Alchemy had been given the week off due to the holidays, after all no hyperactive, teenage girl would want to spend a holiday following orders and Remus knew that quiet well, so the pubb had been closed today and Alchemy had been left to sleep in. She was having a very strange dream about jolly, fat men, brightly colored pieces of paper and (for some odd reason) a farmyard bird. However, despite its weirdness, Alchemy was enjoying the strange dream far too much to wake up now and when she did she was a little disappointed by the result, which had been for the fat man to pop and turn into a bunch of snowflakes, very strange.

She eventually managed to drag herself out of bed and stare out of the window, she looked out and noticed the streets and houses covered in something white and fluffy. Alchemy rubbed her eyes, thinking nothing of the event and made to get dressed. She banged her leg on something at the end of her bed and jumped backwards as it slid to the floor, looking down she noticed that it was a white and gold short-sword. It was rather light when she picked it up and had a note attached to the handle, however the handwriting was completely illegible to her.

She examined the sword for a few minutes, admiring the way it caught the light. She was already really attached to the sword she had already, however she barely ever liked using it in a fight. She put the sword in its scabbard and left it by her bedside along with Vyri-Sys and finally got dressed.

The weather outside today was practically sub-zero and Alchemy could see her breath cloud in front of her as she walked. She amused herself for a few minutes, puffing great white clouds into the air in front of her. Despite her age, Alchemy still had the mental attention span of a child and showed no embarrassment of displaying the fact, she often replied to anybody pointing this fact out with 'What's the point of living if you can't enjoy it?' She wasn't stupid, but she never seemed to take anything seriously enough.

She paused while walking through a small market place, it was still early but people were already milling around and buying late presents. Alchemy had no mind to get herself anything right now, although she did enjoy admiring the many different things being displayed, not that she had the money to buy them. She gave a jewelers a pleasant smile before moving off, leaving the woman a tad disappointed by still happy that she showed interest. Having been living in the village for well over a month, Alchemy had pretty much settled into the everyday environment, and found far less people staring at her bright red hair or slitted pupils.

She paused and sniffed the air, catching the scent of baking from round the corner, she often encountered nice smells over this direction but this time the smells were more sweet and lively, and put Alchemy in the mind of cakes and cookies. She paused for a bit, happy just to enjoy the bustle of everyday life as she was.

Robyn-rin was very still. Was it imagination or pathetic fallacy that made her environs the same? Nothing moved in the alley. There should have been rats, all dark alleys had rats- but not this one it seemed. The blood smeared on the wall didn't drip. Her arms, limp on her sides did not move. Her clothes were a mess but no breeze bothered to ruffle them- or her hair. Platinum blond hair that was matted with blood- the same blood that now adorned the walls like a new window fixture. Had they slammed her head into the wall? Had she fallen and cracked her skull? She couldn't remember. The rather nasty looking dagger poking itself from between her ribs couldn't seem to collect enough blood for it to pool outwards. Perhaps the blood was dry.

Or frozen. Robyn couldn't even blink. Couldn't even cry. And Robyn felt very much like crying. Where was Momma Bear? Where was Poppa Bear? Where was the Cheffy-Chef? And TC? And the Cricket? And Alice-Mommy? And Stella-Friend-Friend-Friend-Friend? And-

Movement. Robyn's eyes tried to track it as something slimy and ticklish slid out of her ear. First one pop as an eyeball got out, then another, and then finally the rest of it escaped. And slid from her ear, to her temple, to her nose.

"Hi Ursy-wursy." Robyn managed to croak. "Can you go get Poppa Bear? I think something's wrong with Robyn-rin."

HATE ME

"Robyn-rin can't move her fingers very well. Or her arms. Or her legs." She continued. "And... and... there's hurty hurts. Robyn-rin hurts all over. Robyn-rin doesn't like the hurty hurts!"

DESPISE ME

"Please Ursy-Wursy?"

FEAR ME

"Pleeeeeease?"

I AM YOUR-

"Pwetty, pwetty please? With two cherries on top!"

...DOOM?

"Three cherries? And tea? Maybe even mud pies?"

DID YOU HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME?

There was a soft gasp. The audacity! How could anyone be so greedy and meanie-pooh-ish and... and... and...!

"Fine! Four cherries! But that's my final offer!"

HUH.

The small green blob slid and slipped towards the dagger and, once it had reached it, mercilessly and viciously shoved it in even harder. If those bobbing eyes could look cruel those did.

"Owchies!" Robyn exclaimed, sitting up. "That's not vereh nice!" Then she realized what she had done. "Hey! Robyn-rin can move againz! Thanks Ursy-Wursy!" She hugged the creature close to her nonexistent bosom and then popped it back into her mouth. There was a cry of outrage as Ursula disappeared down the gullet of doom. Staring at the dagger still firmly ensconced between her ribs, Robyn gritted her teeth and then pulled it out.

