A Collision Of Worlds

[Angel]

Jinx was on the verge of snapping that Trent must be just as blind if he's never known Topaz and her four siblings existed, but the sound of swearing drifting into the room behind Nova was enough to make her forget her planned retort. "No, we don't," she replied calmly to the other pup. Scout, whose voice she had quickly recognised, was one of the smarter pups on the farm - smart enough, at least, that he'd know better than to tangle with her - so really, he was no threat. "He's just here for-"

And then Scout threw himself into the room, tackling his sister to the ground. Nova let out a yelp and struggled furiously, any and all of her paws that were within reach striking her brother's face repeatedly as he doggedly struggled to hold her down. "I knew it! You're working with them!" the girl barked out furiously.

"The hell I am!" Scout bellowed back, struggling to keep Nova pinned and fend off her attacks at the same time, and succeeding with the former but not the latter, as her paws continued to rain blows upon his muzzle and face. "I'm trying to - OUCH! - save your bloody life so dad doesn't murder me for letting Jinx - Ugh! - beat the shit out of you!"

Ignoring the struggling siblings, Jinx stepped around them to face Jon. She didn't know him, but he wasn't one of Angel's - that was all that mattered. "We're waiting for someone here," she stated, a look that was half way bettween a smirk and a sneer seeming to have become fixed onto her maw. "We've got a little business to take care of. Personal business. Trent'll leave with you once we've taken care of that, not before."

---

"Arya?" Ace repeated thoughtfully, looking from the pup they were following to his own sister, and back again. The coincidences were getting stranger. What were the chances that they both looked similar and had sisters with the same name. Idly, he wondered if the male's other sister was named Flaysh or Topayz... well, probably not, but the similarity was amusing, at any rate.

"Yes?" Unsure, Aria was as she limped along behind them, if Ace had been addressing her, or just repeating the name Bran had given them. They sounded so similar that, in honesty, it was a bit disconcerting. Ace chuckled, turning his head to look at her.

"It's Arya, Aria," The male was quickly becoming way too amused by this. "We're looking for Arya. Arya, Aria, Arya." He shook his head as Aria flashed him a dark look.

[Mo]

Jon shot a confused look at Trent, ears perking up. Trent stared back with a solemn look, a true poker face if Jon ever saw one. "What kind of business...?" Jon asked uncertainly, almost dreading his answer.
"It's none of your concern," Trent replied quickly.
Milo stood there, shying away from the fray as well as Jinx. She wasn't familiar but he could tell she wasn't someone who liked to be messed with. He hoped Trent would hurry up and get home with him and Jon... and abandon whatever "business" he planned on doing with Jinx.
"We need to get Milo home," Jon tried to reason.
"As if I care."
Milo whimpered almost indignantly at this and Jon snarled. "Get over it! We'll be slaughtered by Lucky and Two-Tone if we keep this brat here any longer!"
"Did you hear what I just said?" Trent was now getting hostile, curled tail slanting down now. "I. Don't. CARE."
Jon just stared hard at Trent. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew Jinx had done something with his friend; his gaze shifted toward the female pom mix suspiciously. "What did you tell him?" he asked reproachfully, and eyebrow raising in question.

---

"...Huh...?"
Bran was thoroughly confused. "Her name is Aria too...?"
He sat down and rubbed his temples with a paw, trying to think this out, but in between this and the fact that Sansa was probably furious and ready to beat his head in by now, it was hard.
And speaking of Sansa...
"BRAN!! I called for you a hundred times!" Sansa came rushing toward them now, face twisted with anger. "We need to find Arya and if we--!"
She stared at Ace and Aria, befuddlement now replacing the anger and panic. She tilted her head to the side and asked, "...Who are they...? Bran, what have I told you about talking with strangers!"
She bowed her head quickly to the two dogs. "I apologize," she said quickly, embarassedly, almost. "My brother's a bit... absent-minded." She shot Bran a look, which he did not notice, still staring at the ground trying to make sense of all this, almost like he would find the answers in the wooded floor. "May I ask of you your names?" Sansa continued politely, trying to be composed and ladylike even in this time of crisis.

