20 Thunderbird Lane, MHC #6, Monday Morning

[arboreal_priestess]

"Priestess." The mouse's voice was very soft and right in her ear. "Priestess."

"Mmmwha--?" Verity mumbled, barely conscious. She was exhausted after a weekend of running around with a child's seemingly inexhaustible fount of energy, followed by an evening of sugar and cartoons and--

Something about that scenario nagged at her, but she wasn't quite up to figuring out what it was. And, honestly, she didn't really want to. Because if she figured it out, she'd have to deal with it and these sheets were so nice and soft.

"PRIESTESS!" the mouse shouted, just as Verity drifted off again.

"What?" Verity snapped, cranky and aggravated. "Oh god, is it a holiday I need to be involved in?" And there was no Antimony to foist this off on, either. "Can't it wait until later?" She was whining, she knew. She wasn't proud of that.

"You are not needed," the mouse said calmly, tucking her arms back into her voluminous sleeves. "But the Parade Route goes through your bedroom."

"So?" Verity did not see why this required her to be awake. "Just try to be quiet when you go through."

"Then you do not wish to invoke the rite of Food For Privacy?" the mouse asked. "Very well. I just wished to ascertain that before we began."

"No," Verity said, her brain trying harder to pinpoint that thing that she was forgetting. "Why would I care about that now?"

Cartoons. Candy. And laughing with her new friend--

"We were not certain if your new friend should know of our existence or not." The mouse pointed to the other side of the bed, where another person still lay sleeping.

"Right," Verity said. "Fuck."

[For the one currently there and so much SP!]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

"Nrrrgh."

Give Liam a moment, he wasn't quite awake just yet even though the mun was too much of a cheap bastard to add extra icons

[arboreal_priestess]

Believe her, Liam, she'd been right there with you just a few moments ago. But now she had a strange guy in her bed and a talking mouse asking about parade routes and Verity wanted an Irish coffee, heavy on the Irish.

"Okay, yes, invoking the rite of privacy," she hissed. "We don't know him so just stay out of the way until I figure out what to do with him."

Oh god, how much had she babbled to him last night? Even as a little kid she knew better!

"But the parade, Priestess!"

"You have a whole room," Verity pointed out. "You can do a couple of laps of your room, okay?"

The mouse sniffed, whiskers quivering with disapproval, but nodded and bowed. "As you say, Priestess."

[firstofitskind]

Yeah, something about this whole scenario just wasn't adding up. For one, those sheets were soft. Way nicer than the ones Liam was used to, for sure. For two, there was someone else in the bed.

So now it was Liam's turn to bolt upright with a "What?"

[arboreal_priestess]

By reflex, Verity's hand shot under her pillow but--right. All her weapons were hidden about town. She'd have to...go get those. You know, right after she dealt with a strange guy in her bed.

"Good morning," she managed as the mouse scurried out of the room, a flash of brown fur and green fabric. "So, this is weird."

[firstofitskind]

At least he was a fully-clothed strange guy, having fallen asleep when they were both still small children?

"Little bit," Liam said, running a hand through his hair. The events of the weekend were starting to come back to him now, and he was- kind of stuck on trying to process.

[arboreal_priestess]

She was pretty grateful for that, yes.

"Whole lotta firsts for me," Verity said, grateful that the oversized shirt she'd pulled on as a little kid was still pretty big now. Being fairly tiny as an adult occasionally had it's advantages, even if high cupboards remained the worst. "Did we ever, ahh, actually introduce ourselves? I'm Verity."

She stuck out her hand for a shake, feeling incredibly weird to be trying to shake someone's hand that she'd just woken up next to.

[firstofitskind]

"Liam," he replied in kind, shaking that offered hand. Depending on how observant Verity was, she might notice those reddish triangle-shaped marks on Liam's palms.

Totally a birthmark. Totally.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity was a trained cryptozoologist. Observation was a part of how she survived. And, no, she wasn't about to buy the birthmark story, either. The triangles were too perfect and symmetrical to be something random as that.

But her guess was some kind of burn or maybe a brand, at least. Possibly a very weird tattoo? Cetainly not implanted weaponry, so that was...something?

"So, yeah, last night was possibly the craziest night I've had without drinking," Verity said with a laugh, giving his branded hand a quick shake. "We sure were some imaginative kids, huh?"

Was he gonna go for that?

[firstofitskind]

Well, not implanted, as he'd been born with them, but the shaqarava were weapons of a sort. Not that they got much use these days.

Also? He wasn't really going to go for that, no. "Imaginative is one word for it." She'd threatened him with a Nerf gun! ... And then adopted him. But shh.

