Simple Hearts Will Be Prized Again

[cryptoherpetology]

WHO: Alex Price, Karen Page, Kat, YOU (OTA)
WHERE: Inn Records, Kat's House, Schoolhouse, Somewhere Outdoors
WHEN: Dec 1-15th
OPEN TO: Karen, Kat, OTA
WARNINGS: Mention of Dead Animals (Mice)

---

Lions, Tigers and Bears Sound Quaint (For Karen Page)

Alex has been spending more and more time in the inn since discovering the records, especially since Tony's mining expedition and the snake hunt. Mostly, he's been adding to what notes he can- especially for the ones he's been studying up close- mostly the fever snakes, since he's been handling those so much lately, but there have been pages on the snake bats and peacock cats added as well, since he's had so much experience with them up-close of late.

It's the ice mice that have him here today, with some anatomical sketches (including some that are clearly drawn from references of dissections) and as many of the field notes he's taken that he thinks will be useful. He isn't expecting to find someone else when he comes in, but smiles pleasantly when he spots a familiar face.

"I was starting to think this place was being haunted by the ghost of a librarian," he remarks to the woman he'd met in the corn. "It's Karen, right?"

King of (Birdlike) Cats for Kat

The peacock cats tracks aren't exactly like a domestic cat's, but they're similar enough that Alex can, after a couple of hours in the woods, he's able to locate a clowder (or would it be a flock?) of them. Most of the adults want nothing to do with him, and the juveniles are jumpy- except one, which has him confused at first, until he notices the way it's favoring three out of four legs.

When he arrives at Kat's door, the peakitten's left forpaw has been bandaged. Having just come from the wild, it's a good deal less plump than the litter he'd been fostering. Despite the frostbite, which he thinks might be the result of a failed attempt at preying on an ice mouse, and maybe some slight malnutrition, there are no other problems he can identify with the cat.

Boudica had just about thrown a fit with an unfamiliar cat in the house for as long as it had taken to bandage the poor thing up (he'd sacrificed one of his pillowcases for the cloth), so it'd been clear he couldn't keep it. Kat was the first person to come to mind- her notes on the animals here were enough to convince him that she wouldn't have any issue taking care of it, and she'd mentioned being interested in one.

Of Ice Mice and Men OTA

The mice in the schoolhouse are getting bold, if you ask Alex. Not quite as bold as he's used to mice being, given the... unique nature of the Aeslin mice that lived with his family. Thinking of their songs, their little shouts of "HAIL!" and the countless hours of theosophical debate almost makes him feel bad about the small knife he sends flinging through the air at the one he sees skittering across the plank wood floors, skewering it in place.

They're keeping his knife-throwing skills sharp, at least. Pun not intended.

Where There's Smoke... OTA

Like most people in the village, Alex is the type of person who runs towards screaming, so when he hears a surprised shout and the FWOOMF sound of something spontaneously combusting, he does just that. The fire isn't terribly large- enough that between the stomping of heavy hiking boots and armfuls of snow, he's able to smother the flame before it does too much damage.

"Are you alright?" he asks, checking his boots for signs of the treads melting, and finding them mostly intact. "No burns or anything?" It was hard to tell if the shout had been in pain, panic or both.

Comments

[cryptoherpetology]

"Both, actually," Alex admits. "Though I'm used to the mice trying to engage me in theological debate, not encasing things in ice." Though if the Aeslin had developed Elsa-powers, they might not have been near-extinct beyond the colony that lived with and worshiped his family.

He opens his mouth to say something else, but jumps back when he sees motion on the floor, reaching for Steph's arm to pull her away. "Shit, watch out-"

[cryptoherpetology]

"I haven't seen them freeze anything inorganic. Plants, other animals- anything living. If I can find a way to catch a few of them alive, I might be able to tell you more. But dissection should hopefully tell me something too.

He picks up his knife, with the mouse still skewered on it, careful not to touch the mouse itself, just in case. "We go outside, touch the mouse against the nearest tree and see what happens. Either we get some flash-frozen foliage, or nothing happens."

In terms of scientific methods, it's a little more advanced than "poke it with a stick and see what happens," but not by much. But an experiment is no less valuable for being simple.

[cryptoherpetology]

"It seems to be something that comes with being assigned red scrubs when you get here. By the sounds of it, there's something that goes with each color- everyone's capable of something they're not back home." He points down to his own black scrub pants and shirt.

"In theory, anyway. I still haven't figured mine out at all." Probably because it involves physical contact with other people (not that he knows that) and Alex isn't exactly a people-person. Especially a touchy-feely one.

[plate_builder]

"Any idea of what blue means?" Reeve asked as he considered his hand. What would it take to call the fire? Could he shape it in ways he had not before? This might require some degree of experimentation.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar still doesn't trust them so much, instead enjoying putting them on little fiery pikes with his fingers, but his suspicion can hold to learn about them. After all, if they come back, he's going to want to know about them.

