This mess is a place. (Pobody's nerfect) [Open]

[princerat]

(Takes place a few days after this)

Discarded items stream constantly into the sewers, generally in the form of rubbish, creating small isles of filth that build up to block pipes and decay and erode away by pieces. The underground's citizens pay little attention to anything that isn't edible, and the rest is nothing more than landscape. It is not

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[sophicsulphur]

They'll be meandering in the direction of Kaden's apartment, then: thirty floors up, in one of the fancy downtown high-rises with shiny-floored lobbies and locked gates on their elevators. About halfway there, though, it does finally dawn that a giant rat in the elevator might not be quite so acceptable to the staff at this complex as it would be in the Kashtta; so once she arrives outside the complex, she turns to him and, taking the talisman gently from his mouth, asks, "Could you wait there? I won't be too long."

Not that a giant rat waiting outside the apartment complex looks any better, really. But this one made it to the Kashtta; it surely knows how to hide itself if need be. Probably a magical rat, from the feel of it, with some of Saul's magic about it. She bets it could slip into the shadows at the first sign of trouble, no problem.

Once she's up there, she wastes no time in fishing a longer length of cord out of her supplies and attaching it to the talisman in place of the old. Thankfully, it doesn't require any actual alchemy on her part, or it'd have taken her a lot longer; the merely mundane task is completed in moments, and then she'd heading back out again, down all thirty floors and out to the street, where her companion awaits.

"Here you go!" she says brightly, slipping the cord around the creature's neck. "Is that what you wanted? --Oh! I just realised something." She pulls a piece of paper and a pen from her pocket, and scrawls a quick note. Saul, Could you contact me? I've been worried about you. --Iris. Then she hands it to the rat, expecting it to open its mouth to take the paper. "A message. Could you deliver it to Saul for me? I'd be ever so grateful."

[princerat]

The giant rat nods when she asks him to wait. While she's gone he nearly forgets what he's here in this neighborhood for, out in the open and all, but the sight of his own strange shadow brings him back to the present. He crouches down low, trying to shrink into himself and hoping any passerby mistake him for a garden statue. But no one comes, and Iris returns.

He lets her slip the cord around his neck, and he opens his mouth, about to try to explain himself again when she begins to write. At this he spins around in a circle a few times with some excitement, because this might be his best and only chance.

Carefully he accepts the note with his ridiculous teeth but then drops it on the ground, smooths it out with his paws and reads it. And then he sighs. One claw touches the name Saul. He looks up at her with those deep black animal-intelligent eyes to make sure she's watching, and then he points the claw at himself. Now he studies her with some amount of anxiety, with ears and whiskers twitching, because if she doesn't understand this he's screwed.

[sophicsulphur]

The narration thinks his spinning is adorable. And for that matter, Iris does too. It's all she can do not to clap her hands at his little performance, instead settling for an entirely undignified squeal. "Oh, you're so cute!" she exclaims. "You really like it, huh?" She's pleased that the rat is fond of her gift. It certainly cared enough to bring it back to her so she could adjust it. What a sweet creature it is!

...But then it's doing something with the note, and she lets go her excitement long enough to pay attention, because whatever it's doing seems curious. It almost looks like it's reading, and she's pretty sure rats can't read. Well, maybe magical rats can read, but for a rat that can't talk, that would be a pretty impressive....

And then it's pointing. Pointing something out to her-- Saul's name, and then touching itself, and--

Realisation lights in her eyes at about the same time as shock. "Saul?" she gasps, her hands going to her mouth. "No way! What happened to you?"

--Of course. He can't speak. "Never mind. Look, we'll... I'll find a way to get this undone. Okay?" She kneels down next to him again, running a hand through his short, dirty fur. "I promise."

[princerat]

...He'll probably be a little embarrassed about that later, when he's thinking like himself again. And he does like the talisman quite a bit. Of course it's a thoughtful gift, but it's also the thing which returned him his senses, and for that he's more grateful than she can possibly imagine.

She says his name and he bobs his head- yes way. He's not entirely sure what happened, so he can only manage a sort of shrugging motion when she asks that. But petting is nice, and she's promised to help. It's a bit of relief, but it's only the first step of what could be a very long process. What if he's stuck like this? Panic starts to rise in him, but he clamps down on that feeling as soon as it starts.

No, the best course of action is to tell Iris everything he knows before he forgets again. He flips her note over to the blank side and makes a gesture as if his paw were holding a pen and he were writing on the air. If she doesn't understand that, there's some snow he can try writing in. He's not sure if he can even still do it, but if he can read and he can think words, surely he should be able to scrawl something out.

