PREP Highschool

[Ironsmith]

[Girls' Bathroom]

clk!

The stall door opens slowly to reveal Aikobaz staring out at Mary stoically, except for the little black clouds of mascara bleeding onto her cheeks. Despite her best efforts, her hand is still shaking slightly with... some sort of emotion, it's difficult to tell what. Anxiety, perhaps. Or possibly rage. Joy was certainly possible, but not likely given their circumstances.

But she looks ready to talk... maybe Mary had managed to get through to her?

"Who do you think you are?"

...That sounds like a "no".

"You don't seem to understand what that word even means. Respect." Aikobaz intones, somehow managing to keep her voice level. "If you hadn't failed first, you never would have come to me. You haven't had any confidence in my abilities from the outset. To such a degree that you assumed I had to be cheating to get the grade I have now. And you continued to insist as much even after you saw how it is I could maintain such a grade legitimately." She gives Mary an imperious scowl. "To say nothing of the way you treat your own mother. Disobeying her over petty, childish grievances the moment it seems you won't be caught, and not falling back in line until it's painfully clear that she can punish you. And your friends... servants, more like, I would surmise. When was the last time you did something to help one of them out with their troubles? Is there, in fact, anybody in your life you truly respect? Or is it all still about you?" The empress shakes her head. "No. I don't think you can pass this assignment. Not without having someone bail you out."

"...Which is rather unfortunate, because I can't, either."

Aikobaz's grip on the door tightens as she continues. "I thought I knew what I was doing. I was so certain." She hisses, opening up her notebook and displaying a page of tightly-packed paragraphs to Mary. "I was confident. I was honest. I was generous. I was willing and able to extoll my partner, to raise her up, without sacrificing any of my own self-worth. According to all of my notes, this should have been a... a cakewalk, I believe the term is. And the end result?" She slams the book shut. "Failure. Not just failure, but a failure I do not understand, to a magnitude I could not have anticipated. If it were just that she told me 'no', I might be willing to try again, in a matter of moments at most. But what I got suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what, exactly, I am meant to be doing, and correcting that would take far more time than either of us has. Time that would be better spent on other pursuits." She takes a few steps toward the door. "Good afternoon, Brignole. Too bad about that grade."

[bc56]

Bathroom
Mary bars Aiko's way with her body. "You leave my friends out of this!" Aiko is definitely projecting there. "Only creeps will want to date you for your resources," she shoots back, "So you're just giving up? You spent the one card in your deck and now you're too hurt to continue and too proud to accept help?" She steps back to let Aiko pass, but leaves her words hanging, as a challenge.

[Ironsmith]

[Bathroom]

"More words you don't understand." Aikobaz challenges, crossing her arms. "Proud. You ever think about what that actually means, Brignole? Oh, no, of course not. You're bloody shameless." She gives Mary a little frown. "So let me expand on that definition for you. Me being proud means it kills me that there's something the rest of our class can do that I can't. That a good portion of the school, without one day of training, can do that I can't. And I'd rather punch a dagger through my hand than admit it." Her brow furrows deepen as she glares at Mary. "So, no, I am not 'just' giving up. Because unlike some people, who shall remain nameless, giving up is not the easy option for me. But by all means, continue to disparage me further. See where that gets you."

[Earl of Purple]

Endless Stair

The boy doesn't turn and attack; how stupid would that be? Even if it were a horrific monster with an eyeball in its jaw and retractable mouth-stalks in its eyesockets and filled with phytophobic maggots, it's just one and there's three girls here- one of whom is made entirely of rubbish and cockroaches that are far from edible. It would be hopelessly outnumbered.

He continues to sit where he is, facing the wall, sobbing and paying no attention to the girls. His eyes and mouth are shut, even as he sounds to be sobbing, which is odd. He has some minor injuries; there's blood under his fingernails, a bit around his eyes, and on his feet. When Tahara touches him, the boy jerks back and scrabbles away, glancing at the three girls though without opening his eyes at any point.

