2022-09-05 - ...Is But A Dream Within A Dream.

Morning finds Jules sitting at the kitchen table looking harried and tired. She’s in pyjamas (or rather, Mikaere’s All Blacks tee and a pair of sleep shorts) with an empty coffee cup before her. No, am empty coffee pot. She’s scrolling through photos on her phone, elbow on the table and one hand propping up her head.

"Jules?"

Una's voice is fuzzy with sleep when she enters the kitchen, and by the look of her (and the bird's nest of hair she's sporting), she's pre-shower and probably only very, very recently rolled out of the safety of her own bed. Still, it doesn't take proper wakefulness to register that it's been a bad night, and that sets her back into motion. "Are you okay? Bad Dream?"

And, because it's important: "Pancakes, cinnamon rolls, waffles?"

“Yeah.” Her voice is soft. Jules looks up a moment later, looking round at Una.

At least there aren’t any telltale signs of blood.

“Cinnamon rolls?” she requests. It comes out as a plea.

"Cinnamon rolls," promises— confirms?— Una, lifting her hand to indicate the need for momentary pause as she heads for the freezer to fetch the bag of frozen unbaked rolls. Half a dozen of them get set out on a cookie sheet, and this, in turn, is slid into the preheating oven.

Then, and only then, does she approach the table, taking a seat diagonally across from Jules, her dark eyes fixed on the other woman. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jules sets down her phone as Una joins her at the table. Before the screen fades to black, it shows thumbnail pictures from an earlier time, before Gray Harbor, sometime in the prior decade. Pictures from the beach, of her family, a few including Joe which she hasn’t deleted. Memories.

“Sure. Yeah.” But Jules sits there for a moment unspeaking. “Do you remember The Truman Show?”

Una's gaze falls, briefly, on that phone and its images, but lifts again promptly so that she can consider Jules directly. The reference makes her frown. "Yeah," she confirms. "I remember it. Ravn and I joked about him sailing out just to make sure we weren't part of some big dumb experiment, months ago, and that prompted me to rewatch it."

She tilts her head to the side. "You Dreamed that you were living your life like that?"

Jules has a bitter sort of smile for Una’s remark about Ravn and the sailing. “Kind of,” she replies. “Not like I was in an experiment. More like, this is your life in another reality. I know it’s going to sound dumb, but it makes you wonder.”

Just what, though, she doesn’t say.

"Like... a multiverse kind of thing? Um, like that old movie... Sliding Doors or something?"

Una frowns across the table at Jules. "What was it like? This other reality?"

“Yeah. Like that. I was in college at UW.” That part is easy at least. “Like, what if I’d gone to college after high school kind of thing. But I kept having these flashes from here and now, and it was like I was coming into my powers in a totally different way.”

The rest is harder. Jules friend down at her hands. “It could’ve been real.” Could be real.

Una's expression turns thoughtful; appraising. This, after all, could so easily be the what-if scenario for her life, too. College-or-no-college, the road not travelled.

"It could've been," she agrees, slowly. "I mean, if we go back to the whole multiverse thing... it could be what happened in a different reality, right?"

“Yeah.” Jules latches onto that explanation as if it’s a raft, looking up at Una with wide, hopeful eyes. “So it’s not, this versus that, pick the one that’s real. They’re both real. And I just…slid between them.”

Una's really just been musing, idly, and this— with the eyes— gives her pause. She blinks, hesitating over her words.

"Was it... do you regret it? It felt that real?"

“It felt real,” Jules confirms quietly. “As real as this.”

She picks up her phone again with a sigh and clicks it on, now flipping to the more recent pictures. “I certainly don’t want to be eighteen again, I’ll tell you that,” Jules says with better humor. “Too much anxiety, too much self-consciousness, too many petty white girls desperately trying to make themselves feel better by being little shits. I didn’t get far enough to know how it all would’ve turned out, though. But I’ll tell you this.”

She quiets. There on her phone is a selfie with the three housemates in the summer garden. Real summer, not the fae’s version of it. “I was given the option to burn it all down.” Rip open the doors. “But then there wouldn’t be this.”

