Open Chronicles Seeing Through the Bottom of the Bottle

A roleplay open for anyone to join
Gilder looked at her for a few more minutes. The sphynx could see it wasn't any mere dog that stood before her, but she could also see the arising quandary. The person in front of her couldn't speak. The sphynx sighed and tucked the pen behind her ear. "Well I hope you have money. We don't give these out to just anyone, you know." she tucked her book away and leapt up onto a shelf. The bottles were pushed back about a foot from the edge of the shelf, giving the sphynx all the room she needed to settle her rear down on the shelf and peruse the bottles.

She found one she wanted, and gathered a little black dust into her paw. She turned toward Shuck, and blew. The dust smelled thickly of parchment and rosemary, and the minute she sucked some up into her nostrils, she felt something change in her throat. She could speak. If only for a little while.

"That is translation dust. Lets you know any language, or speak it. In your case, dog to common tongue. It only lasts about five minutes or so. Mind explaining how you stumbled in here?" Gilder asked, wiping off her paw and neatly corking the bottle. She noted the discrepancy in her book, then leapt back down to sit in front of Shuck. "Everything in this shop is paid for not in gold, but in time. You pay for the time you use. That's five minutes you owe to the master of the shop."
 
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She looked around awkwardly, not sure how to proceed, when the cat abruptly put away her book and pen and leapt up onto a shelf. The black dog watched her uncork a bottle and blow it her way. There was a moment where she thought it would be unwise to sniff it, but the stuff seemed to seek her nostrils, swiftly coating the insides of her face and throat. She sneezed repeatedly, as if that might expel it from her sinuses. It didn't budge.

The cat's cryptic explanation confused her. "Five minutes of what?" She had thought she was just thinking it, and a moment after her voice had come out of her, the dog barked. At least, she intended to bark; instead an awkward human squeal came out.

"I can talk!" she said, as if the cat hadn't just explained. Her voice was that of a young adult woman, nice though a bit girlish. Then she remembered the cat's question and shook her head.

"I came here with Joseph, but we were separated. We were sent by Oscar to see Saturninus -- he said he could help me. I'm not a church grim, you see, but I don't know what I am now."

She rambled, having never spoken to anyone before. It was exhilarating! Liberating! And it was going to end all too soon.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"Yes, that's what I just told you." Gilder explained impatiently. "I have no idea who Joseph or Oscar are, but Saturninus is the owner of the shop. And you're sure as hell no church grim. You've got too much of a soul for one. They're usually just...like machines, really. Just spirits that protect graveyards. If I had to guess I'd say youve got a nasty curse on you." She looked at Shuck up and down. What was she going to do with this one? Normally people used this place as a shop, not a...doctor's office. The sphynx eventually decided that such things were out of her pay grade. "Listen. Come with me. He should be back soon."

She pranced down the aisles again, her little cat feet light as feathers on the black wood floor. "And don't touch anything! If you've got a curse I don't want it getting on anything. I'll have to scrub the floor as it is." Gilder called back over her shoulder. She led Shuck into a back room, walled off by a curtain of iron beads. A line of brick dust crossed the threshold, and Gilder seemed quite interested as to whether Shuck could cross it. Once she did so, the sphynx relaxed a little further. "Well at least you're not here to rob the place."

The cat gestured to the room. It looked like a tiny tea area. There were plush couches, a low coffee table, and glass lanterns lighting the area. "Just take a seat and settle down. There's some tea you can drink. And...ignore the case on the wall. He's been for sale for centuries and no one's been brainless enough to mess with him. Should be good company for you. He can at least hold a conversation. That should do until Saturninus returns. I have to get back to inventory. Just shout if you need anything."

With that, Gilder pranced back through the curtain with a gay little hop over the brick dust line. The man to which Gilder had been referring was seated in the corner. He was tall and thin, with large black eyes and a mess of similarly black hair that flopped into his eyes in a wavy curtain. Heavy brass manacles kept his hands and feet securely together, each tied with a slender chain to a collar around his throat. The case on the wall looked...less suspicious. It was just a line of little crystal bottles, each filled with a clear fluid. It was locked securely.

The man looked at Shuck. "You're cursed too?" he asked. His voice was meek, quiet.
 