[Angel]

Jinx watched Jon and Trent's quarrel with disinterest, completely ignoring the struggling, cursing tangle of limbs that was Scout and Nova. The outcome honestly didn't matter so much to her - even if he didn't stay, at least she knew Trent wouldn't let him get pushed around by the rest of Angel's kids anymore. When Jon turned to her, Jinx shrugged. "Oh, I just helped him figure out a couple of things. He'd've figured them out on his own eventually anyway," she returned casually, looking away from the others, one ear pricked for any sound of Ace and his sibling(s) approaching.

"She'll have been turning him against Angel's pups!" the cry came within the cloud of dust that marked the struggling siblings, followed by a pained yelp as Scout took advantage of his sister's distraction to shove her hard against the floor, face down, and sit on her back. Nova continued to struggle without really achieving anything with the older pup's weight pressing down on her. Relieved that he'd finally got her where he wanted her, Scout began tending as best he could to a particularly painful bruise on his jaw.

---

"I'm Ace," the male of the two was quick to reply. "And this is Aria. Like Arya, Aria, not your Arya, but still Ari-"

Aria cut in front of her brother, clamping one forepaw over his mouth to stop his tirade of her and Arya's names, although the motion caused her to wobble dangerously on her two remaining paws. She quickly lowered her other forepaw back to the ground, although Ace seemed to have got the message and didn't continue his diatribe.

"And my brother's a bit easily amused," she replied, equally appologetic, once she had all three paws firmly on the ground again. "Like he said, I'm Aria." She shot Ace a look that dared him to say anything else, which he thankfully didn't. While she was grateful for any time spent with her three older siblings (since Topaz didn't really count), the white-furred male could still be a pain in the rear when he wanted to be.

"Do you need help with finding your sister?" she asked, limping forward to look up at the older female. She knew Bran had asked Ace for help, but thought she'd better make sure with this girl, too, since she looked to be the one in charge of the pair.

"Your sister Arya, like Ar..." Ace trailed off as his own little sister glowered at him again, and busied himself with studying the architecture, still mumbling the names 'Aria' and 'Arya' with some amusement under his breath.

[Mo]

Jon gaped, not able to say much of anything at this. He wasn't all that trusting of what Nova had to say, as, knowing her, she was probably just about as sane as a psychopath... but even things like that had to be based off some shred of truth. Trent simply nodded with a triumphant grin at his friend... well, former now-- and also pricked his ears at the sound of the other kin of Angel approaching.
Milo trembled underneath Jon, nuzzling close to the older dog's leg. "Wh-who's coming?" he asked warily, one ear sticking up curiously as he listened.

---

Sansa snorted impatiently at Ace's little outburst, not impresssed with such childish humor. However she gave a thankful grin to Aria and replied, "Oh, that would be very kind of you." She began to turn tail and continued, "Just follow me, if you please. I've got my sister's scent tracked and she didn't even bother to wipe off her paws--" she shuddered at the thought "--so she should be easy to find."
When she noticed Bran was still sitting like a lump on a log with a hard, determined stare in his eyes as he tried to figure out exactly which sibling eachother was talking about, Sansa nudged his backside just a touch and said crossly, "Come ON, Bran."

---

Arya snapped at the lithe little moth, again failing to catch it, but stubbornly she continued to chase it. She leaped all around the old abandoned room, knocking over glassware and pulling down sheets and ripping wallpaper in her venture. Eventually the moth flitted through an open space in the window and Arya gave up, but when she did she noticed she was all alone here.
"Uh... Bran?" he called out a little quietly. "...Sansa...?"
Nothing.
Arya lifted both her ears in a radar position and tried to listen to the telltale footsteps of her siblings, but she heard nothing but the whistling of air through holes in the walls and ceilings. She whimpered a bit but kept her tail high. She'd find them-- she was an adventurer, and adventurers never got lost.
...Hardly ever got lost, at least.

