You step onto a cracked but clean tile floor that was probably once red, but is now a faded salmon pink. A large, rectangular communal table seating about 10 takes up the middle of the floor, with mismatched smaller tables arranged near the large front windows. The long counter in front of the kitchen door sports plates of fragrant bread, cookies, and muffins and bowls of fresh wild fruits. A small, rattling fridge in the corner holds a selection of juices and cold spring water in reused bottles and jars. Atop the refrigerator is a can for cash donations; next to it is a box for barter payments. Scrawled on the box in black marker are the words "Pay what you can, when you can."
A bright, airy foyer. There are simple heavy-cotton curtains on the windows to keep the cold out; they are not decorative in any way, probably deliberately so. The windows themselves are new, the sills freshly stained and the glass bright and clear. Bookshelves are built into the walls, and a few books dwell on them, looking lonely. A workbench has been set up in this room, well-laden with glass flasks and tubing in an elaborate arrangement. As in the rest of the house, the floors are softly gleaming hardwood. To the left is the kitchen, and to the right the living room. A flight of stairs leads to the second floor.
Did someone call for 'tall, dark, and handsome'? Well, dark's fairly well covered, at least. Jet-black hair's pulled into a long, loose tail at the nape of his neck, a few stray strands about the face occasionally drifting into his almost equally dark eyes, the irises of which are a brown deep enough that one needs to look closely to find the pupil. Nut-brown skin that sets off the white of his teeth and eyes -- it could just barely be mistaken for a very deep tan, if one really tried. Tall is a miss; he's still several inches off six feet, and he probably won't ever get there. Handsome... well, not a classic beauty, to be sure, but well-proportioned, with a stunning, frequent grin and deeply expressive features. Slim, but in perfectly good shape.
He's clad in... well, black leather pants. Somewhat faded, well broken in, but nicely cut and really =quite= nicely fitted. A simple cream shirt hangs untucked above them, long sleeved and fastened with a row of small, black stone buttons. Over that, he wears a decidedly well-worn old black trenchcoat, almost too big for him -- the cuffs hang down half-over his hands, when he lets them, and the hem hangs perilously close to his heels. Scuffed black leather boots with worn soles adorn his feet; there's a seemingly random collection of bracelets, all on one wrist, and several piercings along the upper section of each ear -- little silver hoops.
Danny stands just under six feet tall and moves with an odd grace that's difficult to categorize. It's not quite the artful manner of a dancer nor the economic movements of a trained warrior, still there's certainly something different in how he carries himself. Fit musculature on a lean frame gives him the look of a runner, and his clean and smooth features suggest a northern European heritage. He has well-defined cheekbones that lend a youthful cast which may belie his true age, while a losing battle with a five-o'clock shadow makes his otherwise friendly smile a little disreputable. His eyes are expressive and match colors with his wavy, full, chin-length hair: a deep dark brown that's only just this side of black. His arms and face have been tanned by long days in the sun, but an exposed portion of his collar line indicates he'd be far more pale if he spent some time indoors.
His clothing is casual and work-oriented: the shirt is a long-sleeved, heavy flannel button-up in dark grey, and is accompanied by a loose pair of dark brown, suede leather pants that have been tucked into his boots. The boots look quite new, calf-high and made of black leather, with simple, elegant tooling along the sides. A stamped silver coin bearing the triune horse symbol of Epona hangs around his neck on a silver snake chain.
This is a man, human to the core. No strange blood runs in his veins, but there is an air of power about him nonetheless, arcane knowledge on a tight leash. Physically, he is a perfectly average height with a broad and stocky frame that is not fat but is made to carry a lot of it. He's probably from a variety of European stock; his face is open and gentle, his nose just large enough to be interesting. He wears a short, neat beard, trimmed close, and gold-wire-rimmed spectacles with expensively slim lenses. Behind the specs, his eyes are a light, tawny brown, almost golden. His hands are a scholar's: large and dexterous, inkstained, callused where his pen rests on his right ring finger. Callused in new places, lately, from rougher work than turning pages. His hair is dark, somewhere between auburn and brown, and almost excessively thick and shiny. It's very long, ending about waist-length, and usually worn in a glossy braid. The color is broken by a thick streak of startling, pure-white hair that starts above his left temple. So much white in his hair makes him look older than he might otherwise seem--mid thirties, as opposed to late twenties.
He wears jeans, a white shirt under a dark grey sweater, and leather lace-up boots of a rusty color. In the cold of the late year he often wears a heather-gray woolen cloak, as well. Always within reach, if not actually in hand, is a wooden staff as tall as he is.