The ruefulness of Una's expression; the wrinkle of her nose; all of it fades into uncertainty and outright dismay as Jules reaches that final comment: she stares.

"'Burn it all down'," she repeats, sounding horrified and a little panicked. "This world? All of them? What does that even mean, Jules? Why would... how... but you can't."

“I don’t know.” Jules reaches across the table, looking for Una’s hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything like that. I’m not that crazy.”

Una hesitates, though she doesn't pull her hand away: she even draws it a little closer, as if looking for the reassurance it offers.

"'Not that crazy,'" she repeats. There's half a question in that.

But Jules just shrugs and blows by it. “You know what I mean.”

She squeezes Una’s hand again, then draws away and stands. “I should have some water to go with the gallon of coffee I’ve consumed,” she remarks wryly.

Does she? Maybe she does. Either way, she doesn't push.

"Water is good," she agrees. "And you've got another fifteen minutes or so until the cinnamon rolls are ready, if you want to take a shower, or... uh, not that I'm saying you smell," she's quick to add. "Just... that tends to help me clear my head."

Jules isn’t so out of it that she can’t grin at Una for her save. “I’m sure I do smell,” she says equitably.

What she doesn’t say: how she woke up drenched in sweat.

“Good idea. I’ll grab the shower before Della gets in.” Jules fills up her water glass and heads for the door, calling behind her, “Back in a few.”

"Go, go, go," teases Una, who also gets up: but that's because while Jules' bloodstream may be more coffee than blood, hers is sadly lacking its morning application of caffeine.

"I'll be here."

It’s another moment for a reset. Jules doesn’t take long—cinnamon rolls in fifteen minutes!—but she does take advantage of the time given her.

She comes back with wet hair and a more settled look, having changed into jeans and a clean tee. “You think the smell of cinnamon rolls will get Della out of bed?”

Jules' timing is good: by the time she makes it back to the kitchen, the cinnamon rolls are out of the oven, and Una is drizzling them with the cream cheese frosting that she's defrosted over the stove. The air smells of cinnamon and sugar and coffee (some of which is in the mug next to her on the counter); all things good and cozy and nice.

"Probably," she says without turning around. "Unless it's possible to become immune to the lure of cinnamon rolls. Grab some plates?"

“Madness.”

Jules moves to the cupboards, setting down the empty glass she’s brought back with her while she busies her hands.

“So what are your plans for the day?” she asks, determined to stick to normal topics. “I still have to work because Labor Day—kind of ironic, isn’t it? All the people with the good nine to five jobs with free time, meaning that everyone else, the people who could actually use the break, have to work.”

There's a look in Una's eyes, as she turns to glance at Jules over her shoulder, one that suggests she's not wholly sure if they're done with that earlier topic, but the other woman's determination is noted, and so— for now— she leaves it be.

"The last billion cupcakes and cookies were picked up yesterday," she says, referring to the endless Labor Day baking orders she had (not a bad thing for a fledgling business!), "so today is a day of rest for me, aside from some basics. I'm going on a picnic." She seems pleased about this... but then, is that surprising? Small pleasures.

"It does suck that you have to work. The irony of it."

“Oh yeah? Who’re you going with?” Totally casual, that. Una brought it up, after all.

Once the plates are out, Jules moves to refill her water. “Wish I had the day off for a picnic,” she says wistfully. “Though I guess I won’t have work at all after next week. Back to school.”

"It's probably going to rain," Una points out, gesturing idly towards the window. Clearly she's far too busy bringing the cinnamon rolls to the table, in all their frosting-covered glory, to actually answer silly little questions like who she's picnicking with.

"I enrolled in a course," she adds. "Just one, to see how I can balance it. But— nerve-wracking. It's been so long since I was last a student, you know?"

Well that’s evasive. Jules raises her eyebrows as Una fails to answer her question, giving the redhead a look. The kind that communicates, I see what you’re doing here, though Jules doesn’t press.

“Well, if it rains, then I get to leave work early,” she says, not too upset about it. “You’ll be fine. One course is just like…oh, I don’t know. Like some kind of master class you’re just doing for fun.”

