RP:The Way the Cookie Crumbles..

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

Open Market, Cenril

Daisy is perfectly capable of getting her own food. Mostly grown in an organic fashion. Isn't it strange how organic food needs to be labeled as such? Isn't it just food? Preservative food should need the added words since they're the food with added things. But that doesn't matter here since these vendors won't know what preservatives are for some time. So they have their foods and wares and patrons and if that guy there doesn't look out, he's going to have a chicken stolen from him. Ah, too late. The only one who saw was Daisy and she isn't going to say anything about a kid stealing a chicken to feed his family. Or just himself if he's a greedy whore. She turns back to the stand in front of her and picks up a kiwi fruit. A little tropical for Cenril, but who is counting?

It’s been a long time since this particular shadow fell over the city-by-the-sea, yet there are still some who remember it – and run screaming. Like that chicken vendor, for one (lucky kid..hey, grab two!). It is jagged and swift, and circles the town square like a vulture turning wheels of joy around the festering carcass of a gnu. Curlicue pass after curlicue pass is made, elaborate swoops that gradually descend until the shadow’s source hangs, in the manner of a madman’s mind-plagued ideation of a nightmare parade balloon. And suddenly, the market place is lacking in fish-smells and poor hygiene, cobbles and clodhoppers – from the very stone pavings arises a welter of tentacles (no, wait! they’re green! .. vines!) sprouting leaves and the odour of clean humus, saps and exotic pollens, swarms of oddly-articulated insects with no faces… Birds with bright plumage and tiny humanoid hands for feet. Basically, Cenril just lost its mind, and the reason for that is the being that now lands on all fours beside Daisy, its bat-like wings folding, its blank visage canting toward her.

Daisy isn't quite sure why the little marketplace is behaving as it is. Sure there was a shadow, but birds and dragons can make those sort of things happen on the ground. Oh, she does like dragons! Don't you, kitten. Sweet, warm dragons for cuddling and fly---maybe not flying so much. While Cenril loses its mind, the druid keeps hers, expecting the unexpected as one does when enjoying a box of chocolates. A gifted one, you know. Cause if you bought the box, you know what is in there since why would you buy candy and not know what it is? That is dangerous. Just like the creature that landed next to our sweet druid just now. Where have you seen this before? Rynvale maybe? So she just looks and blinks eyes at that face without them. If you don't move, maybe it won't see you.

Maladroit didn’t see her… exactly. But then, that was to be expected, with a creature which possessed no eyes. Nor a mouth. Nor a nose. Wait though.. there –was- a sort-of-chin, with some tentacly things appending from it below the black, featureless expanse where a face rightly ought to have been. Above that, a set of short, curved things that might have been horns – or more tentacles. Whatever. However lacking the abomination was in ocular organs, though, Daisy would likely get the strangest sense of being peered at as Maladroit raised one of its forelimbs, and a plethora of many-jointed fingers wibbled at her. Almost as if it was waving hello…

The manager of a local haberdashery ran past, swatting monkey-tailed mosquitoes the size of cats, flailing his porky limbs in the attempt to dislodge the unnatural critters, and only succeeded in tripping and falling into the maw of a truly monumental carnivorous plant. Though, to Daisy, he would seem to simply have fallen over an untied bootlace.

Daisy swallows audibly in that way that makes apples bob when your name is Adam, but since she is not a he but indeed a she, there are no apples. Only a -FLOOF! of a feathered tail that figures if the kitten is going to be peered at, there might as well be a reason for the peering to happen. Vain, green and blue creature! Must you make a spectacle of yourself? Yes. Yes you must. Daisy doesn't bother with trying to make the feathers go back to being flat. Hello. The thing said… er… waved hello. Hm. She lifts the kiwi, holding the little fruit out to the strange creature. Sure she could flee, but books and their jackets and things aren't always what they seem.

The nightmare-made-apparent stretched forth those ever-moving fingers, its strange body (imagine a cross between a whippet and a gorilla, then eat a lot of enchanted mushrooms while in fear for your very life, then imagine it again, and you’ll get the gist) leaning forward in the task, its blank visage tilted like a horrible dog’s. The fruit was taken lightly from the kitten’s own hand and with a sense of great reverence, as if she had just bestowed upon the monster whatever-it-was that a thing like Maladroit would likely revere. Eyelessly staring at the hairy green orb, Maladroit slowly lowered this to its belly, which opened like a vertically-oriented mouth. Tendrils slithered out, drawing the offering into their cavity-home. Moments later, another set of tendrils, black and slightly slimy, like headless eels or inky worms, wended out of the gaunt’s midriff toward the kitten, bearing a ‘fist’ full of something in return…

Daisy can't really do anything. She can't move or run or scream or... what the crap is this thing!? This thing that makes even the most conceited of tails slowly fall back to a dormant state in a train of a skirtish fashion. The feline blinks one eye and then the other -her patented winkblink if you will- as she watches the fruit be taken and eaten and... can you really call that eating? Consuming? Absorbing? Yes. Something. The fruit vanishes at any rate and now you're being offered a cookie in return, kitten! Go on. Be. Ah. Polite. She nods and takes the cookie, not sure where it came from or how it was being stored. "Thank you." Tiny words from tiny lips happen before those same lips part to nibble on the gift.

