"Honestly, I agree with Mark." Seige told Gin, getting back up to check on his mother, who had fallen asleep at the table, her head resting on her left arm, with her right hand curled around the coffee cup on the table. His many legs maked a soft scritch-tap-scritch-tap as he walked.

Putting a hand on her shoulder"Good,she's finally asleep." he said, puffing out his cheeks with air and blowing it up toward the jet black hair that had fallen into his golden eyes.

"I'm going to take her home while Zink is gone so I don't have to leave anyone alone with him. It won't take more than a minute; if anyone wants to come with me it would be greatly appreciated.

Mark volunteered quickly and followed Seige out the door. Gin waved a slight goodbye and Sade... well, he was relieved to have some normality.

“What do you think of all this?” Gin asked, looking up through strands of red hair that had fallen in her face.

He shrugged and stared at Chum, who was finishing off a cup of coffee. “I think I’m going to be glad when things are back to normal.” He said it softly, not spitefully.



Mark wasted no time. He began talking only a few feet from the Mensten Coffee House door. “I need to ask a favor of you, Seige,” he began with a sigh. “I’d be very grateful if you wouldn’t mention my smell again…” He kept his lips curled into a half smile so that the Cinsaid could take it as a joke if he didn’t have a clue as to what he was referring to.

Seige took a few steps to the side to get away from the aroma that was rolling off Mark.
“Trying to hide or what? I won’t mention it again but I have to tell you something.” Seige paused thinking of how he wanted to say it, carrying his mother.

He glanced at Mark, “I’m sorry if I offend or scare you, but I like dog. It’s my favorite after horse…of course I like dogs too.” He emphasized the g in the first dog to show how singular it was indicating food, then the s in the second one, indicating pets and people-pets as he called them.

”Also, I am and was hungry, it's like setting alcohol in front of an alcoholic who’s extremely thirsty."He continued walking one step forward, one to the side, away from Mark.

"Of course, I won’t hurt you or anyone else, even if I was starving; it would be going against everything I fought my father for. I just wanted to explain my actions.” He added as an after thought.

He walked into Velige's home and stopped looking around. The first floor was an art gallery. There were about fifty paintings in the room with the name Velige Vanderburg signed on all of them.

Mark shrugged and didn’t respond. Hiding had done him well so far, and he didn’t feel like changing that. He kept his distance from Seige despite his assurance. Hands shoved in his pockets, he stared up at the moon as they walked along the streets, only glancing down if he sensed someone nearby that needed to be avoided with a step to the side.

He followed him into his mother’s home cautiously and only glanced at the art. “Nice place,” he said politely.

“I wonder who Vanderburg is. Last I knew we had the same last name.” Seige muttered.
He stared at the house for a second before realizing that obviously Todlich had a father, and his last name was Vanderburg.

“Um. I don’t see a door to the second level, or a bed anywhere.” He announced, looking around.

He turned to Mark. “Now what? She came out of this building, this door screaming about her son, so this must be where she lives. Right?”

With a slow nod, Mark said, "That sounds about right to me." He shrugged. "I don't know where to begin looking for a bed. What about a sofa?"


OOC: Lame shortness. Sorry. >.<

“I suppose that, would work but where would her son have slept?” He said looking for a door or a curtain, or anything that would lead to another room.

He found an unusually large painting, roughly the size of a door, while walking against the back wall. Seige slid his hand along the side of the canvas and it slid away from his hand. She had turned the painting into a sliding door that hid a staircase to the second floor.

“Mark! Over here! It’s a sliding-door-painting thing.” Seige called, impressed that Velige would think of making a door out of a painting.

Mark walked over calmly without a hint of surprise in his eyes despite the fact that he had never seen such a thing outside of movies before. "Why all the secrecy? Is she hiding from someone?" He peeked at the stairs curiously, unsure of whether or not he actually wanted to climb up them.

