Tyler, Riley and Sandy were well in hand with Rikive. Thankfully she had the instinct and energy to keep up with the lycans. They could be annoying, but were more of a drain than a danger. On his own, Parry was able to barely keep order amongst the chaos of half a dozen paranormal children and the lycans often distracted him by constantly ripping up stuffed animals and playing too fiercely among themselves. A few times he'd left three pups in the playroom for half a minute, only to return with one wailing on the carpet as a full human, bite canine bite marks over his ear while the two other wolves tried to hide inside toy chests. Today Parry was able to give his full attention to the other kids that showed up. Turned out he needed the relief. Estelle had recently come into her power and took to casting charms on toys to shrink them down to size to fit in her pockets. Parry had to keep un-doing the charms and take special care not to let her try such a thing around the other kids, rubbing prevention wards on their wrists just in case Estelle got it in her head to be disobedient. "Don't let that wash off," PArry said after rubbing the Sharpie symbol onto Rikive's hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Parry caught Estelle casting the shrink charm onto the doll house he'd set up, turning it into a tiny lego-like building. Right. No taking chances on that one. He went ahead and drew a second charm on Rikive's other wrist. "For the love of Odin, don't let that wash off." One of the Fae, a dryad named Lily, had hidden herself inside the small collection of potted plants in the corner and took it on herself to try and play hide-and-seek there. The pots, warded against fae magic, wouldn't let her practice magic inside them. Unfortunately the pups had already broken one of the pots and Lily took it upon herself to transform a seed in the loose dirt into a tiny copse of mulberry bushes. "Lily! Lily, no! My carpeting! Unky Parry bought this on special order from Marseilles!" ----------------------------------------- While 'Unky Parry' was busy trying to get Lily to stop growing berries and Miss Riki played with the puppies, Estelle was left to play with her dollhouse, making it bigger and then smaller like Aunt Gilly had taught her last night. It was a neato trick and she had all the toys in her toy chest right inside her pocket, but nobody was paying attention to [i]her[/i] anymore. It wasn't fair that the dumb dogs got to play with Miss Riki and Mister Parry spent all his time with the dumb fairies! [i]He thinks you're a big girl[/i], came a voice on the wind. "Whossat?" Estelle asked, turning her head around every which way. But all the other kids were busy watching Lily make mulberries big as soccer balls or playing with Miss Riki. [i]A friend,[/i] the voice said. [i]A special friend. Only you can hear me Estelle. Call me... Lady.[/i] Estelle frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. "Mumma says not to talk to strangers. She said strangers could be demons who could eat me!" The voice chuckled. [i]Your mommy is very smart. But I'm not a demon. In fact, I'm just like your Auntie. I want to teach you a new trick on a toy. A very special toy. But we have to go to Unky Parry's room for it.[/i] "Will everyone else like the trick?" [i]They will LOVE the trick. Especially Unky Parry.[/i] ----------------------------------------- Mulberries. I fucking HATE mulberries! "Lily, hun, time to stop." Parry took another berry, this one baseball sized, off the vine and handed it to one of the other children to eat. He didn't care which one- at the very least Lily would keep him from having to go in the kitchen for snack time. "Can you at least make strawberries? I can make shortcake later..." There were excited squeals from all the assembled children. Cake? AND berries? "NO!" Lily said, putting that idea down right away to a chorus of groans. "I want mulbewwies!" "Lily Greenleaves! If you do not stop making mulberries in my playroom, I swear on the Fairy Queen-" that icy bitch- "that I will go to the store and buy a gallon of weedkiller so I can pull you out of there myself!" "NO!" Lily stamped her foot behind a wall of vines and leaves. Another pair of berries fell off the tree, rolling toward the rocking chair where Rikive sat with the pups. Parry gave her an exasperated glance. "Would you mind using those lovely muscles of yours to, er, open a path into the brush?" ----------------------------------------- Estelle left the grown ups in the playroom while Lily kept making trouble. Unky Parry handed her a mulberry as big as her head. Estelle took one bite and stuck out her tongue. ICK! Why couldn't Lily make strawberries? [i]She'll make strawberries for you soon,[/i] the voice whispered. [i]When you show her the new trick. Now let's go upstairs. That a girl![/i] The voice guided her up the steps one at a time while everyone else was busy in the play room with Lily's mess. Estelle usually stayed away from the stairs, not because she didn't want to explore what was up there, but because Unky Parry always kept the doors upstairs and downstairs locked and no one could ever get in. At the top of the stairs she had to stand on her tip-toes to reach the knob on the door, strained to turn it, and was ready to tell the voice "I told you so" when it wouldn't open. Except this time, the door clicked and swung open. [i]Hurry![/i] The voice whispered, suddenly much less friendly than it was downstairs. [i]Inside. Turn right- no , other way! Other way! Good Estelle! Smart Estelle! I knew I could trust you. That door, the open one. [/i] Unky Parry's room was messy. Much messier than Estelle's room. He had clothes everywhere in piles and piles, fancy jewelry on the walls and a super big bed, probably fun to bounce on! She wanted to bounce on it so much she started to step toward it- [i]There! There there there! On the floor by the window![/i] Estelle stopped, looking over by the window where the voice told her to. A mountain of wrinkled fancy shirts was piled up to the window, dirty and clean, and right on top of that pile was a great big sword as big as her arm. Dark gray and all beaten up, with marks all over its side. It looked really scary... [i]Go touch it.[/i] Estelle shook her head. "Swords is bad. I wanna jump on the bed!" The voice sighed. [i]I suppose it was too much to ask. Time to go about this the hard way.[/i] Estelle stumbled forward as somebody pushed her from behind. HARD. -------------------------------------- Parry's ears pricked a bit, warning bells going off in his head. The energy level in the house had shifted on his radar. He'd described it as a kind of controlled chaos once to a warlock who remarked on the aura of the home. Someone had introduced a level of not-so-controlled chaos into his home. "Head count," Parry snapped, giving up on the task of getting Lily out of her thorn patch. "Everyone here, say 'Me!'" ----------------------------------------- "Hey! I-" [i]MOVE![/i] The voice snarled, shoving Estelle up the pile of laundry. [i]Up! Up! Up![/i] "I wanna go downstairs!" Estelle's lip started quivering. The shoves made her scrape a knee once, making it really red. Now at the clothes mountain, she felt something grab her by the neck. Something with really big nails that pinched her skin and lifted her to the top of the pile where the sword lay. [i]There. Not so bad, Estelle? Smart Estelle. Pretty Estelle. Let's teach you the trick. Now take your finger and draw on the sword like this...[/i] --------------------------------------- "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine- Ah, we're short a witch. Estelle?" Parry abandoned the effort to get Lily out of the thorn patch, thinking back. He'd drawn a ward on Estelle to keep her from shrinking herself by accident or design. And he hadn't heard the old pipes run so she couldn't have washed it off. "Estelle?" Parry's nostrils flared as the energy level shifted in the house again. From upstairs. Witch magic. [i]Hiccup![/i] "Oh great..." He'd forgotten to lock the upstairs door after Rikive came down to join him. Estelle must've gone upstairs and started playing with magic. On the plus side, Lily's thorn patch had started to recede on its own. The girl had made so many berries she was down and out for naptime an hour early. "Riki, can you -[i]HICCUP![/i]- go upstairs and grab Estelle?"