Maladroit would have snapped those wibbling fingers out to stop Daisy –eating- the thing that passingly resembled a delicious cookie, if it wasn’t suddenly distracted by a gang of thugs behind it, who clashed into the market square all bastard-swords and flailing daggers, in heated battle with… nothing, to Daisy’s apparently impervious eyes. But to the rogues themselves, the enemy was a land-locked giant octopus which was using its tentacle-tips to slap each upside the head in a rather musical pattern – slap-slap-slappity-slap - despite all their efforts to fend the thing off. So it was that Maladroit’s head swivelled on its neck in the manner of a mantis or creepy little possessed girl, and … Daisy –ate- the damned (quite literally, damned) cookie. Uh-oh. Turning back to her, the abomination merely ‘stared’ in a vapid way as she consumed the item, its featurelessness betraying no dismay nor concern. Instead, it knuckle-walked a little closer, in order to peer at kitten’s backside. Or rather, that oddly magnificent, plumed tail – which reeked of magic. Familiar magic, at that.. Sitting down again on its haunches, Maladroit lifted its own tail – a long and whiplike affair, barbed in places, rubbery-skinned and flexible, tipped with a cluster of poisoned spines. Almost as if they were having some sort of insane and bizarre tail-off, right there in the middle of Cenril and its illusory jungles.

Daisy continues to nibble on that cookie as she watches the thugs play their game and decides that she rather likes having this creature around! Those thugs would be causing trouble and mischief and shenanigans if they weren't having battle with the nothing. She can't prove that these things are happening because of this faceless creature, but it sure is some sort of wonky coincidence. No. It is the creature's doing for sure. Hm. This cookie tastes... odd. To put it simply. The last bit goes down and she notices the noticing of her tail that is trying to tuck itself within itself in an unusual display of wanting to be hidden. "It was monkey before.”

Maladroit’s ponderous head nodded once, gravely. Tails were seriousness business, as any creature in possession of one well knows. Lowering its own again, the once-goblin hunkered down a bit and lifted its black hand palm-up, that flat and lineless expanse tipped with those wibbling fingers which momentarily lulled their motions. Its attention on its own hand, and an aura of intense concentration around it, the gaunt summoned a vision – no, more than a vision, so life-like were the figures – of a garden Daisy knew and, walking in it, a female whose face and form the kitten would surely recognise… (and if not, the black-and-silver butterflies dancing about the woman might give it away..) Meanwhile, that ‘cookie’ was gurgling away in Daisy’s tum, on its own little, quite mysterious mission, boldly going where .. well, where many cookies had gone before, probably. But never a cookie like –this- one.

Daisy 's belly has seen many many many cookies. It is how she stays in shape, you see. Hey! Round is totes a shape. And this kitten is the roundest. Not only herself, but those eyes of hers round quite wide before squinting to the n shaped smiles like in those anime shows. Oh she does recognize that garden and that woman and those butterflies and even though the kitchen is given a bit of a glare upon being thought about, the druid still has pleasant thoughts for Tenebrae and her garden. "I work there." She pets her feathery behind. "And have accidents." Oh. Oh what is that? What is that cookie doing in there? Behave, little round disc of crunchy wonder. Behave!

Maladroit’s own eyes did not widen in surprise upon that news because .. well. Obvious things are obvious. Still, it stiffened a bit, perceptibly so, and once more its blank head nodded up and down. No wonder it had been drawn down here, like a monstrous moth to a kitten-shaped flame. For Daisy was redolent with the tainted magics of that home, and the dark mistress they shared with the gaunt.

• GURGLE* went the little druid’s tummy. Right before she sprouted a tiny, brand new, infant pair of jaggedy, bat-like wings. Just like Maladroit’s, only kitten-sized. Possibly squished under whatever Daisy was presently wearing, so likely a bit uncomfortable as well as unexpected.

