Some Eeee are scattered around the area, several on the platforms – including two guards in armor – and a few on the western side, by the base and before a large pile of offerings to the dead. Off to one side of them, a young unicorn kneels before his own offerings of candy. Despite his distinctly non-Eeee and highly unusual appearance, no one pays any attention to him.

After a couple of minutes, a weeping female Eeee raises herself to her feet, wings flapping, and walks to a little girl hugging her knees, farther back from the monument. She bends to talk to her, holding out her hand. The girl shakes her head and says something in reply. The older woman hesitates, then looks to the guards. She delivers something that looks like an admonishment to the girl, though no one is close enough to hear them, then she flaps away.

The unicorn looks up from where he's kneeling, wiping his eyes. The sight of the little girl being left behind (by her mother?) grabs his attention. Although something in the back of his head says that it would be best to leave things be, he nonetheless gets up, occasionally glancing that way, then back at the monument. "I gotta go now, Skiree," he whispers. "I'll try to be back sometime. I don't know just when. But … oh yeah … I'm a Journeyman now. Really! So … uhm … maybe that means I'll get a real job. Maybe I'll get one that'll let me travel. Or maybe even a job around here. Though … " He frowns. " … not likely just now. Anyway, you take care. And … I guess I'll see you later. Don't eat all your candy at once and get yourself sick, okay? Bye." And then he chants a little more in case his Obfuscate is still holding, and shuffles over toward the left-behind girl, checking his pockets to take inventory of what candy he still has.

Like everyone else, the young girl doesn't pay any attention to Rory. As he gets closer, he can tell that her clothing is not so much dirty, as badly stained and patched. Her face and fur is actually pretty clean. She has a small scarf wrapped over her head, and she tugs at it occasionally. It's not quite long enough to tuck neatly into her tunic after going over her head. Her attention is fixed on the offerings before the basin, and it's not until Rory's shadow falls over her that she looks to him, trying to focus her eyes as if on a blurry object.

Rory blinks, and mouths, "Oh yeah," and then mumbles a bit more, then realizes that this late into the spell, it's a bit off to try to tweak it, rather than recasting it entirely. He lets the spell go into a "slow fade", hoping that he can either get out of here – or cast another – before he draws any special attention to himself.

The Eeee girl gives a startled squeak and scrambles to her feet, staring at him as she backs away. Her expression mixes a surprise, fear, and curiosity. She holds out a hand to point at him, open-mouthed, but if she's saying anything, it's too high-pitched for Rory to hear.

Rory's ears flick back. In much lower-pitched Babelite, he says, "I'm sorry! I just wanted to know why you got left behind!"

"Eeeeeeee!" she squeals, coming into audible range when he speaks. She blinks at him furiously, then launches into rapid-fire Babelite. "Who are you? Why d'ya want to know about me? How come I din't see you earlier? Where did you come from? Are you a mage? You must be a mage! Or a messenger from the Sisters? Both! Are you with Mage Envoy? Have you come to save Babel? Can I help?" She takes a break to inhale, apparently in preparation for a second round.

Rory staggers. "I'm Rorschach," he says, trying to remember what he's supposed to tell when he gets hauled off for trouble. Name, sphere, and guild membership number? "Can you run that all by me again, only slower?"

Despite the furor the little bat is making, the adults around the area, even the guards, don't seem interested, at least not yet. One Eeee gives them an incurious look as he swoops past to land on a platform, and genuflect to the cenotaph.

"Roar-sheeik!" the girl exclaims, mangling his name, and briefly distracted from whatever she was going to say next. "That's a strange name! But En-voy is a strange name, too. Do all mages and messengers from the Sisters have strange names like that? The Sisters don't have strange names, though, they have normal words but you just inflect them differently, not things like Reee-er-sheak, what's that mean? Does it mean 'savior'? Did you come to heal the Wound and bring all the people back?" She takes another break, then claps a hand over her mouth and looks around worriedly.

The unicorn frowns at this. "I … I really wish I could. If there was a spell for that … I'd do it. In a wink. But … I can't. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." He looks down at some of the candy that's starting to get sticky in his hand. "Uhm … okay, this was a really dumb idea, I guess, but I was thinking maybe you came here to see someone – like I did, because my friend Skiree is gone now – but maybe you didn't have anything to leave behind, so I had some extra candy, and maybe I could give you some to leave for somebody special, and you can have some of the rest, and this candy that's already getting yucky, well, I'll just have that, I guess. Because it'd be really awful to give that, you know?"

The batling still has her hand clapped over her mouth, and her eyes, staring over it, look as wide as saucers, giving her a comical expression of either fear, or surprise, or both. She releases her hand over her mouth, and squeaks, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to babble! You're not going to refuse to help us just because I – oh! Candy! Are those crackly crickets?" She licks her lips, then gets the horrified expression on her face once more, clapping both hands over her muzzle.