[arboreal_priestess]

Why did no one ever go for the easy out on this stupid island?

And also, she thought he was part of a training activity! He was supposed to have a gun, too!

"Was there another word you were thinking of using?" Verity asked.

[firstofitskind]

"Well," he hedged. "You were also very kind to me." Wasn't every day someone offered to have their parents adopt him, after all. Maybe it would be better to start with that than jump head-first into all the weird stuff their younger-selves had said?

[arboreal_priestess]

"You didn't know what peanut butter and jelly was!" Verity said, laughing despite herself. "That was a travesty I couldn't let stand. Did you like it?"

[firstofitskind]

"I did," Liam had to admit. "Your poor kitchen, though..."

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity looked at the wall across from the kitchen and sighed. "We really did," she agreed. "Also whose idea was it to mix PB&J and turn it into a chicken nugget dipping sauce?"

And get most of it on her floor. And walls. And a bit on the ceiling.

"...You want a cup of coffee? I'm not sure how much of this conversation I can have uncaffeinated."

[firstofitskind]

"Coffee would be great," Liam admitted. He was usually a tea kind of guy, but caffeine in any form would not go amiss right about now.

[arboreal_priestess]

Pulling, her hair back, Verity made her way to the bedroom door. "How do you like your coffee?" she asked, turning the knob and pulling it open. "Black or with mil--"

The door opened and a handful of mice stood in the entryway, all clad in tiny, colorful costumed and in various postures of eavesdropping.

Verity looked at the mice. The mice looked up at Verity, blinking their little black dew-drop eyes. "Uhhhh...hail?" one of them offered timidly.

[firstofitskind]

Liam had been about to answer Verity's question when he noticed just why she hadn't actually finished said question.

"... I don't remember meeting them," he managed finally. It was a testament to how long he'd been in Fandom that this wasn't the absolute weirdest thing he'd seen.

It was still fairly up there, though.

[arboreal_priestess]

"That's because you weren't supposed to," Verity said, sounding annoyed but not at him/ "Looks like we're definitely having that conversation now."

She stepped over the mice, who scattered, vanishing as if they'd never been, and Verity marched out into her wreck of a kitchen and started putting together the coffee.

At least as kids, they hadn't any interest in having some of that, so the coffee machine had remained unscathed by their pint-sized rampage.

"Come out whenever you're ready," she called into her room.

[firstofitskind]

Liam watched them scatter, and then figured there really wasn't any point in delaying the inevitable.

"Interesting choice of roommates," he commented as he made his way into the kitchen.

[arboreal_priestess]

"They're...complicated," Verity said, setting up the coffee with a little more force than needed. This was really not how she'd thought she'd be spending her Monday morning.

On the plus side, he lived on the island and talked about aliens, so Liam was probably open-minded? And not a secret Covenant plant?

"So, before I tell you anything, let me ask you a question--how do you feel about extinction, xenocide, and the supremacy of the human race?"

[firstofitskind]

Liam visibly flinched.

"Not, uh. Not great."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Well, at least my instincts as a kid weren't completely terrible," she muttered, more to herself as she rinsed out a pair of mugs. She gestured at him to take a seat at her kitchen table, a rickety card table with two aluminum folding chairs.

Yeah, she lived the high life.

"...So," she said, taking a seat of her own. "In my version of reality, there's way more in heaven and earth than that is dreamed of in most people's philosophies. Whole races of different species that most of mankind doesn't know exist--or, at least don't believe in. Some of those are just different strains of animals, like jackalopes and frickens and basilisks. Others are sapient creatures with their own languages, cultures, and societies. And most of them are just trying to get by without attracting the notice of the number one threat to their safety and habitat: mankind."

[firstofitskind]

Hey, the only reason Liam lived anywhere remotely furnished is because he lived in the same house as Magnus, who had a whole thing with woodworking. So he took the offered seat with no judgement.

"And you- protect these other species?"

[arboreal_priestess]

A roommate wasn't something Verity could seriously consider, for reasons Liam would see shortly.

Verity nodded. "Well, we try. It's complicated. And we try to learn about them, as much as we can. We also try to keep the peace. Most cities have a decent sized cryptid population, both sapient and non- and we kind of act as guards, maybe? Police? Most of the sapient cryptids are good at keeping their heads down, but the animal ones can sometimes draw the wrong kind of attention. So, a cryptozoologist tries to help the cryptids from drawing human attention and keep the humans from realizing anything's amiss."

[firstofitskind]

"Oh," Liam realized as something else suddenly made sense. "Cryptozooologist."