Daisy actually posts this time with a little frown on her face. Is there an animal in her shirt somehow? If you don't consider that Daisy is in her shirt and a cat is technically an animal and oh! Oh that isn't the greatest of sensations right there. Wings don't just pop out of nothing. They have to grow from something like bone or flesh or both and well this pain isn't the greatest of things. Especially since she is no s&m kitten with a liking for this sort of behavior. She falls to her paws and knees and pants with soft little 'miews' without really knowing what is going on. Whatever it is wants to escape her shirt. Good thing paws come with claws that reach around and snip the wings free.

Maladroit’s's insane tropical makeover of the town shimmered a bit, and swiftly, head-spinningly, turned into an idyllic habitat for kittens, mice running hither and there, balls of yarn rolling autonomously and temptingly about, while fish flipped across the ground to land in strategically-placed supper dishes and servants bustled around fluffing massive, comfy cushions and resurfacing intricately-modelled scratching poles. Perhaps Maladroit's way of apologising, who knows? The creature itself showed no sign that Daisy's wingy eruption was anything out of the ordinary. Though it did tilt its head a bit, when the druid's kitty-fingers started growing... long. Very long. And crackled, as extra joints appeared, to aid them in the.. wibbling. Fur was vanishing, as if growing backward into skin that was smoother now, dark.. rubbery. *GURGLE* The cookie (which was not all a cookie) worked its wacky wonders, while Maladroit somehow observed her pretty tail shed its feathers and take on a whiplike proportion, sprouting barbs. Yes -- it seems Hollow's most endearing feline has doomed herself, via her greed for sugary treats, to an indeterminate period of being Maladroit's mini-me. Except, she still had a face. For the moment.

Daisy isn't greedy for treats! I mean. Who doesn't like treats? Some people like cheesecake. Daisy likes cookies. There is no judging here. There is only a creature and a kitten turning into a little replica of said creature. Mice and yarn and fish and cushions and posts aren't even seen. Those fingers. Her tail. Her---FUR! Oh god her fur is gone! She wraps her arms around that fat-Malabody to cover up her nakedness even though she's still wearing her clothes - that aren't fitting so much the same way. Well. At least if haters be haten, you can whip your tail back and forth.

Maladroit shifted its disturbing frame back a few feet, to allow for said tail-whipping. It knew all too well what venoms lay in wait in the tips of the spines appending his own tail, and supposed this erstwhile replica might share the same. Oh, poor Daisy, her fans and friends might cry, no longer adorable! No more fuzzywarmcute-onoes! To Maladroit, though, she was beautiful. And speaking of perceptions.. as Daisy’s eyes shrunk back and popped out of existence inside her skull, her mouth and nose sealed over and that same slightly oily, rubbery expanse of proto-skin covered them up like a truly sick-in-the-head nanny putting her unfortunate charge to bed.. as Daisy took on the smaller, pudgier-of-belly likeness to the great beast before her, she would realise that eyeless and noseless in no way meant senseless. For as her fourteen fingers (or was it fifteen?) wibbled as if of their own accord, the world around her became a flare and a miracle of colours and shapes, scents, sensations, that ordinary kitten-eyes could never see, nor kitten-minds imagine. The world, such as it was for her, was .. gone. Really, gone. And in its place a universe of singing stars, strange angels dressed as bits of sentient string that her wibbly-fingers strummed, like the world -- and all its time, and fate - was merely a world-sized harp, there for her playing... The sky was alight with the phantasmal jellyfish-of-aeons, whose hanging tentacles those threads actually were, mixed in with the kelp-of-all-realities, a woven madness of wonder -- and oh, what knowledge flooded her! What endless reams of histories, wars, future and past worlds both far and nearer than a body might suppose. And beyond it all, the sea -- still mighty, still actually the sea, which whispered in waves of light, blobs of musical luminescence incanting a siren-song, irresistibly alluring, the sweetest songs of all. For the squid had risen from their vasty depths, luminous and curious, called in by the 'birth' of another gaunt. Maladroit beckoned to Daisy, his finger-motions producing a catherine-wheel of potential futures, one of which involved visiting said squid in their briny home.

Daisy 's little heart beats faster and faster as the panic sets in. No. No you need to calm down. So you have no face or fur or... I said calm down! Ranting an a panic isn't going to solve anything here. So you're a... winged... thing... and... Oh for Pete's sake, get it out already. We'll continue when you're finished. But there is nothing to do. How do you cry without eyes? How do you scream without a mouth? The tantrum is over nearly before it began. See? Now. Have a gander at all this pretty that is going on here. And your new friend? Go on and see what he wants to show you. All four feet of that Maladroit replica shuffles over to her maker and lifts a tiny, wibblefingered hand to clasp it in Maladroit's.

