[color=a187be][b]Herbert[/b]
[/color]

Crumbs and flakes of the croissant stuck to Herbert’s fingertips, so he wiped them off with an unpleasant handkerchief made of soft paper. He looked around the room, at the gathering crowd. That was when the monk entered. Something inside his head clicked. Then it felt as though someone had scraped all his internal organs and squeezed them into his skull, except for his heart, which ached hollow in his chest. 

He wasn’t in a hospital. He’d been in denial believing that. However, that meant he had surely gone insane. [i]Can I no longer see the partition between the waking world and the ephemeral nuances of the imagination, of that sleeping world?[/i] For what he had experienced was too fantastical to be actuality. 

A grey-pink tongue flicked out of his mouth and licked his top lip. 

Herbert clenched his stomach and closed his eyes, trying to stop the room from spinning, trying to supress the nausea as everything caught up with him. He rested, hunched against the wall, forehead buried into the nook of his elbow. Half-remembered dreams and memories flashed behind his eyelids. 

When the two men in uniform entered, one asinine and the other austere, it barely registered. He licked his lips again.

His starchy collar felt like a noose around his neck. Sweat poured, running down his brow in rivulets, raining from his nose. Everything smelled too strongly; it suffocated him. Blood thundered in his ears to the rhythm of his storming heart. It was all he could hear. The bellows of his lungs puffed air in and out, his chest rising and falling like the piston of a steam engine.

White lights danced across his vision when he opened his eyes. The walls seemed to be closing in on him. The faces, alien and strange were snarling at him, he was certain, twisted by hatred and malevolence. He staggered back into the hallway, away from the room full of people. 

Pain crushed his stomach, and his body convulsed. Acid burnt his throat and tasted foul in his mouth. His vomit puddled in the hallway, half dripping down the wall. 

Then Herbert collapsed sideways. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


[color=007236][b]Mallaidh[/b][/color]

The grin did not vanish when Twain clapped her on the back. As much as she was wary of him, comradery was always welcome in a place so strange. In the back of her mind she groaned, and hoped this didn’t mean she’d be expected to drink anymore coffee.

Across the room, she noticed one of the men in crisp uniforms seemed to have trouble in controlling his face. She regarded him with cool, emerald eyes. The slightest of facial alterations conveyed much, so relatively this man was dancing a fíor céili on his lonesome. To be expected; he was a cocky one, whose friend had berated him for such. It caused her to wonder if a “gangbang” was a tradition the Tuath Dé were not supposed to share with outsiders, perhaps a dance also. 

She went to rest her hands on the pommels of her axes, but they were missing, so she fumbled with empty space. Knowing she had at least one set of eyes upon her, she turned away to hide her flushed cheeks. She happened to look at Winston entering. She smiled openly at him, and hurried to stand next to him and the floating orb of light at his side, which she was not sure how to react to, but Winston seemed calm enough about it.

“This is more than I could have imagined,” she said. He smiled, and might have said something, but Twain began his speech, and so he closed his mouth and nodded towards the man, a gesture for Mallaidh to watch and listen. 

Forces beyond the gods reeked of menace. A cult ritual heavily insinuated the Fomorians, in her mind at least. It unsettled Mallaidh, but forged an iron resolution in her heart; if they wanted help, she would lend it readily. Then she could return with tales of glory, of triumph over evil, and, most importantly, the magic of the gods to cure her mother. 

“Doc Tur Twayne, you have my sword,” She said, in the silence that followed, “but how might I put it to use?” She was, of course, sword-less, but she was speaking in metaphors.