Both Eshek and the omnipotent god writing her took offence at her being called insufferable by Bermondsey's own omnipotent god.

When Jester shoved past her, Carriondare stared after her with glittering eyes. This little toy was here because she'd invited them, because she'd allowed it; if they started getting airs, there would be trouble. She stalked along behind the black cat and Bermondsey as he led the way down the smooth, twisting path towards the ruins. She fell silent as they walked, head turning this way and that as her eyes slid over the looming tree trunks, the dark leaves, the still, stifling air, like all the oxygen had been sucked out of it and replaced with something that was both humid and cold. She wasn't afraid anymore, not entirely, though some ancient, primal terror had clawed its way under her fur to replace the more personal, recent dread; now, she was more intrigued. It was pretty, in that dilapidated way it would surprise many to know she appreciated.

Here we are. Eshek, stopping a little way from Bermondsey, turning her head to look at him with faint surprise on her face. First his moment of vulnerability over his family's curse; now this. All his careful walls were one gust of wind away from collapsing entirely. "Y'know how I said that statue was dope?" she said, changing the subject and looking away. "I take it back. This place is infinitely more tubular." It sounded strange even to her - the way her voice was swallowed up by the silence, the way her modern (if 1970s can be called modern) slang clashed so disrespectfully with the weight of the ruins - and a great part of her shied away from the grand, imperial darkness of the place, wanting to apologise or bow her head or offer some unknown hymn. Oddly, she liked the feeling. Few things could make her reverent.

"So," she continued, taking a step back with her forepaw so she was standing side on to Ber and Jes and able to see them both, "where do we go to find the ghosties? Do we have to do a seance? You can cuddle up to me if you get scared, Jester." She tilted her head and smiled, eyes glittering threateningly. He'd been demoted from nickname to full name status. Truly the scandal of the century. 

Even though Bermondsey knew exactly where this was, it didn't mean he knew where the ghosts were. This was a rumour, really, and he had never been sure whether it was true or not. He had passed here–no, lived near here–for years without seeing anything, so why would this be any different? He had noticed the fog, the mist almost palpable, its thick scent of petrichor and wet earth made his nose wrinkle. There was a heavier feeling here than he had remembered, but would this change anything? Did this mean anything?

His thoughts were broken by Jester's teasing remark and his disgust at the large bug that scuttled across them. "Gods I don't miss the spiders," he grumbled. Living in the forest had its perks but it also had its...well, everything.

"I have no idea," he frowned, ignoring the two of them as if they were kits he was taking care of, "I don't even know if ghosts are real, but if they are...well, the shaman usually deals with this kind of ghosty thing, and I don't remember how they do it. Do you?" He turned to Eshek. She had been in the league once too. Turning to Jester, he tilted his head. "Did you find anything on your little search?"

There was less annoyance and irritation and mockery in his voice, now replaced by an impassive tone as if they were simply members of a patrol together–or well, the closest thing to sound like pals when it came to Bermondsey, "maybe we have to find some special amulet or something. Either that or the ghosts are already here trying to figure out how to kill us without us noticing."

She snorted, pushing Carriondare's head away gently with a paw--one of her more gentle touches, ones she wouldn't even make if she were conscious about it. Most of the time, she responds in harsh shoves and taunts, but usually they wouldn't respond like that. "I would if i could, but I don't know jack about psychology--really, you're asking the wrong cat here." She turned instead to Bermondsey. 

"No, we haven't. Unless that spider counts, which you have no need to fear anymore, Carriondare has taken care of it. A true hero." She did some exaggerated fake bow, giving hardly any reaction time as she bounced off again to find more interesting things. Her ears perked a bit, still listening in on their drab conversation. They were just saying nonsensical words at this point--she couldn't help but laugh a little at how weird these cult cats were. 

"He sounds like a fun guy," she didn't look up from where she was pawing at an old overgrown vine, "honestly you sound perfect for each other." They didn't, not really--mostly due to the fact that Jester hardly knew either of them at all. "Would love to meet him or something." She really wasn't paying much attention, completely missing the past-tense of Carriondare's words. "But besides. . ." she never finished her sentence, trailing off in the middle of it as her train of thought just evaporated. That just kind of happened sometimes. She trained her eyes as Carriondare climbed the fountain, internally cursing that she hadn't done it first. "Oooh!" She bounced up to it, peering into the darkness below before lifting her gaze up to the Siamese. 

