We demand cute

[halftheslain]

Freyja is a big fan of the cute. She likes flowers, fluffy bunnies, and children. But turning people into flowers is more of a Greek thing, and if you turn people into fluffy bunnies you are ultimately left with more fluffy bunnies than anyone could want. And while Freyja is a staunch supporter of making children it takes so long before they

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[winglessascent]

The boy is twelve years old, with hair like sunlight falling through branches and alien-blue eyes, staring almost blankly at his surroundings. He stands away from the others in the room and does not speak.

[luminousflower]

Claire, six years old and missing her two front teeth, her blonde hair hanging in a badly cut bob around her face, looks around her with a terrified expression. Too many people--! She backs up, away from the crowd of kids in the room, and, as it happens, right towards the blue-eyed boy.

[winglessascent]

He stiffens and takes a step back. Griffin doesn't like being touched.

[luminousflower]

She doesn't bump into him, but stops just short of it, peeking round over her shoulder at him with blue eyes too big for her face--

"...hi?"

[stephenblack]

Stephen is only ten but he is already a servant, has been one his whole life, and now he stands a little stiffly in his page-boy's livery in a corner. He wants to fidget or run and play. But he doesn't. Good servants don't and Stephen wants to be the best ever.

I was <em>dared</em>.

[illgotten]

--and there, for the second time this year, is a thin dark-haired boy of ten, barefoot and skittish as a kitten. He catches hold of the stair rail, frowning hard.

Re: I was <em>dared</em>.

[le_desirous]

"I can't believe this, honestly."

[illgotten]

Mordred watches him warily.

[le_desirous]

Sagramore shakes his head. "Don't look at me that way, young man."

[eye_and_heart]

Though it is true that, by and large, the dead always return to life here at the Mansion, they do not always come back by the same means. Freyja's magic permeates even to the last place Sagramore dragged Lascelles' mutilated and mouldering body, and had quite an effect on it -- so that he is now not only alive, but young.

He is just about eleven years old, in fact, dressed in his starched Sunday best, and wearing a sly expression not very different from his usual. Aside from that, he is quite a handsome little boy -- in fact, one might almost call him pretty.

He strides up to the first person he sees and stands in front of them, legs somewhat apart, hands behind his back, to demand in a clear, high voice, "Where is my father?"

[stephenblack]

"I do not know," Stephen answers as respectfully as he knows how.

[eye_and_heart]

"His name is Francis Lascelles," the boy continues, "and he is a very important man. He shall not be pleased to find me gone--!"

[stephenblack]

"Perhaps I can help you find him."

[stonedoncinema]

And then she is Vile, thirteen years old with choppy hair and scarred wrists and smelling of smoke. "Where the fuck is this?" she wonders aloud, although from the look of the room it could easily be any house in her parents' neighborhood.

[luminousflower]

Six-year-old, lisping Claire has taken refuge underneath a table in the corner of the room. "Shouldn't thay that word," she whispers, not entirely intending to be heard.

[stonedoncinema]

Vile catches that and rolls her eyes. "You sound like my mother. I'll say what I want."

[luminousflower]

Claire bites at her lower lip (with her canines, that is), looking at the carpet for moral support. "My mother thayth kidth don't thay it. 'Th f'r grown-upth."