The dog followed the cat wordlessly, both out of habit and because she was busy gawking again. Even as she was led further into the establishment, the eccentricities continued. Of course, she didn't touch anything (as she was jnstructed) but there was plenty to see. Passing through the iron curtain was a challenge, her skull ringing from so much of the metal, but she briskly stepped through them without too much contact -- though there was the slight scent of burned fur. However, Gilder seemed most interested in watching her walk over a line of reddish powder, which she did without issue.

The room to which she had been brought looked comfortable and meant for waiting. It was, of course, not without it's strange features. In spite of what Gilder advised, the dog looked up at the case briefly, but her interest was more taken by the man in the corner. Obliging her host, she hopped up onto a couch and laid down. It was comfortable, more so than she had expected. No wonder the humans complained about the hard pews at the church.

Left to wait, she watched the cat's spry retreat before turning to the chained man who spoke to her. It took a full beat if silence for her to remember that she could answer.

"I'm not sure, but I must be if everyone says I am." She paused. "Are you cursed, too? Is that why you are for sale?" Her voice was clear and curious and without hesitation when she spoke. It didn't occur to her that he might not be happy about this arrangement.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"I am." The other man said sadly. "I'd actually appreciate it if you could help me out of this predicament. I don't want to be here. I'm being kept against my will...I'm not worth the trouble to be let out on my own, but I'm worth more alive than dead. If you could....get one of those bottles off of the case, and give it to me, I'd be most grateful." He gestured with his chained hands to the case on the wall. "Please. If I stay here much longer, Im going to go mad."

He looked...hopeful. Desperately hopeful. His eyes kept flicking from her to the case on the wall. He needed one of those bottles. They weren't left alone for too long, however. It was only a few minutes before Gilder wiggled her head through the curtains to glare at the chained man. "Quiet you. Don't let him out, miss. He's fiddled around with too much dark magic." she said lightly to Shuck, and ducked out.

It must have been half an hour of the sphynx nervously peeking in on them every few minutes, before an unholy stench drifted through the curtains. Gilder seemed unbothered by it as she traipsed through the iron curtain and smiled her little white fangs at Shuck. "Come with me. The master's in." she said. "And do be polite."

Saturninus was anything but conventional. Behind the black wood counter sat a man who looked weeks out of the grave. He only had one eye, while maggots and roaches writhed in the other. His entire body seemed to be moving and crawling with detritivores; slithering under his skin and wrapping around his skeleton. The corpse looked at Shuck with a decidedly regal eye, his rotten chin lifted high on his skinny neck. One hand, more bone than flesh, tapped on the counter. When he rose to greet her, his intestines shifted alarmingly in the bowl of his hips, threatening to spill over. "I hear you were sent to me by Oscar." Saturninus' appearance might have been foul, but his voice rung as clearly as any priest. "He is a good and clever fellow. What seems to be the problem with you? Gilder seems to think you've been cursed."
 
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She stared at the man as he responded, her canine features blank and expressionless. She let him speak, and when he finished was silent for a moment.

"I regret that I must inform you that as a guest in this establishment I cannot help you," she said automatically. She could feel the iron curtain across the room, like some kind of warning to behave. She may not have known what she was if she wasn't a grim, but she knew she was fae. The rules of hospitality and an inability to lie were bonds she could not break last she pay the consequences. She had not broken them and thus didn't know the price for doing so, but wasn't going to find out now. Her remark was underscored by Gilder's return and direct order not to release the man. The dog nodded her long head. She'd assumed he was chained for a reason by the household.

When she left again, the dog opened her maw to ask the man why he was there, but a doggy whuff came out instead. It appeared that her five minutes had expired. With a sigh she laid herself down on the couch and got comfortable while she waited.

Her sharp sense of smell first alerted her to some manner of change. She sneezed, thinking it was a passing smell caught in her sinuses or a strange side effect of the dust she'd inhaled earlier.

She didn't have to wait long to learn the cause for the horrid stench. Gilder returned and beckoned her back into the main room of the shop and she eagerly followed, thinking the other room might be free of the smell, but when she quickly stepped through the iron curtain she was hit with an invisible wall of decay.

A farmer had once gone missing in her village, only to be found a few days later on his property. The cause for his death had something to do with his fragile human heart, but that wasn't what she was thinking of now. No, what reminded her of that was the awful smell of rotting flesh that had hung in the church for nearly a week following his funeral and burial.

