Scene #9809: She is Full and Lustrous

Owner	Pose
Foundation Scions	Two different phone voice-messages arrive for Vertin's answering machine in the dead of night, from Matilda's number, both short though the former more-so, and both only minutes apart. The first is absent of anything but the sounds of labored breathing, the second is the only one with words- though it lingers on breathing, and shuffling noises, before the transmitter is clunked down, a little whining plea of "Vertin..? ... I need somewhere to be, in privacy," can be heard just before the click. If that isn't distressing enough on its own, attempts to follow up on her voicemails ring and ring and aren't received. Matilda doesn't hear them, because after pacing her dormitory, with its window-curtains frantically pulled open for the in-pouring moonlight, and making those two calls, she's arrived at the point she can't bear not to slip out of her room, and quietly pad through the halls of the residential tower, avoiding sight, and lingering over-long in the ceiling-height slit windows of the Foundation. At the edges of the forests, so barely visible outside, season's end crickets chirp up a cacophany, and passing clouds just barely skirt the edges of the Moon herself, near-to-fullness, and unbearably lonely. . . . It starts as knocking on the suitcase's lid, but quickly, it becomes frantic scratching. Sporadic, but persistent, and only occasionally returning briefly to knocks. When it cracks open first, the figure hunched over it- which can only be Matilda -falls back, onto her rear end, and scrambles slightly away. Strange, for after midnight, on a clear night, Matilda Bouanich has wrapped herself in a bright yellow raincoat, the long sort that's closer to a fisherman's than a windbreaker, and wraps around even the upper legs- -She's wearing it with the hood up, indoors. Her eyes are wide, and reflect oddly the light of the room, and the suitcase's starry passage, which she stares at, rather than Vertin, despite obviously reacting to her presence- she's obvious, no one's arcane fluctuations are identical to hers! Over the next moment, she relaxes very slightly, but still seems distraught, with arms clutching around the side of her hood. Whiny, and whispered, "Oh, Vertin! Dieu merci! Please let me in, before anyone comes and sees! To, to the out-doors, within your suitcase!" Something's glinting in the light, beneath her hood, when she turns to look over her shoulder, and wobbles back to her feet awkwardly.
Team Timekeeper	Matilda's phone receives a trio of missed calls in return. Too-promptly to have been sleeping comes the first, with Vertin's soft but worried voice asking Matilda's whereabouts without a greeting or sign-off. The second comes ten minutes after the first, and the third only a couple minutes after that, both hung up immediately without a message once they go to voicemail. . . . What used to be Vertin's office in the Foundation has been converted into a staging area for Team Timekeeper, used for little besides receiving mail and housing the Suitcase. Only a minute after Matilda's pawing insistence on the leather case do the clasps unfasten and the Suitcase springs open, with Vertin stepping up out of the darkness, a little out of breath. The hand's outstretched to help Matilda to her feet, and lead her without releasing into the staircase, before Vertin's even opened her mouth. "Matilda? Come on, come down with me. It's going to be okay." Vertin may have been awake, but she wasn't wearing her full uniform in the privacy of the middle of the night. Her jacket's still gone, with just the white shirt on underneath, lacking the azure ornament at her throat but with their hat thrown on as they left their room. They're hardly visible as anything but a pale blur in the starry passageway down, taking the invisible steps rapidly and soundlessly, having come up in slippers. The wilderness that exists in the Suitcase has been gone for a thousand years on Earth, no matter what era the Storm brings them to. The moon and stars together shine nearly as bright as a cloudy day, with the liquid glow of the Milky Way stretching halfway between horizons. Past the yard, the woods are alive with motion just out of sight, lit dimly blue-black and filled with cooing and chirping of animals; owls and coyotes and the vivid ozone smells of arcane critters, carbuncles and sparkling glimmermoth wings and nocturnal splintercats. It's only once they've fulfilled Matilda's request-- and hopefully that it's bought her some relief-- that Vertin releases her hand and stops to ask, "What happened? Are you alright?"
