Creature City

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Alexis smiled, gratefully swallowing them down. She handed a couple to Melanie, who blinked twice before cautiously taking them, inspecting, and then swallowing them. She turned back to Cecelia. "Food would be appreciated, but please, not too much that might draw attention. We'll clean ourselves up, although mostly I just insist on cleaning tools. Leaving this mess would make it a lot harder to hide us; it would be far easier for us to clean the mess up than let....whoever find them tomorrow morning and having to explain." She paused, considering. "Do you have people who clean for you, or something? I'm- not entirely sure how the whole rich district thing works."
 
"...And that's how I inherited the whole thing." Minerva explains, sipping her ice water in a fancy place Cullette had chosen, (well, roughly pointed to and bluntly told her they could talk there instead of near the entrance of the hive).
"Abner doesn't have it together enough to run anything, and Charlie says weirdly enough that he doesn't want to be associated with Hans' crappy business. Meaning I am the undertaker here, if that makes sense. Chance doesn't know much about Hans' business either, and I don't think, even if she is good at this sort of thing, she's in the right mindset to be working like that."
"Chance is your mother, correct?" Cullette tipped her head to the side, antennae reading informational currents through the air carefully, almost hesitantly.
"Yeah. She was good to me and Ab back when were kids."
Cullette watches her quietly, and Minerva can see she's starting to grow curious. It had been just like when they left off.
"What had you been doing before all this happened?" She leans across the table, and Minerva feels the childish need to tug on one of her antennae, like a baby presented with someone's jangly car keys. What would happen if she did, anyway? Would she recoil in shock? Be outraged? Minerva had always thought the wasp girl looked cute when she was mad about something.
"Oh, y'know. Freelance." She says it casually, and Cullette gives her a knowing, cynical glance. Minerva blinks, and then grins in response. Sometime's she's like that. Ashamed of it some days, proud that she could pull it off other days.
"Hey, it pays the bills."
"It's also a dangerous occupation," Cullette reminds her, says it nearly protectively. The arachnid feels their bond rekindle, feels something in the slightly scary, highly trained girl suddenly give way. "You never know what kind of clients you're going to get."
Minerva shrugs, getting ready to say something like, maybe I like to live dangerously, but stops herself. The girl's got a point, even if it is raised mostly by stigma.
"Look, all the clients I ever have had were horny, pathetic guys and others who chickened out of it. Plus, I make sure I'm never put in a dangerous position so don't get so concerned. Also, Vince is looking out for me at all times."
Cullette remembers visiting Minerva once, years ago, and seeing who the spider had described as 'Vince' in the corner of the room, murmuring with business associates. He was a loud, uncouth Hyena who Cullette had instantly disliked.
"He doesn't like it, but he's got my back if everything goes bad." Minerva explains.
"Anyways, what have you been up to then, in my absence darling?"
Cullette considers the question, and responds blankly. "Training, and tracking down a breach in the security perimeter. City wise."
"What kind of breach?" Minerva asks, but already knows the answer before the other girl says it.
"A human child."
 
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Cullette offers up a small smile, and pulls out her phone from her pocket. "A human child is a danger to the hive." Minerva snorts, and the wasp elaborates. "The child could be carrying an unknown pathogen that might affect our basic system, or infect the hive."
Minerva rolls her eyes, knowing it's all rumours and fear mongering, but she accepts that is is perhaps the Vespa's role to intervene in the whole kid business, as they function practically as the police in the city.
"And here I thought it was only us Araneae knew about the situation." She says in a lower tone, examining her fingernails.
"We have a lead." Cullette explains, and Minerva raises an eyebrow. She pulls up a document on her phone, and the other leans in to stare at the screen.
"Security cameras picked this up approximately two days ago. Take a look."
The video buffers for a moment, before showing a winged black hybrid pouncing savagely from rooftop to rooftop, red eyes glowing in the dark as a smaller figure jumps to outrun it.
"Looks like they've gone all bloodlusty. But why?" Minerva jabs a finger in the screen's direction, pointing to the black flapping wings and the silhouette she can barely make out.
"We think the child was around the area at the time, triggering the other hybrid's basic human hunting instincts to resurface."
"Well shit, Letts. Where's the place the security cams picked that up from?"
 
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Cecilia huffed a small, breathy laugh at Alexis’ question.
“Yes – we have servants,” she said, tidying the painkillers away. “My family employs around fifty in total. But don’t worry about cleaning up; I’ll do a little and we’ll blame the rest on Altair. My servants know not to ask questions.”
 
Alexis nodded. "Alright, if you're certain. In that case, then, things to help clean and dress these wounds, and maybe food. Neither of us are particularly fussy, so just whatever you can fetch that wouldn't be too noticeable, and in the meantime..." She looked toward the bathroom. "Would we be able to clean whilst you were out of the room, or would that draw suspicion?"
Melanie watched the conversation with wide eyes. Hastily they tapped Alexis on the shoulder, and started signing. Their hands were shaky, and they signed almost too fast for Alexis to understand. Could we ask for tea? That would be nice to calm us down.
It took a moment for Alexis to decipher, but she nodded. "Melanie wants to know if we could have tea. They have a bit of a soft spot for the drink."
 