Obligingly, Una blushes. Master of subterfuge she is not.

In an oh-so-obvious attempt to distract from her pink cheeks, Una turns back to reclaim her coffee mug, and to refill it for good measure. "That's true," she agrees. "But it's finance, because I think that's the thing I'm least confident with: balancing books and that kind of thing. So... that'll be a challenge. But at least it has practical application, so it feels... relevant. Doable. It'll be fine. I'll be fine."

She comes back to the table, mug in hand.

Una’s big secret is so not a secret. It likely hasn’t been for some time. Jules lets her have this little fiction, though, and obligingly talks finance (so much less interesting).

“You’ll be just fine. And I’m sure whoever’s teaching it is going to start from the assumption that you’re there because you don’t have a background in it, instead of dumping you in the deep end. When are your classes? Maybe it’ll work out to carpool.”

There's knowing that your secret isn't— and hasn't been— a secret, and then there's... actually acknowledging it. Una may need more time (or a big push) to actually manage the latter. For that matter, she may be in denial about the former.

She reaches out to scoop one of the cinnamon rolls onto a plate, then picks up a fork to go with it. "That's true," she allows. "That's what 101 classes are all about, right? They're Wednesdays and Thursdays, I don't remember what time— I'll look it up. But otherwise, I'll just take my bike, and it'll be fine."

"Cin-na-mon rolls. Cin-na-mon rolls." That would be Della, walking woodenly with arms outstretched, zombie-style. Braaaaaains.

“I should really buy a bike,” Jules muses. “My car is about done-for. Took it in to the shop the other day—you know, Ravn’s friend Itzhak? His place. It’s barely worth it to have it repaired at this point.”

Are her eyes glittering as she watches Una dish up? It’s all so casual. So very casual.

Look at Una, going scarlet, as if Ravn's-friend-Itzhak is worth that kind of blood rush. "Oh?" she says, aiming for casual and failing utterly.

Della is a helpful distraction. "Della! There's coffee too. Come and join us. Jules had a Dream."

"Cof-feeeee," intones Della, obligingly.

Of course, there's also -- with great interest -- "Oh?" And then, "Jules, have you seen her look this red in a while? ...Maybe the heat's getting to her." Because it's so hot this time of year, outside of a nice warm kitchen with an oven that's been warmed further for baked-goods goodness.

Oh Una. Oh, oh, Una.

“It’s been awhile,” Jules replies, sending a thoughtful look towards zombie-Della.

Una, you cheater, trying to change the subject. Jules isn’t going to let that go lightly.

“Pretty sure the last time I saw Una this red was when someone mentioned S-E-X.”

Una looks, really, as if she'd like to sink into her chair, or possibly hide her face in the solidity of the table. She's so red, and the teasing from her housemates isn't helping anything.

She ends up abandoning both coffee and cinnamon roll to try and hide her face in her hands. "Fine," she says, muffled. "Fine. Yes, I'm going on a picnic with Itzhak, are you happy now?"

Translate 'going on a picnic' to 'who knows, maybe even sleeping with'. Probably.

"You don't say," marvels Della to Jules, and takes another look at Una, which does not stop her in the least from getting to the coffee pot. She's recently showered too, and apparently there was just enough hot water, none of which means that she's devoid of cat hair (both colors) here and there: her deep plum v-neck, her new grey-to-match-'Thena trousers.

Una's confession, though, that stops her (if only because she might spill her coffee with her bouncing: literal bouncing, balls of her feet and everything). "Una." Translate that to 'yes' (so far).

"How is Itzhak, anyway?" invites all sorts of contexts.

Jules looks pleased with herself when Una finally confesses. So pleased. “Well, that sounds nice,” is all she says, though. See? Was that so hard?

With that out of the way, Jules applies herself to her cinnamon roll.

Yes, it was impossibly hard, thank you very much.

Una's gaze slides away from both of her housemates and towards the kitchen counter, and apparently that's enough to darken her blush all over again. "He's good. We're good. Everything's good."

Subtext: let's move on, now, please and thank you.

"So. That Dream of yours, Jules."

"Good! Tell us more!" Della, so bright-eyed and expectant. "About the Dream."

