It's a Long Way Up and Down Who: Desdemona and Kai When: Anesus 4, 12:45 AM Where: First Floor Stairwell
When the holes remained all over the walls, Desdemona assumed that the test remained, not that another had appeared. She'd been sitting in the Main Hall with a few other of her kind, then breathed a small sigh of relief when nothing seemed to change. Having risen from her chair, she started back to her room, thinking she might change into something a bit more comfortable before heading out for the night. Her mind wandered, wondering what she might chase, or if she would just play in the darkness alone. It was a silly thing to dedicate her thoughts to, and she felt even more foolish when she tripped, thinking she should watch where she was going right before she understood the situation in full.
A curse fell loudly from her lips as she fell, grabbing hold of the ground as her body dangled between floors. Or was she holding on to the ceiling of the floor below. She hung there, looking up, blood trickling down her arm from a deep scrape along her wrist. That was the least of her worries, far more concerned with which way to go. It was a long way down, but she was fairly certain she could manage a landing. The better question was, if she went down, how likely was it that she could get back up again? And even if she wanted to stay on the first floor, pulling herself up from this angle was anything but easy.
Though not impossible. Her body weight wasn't too much to handle, but all those damn skirts were such a pain at the moment. Desdemona reached slowly, inching back up onto the first floor bit by bit. This was when she was glad to be a Vrykola, fairly certain a Human girl would be struggling even more than she was.
Holes in the walls and a full moon just a day away…the wilds outside the castle would be a bad place to roam come the following night, Kai suspected. Not to mention wet, if the heavy clouds blacking out the stars boded what she thought they did. A sky full of rain and wilds dotted by moon-mad Lykos who weren’t her own tribe…yeah, tomorrow night would be a night to keep indoors, Kai thought.
…not that tonight was much better. Even in all her fur, the frigid wind sapped at her body heat and quickly drained away all the warmth she built up chasing down a bit of “lunch”. Maybe if she’d had someone else to run and romp with, she would have been inclined to dare the chill for longer, but she was still working on that whole pack thing. She had yet to meet another Lykos for more than a passing interaction and was thinking it was about time she really put her nose to tracking Marcus or maybe even Churat down when the former wasn’t asleep and the latter wasn’t…well…whatever it was he got up to when he wasn’t playfighting over chesspieces.
For the moment, though, it was time to get back inside and see what the newest midnight had brought around. Kai could sense it was about that time of the night, and since nothing horribly obvious had happened outside, the newest challenge must be inside. What, she wondered, would follow the holes in the walls? Not that those had been much of a challenge, not even when she had that shoe thrown at her, but…. Well, no matter—whatever had happened, or would soon been happening, for this midnight was something she was eager to find out.
She certainly hadn’t expected that rounding into the stairwell, after shouldering a door open and padding into the castle proper, would present her with a lack of stairs and the addition of female of some variety apparently climbing up out of the floor. The feral-formed Lykos yelped and backpedaled at the discovery, blinking owlishly at the humanoid face just a body-length away from her paws, which was inexplicably accompanied by the pungent odor of spilled blood.
No, wait, not so inexplicable—one of the arms holding the female to the floor was bleeding from the wrist. She’d hurt herself!
With a worried yip and an impetuous lack of caution or introduction, Kai hurried forward to lean over in attempt to lend what aid her current shape could—in the form of teeth aiming to snare a hold in the copious fabric of the woman’s clothing.
Desdemona had been concentrating on pulling herself up, so she didn't sense the Lykos until her teeth were tugging against the material of her cloak. Her reaction was to yelp herself, slipping slightly before she caught her grip again. Instinct told her that she was being attacked, though that didn't seem to be the case-- if it wasn't for the Lykos, she might have actually fallen in her moment of surprise. She couldn't bring herself to push the Lykos away, forcing herself to accept the help as she pulled herself back over the edge, breathing hard out of nervousness.
"Thank you," she said, laying back on the cold ground as she looked up at the animal. This was a position she would never have wanted to be in if the Lykos hadn't just helped her. Though she'd seen a Lykos in this form, she'd never been quite so close to one, or their teeth. Desdemona slowly slid up the wall, sitting very still as she watched the Lykos. Girl. She could tell by the scent. For a moment, she sat quietly, then cast a quick glance towards the stairs... or lack there of.
"I found the challenge," she said, looking back at the Lykos, a hint of a smile on her lips. With a sigh, she looked down at her wrist, inspecting the injury. At least her fangs stayed properly put up, seeing as how it was her own blood. It never had quite the same scent pouring from her own veins.