(Introducing a new character! XD Oh and btw, I hope you don't mind me mentioning your character in here Dragon, I just thought it might bring a little backstory for how the situation went down.)

Last time was her fault.

A full shipment of humans were sent to the buyer, but by the time they got there, almost all were dead. Rook hadn't been taking care of them during their time waiting for transport. By the time they were shipped off, they were all half starved and sick. They weren't strong enough to survive transport. The buyer had been furious. He had prepaid for them and everything, and when he opened the shipment, all he found was bad merchandise. She'd been careless, leaving them to their own devices whilst she sorted out the business end of the deal, not even paying attention to how miserably they each sat, sticking to the sides of walls and huddling together in fear.
When it had come to the final part of the transport, Rook had noticed something strange. Although every human on that truck had previously been accounted for, when she counted each person again, she ended up one short. There had been a child there.
She had snarled in frustration and grabbed her pistol, threatening the few starved survivors and demanding answers. A mother sat weeping in the corner, a single bracelet wrapped around her thin pale arms.
"My child! My child!" She'd cried out hysterically, and Rook had silenced her with a bullet to the head. Boss would be pissed, considering they'd gotten to other side of the border successfully only to find each of her stock had contracted a previously unnoticed sickness. Sighing and rubbing at her face, she tried to remember what the kid looked like. Flowing seaweed green hair, never said a word during the entire process of taking the humans, a bracelet on their wrist with the same pattern as their mother's.. She had grimaced and walked around the back of the truck, checking for signs of escape. She found the break in the fence pretty quickly. Meaning the little human had ran off to the city.

Now, she sat on the phone with her employer, getting chewed out over the line about the loss of money and time and resources, thinking about that kid. Well, someone would surely to find them. Surely.
 
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She studied the mute human girl for a moment with doe-like eyes, ignoring the way she salivated at the scent.
No wonder the creature’s being so well-hidden, she thought as she clenched her fists to try and control her uncivilised urges. It would simply be impolite to tear her guest to shreds – plus, the whisper of rebellion and adventure the human brought was more tantalising than her blood.
“Of course,” said Cecilia after a pause. “I’ll see to Vera, get her to make a pot of tea. You should be okay to wander my wing of the manor and use the bathroom; Father’s out tonight, searching for a husband to cart me off with, and most of the servants have the night off. Only Vera and a few others are here, cleaning the place up. They won’t disturb us.” She opened the bedroom door hesitantly, despite knowing it would be deserted, and glanced out.
“The bathroom’s the third door on the left. Take as much time as you like.”
 
Melanie pulled a face at the mention of a husband, and signed a few things. Alexis chuckled, and translated. "Melanie doesn't understand why you should be found a husband." She watched as her companion continued to sign. "They ask why you can't just marry of your own accord, whoever you want to." They moved to the door as she spoke, and peeked out, locating the door Cecelia was talking about fairly swiftly.
 
(Feeling in the mood for some heart-wrenching angst. Read at yer own risk. XD)

Abner sinks into the sofa, groaning and rubbing his tired eyes. Minerva hasn't returned back to the apartment for days, his attempts to call her continuously failing. He listens to her voicemail again, telling him to call back another time, her voice cheerful despite his concern. It ends in a long drawn out beep. Maybe she's done something stupid in the wake of Hans' death... Maybe it's gotten to her more than he had thought. That's Minerva for you, he thinks, always chalking it down to something simple and pretending nothing's wrong when almost everything seems to be. She has to be strong, always being the dominant one of the pair. He wonders if this was what Minerva felt when he went missing for a couple of weeks, up until that night she found him slumped in an alleyway. He knows he's a pain, he knows he's a leech of the worst kind. Never feeding himself, hardly keeping the place clean. Like some clueless abandoned cat, slowly becoming more feral and skittish as time passes. The spider's seen those types of cats before, prowling the streets with torn ears and infections, always so skinny you could see the outlines of their skulls. He tried to pet one once, but all it did was hiss and streak away from him. Minerva leaves bowls of milk and titbits of food out for them in the hopes she might help some sleep less hungry, but they never turn up, wary of creature contact.
"Minerva," He leaves a message, knowing he's pissed her off somehow, hoping she picks up this time. "I get it. I'm a fucking... I'm a fucking leech." His thoughts swim in his head and he closes his eyes. Leech. The word rings in his head. I may not bite the hand that feeds me but I'll make damn sure to feed off it until it can no longer support me. "All I do is drag anyone who helps me back down. But just fucking call me back, okay?"

Minerva hears the message down at Cullette's, a couple days after she figured Abner was back to using again. She doesn't know where he gets the money for it, but she knows desperate hybrids can get their hands on anything if they're addicted enough. She picks up the phone, and leaves him two words while Cullette looks at her quietly, trying to discern the sudden tension. "Get clean."
 
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