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Who: Kalenedral, John, and Jacqueline
What: hi welcome to Baedal here's your complimentary fruit basket
Where: the Valhalla Inn
When: some time after Njoki lets Kalenedral out of the arrival room
Notes: n/a
Warnings: does not actually contain a fruit basket

Well, that was definitely a day. Checking out schools and places to live near those schools is sort of tiresome to begin with, and having to drag Jacqueline with him isn't fun for either of them. She misses her mom, and John misses Ana's competence. They both have strong independent streaks, but John is used to being on his own and only taking care of himself, while Ana had to raise her younger sister and is actually a good parent.

Something from lunch today made Jacqueline feel sick. She had to go barf in a women's restroom while John tried not to wring his hands, and now they're back at the Inn early; fortunately, Jacqueline had perked back up on the way and seems fine again. John is trying to tell himself that you can't take a kid to the doctor every time they throw up, then wondering if that still applies in Baedal, where there could be fifty million new diseases. But everybody's a transplant and the city isn't overcome with a new disease every other month, so there must be something at work, here. But what if! But that's ridiculous, calm down —

He has to stop short to not run into Jacqueline, who was walking ahead of him and had just passed the common room.

"Dad dad there is a thing in there," she hisses with exactly that lack of punctuation, and John has had a careful talk with her about xenians and people who look different from the people she's accustomed to seeing, and she knows about mutants anyway, so a 'thing' must be something very unusual indeed.

"Not a thing," he reminds her, taking her hand. "Let's go see. We can say hi."

Still, he's cautious in escorting her into the common room, prepared to see a non-humanoid entity of some sort — a thirty something, scruffy-looking man with a neck tattoo and a solemn-faced seven year old girl with red rain boots.

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And here in the common room is a ghoul.

A half-decomposed, smells-as-bad-as-it-looks ghoul. Who is currently sitting on the floor and has... legos? Dear god, yes it does. A whole bucket of them, like a little kid hanging out in a doctor's waiting room.

Near where the ghoul is seated on the floor, Kalenedral has found the sturdiest looking chair in the place and is sitting slightly oddly in it, due to the huge freaking sword on his back and the fact that he's in full plate armor. He's currently absorbed in reading something on the CiD, or so it appears at least, and it's Limbface who looks up from his legos and peers at the newcomers.

Jacqueline draws herself up with some trepidation, but... those are legos. This personthing smells bad and looks scary. But those are legos.

John is actually going through a parallel thought process, one with slightly more adult considerations like 'if it were uncontrollably dangerous it wouldn't be in the common room playing with legos'. Still, that's essentially the same progression. He squeezes Jacqueline's hand.

"Hi," she says to the ghoul, only a little timid. "What are you making."

A whole bucket of them! Because what else is Kal going to spend money on, really? Food? Rent? He has long worked to develop Limbface's intelligence, and now he has access to tools to assist with that.

The Knight doesn't glance up, although it would be incredibly naive to think he doesn't know what's going on in the room.

Limbface blinks at Jacqueline with his very dead and slightly glowing eyes. He's taller than Kal, in truth, but while sitting on the floor like this with his legs splayed out flat and his back bent, he's certainly not looming.

"Building home," the ghoul says quite seriously, and holds up the very rough approximation of the Ebon Hold. It lacks any and all detail, so it's mostly just this many-sided vaguely circular thing that definitely doesn't look like it should sit on the ground.

And he's not very good with the legos yet, so it's half falling apart.

Edited 2012-09-30 05:57 (UTC)

Between his silence and the armored guy's lack of overt attention, John feels like he's brought Jacqueline to the world's worst play date. He often imagines Ana glaring at him from entire worlds away. This certainly qualifies as one of those times. His free hand, hanging loose at his side, turns just slightly so that if he has to bring that hand up and use what's strapped to his forearm, he can.

But seriously, it wouldn't be in the Inn. Would it? (Ana is glaring at him, he can feel it...)

Meanwhile, Jacqueline does not yet release her dad's hand, observing the building that the ghoul is creating.

"Oh," she says politely, thinking that it's an odd home for an odd creature. "Some parts are falling off. Are they supposed to?"

Limbface looks at his creation and wilts a little in place. Apparently those parts aren't supposed to be falling off!

"Me no good at this," the ghoul declares somewhat morosely -- he's very emotive, for something with such a limited face -- and lets it drop to the floor. Crunch. He starts picking off the loose parts that didn't come off in the 'crash'.

"My minion is not a threat," Kalenedral says without looking up, his deep voice overlaid with that eerie, beyond-the-grave echo that is apparently quite unique to his flavor of undead.

Of course, he doesn't bother to add the 'right now' to his statement. Limbface has huge nasty teeth and even huger nasty claws for fingers (which he is shockingly deft with, all told). The fact that he isn't helpless in a fight hardly bears stating.

She bites her lip for a moment before deciding. "Do you want help."

As for John, he glances at the armored man coolly. Never the friendliest of men to begin with, there's just something about people from more obviously martial civilizations or cultures that is difficult for him to be comfortable around.

"Great. Neither is my minion." He says, absolutely dry.

Limbface blink-blinks at that, and then pushes the bucket of legos toward her with one giant-clawed hand. Apparently she can have some! To help or not, it's hard to say.

"Shiny feet," he notes of her rainboots. Shiny people can have some of the small shiny blocks.

Meanwhile, Kalenedral finally glances up, if only to arch one overly-long eyebrow at John. "My condolences."

While one could think he's being snide, he's privately a little puzzled. Are human children considered minions here? He may have more reading to do...

