The Coo-Coo's Nest [IC]

[alderwitch]

"No! No biting!" Taylor yelped and danced sideways as she tried to dial the phone. Her antics were somewhat hampered by the small and slightly fuzzy creature clinging to her shoulders. Its larger (and more aggressive) sibling aimed another bite at Taylor's thigh and she gritted her teeth. Juggling the phone to the other hand, she reached down and jammed her thumb in its gaping maw. Fortunately, they didn't have their much sharper adult teeth yet. Abstractly, they were kind of cute in an oddly alien sort of way. Chubby, and covered with soft and brightly colored fuzz, they looked almost like children's toys, which Taylor assumed was sort of the point. She had no idea if this was actually their natural shape, or if it was just some sort of default to appeal to idiot mammals that fell for soft fur and huge eyes. She hadn't had time to do any sort of research into the subject matter since she'd literally stumbled accross the smallest one clinging monkey like to her shoulder.

She ignored both the contented noise as well as the vague pain as the more aggressive one slobbered all over her knuckle. Before Stesha could even get out her 'Hello', Taylor burst out with, "How are you at babysitting?"

[Electra]

Stesha had been having a quiet day up until the phone rang, and the greeting wasn't exactly the one she'd been expecting. "What?" she asked, looking at the phone in confusion. It certainly sounded like Taylor, like a very harried, very hassled Taylor, but what an odd question! "Ah, I've done my share of babysitting," she allowed cautiously. "Are you looking after your nephews?" There were some weird noises in the background, but she couldn't quite make out what they were.

[alderwitch]

"Interdimensional orphans," If they weren't orphans already, they just might be once Taylor tracked down their parents, so it wasn't even a real lie. Taylor made a noise that sounded like a yelp and muttered, "Please send help."

Taylor was only halfway kidding. She was pretty sure these things came in packs. Herds? Maybe, litters. Shifting 'Clingy' to her other shoulder, she supplied 'Bitey' with another knuckle to gnaw on, and shifted the phone back to her other ear, "I've got to figure out where the heck they came from. Maybe one of the fae realms. They could be changelings, maybe. I can't get to my research books to tell and I'm afraid there might be one or two more out there but I can't go out with them to look as they're a little odd looking. Even for Freedom City."

[Electra]

"Oh no," Stesha said, torn between concern and laughter at the consternation in Taylor's tone. "I can't say I've ever babysat for interdimensional babies before, but I'll do what I can to help out." Holding the phone with her shoulder, she got up from the couch and went to her closet to dig out her costume. Dealing with alien kids didn't seem like a job for a civilian. "Where are you at? If you've got some plants nearby, I can meet up with you."

[alderwitch]

"I was jogging in the park not far from home. I'm tucked back aways from the path among a few trees," Taylor explained and supplied a slightly more clear directions and hung up the phone with a relieved, "Thank you!"

Fortunately, with the winter weather, the park was nearly empty this early in the morning. It would take until the sun came out enough to burn through the night's chill for the park to fill with people. By then, Taylor hoped to track down the last of the furballs and escape to the apartment with them. She made quite the sight when Stesha arrived, with one of the furry creatures arms wrapped in a death grip around her neck and a slightly larger one trying to take a chunk out of her hand with its gums. The creatures themselves were an odd hodge podge of mamilian features: soft fur, big eyes, and large ears that swiveled at Stesha's arrival. The more timid creature buried its face in Taylor's throat, its fur rippling to match her cloak's colors while the larger one left off slobbering to cock its head curiously at Stesha and made a low crooning sound. Its fur rippled to a mix of greens and tans to reflect Stesha's costume and it crooned again, the note high and plaintive.

[Electra]

Stesha was a little nonplussed upon arrival at the look of Taylor's babies, which looked more like cartoon animals than anything she'd ever actually seen in nature. They were kind of cute though, and the one trying to eat Taylor's arm reminded her a little of the fuzzballs she and Derrick had encountered on the planet they'd vacationed on. It was vaguely reassuring to know that not every interdimensional creature was a scaly mountain of wrath or an invisible deadly menace.

"Ah, hey Phantom," she said with a grin, approaching the scene. "Some interesting babies you've got." Taking a page from her babysitting experience with human kids, she reached into her knapsack and pulled out a box of Nilla wafers, extending it to the one who looked hungry. "Cookie?"

[alderwitch]

"Very funny," Taylor said dryly, but her relief as the critter hopped towards Stesha was palpable. Now that she could focus a little better, she closed her eyes and cast out her senses for any more of the little monsters.

"They were just shoved through the veil this morning, I can still feel the passage but its too faint to lock down where they were shoved from." Taylor provided as she scanned the park with her magical senses. Absently, she patted the runt of the litter that was shivering. "They're some sort of changeling creature. They pattern off of what they see. Defense mechanism, you see."

The green furred creature hopped forward on its hind legs towards Stesha, its gait altering as it approached until it was copying her walk on toddling legs. It snatched the cookie and, after sniffing at it for a moment, crammed it into its mouth greedily before crooning at her again urgently. Its fingers made little grasping motions that were really pretty easy to interpret.

