[SpringsSong]

Appears to be mute at present moment--perhaps it hurts to talk, rather than he no longer has the ability to? Zerissa noted when Ten shook his head and pointed to the scar on his throat.  She continued her visual exam for a moment more when her eyes came to the bar through his leg.  Infection in leg.  Current treatments appear to not be having any effect?

Here, she paused for a moment before placing a hand on his forehead.  This confirmed the suspicion that had began to form in her mind, and she noted down, Has a very high fever.  Perhaps a result of the infection.  After making those notes, she took the stethoscope and pressed it against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

Heartbeat is weak.  There is a murmur that I'm picking up; would need closer examination.  Additionally, heartbeat is erratic, but fast.  Skipping beats.  Wheezing when breathing; possible congestion.  Emille wasn't kidding when he noted that Ten is fragile.

After a few moments more, Zerissa stood up and said, "Thank you," to Ten, and walked out of the cage.  After closing the door, she wrote, Possible subject, about the same level as Aura.  Would need to be nursed back to health.  Ask Emille about the possibility of taking two subjects.

With that, she turned and left the room, ascending the staircase and opening the door.  She closed the door behind her and locked it, replacing the key where it had been.  Knowing that Emille likely wouldn't be up for some time yet, Zerissa turned to the tank where Ildor was, flipping to a new page in her pad of paper and beginning to write down some notes, starting with, Invest in a few notebooks, not just this notepad.

[Rainbowfox Ari]

Waiting for her out in the main room was a small boy. He had to have been ten or twelve years old, and he was dressed in a pair of ratty overalls, covering a pink short-sleeved shirt. He was also wearing a pair of neat white knee-socks, and light-brown leather shoes. His hands were behind his back, and he shyly looked to the ground, and tapped his foot behind him. The boy had soft brown hair, and vibrant blue eyes that were sad somehow. His skin was pale, and he really wasn't very healthy-looking. Thin, too. He shuffled his weight a bit, and scuffed the ground with one of those shoes, which happened to be untied.

"You shouldn't be here..." he said very quietly. "I like you. You shouldn't be here."

[SpringsSong]

The quiet voice had taken Zerissa by surprise as she prepared to record notes on her brother's condition.  She turned to look at the small boy, her brow furrowing as she examined him.  Who was this boy?

"Who... are you?" she asked, getting up slowly and tucking her notepad away.  "I didn't think the door was left open... any of the doors," she said, looking around carefully.  She kept her stance as neutral as she could, but she was definitely on edge.

[Rainbowfox Ari]

Nope. None of the doors were open, nor were any of them unlocked. How this boy had gotten in here was anyone's guess. He didn't look as though he belonged here at the very least. Not Emille's usual type, and definitely not someone Zerissa knew. He looked too young, too quiet. Shuffling his feet again, he looked at the ground once more, then back up to Zerissa, smiling at her in a very 'little kid' way. Somehow, his eyes were so much older than he was.

"I'm sorry about your brother..." he said softly. "I had a brother, too. I liked him. You're a good sister. You're a good person. Why are you here?"

He moved closer, although still not close enough to touch or be touched, and watched her taking notes on Ildor. When he spoke again, it was much, much quieter. "There's too many tears here. Too many screams. You shouldn't be here. You're not like him."

[SpringsSong]

Zerissa was almost taken aback by the boy saying he was sorry about her brother.  However, she adopted a more steely demeanor and wrote a few more notes down.  If only this kid really knew what their relationship had been, and how she had brought him here herself, he probably would not have said what he said--both about her being a good sister and a good person.

"I'm here because I want to learn.  I'm here because I was fascinated by what he did to me," Zerissa said patiently, writing more notes, watching the glow of the clear heart.  "And on the subject of 'shouldn't be here', you shouldn't be here, either."

At this point in time, she fell silent, writing a few more notes before she closed the notepad and stood up again.  She walked out of the room and outside, breathing in the cold night air.

[Rainbowfox Ari]

The boy didn't follow her so much as simply appear in front of her, once she had gotten outside. He was very definitely not solid then, and very much floating ABOVE the ground by a few inches. His hair was standing out from his young head as though he had a fan behind him, and his eyes were glowing that same vibrant blue. He wasn't angry, although his look wasn't something you wanted to run into in a dark alley. He spoke again, but this time his voice was strong, powerful, and echoed in the yard long after he'd said it.