[bc56]

Bathroom
Mary rolls her eyes. "Pride gets you nowhere. You cling to it as if it will protect you, but it's just holding you back. Lighten up! No one is interested in Aiko Baz the empress. She's a stuck up, snotty, boorish bully who thinks she can just treat everyone else like dirt because she has a fancy title in some far-off realm none of us will ever visit. She's so full of herself that when she failed at something once, she acted as if it was the end of the world. And she's so shortsighted she thinks that giving up is the hard way out. Come on, that's just ridiculous! Giving up is easy, you never have to put any more effort into the problem. But going back and admitting you were wrong and you failed, and then changing your methods? Trying and failing again and again until you've learned enough to succeed? That takes guts." Although the rant is circuitous, Mary is trying to call Aiko out on her BS. She clearly wants to give up because she doesn't want to change.

[bc56]

Endless Stair
That's really weird. "Something's wrong. Those blood stains, they aren't signs of him being hurt." Mary didn't survive as an urchin by not noticing possible dangers. "Something's not right about him."

[Ironsmith]

[Endless Stair]

If Tahara heard Mary's warning, she doesn't seem to be listening to it. "Hey, hey." She shushes, slowly approaching the boy and putting her hand on his arm. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you." She gives him a reassuring smile as one of her roaches breaks free and runs up his arm. "...Don't mind her. She's just curious about you." She adds, looking back up at the boy's face. "What happened to you?"

[Bathroom]

Aikobaz nearly rolls her eyes at that one. "And now we'll add insanity to the list of terms you clearly don't understand." She snarks. "You keep defaulting to this... horribly stilted view of how things work, who you're dealing with, and how to deal with them. How many times have you called me out on those grounds in the past? Three times? Four? How many do you need before you qualify as insane?" She turns toward the row of sinks along the back wall and starts dabbing at her eyes, using the mirrors mounted there to clean the makeup off her eyes.

"...As usual, I suppose that means it falls on me to be the sane one." The empress continues, discarding the black-blotted wipe she was using. "You still want to look through your notes, see what you did wrong, and try to cram in a successful attempt between now and Saturday? Fine. But you will not waste my time to do it." She reaches into her pack, pulls out a loose sheet of notebook paper, and quickly scrawls down Mrs. Bloodplunder's address. "The study session will begin at six-thirty. It will continue overnight; bring a sleeping bag. And if you are not on your best behavior, expect swift eviction." She folds the paper over and holds it out to Mary, waiting for her to take the invitation.

Which is somehow still fancy-looking and appropriately flared, despite having been made in fifteen seconds on a sheet of notebook paper with a ballpoint pen and a bathroom wall.

[bc56]

Bathroom
Mary shakes her head. "I don't need to go to your place to review my notes. Besides, the only way to get better at this is to practice. Even if you do everything right on paper, you can still fail." She shrugs. "Worst comes to worst we can ask my mum for help." Mary's not thinking about how Sekhmet is very much not a fan of using succubus magic recklessly, or at all, really.

[Ironsmith]

[Bathroom]

"If you would rather do this group assignment on your own, or you'd rather actually cheat, that would be your prerogative." Aikobaz frowns. "Though in the latter case, I'm obligated to inform the teacher and/or principal of such. I'm sure you understand." She gives a little shrug. "As much as I would love to end the year with a peerless grade, cheating to get it would be... what's a word you would understand... wrong." She fixes Mary with a disapproving scowl. "Or, if you'd rather not make a nuisance of yourself for once, my door is open to you this one time and this one time only." She takes a moment to re-apply her mascara, looking into the mirror attentively to make sure it's layered on just right. "The choice is yours, Brignole."

With that, the empress turns and heads for the door again.

[Rebonack]

[Library]

"Making a clockwork kid that likes violence is pretty creepy for sure. I wonder if she had some kinda accident and he had to repair her but couldn't get her to one of the temples or something?" Khannie muses aloud.

Or maybe he didn't WANT to.

Some people have problems and they don't want to go to doctors or healers or whatever for help. They want to do everything themselves.

Not getting the help of others when it's available is dumb in Khannie's opinion. No one can truly go it alone.

Khannie tries to imagine that. Little living bits inside a machine body. It makes her think of those cyborg things she encountered on her first cape-outing. Or the monsters from the neon bunkers. It makes her feel a little nauseous that someone would do that on purpose to their own kid.

At the last comment Khannie wrinkles her nose.

"Why the heck would someone need shooty knee blades?" she says. Not really a question that's meant to be answered but there it is. She gives her head a shake. "So when's the next tank club match thing? It sounds like watching one might be cool."


[Mary and Khannie's Dorm Room]

Okay here it goes!

Big reveal time!