"Fine, fine, fine," she surrendered, "but only because this looks interesting and all." 

Carriondare has taken care of it. A true hero. Eshek let out a little giggling hum at Jes's exaggerated bow, one paw raising off the ground like a happy puppy. The nickname was back. She couldn't help loving the little black trickster.

I thought we promised to never talk about that night again. "And I'm not going to," she cooed down at him in the ugly, obnoxious little voice a mother would use for a kit, feeling utterly untouchable on top of the fountain. "Only on birthdays, holidays, Mondays through Sundays, special occasions, and funerals."

Honestly you sound perfect for each other. "Mm," she agreed wistfully, not noticing Jester's disinterest. "We were." Would love to meet him or something. "Me, too," she said sadly.

Watch your step; if you step on some loose tile and end up dangling over a bunch of electric eels, that's not my problem. Eshek waved Bermondsey's fretting away with one paw, too busy peering into the dark ring that had appeared around the base of the fountain from her perch on the podium. Oooh! When Jester bounced over and stared up at her, Eshek grinned down at them open-mouthed, leaning over the edge of the raised platform and doing an excited, shimmying little dance, tail waving in the air. "Quit worryin', Ber!" she chirped without looking at him, eyes still locked with Jes's, doing her little dance. "You're killin' the vibe. Jes and I are happy and 2 trumps 1, boom, bam," she finished her sentence by blowing a raspberry at the grey tom.

Ladies first. "Great! You first, then," she replied, leaping down from the fountain and shoving Bermondsey into the hole in one swift movement. "Have fun!" she called into the damp hole, then added to Jes, "quick, help me make it go back up. Kidding!" She shouted the last word down to Ber, her voice echoing through the tunnel. She was now incredibly excited. But before she followed Ber into the space beneath the fountain, she stopped in the middle of the little courtyard, looked around for a moment, spotted what she wanted, and trotted over to a slimy oak tree at the edge of the clearing. Growing at the base was a clump of eerily growing mushrooms. Leaning down, she gave one of them a sloppy lick, swiped her tongue around her muzzle, waited a few moments with one paw tapping on the overgrown stone ground - and, when it didn't kill her, happily ripped out a big fat one with her teeth and carried it back to the hole.

"I'm the best!" she cried, and jumped down into the hole - landing right on top of Bermondsey. "God you're bony," she groaned, rolling off him with her voice still muffled by the glowing mushroom she was carrying like a flashlight. She sprang to her paws and looked about, swivelling her head this way and that and scuttling back and forth like a bug with six legs to cast the light far enough into the darkness. Water dripped somewhere in the tunnel, echoing off the suffocating stone walls. It was strangely spacious, likely claustrophobic for a human but roomy for a cat, the rough-carved slabs damp with algae and stained dark with age. "Dibs on the best room," she said with her mouth full. "I'm so gonna move down here and get me a vampire girlfriend."

A cold breeze suddenly blew down from one end of the long, long, impossibly dark tunnel, so dark not even cats' eyes or the light filtering down from the world above them beyond the rim of the fountain could dispel it. Weird, too, that there was a breeze underground. What was even weirder was that there seemed to be an eerie sort of moaning, or maybe wailing, coming from the far distance, echoing down the tunnel and falling to whispering that reverberated through the air and off the walls once it reached them, almost feeling like it could touch them. "You guys heard that, right?" Eshek whispered. "Ber, I think one of them said you were ugly and also that that little white squiggle of fur on your forehead clashes with your eyes. That is so rude of them, I don't know why they'd say it."

(gold imagine if it was just that crazy league character you used to have, the one that was always saying everyone was a ghostie. he lives down here now)

He did not expect to be shoved into a hole, and he had half a mind to strangle Eshek as soon as he landed on the bottom. If cats all landed on their paws, Bermondsey surely wasn't a cat because combined with the surprised yelp, he found himself flat on his back, trying to scramble up before Eshek landed straight onto him with a shriek. A scowl was on his face. "Get your fat butt off my face," he complained, immediately pushing her off of him, "what are you trying to do, suffocate me or something?"

