Felina lets out her breath, and nods. She's been trying to absorb some of the strain herself, towards the end...what she could safely do without getting in the way was pretty limited, but some, anyway. She keeps one hand on the body's forehead, though, keeping it in deep stasis. Holds out the other towards the cat. "So. Mara-kuru? Can you hear me?"

The persian blinks twice, stretches languidly, and yawns. And, promptly, pounces Felina with all its little kitty might.

"Eep!" Felina laughs, and catches Mara against her chest with the free arm. "You're going to have way too much fun with this, aren't you? I bet you can hide in Gabriel's undershirt drawer and give him a surprise."

Mara-kitty purrs softly, almost immediately padding her paws against Felina's arm.

"She is a cat, remember. She can't talk to you, and for the most part, her intelligence will be limited to cat intelligence. She'll understand a lot, certainly, and break things." Iscovis looks up, finally lifting his chair up again. "Better go ahead and seal up the catatonic. Based on the way its power is already rising, it could wake up before the day is out."

Felina nods. "Thank you..." stands up, though maintaining a remote hold on the stasis, sets Mara in Iscovis's lap. "And, you're welcome!" She gathers up Mara's former body and vanishes for Helantri Deru without giving the other telepath a chance to protest babysitting.

Mara looks up at him for a moment, staring intently. Then, almost smirking, she turns a bit, curls up, and proceeds to give herself a bath.

"Yeah, now you do that."

---

Some time later, Dewei appears in the gardens. Finds himself near the graves, and bows politely...it's very learned. Almost religious. It's homage, and genuine, but...the mindset is very different than his mother's when she does the same things. Then he looks around for Iscovis and Mara, sensing them nearby.

Iscovis is actually asleep. Mara is sitting on his lap, tail twitching a little bit, and she bounds over to see what the sudden commotion is about. Well... commotion to a hypersensitive cat, anyway. She meows a questioning meow at Dewei.

He's quick to pick up on the fact that she isn't in her right mind. He's disappointed a bit, but smiles anyway, and picks up the cat gently, giving her head a good itching. "Yes, yes...it's weird for all of us."

Mara practically headbutts him in search of further scritches. Her purr is soft, carrying an almost vocal quality to it that is apart from the more common drone of natural cats.

Dewei smiles a bit. "Yeah, yeah...enjoy it while you can, you're going to have to get Ting drunk before you get this many pets again..." he grins a bit, looks over at Iscovis. Wants to get him to a bed. But he's too sharp a telepath. He's not sure he could do it without either waking him up or disturbing his dreams.

The youngest Ono just takes a firm hold on Mara, jumps onto a low-slung tree branch, and takes a seat, just...waiting. For nothing in particular. And petting Mara, of course.

Some time later, Dewei looks over when Ting and Makyon appear. "Hi there."

"Hello, Dewei. Is that who I think it is?" He points at the fluffly red Persian who is sleeping next to Dewei.

"It is." He nods, then smirks. "Not surprisingly, she's worn out from coercing me in every creative way possible to pet her."

Mara's ears perk a little bit. She looks up, yawning a fangy, lazy yawn, and proceeds to look at them all with the 'what'd I miss' look cats tend to have upon awakening.

Makyon trots over to her. "So Dewei," he calls back, while patting Mara's head, "if you're ready, we can go ahead and get everyone together to get Mara wherever she needs to go."

"Okay," Dewei nods. "Do we need to drag Master Iscovis along?" He looks across the way to where the psychic is apparently still napping. "He must be really tired."

Iscovis only snores more loudly, as if in response.

Makyon shrugs. "Psychics are strange. But we could certainly wake him." The slip mage trots over and jiggles Iscovis's chair amusedly, gives it a push only to watch it float.

"Hm?" The psychic snorts when he jolts awake. "Gah..! I'm up, where are my pants, whose pants are these??"

Ting can't resist, and pops into being right in front of him, leaning over on her knees. "Those would be mine! Don't you remember your makeover, silly?"

And damned if his pants aren't pink.

Iscovis glances down. Looks back at Ting, perfectly serious. "This reminds me of my third midlife crisis."

