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Drifting Petal	"It'll be fine," the quiet-but-not-that-quiet voice can be heard. The insistence belongs to one jovial, unflappable Drifting Petal, who despite her wanderlust-inspired name is hanging around Great Forks much longer than she normally would. "Besides, it's less expensive this way," she continues to insist, glancing over her shoulder at the silver-clad woman behind her. She stands, of course, in front of one of the many little dens squirreled away in alleys and abandoned buildings, this one actually known to the swordswoman. She leads the way inside as though it were here own home, greeting the kids she passes and sneaking them little bits of candy from her robes, now that business is booming again. And before long, she's found it: her very own room, which she shares with two roommates, of course. Her bed is messy, compared to theirs, and she flops down on it, beaming happily. "An inn would be so lame compared to this!"
Dutiful Cricket	Dutiful Cricket As the drapes of the bolthole are pushed away, the familiarly secluded and quaint cottage comes to view, it's purveyor resting against the two-story building... Bloodied from various cuts but serene of expression, slumbering a bit loudly. The kids of the Recalcitrant House are doing laundry today. Guests are always a big deal to the kids, who call alert to tell everyone that someone's here, and most of the girls remember the duo from their brief time spent here prior, asking where the duo has been since last.
Argent Princess	Argent Princess drifts along in Petal's wake, a sigh on her face that does not quite escape from her lips as she stifles whatever argument or comment she was holding moments earlier, tossing her head proudly to send the silvery curls tumbling with resigned drama. Just as her sunny counterpart passes off candy and chaos she's gently brushing her fingers through messy heads of hair, passing off small wooden carved animals, simple combs, and bits of colored string and ribbon with far greater subtly. She sighs a little as she looks down to the bed, exhaling and flushing just faintly across her moon pale cheeks as she gives a look of helpless mirth.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal strikes a comfortable pose in her room, and loudly begins to answer questions, making sure she can be heard so all the kids can join in, if they want. "Why, we've been off rescuing a candy man for the God of Candies!" she declares, a proud tone in her voice. "Where do you think I got it all?! We headed West... no, wait, EAST. Just Himiko and I, off to stop a war!"
Argent Princess	Argent Princess lapses into a more indulgent pose as she finishes divulging the contents of her mysterious Kimono's nonexistent pockets unto the children. She looks prepared to correct the record, but instead purses her silvery lips and nods along in agreement. "Sometimes the scales are balanced by naught but a grain of rice." She tells one child in particular in a gently mysterious tone.
Dutiful Cricket	The older kids shush a bit as Petal raises her voice, all looking over to their den-mother, but the younger ones are more excited about the visit than the long-term consequence of 'being too noisy'. They're kids, after all. Some ask if Petal fought in a war, others ask what war is like, and the child that Argent Princess assures cocks her head and asks which side the rice went on.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal laughs, sitting up on the bed and waving her hands mystically. "War is terrible!" she declares. "Your feet hurt a lot, and your girlfriend won't let you ride her, and there's lots of disappointment. And then it's over."
Argent Princess	Argent Princess peeks one of her elegant geta out from beneath her kimono and peers down at the idea of 'sore feet' from Drifting Petal, smiling a little. "Just because I can ride in your hair or on your shoulder, doesn't mean you can ride me. It's not 'only fair', my love." She murmurs with a well-worn argument long and repeatedly won. She turns back to the child and tilts her head as if noticing them for the first time, warmly smiling and answering. "This side." She says simply, as her gaze grows more distant and thoughtful.
Dutiful Cricket	"You don't strike the types to carry too much," one of the rasher teenagers remarks, arms crossed... The giant's slumber stirs with a sudden jostle and hiccup, groaning a bit as she clutches what looks like a semi-fresh wound, coming to one knee before standing. "Agh, guests..." The motherly Cricket remarks half-asleep, rubbing her eye, not that it really opens too much. "Oh, you've returned...?" She seems relieved. "I see the flock's missed you two..." Her sentiment punctuated with how Petal's got kids on both sides of her pulling at her arms.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal doesn't seem bothered by the kids - in fact she's laughing uproariously, tugged this way and that, before she answers, "Oh, hullo, Cricket! I was just telling the kids about how they shouldn't go to war on account-a how bad it is!" comes the insistent, repeated lesson. "Keeps ya up at night."
Dutiful Cricket	"Hrm, that's right. Folly to fight men over the whims of other men... Surely that's why you're not here to make another request of such a nature of me, yes?" She asks with a fingertip tap of her own cheek.