When it comes to judging people, John is both generous and mean in different aspects, and in this case, correctly interprets Kalenedral's reaction as having missed the joke. He smiles very slightly and offers no clarification, keeping his attention on his daughter.

Jacqueline hesitantly pulls her hand out of John's and moves toward the legos, crouching to stick her hand in the bucket.

"Sometimes they sell bigger ones..." Because it's not the ghoul's fault he's kind of big and has to hunch over just to play with legos. The big ones might be easier for him to handle and attach to each other. She presses some of the legos more firmly together with her much smaller hands.

Limbface watches this very intently. They didn't break! When he presses too hard on these things, they almost always break, so he handles things carefully. A ghoul's strength is a direct reflection of his Master's... and there's a very good reason Kal has selected the sturdiest seat he could find.

Instead of replying, Limbface takes a few bricks and presses them together more firmly. They don't break either!

These shiny bricks are made of magic! (Of course, those two pieces may never come apart ever again.)

"Your minion is more accustomed to these 'lego bricks'?" Kalenedral asks, quite formally. "We do not have such things on my world."

She observes the ghoul's attempt to mimic her with a face that is both impressed and concerned. It doesn't feel polite to point out the potential problems in not being able to undo one's lego progress, however.

"It must be a really big home?" Now her questions are finally tilting up at the end the way questions should, because this situation is just strange enough to merit it.

There are places for John to sit, but even though he's spent half of the day walking, he doesn't, perhaps because of Kalenedral's formality. Perhaps because he doesn't want Jacqueline to play with this 'minion' for too long. He makes a sort of you don't say sound to Kalenedral. Imagine, armored knights and their walking corpses not having lego.

"Yeah, they're considered good toys for child development. It usually takes a lot of force to break one —" But clearly that could still happen right now, which is. Great. "— and they can be endlessly reconfigured into almost anything."

"That is why I have purchased them," Kalenedral's tone is mildly agreeable, "I have done my best to foster intelligence, fine motor skills, and spacial awareness in Limbface over the years," as well as the ability to think non-linearly, etc. "These items seem to be of excellent use to that purpose."

And Limbface likes them, because they're small and colorful and shiny. And now that he knows they're so tough, he likes them even more! The ghoul makes a pleased sound at Jacqueline and begins staggering the legos, width-wise, to rebuild a wall on the 'Necropolis'.

"Acherus big," he agrees, "many Knights. Many ghouls!" He likes Acherus, he gets to flail around and be stupid with the other ghouls while Kalenedral stands or rides his patrols or assists Corvus, either of which tend to last for days on end.

And if he occasionally eats his new ghoul friends, well. That's just how they roll in ghoul-land.

Limb. Face.

Later, in the privacy of his room, John is going to stand there and mouth that name to himself a few times. Well, it fits, he just can't get over it. For now, his expression doesn't change at all. It is the neutral, halfheartedly polite face he'd use while talking to a neighbor he doesn't know well, which is more or less apt for the situation. They really need to move out.

"It's fascinating to watch them develop," he says, continuing the deadpan interpretation of minions as children. Jacqueline observes the pattern the ghoul uses and begins to copy it to help him. "I'm sure you're very proud."

In truth, Kalenedral thinks of his ghoul very much as a living man would think of their son... or as close as a creature of the Scourge can get. But it is not the way of Death Knights to show affection, and certainly not their way to call ghouls anything more personal than 'my minion' or 'my servant'.

Off the field of battle, he looks after his ghoul in a rather fatherly way, from periodically re-tying the ghoul's topknot for him to keeping the bandages wrapped around his limbs clean and securely-tied. Showering him with 'toys' is perhaps the natural progression, even if it's for reasons besides simply entertaining the creature.

But on the field of battle, he does not hesitate to destroy his minion -- however temporarily -- to gain an edge on his opponent. He will never flinch when Limbface is cut in half, or his skull is bashed in, or the ghoul is lit on fire.

It's a fairly unique dynamic they have. Even among their kind, since few Knights are as invested in their ghouls as Kalenedral is. Thassarian and Munch are the only real examples he himself knows of.

"Indeed," Kalenedral says, although he eyes John for a moment as though he's finally detected the snark. It's not like he's dumb, he just doesn't understand the living.

He would be surprised to find most of that out; John is rarely as insightful about other people as he could be, and there's not much to go on here other than Kalenedral's decidedly detached manner. Still, he can tell that the armored man has come to understand the nature of what he was saying, if perhaps not the specifics. As is typical for him, John is unrepentant, and keeps the same expression as if unaware of it.

"Jacqueline, you probably need to take a nap. And drink some water, too." He suggests, reverting to parental obligations now that Kalenedral has caught on. His daughter gives the first suggestion a withering look, but has to concede she's thirsty, thanks to throwing up earlier. She places one final lego on the structure.

"I guess I have to go," she says to Limbface. "Thanks for letting me help build Acherus. I hope they don't put it in the bucket when you're done."

Also she hopes he won't run out of legos before he finishes, but she doesn't want to mention that in case it distresses him.

Such is the problem with dealing with Kal; Death Knights keep their cards close, and those who know nothing else keep them closer. Some of his brethren still struggle just to remove their helmets in the presence of others... the fact that Kalenedral has given his ghoul toys is almost boggling!

Short of dealing with him for an extended period of time, or perhaps the use of Empathy or mind-reading, this is just one of those things that rarely comes to light.

Limbface blinks and cocks his head, his topknot swaying almost comically on his head. "Me happy," he tells the small human, "you good!"

Kalenedral just watches all of this for a moment, and then goes back to reading the CiD.

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