[Angel]

"No-one, yet." Jinx's ear twitched again as she listened. They were no longer alone in the mansion, that was for sure, but the puppies of Angel she'd seen entering weren't near enough to be able to hear anything other than the occasional, very distant sound that revealed more presences. "You lot -" a paw indicated pointedly at Jon, Milo, Scout and Nova - "should wait in here and keep out of our way until we've finished." She was already planning to lock them in the current room; she and Trent couldn't break Angel's sons and daughters with an audience, and she didn't trust any of them not to interfere. She waved her new partner-in-crime out of the room ahead of her. Nova renewed her struggled to get up, but with no success, and Jinx only continued to ignore her.

---

"Wait a minute," finally getting over his amusement, Ace cut in front of Aria, who had been about to follow Sansa without question. Easily amused he may have been, but Ace wasn't a complete idiot, and if nothing else, knew better than to follow a pair of strange pups into a potentially dangerous ruin with his little sister in tow. "Can we at least get your names first, too?" He had figured out the male's name was Bran from the number of times his sister had called him, but they still didn't know anything much about the girl herself. And there was something about her that he couldn't place, as well, but seemed familiar...

"Ace?" Leaning up towards her brother, Aria voiced exactly what the white-furred male hadn't been able to put his paw on. "Is it me, or does she look a lot like mommy?"

---

Estelle hadn't bothered following her newfound half-brother and his little band to confront Jinx and whoever else, figuring that he and Scout could handle it and she wouldn't get in the way. Instead, the dark-pelted female with the fluffy ears had continued straight down the corridor, back down the stairs, back on herself twice, until she'd finally reached a room she hadn't found before. One that looked a complete wreck, judging by the shredded wallpaper, shattered glasswear and more, all of which looked like only recent damage. It didn't occur to Estelle that the vandal, were they still present, might be hostile; another unforseen side effect of having been shut away from the reality of the outside world for so many years.

"Is someone else here?" she called out loudly, her voice echoing strangely around the abandoned room. She prodded a particularly large piece of the broken glass with one outstrected claw, giving any other potential presences the chance to speak before saying anything else. No point continuing to talk to an empty room, anyway.

[Mo]

Trent nodded the affirmative to his new-found Partner before giving a withering glance to his friends. "You heard her."
Jon was simply incredulous. He didn't know what he could do to stop Trent, nor did he have any idea what this Jinx girl had done to change his best friend's demeanor so drastically. He simply just watched Trent leave with a gaping look of disbelief, shaking his head slowly.
Milo looked up at him in concern but said nothing. He too was thoroughly confused and also watched Trent leave with a look of disbelief.
"Should we lock them in there, then?" Trent asked in a murmur to Jinx once they crossed the threshold.

-------

Sansa turned to face Ace and chittered to herself quietly. "Ah, where are my manners? Yes, my name is Sansa, and this is my brother Bran," she explained with a polite smile on her face. Bran nodded silently to affirm this fact but said nothing.
Though Aria had whispered it, Sansa had caught what she'd said, and she pricked her ears in curiosity. "Oh?" she asked, tilting her head to the side a bit. "Who's your mother? I know I look a lot like my own mother, but surely you can't be the kin of Angel as well--"

-------

Arya's ears pricked at the sound of a voice. She'd wandered to the back of the room and under an old moth-bitten bed to scour for anything she could drag home with her, but now she poked her head out from under a bundle of sheets with a curious expression on her face. There she saw Estelle there, playing around with a piece of glass that she'd likely flung across the room.
Happily she sprung out from under the covers and bounded toward the older dog. She knew it wasn't good to talk to strangers, but Arya didn't care; she was always happy to find someone new to play with, even if this dog was quite a bit older than her. "Hiya!" she barked. She lowered herself closer to the ground, tail wagging in her cheer. "I'm here! I didn't know there were other dogs around. Wanna help me catch moths? The last one I tried to eat got away, and two heads are always better than one!" Little girl got a little carried away but still she sat there with a huge, panting grin on her face, eagerly awaiting Estelle's response. She was ignorant of any danger that may have awaited her here, willfully so, because she'd came in here to play around and explore in the first place-- nothing was going to ruin her good time.

