An Open Invite

[Posh-Tim]

Keane had been pleasantly fogged out of the events so far. Having finished his story off and gently trailed off to watch the game he was quite relaxed. With the comfortable presence of Anton beside him and Valentina even if she was just sewing he had seen fit to let his attention wander in the vague opium Haze.

The game ended and participants were ordered to disrobe, that earned a vague drunken smile from him.

Someone suggested another round of tea and he soggily nodded to himself that that was definitely an excellent plan.

Anton started winding someone up, this was perfectly normal and to be expected.

Then... Antons body is lifted away from him, the fog starts clearing, "You have a deathwish" "A protector is only good unless you break their shield arm"

The fog clears as if sliced through with a white hot blade. Keane is on his feet, eyes locked on Aurelia. His hand whips out to grab the wrist holding Anton in the air.

"Would you break My shield arm then elder?"

His soft Welsh betrays a more threatening tone than he had intended. Damn but only he knew what Anton had said to raise her Ire such.
His eyes dispay a hint of shock at his own actions. He had not expected this and it was shocking him almost as much as anyone else.

[Manacledairman]

[alanwrotethis]

Niketas is crossing the room towards Keane when the Architect's shrill cry draws his attention.

"Do not whistle for her like she's a damned hound."

Niketas flashes Aldrich a look. A beat passes. His eyes close, the slightest gesture of an apology.

"Elder Keane, get your hands off of the elder, now. And Anton..."

He stares daggers at the neonate.

"You and I are going to talk. You owe me that. You have a canny mind for reading people, you need to engineer that skill towards not being as offensive as you can muster before it damn well gets you killed. Take the advice or not, but you and I are having words."

His left hand flexes, fingers straightening and curling.

[Jean-Jacques]

Jean-Jacques reading the situation and watching the rapid actions from Aldrich, Keane and Dukes moves ever so slightly to be In the vision arc of Keane but removed physically from close proximity, and meets Keane eye with his own, offering him a look with slightly raised brows

Well I’m here if you need a physical hand to carry him...if he’s incapacitated

Otherwise he stands, muscles tensed watching the scene unfold.

[Manacledairman]

Aldrich turns and stares daggers at Dukes but says nothing. now is not the time to grow a pair Dukes, you can do it when the situation is ended. he thinks.

[Anton]

... crouton?

Somehow that lodged in his mind more robustly than anything else in the room. What a silly insult.

Well, not quite only: Anton’s focus was split, narrowing down under impossible compression of noise and smell and picture and pain to the white-hot stars of contact in his chin and jaw, as his neck lurched dangerously, and Anton’s body screamed its warnings, all its alarms going off at once. He gasped, but it was just a little agonised snatch of noise, neither heard nor noticed, the boy’s eyes wide and panicked like a horse being broke to saddle.

And finally there came the delayed effect, of his deranged and bitterly broken mind, as self-disgust and shame made way for the reaction that Anton had learned to fear almost as much as he knew to loathe it: as a blackness and fugue began to swallow his conscious grip on the world.

[Bronwyn93]

Angelina watched with amusement and enjoyment as each spin put the elders who were playing into more and more awkward positions, though they managed to balance for far longer than she knew she would manage to.

As they toppled she gave a good humoured chuckle, and set the spinner aside to give them all time to decide if they would play again or if they would sit for a while. However the fact that they began to strip in response led to her dropping her eyes as she fiddled with the ribbon on her diary. It seemed many games that involved elders would tend to lead to the shedding of one’s attire.

When the tone in the room changed she frowned and looked up, flinching back instantly as the other neonate was grabbed roughly, and she could smell the hint of blood from her nails breaking the skin. The merriment of the game had been totally lost by the sudden aggression and she found herself pulling back and shrinking into the seat as much as physically possible, almost trying to disappear in on herself.

[L .]

“Not me,” she ground out through her teeth to Keane. “Non, I mean, by this neonate’s behaviour he breaks and rots his own shield arm, your protection, makes it harder for you to act as a Primogen when he so clearly cannot-“

But Aurelia blinked in confusion, her gaze sketching rapidly back and forth over Anton’s glazing expression, clearly not expecting this sort of response. But of course, she hadn’t spoken to him for five minutes before lunging at him.

And so it was with immense mortification that Aurelia knew too late she had touched on the boy’s derangement. It should not be mistaken that her anger could blind her to that; and with the evidence of it stark in her hand as he vice grip slackened, the heat behind Aurelia’s anger was ripped right out from under her. A younger Anatole had swum immediately to mind.

Oh God, I didn’t mean to do that -

Remorse filled her aura. Aurelia would have grabbed Anton as he fell forward but the warning cold hand on her wrist and the presence at her back stymied the move enough that she lapsed and missed him.

Aldrich’s voice filtered in as if from very far away. Aurelia, too, could hear Niketas speaking, from equally far away and through a watery rush of sound but the words have some meaning and they are like guiding diamonds in the dark, their aggression and tone draw her back from her Beast. At any other time Aurelia might kiss him for delighted praise and surprise - such handsome words - or sob in apology and relief but: she was reeling too much to immediately respond. The last and only time she’d harmed a Malkavian was centuries ago, and by accident.

She supposed it was an accident here, too, for all the difference that made when she stood shakily and watched the trembling boy crumple - perhaps his primogen had caught him - and noticed that for all his bravado and voice, he was just a boy, with bright red blood over his throat, from little ruby rivulets that she’d opened in claw puncture marks.

Aurelia’s dazed gaze found Keane, before swapping to Dukes, trying to convey to either the apology that wasn’t getting out of her throat. Deciding it was the least of all evils right now, for them especially, Aurelia took a few clear steps back, her jaw locking up, and turned - following Aldrich out the door.

She threw a telepathic apology to Dukes, unable to stem the emotion behind it, and ashamed in the knowledge that it was going to the wrong person.

[Posh-Tim]

The second Aurelia's hand releases Anton, Keane's grip is gone on here arm. He turns in time with Anton's fall in an attempt to catch the boy but only succeeds in slowing his fall toward the couch. In an awkward decent Keane lands on his knee next to Anton. There is a passing look of quite uncharacteristic venom as he turns to see Aurelia leaving the room before his normal self re-asserts and he turns back to Anton.
Ignoring the others in the room now, Keane considers carrying the boy away as he had done before but doesn't know where to take him. Likewise it would be better deal with this slightly more immediately. He leans in close to Anton's ear and begins to talk, to sooth the derangement now triggered. The odd snatch of it can be heard but most is quiet enough to be just for Anton.
"...am here, she is leaving."
"Remember that you..."
"...let it control..."
Hoping that his soothing voice will assist as much as the words themselves.

[Jean-Jacques]

Jean-Jacques moves instinctively towards Keane and the stricken Anton.

This is not a circus....he needs to recover away from view

He gets to with a few feet of where Keane is kneeling and speaks in a soft tone

“Elder Keane, if you wish him carried to a quiet room, I am aware of some upstairs that may suffice for your ministrations in private”

He pauses

“I can carry him for you enabling you to continue to speak with him, then can leave you and return as needed”