[PRP] Lend a hand (Shiloh & Temperance)

[Melancholies]

Today the atrium was filled with the sound of rain, the sky grey and stormy overhead the glass ceiling. Shiloh sat in one of the chairs of his domain, his court outfit worn appropriately, his hand thrumming on his leg. Beel was seated nearby with his legs crossed, an ornate glass in his hand. In front of them was an empty chair.

"I hope she got my letter." Beel said after a moment, "I really did work hard on it. Do you think she killed Hart?"

Shiloh shrugged, "We'll find out I guess." He tugged a fancy looking pocket watch out of his outfit, stared at it, and determined reading an analogue clock took too much effort in the moment. It wasn't even moving anyway. That was ******** pointless.

"Either way, calm your nerves. It's always polite to congratulate a new Noble on their position, and I believe she'd be more than willing to help." Beel sighed, but remained seated and regal.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Temperance walked in with the swish of many, many layers of transparent cloth. The court always stuck her in ridiculous, frothy things with enough fabric to clothe an army. Like a shadow, Hart entered behind her, decked out in black with bones on her clothing in opalescent embroidery. Her hair was up in two poofs, like normal, and she looked thoroughly put out. Temperance startled when she noticed her, but said nothing.

"Shiloh - hi. I got the letter. You wanted to talk to me?" She twitched her skirts out of the way, revealing a waist high slit. Ugh, court fashion. Hart waggled her fingers at Beel before averting her gaze. This was so humiliating.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Beel seemed to visibly relax when he saw Hart enter the picture, his own hand waving back with a contained enthusiasm. Many fetches died in the trials--and many wanted that too, rather than to return to this--but it was good to know Temperance had the mercy to spare her. He understood her frustration; losing was a terrible, terrible feeling.

Shiloh meanwhile offered Temp a smile, "Yeah, sup." Beel shot him a look, "I mean, hello, greetings." Shiloh shot that look right back. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about, yeah. Mostly cause I don't know anyone else who really fits the bill." He smoothed his hands down over his shorts.

Beel cleared his throat.

"Oh, yeah." Shiloh averted his gaze for a moment. Achieving nobility was no small task, but he still had a hard time fathoming those that wanted to go through with it. At least Rabbit would have been kind to her, but that only made her successful attempt that much more praiseworthy. "Congratulations." It felt a little strange to say it, especially with Hart--or well, he presumed it was Hart by Beel's reaction--"On succeeding where I guess a lot don't."

"Likewise, it's good to see you well Hart." Beel added appreciatively. A moment later he vanished to retrieve another chair.

"I wanted to talk to you about the Charter," Shiloh got right to it, "Or rather, the destruction of it. Obviously I have the paper part. It's the other half we need help with. I know you said you wanted to be more involved with Court, and now that you're properly a Noble... are you interested?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"You don't have to be formal with me," she said. Temperance gestured for Hart to lean down and the fetch did. She whispered something in her ear. Hart nodded and moved to stand near where Beel had been.

Temperance sat. "The... the half that's the Spinel Lady, right? Of course I would want to help in any way I can. There's something afoot here that doesn't sit right with me."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh looked to Beel, and Beel looked to Shiloh, and the two of them suddenly shifted at Temperence's request. Beel sat down the extra chair for Hart, Shiloh slumped unceremoniously in his own, Beel finally took a seat with his legs crossed lackadaisically. "Thank ********," Shiloh said, "I hate doing that s**t, it makes me feel like a tryhard."

"I'm only looking out for your best interests." Said Beel, and Shiloh knew this and appreciated it, but that didn't mean it didn't suck.

"Good though. I don't know anyone else with like, medical magic like you have." Temperance had saved the Spinel Lady the first time, after all, "I didn't mean to doubt you either, I just don't want this information getting out all over the place. So like, here's the deal..."

Beel had conjured up drinks. Shiloh took his regal glass of chocolate milk.

"The second half of the charter is carved into the bone of the Spinel Lady, yes." He sipped the drink, "So we need to extract it and destroy it. Grinding it from her bones leaves too much room for error, so the only way to know we got every part of it is to take it out." He huffed, "Basically, we need someone to help us remove the arm. Melany's willing, just terrified. Who wouldn't be? Either way she's okay'd the process, but it's not like either of us can walk into a hospital and ask for this, yknow?"

"So, what'cha thinking?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I'm, um, not really fond of the whole pomp and circumstance thing. It feels like it belongs in a Jane Austen novel." She frowned and picked up her tea with one hand, not noticing she suddenly had quite a few many more.

Hart sat next to Beel, then leaned over to whisper. "Hey, Beebee, let's talk sometime, okay? Since we're both in the same sort of boat." Then she fell silent, watching Temperance with pale eyes.