“Yes, but I don’t think she did it to hide, I think it’s just decoration.” Seige stared at the staircase for a moment, remembering what happened the last time he tried to climb a flight of stairs. He sighed deeply before going up, ducking his head low to keep from hitting his head.

At first, Mark paced at the bottom of the stairs, trying to decide if he wanted to follow Seige. It could be an elaborate trap to eat him, after all. He scolded himself for being paranoid. The Cinsaid was a nice enough guy. With a sigh, he turned and bounded up the stairs rather quickly and looked down the hall each way to see where Seige had gone.

Siege had gone into the last bedroom at the end of the hall. This one has to be hers, who else would have this many pictures of Todlich?

He was tucking her in when he heard a sound in the closet, thinking it was a cat, he walked toward the sound, when he was about two feet the door burst open and metal connected with his solar plexus knocking the wind out of him with a grunt. He gagged and went down nearly losing consciousness. The figure gruffly asked “What are you?! Who are you and what are you doing with my wife? What did you do to my boy?” Seige looked up to see a man of about thirty-five, medium height, with light brown hair and stubble on his face standing above him with a gold candlestick raised to hit him on the head if he moved again.

“I’m her son, I took her and your son to a burial.” Seige answered, gaining a full forced blow to the head, making him shout out as the skin of his scalp split.

“Liar! Tell me where he is!” The man bellowed brandishing the bloody candlestick.

“He’s dead!” Seige yelled at him, cringing when the man hit him again, across the back.

"Stop lying!” the man screamed, raising the makeshift weapon to hit him again across the back, Seige raised a hand to protect himself, the blow connected breaking it with a sickening crack. He cried out again, this time louder.

It wasn’t difficult to find Seige. Mark heard the fight and advanced down the hall at a quick pace. He reached the room in just enough time to see the man, probably the dead boy’s father, break Seige’s hand. He wavered in the doorway, unsure of what to do. I should probably help, he thought. Or at least distract this guy…

“Hey!” He shouted as loudly as he could muster, the word came out almost as a bark. He hoped he didn’t get hit. “Stop that! You don’t even know who he is! You can’t just go around hitting random… things!” His raised a hand as he spoke, waving it around madly to his words.

Well... that's all I have before claws and fangs. Hope it works.

Seige let himself fall the rest of the way to the floor for a second, resting during the short moment the man was distracted. Breathing heavily, he watched the blood that came from his head slowly pool on the floor. It’s a nice color. He thought groggily, before dragging himself off the floor, and getting unsteadily getting to his feet.

The man had whirled around to face off with Mark, who had thankfully distracted him. Seige was forgotten for the moment, as the man swung the candlestick at Mark.

Mark ducked quickly down and to the side. The candlestick missed him by millimeters; he felt air rush past his head. “Well, that was mostly expected,” he said calmly with a small smile. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” His muscles were ready to spring at the slightest movement from this mad man who seemed to want to hit everyone.


Gin had fallen asleep with her cheek pressed against the counter and Zipper snoring on her lap. Sade stared at her for a long time, drying a glass as he did. When the glass was more than dry and he had forgotten to blink long enough to make his eyes water, he set the glass aside to dry the next one. He wasn’t sure what he had been thinking as he stared at her. Quite possibly nothing at all. But he could feel worry creeping up on him and tying a knot in his stomach.

“Gin,” he said after a while, his voice rising just above its normal gruffness. “Gin.”

“Mm,” came her sleepy response. She opened one eye halfway. “What?”

“You’re sleeping on my counter…”

“Yeah. So? You’ve slept in stranger places.” She closed her eye as she spoke.

He sighed and took a step towards her, nearly running into Chum who was chasing something behind the counter much like a cat chases shadows. With an annoying grunt, he stopped and let the creature pass. “You can go upstairs if you’d like to be more comfortable.”