[Angel]

"Of course." To Jinx, the question of whether they should or not wasn't even an issue. Nova might have been an idiot, but she did certainly know how to stick her muzzle where it wasn't wanted, and she wouldn't put it past that other guy, Jon, to try and interfere too. As soon as they were out the door, Jinx pushed it closed, then leapt up to smack the key into a locked position.

"There." She smirked for a moment, then slid her muzzle closer to the floorboards, listening and sniffing. "Now, let's find us some of Angel's kids to hurt..."

---

Sansa and Bran, right... Aria nodded to acknowledge the names. And then blinked as Sansa not only picked up on her whispered question, but answered with what Aria could only think of as an impossibility. She glanced at Ace, who looked just as surprised, but just not stunned into silence the way she was.

"Ah... we kinda are," the male replied, frowning, and it was clear to Aria what was going through his head. She didn't know much about their half-siblings other than what Topaz had unthinkingly let slip that one time, but she knew that they hated her and her siblings and mom, and she figured that Ace was worrying that these two would be just as bitter. Or maybe she was just assuming that he was concerned about the same thing that she was.

"So, uh, how..." Ace frowned, at a complete loss to explain what he was seeing. He couldn't imagine when mom could ever have had more pups; he'd heard the story from mom herself, although Angel had been very reluctant and it had only been him and Thunder she'd told the rough details to. But how could these three fit in? "Um, anyway, who's your dad?" he asked at length. "I mean ours is Patch, but it would be crazy if he was yours as well and we didn't know anything about you."

Or maybe this girl was just wacko like Luanna, the girl who thought she was the daughter of mom and Miss Rebecca, created by aliens, so he kept his guard up. Crazy people like that could sometimes prove dangerous, and he wasn't about to let Aria get hurt.

---

"Sure, why not? I got nothing better to do." In truth, Estelle was pleased by the invitation; all the more reason to stay around here longer and pospone having to face mom afterwards. She, too had been told not to talk to strangers - but the day the part-dobermann actually took her mother's instructions to heart would be the day Earth stopped spinning, or whatever that saying was supposed to be. "There's a whole bunch of others upstairs," she added, belatedly addressing Arya's statement about other dogs. "Scout and his sister, some guy named Milo and a half-brother I didn't know about called Jon..." she shrugged, as if to say that it wasn't important anyhow.

"Did you break all this stuff?" she asked enthusiastically, changing the subject and waving a paw to take in the wreck of the room. "It looks like fun!" That was one thing she'd never do at home, trashing the place like this - while Estelle didn't much care how far she disobeyed mom, she did respect her grandparents, who had made a point of backing Annette up on that one, apparently for her own good, so their pets had remained blissfully unaware of how much damage Estelle could have wrought otherwise. The idea of doing as much here, though, where no-one would care, was one that was incredibly appealing.

[Mo]

((Revivinggggg~))

Sansa could only gape at Ace's reply. She just stared, jaw slackened and hanging open in a most unladylike fashion. This... who... how could this even be possible?! Bran just stared at Ace like he'd grown a third eye on his forehead, equally as confused as his big sister... though he was more curious than horrified.
"You're lying," Sana murmured quietly. "Liars. Liars, it's not true! It's impossible!" She almost screamed the last words out, furious and scared of these pups. There was no way in all of hell that these mongrels were the children of her parents! It wasn't possible in any way, shape, or form!
They simply had to be lying. They were trying to trick them in some way. She didn't know how or for what, but she lowered her head with her teeth bared, legs splayed in a defensive stance. The fur on her hackles rose dangerously just to complete the image.
Bran, however, did not follow his sister's plan of action. Instead he simply exclaimed, "R-really?! Wh... how...? How are you our siblings? Did Mom and Dad... hide you somewhere?"
"Bran, don't press the issue. I don't trust them."
"But what if they--"
"NO. Bran, they're lying. There's no way that... that..." Sansa sputtered, then looked up at Ace. "...Is there...?"