Like Khannie had said to Mary, the gift she got for her was a bit big to be lugging around a bunch and so she left it back at their room. It's pretty tall! Looks like an art easel with a canvas on it? With a sheet draped over it. Khannie thought that would be dramatic.

"Ready?" she asks, a big grin on her face. "'cuz this thing is gunna knock your socks off."

Khannie grips the sheet and yanks it off and-

"Merry Thanksmas, Mary!"

Umm...

It's a big black rectangle with a glossy looking surface. There's sort of a frame around the edge? Thin, angular lines of neon light pulse and strobe through the frame like illuminated cracks.

Khannie stands there smiling for a moment but then a thought strikes her, "Oh, right. Gotta turn it on."

She touches a finger to a little white circle at the bottom of the frame, which gives a soft tone as the screen lights up a soft canvas white! A palate in one corner displays a collection of colors while a selection of brushes and other tools are displayed in a bar on the left.

[Earl of Purple]

Endless Stair

The boy shakes his head and points at his ear in response to Tahara's query, though keeps his mouth and eyes shut as he does. Tahara might get the idea he can see despite this. He looks a little worried, or perhaps scared, and Tahara or Mary might pick up an emotion from him, a feeling of fear/exposure-to-light, something inhuman and hard to put into words.

"Uh... girls? I can't hear his heartbeat." Fred's staying back, hand on her sword, and is quite creeped out by this. Although Mary or Tahara also might not have heartbeats, at least in their cases they don't look as human as this strange lad.

Library

"Her dad's from a world with no gods or healing of that sort, so whatever happened I don't think gods and temples were much of a choice. I think Synthia came from there, whatever it was that happened." When one's a master cyberneticist and engineer capable of creating Synthia's cybernetics, looking for people that can help might take longer than doing it yourself- especially if there's a time limit of some kind.

"We've got practice after school, but a full-on match next Saturday, if you want to come watch? Bring a boy or girlfriend, it's quite romantic." But Gemini's feelings on that matter might differ from average.

[bc56]

Bathroom
"Forget it. I'm not interrupting you crying because I need your help with my side of the project. See ya later, Machiavelli." Where did Mary learn about Machiavelli? It doesn't matter, she's leaving already.

Endless Stair
Mary is not good at reading minds. But the more this goes on, the more sure she is something's wrong. The lack of a heartbeat confirms her suspicions even more.
(For reference, Mary does indeed have a heartbeat).
"Listen, something is terribly, terribly, wrong about him we need to go where does the trail lead!?"

Dorm Room
"Wow!" Mary looks at the object appreciatively. "Um, what is it?" She's never seen an electronic drawing tablet before. It's safe to say she has no idea how to operate it.

[Ironsmith]

[Endless Stair]

"You wouldn't happen to be referring to the fact that he's a Kyld, would you?" Tahara asks, looking up at her companions. "I suppose that means we shouldn't help him, then? Because he's vermin and the world isn't going to miss him?"

There's a brief cacophony of shuffling under the trash witch's "skin" as her constituent roaches seem to collectively bristle at the notion.

Tahara returns her attention to the boy and soothingly strokes his arm. "...From what I remember, Kyldren are pack hunters and have basic empathic abilities." She continues. "And while they aren't big on self-preservation, I'm sure being isolated like this, in a well-lit room, away from the rest of his pack, still feels awful. Or maybe he doesn't even have a pack, which is probably worse; nothing to keep him going, and no chance of any progeny if something happens to him. Poor guy."

Tahara looks up at her companions as she hugs the boy's head to her chest with a little squelch. "Maybe we can't take him anywhere there's civilization, but one of these doors is bound to lead out into the wilderness somewhere, right? We can at least get him somewhere he can have a bit of canopy cover. It wouldn't even necessarily be too far out of our way." She gives the boy a gentle pat on the head. "How does that sound, little guy? Want to run around somewhere with trees?"

---

[Bathroom]

"Of course not. You were interrupting because you thought you could help me." Aikobaz replies, hands on her hips. "Despite having no success yourself. And you call me arrogant." The empress waves Mary off dismissively. "Do as you will. And don't expect my help when it doesn't work."

[Rebonack]

[Library]

Sounds like a mess of a place to Khannie. Want kind of world doesn't have healers OR hospitals or pokecenters or whatever?

And...