This young man is dark-eyed and merry, plump like a Renaissance painter's dream of Bacchus. His untidy curls trail halfway down his back. He wears a plain linen shirt, plain khaki trousers, plain brown work shoes, a necklace of matte black and brown beads that manages to look simultaneously high-tech and plain, and a magnificent coat of scarlet wool, skirted like an eighteenth-century gentleman's. He watches the world with the hint of a smile, as though he had just seen a marvelous joke played and was waiting for the rest of the world to get it before he laughed.
The makings of a small meal are spread out on a table in front of Danny, and he's just started assembling a second sandwich from the ingredients available. They look to be the same things he had taken out the other night, only to be interrupted by unicorns. He pauses to take a drink from a half-empty bottle of dark-purple juice and sighs thoughtfully.
Serendipity pushes open the door, humming something to himself, and breaks off, seeing Danny at the table. "Heya. Startin' the buffet?" he inquires cheerfully, and plops himself down in one of the other chairs.
Danny looks over the remains of the bread, vegetables, pesto spread, and cheese, and says, "I don't think this is much of a buffet for anyone but me, but have at. There's plenty left." He takes another bite of the sandwich and stares out the window at the failing daylight, his expression somewhat distant.
Serendipity reaches out and takes a hunk each of cheese and bread, but nothing more. "Y'look preoccupied. Somethin' on your mind?" he asks, before taking a bite.
Justin doesn't quite burst into the diner with as much ferocity as Robin came into the library the other day, but it's close. He scans the room quickly, scowling when he doesn't find what he wants, and looks at the other two men. "Have you seen Miki?" he asks urgently.
Danny glances back at Ren, then down at his juice bottle. "Thinking about...dreams," he says after a moment. Justin's entrance startles him out of continuing, and he grabs the edge of the table for support. Slowly, he answers, "No, don't think I've seen him since yesterday."
Serendipity blinks, tilting his head at the mage curiously. "Nah, me neither, not since the judging. You lose him?" he asks, sounding more honestly curious than the flippant phrasing has a right to be.
All the tension and energy drains out of Justin's frame, and he collapses into a chair with an unhappy sigh. "I can't find him. I woke up and he was gone. He took all his things." He takes off his glasses and rubs his face.
"All of his things?" Danny sets down his sandwich and turns to face Justin. "Everything? Even his change of clothes?"
Serendipity winces, leaning forward into the table sympathetically. "...aw, man. No note or warning or anything? 'm sorry, handsome. You think he's a'ight?" A touch of worry, but not too much -- kidnappers don't usually give the victims time to pack, right?
Justin pinches the bridge of his nose as if he has a headache. He nods at Danny. "Even that. Everything. Yeah, I think he's fine, he just...left." He shrugs a little, helplessly, and drops his hands to the table.
Danny frowns. "Do you really think he'd just leave like that, Justin?" His tone indicates he doesn't. "Or is something else going on?"
Serendipity's brow is furrowed; he studies Justin sympathetically. "Maybe he hadda help his brother out or something? I mean, he says family's the most important thing in the world..." Not that that would rule out leaving a note.
"He seemed upset and withdrawn last night, he didn't want to talk, and..." Justin shrugs again. "I don't think he's in danger, Danny. If he was, Anderja would be quicker than we could at helping him." He studies Ren in return; he doesn't look like he's slept well. "Anderja could have, maybe even probably did, call him back. But he's always told me when he's leaving, before."
"Maybe we should go see if Anderja's still at their place, then? They intended to stay the winter, and I just don't think he'd leave you without at least writing a letter. I mean--it was so urgent he had time to pack?" Danny starts gathering up the food, leaving his partially eaten sandwich on the table. "I can run back to the house and smell around, at least."
"Miki said we wouldn't be able t' find their place, 'less they let us," Ren remarks, "...or maybe that's just me, not entirely positive, there. But he'd prolly let us drop by, yeah?"
Justin nods at Danny. "All right," he agrees listlessly, then winces at Ren's suggestion. "I don't know, but, I'm not going to try, if he's not in trouble, and I'm really pretty sure that he is not, or we'd be able to hear the explosions from here. Anderja is a savage protector."
"Unless," Danny points out, with no little concern in his voice, "Anderja's in trouble too. Remember what they said last night, about our past problems being 'small'?" He vanishes into the kitchen and begins putting the sandwich makings away.