"I don't have a choice."

With that, he vanished, the echo of his voice still bouncing around the piles of wood, and the metal scraps that were scattered all around. Where the boy had been, was only a wisp of cold air, then nothing.

[SpringsSong]

"Holy fucking shit!"

The appearance of the boy--or, rather, the boy's ghost--freaked Zerissa out.  Before she could even think about the possibility that she might have awoken Emille, she had screamed, her knees buckling underneath her and causing her to fall to the ground, slightly scraping her knees and the palms of her hands as she braced herself.  It took her a good few minutes to recover from her scare, and when she did, it dawned on her that, if she had awoken Emille, she would need an explanation--both for the scream, and for the scrapes on her hands and knees.

Calm down, she told herself.  Breathe steadily.  Breathe...

[Rainbowfox Ari]

She had, actually, woken Emille - but he was already half-awake, so that wasn't a huge deal. Even so, he came bolting out of his bedroom in the other house, and paused when he saw Zerissa on the ground. He broke into a run, and dropped to a crouch beside her, hand on her back. When had he actually started to CARE about her? He'd examine that particular emotion later...

"Zerissa, are you okay? I heard a scream... Come now, let's get you up..." He very gently helped her to her feet, and looked at her hands, and her knees and legs. "Let's go back into one of the rooms, and get you cleaned up... alright? What happened?"

As he started back toward the main rooms, he let her catch her breath and compose herself, waiting for her to follow him. He had a... sneaking suspicion about what had caused the scream, and it was the middle of the night. "Keep your nosy self out of my business, brat." he hissed under his breath... to no one in particular. Although Zerissa might be able to guess who he was talking to.

"I've got antiseptic and bandages for those scrapes.... " he mentioned, back toward Zerissa. "And actually, I have a bit of a surprise for you, so we can do that, too."

[SpringsSong]

When he felt the hand on her back, Zerissa almost jumped out of her skin again.  When she heard Emille's voice, she allowed herself to relax slightly before she responded.

"I'm... I'm sorry if I woke you up, Emille; I know you don't like to be woken when you need your rest..." Zerissa began, allowing him to help her up.  Her hands and knees stung, and she could feel a faint trickle of blood coming from one of her knees.  "I was... making notes on Ildor after feeding and examining the subjects in the holding room--I hope you don't mind, I took some notes on all six of them, since..." her voice trailed off here after a moment.

"Right.  What happened," she said.  "I... saw someone in the house.  He looked like a little boy.  He asked me why I was here, and then told me I shouldn't be here.  I... told him that he shouldn't be here, and came out here to get some fresh air, figuring that it may have been my mind playing tricks on me.  Then... he appeared in front of me, all..." she waved her hands in front of her, at a loss for how to describe it.

"...a surprise?  You mean, aside from getting to pick a subject to study?" she asked, remembering her notes.  After she had calmed some, and Emille had tended her scrapes, she would gently bring up the possibility of taking on two subjects.

[Rainbowfox Ari]

"Well...." Emille started, waiting for her to catch up, so he could sort of help her. His hand was on her back, and his other hand taking hers, helping her over the wood-pile... even though she probably didn't need the help. "I've been working on this surprise for you for a while. Keeping it secret has sort of been... difficult. Especially with the level of stuff I've been doing on both fronts..." He shrugged, and walked in front of her once they were inside the place, where it was flat and not-dark. "Here, just inside this place."

He gestured to a room that he'd blocked off a while ago with no excuse other than 'Don't go in there right now'. It had been completely refurbished. The floor was brand new white linoleum, there were two hospital-grade medical beds against the far wall. The entire room had been painted white from bottom to ceiling, and the windows that had been in here had been cut out to make room for another small area holding an emergency-shower and a small cabinet. In the center of the room was a table-chair much like the one Emille used, but quite a bit newer, done up in white leather, white straps, and silver metal. Another side of the room held an examination table that was very close to a tall cabinet chock-full of medical supplies. All of which were brand new.