She imagined that farmer had looked quite a bit like Saturninus, too. The dog observed him with a curious light in her eyes. Oscar's cryptic words were making a bit more sense now.

He spoke to her, and she gently motioned toward the dust, requesting. They obliged her request, as she was already aware of the terms.

"I'm not a church grim," she said simply to begin. "I'm not sure what I am." Her voice was unsure, and there was a touch of sadness to it.

"I do not know what manner of curse this must be, or why Oscar sent me here, but my friend believed that his intention was for me to seek your help."

// Joseph Meier //
 
"Please! You can't just leave me here!" The chained man begged, but it was all for naught. She wouldn't help him. He slumped back against the wall, looking despondently at the floor. Perhaps she was wise to do so, considering the small jar Saturninus brought out of his half-rotten intestines. A large black spider, with one leg noticeably shorter than the rest, skittered against the glass wildly. "Your friend," he said. "Does not remember the meaning of the word debt. He owes me for helping facilitate the use of his magic. He has squandered a gift so rarely given. I am disappointed in him...but he mentioned a black dog. I assume you are she. He was desperate to find you."

The spider launched itself against the glass to no visible progress, catching sight of Shuck and putting its forelegs against the glass facing her. Saturninus set him on the table. "You are not a church grim, that much is correct. Grims do not wander beyond their churches. They do not form attachments. They are sentinels. No. What you are is hidden behind a curse. A very strong curse. Someone did not want you returning to where you truly came from." Saturninus told her. "I can restore it. A few years of your life. In addition to the ten minutes already owed. Joseph's debt is vast. Here. I will take a piece of it from him for his insolence and his lack of payment."

Saturninus picked up the jar. He turned it over in his palm, and dumped the spider out onto his hand. Before the spider could skitter off, the zombie seized it by the thorax, and held Joseph aloft. It didn't take long for the shapeshifter to turn into something more menacing; a large venomous snake. Saturninus grasped the viper securely, ignoring its hissing. Joseph writhed and turned like he was going to strike at Saturninus...then froze. He whipped around as if in pain, his entire body shuddering. Patches of fur broke through the scales, small arms growing into tiny tiger claws then withering away into dust faster than he could conjure them. As Joseph shifted around in agony, Saturninus changed as well. New flesh covered the palm holding Joseph. Muscles, wet from rot, slithered into their normal spots and began to turn a less rotten shade of grey.

With a loud plop his intestines walled themselves off with muscle, and a new cheek covered Saturninus' face. The one remaining eye grew brighter, greedier. Almost as sharply as it begun, he released the viper in his hand. The snake hit the ground hard and shifted into a human. Joseph retched over the floor, shuddering and shaking uncontrollably. He looked like he'd been fetched from a snowdrift.

"A year of your life will remind you to come back and make payments on your debt." Saturninus told him sourly. He held out his hand to Shuck. "A few years of yours to find out who you really are."
 
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She did not understand at first what Saturninus was talking about as he pulled the jar from his abdomen. At least, not until she saw the spider pressing its legs against the glass, as if straining toward her. She let out a gasp.

"Joseph!" The dog moved closer to the table to give the black spider a more thorough inspection. Sure enough, one of its left legs was shorter than the others.

Yet Saturninus was talking of deals and grabbed the jar before she could respond to his offer. He picked up Joseph, who rapidly changed from arachnid to serpent. What happened next, she wasn't certain. She saw Joseph pause, then thrash wildly and attempt to make rapid changes to his form. She thought to lash out, to bite or protest on her friend's behalf, but she was paralyzed to the spot as Saturninus began to change, too. It was then that she began to understand what was meant by the time they owed him.

A slight tremble ran through her, a wash of feeling she couldn't quite name.

When Saturninus dropped Joseph, the dog rushed to his side. She stood over the mess he made, uninhibited, and gave him a thorough sniff. He was cold and trembling, and she was at a loss for what to do, but he was alive.

A year of his life, taken from him. But she was fae -- the years were inconsequential to her. The thought of giving anything more to this man made her hackles rise, but the answer to her question was so close. It would be so easy...