[Electra]

"There you go," Stesha told the little thing encouragingly, reaching in the box and pulling out another cookie. "Can you say please? Say please when you want the cookie. Pleeeeeaase," she encouraged, handing over another cookie. "Do you think they were sent here deliberately?" she asked Taylor, looking around as though she might see another one hanging from the trees nearby. "They seem a little, ah, dependent to be an invasion force."

[alderwitch]

"Eeeeeeeeee!" The little monster trilled delightedly at her as it snatched the cookie and swiftly devoured it. When another wasn't swiftly present it tried to respond to her, tugging at her pants plaintively, "Eeeee? Eeeezzzz?"

Taylor opened her eyes and began to try to peel the clinging purple alien from her shoulders with limited results, "Well, if they are some subset of changelings, they're just here to be foisted on better parents than their native environ allows. A little like the coocoo that lays its eggs in other birds nests, but-"

Taylor's words were briefly muffled as the clingy critter crawled up higher to escape the fingers that were trying to pull it from what it had deemed as 'safety'. There was a comical struggle as Taylor's hood was yanked over her face but in the end the mystic prevailed and managed to switch the creature to a cradle hold that was a little tight. Shaking her hood back with a frustrated huff, Taylor picked up her conversation again, "But those usually replace an existing infant, and aren't just abandoned in the park. Its possible they were kidnapped or even lost through a rift. I'll know more once I can do some research but first, there's one more of these in the park. Over by the old oak I think."

[Electra]

"Good, that's very nice!" Stesha encouraged the fuzzy creature, giving him another cookie. "I think they're hungry," she remarked, passing a nilla wafer to Taylor for her "baby." "Any idea how long they've been out here on their own?" After giving another cookie to the still "Eeeez!"-ing creature, she added, "They're cute and all, but I can't see not noticing that my human baby had been replaced with one. They are sort of distinctive-looking."

[alderwitch]

"Less than an hour," Taylor opinioned, handing the cookie to the creature half buried in her cloak. It clutched it with a little burbled noise and buried its face against the side of her throat. She led the way down the path towards the tree in question, "They don't appear to adapt fast enough to be true changelings although they do look more human than when I first, uhm, stumbled accross them."

More accurately, she'd nearly thrown her back out trying to catch one before it hurtled out of a tree. It hadn't let go of her since, even when its older sibling launched itself at her in defense. Fortunately her scrapes had healed and although her pride had been injured, no one had seen her lose to a pair of fuzzy toddlers.

"Eeeze? Eeze? Eeze?" It was a rather cheery chant from the miniature cookie monster attached to Stesha's hand but as long as she handed out cookies, it was more than content to dance alongside her although it broke off when they reached the tree to utter a series of curious chirps. The branches rustled and another furry face peeked out from between the leaves.

"I should have guessed. This is where I found them the first time around.

[Electra]

Stesha laughed. "I wish I had my camera along," she told Taylor. "They're too cute. Though I'm going to have to get some more cookies at this rate. Hope I'm not going to spoil his dinner, or whatever. I don't know how much cookie alien babies can handle without throwing up." Hoping for an easy extraction from the tree, she fed another wafer to the creature at her side, then held one up for the one in the tree to examine. "Cookie," she said invitingly. "It's very yummy. You want one?"

[alderwitch]

Blinking, the little fuzz ball launched itself from the tree at the offered cookie. Taylor sucked in her breath, expecting a repeat of her earlier mad dive to be neccessary but leathery wings fanned out from its shoulders and corrected its plummetting descent into something a little more manageble. The difference between this one and the two they'd found earlier was striking. The newcomer was much more squat and animalistic when compared to the upright one clinging to Stesha's hand. There was a bit of a squable between the siblings, with the larger one hissing its displeasure at sharing.

"Wonderful," Taylor said, her turn to be amused. "Shall we get them back to my place before we get noticed?"

[Electra]

"Be nice," Stesha corrected, "you can both have a cookie, see? There are lots." By now she'd gone through almost half the box, but at least it had kept the peace. "Sounds good to me," she told Taylor. "You might want to order some delivery or something, if Jack still uses his fridge for an evidence locker. Cookies are not going to hold them much longer, I don't think. You want to do the honors?"

[alderwitch]

"Thank goodness you had the forethought to bring food. Give me an angry demon over a needy infant any day." Taylor replied as she set a hand on Stesha's shoulder and teleported them to the inside of the apartment she shared with Jack.

As soon as they reappeared, the trio shrieked in mingled dismay and outrage at the abrupt and no doubt confusing change of climate. Puffs of multicolor fur exploded into the air as they shed the thick wintery coats that had protected them from outside. Taylor sneezed several times as she made a grabs for the most recent winged addition to the group, in a fruitless attempt to catch him before he managed to knock anything off the walls. As for Stesha, her greedy companion used this as an excuse to yank the cookies from her hand and scuttle under the coffee table.

[Electra]

"Well... that went well," Stesha said bemusedly, wiping fur off her face. "Little ingrate." She rummaged around in her belt and tossed a seed onto the coffee table, which rapidly grew into a lattice of grapevines to keep the little creature confined, then sprang clusters of big purple grapes, to keep him amused. She watched Taylor chasing the winged one around, but since she couldn't fly, didn't have much help to give. "How long do you think it will take to find where they came from?" she asked, quickly rounding up breakables from the shelves and tucking them into Taylor's sad, sad philodendron.

