"Er...." Kitara said, not sure if she should tell Rowan anything. "I think you're just as mischievous as he is!" Then, deciding to be impulsive, she added. "I saw Anthony not that long ago. Kara was dragging him off and yelling at him! So what you got for him?" she asked, trying not to grin.

Rowan was glad to see the girl had a funny streak in her. She casually strolled over to Kitara, pulling her wand out of her belt along the way. She looked at Kitara for a moment, sizing her up, and then with a brief swish of her wand and an evil grin, over a hundred fat rats appeared; scuttling around in little circles on the floor, a little confused.

She knew the rats would only ammuse Kitara, but they would absolutely TERRIFY her brother.

"Ahhhahahaha!" she rang. "Anthony is going to HATE me for this! Maybe he'll stay out of your room if he thinks there are rats running around in here. He positively hates them. I say it might benefit is both, aye? I get to scare the spine out of him and you can be "snooping guy" free. Sound good?"

It was obvious they all shared the same sense of humor...

Kitara jumped behind Rowan in the blink of an eye then peeked out at the rats...and suddenly...suddenly they looked tasty! She crawled up to one of the confused creatures, laying on the ground and peering at it curiously. she wondered if she could eat one...she shook away the thought. "How did you make them appear?" she asked.

"I merely... borrowed them from somewhere else..." Rowan said mischieviously.

One would hate to think of what area Rowan could have possibly pulled that many rats.

"I respect your human behavior, and your cat-like behavior alike. I'm not going to frown on you if you feel the need to .. er.. sample one." Rowan said with a funny grin.

Aideen felt the poker plunge deep into the creature's neck, and then it yelled, and then it melted. The woman cried out again, this time in surprise rather than rage, as she fell back, collapsing onto the floor. She flickered, spent and fading, as it hissed at her. Answers to what? she wondered vaguely. And, why would she seek them from a Norseman. No, that hadn’t been a raider, what had that been?

She groaned. It was gone. The poker was now a deep gray puddle on the floor, still glowing. Where was Valerie? The creature had hurt Valerie! And it was all her fault. She had to help. After struggling to her knees, then her feet, she staggered to the stairwell and stumbled down. The elemental had darkened drastically, pulsing like a fading candle wick, her eyes almost entirely black. Even her hair had dimmed, and two lone flames flickered desperately from her back. She felt sluggish. And a little cold. It didn’t help that her beautiful new gown was now in tatters, beyond all recognition.

Her hostess she found still pinned to the floor with whatever living slag he’d been formed out of. She knelt beside the woman, still reeling from the fight upstairs. "Valerie," she whispered, her voice gravelly and wan. "Valerie, please be okay. Ah, God, we need help." Where was everybody? She summoned any reserve of energy she could and turned her head in the direction of the long hallway. "Somebody, please help!" she yelled, not very loudly, just enough to echo. And then she placed a shivering hand on Valerie’s, and waited.

Kitara raised en eyebrow at Rowan, but felt no need to ask where little rodents ran in high numbers. She made a face at one of the small creatures. "I swear I don't want to eat it!" she yelped, half lying. Her cat part wanted to try one, but her human part was plain grossed at the thought of munching into an unclean, uncooked rat. "I think I'll just leave them for your brother..."

"Suit yourself." Rowan said with a funny smile, knowing Kitara was struggling between her kitty and human instincts.

"The more that are left around to greet my brother, the better. And... " She stopped and listened for a moment. Footsteps echoed down the hall, and Kara's voice could be heard. It sounded like she was still on Anthony with her scolding. Though Anthony was half a head taller than Kara, she seemed completely undaunted when it came to dragging him around.

And drug him around she did, for when she swept into Kitara's room, she had Anthony firmly by the ear.

"Speak of the devil." Rowan said with stifled excitement.

Since his head was at a downward angle anyway, the rats were the first thing he saw.....