She'll just kick back and figuratively-inhale a good portion of her coffee, enough that she can fill it back up and sit down with a cinnamon roll, with great satisfaction.

Now Jules’ eyes narrow. She doesn’t want to talk about the Dream about as much as Una doesn’t want to talk about Itzhak. There’s a challenge in her gaze as she looks at Una across the table.

“It wasn’t that exciting,” she tells Della. “I was just a freshman at U-Dub. This picnic is far more interesting. How old is Itzhak anyway, Una?”

There's a challenge right back, though Una's is perhaps less intimidating, given the way she can't stop herself from blushing (so much blushing).

"Old enough to know what he's doing," is a little tart, and probably doesn't help her equilibrium much, once she's blurted it out.

And, for Della: "She was an alternative universe version of herself, and it gave her the option to break the world."

"Wait, that's a major? World-breaking, I mean," Della says, round-eyed. "I never got to take that in college."

Also, to Una, "Good for him."

“Oh is he.” Jules leans in with a dangerous smile on her lips. Her eyebrows quirk with an unspoken question.

“I didn’t actually go to any classes.”

She spears a bite of cinnamon roll. Instead of eating it, she gestures with her fork. “How old is too old?” Jules asks speculatively. “Ten years’ age difference? Fifteen? What do you think, Della?”

"She thinks it's an alternative universe version of herself," blurts Una, eager (desperate?) to keep the attention off of herself. "She thinks it was real."

She's distracted enough that she hasn't even started eating her cinnamon roll.

"If she's happy, I'm happy," Della says to Jules, soft-voiced but also straightforward. "It's not like he's decrepit," oh, Della, just wait until you get old or disabled, or don't get to, "or bossing her around in a bad way." That they know of. She peeks at Una, just in case.

Then, still soft-voiced, still trying to smooth things over some, "As for your Dream, sounds like it missed an opportunity for the traditional 'Show up to class for a surprise exam. Late. Without clothes.'" Her smile's teasing, but lightly so.

Now Jules narrows her eyes at Della. Not helping. “I think it matters if you’re seeing someone with tons more experience.” Not that anyone asked her. “It’s too easy to get taken advantage of or wind up in situations with different sets of expectations.” She’s not joking around anymore.

Abruptly, Jules pushes away from the kitchen table. “I have to go get ready for work.” She doesn’t even take her cinnamon roll with her when she goes.

That's the moment when Una's jaw drops... and her eyes narrow, too. "Fuck you too," she says. "For assuming you know anything that's been discussed in my—" Her what? She doesn't finish.

"Fuck you."

This time, Della's not round-eyed in a good way; she's caught her breath, and doesn't seem to know what to do with it. (Clearly she should've had more coffee.)

"'That escalated quickly,'" she half-quotes to her remaining housemate, but plaintively -- looking at Una as though she might have an answer, if not a solution.

Una's gaze tracks Jules to the hallway, narrowed and unhappy— and glittering with as-yet-unshed tears.

"And then she wonders why I don't tell her things," she mutters, caught between hurt and anger, and mostly just sounding miserable. "Why don't I just get to be happy?"

"Oh, Una." Della stops looking after Jules, too, to lean in and offer a hug -- whatever counts as a hug for Una today. "I'm sorry," says the woman who wasn't told anything either.

"Think happy. Have a wonderful picnic." Whatever counts as a picnic for Una today.

It's not a full hug that Una's after, but there's physical contact and a breathy little sigh as she attempts to compose herself. "I didn't want to talk about it because it was mine and I liked that and I didn't want—" She breaks off, shaking her head.

"It doesn't matter. I know that it's not what she thinks. It's fine. It will be wonderful. Even if it pours and pours."

She's pulling herself together piece by piece, her back straightening and her chin jutting out: determined.

Wonderful. Or else.

Della glances back over her shoulder towards the windows, towards the grey skies; she glances, again, at Jules' abandoned cinnamon roll. But: "I hope it's still yours. If you want me to not -- well, I can't not be curious," is as teasing as it is gentle, "...not ask questions, or whatever, I don't have to. You don't have to share all the giddy details. You don't even have to share any, if you feel like you want to be protective of it, with me."

