Doesn't belong.

Who: Charlotte and Herbert
When: Mid-afternoon.
Where: Charlotte's yard.

Isadora was having one of her classic hissy fits. She was just so good at them. After what had happened at the bonfire the previous night, Charlotte was strictly forbidden to go anywhere without the car. Which wasn't such a big deal, but Isadora had driven to Harvey for the day. So Charlotte was stuck inside.

That wasn't so bad, really. She was feeling a bit better, but most of the day was still spent pondering fire elementals. And whether or not Kaysen could be one (probably), and whether or not Kaysen knew she was one (the jury was still out, though Charlotte was leaning towards probably not), and how Charlotte would ever approach the subject with her. Probably best to give it a day or two for the shock to calm down. And then... what? Crap.

The dogs whined to get outside, though Charlotte had already been on her way to the back door anyway. If Kaysen was an elemental and didn't know it, how would Charlotte tell her something like that? Would Kaysen think she was crazy? ...Probably. So how could she--

Her thoughts were cut off by the way both dogs turned and all but flew back inside the house. After which, they both hunched over between Charlotte and the still-open door, baring their teeth and growling at some unseen enemy. Charlotte had never seen either of them act like this before. She blinked, and first tried to touch Anna's mind. She usually had the easiest time with her, maybe because she had been her grandmother's dog. She didn't see anything, but she felt things. Something outside was distinctly Not Right, and dangerous. The phrase 'doesn't belong' repeated over and over in Charlotte's mind.

That? Was really messed up. Frowning, she pulled the door shut and locked it, and then peered out the window for what would cause the dogs to react like this. Doesn't belong, doesn't belong, doesn't belong... She stopped looking when her eyes settled on a cat. A big cat. Grey, with bright amber eyes.

All the cats at the bonfire last night had looked the same. Large, grey, and eyes that shone brightly in the firelight. Anna's one thought still repeated over and over in Charlotte's head. Doesn't belong, doesn't belong, doesn't belong... Charlotte stared at the cat, afraid, though as soon as she realized she was she didn't understand why. It probably wasn't one of the same cats.

But what if it was?

The cats that had attacked last night had been... sick. Very, very sick. Isadora had said they had to be diseased to attack unprovoked like that. Probably rabies, but... what was it? What had caused them to attack? Were they in pain? Could they be helped?

Anna circled Charlotte and whined, and Charlotte bent over to scratch soothingly behind her ears. "It's okay." she murmured. Maybe she could help. If she could see what they were feeling, maybe she could see the source of the illness. Maybe they could be helped, one way or another. Charlotte looked out the window again, just in time to see the cat climb a tree and jump the fence to the front yard. She didn't want to lose it now. She hurried through the house and out the front door, though she'd had to slip out quickly so as not to let either of the dogs out at the same time. The cat was walking towards the road, and Charlotte ran to catch up with it. When she was a few feet behind it, she tried to reach out with her mind.

That was when the world fell upside down. All of the cat's fur stood on end and it turned, looked up at her, and made and held eye contact. Charlotte wanted to look away but felt as if she couldn't. The sensation that she felt... it was unlike anything she'd ever felt before. As if an invisible pair of hands had latched on to her brain. She felt a link establish between their minds, though she was doing nothing to initiate this anymore.

And then... horror. It was as if a dam broke. Thousands of images, feelings, sounds, and purposes began to flood Charlotte's mind, all of them distinctly Bad. Charlotte had never in her life had a nightmare this awful, this terrifying, this evil. Clutching her temples as a full-blown migraine hit in seconds, Charlotte screamed and fell to the grass, curling up in the fetal position as she tried desperately to close the link. She couldn't. It was all rushing into her so fast, too fast for her thoughts to linger on any one scene for more than fractions of a section.

It hurt. The pain was excruciating, and Charlotte sobbed and screamed as her body writhed in agony. Terrified tears poured over her face. She would have sold her soul to make the images stop. There was no shielding herself from it. The horrors of her mind were so extreme that she felt as if she could be lost to them forever. Maybe she'd lose her mind. Maybe she wanted to.

So much pain. So much suffering...

Pain and suffering were the name of the game for the cat a moment later; there was a roar of warning and then a booted foot slammed into the grey cat stalking towards the writhing girl. Its yowl was slightly louder than the sound of its cracked ribs as Herbert crushed a kick into it that sent it flying out into the street and skidding on worn asphalt like a broken, bloodied stuffed toy.

Growling loudly after it, Herbert tore his eyes away and ran to the girl he'd seen fall down crying. His nose told him it was little Charlie before he even saw her face; and his eyes deepened painfully with hurt seeing her in such grief.