Her shoulders scrunched up in an attempted shrug, thwarted by the position she sat in. “I’ll be fine. Just catching some extra sleep before Mark and Seige get back…”

“Shut up! He’s killed my son and did something to my wife! Now go AWAY!” the man roared throwing his weapon at him. He turned around and grabbed a large fire poker off a rack, sitting near the fireplace.

He felt movement at his back and in one movement, turned around, swung the object at Seige, who was still trying to remain vertical, and hit him in the ribs, breaking three, sending him to the floor again. Damn, when’s he gonna stop? I’m just gonna stay down if he does that again. Seige thought as he writhed on the floor trying to catch his breath.

Seeing that Seige was once again on the floor he returned his attention back to Mark. “I told you to leave!!” and swung the poker at him like a bat.

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

Zink was walking home to get Seige’s meal, humming a cheerful tune that abruptly stopped when he turned the corner and saw the house he and Yolam had been staying in had been broken into.

He ran into the house with inhuman speed, starting to panic when he saw the entire place was torn apart. “Yolam! Yolam, where are you!” He yelled over and over again, searching the house.

The last room left was the one he found her in. She was lying in a pool of blood, her eyes still open, her face twisted in a mask of pain and horror.

“Yolam!” He screamed, going numb, horribly devastated at the death of his wife. Zink reached down, and checked her non-existent pulse, and then gently closed her eyes. He then got up truned around and numbly walked out of the house, heading for Seige.

Mark had expected to have a candlestick flying towards him, but he hadn't expected it to be thrown. It hit his head and sent him stumbling back. "Oh, that hurt," he muttered, leaning against the wall. He sank down to the floor, rubbing his head.

With only a moment of concentration, he shifted into his second form, a wild dog. His rounded ears perked up as he realized he was still in his clothes. Shimmying out of them, he noticed the man just in time to dive to the side and avoid the hit. He bounded over to Seige and then stopped, backed away, and looked between the two. He as between a dog-eating Cinsaid and a crazy, hellbent man. Great place to be.

“Great. Now I’m a thing?” Seige muttered trying not to scream, then continued with a warning “Watch out for him, he’s strong. He broke some ribs with that last hit.”
The man was expecting to find the man behind him but saw a dog, “What the hell!!” He yelled bringing the pointed stick up like a spear.

Seige pushed himself up off the floor with his good hand. “I’m not going to be able to write for months now!!” Seige yelled swinging his good arm at the man barely missing his head.

The man stepped back out of Seige’s reach and threw the fire poker at him, hoping to finish the creature once and for all.

Seige watched the poker fly through the air at him, unable to move except to say “Oh, shit.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zink walked calmly down the street unable to believe that his wife was dead, he headed to the coffee shop, horror and grief etched deep into the lines of his face.
It took very little time to get back, he appeared to be walking at a normal speed, though he was actually walking quickly from agitation.

He walked in and without checking to see if Seige was still there announced “Yolam is dead. My wife has been-” He choked on the last word, murdered, unable to admit to himself or anyone else that she was really gone.

Mark watched helplessly as the fire poker spear flew towards Seige. With a nasty snarl, he leapt at the man and chomped down on his leg. He tasted blood as his teeth sank in. Normally, he would have released immediately and gone off to find something to wash away the taste. Considering the circumstances, he held on for dear life.



Gin sat up quickly at Zink’s words. “Oh Zink…” She didn’t like him, but she was able to feel compassion for him. “Is there anything we can do?” Her gaze was earnest. Sade simply looked confused and awkward. He was never good at dealing with emotional matters.

Time had slowed down for Seige as he watched the fire poker get closer and closer to his bare chest, as he watched a hand lazily come into view and knock the spear away, he noted how destroyed the room was, blood being everywhere, then time resumed. Only after the fire poker clashed against the wall, did he realize that it was his hand that slapped it away. His bad hand. Ouch.

He ground his teeth against the pain. The man’s scream brought him to the here and now. He watched Mark bite the man with such force as to bring him tumbling down to the floor.