"Aie!" She whimpered as it slid free. As the serrated blade caught the reflection of sunlight she recalled something, an attack, maybe. A blow that had hit her head in such a way so that she felt hurtsies again. What were the chances of that happening? Astronomical probably. But it was good too! She could feel tickles again! And tickles were fun-fun! Robyn-rin was such a lucky leetle gurly!

And she could smell too! She had been able to smell better ever since started wearing her hairy friend-friend's head. Another Intwesting coinky-dink! With a deep sniff she found all the good scents (where were the bad scents? They smelled intwesting too!) and finally found the one she was looking for.

"Moofins!" The little girl yelled, and off she went to find moofins.

Alchemy paused and sniffed the air, a while ago there had only been the scent of the bakery barely a street away but now Alchemy smelt something different and somewhat familiar but she couldn't quite remember it. She paused and thought about it for a moment, wondering if a horse had done its business where it shouldn't have and the owner had left it there for someone to step in accidentally, but she'd smelt horse droppings before and while they were unpleasant in themselves they certainly didn't smell like that.

Glancing about she looked to see if anybody else could have caused the smell, but this area of the village was slightly emptier than the rest. She could make out one or two people, occasionally wrinkling their nose or coughing, but not performing any actions that might contribute to the unusual smell. Shrugging Alchemy moved on, forgetting about the whole incident completely, that is until she passed the alleyway where the smell reached a peak and Alchemy simple had to see what was causing it. Alleys always smelt bad in the first place but this one smelt even worse, aside from the usual garbage that was usually piled in there another scent lingered.

Alchemy peered in, unable to make out much at first however her eyes quickly adjusted till they could see through the dark with ease and the scene in front of her was thrown into a somewhat gruesome relief. Alchemy had never seen a zombie before, let alone one in her own home village and she assumed somebody had just got lucky with an attempt on their life, they certainly didn't look in the best of shape. Alchemy moved closer, taking in the details of the scene and mulling the possibilities over in her head: Either somebody very rude had attacked the stranger and then left her for dead in a smelly alleyway, or someone very rude had got a little carried away with a bucket of red paint.

Pausing before she got two close, Alchemy weighed up the possibilities and quickly worked out which was more likely and which she'd like to assume, neither of which matched so she decided to drop the subject altogether.
"Hello," she said politely "Are you okay? You look like you just died."
She paid absolutely no attention to the irony of her statement and put on a very naive smile.

When the voice of a friend-friend caught up to Robyn-rin, Robyn-rin was in what was called a 'comp-pro-mise-ing' position. It wasn't that she *wanted* to be in a 'comp-pro-mise-ing' position, it just so happened that there seemed to be something wrong with Robyn-rin's legs. Every time she got up she kind of... slipped and slid and then fell back down. Which wasn't really very nice at all and tended to give lots of owchies and booboos and such so Robyn-rin hit upon a most excellentious idea! Instead of getting up and walking, Robyn-rin merely got onto her knees and crawled forwards as if she were a baby-poo. That was also kind of hard because it took a while going anywhere but she had made solid progress and accumulated a lot less owchies.

But it was still a 'comp-pro-mise-ing' position. People could hit her and she'd be none the wiser because she had to get up all over again before she could reply to them with 'overt and overwhelming violence'. Robyn-rin hadn't thought there'd be other people present but there were. How oddy-odd.

Still, nothing and no one had hit her. That was good. She peered behind her and her eyes alighted on a fire-head. Or maybe a blood-head. In any case, it had red hair. Robyn was immediately suspicious. Hadn't Momma Bear always said that those who bathed in blood were pure ebil? So didn't that mean that those with blood-colored hair wanted to hurt her? She considered the dagger and continued peering suspiciously at the fire-head because suspiciously peering at things was something she had been trained to do.

The fire-head seemed somewhat hesitant.

"Hello." Robyn-rin considered this new word as if it were a vicious new breed of animal and tried to figure out if it were either edible or could be played with. Her guard was relaxing though- only friend-friends said words like hello! ""Are you okay? You look like you just died."

Robyn-rin furrowed her brow and then fully turned around to look at the potential friend-friend fire-head. "Robyn-rin is Robyn-rin." She said in confusion. "Robyn-rin is not an 'okay.'" If The Chef had been awake he might have solved the problem but he wasn't- Ursula seemed to be taking up too much room.

"And Robyn-rin isn't deady-dead! That'd be silly!" She laughed. Such a silly leetle fire-head. Deady-deads didn't move! Everyone knew that! She resumed her suspicious peering. "Are you a friend-friend or a foe-foe?"