"How many years? From what part of my life are they taken?" She asked when she raised her head. "And you will break my curse or you will aid me in the breaking of it?" She might not know much, but she knew the importance of terms and conditions.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"Not your past, child. Your future. I know nothing of what I take from you." Saturninus smirked at her. She had done deals before with creatures like himself. She was wise enough to ask specifics. "I do not know the nature of your curse. I do not know the reason you were cursed. But I can tell something was taken from you. A piece of something deep in your soul I can restore. The rest is up to you."

He stepped over Joseph's prone form and put his hand under her chin, tilting her head up to look at him. "I am not a miracle worker. I am one of the Rotten. We exchange our sanity and humanity for power. As we rot, our power grows. As we rot, so too do our minds. I will do what I can. It's your decision whether you want to take that leap." The zombie stared at her, waiting. Patiently. He could wait in infinite if he needed to.

Joseph rolled away from them and coughed, slowly getting to all fours. He was shaking, his hair mussed and his eyes rheumy. Bastard. The rotten fucking bastard. He grabbed the edge of the counter and slowly dragged himself to his feet.
 
She listened carefully. She didn't know why it was so important, but she wasn't going to let a word slide by her. After all, she was literally giving a piece of her future to this man. Or thing. Whatever he was, his deal was too lucrative to ignore. She had no leads, no clues, nothing. Of course, today was only her second day, but the world was so big... If she didn't take this opportunity, how was she going to get this start anywhere else? She didn't trust him, wasn't sure she trusted Oscar for sending them here, but she had made her choice.

The dog didn't take her face out of his hand as she stared back at him.

"How many years?" she asked again.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"Three." Saturninus' response was simple. He waited, quietly, as still as the dead. Joseph wiped his mouth, glaring at the zombie. He didn't trust the old creature further than he could throw him, and even though he admittedly did owe the man a great debt...he would pay in gold. He balked at paying for it in life. He didn't know how much time he had left. The man could be taking a marriage or first child away from him. That was the thing that slanted it in Satnurninus' favor. He took everything. Not just the bad...but the good as well. Clasping hands with a creature like that could change your future.

It never sat well with him he was paying in a currency no one knew the value of. He staggered to his feet, a glare on his face. His legendary temper was beginning to rise in his throat. Capturing him was one thing...forcing him to become a spider than shoving him into a jar was something else.
 
Three. Only three years. The dog had already spent so long in that graveyard that shortening her fate by three seemed paltry. She had an eternity ahead of her. She would have paid a great deal more for this, but that wasn't something this creature needed to know.

She didn't blink or hesitate as she lifted her paw to the zombie.

"Deal."

// Joseph Meier //
 
Saturninus' hand shot out like a viper the second Shuck agreed. He seized her paw, his other hand grasping her elbow so she couldn't pull back if she tried. Holding his hand was like holding dry ice...something so cold it burned right down to her bones. It spread along her arm in a crawling fashion, like something seeking her very veins. It lanced up through her heart, wrapped around it, and squeezed. Pain shot up and down her back, through the backs of her eyes, and constricted her throat. Saturninus stared right at her. He didn't dare break eye contact as he stole three years of her future from her. He could see little snippets of it. Very small ones. One image that nearly broke his concentration was her and Joseph.

Friends? Lovers? He didn't quite know. He kept pulling, unraveling her life's thread month by month. When she had fulfilled what he'd asked, he released her. There was definitely a change in him. Most of his stomach and chest area had been almost entirely repaired. His arms and hands were normal, and his face looked freshly dead. "You will find your name among the Unseelie fae. Whether they have taken it, or they just know of it, I cannot tell you." Saturninus told her. "Now, Joseph... the rest of your debt." He turned, expecting to find his prey still on the floor.

"Hey asshole," Joseph growled, throwing the beaded curtain back. "I'll teach you to put me in a fucking jar!"

Saturninus' glare turned into one of shock when the (formerly) caged young man Shuck had spoken with earlier stumbled out of the room with a box in his hands. He whipped it open, yanked out one of the clear vials, and downed it.
"No!" Gilder puffed up and leapt up onto the counter, her expression one of terror. The young man began to change. His mouth split impossibly wide, his hair went wild, and his eyes went a jaundiced yellow. His limbs went gangly, like that of an ape, and claws sprouted from his fingers. He roared at Saturninus, and Joseph launched himself at Shuck. It was time to go.