The whiny, petulent Bermondsey wasn't often seen but after all of this? He deserved to come out even if only for a few minutes. At Jester's joke, he shot the other cat a glare that said 'if you ever bleeping mention this I'll skin you like a rat' before shaking his fur out, stretching his muscles after being squashed by Eshek. "Ugh give a guy a warning next time," he complained, following after her only to give her hind leg a kick, the type of thing petty siblings would do to one another to get back at them for some stupid prank or another.

"Are you sure vampires even like girls like you?" he snorted, before rolling his eyes at her stupid little ghost comment, "and I think I heard another ghost say something about you. Called you a gangly giraffe or something. Don't even know what a giraffe is but it must be something."

He turned to Jester with a raised brow. "I guess you're fine," he shrugged, "but you're on thin flipping ice." He turned to Eshek with a scowl. "You, however, are going to be that idiot that gets eaten by the shark in that stupid movie."

As they continued through the tunnels, the water began to creep towards their paws. As the tunnel began to widen into a larger room, Bermondsey immediately stopped, pausing in his steps, his eyes wide as he stood between the two cats. "Did you hear that?" he whispered, as a whistling sound of the breeze could be heard, even felt through the tunnel.

"I think it's....I think it's a....GHOST!" he immediately shoved Eshek's face into the water, the gross sewer water that probably wasn't really sewage, it just looked like it. Payback was a female dog, that was for sure.

this is actually the PI trashcan, all your reject PI cats that wen cRaZy are left here to rot obviously

Your eyes are lovely. He turned his nose up, placing a snooty paw on his chest, a knowing grin on his face. "Why thank you, I get that a lot," he didn't, but it was nice to hear. Her own eyes were also quite nice, a wonderful shade of blue that seemed to match the cloudy colour of her pelt. One would be stupid not to at least admire her looks, she supposed it was her personality that would be off-putting to most. Not to Jester, of course--for him, that was her major draw in. Now, as he zoned a little back into the world, she was covered in muck from the water below and screaming at Bermondsey. Jester let out a laugh--a slightly ugly sound, but very genuine. 

"You guys are idiots, honestly! Where'd you lose your brains too," but the words were edged with a laugh, playful and teasing and not at all insulting. Unless they took it that way, in which it would obviously be their fault, not his. 

"A swim, in there?" He leaned down, nose a little closer to the water. It just looked gross, oily, and filthy. It looked a lot like a void, an endless way down. Jester could blend in, with the colour of his fur. He turned his eyes up to look at Carriondare, then towards the door further down. "Sure. I'm not the best swimmer, though, so if I start to drown you have to save me, alright." His first instinct was to jump in, but he didn't quiet trust the depths of the water, so instead he clumsily dove in instead from where he was sitting just before it. He sputtered a moment, finally finding a rhythm after a few seconds. 

Bermondsey let out a rare cackle at Eshek's expression. Didn't expect that one, did she? "Serves you right–" he started before she knocked him to the ground, soaking his fur in the disgusting water as she made some speech about how she had been nothing but kind. "You shoved me down here in the first place!" he accused, "how was that nice, you idiot." If he was going to get eaten by ghosts, he swore the whatever gods out there, he'd come back to life just to drag Eshek into eternal damnation with him.

The warden often held this high and mighty position of being better than everyone else, but he wasn't above sticking a tongue out at Jester, despite how utterly out of place that looked upon his often-too-serious expression. He immediately scrambled to his paws, shaking out the gunky water that was now soaking into his skin. Gross. He wasn't much of a picky cat, but this tepid water that had probably been here for years? No thank you.

He gave Eshek a look of disgust as she dove right in, inviting Jester along with her. "If you guys get some kind of sickness that plagued our ancestors or something weird, don't look at me," he grumbled, looking at the water once more, "I'm pretty sure we're going to catch something that modern herbs won't have a cure for if you stay in the water too long." He was all for bringing pestilence and plague back but this was just a little gross.