"Charlie? It's Herbert, eh?" he tried, unsuccessful at dragging the rough growl from his voice from earlier at first. He reached over and put a huge hand to her shoulder, feeling her shivering. "Charlie? Charlie, come on...."

The second the cat that was most definitely not a cat was kicked away it let go of her mind, and Charlotte gasped as she was freed from it. Granted, being freed wasn't entirely a good thing. It meant that she could see and hear again, and that with her migraine? Bad. The dogs were barking inside the house, and she could swear she heard the cats yowling. Even that hurt. Her brain felt like it was made of nothing but raw and exposed nerves. If she could get in the house, she could take her medicine, and maybe it would go away.

And the things she'd seen. It may have been over, but she couldn't unsee them. They were still there with her. Even if she couldn't comprehend all of them or everything she had seen, they were still there. She felt like she was going to be sick. Her medicine would help with the horrible feeling in her stomach, but nothing could make up for the things she'd seen.

It slowly filtered in that Herbert was there, though she wasn't quite ready to let go of her own head, nor could she stop sobbing. She hadn't even started to think about how she'd explain this sort of reaction to a cat to anyone, that was the farthest thing from her mind. "It... it was awful!" she cried. "It's EVIL!" Animals were not evil. Nature wasn't supposed to create things that sick.

Whoa-kay. Herbert had limited experience with hysterical girls (though to be fair that was odd, since he considered girls and boys hysterical at a pretty low threshold) but little Charlie was in geniune pain and he could just sense it'd been that cat the second he smelled it. And she was still afraid of it.

"Uh, well its being evil over there," he explained, gesturing over his shoulder to where the cat was flailing and yowling in the street.

For all of five seconds before a truck came around the corner and squished it flat.

"....right-oh," Herbert finished, eyes wide and nose clouded with blood scents suddenly. He looked back down to Charlie and rumbled worriedly. That probably wasn't something she'd needed to see... erh.

Well at least it made up his mind; limited experience or not, Herbert was gonna go with his default dealing-with mode for anybody acting wild; he picked the girl up in his heavy arms, forced her hands away from her head before she hurt herself, and made towards the house. She hardly weighed a thing but she was still rigid and shivering and crying; so the werebear just tried to rumble some soothing noises at her - lost for words - as he got the door open and got her inside.

One of the dogs snarled, low and vicious, at him and Herbert growled right back. Dominance. He'd be respectful about the place later, let the dog have her way when there was something she could do for her mistress.

"Charlie?" he asked, not sure where to go or what to do. Was she having a fit? Sometimes that happened to certain people... argh... Herbert didn't know what to do.

Maybe the dog did know better than him in this situation. Herbert winced down at the girl in his grasp and her pale, horror-struck face. "Charlie, what do I do? It'll be alright, I'll take care of you but uh, tell me how, eh?"

With an anger so fierce it surprised Charlotte herself, she was glad it was dead. It needed to be dead. That thing had not been a cat. It dying didn't make her any calmer, but it was something.

And then she was being carried. She might have fought it or objected if she wasn't, you know, hysterical. But snarling and angry dogs? Not good for the migraine. She felt what they were feeling and thinking more strongly than usual. Having such a strong link with them would have made her endlessly happy, oh, an hour ago. Right now it was just another thing to deal with on a very sore brain. "Anna, Edom..." she forced out. "It's okay." It was impossible to try to touch their minds to calm them down, right now she'd just make them a lot worse. But they did stop snarling to whine and circle worriedly.

Herbert. Herbert was asking her questions. And still carrying her. She had to be able to... do something. Okay. She could do this. If she could stop seeing people dying and being slaughtered and eaten, she could do this. "Couch." she said, pointing through an arch-way into the living room. That was a good start. And then, sweet blessed medicine.

Quick and steady as he could, Herbert treaded through to where she pointed and set her down on the couch, making sure she had a cushion under her head. Looking down at her, she seemed so very tiny and she was still flinching in pain in her head. Herbert was already thoroughly alarmed by all of this, but wasn't sure what to do. Not at all.

"Okay, here we are. What do I do now? I er... I can get you some water, eh?" Man, Herbert did not like not knowing what to do. All he could think of was how he'd helped his Pa when he was sick; but that stuff maybe wouldn't help Charlie at all.

Cushions were good. Although it took an extraordinary ammount of willpower to not hide her eyes in said cushions. Later, she would feel very, very bad for Herbert. But right now, he was willing to help, and she needed it. She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself down, but that seemed more than a little difficult right now.