Maladroit would guide her carefully down to the shore.. carefully, through the wending and myriad loops and whorls and macramé planter-holders of time and fate woven from the unearthly hues which strummed and sang as the odd pair passed them by. Carefully, gingerly even – for the threads of Fate and Time were never meant to be disturbed on accident, and let’s say – that fishmonger, whose present future Daisy just tripped on, would now never grow to old age, the sticky string of his lifespan entangling with that of a bull, which in five weeks would be stung on its hangy-bits by a wasp and break loose from its yoke in a Cenrillian vineyard, to go rampaging around the city. But for that slip of the kitten’s foot the man would have survived, but now the bull would gore and trample and … well, fishmonger pulp is where that path ends. And his children – look, Daisy, with your lack of eyes – would starve and two would perish, but three would not, and one would not follow the criminal trail of his siblings but desire above all things a clean and virtuous life, which he – thanks to Maladroit adjusting things a tad, just a tad, since a path cannot be altered twice but the paths around it may – would achieve in the clergy and go on to found the city’s most prosperous charity for street urchins, saving many from a fallen life of pain and depravity; and which always, for some reason unknown to anyone, also took in stray and starving kittens for the orphans and unfortunates to raise and learn kindness from. Oh look, Daisy – the sea~! A million tiny living lanterns are waving their tentacles at you, and the water looks ever so inviting. No need to hold your breath. You have nothing to breathe with, anyhow.

Daisy didn't mean to trip on futures, but as for kittens go she is quite clumsy so it isn't a surprise her little foot caused so much chaos. Though she would be pleased to know a little end of it circles around the wellbeing of starving kittens. Not that she is biased or anything. Her faceless face turns towards those lanterns and soon the fear is replaced with curiosity and excitement. You may change the way she looks, dear cookie, but not her nature. She's only been in the sea once. A mermaid kissed her and took her deep in the waters to see a dragon. Her grip tightens on her new playmate's hand and she bounces a little. Only lips can't part to ask if they can go so she tugs on that held hand instead.

And so into the brine they trod, the star-walker and his little mimic, the waters alive – so alive, kitten!- that Daisy would feel each drop embracing her rubbery frame, sloshing down her jaggedy wings, like tiny droplet-friends filled with tinier ones, each welcoming her to their home. Maladroit encouraged her to let go, once they were in the water, so that big wings and little wings could act as kind-of-fins, propelling them out into the waves that were really waving – for the sea loves a gaunt, as a gaunt loves the sea. And when they were far enough out for the abomination’s liking, it swoosh its tail – carefully, gingerly, those poisonous tips! – to cradle Daisy to a stop. All around them the squid bobbed and sang and shone with colours which did not exist for eyes but for minds attuned to them properly, and to whom they were not merely calamari waiting to happen. The song grew in intensity, and the grave moon overhead spread a sheet of gentled sunlight, cooled in its planetary arms, across them all. The once-goblin turned to Daisy now, as flat-headed silver fishlings tickled her many toes, and waited. For what? For Daisy to –see- of course, the way things without eyes see, the world as it once was, when the sea hung lower on the hips of this world, and strange beings trekked across its belly.

Daisy is hesitant despite her excitement because one doesn't not simply forget breathing and water aren't friends when you're just a kitten with a nose and a mouth and a pair of lungs. The hesitant doesn't last long once those friends tickle her furr-less skin, making her laugh a laugh that comes out not in bubbles or sound but a swirling of yellow and orange that only a creature of sunshine could emit. She releases Maladroit with a giddy that pushes her further than wings or limbs or tails could ever expect to manage. We don't put much weight on the helpingfulness of the tail though. The druid hasn't been in control of that appendage for some time now. But wait! She is stopped and forced to see- no. Allowed to experience that moon and its sheet of glowing fabric blanketed on them all. The sea does make a fantastic skirt that flows with the world's dance and those hips? They tell no lies. Go. Go and dance with that woman that isn't a woman that isn't a mermaid that has perfect hair and a seashell bra. Daisy throws another swirl of yellow and orange at Maladroit before darting to the creature who stops her short with a snarl and dangerously held spear.

Maladroit’s own ripples were magenta and indigo, with a touch of moon-silver threaded through, and these wafted briefly in the water as Daisy scudded off to play with the ancients of the sea – owait. Maladroit forgot that bit… and with a wibble of fingers, sent a proper introduction for Daisy via squid-song, which crosses all barriers, and so it was that the one with the spear made of narwhal-horn (before the narwhals took off for the icy northern waters and became exceedingly rare, they were temperate creatures who travelled in vast pods, no thanks to the thieving, murdering proto-mers..) lowered her weapon and with a nod to the cephalopodian chorus swam a delighted ring around the cookie-forged gaunt-let, a clear invitation to dance. Meanwhile, Maladroit busied himself with important oceanic business, which consisted mainly of backflips and dogpaddling (which is actually the sign-language of narwhals, who were duly warned about the cold and encouraged to eat an extra daily ton each of shrimp, for the porpoise (get it) of subcutaneous fat gain). But to anyone else, he’d probably seem to be just goofing off in the wash of the tide. Soon, though, that blank head would cant sharply up – a different kind of ripple rippled out, red as peppers and just as alarming to the senses. Something was afoot. Or a-tentacle. Or just .. ‘up’?