"More coffee?" 'More tea?'

“More coffee. Please.”

Una flushes again, but seems pleased, too: despite the fight, despite the weather too. She picks up her fork hesitantly, apparently mulling over what to say— how much to say— before: “He makes me feel beautiful. Desirable. And he doesn’t push. It just… I don’t even know how to explain, or really how to talk about any of it, except it makes me happy.”

Della doesn't actually wiggle in her seat, but she sure is bright-eyed -- and, bravely, she doesn't push. "Well, good. I'm really glad!" For Una's happiness? For her sharing? She doesn't have to choose.

And with a sidelong look, a sidelong, shared smile, "Do you know what you're going to wear?" If that's acceptable, that sort of girly back-and-forth. "One of your dresses?" Not just one of the dresses Una owns, that is, but one she's made and designed for her very own self. One of a kind. (Meanwhile, it's cinnamon roll time.)

There are blushes, and then there are... well, these blushes: the kind that speak to happiness and warm, fluttery feelings rather than deep embarrassment. Una really radiates happiness, and Della's bright-eyed response has gone a long way towards banishing her bitter feelings over Jules' disapproval (though inevitably that lingers in the back of her mind for later, too).

"I wore the one with dinosaur print for our first proper date," she tells Della, tearing off a piece of her cinnamon roll with careful application of her fork. "I was thinking maybe the one with unicor— oh, but no, that could be weird. I forgot: that's what his mental self-representation is. I'm not sure. But yes, definitely one of the dresses. I'm going to miss my dresses, once it starts getting cold."

That happiness, that kind of happiness, it's contagious -- likely would be even if Una weren't that much a mentalist, and Della's certainly receptive; she's leaning back with her coffee, smiling, with nibbles on her cinnamon roll now and again. It's just now and then her gaze touches on Jules', abandoned, for an instant.

But, "Wait, what's that about 'mental self-representation'? He's a unicorn? How does that...?" She adds, perplexed, still pleased, "Good idea to hold off. Save it for later."

Della's smile clearly pleases Una, who allows her shoulders to relax just a little further, revelling in her topic.

"I don't... entirely know?" she admits. "I mean, I've not seen it. Experienced it? Whatever, I'm not sure. But Ravn mentioned it, months ago, long before I— it's something about your perception of yourself, a physical— well, visual, I suppose— manifestation of it. He's a black unicorn; Ravn is two different cats. I'm not sure of anyone else's... like I said, I don't know any of this from experience."

Her nod is quick, though: no unicorn dresses, not yet. That might be a little on the nose.

Della's lashes flutter, her lips parting -- yet somehow she manages not to interrupt.

When it's not interrupting, though... "Two different cats? At the same time? Like Gemini, sort of? Can one go and scout for the other, can he be in two places at once?" Black unicorn? Old hat. Though... "But your dress has white unicorns, doesn't it? That's totally different." That might be a little bit teasing.

It might be a little bit teasing, and as a result? Una sticks out her tongue, laughing.

Backtracking: "I think it's not at the same time. The scrappy alley cat and the spoiled Siamese or Persian or something; I can't remember exactly. Two facets of himself, maybe. I have to admit, I'm curious about what I would be. I was Squirrel in those Dreams, of course, but I think that's different— I never got the sense that it was a representation of me."

"You could also take a marker and color in the unicorns," Della has to add right after that.

But back to the cats: "Interesting duality. I can imagine it, given..." Della stops. Una's made it easy to stop. "More that it was an available role, that you fit the best? I don't imagine myself as Spider, either, even though I work with thread," and there's that whole Internet web, "but maybe that's all those Halloween and 'creepy old woman' again. Which animal would you be, if you could pick?"

Colouring in the unicorns makes Una blush again, just faintly— and laugh, low and warm beneath her breath.

Her nod, however, acknowledges Della's summation of the available role of Squirrel; the nod that follows is for Spider. "I'm not certain," she admits. "Something with wings, though. Flight was always the super-power I wanted, when I was a kid. Not healing, not growing, not reading minds or communicating telepathically. I don't know that it necessarily fits my perception of myself, though. I'm more... earth-bound and controlled, surely. What about you?"