"So wanna have a fourth?"

"My last three involved women a lot younger than me." Iscovis blinks.

"So that's a yes." Makyon answers for him, amused to no end by this crippled old pervert.

Ting snickers, and pats Iscovis's head. "Poor you. You're cute. We're going to go put Aunt in her new body-ish thing. Wanna come?"

"I suppose so. You will need me for that, as it turns out." Iscovis would shrug, if he could. "Someone snag her, and we can get this overwith in a hurry."

"Yay! I've got the old guy, who's got the kitty?"

Dewei smiles, and picks Mara up. "Got her."

Mara looks questioningly at Dewei, and proceeds to push her head against his chest approvingly.

"Then let's get going."

Ting nods, raises a hand grandly, and then they all appear on Istan aiga.

---

While chaos mild only by this particular clique's standards unfolds on the nether plane, Felina finishes clearing her mind for an intensive scry in one of her father's seeing rooms, cross-legged and naked in the middle of the floor. Phenhine...she's familiar with the name, barely, but only with the name, and as a mention of family relations as opposed to something relevant. She knows Spintrius's signature now, fully.

The watcher breathes out a long, long breath, and her eyes finally open slowly, glowing faintly. So let's trace backward into Spintrius's past.

Images race along, most familiar to Felina at first. Stasiel, his capture, his resignation, the attack on Radivishe Moorn and his own direct hand in the slaying, his ambush of Ale and subsequent memory-altering spell cast against the young Vanguard. The incident at Minna's house in Alfheim. A long period of watching and waiting, including three dummy attacks against the house. 

Further back. A pale woman, white-haired. Black-haired, a mention of dying it, anonymity. A beautiful ghost woman with black lips. Secret kisses shared between angel and Dumen. A plot to restore something.

A sentence floats across the mindscape, in Spintrius's brassy voice.

"I kidnap this girl for you, as a dowry to you? Fine. We'll restore your universe together."

A place forms. Another world, a familiar one.

Wu Yuan. A house outside the city walls. A red door.

Felina's eyes finally open, slowly. It's another twenty seconds before she blinks, and they focus. Wu Yuan? Of course. Right where she'd sent Minna. She sighs quietly as she reaches for her clothes. Great. Well...she knows the house, anyway. Has passed it once or twice.

"Hey, Felina, we... good lord!" The crashing sound of a certain Vanguard angel toppling over backwards in his haste to cover his eyes is practically cacophony.

Felina has to smirk, eyes sparkling with amusement. "What?" She looks down, a hand near her chest. "They're boobs. I've got a pair. They don't bite, and I barely have them anyway." She snickers quietly, having now gotten her kicks for the day as she pulls on her one-piece undergarment. "Openness is important to psychic ability. I remove my clothes for intensive scrying. Heart failure aside, what were you saying?" She still has that amused little smile on an edge of her lips.

"... we need to talk, I was going to say, before my eyes were burned just now." Ale sits up, looking away until she's covered sufficiently. "Spintrius told me about his contact. Not everything, mind you, only that she's Dumen like your husband. But a full-blood female. That makes her damned dangerous, if she's against us."

Felina frowns a bit, and nods. "To everyone, certainly, but especially to anyone of the male variety." Considers quietly as she slips on her jacket. "Ting could counteract partially, she's developed her voice damn near where it would be if she were full-blooded...but I'm afraid she simply doesn't have the focus to really challenge an experienced dumen woman yet."

"I wish I could give you more information," Ale wilts a little, "but I sort of beat the hell out of Spintrius for making me a patsy. He won't talk now." Not that it had been that easy. Ale's entire body aches from being pounded and slammed into things. It had made for a hell of a bar fight.

"Well, he had it coming anyway," Felina observes. "I still haven't slapped him for impaling me earlier. Though, while I find that impressive enough I probably won't, there are plenty of other things to kick him for." She finishes buttoning her collar. "Feel better for it?"

"Not really," Ale admits. "He was always good to me. He looked out for me when I was new at this angel thing. Taught me to fight, even. I mean... even after I outranked him, he was teaching me things. It's like beating up my dad, or something."