"And if it freezes, we burn it," he adds, trying not to sound too hopeful to get to use his newfound powers, but those are a science that he finds thrilling all on its own, too. "Let's go."

[mediumhoodie]

Kat's fingers brush affectionately just under the cat's chin. It purrs softly and settles into her arms. It doesn't look like its unhappy to be there anymore though it's bright eyes continue to flick around the room. "I'll keep a close eye on her." She assured him in a sweet voice.

"I'd like that." If helped then she should be able to keep petting the kitten in her arms. "The water is ready. We just need to get the tea and pour it into the cups." She was slowly running out of tea but it was a small comfort as winter persisted.

"Do you run into a lot of animals? I was thinking of taking a small trip into the woods. I thought if I found something I could bring it to you." Though with the new kitten, her trip will be pushed back until she's comfortable leaving it in another's care for a few days.

[spoileralert]

She sees him jump and reaches for one of the knives in her pockets, but just as she's turning to find the damned thing it skitters across her shoe with a squeak of protest at the ruckus.

"Shit-" she agrees, turning white even as the ice starts to race up her body.

Inside she's screaming. She can't die like this, so suddenly, without even a chance to fight back. Besides that the cold came on so quickly that it's excruciating. She knows she'll be numb soon, but she doesn't want that any more than she wants frostbite.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" She stabs at the ice with the knife she just barely managed to clear before her hips were covered. It doesn't do a great deal of good. She's almost hyperventilating when the ice reaches her chest and creeps down her arms and up her neck.

Her hands do become oddly warm, though, and the knife she's holding with them. She's angry, she realizes. This isn't fair and she's pissed the hell off. A quiet sound like ice sizzling on a skillet can be heard as she takes one last deep breath and her head is fully enveloped.

[cryptoherpetology]

Alex shakes his head. "No idea whatsoever. Other people of all scrub colors seem to be getting fire powers, so that's not it. Given how close it all started to the mice arriving, they seem connected."

Alex begins to consider their surroundings, and starts to clear an area inside a particularly deep patch of snow, where he begins to pile wood- some of it dry, some not. Any fire they build will put off a lot of smoke, but it won't flare up faster than they can (hopefully) handle.

[cryptoherpetology]

"You're pretty fond of that as a disposal method." But then, he gets into his own habits that way too. Crunchy, the alligator snapping turtle at the zoo had probably gained a few pounds during Alex's years there, thanks to how handy he was for body disposal.

"But yes. If it's still dangerous, you have my permission to burn it. Just wait til I get it off the knife." It's harder to clean charred meat off a blade than blood.

[cryptoherpetology]

Even with the sound of the sizzling, Alex doesn't hesitate to grab a big, particularly heavy book and smack it across the thickest of the ice where it's gathered at her upper back to put as many cracks in the surface as he can. Try as he might, he can't seem to will a spark between his own fingers, so he keeps at that, looking for places where the ice might be particularly thin, or have an air bubble or some other flaw that makes it more fragile.

"Come on, come on-" he mutters, half-scared, but more determined. He's not going to let someone suffocate and/or freeze to death in front of him.

[cryptoherpetology]

"I think I've been dealing more with animals since I got here than people. Which- to be honest, isn't that different than at home- I was a zookeeper. The reptile house at the Columbus Zoo," he explains. "It was a research position, but that didn't get me out of giving class tours and cleaning the turtle tanks."

The snakes and reptiles don't have the magnetic affect on prospective interns and entry-level employees that the big cats or other more cuddly animals have.

[spoileralert]

The sizzling is quieter now, but it doesn’t stop. The first opening is in the ice covering Steph’s knife, the blade red-hot underneath a small but growing waterfall.

The second comes when a thin part of the ice next to her cheek explodes, the evidence melted moments after hitting the wall. It’s strained, but she can breathe. Over the next minute or two other small chunks pop where air bubbles formed and the entire structure melts.

She gasps for air when her face is uncovered and closes her eyes against the continuing melt. She gets out a couple of coughs for good measure as well. Once she has the air she gasps,

“What— the fuck?” She isn’t normally one for cursing but a near-death experience is a good occasion for it.

Unfortunately as the ice melts down past her chest and to her hips the process slows, leaving an exhausted, half-frozen, very soggy blonde in the middle of the room.

[plate_builder]

"What are you doing?" Reeve asked, standing still to watch the man. Clearing the snow, piling wood, which clearly was something the man had intended to do before if he had wood with him.

How interesting and odd of a man.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar gives him a look as he wonders who wouldn't be overly fond of being able to suddenly cause fire with your hands. After all, it's pretty damn cool, as far as he's concerned. He snaps his fingers to get the flames going again, just to prove it with a smirk.