Foundation Scions	Matilda isn't hesitant to take Vertin's hand- that's Vertin! But she does hesitate to let go of the sides of her raincoat hood. It's fine if she hasn't spoken yet, either, because the action contains enough of the sentiment on its own. It's a little weird how tightly she holds Vertin's hand, still, in pulling herself up. Standing, it's obvious that Matilda, under the duckling-yellow open raincoat, is more disheveled than Vertin- the hem of her nightgown sticks out longer than the jacket, and she isn't wearing shoes of any sort, which hasn't seemed to bother, or be noticed by her, on the rushed journey over here. It's on the staircase, where Matilda hasn't yet let go of Vertin's hand, but still is distracted looking everywhere else in the starry-nowhere, that she breathes out, "I'm unharmed, it is nothing of that sort- mais, il m'est arrivé quelque chose, Vertin. C'est étrange, je ne sais pas exactement ce que c'est..." That comes with a hand-squeeze, but not a further explanation, except an uncertain inhale, and a slight quickening of her pace. She lets go of Vertin's hand at the bottom of the stairs, but stays close behind until right outside the bounds of the manor's yard, at which she immediately bolts a half-dozen steps ahead of her- the quick motion is quite sudden. Once out ahead of her, her gaze shifts to the glowing heavens above, the stars, and the nearly-full Moon herself, and it doesn't move off of them- she does a little spin, reaching up at them, smiling-wide, eyes wider, aglow like tapida lucidum. There's an immediate lightness to her posture, visible in the shoulders, legs, and arms- she even tiptoes, like she can reach a little higher at the sky, and it means her arms aren't tugging the hood tight over her head. It's a difficult thing to imagine she even has anything urgent to say to Vertin, for how her focus just isn't on them, in any obvious way. Distracted by a little glimmermoth, almost jumping for it, the hood of her raincoat falls, finally- and when it does, with faint clinking of thin rock or glass, two animalic ears, unmistakably triangular, and nearly fluffy, were it not for their material of faceted, prismatic, translucent crystal. Under the jacket, a faint little shuffling noise shows the tail-end, of what must only be a matching tail. Light refracts around her in caustics, and, asymmetric, one of the ears clinks again as it tilts to the side, opposite how her head does. She stares at Vertin, and then just past her shoulder, back the way they came. "It, has been this way for some-hours," is the first thing she has to say, which comes with a back-of-throat whine of frustration or worry, and then, "I, had feverish dreams all evening, of exactly-this, and of itching, and, when I awoke-" "I thought my crystals may-be growing in, but, not this. I, do not know what this is!" Eye contact again, and it's somewhat pleading, "May I stay here, until it goes away, Vertin? S'il vous plaît?"
Team Timekeeper	There's a lot of things that could've been wrong with Matilda, that were certainly racing through Vertin's mind. The worst of them are wiped away when Matilda assures them that she's unhurt, and then the next-worse once they get to the forest. Whatever stress there may be, the 'release' being so joyful and carefree is beautiful in of itself, and their questions going unanswered for a minute makes Vertin smile instead of fret. They lean back against a tree while Matilda exults in the sweet night air and jumps around. If this was actually all that was needed, and Matilda was just being weirdly fussy about wanting somewhere to run around without needing the warpgate or to exit the Foundation grounds, then Vertin would be happy enabling just that-- but of course, there's more to it, revealed when Matilda's hood falls down. Vertin's slippers rustle more than they crunch through the still-fresh fallen leaves, approaching Matilda for a closer look the moment she can. They tuck their hat into the crook of their arm, reaching up a hand to hover just-not touching Matilda's new ear. "Do they hurt at all?" She lightly presses a finger to a facet, up on her tiptoes to inspect them. "Your fevers... you've been having those for some time. You weren't bitten by anything, were you?" Without warning, Vertin lifts up Matilda's jacket to see the exposed tail. "The crystals of the ears and tail are all shaped like a canine's. Are your senses hindered in any way? Do they move as if attached to you, or do you feel like they'll come off or dissipate in time?" They pace around Matilda, then join her by her shoulder, where the refracted moonlight scatters all over their hair and forehead, just over their eyes where they steadily meet hers. "Stay as long as you need, of course. I can bring you anything you need, and stay through the night if you'd like. Would that be okay?"