Even if she was small for her species, Kai still outsized the other woman and didn’t even have to strain to hold her securely when her grip failed, and found it perfectly easy to help pull her back up over the edge.
With solid ground regained for the poor female, Kai released her cloak (probably leaving a pattern of tooth-marks behind) and stepped back. Only a pace, though, hovering worriedly over the prone woman and taking the scents of worry and fear rolling off of her to be caused by her near-fall rather than Kai’s presence. Her thanks at least earned a wag of the tail that said you’re welcome, but Kai still watched the woman with worried gaze and tilted head as she was so slow to sit up again—had she hurt more than just her arm?
Kai glanced at the empty stairwells at the female’s other statement, chuffing in acknowledgment and a kind of disbelief. What kind of challenge was missing stairs? Was the poor human-or-Vrykola woman meant to be their only prey, or had other things happened elsewhere as well?
Then, with a concerned little whine, Kai stepped close again and attempted to nose at the woman’s wrist, to see how bad the injury was for herself. Her tail wagged slowly the whole while, a gesture that said she was peaceful and meant no harm, at least to those who could read it.
While her cloak might be a concern later, it did little to bother Desdemona now. She could mend clothing just fine, and what were a few tears to falling into the basement? Desdemona calmed slowly, out of harm's way for now. Though she was sure she could have survived the fall, she wasn't all that certain she could have gotten back up again, at least not on her own.
Desdemona flinched as the Lykos came close again, still not used to having such a large creature that close, especially one she considered an enemy. Again, she was shown she had nothing to fear. She turned her wrist over so that the Lykos could see it, her thumb moving lightly over the wound, not even as deep as her fangs could go. True, it was a tender spot that bled a lot, due to her pulse, but she wasn't Human. "I'm okay," she said, giving the Lykos a small smile. "That's easy to fix."
Twisting her arm towards her mouth, Desdemona sucked lightly on the wound for only a second, her tongue brushing over the blood. It would take more work to heal a Human or Lykos, but on herself it was a rather simple exercise. When she pulled her wrist back, the wound was completely gone. At that point, Desdemona reached out towards the Lykos tentatively, showing her. "See? All better."
It was a relief to see the woman’s wound wasn’t as bad as the blood had led Kai to worry, though if she hadn’t pulled her hand back when she did, she just might have wound up with Kai taking a few cleaning licks at it. As it was, Kai watched with sympathy as the woman put her wound to her mouth and the Lykos wondered if she should go find something to serve as a bandage, only to be surprised when she was shown the woman’s wrist again.
She sniffed at the cleaned and newly-healed skin in fascination, wondering if there was magic involved, before remembering things she’d heard from elder members of her tribe—in this case, how they had said to never let an injured Vrykola run from you, because it would heal faster than you and come back to get you while you were still recuperating. And of course, now that the immediate danger had passed and Kai was focused on the woman rather than the precarious position she’d just been in, she became aware that the only calming heartbeat she heard was her own.
Reassured that all seemed to be well now, Kai sat back from the newly-identified Vrykola with a chuffing sigh of relief, wagging her tail happily.
As little as she knew about Lykos, Desdemona knew the basic signs of happiness in their animal form, just through her interaction with the wolves and cats on Trivald. As Kai wagged her tail, Desdemona smiled, wondering if it would be appropriate to reach out and pet her in thanks. There was a large question mark where that was concerned and the last thing she wanted was to offend the girl that had helped her.
"Can I pet you?" she finally asked, her lips curling up slightly. "I don't know if that's rude, or... how it will be perceived. I want to ask your name," she said, then laughed softly. "I'm Desdemona." She could offer that much from her side, since she was the one with a mouth to talk. For the moment, she was fine to ignore the gaping hole in the floor. She wasn't in a rush to get downstairs, though it was a problem that would have to be solved before the night was over, even if it took falling down there just to get away from the sun.
Desdemona’s concerns were certainly justified. Most any other Lykos surely would have been insulted by a total stranger making such a request, and for that stranger to be a Vrykola of all peoples only would have made it all the more hateful.
But lucky for the young woman, this was Kai she was asking, who had already been surprised by petting and ear-ruffles from Marcus and Churat and learned the sensation was quite pleasurable, and who beneath all her cheer and optimism was still lonely for physical contact with packmates. So if Desdemona wanted to pet her, a Vrykola stranger or not, Kai was not about to snub the opportunity for a little attention.