Della's cocked her head. "'Controlled' as in... self-controlled?"

"Ye-es," says Una, a little hesitantly, extending the word as she works her way through her own thoughts. "I suppose I'm too heart-on-my-sleeve to be truly controlled, but I think more... trying to be in control."

"So not controlled by someone, something else," Della imagines with the tiniest touch of relief. "Those don't have to be opposites, do they? Heart-on-sleeve versus self-controlled? I'll grant you, flight sounds much more fun than embodying an ostrich. Or a penguin."

Una's eyes go a little wide, this alternative reading of her words clearly catching her by surprise. "No, no," she confirms, firmly. "Not controlled by anyone else, no."

She doesn't have an answer to heart-on-sleeve versus self-controlled, but manages to draw herself past that so-fervent confirmation to muse, "I wonder what kind of person embodies themselves as an ostrich. Or a cockroach. Perhaps no one ever is: it's all about idealised representations. Picking out our strongest attributes. I don't know. I don't know how it works at all, really."

And that just makes the relief more visible. The rest makes Della laugh. "A cockroach. That would be sad, really. Unless maybe someone takes the 'indomitable survivor of everything' angle." Maybe. "Did you ever do the quizzes online, you know, 'What's your Patronus'? Or your Hogwarts pet? Back when... well."

Pitter-patter, little paws. Someone didn't come back to bed, and then it got cold (never mind that they had each other), and and --

Una's smile turns a little crooked for the relief, but she allows herself to move on from it, grinning for the cockroach, and then—

"Back when we didn't know what we know now," she agrees, twisting her face up into a grimace of distaste. "Yes, yes I did. I could have told you my Hogwarts House, my pet, my Patronus, my wand, and half a dozen other things besides, naturally. Clearly the Veil needs to offer us a— ooh, interactive Dream quiz, or something. Lots of scenarios, and then at the end you find out... that's from another book, isn't it? Something about being tested for aptitude. It's all ridiculous, of course."

She glances towards the doorway, watching for the arrival of the cats, their little paws and tails and heads and— ideally all of them, of course.

No no no that's not what she -- though Della manages not to try and explain herself, it's barely, with an apologetic pull to her mouth.

Which does segue back into Hogwarts. "Which House were you? But yes, 'when we didn't know what we know,'" and that threatens to become a Hamilton line, but she mostly holds off on that too. "I don't remember that one, picking from scenarios, other than the 'choose your own adventure' thing. Though there was a Black Mirror episode... If you remember, let me know? Aptitude testing, now, that's all over the place -- " Della chirps to Athena to come closer; Hephaestus, though, he's proudly carrying a prize.

Something else's tail?

By now, Una's pretty well attuned to Della, and knows when there are things she's not coming out with— this time, it results in a sharp, thoughtful glance, but but a lingering one, probably because she's been distracted by that tail.

"Hephaestus," she says, just this short of sharp. "Drop it. Drop it." And, only barely as an after thought: "Which house do you think I was?"

"Not Slytherin," Della says, right as she looks at the other kitten, her eyes going round as he actually does drop it. He sits with it, even, his tail tucked in a pleased curl, one paw on whatever-it-is, the other paw lifting so he can lick it. "Good boy!"

Yes, you're good too, Theeny. Athena gets picked up. Athena gets to watch from on high.

"You like to get into things, like Ravenclaw; you're helpful and community-oriented like Hufflepuff, here where you have the resources to be; and I could also see you adventuring with Gryffindor. You and Ariadne, particularly."

Athena does not get the remains of cream cheese frosting, but she sure is leaning that way.

"Gryffindor," is full of surprise. Una straightens, blinking. "That's a new one for me. I suppose I had less cause to adventure, way back when. I always saw myself as more of a Hufflepuff, but a 'puff with Ravenclaw leanings. I think you'd be a Ravenclaw, too. And Jules—" but she doesn't want to think about Jules right now, a return of her dismay furrowing her brow and tightening her mouth.