How was that nice, you idiot. Just before she stomped over him and dropping into the black pool, Eshek made a kissy-kissy face at him, leaning over him and covering his face in kisses. “You’re so cute when you’re pretending not to like me. When you’re pretending not to,” she dropped her voice to something low and sultry - or it would have been that, if she could control her own manic giggling, “lust for me in the dark.”

As Eshek swam around with Jester, grinning and laughing in the background at the black cat’s taunts at Bermondsey like a hype-girl in some dance-off movie, she suddenly felt a pang in her chest at Ber using the term ‘our ancestors’. It was a poignant ache of belonging, of sameness, of recognition. She never got that in DayClan - she didn’t share ancestors with any of them, save, possibly, somewhere down the line, the Eeries. And it wasn’t even about the… physical reality of shared blood. Innocentia didn’t have a drop of League blood in her, but she still understood - it was about… being known. About offhandedly mentioning some aspect of League training in the middle of a story and having the nods of mutual understanding, the snickers and groans. About knowing their families, whoever they were, grew up in the same places, probably knew each other. Paddling there in the thick, black water, she suddenly felt heart-achingly close to Bermondsey. As he rambled on - honestly, he thought he was so mysterious and cold but really he was just a bundle of fretting and anxiety - Eshek continued to swim laps around Jester, fondly rolling her eyes. Jester, too, she realised she was already attached to; Eshek bonded incredibly quickly, and now, playing with her in the gloom, she accepted, happily, like it was just an inevitability she couldn’t control, that the black cat was now a part of her steadily-growing little adventure brigade, whether they wanted to be or not. Scooping up a mouthful of plague water, she spurted it at Bermondsey through her teeth like a spitting snake. “Die, then.”

Fast forward a little bit. The last thing Carriondare heard before she was whisked away through the funnel, over her own screaming, was Jester’s snarky oh, wow, really, wouldn’t have guessed! “SHUT THE F-“ But the rest of Eshek’s sentence was tragically cut off as she and the roaring water disappeared.

She screamed as she fell through thin air - and then, suddenly, she was cut off by her own winded grunt as she landed on cobblestones. The water, lighter than she was, had fallen quicker and was now only a low pool on the stones, quickly dissipating as it seeped out through the myriad of dark tunnels stretching out in every direction. Eshek was lying on her back in a round, stone room, the cobblestones all uneven heights and dark, uneven colours. One wall was solid stone; on either side of her, two larger tunnels were cut off by the room between them before continuing off into the darkness; and in front of her, on the rounded wall opposite the bare one, were three more tunnels, slightly narrower than the main one. She was just rolling onto her side, drenched and sore, eyes flicking over each of the dark, gaping stone maws - when Jester came falling from above and landed right on top of her. All the breath flew out of Eshek’s lungs and she let out a shriek, now all squished with her limbs sticking out in every direction on the cobblestones. “Pleasure to be of service,” she said weakly, voice all croaky. “Buy me-buy-“ She was trying to say buy me dinner first next time. But she passed out, head smacking face-down on the stones.

They landed with a loud grunt, sputtering and trying to get the disgusting taste of the water out of their mouth. They stared down, eyes focusing on the unconsious Carriondare. Oh God, they've killed her. Stumbling up, they gave their fur a shake before sitting back. "Here comes the life of the party." they glared at Bermondsey, "Yes, I'm fine. Don't know about her, though." They walked back over, giving her a rough jab in the side. "Should we hide the body or something? You're just as liable as me, by the way," they stepped back, flicking their whiskers of a few remaining droplets. Knowing her, she'll come back to life like last time. 

"Huh?" What in the hell was he on about. Whatever, it was none of Jester's business, they supposed. "Well, this turned out great," an airy chuckle, "this is exactly how I planned this to go!" Dripping sarcasm, they glanced around, noticing the coming fog and taking in the various tunnels. A distant sound, possibly a wail, or a cry, or the wind, sounded off in one of the tunnels.

Next time, they probably weren't going to follow the next two random weirdos that happened to stumble upon them. Or, maybe. Jester wasn't one for commitment, to be fair.