...watching tanks shoot at each other is romantic?

Okay Khannie is having a hard time imagining how that would be the case.

Like...

Ever.

But she's being supportive, right? And an excuse to invite Arthfael to watch some sports seems good enough to her.

"Sure, that sounds cool. I can probably get Arthfael to come with me," Khannie replies, crossing her arms and giving a brief nod.

Sounds like they've got a plan! Now Khannie will just have to go bug her boyfriend about it.


[Dorm Room]

"It's a drawing tablet! Here, check this out," Khannie says, pulling a largish stylus out of the frame. "So you select one of the brush types here-"
She touches the tip of the stylus to a wide paintbrush image.
"-then you select a color-"
She touches one of the blue swatches.
"-then you can paint on the screen with it!"

Khannie draws the stylus across the screen, leaving a wholly realistic looking brush-stroke of blue oil paint in its wake.

[bc56]

Bathroom
"I got turned down amicably. You got shot down, hard." And with that, the demon princess is gone, off to ask out some boy she knows. But who? That remains to be seen.

Dorm Room
"Oh wow!" That's fascinating. Mary excitedly runs up to the tablet. "How did you find something like this?" It's incredible, she's never seen anything like it.

[Rebonack]

[Dorm Room]

"Isn't it? I found it in this bunker fulla robots and stuff near this rest stop that's on the way to Glog," Khannie replies, handing the stylus to her friend. "It's where I get the stuff for my Ghost outfit."

Mary is of course encouraged to try it out! It's her gift after all.


[The Gym]

Nice thing about the gym? It has room for all sorts of activities! Not just traditional sports, but some more unusual ones as well. Really not that much of a shock considering the sorts of classes taught at PREP.

Aside from the volleyball game going on over there at the moment, the Super Heroics class is currently running a freestyle sparring match between various students. Today's lesson is adapting and reacting to the unexpected!

At the moment Khannie and Soup are both throwing down and it's pretty clear that Soup has the advantage on account of the fact that the ki warrior is dramatically faster and stronger than Khannie is. Khannie's on her back foot and her illusions are the only thing preventing her from getting immediately dunked on.

[bc56]

Dorm Room
"Thank you! Thank you!" Mary gets to work immediately, turning back to look at Khannie and the modest Thanksmas decorations in their dorm room. "Can you move a couple steps to the left?" She pokes the stylus at an icon depicting a pencil and begins to sketch.

Gym
Mary isn't much of a fighter. She's in here for her regular old PE class, playing volleyball. Except her team is already out of the competition.
So she's watching the fight. Soup's strong, but Khannie is tricky. Mary doesn't expect this fight to keep going the same way for long.
Maybe she just has too much faith in her friend.

[Rebonack]

[Drom Room]

"No problem! I thought you would like it since it's pretty cool," Khannie replies with an affirmative nod.

Oh!

Now, she's moving.

"Uh, like right here?" she asks, scooting to the side a bit. "Do you want me to do a pose or something?"


[Gym]

Tricky like a fox!

Soup makes a lunging punch so fast that he blurs, Khannie scarcely managing to scatter in four directions at once to avoid it. The fighter follows up with a kick at one of the doubles, but it passes right through it like a swirl of mist! The problem with fighting Khannie is that if she knows an attack is incoming the real her can act incorporeal, too, so nailing one of the fakes really doesn't tell Soup anything.

Khannie goes on the offensive, her doubles coming in from all sides at once aiming to deliver a blizzard of blows mean to hamper and incapacitate but Soup reacts with a trick she hasn't seen yet.

He drops to one knee and slaps the floor with his open palm, causing a shockwave that catches her completely by surprise.

The three phantasms evaporate and Khannie gets knocked head over heels by the blast. By the time she rolls to a stop she's already laughing. "Ah heck, I guess I lose again. What even was that?"

Soup offers Khannie a hand up. "It's my new flapjack technique! Did you like it? I developed it for making perfectly thin crapes but it's pretty good for fighting when you're out-numbered, too!"

"Ugh. Flattened by pancake attacks. I guess I deserved that. But i got closer this time!"

"Yeah! You almost managed to hit me! And you figured out how to hide your energy, too! That's really good!"

[Earl of Purple]

Endless Stair

The boy- if boy he is- tilts his head to one side before cupping his ear again and shaking his head. Then he's hugged and he starts to struggle, trying to pull away.