She gets up, venturing towards Hephaestus and his prize. "Ok," she says. "What did you take down, young man?"

"Triple threat," Della only half-teases, tucking away Una's surprise, her back-whens, with her own smile. "And yes, Ravenclaw all the way. I might have been Gryffindor once, but -- Hermione never got enough credit."

She says that while peering, while tucking a watchful arm around the gray kitten; Hephaestus stops with the licking and looks expectantly up at his human. Those whiskers, currently a little tattered, are going to be magnificent one day.

Praise. Where is his praise? His find is a thin, sinuous, snaky tail, its red-stained, torn-off end exposing its stuffing. The fabric... the fabric eerily resembles the littlest sister's calico, only its embroidered stitches hint at scales.

"That's me," says Una, laughing. "So impressive I need three houses... that's the book I was thinking about earlier: Divergent? I don't know if you ever read it." She watches for confirmation or denial, but continues talking anyway, glancing over her shoulder just for a moment. "The whole 'you must be defined by one personal attribute, unless you're super special and get to have aptitude towards everything' thing. It's silly: none of us are just one thing."

She doesn't let it hang, barrelling straight onwards into: "Oh, Hephaestus. What a good hunter you are! What's this from? Is it a..." She's so relieved that it's not an actual mouse, clearly, that whatever else it was (once upon a time) is irrelevant. "I hope this wasn't a stuffed animal someone cared about."

"No, no, definitely not just one. Which shows the failure points in that society -- "

Hephaestus is purring.

The blood is wet.

Wait. Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

Una freezes.

"Um," she says.

"'Um'?"

Una goes cross-eyed, staring at the severed tail.

"Since when," she says, finally, a little faintly, "do stuffed animals bleed?"

Don't answer that. Since Gray Harbor?

"Say what?" Della puts Athena down, scooting out from the table to come look.

At least it's not gushing or pooling or anything like that: just smudged, as though from marker, except one spot's a little sticky and that's not just cat saliva...

"Ew." But her wrinkled brow says more than that.

Una, cautiously, touches the presumed-blood with her finger, and then lifts it towards her nose to sniff (no tasting: that's gross and unsanitary).

"Where did you find this, Heph?" she wants to know, though her voice is pitched to include Della as well.

It smells like blood. Like normal blood, really, except for an odd little tang. A little cold, a little musky, a little... something else.

Hephaestus? Winding around Una's legs, rubbing up. Yes, he is a mighty hunter.

Della looks between him and the tail and back again. "Cat, if you ate the rest and you're going to sick it up later--"

A little like cumin, maybe.

"Ew, no," says Una, giving Hephaestus a wary glance, though her fingers drop to give his ears a rub anyway. (Yes, that means she's spreading blood-but-more-than-that into his fur, but only a very little bit).

"So weird," she adds, but as these things go, she's less bothered suddenly. Maybe it's the cumin. Or just... Gray Harbor Things.

"So -- " Della breaks out of agreeing because there are licking sounds and -- "Athena Glaukopis!" Did the two plan the whole thing?!

The kitten's jumped down, cream cheese frosting her pointy muzzle. She makes a run for it. "Una, why," comes with a sigh as Della moves to clean up. Her cinnamon roll, well, maybe she can still nibble off the bottom.

Jules', barely touched -- and not by the cat at all -- might get stale.

"Noooooo," says Una, turning away from the floor-carnage to see the last of escaping Athena: her eyes go wide with horror.

"Why did we decide two cats was a good idea?" Don't answer that one either: Una knows the answer all too well, and anyway, she doesn't mean it.

"Eat that one," she adds, indicating Jules' (Jules doesn't get the courtesy of a name, or ownership, not today). "Or I can heat up another one for you. Bad cats." The bloody tail she's going to scoop up with a paper towel, making a face as she does so.

"A fresh one would be nice," says Della, lashes dropped low. She peeks after Athena too, though her miscreant is long gone, and gets up to deal with things: a bowl upended to protect Jules' roll, so it can sit at her place until she claims it or it calcifies (or Una's had enough). And maybe she can prepare some bacon.

Meanwhile, the rest of the creature? Someday, one of them will find it. But not all of it.