The back door opens, sending a gust of cold air skirling through the front room before the newcomer can slam it shut. There's a flurry of stomping and shaking and a quick greeting to Danny, then Robin appears in the kitchen door, bundled up against the snow. Her nose is bonny pink. "Evening," she says from behind a hanky. Her voice is half an octave lower than usual, tenor rather than alto. She blows her nose with great passion and feeling, then holds out the handkerchief gingerly. As she lowers the handkerchief, it becomes clear that she's not merely suffering from a bad cold; her features are a touch larger and more defined, lacking their usual bland blurriness. She looks from Danny to Justin, craning her head to take in both kitchen and main room. "Why the worried faces?"
"'Miniscule', I think they said," Ren agrees, and nibbles at his bit of cheese. "...so you're gonna go with the assumption that either he'll come back or not, 'steada huntin' after him?" He lifts a hand to wave Robin hello, and fills her in: "Miki's gone missin'." He double-takes, then, studying the newest arrival with surprise. "...Hey. Like th' new look, lovely."
Justin is not made any happier by Danny's worry. He watches his kumimate go into the kitchen, sighs, and looks at Robin as she comes in. "Hello, R--" He trails off, staring at Robin. As he hasn't yet put his glasses back on, he does so to peer closer at her. A few seconds pass. He bolts to his feet, his staff in hand, and demands, "Who are you?"
Danny starts at the young man coming in the back door and almost fumbles the last quarter of a bread loaf onto the floor, particularly when its Robin's voice that he starts to hear. "...Robin?" The Perunka immediately takes a deep breath and makes no attempt to hide the fact that he's smelling him--her?--to be certain. "You're a guy!" he exclaims, awestruck. "What happened?!"
"Thanks," Robin says to Ren cheerily. "It was time for a change." He lowers his overladen bag to the floor, rotating his shoulder gratefully when it's free, and nestles into a chair in a most Robinlike way. "What's this about Miki missing?"
Serendipity gives this new version of Robin a slightly more thorough once-over, and grins, giving him a little nod. "=Very= nice. How'd you manage it?" he inquires, curiously, then adds, "...Miki disappeared after the judging, with all his stuff. Justin's debatin' where he went and whether t' look for him."
Being ignored doesn't do much for Justin's nerves; when Danny speaks, he looks over at the Perunka sharply. "Is it really her? Can you tell if the scent is illusory?" Determining Robin's identity seems to have superceded his concern over Miki, at least for the moment.
Given Justin's tension and concern, Danny keeps his voice as calm as possible as he says, "It smells like her, and if it's an illusion it's a good one. She--*he's* been at the Farm." He looks Robin over with a little more scrutiny, but there's no suspicion in his eyes. "Miki left the house last night. No word, no letter, he took all his things. I want to go back and smell around to see if anything's out of place."
Robin sighs. "I was hoping to avoid drama," he says. "Yes, it is me; yes, I am male. Do you remember what I was teasing Bryce about not long after I arrived here?" He grins. "The recipe is doubtful, the general technique is not. We do it from time to time. It's supposed to be good spiritual practice." He jackknifes over in a sneeze, getting the handkerchief up to his face just in time. "...Erf. Has Anderja been around? Any distant explosions?"
"Geshundheit," Serendipity responds to the sneeze, looking speculative. "No signa explosions I know of, as yet. Though I could fix that if people wanted there to be."
Justin heaves a huge sigh and drops back into his chair. "How could you expect to avoid it with what happened the other day?" he complains, leaning his staff against the wall and running his hands over his hair. "No, I haven't sensed anything that would indicate Anderja has gone into action. I just..." He slumps backwards, folding his arms over his chest. "I don't know. I think I must have done something wrong, for Miki to leave and not even tell me." He's very unhappy.
Danny is largely satisfied that this is in fact Robin, and grabs a winter apple from a small basket on his way back into the dining area. "Goddess, Justin, unless being the world's most easily embarrassed guy counts I don't think I've seen you do anything that'd warrant being dumped *that* suddenly. Come on, I'll check out the house. You do spirit stuff, right Robin? Can you see if anything spirity-weird is going on?" As he shrugs into his cloak, he adds, "Aside from us three living there, I mean."
"I can't think of anything you could do unconsciously that would drive Miki away," Robin says. "Sure, I'll look around the spirit plane." He rises and shoulders his bag, suddenly grim. "We should go now, quick. We've wasted enough time."
Serendipity gives Justin another sincerely sympathetic look. "Buck up, li'l trooper. He wasn't acting like a guy who's planning to dump his lover, so he prolly just left in a hurry. Maybe his note fell in a crack, yeah? 'spect he'll be back."