Argent Princess	Argent Princess nods to the older child. "Petal has her pack, she's very good at packing. I don't know how she fits so much in there." She tells them proudly, seemingly oblivious to the wildly different treatment her and her counterpart receive, she casually tidies up a few things around the room, a bucket that seemingly belonged a few inches to the left, a crookedly placed stool, she seems unaware of how she parts the marauding children before her as she drifts around the room aimlessly. "Requests?" She echoes, as if that were the only part she heard, lifting her gaze curiously.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal shakes her head, pointing at one of the nearby children. "Nope. I'm here for him," she declares ominously, before moving over to the older-looking boy, staring him in the eyes. She says nothing.
Dutiful Cricket	The giant simpers a bit in her perpetual expression of peace. "Yes, like the last time... I fear I've become a bit... Indisposed for a spell. Many of the thugs of Great Forks think their murderous intentions alone can give them what they desire..." The older boy shirks a bit, unsure why Drifting Petal approached him, but now he feels like the wall against his back should have some give to help him escape that staring. "W-what?" He balks, nervous. The others gather a bit around Argent Princess, but one of the younger girls who managed to hoist herself on Petal's pack points forward and jabs the boy in the shoulder with "are you trouble, new boy?"
Argent Princess	Argent Princess hushes the children around herself softly, slipping up behind Petal to place a calming hand on her arm and smile reassuringly at the pinned child. "You're being scary" She tells Petal in a helpful undertone. She looks between Petal and the young person curiously though, obviously not quite sure what she's on about. Then back to Cricket. "Do you need those wounds looked at? I do know a bit of doctoring and medicine." She offers.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal points directly at him, all pretense and subtlety gone from the woman, if it ever existed there. "You didn't sleep much last night," she accuses, rocking back and forth on the balls of her heels. "I heard you tossin' and turnin'. Kids need sleep, or they can't work the fields in the mornin'," she repeats some old adage from her parents. The wisdom of the working class, and all. "What's wrong with ya?"
Dutiful Cricket	Cricket waves a dismissive hand at the offer of wound care for a moment, then sighs and nods a bit. "I normally just sleep it off...! But if you know how to treat cuts, I would appreciate it...." The boy Petal chews on seems a bit more defensive, now. "I'm just weirded out, okay?! I mean my mother's a... Powerful figure, but not the kindest, and that I have to stay in this.... This HOVEL until further notice is a bit much to take in...!" But he seems to just be bringing up any random thing to bury a truth. He's not raised to lie properly.
Argent Princess	Argent Princess gently removes the child from Petal's pack and roots around inside until she's found some silken thread and a needle, completely ruining the orderly packing job long before she finds a jar of ointment and some scraps of cut up garish kimono turned to bandages while Petal slept unawares. Princess sends an older child to get boiling water, and a younger child to fetch, "the prettiest weed she can find." and one more to, "Sweep the doorways and yell into any cracks in the walls" before setting into wound inspection mode.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal tilts her head to the side, staring at the boy. Then, she turns to stare at Cricket. "You took him from his mom...?" she asks, starting to stand up, one hand on her hip. She looks confused, but not overly accusatory... yet.
Dutiful Cricket	"Yes." She isn't one to soften truths up so badly. "I was of mind that she ought to learn what the stress of denial feels like. Priestesses of this city are a bit rotten with expectation at times. And Ruto here deserves some responsibility before he's tasked with serving the temple."
Argent Princess	Argent Princess dabs clean and pours the hot water over her clean cloth that she uses to wipe the wounds down, ignoring the conversation or any protests or visible signs of pain as she works away intently, starting to work away with the needle and thread on the more significant cuts without comment.
Dutiful Cricket	Judging by the cuts and scars along Cricket's leg and body, it'd take worse than a little needle work to make her flinch. Most of her wounds seem to have been forced shut through... Tensing? But proper treatment beats whatever inhuman survival tactic this woman seems to employ when stressed. Ruto seems irritated by the way Cricket talks about his situation. "I've been traded from one tyrannical mother to another..." He mopes a bit. Cricket clicks her tongue a bit. "Maybe so. But you've been more talkative here than anyone's ever known you to be. Perhaps that's a sign?"
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal shakes her head, frowning, and crossing her arms. She looks between Ruto and Cricket, asking, "Why not just confront the mother? If she'd just hit him a couple-a times, he'd learn real quick. Just a quick little whack across the head's all it took fer me," she states, reminiscing about child abuse fondly.