He seized her scruff as a bengal tiger and lifted her clear off her feet, hurtling out of the shop as fast as his three legs could take him. He heard a thin shriek behind him from Gilder, and the furious crashing noise of jars being thrown to the ground.
 
She held fast. The Rotten snatched her paw and held her tight in a grasp like death itself. She sucked in a breath, automatically recoiling from the cold tendrils that snaked through her body. Her form shimmered, translucent and formless at its edges, but that cold dead hand held her. She felt what he took from her, like she were a basin tipped violently and her contents splashed onto thristy soil.

As soon as it began, it ended. Saturninus released her and spoke his knowledge as she stumbled backwards, breathless and reeling from the pain. Her name?

Her name.

Something hollow in her reverberated like a bell, as agonizing as what Satirninus had taken from her. Rage and confusion rippled through her. Her name! Someone had taken her name!

She was still trying to process what he told her when she heard Joseph's voice -- from the side not below them. Her head whipped around in time to see the other man, Henry, stepping out and throwing back one of the clear vials. The change began immediately, twisting his body at grotesque angles.

She was so fixated on the man's change that she didn't see Joseph changing, too. She yelped when she felt teeth gathering her by the scruff, kicking and flailing violently -- thinking that, in spite of never having taken her eyes from him, Henry had seized her.

When she realized it was Joseph, she had a moment of clarity. The black dog dissolved in his mouth, dark tendrils of smoke that curled around his feline face and slipped into the shadows that clung to his body. She closed her awareness, exhausted from the cold hands of death. Part of her wanted to look, to see what happened, to know. But she kept her senses closed tight against the chaos and she pressed herself tight against Joseph.

// Joseph Meier //
 
Joseph wanted to yell at her to stop struggling. He shook her a bit impatiently. Even as powerful as this form was, having a dog flailing around in his mouth wasn't doing wonders for his balance. He stumbled a bit when she kicked powerfully, and snarled a deep tiger growl at her. Thankfully, she seemed to realize what he was trying to do, and he didn't have to carry her anymore. Behind them the shop was chaos. A brilliant flash of light flooded the area in front of the shop for a brief moment, followed by a spectacular array of violet sparks. Henry was shattering jars, mixing reagents in a wild display of magical chemistry that clearly wasn't turning out well.

Joseph padded away down the alleys, going blindly down twists and turns. He finally shifted back, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes for a moment. He was exhausted. A year of his life gone. His bones ached. His foot was threatening to cramp. It was that strange shivering that began right before one of the most painful things Joseph could experience. He gritted his teeth, looking at Shuck. "Did you...at least....find out what you're missing?" he asked her. He wasn't sure if she could still speak. Everything had happened so quickly.

A loud thunk from the next alley over made him startle. "...Maybe we should have gone down another street." he muttered.
 
Tucked against Joseph, she kept her senses shut and rode until he stopped. Only when he changed forms did she slither away, a vaguely humanoid shape that crawled across the dark alley ground before her tendrils blew up and gave her shape once more. She laid on the ground beside him, breathing heavily.

"My name," she said in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. "They took my name."

It made her feel that agony once more, and instead of a canine whine she let out a woman's whimper. She felt a mingling of rage and anguish, simultaneous urges to scream and cry and bite something by the throat and shake it, shake it, shake it--

Joseph's comment brought her back to some of her senses. She looked up at him. He was leaning against the wall and looked ragged. This alley was not a safe place.

"You are hurt," she said cooly, remembering that Saturninus had taken a year from him. "I can carry you somewhere safer if you are small?" The dog rose up, prepared to carry him as he was if need be.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"Your name?" Joseph grunted. God damn it, not now. He didn't need his leg spasming out on him. Running, even on four legs, was heavily advised against by everyone he'd ever discussed it with. Tucking his leg up like a crane was almost as bad as attempting to run on two legs alone. He could feel the calf muscles tightening around the misplaced bones, sending tremors up his leg. It didn't help that he was still reeling from paying Saturninus. He did summon up the will to glare at her when she proposed carrying him. That would look fucking ridiculous then, wouldn't it? A man his size being carted off.

