventually, Keppit realized she couldn't watch one more smoke shape get 'eaten' by another, and she quickly leaned over, blew out the candle, and headed out the door off to bed, clicking the lightswitch behind her. But she failed to notice that she hadn't managed to blow out the candle... that it was still burning, quietly and safely in the dark on the countertop...

And not having noticed that, she also wouldn't have known that the shadows continued to develop and 'devower' each other all through the night.

There was no telling what Ranald was talking about. The woman was hollering something about footprints or oil or something, and then Keppit had heard Ranald yelling to someone else (something about leaving footprints on the bed) and then the phone had gone dead. Naturally Keppit had hurridly paid for the groceries, leapt into the car, and had sped all the way home.

Now the zombie woman was entering the front door of the cabin that she shared with her twin sister and her children, not knowing exactly what to expect. What she did see, was Ranald standing three feet away from the bed with her arms crossed in front of her, and a scowl on her face that could probably kill a donkey mid carrot. "Ran? What's wrong?" Keppit actually found herself a little worried now that she was looking at the current situation.

Ranald just sighed and then pointed at the carpet with an accusing finger. "Just look will you? The little monster has left all these oily damn footprints all over the carpet... and she wouldn't stand still either! Just look!" She trailed her finger quickly around the room. There were indeed many many oily footprints spread around the room. They seemed to start at the bathroom door, and made their way over the short rug in front of the door, up over the bed, into the kitchen, smeared all over two cupboard fronts, through the livingroom and then a beeline right back under the bed. Because she didn't see any footprints coming out from under the bed, Keppit assumed that whatever had made them was still under there. "I tried to catch it Kepp, I really did, but it's a slippery little monster." Ranald sighed.

Keppit, in turn, just stared back at her sister for a moment before asking the inevitable question. "I don't understand. What kind of monster are we talking about?"

Ranald rolled her eyes. "I forgot. You can't smell it." She grabbed Keppit by the arm and dragged her into the bathroom, but not before casting a weary last glance at the oily bedskirt. "Look." The white haired woman pointed at the countertop where there was a cracked candle and burnt countertop, and a burner looking somewhat worse for the wear. "you left that damn carrion candle that I gave you burning in here, and the blasted thing turned into a little monster child who smells like death on legs." She grabbed Keppit by the arms and dragged her back into the mainroom before the zombie woman could protest. "Then the little oil monster came out here where I saw her and thought she was Charlie playing a trick... but as you might have guessed it wasn't. I tried to talk to her but she ran, and so I followed, and the mess you see is what happened... now that smelly kid is under the bed and I can't get her to come out."

Keppit's mouth was hanging open in shock now. "Monster oil burner child... carrion."

"Right." Ranald finally let go of her sister's arms and returned to her pervious iritated stance. "And I think, that now it's your turn to try and get the little brat out from under the bed."

Keppit took a moment to let her head clear and then knealt down to look under the bed. "hey... my name is Keppit, and I won't hurt you..."

"Yeah... " Ranald scoffed. "Like I hadn't tried that approach already."

"well when I say it I mean it." Keppit layed down the floor. "Please?"

Keppit had no sooner knealt down the second time, than she heard Leeta's voice for the first time. "Leave me alone.... please?"

Keppit sighed and sat back, with a special glowering stare meant only for her tiwn sister. Ranald had nothing but a sigh and a glare of her own in return. "What?!?!" Ranald asked. "What did you expect her to say? Oh yes, you're like me, you're bad smelling and rotting just like me?"

"I am not those things!" Keppit about hollered it. "I used to be those things, but you know very well that I'm cured now, and that I can't be held responsible for how I look." She calmed visibly. "Besides, I take very good care of myself now adays." Keppit just pursed her lips and stared back at Ranald. She couldn't say how long she'd been staring at her sister before they both heard the voice again.

"Can you cure me?"

"What?" The child's voice suddenly had startled Keppit and she wasn't quite sure that she had heard what the kid had said. "You want to be cured? Cured of what?"

Slowly the back of a littel blue sweatshirt came into view, and then two little hands that were bandaged and torn, then the whole child came into view and Keppit could see everything except her face... the girl's pants were ripped and her knee bones were poking through her skin in places. Her hair was moppy, blonde, and unkempt... and her clothing? Her clothing was so dirty that it became difficult to tell what colour it was supposed to be.

Then the girl tilted her face up towards Keppit. "Of whatever you had that made you like this?"

"Oh my goodness!" Keppit reached out and laid a hand on the little girl's shoulder, not knowing what to touch and what not to touch, her eyes flipping between bandages, sores, and gaping flesh wounds. "You're hurt!"

The child just looked down at her own knees and hands in confusion. "No I'm not... This is... this is who I am."

Keppit looked the girl over once again. "This doesn't hurt? I mean, any of it... that hole there? The bandage over your face?"

"No... " Matter of factly, not a trace of being upset or anything related. "It's the way it is." Suddenly she pointed at Ranald. "She says I'm a monster... is that true? And do I smell bad?"

Keppit glared at her sister before the other woman could answer. "No... I don't think you're a monster.... I think we should go back to the candle shop and see why you're here and where you come from... and as for the smelling bad, I can't smell sweetheart... so you don't smell bad to me."

At this point Ranald could no longer hold in her statements. "You smell awful.... but maybe it will wear off?"