[sophicsulphur]

She breathes out a sigh that's caught somewhere between relief and despair when he nods. "Well, thank the gods I found you and you at least got through to me. I'm-- sorry it's been so long. I should've checked up on you sooner, should've done something...."

She shakes her head. No time for dwelling on that now, even if it's the second time she's made that mistake. There's something nagging at the back of her brain telling her these events feel connected, too, but she can't imagine how-- other than Rift nonsense-- and she's not going to waste time on it. Whether they're connected or not isn't that important. She needs to start thinking about how she can fix this.

Of course, that train of thought's not going to get far if she doesn't know how it happened. But then she sees the motion he's making with his paw, and nods. "Right." She takes the pen out of her pocket, and-- almost hands it to him, but then thinks better of it, instead setting it carefully down on the ground by his paws. "Here you go." She's not sure whether he intends to use his paws or his teeth. Privately, she's not sure either will work.

[princerat]

Saul shakes his head when she starts in on how she should've checked in on him. It's not important because he's here now, and it's not her responsibility. It wasn't wrong of her to assume he can take care of himself. And besides, there are so many places he can be that she can't get to. There's miles and miles of pipework in the underground alone. It would be impossible and even dangerous for her to look. If he didn't answer his journal, it's his own damn fault.

He has no thumbs, so maneuvering the pen into an upright position is a challenge on its own, but he's fucking determined like his life depends on it. After a few false starts where he drops the pen, and a moment where he's distracted by some very interesting scent on the wind, he eventually gets the hang of things. Gripping the pen in between his paws and steadying the top of it with his teeth while being careful not to snap it in two at the same time, he begins to slowly drag the pen across the paper.

His words are large, taking up the whole page. But with the crookedness of his writing, it's the only way to make them legible. The narration apologizes in advance for the grammatical hell that is sure to follow.

"EAT BAD FOOD SMELLED BAD
THEN CHANGED
BRIAIN IS DUMB- I KEEP FORGET"

At least that last part should explain some of, well, everything. His actions and his absence.

[sophicsulphur]

"...Bad food," she repeats, scanning over his words. They're large enough that she doesn't need to pick up the paper to see them, even with her weakened eyesight. Trying to hide how her heart twinges at how diminished his thought is-- she knows he's a rat at heart, but the Saul she knows is much less fragmented than this-- she rubs her hand through his fur again, scratching absently between his ears, and then stands.

"I'm not sure what could have caused this, but I'm willing to bet it's some kind of Rift effect," she says. "I'm no expert in transformation magic"-- if she were, she thinks wryly, her own problems would be long since fixed; if she were, the narration thinks wryly, none of this would ever have happened --"but I can at least take a look at you magically, try to get a sense of what's responsible. And whatever it is, if I can't help, I'm sure my friends can."

She's thinking of Aurora, mostly, though now she can't help wishing Hermione were here. She doesn't know Aurora nearly so well, and she feels bad calling in another favour. Still, it's an emergency, and she's ready to try anything on his behalf.

"Well, then. No choice but to take you up, I guess." She starts towards the apartment building. Kaden and Lily, at least, seem to be out of the house, so she can probably sneak him in there without too much trouble. "C'mon."

[princerat]

Honestly, he's self-aware enough to be a bit disappointed himself in the state of his own mind. It's weird to know he possess more intelligence and reasoning than he's able to access. It's like scrabbling at the walls of his own brain, and it's starting to give him a headache, which gives him more incentive to allow his thoughts to stray to things like how great it is to get scratched between the ears.

He's glad that she's so sure she can figure this out or at least find someone who can. He's noticed that she doesn't smell so much like alchemical processes anymore-- scents she used to be practically drenched in. The knowledge didn't have any significance to him until now, and it worries him. But she seems confident, and he trusts her, and that's enough.

He gives a chittering sound in acknowledgment, happy enough to follow her inside the strange building. It still hasn't occurred to him yet that she's moved.

[sophicsulphur]

She notes the way his expression turns dreamy at the petting, and can't help but smile a little. She resolves to do that to him more often. At least, so long as he's stuck in this form, which she hopes isn't long. She doesn't object to his giant-rathood per se, but if he were happy with it he wouldn't be going along with this, and besides, she worries for his mind. She just hopes the deterioration isn't permanent.

She tries to project an air of nonchalance as they move through the lobby, studiously avoiding the eyes of anyone who might be in the vicinity. Look like you know what you're doing, and people accept you without a second thought. ...Okay, so it's not entirely true, and more than one person shoots them a glance filthier than the coat on Saul's back, but she keeps walking, unlocking the elevator and coaxing him into it.