Had Kara not let go of his hear, she probably would have torn it off when he jerked his whole body away, completely panicking at the sight of the rats. It was easy to tell he was extremely conflicted between wanting to run away and look like a coward in front of Kitara, or stay and act as relatively normal as he could muster so his sister wouldn't get the better of him... and Kitara wouldn't think him a fool.

So he stood rigid by his surprised mother, grinding his teeth together and looking straight ahead.

"You.. you look very very nice... Kitara" he choked out, swallowing hard. Rowan only stood there with a shameless amused look on her face. When Kara gave Rowan her evil eye, she only shrugged and returned the most innocent look she could muster. Kara sighed, and winked at her, ignoring the rats AND her trembling son.

"Yes, Kitara." Kara said tartly. "You look VERY lovely in that dress. It suits you, and that means it is yours to keep. And now that you look like one of us, that must mean you ARE one of us, and you will be staying here in the castle as one of the family from now on." A very happy face accompanied this last statement. Kara had meant every word of it. Obviously she would have invited Kitara to stay no matter what she looked like... It was just her sense of humor poking out again. Rowan agreed with her mother.

"Of course she is." Rowan nodded smoothly as if it had been an obvious notion the entire time. "And, to top that off, she can sleep in the cozy chamber next to MY bedroom on the fourth floor" she interjected with a sharp look at Anthony.

Anthony nodded vigorously, clearly just wanting to get this whole thing overwith so he coud get away from the scuttling rats.

Kitara giggled trying not to fall to the floor laughing. She pick up a rat by its tail with a pout. "Its such a cutie!" She looked between Kara, Rowan and Anthony. She just felt so warm inside at being accepted into their family that she was beaming like crazy. She popped up right in front of Anthony's face, her smiling face close to his and the rat forgotten in one of her hand.

"Aw, your face is so cute now too!!" she exclaimed in such an innocent cheery way. Exactly how Anthony trying not to look like he wanted to run away was cute, was rather uncertain.

Anthony finally buckled and bolted out of the room and barreled down the hallway, cursing over his shoulder at Rowan.

Kara and Rowan both looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

"I guess we've punished him enough, aye?" Kara said to Rowan, still giggling.

Rowan looked horrified.

"HIM?! Punished enough?! Mom, even for as long as we live, I STILL don't think it would be long enough for me to torture him! Hahahaha!" Rowan's laugh floated about the room.

Kitara stared after Anthony, looking a bit upset as she tossed the rat back to the floor. "Oh, but I didn't mean to make him run away!" she exclaimed. she looked back at the laughing Rowan and Kara. "Why are you punishing poor Anthony? I was just having fun!!!"

"Oh Kitara..." Kara said, still laughing. "This is the way it always is around here. Hahahaha! We never cease to tease, torture, and harass each other. It keeps things light. Haha! And Anthony never ceases to be the butt of our jokes, especially when his other siblings are not around."

"And besides, you should see some of the pranks HE likes to pull off..." Rowan added, giggling and grimacing at the same time.

Kitara tilted her head to the side. "Ah..." was all she said for a second. "So you're pranking him because he pranked you first!!" she exclaimed, finally reaching a conclusion. Her ears perked up as she peered down at the rats. What fun!

"Oooh yes." Rowan nodded. "And don't expect to be excluded just because you're new either. As soon as Anthony gets comfortable around you, he'll starting pounding you with pranks as well!"

Kitara narrowed her eyes. "Well at least I know he doesn't like rats! If he pranks me...I swear!" A devious smile came across her face. Oh yes, she was very glad she got dragged here now. Finally it felt like she belonged! She smiled at them. "You guys are so awesome!"

Kara and Rowan looked at each other, and laughed again. Rowan really liked Kitara, and Kara was very grateful she was finally starting to relax.

Rowan put her hand on Kitara's head and ruffled one of her ears.

"I can teach you that spell if you like?" She offered Kitara sincerely.