Desdemona, she agreed, shuffling the name around into her feral body’s language. The vowel-sounds came out about in the same place, enough that Desdemona might be able to recognize the repetition, but the rest became ear-flicks and a toss of the tail. Then Kai shuffled forward again with her head dropped invitingly, giving one of the Vrykola’s hands a bump with her snout.
I’m Kai, she then attempted to offer, her name mostly vocal, though a little rounded in syllable. But when there was a pet to be had, proper pronunciation of her name could come second.
The response was foreign to Desdemona's ears, yet she knew that's what it was, even if she couldn't make it out. She would have never guessed it was her name, which was complicated enough in her own tongue. There was little written about the Lykos language, most likely because the books that Vrykolas came in contact with were written by Vrykolas themselves, not Lykos. It was unlikely that the Lykos felt a need to explain their language, and even if they could, why write it down? Desdemona didn't expect to learn it, but she could read enough in body language to tell the offer had been accepted.
She laughed softly as Kai bumped her hand with her snout, then ran her hand slowly up the Lykos' nose to her ears. Her fur was soft, but thick, probably keeping her plenty warm, her body a stark contrast to Desdemona's chilled fingers. She scratched lightly behind her ears before running her hand down Kai's back. It was hard to believe there was a human-type mind in a Lykos when they were in this form, they seemed so much like an animal, but Desdemona didn't doubt it.
"We should put something up so no one else accidentally stumbles through," Desdemona said. "Though most people will probably watch where they're going, I don't want to see anyone fall." With a glance towards the hole, she wondered about the best way to go about it. She didn't want to block the hole in the floor, just do something so that people would be warned that the stairs were gone.
The combination scratch-and-pet made Kai close her eyes in pleasure and growl, a sound that rumbled in her throat without showing her teeth and thus was a happy sound rather than an annoyed one. Just why it felt so good to have somebody else’s hands on her fur, she couldn’t have said, but she wasn’t about to put too much thought into it, either. She wasn’t even bothered by the coolness of Desdemona’s hand.
She opened her eyes again when the Vrykola spoke, turning her head just enough to consider the empty staircase as well. Put something up? Like what? Kai could immediately imagine something like a guardrail, like those used to ward the edges of platforms in her tribe’s treehouse constructions, but how could they possibly duplicate that effect? She knew from her explorations that all the rope was downstairs in one of the rooms far in the back, but even if they could get to it, they’d have no way of getting back up, or of attaching it to the walls to string in front of the gap.
Was there anything else? Hmm. They were stuck on the first floor, with the kitchen, the room with the giant water-hole, the strange room that smelled like soap and filth, the big main hall, the kitchen, the room with all the wood and tools.... Hrn. Well, nothing occurred to her off the top of her head, but maybe if she went looking to see what was available, she’d come up with something?
With a reluctant little chuff, only because it meant stepping away from Desdemona’s hands, Kai carefully backed away from the Vrykola woman. She gave herself a vigorous shake once she had room, shifting down into her much smaller natural form (but no further than that, because she wasn’t about to walk around skin-naked) in a crouch on the floor.
Now in the possession of a pair of stubby hands, she pointed at the woman, pointed at her own two eyes, and then pointed at the nonexistent staircase. She held the gesture a moment, then tapped her own chest and pointed out at the hall. Finally, she cocked her head hopefully at Desdemona and wagged her tail, hoping the Vrykola understood: she could watch the stairwell, while Kai went looking for something to indicate the potential danger.
Even though Kai had stepped away, Desdemona backed up closer to the wall, eyes wide once more. The Lykos was far more intimidating between forms, even if she was smaller than she had been. Now she was definitely a threatening creature, half human, half animal, a fact Desdemona could not ignore. She sat very still, ready to flee if need be, down the hole if she must. If it was between getting ripped up by a Lykos or falling into the basement, Desdemona was willing to try her luck at landing in skirts.
Fortunately, the concern seemed unnecessary. Kai didn't attack. Instead, she seemed to be signing, though it took longer for the gestures to register with Desdemona than it should have. She hadn't expected intelligence in this form and hadn't been looking for it, but once her mind began to process the hand signs they were simple enough. "I'll stay here," Desdemona said in agreement, nodding her head slightly. She swallowed, hoping her words came out this time with a little more assurance. "You'll be back. Okay." The wagging of the tail was a sign she understood and it earned a small smile in response. It reminded her that this was the same creature of five minutes ago, one she'd already learned wouldn't hurt her. It was an easy lesson, true as long as the wrong moon wasn't full.