There was a tool-board like Emille's in here too - stocked with a power bone-saw, two brand-new stethoscopes - one of which was a recording model, two 'snake' type cameras, three black boxes just like Emille's, six bio-stasis containers, neatly tucked away on a shelf, and a LOT of counter-space. Overhead was a super-bright operating-room light, along with nearly all the rest of the ceiling having some form of lighting. There was even a mini-incinerator tucked into the floor very near the stairwell on the other side, covered with a white lid and green-painted Danger sign. There was enough in here to run her entire own operation like Emille's, or to take it a different route entirely. All of it was new, all of it was fresh, and - from the look on Emille's face - all of it was hers.

"Well...." he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "What do you think?"

[SpringsSong]

Zerissa followed Emille carefully as he led her to the room--she remembered being told not to go in there for the time being, and now, as she stepped through after him, she could see why.

"I... wow," Zerissa said, her eyes widening as she stepped in carefully.  "I can understand why this must've been a hard surprise to keep.  I definitely commend you on managing to keep it a surprise.  I will admit, I was curious as to what you might be working on--but I didn't expect this," she said, walking around slowly.  She took note of the hospital beds, the chair, and all of the tools.

"This is... impressive," she said after a few more minutes.  "And... all of this for me?  I'm honestly surprised.  Really," she said.

[Rainbowfox Ari]

Emille gestured around to the whole room, then walked over to get the supplies to clean and bandage Zeri's scrapes. He did so extremely gently, taking extra time to clean out every spec of dirt or grime before he applied the painkiller, the antiseptic, and finally the bandage. "All for you, and all for your hard work. You believe in me when nobody else does - and that means an awful lot. ... About the ghost... Just ignore him, alright? I'll tell you that story someday... when I can remember what it actually was. He keeps showing up to people, and scaring my subjects, but..." He paused here and sighed, crossing his arms. "I don't actually remember who he is, or what his deal is. I wish he did so he'd leave everyone alone. I've... never actually seen him. He appears to everyone else, but me."

He took this for a segue, and started around the room, checking on things. "Everything here is state-of-the-art. Nothing cobbled-together. I know you're super-organized, so I wanted to make sure there was a place for everything, and everything was in it's place. There are blank journals in here." He patted a cupboard as he walked by. "I got the man I get mine from to make you a set of your own. Blue leather of course. Not dull ol' brown like mine."

[SpringsSong]

Zeri inhaled sharply when the antiseptic was applied, but the pain didn't last for too long as the bandages were applied.  "I honestly don't know what to say, aside from... thank you.  Really, all of this is amazing.  I look forward to getting to work with all of this," she said.  It was then that she remembered her notes, and she chuckled slightly as she looked at the blue leather journals.  "I had actually made a note in my notes earlier that I was going to need more journals to record my observations."

She looked around again, and her eyes came to rest on the hospital beds--two of them.  She drew in a breath after a moment, and then, said, "I... actually wanted to talk to you about my, ah... 'reward' for the work I've done with you.  The subject I could take as my own."

[Rainbowfox Ari]

Slowly, the man made his way back over toward her, and pulled a chair from behind one of the tables, sitting on it. There was another tucked under the table, but he didn't touch it. "Oh? Which one have you decided on?" he asked, leaning back and crossing his legs as he braced against the wall. "All of them are quite remarkable subjects. Unfortunately, I don't have the time nor patience to do the things I would like to with all of them." He motioned somewhere off in the distance. "Another time, another life perhaps I would be able to multi-task like that... but I've got my hands full with the one or two that I have up here, and they're not even conscious for the most part. Plus, I've got your brother to deal with."

He got up, turned the chair around, and leaned on the back of it, looking at her. "So who did you have in mind? I'm curious as to your choice, and also your reason why. It's not a test, I am just genuinely curious."

[SpringsSong]

"That's just the thing, Emille--there are two that I would love to work with; to... nurse back to health, first, obviously.  When I went in and spoke with each of them--I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to record a few observations of my own before deciding--and the two that interested me the most were zero-zero-one and zero-one-zero," she said.  "I know that to take on either of them would be a challenge, much less both of them, but... they both 'spoke' to me on a certain level," she said, looking over the notes.

"My reasons for picking either of them would be the same: to first nurse them back to health as best as I can, and then, to start running some tests.  Obviously, both are too fragile to run anymore experiments on right now without endangering their health.  Ten's infection, for one--he's developed a serious fever, and One's heart sounded like he might benefit from a pacemaker, and he also sounded like he might have asthma," she said.  "So... I would like to ask for permission to work with both One and Ten."