The City of Ash

Queenie worried, briefly, about her dress. She doubted it would fare well after this. Then again, it had already been through a pretty bloody fight, so this might as well happen.

She looked over to see Briar shivering. Well, not really. She was hiding it well, but Queenie knew her better than that. She sighed and pulled her sister closer.

"Can you get us home, Kirux?" she asked, too exhausted for her usual snark.

Kirux protectively held Klein to his chest, ducking his head over the stuffed animal to make sure he didn't get too wet by the fire alarms. His clothes, on the other hand, were quickly getting soaked by the really cold water coming from the ceiling.

Ugh, poor Kirux looked soaked. Setting a paw on Kirux's shoulder, Mal tilted his head in the direction of a chair far enough away from the showers that they'd only be hit by the mist coming from where the cold water mixed with the steam.

In the meantime, Zech ran back into the room, carrying a bucket over his head. Holding the bucket under one of the showers, the tiger glanced at Lasan, who was now starting to move. Randomly, shakily, but moving - Mal breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

"Hm? What can Kirux do?" Thytes said, looking over at Queenie.

She rolled her eyes, "Ask him," she said, gesturing to the boy in question, "Im not exactly all that familiar with concepts of magic."

Briar, meanwhile, knelt next to Lasan. He was looking...better. Well, not really, but he was moving, which was something. She wondered if the sudden change in temperature was doing more harm than good. If he was sensitive to warm and cold, then switching suddenly between them could shock his system. At least, in theory.

She watched quietly as the scene played out, trying to stay tuned in to everything that was going on at once.

Kirux was very eager to explain his abilities, even though he still had to make sure to keep Klein from getting wet when he was signing a response. "I can make corridors of darkness!" he explained. "If I think really hard, I can make darkness appear here and somewhere else, and then go through the darkness here and walk out through the darkness in the other place. It's like a portal!"

Leading Kirux to the dryish seat, Mal frowned slightly. "Darkness?" Mal said. "Do you know anyone else who uses that stuff? I met someone who was sort of like a living shadow once, and there was another person there who made a path out of darkness."

Thytes, turning to Kirux, grimaced at the mention of a portal (or what he assumed was a portal, since Kirux was talking about walking between places with darkness, and some of the signs looked awfully familiar), but put a smile back on before Kirux could notice (hopefully). "Oh, portals." he said. "That could be remarkably helpful in getting us back to our worlds, or at least to safer places than this."

Meanwhile, with the bucket partly filled, Zech turned around. His tail tapped Briar, pointing towards one of the chairs. "We need to give Lasan some space," the tiger said, setting the bucket on the ground and putting one of Lasan's scaly hands in it.

Briar nodded, glancing back at Queenie for a second before going to help with Lasan.

Queenie, meanwhile, retrieved her gun and clipped it into the hidden holster on her thigh, just inches above the men of her dress. "Does it matter if he knows anyone else?" she asked, "Because my sis and I were kinda in the middle of something before we got dragged into this, so the sooner we get back the better."

"I imagine it might take him some time to create these portals," Thytes said, trying not to notice Queenie putting her gun away (a lot less reassuring than it sounded, mainly since she was armed and a little tense). "A few questions while he does whatever needs to do should not hurt."

"She's worried," Briar said to Thytes, quietly enough that Queenie shouldn't have been able to hear, "I wouldn't recommend speaking to her directly."

Queenie glared at Briar, "I can read lips, you know," she snapped.

"Your aggression isn't going to help."

Queenie grit her teeth, "How about you shut up, and I don't tell father about your little side project."

Briar blinked, "How did you-"

"Don't leave your sketchbook lying around if you don't want people to figure out your little revenge plots."

Briar didn't respond to that. Instead, she turned to Kirux, "You can ignore her, she won't hurt anyone."

Queenie huffed a laugh, "That's a bold claim."

Briar looked her sister in the eye, "I won't let you."

"I'd love to see you try to fight me."

"I shouldn't have to."

Queenie opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. She settled on just glaring at Briar.

Thytes blinked. He had no idea how to deal with the revenge and violence conversation going on between Briar and Queenie. The lion was suddenly reminded that he was unarmed and out of his element. Still, if Briar said that Queenie wasn't going to pick a fight, he was inclined to believe Briar.

"I can relate to fathers and revenge," Thytes said, focusing on Briar. "But I trust there will not be any fighting? I would like to give Kirux the time he needs."

Briar eyed Queenie, "I can gurentee nothing," she admitted.

Spoiler

Sorry for falling behind here, too, for the same reason I mentioned in Closing Time.

Kirux glanced at each person as the conversation went on, trying to keep up with the quick comments and looks they were all giving each other. "I can't make corridors of darkness right now," he nervously signed, worried that they'd be at mad at him for not being able to help right now. "I'm too sleepy. I just went to bed, and I need to be all awake to make them."

"He says he's too sleepy to make them right now," Mal said, watching as Thytes frowned and tried to interpret what Kirux had said.

The older lion clapped his paws together. "Wonderful!" he said. With the shower of water turning to a drip, Thytes remembered he could just shut the hot tub door and block the flow of steam. Which is what he did. Wow, the stress really was getting to him. "That should be enough time for Lasan to wake up."

Walking over to one of the couches, Mal pulled out the pile of clothes that he'd stuffed under it before it'd started showering. "And for me to put on my robes," he mumbled, yanking the robes in question out of the pile.

Queenie sighed and gestured to the cut on Briar's side, "Does anyone have any sort of medical supplies? Dad'll kill us both is that gets infected."

After also picking up Thytes's robes, Mal walked over to Kirux and tapped him on the shoulder. "I'll be back in a sec," Mal said.

While Mal tossed Thytes's robes at their owner, and both lions disappeared through the door to the left of the counter, Zech crouched down to stare at Briar's cut. "I don't have any of my supplies," he said, looking back over his shoulder at Queenie, "But I can heal it pretty easily." He turned back to Briar. "If you're alright with that."