Foundation Scions	@emit Even before she's turned to look at them, Matilda's ears- the new ones -twitch at the leaf-crunches. Matilda shivers, like the air's blown colder. Without fully looking, the ear Vertin's fingers just-barely don't touch, flicks around, a fluidly animal motion despite the clink-shimmering of its crystal material. She turns her head to look at them more than her body, when she does- "Hurt?" "No, not at all, they only itch quite-badly," she says, and then immediately reaches up to scratch at the base of the ear Vertin almost-touched, closing an eye from the effort of it, and then whining a little from the relief. "The fevers, they stopped when I at-last got to go out under the night sky..." Matilda doesn't lean down at all to make it easier for Vertin, and she seems more, not-bothered, than pleased, to be Inspected, and when she actually does touch the crystal, Matilda's eyes twitch when the ear can't. Oddly, it's warm. "Bitten? No, certainly not, but there was the collar with teeth? That was hardly a prick, and I am not wearing it, so, surely not-" Lifting the jacket has her jolt a little, and say "Hey!!" But, rather than flinch to re-cover the tail, she just shrugs out of the jacket, and steps a bit away, which has a similar effect to what Vertin was attempting, anyways. The tail moves only slightly, but it's obvious it can, much like the ears- it's the same material, the same patterns, and similarly obviously canine. She positions her body at that slight distance such that it's perpendicular to Vertin, and so that she's looking over her shoulder at her; and partially at the moonlight. Her arms stay at her sides, and she doesn't startle when Vertin comes closer to circle. Without remark to the reaction, she answers Vertin's question, "I, think there is no hindrance? Everything is quite noisy, I find, but I can hear, and see, very clearly!" She reaches up to touch her own ear, which has no flicking reaction, and her eyes fix on Vertin's, and her face, while she does-so. "They feel, as anything, which is very strange? Ah... the way the Moon's light dances on you," Her tone shifting weirdly dreamy for that one moment, unexplained, Matilda brings a finger up to hover (and brush) overtop the lines of light on Vertin's face, and trace a little how it moves, with Matilda's own breathing shifting the ears. Exhaled, "Comme cest belle..." "But, but! They have to fall off! What will the Monitor Director- or, the Principal think!" Whiny again, but staying close, "I do not think it will be well-received! Maman's, they do not look, or act at-all like this! C'est embarrassant! So!" A step, and then a skipped step, and a turn away from Vertin, in the directions more-wooded, is where her little impulsive motions take her. She's breathing deep, but not like she's winded, and her voice is hushed- "Are all the nights here so alive..?"
Team Timekeeper	"No, not at all, they only itch quite-badly," Of course Vertin instantly goes in to scritch Matilda's ear herself once she says that, without changing her facial expression or tone at all. "Has your mother ever talked about what it was like for her to get her crystals?" She doesn't know!!! "If the uncomfortable symptoms line up, that would be reassuring even if the product doesn't...." Vertin curls her fingers under her chin, eyeing Matilda up and down. "It is odd, though. You haven't had especially much time or thought dedicated to dogs, have you? If not for the shape of the outcroppings, I'd dismiss that pinprick entirely, but your fever did start shortly after that field mission." "But what kind of thing could result in an illness that long and severe, without even being in contact with it afterwards? Much less the transformation." They shake their head shortly, dismissing the thought for now. "It's good that you're feeling alright. I always find the Wilderness to be therapeutic." "Comme cest belle..." Hatless and up close, the pale freckles speckled across the bridge of Vertin's nose are motes of captured moonlight, intersecting with what Matilda's ears scatter when Vertin lifts up her chin slightly to meet her touch. Their eyes scan side to side, half-hidden by their lashes as if they're drowsy, without the accompanying wavering focus. They don't pull away or acknowledge being touched at all, not unlike Matilda's response to being inspected. "They've been like this for hours, you said? Maybe they'll vanish when the moon sets. I suppose we'll see." "Are all the nights here so alive..?" Vertin's lips soften into a smile perceptible only by comparison. They take a breath in and hold it for a few seconds, and in the brief silence between them, the forest answers Matilda's question itself by redoubling the chirping and scraping of a thousand tiny animals. "It's a beautiful night," Vertin agrees after a sigh that puts aside her lingering anxiety for the moment. "Would you like to explore it some more? We've only just scratched the surface." Vertin can lead Matilda through the Wilderness, but at their pace with Matilda's excitement, it's probably usually Matilda that's ahead of them. She'll smell the change in the earth before she sees it, when the mixed forest that's just beginning to enter into autumn shifts into cloying pine trees and damp dark soil. The moon glows persistently overhead, somehow seeming bigger than in the outside world, its light penetrating the coniferous canopy in slices that reveal scampering critters mid-motion like flashes of lightning. There's a rocky spire that's hypnotically climbable, though Vertin obviously opts to walk up the semi-sloped path instead. There's fewer trees at the top, making the moon and stars all perfectly visible, while the untouched wild spreads out in every direction around them.