"Ah...I'm sorry things went down this way, then." It's sincere. She's been in his exact place well...more than once. It sucks. A lot. She decides that dwelling on it will only make it harder, though, not easier, so she goes on as she straps on her sword belt, the one with the black sword and its wicked aura first. "Phenhine, the last I just saw, was on the nether plane, in Wu Yuan."

Ale actually cringes at the sight of it. That sword... well. It is well known. If Moorn had been in the same half-spectral shape he had been when Felina had used that to dispatch him, then Ale, Spintrius, and two hundred angels would be lying dead outside of Istan Aiga right now.

"She must be able to go back and forth then," Ale notes, "since pure angels have trouble existing outside of our realm. Spintrius couldn't have gone to her."

Felina nods. "Likely from here, anyway. There aren't many dumen on the nether plane. Some, since a couple managed to escape way back when with a reversed summoning, but the vast majority of the admittedly tiny number of survivors were found and placed by ether Guardians." Clasps her second vambrace shut, thoughtful. "I can approximate where she is here, at least where her family is and she was born, for your reference. In the meantime, I'm going to go pay a visit to the place in my vision. Particularly since Minna's on the nether plane right now." She frowns a bit at that, and draws Culheru to check its edge with her thumb.

"Just be careful. If she was cautious enough to go through so many channels to get to this point, she's got to have defenses ready." Ale smiles at the swords. "Sorry," he laughs, "but seeing you with those swords is quite an honor. You're a legend, you know."

Felina has to smile just a little. "'Mortal who gets into the most trouble on a bi-weekly basis?'"

"You have an award for that, actually." Ale beams, feeling flattered beyond belief. And he's got the hots for her daughter, too! Speaking of which... "do you know if Ting's okay, by the way?"

Felina nods. "She's fine. Resting comfortably in a vampiress friend's keep. Actually, I have the sneaking suspicion that she's awake now, though I don't know why." Sheaths her sword. "Here...I need to do something, I'll draw you a quick chart of something as we walk," Felina notes, a pen and stiff paper materializing in front of her to take.

Ale nods, and follows. He's relieved to hear that, beyond description.

"All right...this is just a quick background of who I think Phenine is. This family here and this family here..." one quick explanation later, drawing from a concise knowledge of the limited number of dumen families in existance, and the chart's capped with a crudely sketched map of the region and where what she suspects is Phenine's family and home sits on it." She holds the paper out to the side a little to the angel. "Make sense, my obvious artistic prowess aside?" She's stick figure challenged.

"Actually, yeah," he laughs. "If you can read military 'hurry the hell up' scrawls, you can read anything."

Felina cuts two flowers as they walk with an easily-drawn Culheru, picking them up to herself on the tip of the sword and taking them gently. "Oh, stars..." she shakes her head as she sheathes it and she and the angel head down the final little path to where she's going, a cherry-lined clearing. "The only thing I miss about the military is the gratuitous number of recon missions. Subterfuge is fun."

"Isn't it?" It's sort of what he does. "What's with the flowers, though?"

Felina takes a knee before the two small, etched obelisks before them. Sets one flower in front of one of them, and bows her head respectfully a few moments, then repeats it with the smaller one, before looking back up to Ale as she unclips her sword's scabbard and sets it in the grass in front of her. Smiles. "They're gifts."

Ale blinks. Stops. "Oh..." and kneels in respectful homage. Her family, no doubt.

Felina smiles at him a little for it. Her manner isn't casual, certainly, but it's relaxed in its formality. No fear or discomfort or sadness in approaching this as she looks back ahead. "Ale...these are Master Tel-tiono, on the right, and my elder brother Saea on the left. Father, Saea...this is Ale, an Archangel and ally."

The angel really doesn't know what to say. Only to set his guns aside. "Hello," he whispers quietly, wondering abjectly if this is going to get any creepier.

Yeah, pretty much. Felina, her power cloaks fully down for only these visits, proceeds to brief her dearly departed conversationally on what's been going on with her own family, omitting her pregnancy since she wants to be able to spend more time on it, and briefly touches the current situation, enough to explain that Deru is gone and they'll be coming to live here awhile. Keeps it fairly short, though, since she's fairly sure Ale won't go anywhere since she's done.