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack was up and on his feet when he overhead Taylor teleport in, but as he opened the bedroom door he fell dead silent at the sight of the tiny little creatures running around Taylor and Stesha's feet, not to mention the sudden eruption of grapevines all over his expensive coffee table. "Taylor?" he asked, a little uncertainly, "what's going on?" Fresh out of the shower, he was in just his jeans and a T-shirt.

[alderwitch]

"Come back here, you little-" Taylor shifted out of her costume as the cloak was only in the way and hurled herself at the winged baby with a catch that would have done her football loving brother proud. She flipped end over and sailed through the wall next to Jack with both critters in tow before floating back through to deposit the winged one in its coffee table cage with its sibling. She glanced up at Jack, dressed in the running clothes she'd headed out in earlier "Sorry, hon."

Taylor glanced around the room and tried not to wince. The black surfaces really showed the thick dusting of fur and the glass coffee table was covered with thick leafy vines that were already being chewed on. Prying the little one off her neck, she looked down at it and frowned with a little hmming noise.

She, as without her fur covering, was very much a naked she. She was also starting to look much more human than not. Taylor blinked, an expression that was mirrored back at her, "I found them in the park. They don't belong on Prime."

She paused and glanced down at the two gnawing on the (very nice) coffee table and added dryly, "Obviously."

[Electra]

Stesha mended the grapevine as it was chewed on, which at least spared the table a little bit of abuse. Cookies were apparently an inferior substitute for a new game, though it was an odd looking game seeing as how the thing chewing on her plants now looked less like a fuzzy toy and more like a prehistoric caveboy. She looked over at Jack. "Hope you picked up some renters' insurance on this place," she quipped dryly.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Rent, hell," commented Jack, walking over to peer down uncertainly at the little girl-thing in Taylor's grip. At his approach, the girl smiled ingenuously, her eyes turning an odd yellowish-red like a cat's in the light. "I own the place." He smiled at the little girl-thing, reaching down to pet its head. Definitely not human, but it sure did look that way. "Well, this is an interesting way of spending the afternoon. Where do they need to go?"

[alderwitch]

"I don't know. I don't recognize the species," Taylor admitted, lifting her brown eyes to his with a faint frown. Stesha might not be aware of how unusual that admission was but Jack had helped Taylor put away her books when she moved in. "They were left in the park so maybe one of the Faeworlds. They're not a breed I recognize so it could be a shatter realm. There's no collapse that I know of but that doesn't mean its not a minor realm."

Taylor visibally shook herself out of what could have been a rather long stream of mage babble, to turn back to the mundane, "But they probably need food and, hmm, other things? I think omnivore is a safe bet. One of them is teething."

That was said with a dark look at the coffee table. The little brute had not endeared itself to Taylor.

[Electra]

"You should pick up some pizzas," Stesha suggested. "That'll be fast, and we can try a couple kinds. Plus, everything's so dark in here, it won't matter if a little tomato sauce gets smeared around. I don't think we have a lot of time to waste before they get, hmm, restless." No sooner had she said that than the biter gnawed all the way through one of the vines and sprinted off down the hallway. Stesha quickly extended a hand, sending a vine shooting out from the center mass and wrapping itself around the little creature. A giant white grapeflower swallowed it up, and a moment later it popped out of another one, back in the cage. "I don't suppose you have any cartoons or something."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Okay, sure," said Jack, trying to stay useful as he headed for the phone. He'd never bothered to take the local Casa del Pizza off the little list of numbers that came with his phone, and used that to call up. "Five Supremes," he guessed over the phone. "With all the taco fixings." Despite his Italian heritage, Jack had never grown up with a particular investment in 'quality' pizza. "And try not to let them eat the place before the guy gets here!" he called.

[alderwitch]

"Not really," Taylor admitted as she set the female down on the floor to poke at her brothers while she fished the remote out of the couch. She glanced over their admittedly eclectic collection of movies, and flicked the tv on. "But I think we get a billion channels."

The toddlers reacted in a blessed moment of stunned silence as the tv flickered to life and Taylor began flipping between channels, "What channels are the kids shows on now? Discovery's probably not a good choice. I don't think we need to encourage any more biting. Everytime my nephews watch Discovery, it always seems to end in tears."

She glanced down at the humanoid looking, bare children and opinioned, "Maybe we should get them diapers. A little pizza sauce won't show but I'd rather not have to shampoo the carpets. Ick"

[Electra]

"Different kinds of pizzas, Jack," Stesha reminded him tartly. "Babies don't like taco pizza. Nobody likes taco pizza. Get some cheese pizza and veggie pizza and a meat lover's or something." Returning her attention to the television, she told Taylor, "I have no idea. The TV guide channel is on 19, there's probably something- ow!" She yelped as Wingy decided he was already bored and jumped onto her back, hanging onto her long braid like a gargoyle version of Rapunzel's prince. "Ow-ow-ow-ow!"