Justin looks up, eyes widening. Since Robin and Danny are making to leave, he gets up, too. "All right... let's go." He looks at Ren, his expression softening a little. "Do you think so? I hope you're right."
Danny drops the apple in his cloak pocket, and picks up the rest of his sandwich and the half-empty bottle of juice. He wolfs the sandwich down as he leads the way out the front door, and chases it with the last of the juice.
[At the Frat House]
Robin has grown progressively tenser, ploughing through the snow ever more quickly with his head down. What's visible of his face is set and miserable. He shakes the snow off with businesslike speed as he enters the house, and peers around the room with a thousand-mile look in his eyes.
Serendipity tags along, hands in his pocket, toning down the usual cheeriness for the benefit of the upset. It's not gone completely, though -- apparently he, at least, thinks things are likely to turn out just fine.
Justin looks to Danny. "My room?"
An apple core and an empty juice bottle are all that remain of Danny's meal-on-the-go, and he goes to deposit both in the kitchen before returning to the front room. As he hangs up his cloak, he says, "Let me try down here first. I hope no one's wearing any cologne." He looks askance at Robin and adds, "Or perfume," then steps into the middle of the room and takes a few steadying breaths before beginning to inhale in a long, slow, deep breath like one might use in meditation.
Robin is too busy to see Danny's askance look. In any case, when did he ever wear any kind of scent? He pads into the back room, moving slowly.
Serendipity smells like nothing but himself, and that not strongly enough to cause interference, one expects. He finds a bit of wall to hold up, and leans there, waiting to see what Danny's nose can discover.
A splotched-orange-and-black kitten ambles in, her tail perfectly straight and sticking straight up. "Mew," she says plaintively. Justin scoops her up and strokes her, probably more to soothe his own nerves than hers; she doesn't care, she purrs.
Danny lets the breath out just as slowly as he inhaled, and shakes his head, frowning. "Nothing off. Except I think the mice had more babies." He heads for the stairs, saying, "Let's see if there's anything new in your room."
Robin startles at the kitten's appearance and watches it suspiciously as Justin picks it up. "Was that here before?"
"Hey, kitten!" Ren exclaims, looking distinctly pleased to see the little cat. He hesitates a moment, studying the pattern of her patches, before asking, "...onea the farm kittens, isn't she?" He tags along as the others search, giving the place a visual once-over but not actually touching anything.
The magic of a purring kitten does its job on Justin; a little more relaxed, he grins slightly at Ren and Robin. "I brought her home from the Farm a few days ago. Her name is Callisto."
...He follows Danny up the stairs to his room.
Danny goes into Justin's room and gives it a cursory examination before beginning the same process he used downstairs, but this time he stops almost immediately. He starts to look at things more carefully. "You don't have any flowers in here, do you? Any incense?"
Mollified, Robin leaves the group and the probably-kitten to go poke about the back yard. After a minute of judicious staring, she squats and starts what looks like a silent conversation with the hedge.
"You smell somethin' flowery?" Ren asks Danny, taking a sniff himself. His boring human-type nose doesn't notice anything particularly notable.
Justin shakes his head at Danny, frowning. "What do you smell?"
Danny pokes around under the bed, muttering to himself. "Something like incense, flowers, maybe..." He straightens up, still kneeling on the floor, and closes his eyes to take another sniff. "Roses," he announces after a few seconds of concentration. "Roses, and incense. And that's about it."
Robin drifts upstairs, watching nothing in particular with great concentration. "I just had a conversation with the angriest hedge I've ever met," she says to no one in particular, still staring into the spirit plane. "You might want to offer it terrifying amounts of fertilizer. It didn't see anything odd, though."
For some reason, Ren seems to find this information particularly amusing -- he doesn't laugh, but it decidedly makes him grin. A lot. Otherwise, he stays out of it, for now.
Justin nods slowly. "He definitely went home. The roses grow because of Anderja."
Danny sighs and stands up, looking apologetic and sympathetic by turns. "I'm really sorry, Justin," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you...do you want to find Rowan and see if he can actually find Miki so you can talk to him?"
Robin looks puzzled. He blinks at the kitten as his gaze returns to the material plane. "How does the scent of roses prove that?"
"Remember him mentioning that," Ren murmurs, and a touch louder, "...Anderja can just kinda magic Miki around, right? That time we sledded down the mountain, he was figuring he would. So maybe he just yanked him and his stuff home for a quick family reunion?"
