#goldfinchfreehold

"Who put this up here?" Etsie says at the walking skeletal stag, "It's walking the halls. Is this some sluagh's revenge for us making a LITTLE noise in this neighborhood?"

The Bone Stag moves with graceful clacks and bumps against the vending machine.

Sylvi stares at it, wide-eyed. "Um...."

"Sylvi, so help me, if that thing knocks me down some steps..."

She approaches carefully and tries to reason with it. "Not that you're not welcome here, but...wouldn't you be more comfortable outside?"

She mutters back to Etsie, "I'm working on it!"

It turns and looks at her with hollow skull eyes, and rather than go outside, starts to head to the balefire, going down the steps. There's a clatter as it trips... it breaks apart, but then, begins to reform at the bottom of the steps.

Sylvi initially reacts with near-horror at the site of the stag's abrupt descent and subsequent discombobulation...but she takes a deep breath and relaxes just a bit when it starts pulling itself together. She follows down at a much less speedy pace. "Okay, so those are stairs. Probably not your preferred terrain."

She has her bowie knife in hand, wary about how the stag is going to interact with the balefire.

It looks about, and moves towards the fire. And then, rather than graze, it sits down and sort of watches it. Mesmerized

"Okay, Should I call Dirk and tell him that if it tries to eat the fire, he eats it?" An offer, "Or Priscilla?"

Watching, she moves closer. "If you just want to be near it, I'm good with that, but I'll protect my people's resources, if necessary."

"Yeah, Etsie, let Dirk know about this. And you might want to be present when he first sees it."

The stag sees the knife and actually backs up a foot. Then sits down again.

"Will do," She says "You ask around if anyone knows about this thing."

Sylvi sheathes her knife and puts her hands up, palm forward. "We have an understanding?"

It sniffs the hand, the breathe is odd as it shouldn't breath. It is cold, not banal, but like the first nip of Autumn Evening.

She lets it sniff and restrains the urge to pet its nose. "Okay, well, so far so good."

Yup. It's bone.

She takes a seat a little bit away and watches the stag for a while. Once she's fairly satisfied that it's not going to do the balefire any harm -- at least not yet -- she heads back upstairs and starts trying to find out who manifested this particular guest for the season.