---

Trent recognized the scent from anywhere. He'd reached the bottom of the staircase, and his head whipped up from the ground as he figured out just who this familiar smell belonged to. He was a bit confused... but not dissatisfied. Sansa and Bran were definitely here. This made things much easier.
"Well," he muttered. "The more the merrier. Looks like we have some company," he told Jinx with an eager grin.

---

"YEAH! It's a ton of fun!" Arya yipped in glee, delighted that even though this dog was older, she was just as eager to roughhouse as she was. "I bet you can't pull down that curtain over there," she added in a sly, challenging voice, gesturing to a dirty old curtain half-covering a dirt-stained window. "Extra points if you tear it up a little!"
She was about to tug the sheets off the bed she'd just been hiding under, when suddenly, a realization dawned upon the little girl. "Wait... did you say Jon?" she asked. "And Milo too?"
She dropped the fabric she'd been gripping with her teeth and turned to Estelle with a expression that was curious and, in a way, concerned. "Jon's my brother... half brother," she added a little reluctantly, hating to use that term to clarify. "And Milo's my cousin. I thought Jon was looking after Milo for Auntie Two-Tone and Uncle Lucky back on the farm...?"

---

Meanwhile, Jon just stood, staring at the closed door with a look that spelled pure hurt. He couldn't believe what was happening. Something had happened to Trent. Somehow, that girl had twisted his mind into doing something, something Jon just knew in the pit of his belly was nothing very good.
Milo had no idea what to do. He just stood there underneath Jon, looking at the door, back up to Jon, and back again repeatedly... he just didn't know what he could do or say the could fix anything. He barley even knew what was going on. Trent had just left them and locked them in this room with Scout and Nova, off to do some sort of mysterious business...
"...Now what...?"
Milo finally spoke up, and glanced back up at Jon again in hopes of getting some sort of answer. Jon just shook his head. "I guess... we'll just wait until they come back."
"What if they don't come back?" Milo asked, suddenly panicked. "What if we stay locked up in here forever and we have to start eating eachother in order to survive until there's no-one left and our bones will be sitting in here until the end of time--"
"MILO. That's not going to happen."
"...But what if--"
"No."
"Yeah but--"
"No."

[Angel]

"We are NOT just gonna sit around and wait! Jinx is gonna be causing pain and misery and I need to stop her!" Although the fact that Scout was still sitting on her kind of contradicted her words, especially since her brother clearly wasn't planning on moving anytime soon. Evidently, he was in league with Jinx, there was no question of it in Nova's mind - there was no other reason he would have stopped her from taking the doberman-mix down. For a moment, her gaze wondered across to the less-familiar pups who were locked in with the two siblings.

"Hey, will one of you get future-supervillain off my back? I need to stop Jinx and save her victim!" What if it was Aria? The possibility filled Nova with genuine dread. Little Aria was one of the few pups who could bring out an otherwise-unseen caring, protective facet of Nova's personality, and the thought of Jinx and her new lackey ganging up on the three-pawed girl while Scout held her prisoner here...

No! She wouldn't allow it! She resumed her struggles more desperately than before, causing Scout to have to struggle to keep her down, although somehow he still managed to avoid being dislodged.

---

"I'm NOT lying!" Aria flared up angrily, her own maw pulling back into a snarl that revealed her tiny puppy-teeth. "How dare you?" Ace's eyes widened, and he quickly inserted himself between Aria and Sansa. His sister - well, the one he knew - was more of a danger to herself than anyone else those times when she would get angry, but this Sansa wouldn't know that, and if she reacted badly - well, worse than she already was - to Aria's challenging manner, things would get messy real quick, especially for the younger girl. Ace wasn't about to let that happen.

"Can we maybe discuss this calmly?" he implored the two girls. An odd thing for Ace, the pup who was willing to throw himself into the midst of any fight-in-progress for no other reason than for fun, to want; however right now Aria's safety was forefront in Ace's mind. "I dunno how we can all be siblings, but there's no reason for anyone to get hurt over it, right?"