She just hopes he remembers what elevators are.

Thirty floors later, and her apartment's in sight. She unlocks the door and quickly urges him into her room, just in case the others came back while she was downstairs-- she doesn't think it likely, as she'd probably have seen them go by, but for all she knows they could have passed her in the lobby without her notice.

The apartment is quiet, though, she notices as they settle from their slightly mad rush, the silence disturbed only by the occasional hum from Lily's domestic golem. They're in the clear, at least for now.

[princerat]

He doesn't like that people can see him, but walking through the lobby isn't frightening-- he's not afraid of any of these people, and he'll simply return their gazes with a challenging one of his own. Nor does getting into the elevator bother him-- it's just a smaller room with no strangers in it. When the elevator starts to rise, that gives him a bit of a start, makes him scrabble to keep his balance. He shakes it off, feeling stupid for not expecting it. Of course it was going to move.

Even though he really wants to explore the apartment and stick his nose in everything, he'll settle for being herded into Iris's room where there's plenty of familiar smells. His nose leads him in a circle around the edges of her room. The dry, musty old paper of her books catches his attention, then the herbs. He shoves his head under the nightstand then the bed in his process, then finally settles in an out of the way spot, looking up at Iris and wondering why all her stuff is here instead of at the Kashtta.

[sophicsulphur]

Unfortunately, she can't sense his wonderings, so he'll be left to wonder until such time as he's able to speak again. Unless he goes out of his way to scrawl his question down, anyway.

She takes a seat on the floor at his side, pulling up a pillow. He can have one too if he likes, she offers with a gesture towards the pillow pile, though he seems pretty fine as it is-- as one would expect of a rat, really.

"Okay," she soothes, running a hand over his headfur. "Just stay calm and still, okay? I'm going to look at you with my magic, like I said, and you're not going to feel anything. I'm just going to try and get a sense of what might be going on with you. See if it's anything I recognise."

She keeps that hand on his head as she closes her eyes, letting his body heat against her fingers be the point of her focus. As long as she keeps her attention there, it's not too hard to concentrate: the distracting thoughts and images only linger on the edges of her consciousness, the rest of it taken up by Saul, his body, his soul, the echoing traces of--

She snatches her hand away violently, recoiling from him. Yes, that was definitely something she recognised, but-- not now. Those thoughts aren't relevant now. She can't be failing at even this simple test of focus. She can't have fallen that far. Her hand shaky, cold sweat snaking down her back, she touches him again, swallows, and breathes. This time, she gives the lightest probe to just his aura, the superficial energies collecting around him, and....

The feeling's still there. But she doesn't pull away, this time, because it's dawned on her why. Why he feels like that potion, that damnable potion that ruined her, and now it's.... She opens her eyes, staring at the monstrous figure that Saul has become. It's ruined him, too. Somehow, that stuff must have got into whatever he ate-- at least he didn't die-- oh gods, this is all her fault....

She buries her face in her hands and begins to sob. "...I'm sorry," she mumbles through her fingers, and through the emotion that's clogging her throat. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault. It's all my fault."

[princerat]

He declines the pillow and sits patiently. Not even his whiskers stir as he holds still for her diagnosis. He doesn't feel a thing, just like she promised, but he can smell her fear and the sweat. And now there's tears, and he can't figure out why. She wasn't even there when it happened, so why would she say it's her fault? It doesn't make any sense.

Hugs aren't really workable right now, his body's not built for them. So he has to settle for nudging her with his head, being careful not to stick her with his horns. He squeaks softly. Hopefully she'll calm down soon.

[sophicsulphur]

She unfolds from herself enough to give Saul's head a hug, leaning her head on his neck to avoid having to actually rest her chin atop it. Then she forces a deep, shaky breath, and straightens. Tears won't fix this situation; only magic will. And now Hermione isn't here, she's going to have to be the one to take responsibility. Besides, she's the one who caused all of this. She should be the one taking care of it.

"Listen," she says, standing and moving to her shelves to take down a stack of books. "I... there was a potion. A potion I made, we made, me and... me and Hermione." She's trying to speak slowly in case it helps him understand, but she's not sure how much he's going to get. "Hermione's gone now. So I have to-- I have to make the antidote myself. I mean, I've done this before, I can do it, I...."