Daisy isn't sure what to do when snarls are snarled in her general direction. All of the things she relies on are gone and now she is left with this rubbery body of long fingers and wings. Oh good! The snarl has been replaced with delight and all is well with the world again! More danceswimming with the rainbow of swirling laughter happens, encouraging more of the locals to come out to play. It seems that whether it is fur or rubber, feathers or barbs, purring or colored swirls, none of it matters when it comes to the druid. Despite what is seen, she is still the picture perfectness of adorable and happy. Which would go on for a long while if feet and tentacles weren't thrown up like some sort of hands not caring. Her dancing is paused and she is immediately right beside Maladroit once more. When unsure, go with what you know and right now this strange thing is all she knows.

Swiftly – and you just do not know what ‘swift’ means until you’ve travelled with a creature like Maladroit – Daisy would find her small rubbery hand gripped in a larger.. rubbery hand. And just like that, before a narwhal could flip a flipper farewell, or mer-thing bubble sayonara, gaunt and gauntlet were ungently breaching the ocean’s skin (Maladroit would apologise later..), the larger pair of wings rocketing them up, up …. Oh hello, vertigo! .. and away! Clouds grumbled blackly at having their condensations rudely interrupted, their damp complaints quickly falling away under the two who zoomed toward the heavens like conjoined meteors in reverse. Maladroit apared a moment’s pause for Daisy, a quick wibble warning her that things were about to get interesting.. and WHOOOOOOSH! Before the wibble even had time to register, there they were --- where? Well. Nowhere Daisy would recognise. But Maladroit knew it, like the back of his black-rubber hand. Mainly; as everything was.. black. Except you know. For all the stars and asteroids and black holes, and things.

Daisy – DUCK! Or that little fiery bit of star-matter whizzing by is gonna thunk you in the head!

Daisy can only hang on for dear life. Tiny body clings to the larger one, wrapping all of her around all of him. No amount of time spent on her couatl's back could have prepared the kitten for this! So much for your fear of heights. Hiding your face in the gaunt's chest isn't going to matter. You don't have any eyes to hide! There is a pause and oh god how do you throw up when you don't have a mouth!? Nothing doing. There is the warning and suddenly the heights are gone. Can't really be afraid of something if there is nothing to measure that something into being a thing. And so she relaxes and even pulls away a little to see about enjoying the emptiness of space that is so full of that thing coming right for them! Only it is coming from behind Mala and with a little beat of her new wings, she shoves the two of them out of the way so they aren't smashed to bits

Maladroit didn’t have a brow, but if it did, it would have born a frown at the impetuousness of infant comets.. Daisy earned a pat on her head, between her two tiny horns (like a kid goat’s, awh) for her quickness of wit. But the gaunt wasn’t here to scold fizzy star-bits. There were more important matters at hand.. for out here in the macrocosm, somewhere between the widely-flung atoms of the flesh of the gods, it had sensed a great wrong-ness, a fault in the fabric of time and of fate like a wound, a rip – a bite. Subtle wibbles sent eddies of non-colour and sound toward Daisy, who by them would come to understand what they were searching for.. a thread (even out here, there were many) gone sour, a bad taste on the tongue of creation. It was their job to hunt it, and do what they could to right the wrong, before it echoed down to the realms below and really effed things up..

Daisy nuzzles into that petting, suddenly very aware of having horns in the general area of where her ears used to be. But now is not the time for being snuggley! Now is the time for hunting and searching and discovering things that don't belong in a rainbow world of holding things together. A flit of golden shimmer is sent to Maladroit to replace what Daisy would call a smile as she takes that faceless face in both hands of long fingers and presses their foreheads together. Of course she'll help. There is another splash of gold and then a wobbily flip into the empty that is space. Eboric would be proud of her ability to give heights the middle finger of fearlessness. Where should we look first, gauntlet? You can't look through kitten eyes while like this. Details are pulled close in other ways, embraced by the eyes that are less but more at the same time. First primary, then secondary, then monochromatic black and white... all of them wave to her as if to say 'not it' in her very serious game of hide and seek.