Foundation Scions	"Maman never mentioned what it was like, not even the once!" That's said with a little bit of a pout, which spreads to the ears, albeit the expression is a bit more muted than might be expected. "Perhaps... she thought it a topic for a later time, and never had the opportunity?" Whinier, "I cannot seem to reach her, though. She, must be very busy!" Matilda doesn't speak acknowledgement to Vertin scratching at her ears, but the slight movement away is born of a hesitation that vanishes when the relief comes, and she leans into the little gesture. It might be nerves, the autumn air, or the sensation itself, but Matilda shivers. 'You haven't had especially much time or thought dedicated to dogs, have you?' Matilda shakes her head, the ears staying mostly rigid through the motion. "Aside from a scary run-in with a black hound, still during the training retreat, I, do not think I have even seen one, of late? And, it did not bite me, either!" Thanks to Sonetto! With a little hum- the crystals very faintly resonate with it -Matilda says, "I do not get along well with dogs, in general, for that matter?" Matilda then, decides to just crouch down to the ground right there, for a moment, with her knees up to her chest, and tail faintly-swishing behind her. Whiny-worried, "Ahhhh, but, if it is the object, someone has to be told! The fevers, they were severe! I remember not-remembering entire days! And, this!" "If they set with the Moon..." Matilda stretches her head allll the way to the side, and scrunches up her face a little, "That would be sad?" As if musing on that, or just listening to the so-full sounds of the forest around, the birds, the insects, the wind and how it swishes past grass and leaves, Matilda is still, and quiet, and distance-gazing. Her ears twitching and reorienting a bit, and small motions of her tail, and the rise and fall of breaths, are the only actions taken, and even those still when Vertin's own do too. 'Would you like to explore it some more?' Matilda smiles wide, and she hops right up to her feet, almost-soundless, given the lack of footwear. Staring at Vertin, mostly still but for the open-mouthed smile, Matilda has to take a moment to remember that sometimes, responses need to be said out loud! "Yes!" comes first, as Matilda looks where Vertin's focus indicates, and second, as Matilda's body turns to match where her face is pointed. "Keep up!" The pace of Matilda's excitement, is that she takes off running. Her posture for it is a little strange, given the new mass of the tail, but it seems to be mostly natural to her, save for a slight stumble that could also have been because of a pathway rock. She doesn't let Vertin get in front of her, but doesn't let Vertin out of her sight, which means periodically stopping, turning, waiting, and running further in. It's, downright ominous, for her to stand upright-still further into the midnight forest, with ears, eyes, and tail so abnormally highlit amongst nothing-else, and to wave them closer only as an afterthought. There is no world, and especially no suitcase wilderness, in which Matilda is not going to immediately go to climb a climbable rocky spire! She lingers on its edges, as Vertin also climbs (the slopes, not the cliffs,) but gets up to the top, where she sits similarly to how she did earlier, on the bare crag-top grass, to stare up at the stars. "I, got here first, so! I, win!" Matilda Bouanich is out of breath! But the restless look in her eyes and on her face, has not faded. She leans back, and lays down, rolling side to side a little bit. Her poor nightgown!!!