"You can still speak." he pointed out. "And I'm fucking fine. You don't need to carry me anywhere. But we do need to get out of this city. Saturninus is going to be fucking angry I let that weird twin-souled bastard out. I had to. He's....well, half of him has never hurt a fly. Couldn't see him chained up like that. He's got enough problems."

How the hell would they get out of the city? Where were they going to go? She now had a problem they could work on solving...someone had taken her name. But where the hell would they go to find it? He tried to push away from the wall and that was about it for his leg. The muscles that had been threatening to lock up tightened like a snake. Pain shot up his calf, thigh, even up his lower back. He immediately clung to the wall again, tears springing to his eyes. It hurt. Badly. He was struggling not to show how much pain he was in, but he was clearly losing the battle.
 
Joseph commented that she could still speak, and she looked at him in confusion for a moment before it hit her. She was still talking! Perhaps she had been able to all along? Or perhaps her dose of dust was lasting longer? Regardless, it was too much to think about at the moment.

He denied her request to assist him, just as he had done in the graveyard. The dog's features were one of plain disapproval. Was it because she was fae? The dog tried to fathom why he would be so stubborn when he was so clearly in pain. Carrying him offered her as much benefit as it did him, since it was imperative they left this awful city soon.

He began to push away from the wall but immediately fell back into the wall. He was quite obviously in great pain, and she was getting annoyed.

"You are in pain" she said again, standing a bit closer to him. "If you are hesitant to accept help from a faerie, I can inform you that I offer my aid freely without the expectation of repayment. But if you cannot walk, then you cannot run. I would like it very much if you continued to accompany me. However, you cannot do so if you die in this awful place."

She stood her ground, but was prepared to push back. In the end, it was up to him how they left this decrepit corner of civilization -- and how quickly they did so.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"I don't need help. It will pass." Joseph grunted. He hated apprearing weak. Not just to a fae, but to anyone. He'd spent so long proving himself a capable man despite his height and disability...it was hard to accept even the slightest hint of help. "It's not because you're fae." he said slowly, forcing himself to stand. He couldn't will the muscles to relax, but he could shift his weight off of his bad leg and try and give it some stability. He knew probably better than any other two legged creature that men constantly had to shift. The tiniest little adjustments happened constantly in their feet and legs to keep them upright in the weird, precarious position humans had come to adopt. Those little shifts were titanic to his leg. It was why he needed the brace and why he couldn't run.

"Look, I'm not going to fucking die here. That's ridiculous." he spat. "Ive dealt with this from day one. I just should have thought to steal some pain management from that rotten bastard before I let Henry loose." He straightened himself and began walking. Slowly. Awkwardly. He put a hand against the wall to lean his weight against it. Sometimes he regretted refusing a cane, not that he'd ever let the words leave his lips. "Come on. We have to get moving before Edward fades and Henry gets back into control. I have no idea how long that serum he drinks lasts."
 
This must have just been something else she lacked understanding for. She watched him right himself, albeit slowly and with effort, and he stubbornly began walking toward the end of the alley. She let him walk by her, silent frustration overwhelming her. As the first person she had ever chosen to interact with, she had sure picked an awful one.

"As you wish," she replied cooly. She took her place beside him, within reach should the stupid human decide to change his mind, but not so close as to apparently offend him. His pace was agonizingly slow, and she struggled with the wild frustration of it all.

As they neared the alley outlet, she remembered what she had seen earlier.

"There is a plague hag nearby. Do not look into the alleys," she told him plainly, not even bothering to look at him.

She had seen her, but she would have been invisible to one without the Sight. While the people in this city may not have had true seeing to witness her wretched visage, they were very likely suffering her wrath. Pestas were nasty creatures who were unbiased in the illness and death they dispensed. Still, it would be wise not to invite trouble where they could otherwise (hopefully) ignore it.

// Joseph Meier //
 
Joseph could tell she was angry with him. It wasn't an experience he was unfamiliar with. He had his pride, and people were angry with him for it. For some reason people wanted to baby him. He wasn't a child, or some injured faun. He was a man, dammit, and he wasn't on the planet to be infantilized for something he couldn't control. He glared at her for a moment. He wasn't about to let her carry him around as a squirrel or something. He hated being in tiny forms like rats or insects. It felt wrong, and it was dangerous the smaller one went. He could get stepped on, or eaten.