---

Jinx nodded. Her nose - self-trained to recognise the scent of Angel's spawn anywhere, had already picked up four pups whose scents matched, although she could only identify Ace and Aria's. How had Angel and Patch had more offspring when she wasn't looking?

Well, it didn't matter. She and Trent would break them, just the same, there was no question of that. "Follow my lead," she muttered to her new partner, already closing in on the scent's source. "You take the boys, I'll take the girls... crush their spirits completely, it doesn't matter how. So long as they're left as gibbering, crying wrecks by the end of it, the means don't matter."

---

"Oh, you'd be surprised," the doberman-cocker-mix grinned, eyes narrowing at the curtain. It looked old and heavy, some kind of thick fabric, but nothing she couldn't handle. The larger girl's short tail twitched back and forth behind her as she made to charge at the curtain - and then paused.

"That must make you one of Uncle Patch's right?" she asked, curious in spite of herself about the family relationships here. "'cause you don't look anything like my mom." She scratched behind one fluffy ear with a forepaw, dislodging more of the cobweb that had got caught in it earlier. These family relationships she'd never known about were strating to confuse her. "And who's Two-Tone? I know uncle Lucky, but I've never heard that name before," she added, puzzled.

Then shook her head, as if to clear it. Right now, ripping up that curtain was more important that getting answers, so that was exactly what she was going to do. Without further ado, Estelle hurled herself at the heavy curtain. Somehow, the cocker-cross managed to get herself fully tangled inside the thick fabric, and it was her struggles to free herself that brought not only the curtain but the rail it was attatched to crashing down about her. Finally, looking rather dishevled, Estelle's head reappeared through a rip in the fabric that she'd managed to tear with her blunted claws. "Wish I could do this at home," she breathed, looking satisfied with her work.

[Mo]

Jon watched Nova's kicking and struggling with one raised eyebrow, and said simply, "I don't think that's happening. Unless you've got any ideas on how to get out of here. The door is locked."
Milo, who had been pacing around muttering to himself about how he was probably going to die of dysentery due to all the rotting things inside the place before he died of starvation, halted in mid-stride. "WHAT?! It's locked?!"
Jon padded up to the door and idly swatted at the knob, which didn't budge no matter how many times he clawed at it. "Locked down tighter than Fort Knox."
"And we're LOCKED IN HERE FOREVER, SON OF A FUCK."
"Milo, language."
"No Jon, YOU language!"
But Milo didn't snap back any more and Jon didn't bother to scold him more for talking back. Milo resumed his pacing and muttering, while Jon, after rolling his eyes exasperatedly, glanced at Scout and asked, "...I don't suppose you have any ideas of how we could unlock the door...?"

---

Sansa was nearly about to pounce and wrestle the three-legged dog to the ground in her indignity at the outburst, but thankfully Ace leapt between the two girls before she could do so much as crouch. Bran nudged his sister at the scruff of her neck swiftly and said firmly, "Calm down, sis. They didn't do anything wrong."
Sansa shook her head, extremely guilty at what she had done. "Oh my goodness... I... I'm so sorry... I don't know what I was thinking. You're right, you're right. We need to find Arya-- OUR Arya-- as soon as we can. Mom and Dad will be furious if we're not home before dusk."
Bran nodded without a word. He hated how Sansa had a tendency to overreact to everything, and this time she'd nearly hurt a young pup (a crippled one, no less!) in her fury. But he didn't voice this. He was worried about Arya, especially in this big place. It was easy to lose her around the property at their house, and here... here he wondered if they would find her at all.
"Let's go," he said, turning to trek down a hallway, dark as pitch but in his desperation to find his sister he couldn't care less.
"Yes, let's," Sansa quickly followed her little brother's lead, hoping that her mistake wouldn't cause more trouble than it was worth in the long run.