Foundation Scions	"Hahhn, comme c'est brillant! The Moon, she is so low, and close, and lonely... Do you think she can see us here, Vertin? Or hear?" Matilda, on her back, reaches both arms up, as if she can grab, or catch the waxing moon, and her hands close only on empty air. A sad expression flashes on her face, and she shares it Vertin's way, before turning back to the sky, and, like it's risen from the back of her throat, as an impulse that can't, or won't ever be thought of to deny, she howls. After, Matilda claps both of her hands over her mouth, wide-eyed, and just stares, not quite embarrassed, but surprised, at Vertin. At least it's a little clearer what sort of canine, this must all be drawn-from. The embarrassment lasts only a minute before she's breathlessly giggling.
Team Timekeeper	Vertin's still wearing their slippers! They can't keep up with running, even if they were inclined to, and the poor slippers are already stained with mud. They walk as briskly as they have to to avoid Matilda's disappointment, fond and a little secondhand-excited by Matilda's energy in the same way as when watching La Source play. It's not actually that necessary to speak to communicate to Vertin, with how attentive they are to Matilda's body posture even when she's not looking towards them. They follow the strange shiny wolf-girl through the midnight woods like it's the most natural thing in the world, picking around brambles and at one point pulling themselves up over a fallen tree to not let Matilda stray too far out of sight. Caught by branches, their ponytail comes half-undone, with the loose grey strands coming down past their ribcage. They're a tiny bit out of breath by the time they join Matilda atop the little plateau, and smudged up by the woods, though much less than Matilda's scampering got her. "You win. Though I'm not sure what I owe you." Vertin sits down in the grass, legs folded, stretching their palms against the rock behind them to lounge. A little white salamander, iridescent in the moonlight, ambles across their fingers while they watch it with a faint pleased expression, staying perfectly still for its passage. "Do you think she can see us here, Vertin? Or hear?" Vertin shares the direction of Matilda's stare, keeping her just in the corner of their vision. "Maybe she can. Druvis hears the plants more clearly here than elsewhere, so why not you and the Moon? We've put ourselves so clearly in her sights, after all." Then Matilda howls, and after a shared glance of surprise, Vertin turns her head aside to giggle into her hand. "Ah-- sorry, I'm not laughing at you. It's just suddenly all clicked into place at once. You make a rather dashing werewolf, it turns out." Whatever the future holds, Matilda's having the time of her life right now, so it can't really be that bad. Vertin can't keep her smile down, sitting with Matilda on the grass, and a near-silent giggle slips through her sentences from the atmosphere. "Is it for practicality's sake that you think it'd be sad for the ears to vanish after tonight, or are you getting attached? I have to imagine that it'll cause, quite a stir if you're seen with them at the SPDM. You're clearly feeling a lot; you can talk to me about it if you'd like, even if you can't quite make sense of it."
Foundation Scions	Matilda stares at Vertin for a long moment, running over the options that could be owed from such a little competition- and before she gets to a decision, her stomach grumbles, and her ears flatten a little. "The victor, gets steak à la tartare!" Raw meat! It isn't as much of a pattern to Vertin, as it is to Matilda, or others she's spoken to, but it is a little point on the diagram of what's going on! 'Maybe she can.' "And, she has things to say, which she does when her light is caught for moments within the clearest of crystal," Matilda muses, in whisper-tone, not as conversation that needs to be quieter, but as thoughts made all the louder. Matilda can't help but to giggle, fuller, at Vertin's own reaction to the howl! It's embarrassing, it's strange, she's not yet on the come-down from having ran and climbed here, and the night air is so full of vitality that emotions bubble up too easily. 'You make a rather dashing werewolf, it turns out.' "Hah! I, suppose, I do look quite charming, no?" She looks around for anything mirrored, which, obviously, is nothing, and then she spends a little moment leaning up and leaning over, because the most reflective objects in her vicinity (aside from her own tail or ears) are Vertin's eyes, and she'd like to see how she looks! This does not work, but it does mean she spends a moment leaning in Vertin's face, and then reaching up to touch her ears, to see how the very-faint reflection may shift a little. She gets distracted for a moment, looking instead at Vertin's reactions, and leans in a little closer on-instinct, to just sniff at the air beside her head. "Une louve-garoue..." She pulls back, and lays back down, grass and dew stains so far from a worry right now. Her fingers tap at the stone and its lichens, and she stares sideways, cheek against the outcropping, at the ambling salamander, as it plods. 