Kai didn’t miss Desdemona’s sudden return to a fearful look and body-posture, but this time she was uncertain of its cause. The Vrykola couldn’t possibly be afraid of her. Why would she be? Back to a human-like size, Kai was actually smaller than the other woman under her thick, brindled fur, and certainly she’d given Desdemona no reason to be afraid, so what was the matter?
But the look faded, and with it the bulk of Kai’s concern. She gaped a tongue-lolling grin of agreement and nodded when Desdemona finally understood what Kai wanted to communicate. With another brisk wag of her tail, Kai scampered off to see what she could find, as quick as she possibly could.
The filthy-smelling room was closest, but all it really had was the wash-basins. From there she scampered down the long hall to the room with the water-hole, but all it really had were the racks of pails. Then she trotted into the kitchen, where a few midnight-snackers were poking through the pantry, but Kai had no use for foodstuffs.
At last she stepped into the main hall, thinking perhaps she’d get some logs from the storeroom to stack in front of the hole. It wouldn’t block the empty staircase, of course, but hopefully the oddity of wood lined up on the floor would make people stop and realize what had happened. Certainly no one would be foolish enough to step over a line of logs and plummet over the edge on the far side before they realized they had nowhere to step, right? As she started towards the storeroom on the far side of the hall, however, she realized there was something more easily portable close at hand: one of the tables’ benches!
Smaller and shorter though she might be, like any Lykos Kai was at her strongest in her natural form. She hardly had to strain to hoist the end of one eight-foot-long bench up on her shoulder and wagged her tail quite happily, feeling very clever and pleased with herself, as she dragged it back the way she had come. So pleased was she that Kai didn’t even notice the way some of the main hall’s midnight occupants stared or frowned after her as she departed.
At last she hauled the bench all the way back to the stairwell, barking cheerfully to announce her return.
While Kai was off searching for a way to warn people of the danger, Desdemona continued to think on the issue. Her immediate thought was that they should cover the hole, but considering there were people below, that wasn't a very good idea. And that brought her to another issue that she just didn't know how to solve. What were the people below supposed to do? Should they begin making a ladder? It wasn't her problem quite yet, but it would be come dawn. Of course, dropping down was easier than climbing up, but once she was down it would be far more difficult to hang a ladder from the first floor. And then there was the problem of construction: rope was kept in the basement storage.
She was still contemplating the issue when Kai returned, but the happy bark of achievement allowed her to drop it, at least for the time being. There were others in the compound, and surely someone else would see to it. "That's perfect," she said, hurrying to help the Lykos carry the other end of the bench. Delicate as she might look, Desdemona was stronger than a human woman just by being herself. With the both of them carrying the bench, one at each end, they easily moved it into place before the stairwell. "Someone would have to be blind to miss this," she said, pleased at how well they'd solved the problem. She couldn't imagine someone climbing over the bench to accidentally fall into the basement.
"Thank you," Desdemona said, turning a smile towards Kai. With the bench in place, she could continue on about the night, at least until morning got close. She had hours to think over that dilemma, so hopefully something would come about before that time came. This seemed to be the purpose of the compound, to work together to solve problems that faced them all. If this was an example of things to come, perhaps the future wouldn't be so bad after all.
Desdemona’s smile and praise pleased Kai immeasurably, her tail wagging all the more to have been given it. She was, after all, a Lykos from the lower ends of hierarchy scales, and she was not ashamed to be so easily pleased by such a simple measure of attention. It was probably fairly unique to Kai herself, though, to accept it so readily from a Vrykola—one of the species she was supposed to perceive as her mortal enemy.
The sound of the woman’s thanks had something of a tone of dismissal to it, however. But that was alright, she’d probably been in the middle of or on the way to something when she’d taken her fall and Kai had been just in time to help her. The Lykos was pleased with the results of their little encounter—that she’d helped Desdemona and then had her resourceful idea with the bench—and not about to lament the brevity of it.
She stepped away to where she had room again, once more shifting down into her most familiar feral form, feeling infinitely more comfortable on four paws than two. Kai gave herself another brisk shake to fluff out her fur, but rather than depart immediately, stepped back towards Desdemona with a hopeful little whine, ears perked and neck arched invitingly. Maybe she could get another petting before she left....