"At the top of the stairs, the second door on the left? That's my bathroom." she managed to force out, very slowly. "In the medicine cabinet is a glittery plastic green box. I have medicine in there, for migraines, and I need that box." She needed to be able to see and hear without wanting to bash her brains against the nearest wall. She attempted to sound apologetic, but she didn't think it came through the sobbing.

Like a shot, Herbert took off for the stairs and the aforementioned bathroom and box. Okay, medicine. Medicine would make whatever was wrong with her better and then things would be okay. This was a situation Herbert could completely get his head around and his heart behind, oh yes.

He shouldered his way through the door and perhaps a bit roughly fished through the medicine cabinet for the box and thundered back down the stairs with it. Dropping down to crouch at the end of the couch where her head rested, he held it up for her and pressed it insistantly against her hand. "Grrrwr?"

Charlotte looked up at Herbert and tried to smile for him, but it was still very difficult. She opened her box, and instead of removing pills or something a bit more expected, she got a needle and syringe. Her hands were shaky, but it felt like she'd done this a million times in her life. Teenagers weren't supposed to get chronic migraines so often, but when they did, they had to be able to treat them instantly. She filled the syringe, pulled her pant leg up, and slammed it into her leg without flinching. She really hoped she didn't freak Herbert out (well, more than she already had), but it had to be done.

Once she'd given herself the shot, she stayed very still for a moment, forcing deep breaths as she waited for the migraine to ease. It would take a few minutes, but relief shouldn't be far away.

After a few long moments passed, she put the needle and syringe in the box to be disposed of later, closed the box, and set it out of sight. Her brain still felt like one large, raw nerve ending, but it would get better. She took another deep breath and leaned back against the couch, and looked up at Herbert. She wasn't sobbing anymore, but she was still very clearly upset. Felt like she would be for a long time. How did someone see something like that and go back to normal? It seemed impossible.

"Thank you." she said, quietly. Volume was still not good for her head. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Did I gross you out?"

Herbert had watched the syrnge going in with a wince, but it hadn't scared him at all. He looked up at Charlie from where he knelt beside her on the couch and shook his head. "No, it's just fine, little Charlie. Don't you worry."

She wasn't crying anymore, and Herbert took that as a very, very good sign. He offered her a small smile to try and calm her down some more, so she knew it'd be alright. "Can I get you anything? Should I call the doctor?"

The animals of the house were now beginning to hoard around Charlotte, and with a sigh she shifted a bit to let one of the cats hop onto her lap. Anna and Edom settled close to the couch where they could keep protective eyes on her. Charlotte appreciated their concern, but didn't dare try to connect with any of them right now. She wasn't scared of seeing into their minds, but her brain was still a very hurty thing. She wasn't entirely sure that she wouldn't try to use it and end up in screaming pain again.

Looking back to Herbert as she rested against a pillow, she very faintly shook her head. It occured to her now that she probably had to think of something to tell him about what had happened. Then again, he hadn't asked. Maybe he would just assume the cat (that was not a cat) had attacked her. "I get chronic migraines." she explained. "A lot. It runs in my family." Technically. The condition wasn't chronic migraines, it was telepathy, but that did run in her mother's line. Isadora always remarked that since it had skipped a generation, Charlotte must have gotten enough migraines for too. Charlotte just suspected that animal minds were a lot busier, and a lot less guarded, than human minds.

"When I get them, I have to give myself a shot. I only have to see someone if that doesn't do anything." That had only ever happened once, and it had required a dose of medicine in the base of her spine. That had previously been the scariest thing Charlotte had ever been through. Previously.

This was all a lil bit above Herbert's head and he didn't need to hear it.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me, eh?" he told her firmly, pretty sure that she didn't need to be talking and reasoning when her head clearly still hurt her so much. "Just tell me if you need anything. I can call your Ma, maybe?" Herbert fully intended on staying right where he was until he was certain she'd be alright, and not nobody was going to move him. But he was very aware that he didn't know what to do besides dial 911 on a phone if things got really rough.

The realization that she was going to have to tell her mother was a bit horrifying. There wasn't a way around it, and really, telling her mom would be a good thing. In a few days, once Isadora was done crying, hovering, and sheltering. Then she might be able to help Charlotte make some sense of what had happened, and what the thing was that had attacked her. If it wasn't for that, Charlotte might have considered trying to get away with not telling her mother. She's going to freak out so badly... Not that Charlotte wasn't freaking out herself.

"Um... she should be home soon." she said, after briefly squinting at the clock. "It'll be okay. You don't have to sit here with me if you don't want. I'm not stupid enough to try going anywhere or doing anything. I'm used to this sort of thing." Pfft.