'I have to imagine that it'll cause, quite a stir if you're seen with them at the SPDM.' Matilda kicks her legs out a bit, as she's lying on the grass, and makes a frustrated little whine- "It will! It will cause a stir! So, if it goes away, I will stay right here until it does! They are so fussy about hats in-doors, too!" She pats the ground beside her, cold-wet rock. That gets a heavy, and upset sigh from Matilda, though, and another smack to the rock. "Well! They are attached to me!" But that's nothing, and she sighs, which becomes a whine, which becomes a breathy little noise of no categorization. "I do not know!" She rolls onto her stomach, and then 'hup!'s up to a little crouch, up to what amounts to cobra pose, to say, "It, is not as if anything feels wrong? But, that could just be that here is, somewhere where that is the case!" "It is like the retreat! The night's sky there-" She's looking past Vertin now, at the sky, and she shifts to actually start to stand, tail slowly swaying, "And the air! The air itself, c'était plein de magie! There were strange critters, and..." Standing, she stills, and circles to climb up a little-higher of a rock, and sits herself on it, to be higher up than Vertin, and look down towards her now, from a bit further away. Hunched, stretching at the neck, and with her arms locked-straight, and feet over the edge, "It was more like dreaming, than waking! Comment puis-je le savoir?" "Can you pinch me, Vertin?"
Team Timekeeper	"The victor, gets steak a la tartare!" Well, it's enough of a pattern to Vertin! Lilian told them about the steak tartare incident specifically, and the trend of Matilda's apparent iron cravings, when asking them to check on Sonetto's condition after the retreat. So it's clear in retrospect the true nature of it, and drawing more lines connecting Matilda's unusual state recently together is reassuring that there's nothing else going on. Nothing else besides Matilda howling in the woods and eating raw meat after a mysterious transformation. "I suppose I'm bound by honor to bring you some, then. In the meantime, try to refrain from eating any non-food grade meat, until we know if your stomach can handle it." "Hah! I, suppose, I do look quite charming, no?" Vertin can't possibly know what Matilda is intending to get out of suddenly lunging and leaning up into their face. Whatever it is, they're prepared to take it with only a slight increase in heart rate and widening of her eyes-- which incidentally exposes more of their reflective iris, and not nearly enough to actually accomplish what Matilda wants. She's not exactly soothed when Matilda starts fiddling with her ears, either. Her eyes flick off to the side and she gets a little squirmy, though she's trying to remain as still as possible to not startle Matilda off from whatever fixation she's working through. "Matilda? Is something-- er, the matter?" Vertin closes her eyes and exhales in a quiet almost-laugh through her nose when Matilda just ends up sniffing beside her head. When Matilda lies down, Vertin's hand lands on her head just between her new ears, softly scratching at the corner where the grass meets her scalp. "So, if it goes away, I will stay right here until it does!" "You'll be calling out sick, then? I can keep your presence here secret, if that's what you'd prefer." Vertin looks up at the moon, then lies down beside Matilda, with her arms folded under her head. "If it's brought on by the full moon, it may be several days to a week before we know for sure." The alternative, is kind of fucked up and worrying! "Well! They are attached to me!" Vertin lifts up their head to peek at where Matilda's tail has gotten squished between her legs, to fit when lying down. "But, that could just be that here is, somewhere where that is the case!" "If that's the case, then you're welcome anytime, you know. Especially if it recurs monthly." Pushing themselves up with their elbows, Vertin's hair has come entirely apart from contact with the ground. They hook their pinky into the dangling hairtie, gathering the long hair back together again. "Ideally we'd figure out accomodations on campus... well, ideally it's temporary, of course, but if it's not." "Can you pinch me, Vertin?" "Speaking of the retreat, Sonetto's brought up the idea of her spending nights monthly in your shared dorm at the Association to train more," is the sentence that immediately preceeds the test of whether or not this is a dream, and in most cases, would be evidence of its unreality to Matilda. Vertin reaches over and pinches Matilda on the shoulder. "Still with me, I hope?"