---

"Y-yeah," Arya replied. "Patch is my daddy. But..."
Before she could reply more, Estelle had launched herself to the curtain, sending it crashing down-- hanging rod and all-- straight onto the ground in a sudden puff of dust. She laughed seeing Estelle's head popping out from in-between the rip in the fabric, and commented, "It's fun, isn't it? I don't do it much at home, cuz when I do I get put out on a leash out back and that's not fun," she explained with a look of distaste. "Not to be nosy but... where do you live, anywho? You said Patch was your uncle but... I don't recognize you..."

[Saving my post for Trent until later... I've got a plan >:3]

[Angel]

"No, you've got to let me up!" Nova was honestly panicking now. She honestly didn't know which of Angel's pups Jinx was after this time, but she'd seen the emotional state the domerman-cross had left Flash in that one time, and if it was her best friend who was in Jinx's sights now... no-no-no-please-no... "What if it's Aria? I can't let Jinx hurt her, I just can't!" Distraught pup was distraught, and she rapidly began fighting harder than ever to throw Scout off her.

For his part, he hate his sister though he did, even Scout couldn't remain completely unmoved by her distress. After all, wouldn't he be just as desperate of it was Leon or - goodness forbid it - Spaghetti who was potentially in trouble? And he'd met Aria before, once - she wasn't at all insane like Nova, she was a sweet little thing - and despite Nova's characterisation of him as an unscrupulous monster, Scout was well aware of the injustice it would be to let Jinx emotionally harm such a young and relatively innocent pup.

"Okay. Alright," he finally conceeded, though he still glowered at Nova as though this was all her fault. "But if you get beaten to a pulp by Jinx, just make sure dad knows that it WASN'T my fault," he growled, steeling himself and (after slamming her jaw into the floor once more for good measure) releasing Nova. Instantly, the girl sprung to her feet and, all but ignoring Scout in her current state of desperation, began prowling the room in search of some way out.

"Help me!" she pleaded, taking Milo by the shoulders and shaking him again momentarily, before resuming her frantic search for an escape. There had to be something... any weakness or gap in the walls or floor that she'd be able to make it out of. At this point, Nova would have settled for a mousehole, despite the obvious impossibility of fitting herself through one. She just had to get OUT and help Aria!

---

Aria frowned after Sansa and Bran, feeling like a fool. She'd let her sense of anger (no matter how justified) at being called a liar get the better of her, and nearly got herself seriously hurt in the process. Not even she could have failed to feel the hostility in the mom-lookalike's glare, and she knew that if the two males hadn't stepped in... well, she didn't even want to think about what might have happened. She didn't even look up as Ace nudged her shoulder gently. "Everything I say just makes things worse," she mumbled, still simply staring in the direction their supposed siblings had gone in.

"C'mon," Ace nudged her with his paw once again. Never the best at saying anything remotely reassuring, he still made a valiant effort "look, let's help them find Ar- ah, their Arya. Maybe that'll make up for it? If we help them, they might be more willing to listen and we'll be able to sort the whole thing out, okay?"

Aria wasn't so optimistic. She was a clumsy loser, and every time she tried to help out she just messed everything up... but she didn't want to make Ace feel as though his attempts were in vain, so she just nodded weakly and, pushing herself to her three paws, trotted unenthusiastically after Bran and Sansa, Ace easily keeping pace with her.

"Hey, guys!" as they closed the distance, the male pulled ahead, catching up to their previously-unknown counterparts. "No hard feelings, right? We'll help find your sister if you want."

---

"Well, he's only my uncle through Aunt Angel, so not directly... but I live with mom. Annette." It felt odd to use her mother's actual name, honestly. "She kept me hidden for years though, until she and Pooka - he's my stepdad - got together. I think she thought I was too special to mix with the rest of the world, so I never knew any pups except my closest cousins... no-one else really knew I existed."

She made a face. "Hated it. I don't care if I'm special, I'd rather have had friends. Mom just sucked at being a mom in general until Pooka helped her, actually. I give her a hard time for that, but..." she cast a glance around the wrecked room "...even I wouldn't go this far back home. She would probably have had me killed," the last was offered jokingly, though Estelle's mis-chosen tone might not have made that initially obvious.