Dutiful Cricket	Cricket pats the top of Argent Princess's head as she works as wordless thanks, finally managing to wince a bit from the ministrations. "You're right. That is why we are where we are today. I confronted her for her behaviors, and saw the way things were, and what to do to try to help remedy things...." If her idea of remedying things is stealing children and getting stabbed repeatedly in the side and back, maybe she didn't exactly remedy things.
Argent Princess	Argent Princess hums to herself as she sutures the wounds shut with ease, dabbing on some of her ointment and smiling to herself as she seems satisfied with her results, "Not so bad as it looks, just need to take it easy until the rest of these heal shut. Good thing you have so many good little helpers." She says, glancing up the length of the large woman. She takes a purple-flowered weed from the young girl who comes pelting back in at break-neck speed, smiling at her graciously, and sort of vaguely waving it over the worst of the wounds before returning it to the child and telling her to "Go toss this is in the fire." and slipping her a small coin.
Dutiful Cricket	The girl she hands the coin and flower to seems confused. "Um, which one...?" After some deliberation, she figures she should throw both in the fireplace.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal shakes her head again, staring at Ruto. "Is it true yer a lil' shit?" she asks.
Dutiful Cricket	Ruto tightens his crossed arms and huffs. "N-no." But he totally seems like one. With his nice clothes and snooty demeanor.
Argent Princess	Argent Princess smiles at the child as she wanders off to the hearth, either not hearing her or finding her train of thought acceptable. She turns to Ruto and Petal and washes her hands off in the bucket of hot water before gliding over to them. "Tell her about your dream." She says, as she gently touches Petal to indicate who 'her' is.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal nods enthusiastically, chiming in, "Yeah, tell me about that dream!"
Dutiful Cricket	The boy seems to be trying to find an out but the other kids aren't giving him any help. Ruto instead asks, "why do you... Want to know what I dream? Isn't that personal? Spiritual, even?"
Argent Princess	Argent Princess tilts her head and smiles mysteriously. "Oh, yes. Of course. But don't you need our help?" She asks, wrinkling her little nose as if she were a little confused at the boy's hesitancy. "Isn't that what we were talking about?" She asks, then, blinking a little daffily.
Dutiful Cricket	But it's nothing pressure can't crack him easily into admitting. First it's that he dreamed of being caught here by the temple's Open Palm, a sect of warriors who defend their god's political interests. Second... And this one, he has trouble openly admitting, but secondly, he dreamt that his father, who he's never met, was the one warning him about the giant who kidnapped him. In his dream, the father has no face to easily identify.
Dutiful Cricket	"Dreams are portents at times, yes...?" He grasps an empty space around his neck, right around where a necklace might hang. His pinching gesture tells the two that he's missing some sort of comfort item.
Argent Princess	Argent Princess cups her tiny hands against her chin as she soaks in the story, drumming her long silvery fingernails into her cheek as her rapt attention is caught. "Dreams are almost always more than they seem." She agrees in a quietly breathy tone. She seems as much lost in her own thoughts as she all but gazes through the boy distantly, weighing the sum of his words.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal narrows her eyes at the child as he clutches at his neck, before glancing to Princess, then back to Ruto. "Listen, kid.." she begins, then sets a hand on his shoulder, trying to be nice and comforting, but probably coming across a bit... intimidating. "Is there anything from home you miss, or somethin'? Might make your stay more comfortable? I'm not so keen on arguin' with giant women about the morals of kidnappin'."
Argent Princess	Argent Princess does not look like she hears when the boy mumbles something about the necklace he left in his bedroom back home, as she's lost in some reverie. She clicks the tip of a fingernail against her teeth in what might seem like a nervous gesture.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal nods, slowly, looking to Himiko for guidance. "A necklace, huh...? Maybe we can get that for ya..."
Argent Princess	Argent Princess blinks a few times and glances over to Petal, giving her sort of reassuring smile someone just jostled awake gives a loved one to assure them they were paying attention all along, as she nods with overcompensating eagerness. "Yes, of course." She agrees.
Drifting Petal	Drifting Petal claps the kid on the back one more time, kinda hard, then stands all the way up, reaching for Princess' hand. "C'mon, then. Maybe we can give his mom a talkin' to, too. To... too... to."
Argent Princess	Argent Princess has her hand snatched and is pulled along in the wake of Drifting Petal, catching the boy's protests as she's dragged off and hastily trying to talk Petal out of anything rash as she urges stealth and care. "We don't want to stir up any more trouble." She admonishes as she rushes to keep up with the longer legs of her radiant other half. "He didn't even say where he lives." Is the last thing heard as Princess is yanked out the door.