"Kyld? Like, the creepy monster children that run up walls and eat people? I thought they were an urban legend." Fred takes a step back and puts her hand on the hilt of her nimcha. "You're saying they're real?" It seems harmless, so far at least, and Tahara seems sympathetic to its plight, whatever it is, and unfortunately Tahara's the only one who knows for sure where Mat the Squirrel went beyond 'up'. Fortunately that's still the answer; they didn't get off at this floor.

Library

They exist, it's simply that chances are in that instance the person they've have called on for help would have either been Synthia's father or one of his students, or such was Synthia's father's belief. Was it accurate? No way to be sure, especially now.

"Excellent! I'll look for you in the crowd, and wave." With that, I think maybe the scene can end?

[bc56]

Endless Stair
"Tahara, it's not a pet!" Mary's heard of those things, although she's never seen one in person. "If we let it go, it will kill and eat people! Look at its hands, it's already killed people!" They can't just let a Kyld run wild.

Gym
"Good job guys!" Mary is not too concerned about the fact that Khannie just got beaten up (in one blow no less), she knows this is a friendly thing. "You use punches like that... To make pancakes?" it's cool, but strange.

Dorm Room
"If you want," Mary replies. The sketch of the room is taking shape. There's the door, and there's the "beds" and so on.

[Ironsmith]

[Endless Stair]

"Well, yeah. Pack hunter, remember?" Tahara eases off the Kyld and gives him a little pat on the head. "Of course the little guy's had to eat. That's just how nature works." She looks up the stairs and frowns. "...How about I put it this way, then, Mary? At any time, our friend here could decide he doesn't much care for this endless staircase and wander out through any of the doors. It's not so clear if he could find his way back, so wherever he goes, he'd be stuck." She points up at the nearest door in relation to them. "So where would you want him to end up? Skyside? Riverside? Or maybe PREP? He could end up picking any of them at random." She frowns and gives Mary a little shrug. "We very obviously can't leave him here, that's just going to cause problems for everyone. So I say we take him to a door that will lead out somewhere safe for him and release him there. It's the same sort of thing you'd expect to have to do if we found a jaguar or something in here."

[Rebonack]

[Gym]

"Oh hey Mary!" Khannie says, smiling at her friend. She doesn't look terribly embarrassed about getting her butt kicked. Though obviously she'll try even harder next time and be on the lookout for that attack. "Soup this is Mary, the room-mate I told you about. Mary this is Soup he's in my Cape and History classes."

Soup is an interesting looking kid. Spike black hair, bright guileless eyes. He looks every bit the part of the vaguely clueless hot-blooded fighter.

"Right yeah hi Mary! Sure do it's for crepes, really thing pancakes that you roll up with filling! They're a great breakfast treat," Soup says.

"He does fighting stuff and cooking stuff. It's a kinda weird combination of protagonist things but heck this school is weird so whatever," Khannie explains with a shrug.

Soup clinches his fist dramatically. "The work of a kitchen warrior is never done!"


[Dorms]

Oh Khannie definitely wants.

She strikes a heroic pose!

Fists on her hips, head turned slightly to the side and gazing upward!

The pose of someone looking toward a brighter future for everyone.

[Earl of Purple]

Endless Stair

"It might not've done. I mean, that's a bit of blood. If it had killed someone, there'd be more mess. And it's wearing a collar. Might be it's been fed by whoever put that collar on it." Although it may well have killed people before its capture, since there's no way of knowing how long it existed before capture. Fred still isn't getting closer to the child, staying a while back

The child itself keeps looking between Tahara and Mary, though it doesn't open its eyes or mouth. Or react much to what they're saying.

[bc56]

Endless Stair
"We ought to kill it," Mary knows full well that life on the streets is already dangerous enough. "It wouldn't trouble anyone again after that."

Gym
Oh no.
Don't talk to Mary about food.
As Khannie should know, the ex-urchin demon princess is voracious. It's something to do with never getting a good meal in her life until recently.
"Hi Soup," that's a strange name and a strange appearance, but everyone at this school is strange. Mary, with her horns and tail and reptilian legs looks even stranger. "I've never had crepes before," Mary admits, "So you fight and cook at the same time?" Did anyone else just hear her stomach rumbling?