The man crashed to the floor, shoving at Mark with his hands yelling “Get off! Get off!! It hurts! It hurts!”

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

“Tell me where Seige is. He’s the only one who can do anything.” Zink half shouted at Gin. He paced over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, giving her a small shake. “Ahhhhh!! Please!! Tell me!!” He yelled tears beginging to run down his face as he lost his cool.

Mark did not let go. He growled through his teeth and made sure to drool all over the wound as much as he could. He had the guy down, so hopefully Seige would step in and do something.



Hal patted Zink’s hand. “He’s coming right back. He took his mother home,” she explained in a gentle voice and wondered what Seige could possibly do.

Sade stepped out from around the counter and gave him a hard look. “Enough of that. You have no right to touch her or yell at her,” he said sternly, knowing how their relationships had started out.

“It’s okay,” she insisted. “He has a reason to right now.”

Zink blinked at Gin. “Home?”

He sniffed, finding Seige’s scent, and was gone in little more than a second.

Less than three seconds later, he was in Velige’s house and on the second floor, he heard a growl and followed the sound to a bedroom at the end of the hall. In the middle of the doorway was a man screaming and shoving at a dog that was hanging on to his leg, and in the middle of the room was Seige. Not the man, but Seige earned the double take. Seige was standing in the middle of the room blood gushing from a gash on the crown of his head, two deeply purple bruises forming on his torso, one in the middle of his chest and one on his side, and cradling a hand that was unmistakably crushed.

“What’s going on?” He yelled over the man’s screams, looking from Seige to the man and back.

“He’s gone crazy! Get him!” Seige told him pointing to the man.

Zink simply kicked the man in the head, knocking him out for a while, then looked up at Seige and told him trying to be calm. “Seige, Yolam’s dead. You need to help her! I know you can help her I’ve seen you do it before.”

Mark nearly puked when he finally let go. Oh dear god. I hate blood. An airy cough shook his whole body as he gagged on the taste. He staggered away from the man and sat on his haunches, feeling slightly dizzy. His rounded ears perked up at what Zink said. He looked at Seige. Can he bring back the dead? His tail beat the ground for a moment, and then, he suddenly stopped. He hated when he acted to much like a dog.

“Where?” Seige gasped, staggering a few steps toward Zink. I’ve lost too much blood, I might not be able to do it, and by the time I can it’ll be too late.

Zink caught Seige as he started to fall, “At our place, I’ll take you there.”

“How long?” Seige’s world was starting to speckle and go black. He barely heard the words, “She’s still warm.”

Groggily he told Zink ”Ok. Let me go for a sec and get me some food. NOW. and no matter what happens don’t come back without food.”

Seige slowly slid to the floor when Zink released him. Grabbing Zink’s wrist, he pulled him down to his level and whispered to him quietly, making sure Mark didn’t hear him “Make sure it’s not dog.”

Zink left with inhuman speed, a soft whoosh being the only announcement of his departure.

Mark licked the floor, licked the wall, licked the furniture. He didn’t care as long as he avoided Seige’s blood. He wanted the taste gone. Midway through a long slurp at the bedpost, he stopped and realized what he was doing. Panting, he trotted around the room before sitting on his haunches near the door. He watched the Cinsaid calmly for a moment and then shifted, quickly slipping into his clothes to avoid the showing of any awkward umentionables.

“If you start chewing on the furniture, I’m taking you to the pound.” Seige told Mark breathlessly, giving him a half hearted smile. It was getting harder and harder to breath.

After a few seconds he started coughing, his broken ribs causing him to gurgle out a half scream between coughs. He covered his mouth with his hand and the fifth cough turned wet, still coughing he took his hand away from his mouth and found it covered in blood. One of the ribs had punctured a lung when it broke.

He leaned over, away from Mark, hiding his face with his body, both hands planted on the floor holding his torso up, and coughed blood up on the floor.