#scarsdale

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(Through the trod? From the Streets? Hard to say, no one ever saw the chimera actually enter. But it is visible as it levers across the wall of the nocker's shop, a small brown paper package wrapped with twine held in its mouth, and a rolled note, sealed with purple wax, attached underneath the string, 'Miss Zara' written prominently in black ink. It settles to wait with infinite patience)

(It resembles a baby -- albeit a pale, bloated, twisted and deformed one. Its face is a chubby Gerber lookalike, a tuft of soft, dark baby-hair atop its head...but its front limbs end in suckered flippers. Instead of chubby baby's legs, a twisted and fused mass is dragged along behind. Its eyes are large, black and utterly blank, waiting with a stillness that a normal human infant would never display; occasionally, one of its eyes will drift sidelong, only to twitch forward again)

OOC Seriously.... HOW did you come up with this thing?

((Old OSC short story.))

Hirim limps in, face worn, eyes unfocused, the weight of fatigue heavy on him. He seems focused on getting something from his office-alcove.

Zara has spent most of the day with Miriam - at least as much as she's been allowed. Currently, she is in "her" corner, curled up into a pretzel of sleep.

(The baby's dark eyes fix on the newcomer, waiting headward-down on the wall over the desk, not unlike a clinging fly, perhaps? The brown paper packet swinging slightly with the movement of air-currents generated by the nocker's entrance)

He pulls a brocade sleeve across his eyes, and then resettles his glasses. He sighs heavily and shuffles through some samples.

(A quiet, slightly moist-sounding 'sucking' noise as it edges along the wall a few inches, waiting for the proper recipient to arrive and take the package, as is expected)

At the out-of-place noise, he glances over with a faint frown to look around the room.

"AHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

(It doesn't react to the noise, except, perhaps, that one slightly wandering eye twitches back to join the other in staring at him)

(It doesn't judge the odd behavior of other Fae, apparently)

A whispery sound of startlement from the darkened corner, raspy, sleepy grumbling. "Go 'way."

The sound he makes is clearly audible across the Freehold. He snatches up a tack hammer and throws it at the ... thing.

OOC I can't roll. My sheet is across the room. Play it cinematically, OoT.

(The tack hammer's aim is not too bad for being hurled by a startled and (formerly) weary nocker at distance; it strikes the baby's rear 'limbs', causing its mouth to open, and its delivery to fall onto the desktop. It starts to hitch, warningly, the sound fussy newborns make JUST before they are about to break into a full-throated, robust cry)

(Black ichor begins to well, then trickle, from its wounded hindquarters)

Hirim gropes on the desk surface, blindly, for something else to throw as he keeps his eyes pinned on the horrific chimera on his wall.

"Hehe?" Zara sits up, rubbing at her eyes.

"Zara, look out!" He scrabbles and finds a 5" pry bar.

(The baby's expression doesn't change -- its face doesn't crumple -- even as it begins to wail, a sound that starts to rise in pitch. It's a newborn's piercing scream, but something is very, very -wrong- with the sound. It's a baby-sound, but disturbing in a different way, causing the heart to race, and an ice-cold shiver to shudder up the spine)

"Look out? What's wrong?" a bleary blink, quickly coming awake now. "Is that...? "

(Zara is not -immune-, per se, but its disturbing quality is mostly limited to the ear-splitting sound of it, and the aversion any baby's cry would make)

(The nockers in the shop, however, are not so fortunate...)

(Nocker singular, I think?)

((Any within hearing distance)

"Zara, get out!" Hehe sounds genuinely alarmed and fearful, something she's not at all familiar with, and he moves to protect and evacuate her....

"It.. no.. Hehe, no, calm down, please... don't scare the Baby, or he'll cry..."

"Out out out out!!!"

A wordless noise of frustration, but she tries to corral Hirim outside with her.

((A natural 10, so 10 rounds of blind panic to any within earshot, minus 1 round per suxx on a WP roll. But, cinematic. 🙂 Any poor passerby...))

The two Fae mutually herd each other away, as fast as Hirim can go.

Which, given his motivation, is surprisingly fast. He might have pulled something.

(As the attack ends, the sound dies away to a hiccupping sob....then it is silent)

The sound has, of course, brought others around; guards, nearby workshop populations, so on.

(And it returns to patiently waiting, sluuuurking down the wall to retrieve its missive)

"Hirim, sit down. Breathe, yes?" she nervously looks around at the gathering crown, cheeks burning pink.

Hirim takes a breath and collapses onto a bench to vent a long, full, vitriolic description of the last 5 minutes.

(It retreats back up the wall and turns in place, resuming its vigil. The ichor has trickled down its bloated body, dripping to stain the desk with a few droplets)

Paint peels and blisters, and the flagstones underneath crack.

Zara winces a few times, her whispered pleas for calm lost under the vitriol.

(The baby readjusts its suckered grip, as the wall it clings to shakes under the force of nocker venom)

He stops, gasping, pale.

(Unseen to any who have not approached and examined it closely -- a colorful plaid ribbon has been tied underneath its chin)

"Shhhh, shh. It's okay. It's... it was scared,..."

He grips the pry bar like a life preserver. "IT was scared?!?! It was SCARED!?!?!"

"The Baby cries as a defense, yes..."

"The -BABY-!?!?!?" He gapes at her.