He was tempted to turn into a flea and bite her. Instead he followed her warning not to look down the alleyways, instead looking at his feet. "We'll head toward the mountains. Across the Reach. Saturninus won't be able to follow us the rougher the terrain gets. He might be powerful but he's constrained by his own body. Zombies sacrifice power for decomposition. He wont get ten miles without a limb falling off, and with no one around to drain years from, hed fall apart." he reasoned.

Joseph walked on, stubbornly. He was slow, but stretching out his leg muscles slowly was making the cramps subside. He was supposed to be sitting and slowly stretching them out without the brace on, but no one had time for that. He reached down and rubbed Shuck's ears absentmindedly. "So what else did you find out? Who stole your name? How do we get it back?"
 
She nodded, her long canine face bobbing in agreement. They had come from the direction of the Reach, and she knew that there were lots of wild fae out there, and somewhere beyond that would be the Courts. All she knew was gossip from the few fae who had drifted by her cemetery, and they had had little to offer her.

"There will be fae in the Reach. If we can find them, they may be persuaded to help." With double the reason to go there, it sounded as if their destination was set. She only wished they could get there faster.

She nearly jumped at his surprise touch, behind her ear instead of at her back for support. He gave the spot a little scratch, and it was a battle of restraint not to lean into it. She focused instead on answering his question.

"'You will find your name among the Unseelie fae. Whether they have taken it, or they just know of it, I cannot tell you.'" The words weren't quite as ominous in her girlish voice, but still just as vague. She sighed. "Does that mean with any unseelie faerie? Or with the Unseelie Court? I wouldn't dare go to Court without summons; I'm wild."

More questions that she didn't have the answer to, and more avenues she couldn't travel. She sighed again. It wasn't like she could go back to Saturninus and ask him to clarify, either, though she couldn't blame him for burning that bridge.

"If you do not wish to involve yourself with the unseelie, I will understand," she added quickly. She knew little about the opposing Courts, but had met enough unseelie and seelie to have noticed a difference in behavior. "I would not wish to endanger your mortal life by taking you into such perilous company." He was, after all, now missing a whole year from the time he had left to live.

// Joseph Meier //
 
"Great. And that was worth three years of your life? What a cheating bastard. I hope Edward burns the place to the ground." Joseph muttered bitterly. "So the Unseelie have either stolen your name or know it and might be able to restore it to you. There's a big damn gulf between those two things. Either we're walking into a hostile situation or we can gently convince them to restore you. We're not going to know until we find them. And believe me, I am going with you. I just pissed off the one creature who could have restored my humanity for you. That means I'm seeing this through. Besides, you'll get yourself killed without me."

He ran a hand down his face. "I don't know the difference between Seelie and Unseelie fae. Not exactly my area of expertise. But if they're that dangerous I should definitely be going with you. Or I'm going to see a black pelt on Saturninus' wall." he pointed out. The old zombie never could resist keeping tabs on supernaturals he found interesting.

They turned a corner, and Joseph stopped to rub at his leg. They were passing a market, headed toward the Northeast Gate. That was when he heard it. The commotion was uproarous. People yelling, shouting, brandishing weapons. Wood breaking, and a loud shriek that sounded vaguely familiar. A dark bay form was crashing through the marketplace, trailing ropes from a half-torn halter. The ropes had managed to grab all sorts of metal knicknacks from the market including a string of bells and bits of a broken jar. The form slammed into a stall, leaping over the counter and barreling through the back wall. Joseph stared as it shouldered a support beam holding up an awning, sending the whole thing crashing to the cobblestone.

The horse had a long, black horn sprouting from its forehead, fading into white at the tip. He wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't gotten snagged in a line of scarves pinned up for sale. "You have got to be kidding me." he muttered. "There's our ride."

Shuck didn't get much more of an explanation. Joseph was already trying to head off the unicorn at the end of its projected path of destruction. He knew this particular horse. It wasn't exactly a friend...the stallion had always tried to kill him whenever they'd met. But he didn't see the unicorn's keeper anywhere, and that was a problem. He waited until the right moment and shifted, leaping onto the unicorn's back as a bobcat.