Maladroit was proud, too, in its own special way. Which is to say, it was not disappointed that Daisy had failed to go barking mad or explode, or any of the several other misfortunes which might just have happened had the kitten-gaunt not meshed with the powerful magics imbued in the thing that looked a lot like a cookie but wasn’t… and neither was it saddened by her lack of cowardice and selfishness. Which is to say, Maladroit was seriously pondering leaving Daisy as she was, for few indeed had the mettle to cope on any level with the perceptions and knowledge of a gaunt, let alone one that had progressed to star-walking… Anyway. The abomination too set about scanning the stars and all the spaces between them, and in every time, and all dimensions (layers of the task Daisy possibly would not perceive, being that she was properly, after all, still a kitten..) – nothing. A pseudofrown ripples from its aura. The wrongness was here, it knew. But hiding? Was it missing something obvious? The answer, unknown to the one who knew more than most, was – yes. Maladroit was missing the elephant in the room. Or, in this case, the sticky web of fate that sang slightly out of tune with all the others, which Maladroit couldn’t quite catch… because it belonged to Maladroit.

Daisy gives credit to her ability to be easily distracted. A lot of credit, actually. Panic was shoved aside for curiosity. Crazy was offered a hug of excitement. Explosions fizzled by sheer giddy. And it doesn't really matter what kind of skin or wings or dangerous barbed tails you give the girl, she's still Daisy. Take her fur. Take her face. You won't take her. So if Maladroit wibbles swirls of importance to the druid, you can bet your ass she's going to help. If gaunts have asses. Sooo not looking. Looking for things are jobs for gauntlets! Gauntlets who search and search and shake hands with all of the threads except the one that will help her friend the most. How long does one look? Is there time in space? Daisy doesn't even know space is a word! She just, you know, doesn't try to think too much about where they are. Lost always has been a favorite place for her. So what if she's lost in space. There have been worse movies. With her little head hung and arms draped at her side, she goes back to Maladroit in defeat. The elusive thread of non-color is just that. Blues and greys drip from her face reeking of sorrow and apologies and sometimes all the heart in the world just isn't good enough.

There’s a lot to be said for sorrow and disappointment, once you don’t have a heart or a mind but rather an entire body-mass of spongiform proto-matter through which neurons and synapses fire like a cosmos in miniature… For such things do reek of grey and blue-grey and dampness and broken things, and lost kittens in the snow. And they are infectious, which is why misery loves company and spreads like a bad cold.. And they were, in this moment-out-of-time, the very thing Maladroit needed – for such a range of feeling was not in its own repertoire, and Daisy’s peeled away the fog, so to speak, that was this lack of knowledge. Thus, attuned to the very same misery that imbued the thread of fate they hunted, it popped suddenly into ‘view’ – attached to Maladroit like a cosmic umbilical cord that stretched off in a million directions at once. Perhaps Daisy could see it now, too, and also spot, like needles in a haystack, the one or threads that felt ‘not right’. It was much harder for a gaunt to observe his own Fate at this distance, than it might be for a plucky kitten-gauntlet. If she did happen to notice them, the wrongness would draw her in like a soap opera cliffhanger, demanding to be followed.

Daisy maybe might have momentarily mentioned minutes ago a minute thing called distractions. Not only do they distract her from the previously listed list of listings, but they also distract her from current bouts of self doubt and sorrow. These distractions take the form of all sorts, you see. Usually something shiny or loud or adorable. This distraction is the exact opposite of those things, which is why it screams at her the loudest, reaching at her with grabby-hands of 'look at me!' while hiding in the sea of color at the same time. Like that one guy doing the chicken dance all alone while couples upon couples are trying to waltz around him. Like... Oh for crying out loud, there's a giant red neon arrow blinking at the damn thing, alright? Which brings the gauntlet closer. She brushes away the sad colors and tilts her tiny, faceless head that is inches away from the thread. Eyes would cross at it, were that possible. Two of those long, slender fingers lift to pinch that thread between them. Do you pull? She lifts her chin to Maladroit even though it does no good. She found it! But has no clue what to do now.