Rory nods. "Yeah, these are crackly crickets. I've got some jelly squirmers, too. And amber bugs, though it's not real amber. I brought extras, you see, in case I got the munchies, so I wouldn't eat up all of Skiree's candy, but I wasn't all that hungry after all, so I've got extra. I haven't been in a candy store for, like, five years or so, so I really went crazy."

"Oh! Amber bugs! Those are my favorites!" she squeak-whispers between her fingers. "Crackly crickets were my brother's favorites, but he didn't like jelly squirmers. Me either, they're too slimy, eww – I like the way the crickets crunch better but not as much as amber bugs because they melt in your mouth and did you really mean we could have some? And who's Skiree?" She keeps her fingers clasped around her muzzle while she speaks, which muffles her words but doesn't appear to dissuade her much from talking.

Rory doesn't miss the "were my brother's … " part, and stuffs the candies in his hand into a free pouch, and wipes his hands off on his robes. (They're going to need a cleaning.) "Well, how about … " He fishes out some crackly crickets. " … these can be for your brother, okay? And … " He fishes out what's left of the amber bugs. " … here are some ambers. And this works out fine, because I like the jelly squirmers. You can wiggle them and play with them and squash them flat."

"Eeeeeew!" the little Eeee squeaks, shuddering. Her apparent horror at the thought of squashed jelly squirmers doesn't deter her from taking her hands off her muzzle and reaching out for the bag and the amber bugs. "Eeeeeee! Reuben will be so happy! Crackly crickets are better than a scarf and shoes even if it is getting cold! Thank you!" She hugs the pouch to her chest, beaming at Rory. "The mages really are going to help us! I knew it!" She starts to skip towards the basin, then hesitates. The eyes of the guards are on her closely now. She looks over her shoulder at Rory.

Rory freezes in place, and then smiles weakly, raising his hand to wave his fingers. "It's kind of a gift from Skiree," he says. "Maybe she and Reuben can play together."

The child beams again. "I bet they do! He'll be really happy since she gave him crackly crickets!" she waves the pouch over her head. "The messenger from the Sisters gave me an offering! It's okay! I'm just going to leave crackly crickets for Reuben!" she yells to the guards, who look puzzled. One of them glances over at Rory with a confused frown, while the other watches as the little batling steps carefully over to the pile of offerings. She doesn't get too close, just laying down the pouch and backing away again. "See! I've got some amber bugs for myself already!" she yells back at the guards. The batling has managed to be so noisy that almost everyone is shaken out of their private thoughts to look at her.

Rory just stands there, dumbfounded. He is divided between entertaining ideas that this is Skiree's separated-from-birth little sister, or that he's about to get impounded for acting weirdly at a holy site. Rory just looks back at the guard, and waves his fingers weakly, mentally plotting out how far away it is to that rakhtor.

The guard only stares back at him, unsmiling and without waving. At least he's not flying after the unicorn or shouting, "Guards! Seize him!" The girl-bat flaps over to him, her jaws working. "Eeeeee-mmmmmmm!" she squeals happily. "These are the best amber bugs! I bet you got them at the Nectar-Tower-of-Treats in midtown. Or, wait, you got them from Inala! Eeeee! This is great! Mother doesn't buy sweets anymore and she hasn't let me go near the offering pile or leave Reuben anything for ages and ages but the guards didn't mind I don't think they even remember well maybe they do," she starts hushing her voice, looking nervously back at them. "I sure remember! But you saw, I only left the pouch and they were watching so it's all okay." She pops another amber bug into her mouth, her eyes wide and happy.

Rory nods a few times. "Well, that's good," he says, smiling slightly. "Uhm … what's your name? If you don't want to tell me, that's okay. I just feel kind of silly, you know, knowing your brother's name, and not yours," he adds quietly.

"Eia!" she squeaks, then adds quickly, "That's not my name, that's just me being surprised! I'm sure you can't tell since your name is Ree-er-shock you probably think Eia sounds like a good name, and maybe it is, but it's not my name, my name is Dinahrinee." She sticks out her hand, then pulls it back, dumps the remaining amber bugs into her other hand, and sticks it out again.

Rory takes the hand, shaking it. "Pleased to meet you, Dinahrinee," he says, quietly, smiling. "And … I'm really sorry about your brother. I hope … I hope your family does all right. Now, I'd better go. I think I've made a little too much noise here. Take care, Dinahrinee."

"Thank you again, Mr. Messenger Ree-er-shock!" Dinah squeaks, waving to him after popping another amber bug into her mouth. She closes her eyes as he walks away, savoring the candy. Rory's rakhtor raises her head from the trough, watching him with one gray eye as he approaches.

Rory just focuses on his breathing as he returns to the rakhtor, patting on her feathers. "Good girl. Don't leave the little shadow mage behind, right girl?" With some effort, he clambers back up into the saddle and starts buckling up harnesses. "I think I'm going to need one awesome Obfuscate to make it back to the Guild Hall after this."