The unicorn immediately slammed its shoulder into the nearest wall, narrowly missing pinning Joseph's paws between the massive muscular shoulder and hard stone. Definitely the one he remembered. He hoped Shuck would follow. The unicorn was clearly looking for an exit. Spying the gate, the stallion made for it with all haste. He was still dragging half the crap he'd become entangled with in the market. Joseph would have tried to remove some of it if he wasn't desperately trying to stay on top of the beast. The unicorn sailed over a vegetable cart, and Joseph had to flatten himself against the back of the unicorn to avoid being brained by a street lamp.

...he might need some help. He couldn't call for it in this form. He threw his arms around the unicorn's neck, and shifted back. "Dog! Get through the fucking gate and head him off!" he shouted, hoping she was in earshot. "Get the gate open!"
 
"I could make it on my own just fine," she replied indignantly. The black dog thought to argue further against his remarks, but there really wasn't much she could counter with. While she had faith in her ability to stay alive on her own, she couldn't discredit his worry -- after all, he apparently knew Saturninus far better than she did. It still chafed her pride.

What she could do, however, was talk about fae. "It is complicated," she began when he paused, but this wasn't to be the time.

There was a loud crash and voices began to rise over the sound of something clattering down the street. Her ears pressed back against her skull as a brown and black horse charged angrily into view. It wasn't anyone from Saturninis' shop, which abated the greater part of her fear. However, there was still the matter of the rampaging horse.

There's our ride. Their ride?? Would there be no peace today? Was this what life was like outside of her cemetery??

The dog only had a moment of warning before Joseph leaped, shifting into a bobcat as he landed on the horse's back. In that same instant, she leapt toward the horse and became smoke beneath his hooves as she dissolved into its shadow. She clung to the darkness it cast and snaked up to its belly, where she tucked herself into the tangled ropes. At least, until she heard Joseph's voice. Get the gate open.

She sprung from the shadows, forming like a rolling cloud beside the horse. As she ran, a familiar adrenaline flashed through her. The big black dog easily kept pace in the street, which was clearing as people closer to the gate heard the approaching commotion, and something in her begged more, more.

Prying her eyes away from the horse, she spied the gate and fixed her gaze on a new target. The horse was slowed by debris but she was not; her lanky form sprinted ahead of the steed toward the gate -- and the wagon slowly passing through it.

One guard was yelling at the cart driver, who didn't appear nearly as motivated as she would have like. High on the chase, the black dog came rushing at the horses pulling the cart and let out a single mighty bark that echoed in the portcullis archway. Where the driver's encouragement had failed, her sharp command had not; the horses' flanks dropped in fear and they bolted through the gate. She herded them to the side, barking more like a dog than a beast until the cart was out of the horse's path.

And just in time. She turned just as the bay came barreling through the gate. Her tongue was lolling out of her mouth and she was exhausted from this long day, but she immediately gave chase after the horse and Joseph.

// Joseph Meier //
 
The unicorn didn't show much sign of stopping. It barreled through the gate. frighteningly close to the cart and horses. Finally free of the city, the unicorn seemed to go faster, eating up the landscape beneath him. Joseph clung like a terrified cat to his back, arm around the animal's neck. The unicorn ran until his sides heaved, his nostrils puffed hot air and his muscles shook with exertion. It was at this moment that he suddenly noticed he had a passenger. Joseph saw the unicorn's ears flatten against his neck. A domestic horse might have bucked like a mule. A wild unicorn was much smarter. The unicorn pitched himself over on his side and attempted to roll onto his back. Crushing an opponent was so much easier than shaking him off.

Joseph felt the stallion's weight shift and transformed into a sparrow. His leg might have held him back with four legged forms, but birds had always been a favorite. He fluttered out of the unicorn's reach and watched the stallion roll on his back, then clamber back to all fours. He shook off everything he'd collected, irritably shaking his back foot like a cat to get rid of rope and the bent bells.

Joseph landed, and shifted back to himself. He looked around for Shuck, his hands outstretched to the unicorn to try and keep the animal calm. He knew this unicorn, or more specifically the unicorn's closest friend. He thought to try and emulate how he'd seen Heinrich interact with the animal...he'd always found it a bit ridiculous. "Look, Lord, I need your help." he spoke slowly and calmly. "More specifically, the girl I'm with needs your help. You and Heinrich."

The unicorn tossed his head and stamped a foot, looking for the other person Joseph mentioned.
 
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