Foundation Scions	"Yes! Your honor depends on it indeed!" Another little stomach-grumbly, and Matilda looks a little more like she wants to get up and move, to run around somewhere else- but it'd be too mean to Vertin to leave so soon after getting here, and it is a stellar view! A little whiny, "Besides! I have a discerning taste for cuisine! I, would not eat anything untoward!" Everything about her mannerisms makes it seem likely that in a day or two, Vertin might catch eye contact with her while Matilda has a caught fish between her teeth, but also that she'd be embarrassed about it! 'Is something-- er, the matter?' Matilda's ears flick a little at the words, and she murmurs, without pulling away, "No? But, your eyes are large," which could be about their wideness, or the sum of Vertin's face, or it could just be a tell of how much of Matilda's focus is on them. "And the eyelashes, so long..." Well that sounds like something it isn't; that's a weird thing to say as a just-noticed compliment-statement! Especially before, just sniffing at her, and leaving on her merry way! 'You'll be calling out sick, then?' "I, have!" She purses up her lips a little, like she's about to put her hands on her hips, but she finds them busy touching the old, old stone, instead. "I called, to say-so, but, they will surely be unhappy. I've taken so much sick leave!" That's because she's been so sick! She's been fevered, in fever-dreams, and bedbound, for so much more of the past two months than she'd like! More than, especially, her bosses would like! "Ah... but, several days, would not be so-bad..." That's the werewolfiness talking! It's the full moon! It's the primeval woodlands! Paperwork is a thousand miles away, and can't touch her! She yawns, which flashes teeth (that, luckily, look mostly normal!) With Vertin scratching at their ears, twitchy-quiet, "I, do not want them to know where I am! I think it would cause a ruckus, and, make me seem unduly distrusted... C'est injuste, mais..." >Vertin lifts up their head to peek Without clothes specifically tailored to the condition, or an outfit carefully picked to accomodate, Matilda's tail is halfway obfuscated by the necessity for it to be beneath her nightgown. It's not massless, and it crunches and clinks a little as she tosses and turns, but it's also of a malleable enough nature that it doesn't seem to distress her when she does toss and turn. It's a tail! 'Especially if it recurs monthly.' That thought is received with an (again, a little resonant) hum of consideration. "Monthly... atch, but I would lose so much time. Hrmmn," She sits up straight, slowly, and stretches both of her arms over her head, in a big, face-twitchy and ear-swishing stretch. "Accommodations such as," is as far as she gets before she blanks on this. "Field, out of doors, with no-one looking?" Yeah, that may not cut it, really. She leans over Vertin to say, "Welcome? I, of course, would like to be amongst these woods more, but... I am not of the 'Timekeeper's Team?"
Foundation Scions	'Sonetto's brought up the idea of her spending nights monthly in your shared dorm,' Matilda alerts on that, rising up a little at the shoulder, ears more upright, eyes wider. If any further point of clarification was needed, about what type of canine these features (and attitudes) come from was not, she isn't wagging at something that might as well make Matilda wag were she tailless. The excitement's in her tone, at least! "Hein? Really? Truly! Oh, comme c'est super- it is not a convenient commute, but, I, too, would like to sleep-over some nights there! I made to decorate it neatly, and, and I could also train more-so than I do, alongside her! Perhaps, like on the retreat, she and I could sleep together-" "-Aïe!" In the same moment she lets out the little whiny noise of pain, Matilda twists to bite Vertin's arm for doing so, quite hard! Matilda's surely never bitten Vertin before, but it's a safe bet that there's been a little sharpening to her teeth. When she lets go, it isn't with guilt! Matilda scooches back anyways, until she's three or four paces further back from Vertin, and she says, "You surprised me!" She literally asked for this! The distance, and a little moment, helps her relax, and helps her ears relax from front-turned alert. She seems a little overfocused on the inside of her mouth for a little, but it fades, too. With a little buzzy sigh, "Je pense que c'est réel... Er- Vertin? If I, wander off before the mornings," which it looks like she's raring to do, by how she's fidgeting, "Perhaps, you can find me here, at these little crags, if you call very-loudly? Un rendez-vous récurrent!" Ah. Of course she's planning to Stay Outside. She's going to get covered in twigs and bugs. "Ah- merci beacoup, Vertin," comes very late, over-the-shoulder, as she's already standing up to head out wandering, again, as her treeline-focused gaze betrays.