"It's useful for many more things besides rats too. It can summon all sorts of stuff, like keys, clothes, dishes, food, ..." she paused.

"And milk!" She added with a sly grin.

"Really? You can teach me that?" Kitara asked, her eyes shining. And of course there was the mention of milk! She twitched her ear back into place, swatting away Rowan's hand playfully.

"Hahaha! Then it's settled. You can take a break from wandering around the castle and being confused in general and come learn some magic with me! I'll just have to get a few things from my chamber, and then I can take us both down to the study." Said Rowan.

Kara looked very pleased by Rowan's gestures of kindness and involvement with Kitara. She decided to leave the two to their fun and pay her own chamber a visit so she could change into something more practical. Without even a glimmer, a flash, or even a sound, she just vanished from the room.

"Alright!" said Kitara. "But I doubt I won't end up confus..ed..." she trailed off as Kara just went poof. Kitara gaped, staring at the spot. "Rowan! Where'd she go?!!!" she yelped, swiveling her ears around madly and failing to understand.

"Oh don't worry. She always does that. When you get so used to moving around quietly trying not to get caught, eventually you can disappear without a trace. She probably just went to talk to someone or to her room." Rowan said reassuringly.

She failed to mention what might give any of them reason to sneak around so much to the point they got so good at it they couldn't even be detected anymore.

"uh....." Kitara gaped dumbly. "Okay then! You said you were going to teach me a spell?" she exclaimed eagerly, ignoring all mention of disappearing. yep, no need to wonder about what sneaky uses there were for it.

"Yes! We'll start right away. We'll have to get some tools and move to an area where you can practice some magic without fear of causing too much... damage." Rowan cleared her throat.

"Let's go to my room." Rowan took Kitara by the hand and vanished much the same way her mother did, only a slight chime-like tingling could be heard shortly after. Kitara vanished right along with her. It didn't feel like anything. They just reappeared in Rowan's room as if they hadn't moved. This teleportation was much more comfortable than Nelo's haphazard attempt to drag Kitara across miles of the cosmos.

"Oh!" Kitara mumbled quietly as Rowan grabbed her hand and she was suddenly in a different room. With just a blink she was somewhere else. "Uh..." she started, quickly regaining her composure. "What kind of tools exactly do we need...?"

Rowan's room was very unique. All sorts of trinkets, charms, and strange decorations of all colors hung down from the ceiling and all over the walls. Books and writing utensils were scattered everywhere. The window was covered up by thick crimson velvet curtains, and even her huge four poster bed was littered with all sorts of books and odds and ends.

She kicked a big pile of strange junk out of the way and shooed her large orange cat off the top of her trunk at the foot of the bed. The cat looked back at Rowan unappreciatively and sauntered out of the room as if he had planned on doing it anyway. Rowan fished around in the trunk, cursing and muttering to herself, her long wavy brunette hair falling all around her shoulders so it was impossible to see what she was rummaging through.

"Now where did I put that thing!" Rowan grumbled. It was a wonder how she would remember where anything was in this room.

Thalian heard the sound of a girl cry out, and he bolted through his father's room, down the hallway, and stopped on top of the stairwell. All he saw was a strange charcoal looking elemental leaning over his impaled mother.

His blood began to boil. His eyes were glossed over with such a shining silver they made the moons outside look dim. His wings were lined with strange light that emmited an even stranger violet radiation into the air around them. His blade gleamed as bright as his eyes, dripping scalding light onto the floor. He hissed at Aideen and practically roared before he prepared to charge down the steps at Aideen.

"YOU! YOU DID IT! I KNEW YOU WERE NOT TO BE TRUSTED!" He hissed and shouted and bounded down the steps towards Aideen, weilding his sword expertly as he charged.

Kitara's eyes were wide with wonder as she just stared in interest at some sparkly things that hung from the ceiling. She dragged her attention away before she started swatting at things. "Er...what are you looking for again?" she asked in a distracted voice, watching the cat leave the room.