"...whatever happens, father, I swear that I will make you proud, and continue to honor your name. I'll be back to talk to you again later...and Saea too, of course." Kisses her hand, and presses it to the earth. "Rest well, both of you."

And damned if there isn't a calm, supportive aura in the air, entirely removed from Felina's energy.

"Mozoltov," Ale nods, not really knowing what else to say. He's amazingly uncomfrotable in this sort of situation, and cannot stress that enough.

Felina collects her weapon and stands, smirking back at Ale a bit. "Right. Sorry, didn't really mean that you had to stay for this. I'm just cycling through ways to make you uncomfortable, you see."

"I liked the first one better," the angel notes, gathering his guns. "That's a lot of devotion, to keep coming back here, you know. Humans stop doing it after a few decades."

"I love my family dearly," Felina nods. Bows to the spires, and heads for the clearing opening. "Really, I didn't know my father long at all. I met him when I was thirty, and he died in my early eighties. But in that time, I was shaped entirely. I love him dearly and wish nothing but to honor his name. And Saea, well..." she smiles a bit. "I was created to protect him. He was very literally my reason to exist."

"And here you are, protecting everyone. Sounds to me like you're doing your family proud, miss ma'am." 

Felina smirks amusedly at the "miss ma'am" bit. "I hope so. A dear wish is that it's possible to earn your way into having a soul, so that I can join them when I die. It's a strange thing, being a construct." Blinks. "Yes. Well, ending personal melodrama, and getting back to business, is there anything else you needed?"

"A scotch and soda, and so do you, but later." He nods. "I want to see Ting, though. I hope it isn't an affront."

"Certainly not. Will you be okay on the nether plane, though, if only for a few minutes?"

"Not really." He smiles a little. "I don't care."

"Short visit, then," Felina observes. She's slightly familiar with the problem he's describing, mostly bolstered by the idea of how her crystal works, since the technical aspect is fundamentally similar. She should be able to help support his energy...for a little. "If, of course, you're sure. You may need your strength for whatever comes next, you know."

"I'm not sure about anything at this point," Ale admits. "But I want to see Ting."

Felina nods slowly, considering. "She won't likely even be lucid," she observes. "It wasn't a dangerous energy drain by a long shot, but she's been in a deep sleep for awhile."

Ale grits his teeth, finally. "Please stop trying to convince me not to go, Felina." It's not a request, either, so much as a desperate demand.

Felina closes her eyes, aquiecsing. "Fair enough. You have five minutes, for both your sakes." And a deep purple slit cuts into the air before them.

Ale steps into it without hesitation. He hopes Felina can understand, and is sure she can, despite that inevitable youthful 'you don't understand me!' complex.

And she follows after him, cutting transit time by taking them directly to the second floor keep.

---

When they get back, a shoved Ale first and Felina a few moments after, she smirks a bit. "Aww, how sweet. You should take a couple minutes to recover here. The entire estate is restorative. Are you okay?"

Ale pushes himself up, arms straining despite his fitness. "That was so worth it," he laughs, touching his cheek where Ting had kissed it. "I feel like I'm going to implode. I'll be fine, though. Remind me to kick Yue's shapely ass later."

"I'll do that." Felina helps him find a more comfortable sitting position, and finally satisfies herself that he won't disintigrate after a few moments. "If you'll be okay here, then, I need to go look into finding Phenhine."

"I'm fine. And I'm sorry if I seem too attached to your daughter already. The last I saw of her was during the demon attack, or not long before the second one anyway, and I was worried. Go do your thing." He smiles for her.

"Uh-huh." Felina's smile is amused. And he's risked death to see her even after being assured that she was okay by a truste source...why then? "Take care, Ale. If you keep feeling weak, head towards the house...there's a room near the kitchen that's more or less bare, just some sleeping mats and simple decoration, that's sharply energy restorative. And then another portal later--she makes sure to check on how the Barrier's feeling, by this time--and she heads to Wu Yuan.