Ielta Egretudo: Zabeth's "Next Project"

To use the common vernacular, nighttime sucked. Ielta didn't use the common vernacular much, tending to mimic her guardian Zabeth in methods of speech when she was actually paying attention to them, but right now she felt like it. Nighttime-- tonight in particular-- was very much sucking.

She paced around the empty apartment restlessly-- no, frantically-- listening to whispers and trying to ignore the strange bird-creature crouched in a niche in the wall and watching her. She knew it wasn't really there. She knew it was just her mind showing her things that weren't really real. She knew she was imagining the echoes in the empty house.

That didn't make it any better that she was still seeing them, hearing them, half-terrified of them.

Zabeth was gone, out investigating some bonding thing with phoenixes. It sounded perfect for her guardian, immortal bird-dragons with magic actually somewhat similar to its own. Thidade had disappeared a few days after Zabeth, leaving behind a note on the communal computer for her to find, promising that she wouldn't be long, but not saying where she was or why she was there. Even Zamah-aisi was out somewhere, and had been all day, probably to avoid the pacing, whining, babbling nutcase she shared an apartment with.

The bird opened its beak and let out a raucous caw, making Ielta jump and shy aside with a whimper. Then she forced herself to stop and gave her wing-shoulder a vicious pinch, claws drawing blood that she resolutely ignored, trying to focus herself again on ignoring it all. She hated being home alone. She needed voices, footfalls, even breathing elsewhere in the apartment, to remind her of what was real and what wasn't. It was worse at night, when she was supposed to be sleeping-- when she was tired, but couldn't sleep because she was alone.

"Go away," she told the bird through bared teeth. "You're not real."

The bird opened its beak again, but this time it was words that came out. "Don't be silly. You know what's real and what isn't."

"And you're not."

"Don't lie, it isn't becoming of a young lady."

Ielta laughed and turned away. "Young lady". That was hardly her! Ignoring the bird's answering caw, she threw herself down on the couch and turned on the holovision, turning the volume up as high as she could to drown it all out.

She was still laying there, fixedly watching some very bad, late-night holo-movie and trying to ignore the shadowy, black-feathered figure looming over the back of the couch-- which wasn't really there-- when the apartment's front door slid open. She didn't look up until she realized something down by her paw was glowing and reflexively yanked it up onto the couch, blinking blearily down at whatever it was. A very small, dragon-canine looking creature blinked back up at her, its horns and wings brightening even as she looked at it. It couldn't have been more than a two feet tall.

"Excuse me, Ielta," it said politely, in a feminine little voice.

Ielta sighed a weary, unhappy sigh and put her head back down and focused hard on the holo-movie. Just another thing that wasn't really there. How else would it know her name?

"Ielta, wake up! We're home!"

Now, she knew that voice, and no matter what else she might have seen or heard, Ielta had never hallucinated people she actually knew. Not that she knew of, anyway. "Thidade?" she asked, lifting her head sharply again, muting the movie with a flick of a clawed finger.

"In the flesh!" Thidade grinned, opening her wings cheerfully. "And with friends!"

"Friends?" Ielta repeated, looking at her blankly.

"Yeeeeeeeeah," Thidade drawled, half-skeptically. "Say hi to Faamaal!"

Following her playmate's gaze, Ielta blinked down at the tiny creature she'd written off as an imagining. Said tiny creature was looking up at her in what looked like confusion. "You can see her?"

"Well, duh!" Thidades giggled, coming further into the apartment. "I brought her with me! And a bunch of others, too!" She sounded positively gleeful.

"I'm sorry if I caused you alarm, Ielta," the creature-- Faamaal-- said gravely. Particularly grave, in fact, since she didn't sound very old. "I wasn't aware you-- saw things."

"What a... quaint little place," came another, drawling voice from the doorway. There stood a positively golden creature, dazzling and with scales winking in the holovision light-- or maybe just Ielta's warped vision. He was also much smaller than Ielta and Thidade, though larger than Faamaal. "Is this where you live, Thidade?"

"Of course," Thidade replied, either oblivious to the golden one's mild disdain or just ignoring it. "It's a really nice place, you'll like it. Ielta, that's Se'muan. And that's Paxi," she added, as a still larger dragoness nudged Se'muan out of the way to come inside, herself, earning an icy glare from the golden one. "And July!" Thidade finished cheerfully, stepping out of the way for another one who glowed, this one glowing with pink. "Everybody, this is Ielta!"

Ielta, feeling very much overwhelmed, stared at them all, and they stared back. July was the first one to do anything. He fluttered through the holo-movie and onto the couch. "Hi," he said. "Whatcha doin?"

"Uh. Watching a movie...."

"Is it a good movie?"

"Well, no, not really...."

"Then why you watching it?"

"July, stop pestering her," Thidade tried to scold. It didn't really sound natural. "You can talk to her later. I didn't expect you to be up, Ielta, it's late!"

"I--" Ielta's gaze darted from face to face. "I couldn't sleep," she finished lamely.

Something that might have been understanding flashed across Thidade's face, but it flashed away again a moment later. "Well, now you can. I'm exhausted. I'll be in as soon as I get all these guys settled. You can all have your own rooms!" she added for everyone else. "Almost everybody's moved out, you know. Come on."

July let out a little whoop but, rather than leaping away, he grabbed Ielta's paw in both of his little paws and gave it a vigorous pumping. "Nice to meet you! Sleep tight! Don't let the bedbugs bite!"

And then he bounded off, crying, "I claim the one with the window!"

"None of them have windows!" Thidade laughed.

"No windows?" Se'muan sniffed.

"You can deal with it," Paxi told him, drifting further inside, following Thidade and July down the hall.

"Good night, Ielta," Faamaal added solemnly, like a child trying very hard to be grown up. "We shall not keep your friend long."

"Er, good," Ielta replied vaguely. "I mean, thank you. Er. Good night."

The littlest new housemate regarded her a moment before nodding and trotting off, presumably to claim her own room out of the ones Ceremeth and her following had vacated. Ielta put her muzzle into her paws, both overwhelmed and overwhelmingly relieved. She might have a mess of strange, noisy housemates to deal with now... but at least wasn't alone.