2022-11-10: Musaeum Hermeticum
- Log: Musaeum Hermeticum
- Cast: Tristan Klein (NPCed by Eleanor Klein), Seraph Harmaus
- Where: Sielje Icy Sea
- Date: November 10, 2022
- Summary: Harmaus, in search of that will permit his flower to bloom beautifully, seeks out Tristan Klein. Of course, if Klein will not come quietly...
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
It is late at night in Meria Boule, and it's still fairly well alert given the attack on Towering Tim not too long ago. Some of it is just people being nervous; some of it is rather specific effort. Tristan Klein, for instance, continues to put his attention toward keeping the city safe. He had a long day today between checking the perimeter, handling a few things about the castle, and helping to train some of the more junior Musketeers--which he doesn't count as, any longer. But now...
He's in quarters in the city, reading by candlelight. It is something his sister wrote, this time; his ARM is not far off, within reach, but not in his hands.
It's pretty dark! And he is quite alone, as it is the habit of the Musketeers not to bunk soldiers together on leave.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It's a dark, somewhat lonely night in Meria Boule. People have been cagey since the attack, many of them remaining indoors, particularly in these vespertine hours. Might another attack like the last occur? It's sure that there's nothing remaining here that the attackers from the last time desire, if the stories are true. But, nonetheless... people worry. People withdraw.
And so Tristan's night is a quiet one once he returns to his quarters, alone.
It might be some matter of alarm that the tiny tap-tap of feet sound out from behind him.
The source is clear. His quarters have been intruded upon by a cat. ...But this is no stray streetcat, to judge by its appearance. This fellow looks almost regal.
...Almost calculating, to go by the eyes alone.
Cats do not smile as people do. Harmaus squints his eyes closed, instead.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Tristan, for that reason, doesn't expect another attack of that kind here. But ensuring that if it does happen they're prepared is one of his jobs. But that job is supposedly done for the night, and the kind of trouble he's prepared for may come on four legs, but it isn't nearly so fluffy.
Tap tap of tiny feet behind him. He is confident enough that his initial response to steps in the dark is to look over his shoulder, rather than to feel alarm--and then there is an instrusion. A...
Eleanor has warned him about many of her opponents. But why would any of that information come to mind upon seeing a cat?
"You're no stray," he comments thoughtfully, not expecting the cat to talk back. ...There's something unsettling in the cat's expression, but he dismisses the idea; it's a cat.
"But I've got nothing for you."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It's a cat.
Just a cat -- even if it's a rather pretty one -- that has gotten in somehow or another, likely in search of a potential treat or two.
Tristan, though, has nothing for a cat.
"Nothing for me?" says the cat, flicking his ears. "Thinks I otherwise."
Since when do cats talk?
"Mm... thinks it is named 'Tristan', yes? Tristan Klein?"
Harmaus swishes his tail from side to side.
"Searches I for it. Tristan Klein," he repeats, as if tasting the name. "And it has no other at its side? No, no... on night like this, city is quiet, yes?"
Subtlety is a foreign country when you are a Seraph, particularly one shaped like a cat.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Maybe in Klein there'd be some fish lying around; they have enough of it on the coast. But here, he just has old rations and some cookies he's pretty sure a cat can't eat. So he has nothing for--
Tristan frowns. "...Do you, now?" His tone immediately drops from casul and almost friendly to something different. Because this is a cat who talks, and knows his name, and he is... looking for him?
"That's correct," he says, and glances towards the door and towards the cat. He doesn't even think to go for his weapon, though he should.
"And what is it, then, that you think I have for you? You have me at a disadvantage, sir. You know my name, but I don't know yours."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
He has nothing for most cats. But Harmaus is hardly most cats -- in that, truly, he is not a cat at all.
Seraphim come in many shapes but they remain Seraphim to the core.
Even if the body has ways of playing tricks on the mind.
"Ah... searches I over most of Meria Boule for 'Tristan Klein'. Is naughty, naughty boy?" Harmaus tilts his head to one side. "But, yes... Tristan Klein. Child of Klein family! Notorious, notorious. Wonders I, differences between Silver Star and Blue Star nobles... Those above puts not childrens in such situations. But, ah... Silver Star childrens accomplish little and less, yet! Is wisdom in weirdness?"
He has fixed Tristan with long catlike stare, as if he could see into his heart.
"But such matters me not. Not here to take its measure. I here for... it. Comes it willingly to mines? To space beneath?"
He has not answered Tristan's question.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"Am I, now?"
Tristan is still frowning. He dosen't like this much. And finally, the warnings he has been given about a Seraph in a certain form begin to come to mind. Notorious, is it?
"It varies even on the Blue Star," he says, recognizing Harmaus as from Lunar from the terminology. Which is evidence towards what he might be.
That long, catlike stare can see the defiance there; regardless of the 'why'....
"No," he says. "You could change my mind if you gave me a good reason. But you haven't given me one."
He reaches for his ARM. It feels like overkill for something shaped like a cat, but--
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah... its sister learns it much," Harmaus muses, ears flicking again. "Knows it of I? Harmaus," he says, applying a name at last to his own personage, such that it is.
Tristan does, indeed, know of Harmaus--
At least in some sense of it. Because he refuses.
Harmaus has the temerity to look almost upset about this, at least as much as a cat-shape can perform that particular look. "Ah... no good reason? Is not nature of--"
Tristan goes for his ARM. In response, Harmaus speaks a single sibilant word in a language Tristan has never spoken and has likely never heard.
They move with surprising grace and silence for their size. There are a pair of them, and if they might put Tristan in mind of anything, it might be of gilded stinkbugs... if stinkbugs were twisted up to the size of a man and then some. They don't speak. Even if they are struck, they don't hesitate in the slightest.
"Hopes I doing this more quietly," Harmaus remarks, flicking his tail. "Tcha. Matters me not. I does as needs must."
They don't hurt him -- not if they don't have to. If anything the creatures seek to separate Tristan from any weapons he might attempt to bring to hand and then restrain him.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"So you're the Seraph she rails about."
They're on the same page, that way. In any case. He doesn't know what Harmaus was about to say about nature, but Tristan has never spoken or heard the language used. The sudden creatures that appear can separate him from his weapon befre he has a chance to use it, but as it turns out...
"Gh--!"
As it turns out, a little hurting is necessary, because he's very good at hand to hand combat. However, unarmed, he simply cannot match the creatures Harmaus calls up.
But not too much. He'll live without much injury.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
To that, Harmaus slits his eyes. Eleanor has spoken of him to others, has she?
That, in its own way, makes his business that much the easier. Or it will, when all of this is said and done.
The creatures must manhandle him a little bit in the end -- he is a soldier and he does put up a bit of a fight. But unlike him, these Hellions have no sense of self-preservation. Ultimately, they win. The young scion of House Klein is left to hang between the two of them, held tightly on either side.
"Gives it I an option, it remembers. We must do this difficult way, now!" Harmaus tells Tristan. "But, matters me not. It provides fine fertilizer. Its sister is well-connected... indeed." He squints his eyes as if well-pleased.
"So sleeps it now. Others comes for it, eventually. Eventually," Harmaus repeats, as the light shines brightly about him. "Shhh, shh shh."
He'll leave a page behind from the syllabus once the Hellions have departed with his prize. A single suggestion of what has happened to Tristan Klein, left to lie haphazardly upon the floor of his quarters -- that, along with the few trace signs of a struggle.
She'll come. And many others will come too.
It shall be wondrous.