Justin nods, leaning against the wall and looking tired. "Anderja can teleport Miki about, and their home is full of roses, because the roses like Anderja. I suppose it doesn't prove anything," he adds to Robin, "but it seems to fit." He pets Callisto; she snuggles against his chest. As if reminded, Justin looks again at Robin, closer and more thoroughly, although not with a whole lot of close scrutiny, as it's plain that he's pretty tired from the day's events. He smiles at him a touch, saying almost absently, "You make a good-looking man, Robin."
Danny reaches over to pet the kitten as well, and gives Robin an amused glance. "How long are you going to stay a guy?"
Robin's complexion takes on a touch of the ruddiness associated with a proper Bacchus, but he retains his composure. "I haven't decided," he says. "Until I know what it is I need to know--whatever that is." With a quirk of the lips, he looks directly into Justin's eyes and says, "It's only flesh."
"And lovely flesh it is, too," Ren remarks, successfully aiming the tone closer to 'gallant' than 'lewd'. "...so you basically c'n change back and forth whenever you want, huh? Now =that= sounds like fun."
Justin's smile deepens a little, as he looks into Robin's eyes. He doesn't have the energy to hold it, though, and he sits down on his bed with a sigh. Callisto hops out of his arms and does a splay-legged snowshoe walk over to Danny. "Sorry," he says, referring to his tiredness. "I've been looking everywhere for him. And, no, I don't want to get Rowan involved," he adds. "For one thing, I think they've broken up, and for another, it would be the height of bad behavior to try to go after Miki when he's so obviously left without telling me."
Danny leans over to pick up Callisto, murmuring to her in beast speech while he listens to Justin. "Got it," he says in a low voice. He looks like he wants to say more, but concentrates on the kitten instead, offering only another sympathetic look.
Robin sits down on the bed glumly. "Are you sure Miki just went home?" he says. "When you two were kidnapped, I put off searching for you for weeks because I thought you'd just gone on walkabout without leaving a note, and..." His expression goes blank.
"...plus, finding him'd be kinda romantic 'n' all," Ren opines. "An' you could return his... whatever it is he doesn't realise he forgot to take along with him. ...like, that thing." He points to some random little object, off to one side in the room.
Justin looks seriously at Robin. "No, I suppose I can't be sure," he says after a long moment. "Yet I know that Anderja knows where Miki is at all times, and therefore, he knows that Miki was with me. If he could not find Miki, or was otherwise at a loss, I imagine he would go straight to where Miki was last--right here." Ren's remark gets him to look at what the coyotekin is pointing at. He chuckles quietly. "That's mine, it's the fox carving Danny made for me."
Danny rubs the kitten's chin and tips his head to one side. "Maybe it was a family emergency, and he wasn't allowed to tell anyone." With regret, he adds, "Even you."
Robin looks at the floor and sighs wretchedly.
"Gee," Serendipty responds with nigh angelic innocence, "funny you'd forget that. But hey, as long as you're there anyway, nice t'know he's doin' okay, yeah?" Slight arch of a brow, there. "Danny might be right there, though. Or, big brother mighta just yanked him and his stuff home without warning. I mean, he can do that, right?"
Callisto noisily purrs all over Danny's hand. Justin laughs lowly at Ren, then nods to him. "He can do exactly that. I...don't know him well enough to say that he -would-, but I'm fairly sure he would. Family is the most important thing in the world to those two, and they only have each other for that." He sighs again, and without even hesitating, rubs Robin's back comfortingly; something he would never have done so casually when Robin's a woman.
Danny sighs again and heads for the door, cradling Callisto in the crook of his arm. "I think we've done about all we can do, except hope to hear from him, or go look." With a faint smile of apology, he suggests, "Tea?"
"Tea," Robin says. He leans against Justin briefly, then straightens and stretches. "Wasn't Callisto the fighter from Maiken II who yanked out people's pelvic bones, pulled them open at the front, and used them like nutcrackers to crack people's heads open?"
Serendipity gives Justin another sympathetic grin, and arches a brow at Robin. "...remind me not t' go to Maiken II, wherever that is," he remarks, with a bit of a stretch himself. "Points for creative use of whatcha got handy t' meet your ends, though..."
"Tea," Justin says firmly. He blinks at Robin. "...That's disgusting. Is it an Urge Lord or something?"
Danny arches an eyebrow at Robin and heads down the stairs. "I'd just like our Callisto to eat the mice. Ripping out pelvic bones can come later." He smiles crookedly and murmurs to the kitten, "Dali'll teach you that."
Robin laughs at the height of his stretch. "It's a game," he says. "I can put it on the computer for you." He relaxes, dropping his hands into his lap. "Really, you lot are barbarians." He stands up, leaving Justin's comfort behind, and follows Danny out of the room.