She opens the door to the deck, sits down at her cauldron and begins leafing through. The problem is, she's not sure that she can do it, not any more. The antidotes were almost as tough as the potion itself, and that thing took them a month to make: they'd worked on them in parallel, before, to lessen the time it took to have everything ready, but it had meant many long, sleepless nights. Right now, she doesn't even think she has the focus to make even the antidotes alone without breaking down.

But she has to try. She's the last person who can.

She's silent a while, poring over the recipes, gathering ingredients from her shelves here and there. Thankfully, she still has most of what was left over from the last batch of antidotes, so the hard-to-come-by ingredients don't necessitate extra trips into the city to get. Laying them out on the deck in front of her, she sits herself back down by the cauldron, and begins.

Saul's seen her practice alchemy once before-- at the army meetup-- but this is different. She's clearly trying to go into a trance, but she's swimming in and out of focus, diving and resurfacing like a bottle tossed on an ocean wave. She's radiating fear, and this isn't the kind of thing that should ever be fearful. Magic never was fearful, for her: it was her sanctuary, her escape. But her mind's too fractured for her to want to descend into herself, to weave between the bright-edged shards and pick her way through to the serenity beneath. The path down is all wrong: after years of work, she'd cleared it smooth, but now her mind juts out at her, angry cliff faces on either side. Every small drop is another impact, another drawing of blood.

The evening wears on, then the night. There's sweat on her brow, and she doesn't so much seem tranced out as comatose. She is conscious, though, and eventually she drags herself back to the surface, turning to regard the rat.

"I'm... sorry," she says, and her lips feel like rubber. "I... I don't know... if I can do this. I have to. But I don't know."

[princerat]

The words come in, and he understands, but he doesn't quite get it. So she made a potion. She's made lots of potions. Iris's distress is obvious to him but the reasons are less clear. Maybe she's upset because of what she said about Hermione-- that she's gone. Did she die? That would be sad. He'd never met the girl but he knows they were friends.

He pads out onto the deck with her and sits, investigating everything she brings out to study. It looks like he's trying to help, but it's really just the scents he's interested in. After a time, that gets boring and he starts to get hungry. He puts his paws up on the balcony and looks over the edge. From what he remembers, he's spent most of his time down below. He doesn't know if he can still climb like he used to. Thirty floors up in the air is probably a bad place to test himself. And what if he gets downstairs and forgets and runs off again? It wouldn't be worth it, even for a snack.

He curls up, about to try to nap, but the scent of Iris's fear hits him again. He leaps back up to his feet, waiting for the danger but sensing nothing. So there he stays, tense and frozen, watching over her for the very long while that she's vulnerable.

When she comes back out of it, he's still there. When she speaks again, it seems that her resolve is wavering. He's been holding it together predicated on the assumption that she does know. And now she says she doesn't. A despairing squeak slips out of him, and he looks at her with pleading in his eyes. He's so far out of his element, and he has no one else he can go to.

[sophicsulphur]

"I know, Saul," she says, stroking a hand over his coat once more. She sounds tired, divested of all her resources. "I know. I just-- I can't-- I don't know what to do. I need to help you, but I... I can't like this, I...."

She forces her eyes closed, takes another breath. When she opesn them again, they're fixed on the middle distance. Okay. If she can't, then how? If not her, then who? Her mind keeps going back to Hermione, but Hermione isn't here. If only they had the antidotes. The ones she never took.

Wait.

"...That's it." It's not a real cry of triumph; that she doesn't have the strength for. It's soft and it's muted, but underlying it all, there's still a flicker of conviction. "That's it," she says again, more loudly. "The antidotes-- they've got to be still at her place. I never took them. She wouldn't have thrown them out with the potion-- she'd have wanted to save me, she'd have held out for that chance.... They've got to still be there."

She pushes herself to her feet once more. "I've-- got to break into my friend's old room," she says. "The antidotes are there. They have to be. --I won't be long."

And she's off, out the door, before he can squeak a syllable. If he plans on following her, he'll have to move fast.

[princerat]

Antidote is the most amazing word in the world to hear right now, and he goes tearing off after her. You can bet your ass he's going to follow you, Iris. She said something about breaking in somewhere, maybe Hermione's room, and that's his job, isn't it? He's not going to leave her alone to get into trouble, and he's sure not going to let himself be left alone to wander off and possibly never come back. He'll be right with her until there's a resolution to all this, whatever that resolution might be.

In the back of his mind there's the realization that it probably looks bad for a big monster like him to be running after a girl. Someone might shoot at him, and that would be annoying. So he'll stick to her side, and though he's pretty sure they're heading back to the Kashtta, he'll resist the urge to race her there in case he's wrong.