It didn’t matter, though. She’d achieved the single most important thing there was to achieve here - the really, really hard bit. As for the relatively mundane task of following through on her lead, Maladroit was already dragging Daisy through the chronosphere, for these were threads of time, each a warp-fiber leading to alternate reality which the weft of Fate would cross and solidify down there in reality-land. To put it another way, there was yet another WHOOSH! – and Daisy was suddenly peering in her newly-eyeless way at a world gone literally mad. It was on fire. It bled with a thousand cuts, each wound a town razed or village slaughtered. Not a flower grew that wasn’t burned alive, not a tree remained that wasn’t thrown to the fires of war… terrible war… and above it all, in a great, black tower that .. well, towered over all, where a woman they both would know was laughing, barely recognisable in the awful form she’d taken. Monstrous, even to the monstrous.. and at her sides, a bevvy of awful companions much like herself, some barely humanoid, all of them bat-wing insane and gorged like horrid leeches on the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike. This was not a world for Daisies and indeed, there was none left… Ooh, that cannot be good for gauntlets, let alone their elders, to spy their own lack of existence. No wonder misery thrummed from this thread like the blues wails from a prisoner’s lonely harmonica. If this –was- the future, it sure seemed bleak… but what was that –other- thread, over there? Surely… hopefully… maybe.. a better world? It didn’t seem so morose as this one had.

Daisy was promised cake upon success! Where is her cake? This devastation is not cake. It is not even a cookie. It is not even a damned cookie that changes kittens to adorable gauntlets. She would sit or slump or stumble if there was a place to do such things. No flowers? No trees too? Maybe she can bring them back. Make them grow again! Give them life and hope and you may say Daisy is a dreamer, but she's not the only one! She takes a hold of Maladroit's hand and tugs. They have to do something. Find something. See shimmers of threads hiding over there in the bleak, wanting to be discovered and found even if there aren't neon flashing signs and terrible dances. Yes! The world will be as one! It has to be a better way! That held hand is cuddled to her chest and hugged for her own moral support. What is the color of thrilled? On Daisy, it is all of them. And now those colors assault Maladroit as she tugs him to that thread.

Quick as a blink, or an eyeless flash of knowing, the pair were once more whoosh-ing toward a fate-in-the-making. Oh yes, this one was better. Flowers- check. Trees – check. Daisy – intact. No towns on fire, or at least no more than the usual number. But what was the difference? That ominous tower did not exist here, but the woman who’d been gloating on its battlements did. There she goes! Off to some tryst or other with some drowish-looking fellow or other, her head full of far more mundanely nefarious schemes than the complete obliteration of the planet. But the difference between them – what was it? Maladroit indicated to Daisy that it needed her to recall the woman from the other world, while the once-goblin summoned a likeness of the one from this thread. Ah! There it was! The woman in the wreckage-world bore upon her pale brow a gem, the one she wore presently. And, as Daisy would see, in the other case she bore it not. So it seemed the ruination of everything might depend on that gem staying put on the woman’s head. Maladroit shivered and wibbled his fingers frantically, transmitting to Daisy the knowledge that now came the part where they had to play at being the Bloodhounds of Fate, and risk the risky business of crossing their own time-lines in order to sniff out where, exactly, that gem parted company with the woman who would, otherwise, eat the world and suck its marrow. This would take.. time. Or rather, a great deal of effort on both behalfs. But, eventually, with the two weary and unnerved by their presence where they did not belong, the scent of something significant grew strong. Maladroit pointed to the source of that odour, sharp and musty, like old mummy-flesh. Which made sense, since Maladroit was in fact pointing at the drow-Lich, Tiphareth. What was this? What must they do? Daisy’s guess was as good as anyone’s – and probably better than Maladroit’s at this point, for the gaunt could not perceive how the absence of the gem, the salvation of the future world and the undead mage were linked…

Daisy soaks in the everything. What else do you do when you can feel nothing and all the things at the same time? Observations are made and noted and written down on little pads of paper so they aren't forgotten. Once finished, that pencil is tucked behind her ear that isn't there so it just falls to the ground, forgotten when the Tiphareth is spotted. She met him once. Just once. He was fire-eyed and decaybringing and 'look I'm the scariest thing ever' and she was all 'hey look at my compass.' It was brief and she isn't sure she really wants to see him again. Seems like she's going to. Maybe if they ask nicely, he'll just go away or something. Maybe he's going to take the gem! Maybe he steals it! Maybe... She turns to Maladroit and tries to show him her thoughts. Roughly drawn crayon images of stick gaunt and gauntlets are holding hands beneath a bright sun with a smiley face on it. On the other hill is stick-Tiphareth complete with stink-decay lines hovering over his head. The gaunts go over there by the Lich, but that is as far as they go - poofing to nothing because Daisy sucks at the imagery thing and even that bit wears her out.