He watches the knife and the mouse, gesturing for him to go. "Are you going to try it against a tree? Or more things?"

[mediumhoodie]

"It sounds like you'd rather handle animals than people." Kat smiled softly, her dark emerald green eyes alight with warm as she pet the little kitten in her arms. "If I'm honest, I think that animals are much better than people."

Animals didn't hide their intentions. They hunted to kill and to survive and they didn't torment their pray for fun.... well, not often and not to Kat's knowledge. She didn't know for sure but there was something more pure about the life of an animal than there was in the life of a human.

She stepped into the kitchen and began to use her one free hand to gather cups and tea leaves for them. "Could you pour the hot water? I don't want to do it while holding her." Kat gestured to the kitten curled comfortably in her arms.

[digging]

"Yeah, you'll probably end up doing that a lot," Karen replies, and then pushes out a soft, self-deprecating laugh as she motions to her own work. Sure, it's good to have all of this cataloged and maintained, but that's not what really drives her to do it.

"Sometimes I still get cocky, think I'm going to push the village envelope and find out something new or important," she adds, and then cants her head. "This place has a way of knocking you back down when you try that, I've found. The best you can do, if you're someone like me anyway, is just try to keep on, and be useful." So here they are.

[cryptoherpetology]

"I'm sure there are answers to be found," says Alex, and it's clear he's saying it for his own peace of mind as much as hers. "But finding them without my usual resources is making it all that much harder. Which of course makes me want to find them all the more. This is the sort of thing that creates mad scientists, I think."

[cryptoherpetology]

"A branch cut from one should be fine. The cells will still be living, and we can control how much matter is being exposed." A tree encased in ice is a tree potentially holding more weight than it's inevitably capable of up. "If you'd go to the trouble- I don't want to risk setting this thing down on top of some forest-spanning fungal culture or something."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar narrows his eyes, not sure if forest-spanning fungal cultures exist, but he still digs out one of the knives he carries in order to get a sturdy-seeming branch to hand over to him, handing it back out and hoping it has no fungal anything on it.

This really isn't his world. He can scout for dangers, he's good at tracking, but the actual plants? Not his thing.

[cryptoherpetology]

Alex sets the branch down on a heavily snow-covered patch of ground. Not much living matter in snow. He touches the dead and cooling mouse to the branch for a few seconds.

Nothing happens.

"I'm not about to go handling it without gloves, but I think we're safe," says Alex, then sighs, looking at where the knife pierced the mouse. "I'm going to have to check the poison traps." He needs one in one piece in order to cut it up. Scientists are weird.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar squints at the branch, waiting for something to freeze. In fact, maybe he's hoping for it, but he tames the fire before it becomes more than that little flicker that he allows. He doesn't think his new friend would appreciate Cougar getting jumpy and burning his hand.

"Why?" Cougar asks, of the ones in the traps. Maybe his point is more this: "What will you do with them?"

[digging]

Another laugh, and a slight duck of her head. "Without a doubt. I keep telling myself to break it down into smaller steps, but then I have to break those down into smaller steps, and break those down into smaller steps..." She shrugs with a roll of her eyes. "It's frustrating. But I don't know how to stop looking."

[cryptoherpetology]

Alex laughs, mostly because he's said those same words himself, usually over a crowded desk full of reference material and old family record books, identifying and memorizing everything that he could find that crawled the forest floor around his family home. He nods in understanding. "What field were you in back home? You'd have made a hell of a scientist."
He's realizing now that he's pretty sure he skipped that part of the small talk when they first met. But he's also a good deal more comfortable surrounded by books and research than a crowd of people of varying levels of sobriety. This is much closer to his natural habitat.

[digging]

"I was a journalist— Well, technically I had just quit that to become a full-time researcher, but the process is the same," Karen answers. Having her name on the byline had never been the important part for her; just getting to the truth.

"It's not a bad skill set to have for all of this, even if any actual answers are hard to come by. The people in charge don't really play by the rules, from my experience." She sits back with a faint creak of her chair. "How long have you been here now?"

[cryptoherpetology]

Alex can't help but smile a little at the answer- when she'd said 'research' his mind had filled in some academic field, but it made sense. And he stops to think for a second, that were he at home, this would normally be where he dove into the dry, boring tones of Dr. Alexander Preston, making it clear that there was nothing remotely interesting about him or his field of study. Pay no attention to the basilisks behind the secret locked door in the reptile house. Or the moderately spooky house nestled in the suburbs outside the city where only one out of four of its residents are technically human.

He's not really sure what it says about how used to this place he's getting that there's no inclination towards that.

"I was new enough when we met the first time that I still thought I'd been kidnapped by faeries," he admits. "In my defense, that is the sort of thing my family has a history of," he adds, with the sort of wryness that suggests he knows exactly how ridiculous it sounds.