[private]

[curtainwizard]

Light isn't bored; doesn't know how to be, at the age he is now. For all that he's surrounded by people who hate him - or at least, who hate his adult self - for all that he knows he's supposed to be dead and can't ever go back where he belongs, he's interested in everything, and he's in a magic mansion full of things that are calculated to

Comments

[chilichoc]

*Mel was scolded severely enough last time she was in this room that she's made a habit of visiting more regularly. The snow leopard appears pacing along by her side as soon as she steps in, and she lets her hand fall to scratch behind his ears without looking down, with the ease of familiarity.

She's usually the only one in here, and she stops some distance away from the swings when she sees Light and his cat. She doesn't recognize it as anything other than a housecat, but Arkadion does. He sits beside her, and leans briefly against her legs as if to say Be careful.*

Light.

[curtainwizard]

[His fingers are curled into the cat's fur, at the back of her neck. As Mel addresses him, the dreamy smile he's been wearing drops off as if he's been smacked, and the cat flickers into a bird, circling him once or twice before landing on his shoulder, to whisper exactly the same thing in his ear. Watch out. She'll try to trick you.

Clearing his throat before he replies to her, he seems quite composed. Why, yes, he's talking to a monkey-bird-mantis-cat thing. Why shouldn't he be?]

Hello, Mel-san.

I like your leopard. What's his name?

[chilichoc]

*Mel's never seen a daemon change form before, and her eyes widen. What does it mean? she asks, silently, and the answer's silent too: He is truly a child, at the moment. She has not yet taken her final form.*

Arkadion. *She gives the name without hesitation, and is carefully polite when she addresses the bird.* Hello, Rin.

[curtainwizard]

Mel. It's been a while.

[Rin cocks her head to the side as she returns the greeting, with a flap of her ugly beak. Even accounting for the difference between the bird-voice and the spider-voice, there's no chittering malice, no suggestive, insane undercurrent. She's a lot more like Arkadion, in fact: older and more mature than the boy she's with.

Light's response is to turn his head to her, then look back to Mel, then back to the bird. You remember her? Of course. I remember everything. Don't worry. This is not me worried, Rin.]

She remembers. That's interesting.