Dorm Room
Mary bites back a laugh. "Just hold that for a minute..." A sketch of Khannie takes shape in the tablet. Mary has a good eye for detail. "...Okay, you can stop now."

[Ironsmith]

[Endless Stair]

"Mary!" Tahara admonishes, once again wrapping her arms protectively around the Kyld. "Shame on you! We can't kill him, he's just a big ol' animal. And look at him, he's scared half to death." She gives the Kyld a reassuring pat on the head and fixes Mary with an angry glare, before giving Fred a little nod. "And then there's that. Can you imagine what that's like? Spending your life in a cage and then the first people you meet outside of it want to kill you? Sheesh." The trash witch trails her hands down the Kyld's arm and holds its in both of hers, gently encouraging him to follow after her. "Wait, no, that's right, got to speak the language. Let me think, I know this one, um..."

A brood of ducklings
Walking after their mother
To the lake below

"...There. That should get the meaning across." Tahara smiles and gives his hand another tug. "Come on, Lenny, let's go."

[Earl of Purple]

Endless Stair

Fred looks at Mary with some consternation, but doesn't know enough about either girl- or kyldren- to feel comfortable intervening either way.

The boy, meanwhile, tilts its head to one side at the empathic image it's been sent, and... tries to send something back. A feeling of needles pushed into the underside of eyelids, and the sound of chewing drowning out all other noise. It's sending it to all three girls, and whilst Fred's hardened against mental influence of this type- and is biologically too far removed from kyldren for the signals to translate to her nervous system- Mary might pick it up too.

[bc56]

Endless Stair
"Eeeek!" Mary's hands fly to her eyes as if to ward off the stabbing needles. She's angry now. "I'm not going to put the life of an animal, no matter how scared it is, over the lives of the people it might kill and eat!" A power grows in her. She seems subtly larger, more present than usual, and the other two may be reminded that she spends a good deal of her time as a dragon.

[Ironsmith]

[Endless Stair]

Tahara's smile doesn't fade one bit at Mary's attempt to intimidate her, but there's a certain tension in her gaze as she looks back at Mary, clearly less-than-amused. She'll remember that.

The trash witch got the needles-in-eyes feeling, too, of course, but it comes through a bit distorted, as she simultaneously does not have proper eyes (in the human sense) and also has hundreds of thousands of them (in the swarm-of-roaches sense). What's the Kyld trying to get across there? Its identity, pointing out its mouths? Doubtful; it should already know she knows he's a Kyld by the fact that she tried to talk with empathic signals. Maybe it's trying to point out that it's hungry? That would make sense; if it's been here a while and nothing else can get in, there wasn't much in the way of food here. Or was it something else?

Whichever it is, hopefully Tahara can address it.

A mother robin
Hunched over her nestbound brood
Offering a worm

A bear and her cub
Trundling back to their den
Where it's warm and safe

Hopefully that's enough. Tahara's not sure how many variations on "I'm trying to look after you" she can send before she's forced to conclude the Kyld simply can't understand her.

"We're not putting anyone's lives over anyone else's." Tahara replies matter-of-factly. "We're taking him away from the hub that leads into random points in civilization. Or at least, I am. If you want to keep going without me, by all means, be my guest."

[Earl of Purple]

Endless Stair

It can understand her, to some extent. It sends an impulse back, though how well it translates is going to be questionable- it's a memory, of the kyld- minus its collar and in other clothes- standing over a corpse dissolving into black goo and pallid maggots, reaching down and putting a handful of maggots into its pocket before it opens a hatch, opens its eye to see in the dark, and enters a ventilation system. When its eye is open, the square metal vent around it appears dark, with white gleams- as though someone took a well-lit photograph of the pipes and then inverted it into a photographic negative.

"Will it be able to survive, away from people? I mean, from what I've heard- and I have no idea how accurate any of it is- they specialise in hunting people. But I also heard they can walk on walls and ceilings, dissolve when killed, explode in sunlight, and squeeze through gaps no larger than my thumb." Fred doesn't know which of those are true and which aren't; it's like finding a zombie when all you've heard is second-hand knowledge from people who watch The Walking Dead and play Resident Evil.

[bc56]

Endless Stair
"Fred's right, this thing is born to eat people. Don't coddle it and promise to feed it." Oh yes, Mary can tell what's going on. And she doesn't like it one bit. "Why do you think it imitates a crying child? To lure people like you in with pity and then eat them!"