"Take her arm? That's... well, drastic times call for drastic measures." She frowned. "I can help... I'd want more than just me on this, though."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh nodded, "That's understandable. I just don't know anyone else aside from you." He shifted his weight around in the chair, "If there's anyone you'd wanna include in this, then that's fine, but just make sure you really consider them. I mean, I wanna keep this as lowkey as possible... there's already a lot of bullshit going on and I don't need any narcs." He huffed.

Beel watched Shiloh for another moment, then turned slowly to Hart like a door with rusted hinges. "Well, I'm always here..." He made a vague motion to the court space that Shiloh called his own.

"My brother said he had another contact with an actual doctor on our side, but that they'd prefer not to use him..." He sighed, "My brother is in on it, along with his two friends. I don't know anything about medical procedures, but..."

He fumbled a long time with the words.

"I have to be there though." Shiloh said, "I put... a lock on the bone, so the Spinel Lady can't resurface... and I'm the only one that can unlock—uh, Temperance?" He was staring at the, uh, extra... arms... "Could you always do that?"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hart leveled Beel an exasperated stare. "This is already weird, don't make it weirder," she hissed. He was making it weird.

"Surgery cannot be performed alone. We need the doctor in on this," Temperance said decisively. "A lock? I guess we'll have to remove that to excise the bone... It'll have to be a forequarter amputation." She was thinking. Amputation was difficult due to the amount of blood vessel, reshaping of the muscle... Then she glance up at Shiloh, startled.

"Do what?" That was when she noticed that, quite suddenly, she had extra hands. In a great flail of limbs, she knocked her tea over and pushed herself away from the chair as it that could make the arms disappear. Temperance stared at one hand, then another, then another, then another... "N-no..."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Beel put his arms up in a 'don't shoot me' submissive gesture, but said nothing else. Suddenly Temperance had extra arms and he wiggled his already-up-in-the-air hands.

Shiloh flinched at the sudden movement and sound, but reacted quite calmly to the entire thing. "Have any of your nobility powers started to pop up? I remember flipping out when I had plants growing all over me." Pax had been there to inform him and the other tithes of their powers. Surely Rabbit had done the same? "You got six of 'em... can you even do anything with them?" He leaned forward, "They look see through..."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Um..." was all she said. She'd been told she'd get powers of some sort, but she hadn't really expected extra arms. Temperance patted herself all over, then patted her arms. "They feel solid."

She stood and made her way to Shiloh, holding out a hand. "See if it's solid for you, too?"

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

He touched the hand offered to him, his calloused fingers carefully feeling all over what should've been... not feel-able. "Seems real to me. Do you have any feeling in them?" The things he could do with six hands...

But they were getting distracted. "Right, so, extra help. I could see if any of the fetches here have medical know-how, I guess? I obviously don't know jack s**t."

Beel spoke up, "I also don't know 'jack s**t'." His arms folded, "I'm sure there's someone here with that sort of knowledge, but I'd have to do some asking around..." He pinched the bridge of his nose—or at least where the nose would be—and then startled at the habit of a touch. "Granted, I'm not sure how comfortable they would be operating on the Lady, even if she is consenting to the surgery."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Yes, that-" she giggled. "Kind of tickles." Then, after a moment, she looked at him a bit wide-eyed. "I can feel your blood."

"Which sounds super creepy, but... anyway, I can check if Hart knows any as well." She pulled her hands away to tap her lip. "If we both ask, we should be able to find something. Also, I wanted to tell you something, but, uh - can it be alone?"

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"You can feel it?" He let go of the hand to look down at his own wondrously, half expecting to see some weird ghost-hand-burn or gash or something, but... his skin was definitely still intact. No flowers here. "That... does sound really creepy, honestly. But I guess I've dealt with worst."

The request to speak alone was a little strange, but he looked to Beel, then to Hart, then back to Beel again. Beel shrugged, "I don't really care." He said nonchalantly, only to give Hart a look a moment later. If they wanted to catch up and gossip, now was as good of a time as any. He motioned further into the domain.

"So sup...?" He looked at the spilled tea and waved his hand to will it back to the table, at the very least.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Yeah, like... how fast it's moving, the pressure of it, I guess. It feel like I can change it." She took a deep breath and waited for Beel and Hart to vacate.

"Anyway, I... I know who the third principal is. But! There's a sort of geas thing, that I can only tell you who it is if you agree to it." She folded all six of her hands together, looking kind of troubled. "I know it's kind of weird."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh's attention snapped back to her like a whip crack, "Excuse me?! You know about the third principal?" His jaw was gaping a little, "Wait, so they geased you too? Jeremiah was telling me they geased him, so he couldn't tell me anything about them..." He was starting to settle a little as he settled back down into his chair.

"...why do you want to tell me though?" He looked a little inquisitive. "I dunno if I wanna be geased..."

The Semblance of Unity