Maladroit, if it was at all the type to grab kit-gaunt-lets and give them a big old hug would have.. oh what the heck. Daisy was grabbed and mishandled a bit, an awkward moment of appreciation that ended when Maladroit released her so it could do a loop-de-loop of victory (somewhat carelessly, so that a blind mole somewhere in Xalious was abruptly slated to be nipped by a rabid were-wolf and spend the rest of its thankfully brief life mauling the ankles of unsuspecting passers-by, who’d find themselves on the next full moon burrowing great holes in their back yards, unclothed and with their eyes clamped shut..) – yes! By Sven, she’s got it! Clever gaunt-let! There was another head-rub in it for Daisy, for sure. But first, our intrepid Bloodhounds of Fate had to work out the precise actions that would lead to world salvation. It was all to do with Tiphareth and, it seemed, the removal of the gem. Some deft wibbling later, and Maladroit had Daisy well-informed as to the extreme unlikelihood of anyone removing the gem from Tenebrae while her head was still attached to its body. There’s a picture for the scrapbook - Tene bolting around Hollow like a headless chicken. While that reality indeed had its own thread, Maladroit searched for another, for while they’d always had a complicated sort of relationship it was not in the gaunt’s nature to wish its Mistress –that- much ill. There had to be another way. Since Daisy was a boiling pot of good-idea-soup presently, the gaunt shrugged it bony shoulders and tossed the proverbial ball in her court once more.

Daisy squeals with orange and yellow and pink delight as she is cuddled! Even though her images weren't all that great or complete, it seems she has done a good thing that nobody even had to wait for! It was just there, dancing around like pink fluffy unicorns on rainbows. So what to do? They have to find a way to keep the Lich-drow away from Tenebrae. Oh! She wibbles and there's the necrolady in the laciest frufru dress ever. Scary guys don't like fluffy dresses and I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd wanna be around Tene if she was wearing one of those either. So maybe that isn't a good idea. That little drawing poofs away and the gauntlet is pushed down onto her belly for thinking. Maybe if they could make Tiphareth forget he wants the gem in the first place. A rock is toyed with between two fingers, rolled back and forth like a kitten would some yarn. She sits up again and holds the rock out to Maladroit. More crayon drawings and stick figures, this time of a different gem being handed to Tiph to make him forget Tene's.

‘Forget’.. bless her, but Daisy, in having got it all entirely wrong, had inadvertently hit upon the answer. Forgetfulness! Rapid wibblings would let her know that this was, perhaps, a plan – give Tenebrae some incredibly powerful drugs, knocking her clean out so she would ‘forget’ maybe, for a short time, upon awakening, that she was missing a gem filled with the will and might of the Death-god himself, and thus not catch and subsequently rip to pieces the crafty thief.. Hm.. it had to be somebody who could not only be trusted, but who had the trust of Tenebrae, as well as the necessary light within to handle such a dire artifact and not be tempted to keep it for themselves… But where did Tiphareth fit in..? Now an acceptable line of action was found, Maladroit sought for the corresponding threads, the way a scholar rifles through a library. Aha! There, that thin little thread over there, hardly in existence at all… a safe thief, a powerful drow… a gift made. A world saved. Someone, or so Fate appeared to tell them, had to drug Tene, steal the gem and take it to Tiphareth. Daisy might find herself being peered at eyelessly, very intensely indeed, about now.

Daisy drops her little rock. She doesn't want the gem. She doesn't want anything bad to happen to the world. She peers right back with the light colored swirls and there is another image. A scratchy, black and white reel of a movie ticking along silently. There's the kitten as her kitten self, kneeling in the dirt as she whispers to tiny flowers with silent moving lips. Those flowers blink open, shudder, then wilt to the ground so the petals can be collected. The reel flaps then, showing only the ticking of light. The little druid knows of plants and drugs and beverages fit for dark ladies.

That weedy, half-formed string of Fate abruptly resonated a clear, pure note – and was suddenly thicker, its foothold in the ever-transient weave of the future more solid now. The answer had been found! Maladroit’s aura was like a new year’s party of silent sounds and colours beyond reckoning, and with that – he grasped the once-kitten’s many-fingered hand, her illusory rock and crayons left to litter the floor of the outer multi-verse for all eternity… Yet another of those jarring whooshes, and the two were standing back in the market, which was now just a market… perhaps missing a few of its regular faces, but it was there. Daisy got that rub on her horned little head, as promised. Good job, gaunt-let! But there was another job to come, once perhaps more dangerous, in its own way. Maladroit wibbled at her gravely, and then reached forward to tickle her on her black, rubbery belly. This action promptly induced her feeding-tendrils to emerge from her refuelling-place. Which means, through a sudden slit in that belly came a bunch of slimy, tentacly-things, some of which still gripped bits of half-digested cookie. Maladroit wibbled.. and they dropped the crumbs before slinking back into Daisy. There now, the gaunt-form would likely not be permanent. In a few short hours, the kitten would once again be a bundle of fur and face and charm and prettiness, though it was possible she’d retain –some- aspects of gaunt-hood. Like that tail, maybe. Perhaps even those stunted little wings…