"I think it was Colonel Mustard, in the dining room, with the cat claws." she stated finally. As the hair on the back of the black cat next to her rose, the dragon waved a claw. "Sorry, Ebony. Nothing personal."

The feline preened herself delicately. "I should hope not. You might have the scales, but I think I could find a few spots to work on if necessary."

"Ladies, ladies," the fox lifted her head momentarily. "I do believe that we are here for something other than to sit around and play games all night."

The fairy tossed her head impudently. "It's not like we don't get together on a regular basis, though. Our writers are a very tight bunch. If somewhat overworked." she inclined her gaze towards the dragon, who suddenly seemed to be finding something of great interest on the wall opposite them.

"Chill out, Miane," the fox declared. "If Windflame wants to torment her writer twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, then it's our secondary job as Muses to the Sisterhood to support her."

Miane delivered a withering glance, which totally failed to wither. "Rushlight, I could almost call you up on failure to provide inspiration charges."

The fox snorted loudly. "Think again. Check this out," with a flip of a notebook that appeared from mid-air, Rushlight displayed a long list of fanfic ideas that she had given her writer. Miane blinked briefly, then blushed.

"Sorry about that. Can we get back to the topic at hand?" the leather-clad fairy suggeted, wanting to get the spotlight off of her for a moment.

Windflame wasn't going to let it go quite that easily, however. "What about those rewrites, Mi? You know you won't get your own muse-fic until they're done with."

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it! Unlike some muses, I give my author time to breathe, and to write!" Miane retorted. Windflame appeared totally unimpressed however.

"She has the time, I have the time, she's got not much else to do at the moment. What do you expect me to do, sit around and vegetate?" Windflame whirled quickly on Rushlight. "Don't you even say it!"

The fox only smiled. . .foxily. "Would I ever?" was all she murmured, toying with one of the game pieces. Windflame muttered something under her breath, then flapped lazily over to the open door, peering into the adjoining room.

"They're all still asleep," she reported quietly. Ebony rolled her eyes.

"It's four in the morning; what were you expecting?" the cat declared. "They had a heck of a day today. You'd think they never saw each other or something."

"Well, they only do get together about once a year or so," Rushlight reminded them. "Which makes this week the prime time for fanfic ideas. What genre should we concentrate on?"

Ebony chuckled, flexing her claws and scraping them delicately along the edge of a chair. "Power Rangers, of course. It's the one show they all feel strongly enough about to write about."

"Oh, that reminds me," Windflame produced a notebook of her own and flipped through it. "Anyone got any ideas for the Times Redone story? You know with---"

Miane broke into the question. "Yes, we know, another 'Billy with powers' story. Which one is this, four hundred and twelve?"

"Forty-two, to be precise," Windflame spoke with a slightly bored tone. "Enough with the bad comedy, could you maybe help out with this? It's been driving us both nuts for the last week."

Rushlight rolled her eyes. "Gee, I wonder just why someone wasn't going to be invited on this vacation. . ." at the steely look Windflame delivered, the fox managed to look innocent, flipping casually through a stack of Tommy-oriented fanfics that had been printed out for her author.

"You're a good one to talk about obsession," was all Windflame said as she curled up into a tight ball and bent her musely powers towards figuring out the details of the plotline she'd so innocently given her writer.

The fox and the fairy exchanged long-suffering glances as the dragon murmured, scribbled notes, and scratched them out. "Kind of explains why Cynthia writes as many muse-fics as she does, doesn't it?" Miane whispered. Rushlight nodded.

"Who wouldn't, with that egomaniac on her shoulder practically daily. Hate to see what she would do if Cynthia didn't feed the ego every now and then."

Ebony chuckled, sharpening her claws with a nail file. "You don't want to know. You really don't want to know."

Both the other muses at once turned on the only one of them who had any idea of what happened when Kahva was on late at night, as was Cynthia, and no one else was around. Elizabeth's working hours prevented her from those late-night sessions, and Ivy didn't have her own computer access; thus Cynthia and Kahva had tended to some long conversations in the dark of the night. "Tell, tell, tell!" the fairy and fox chorused, keeping their voices down as much as they could in order to not disturb Windflame, or the writers sleeping in the other room.

Ebony said nothing, filing a bit more. Then, she slowly lowered her voice, whispering something that could only be heard by the two intently listening muses. What was said will remain forever locked in the vaults of time, but it paled the two of them incredibly. The feline muse nodded slowly, almost savoring the horror in their eyes, Miane's especially. "It's true. Every word of it. That's what happens when Cynthia doesn't feed that ego."

"Whoa. . ." Rushlight breathed the word out in the merest of whispers. "Who would have ever thought that that was the reason!"

"The reason for what?" all three jumped a little as Windflame poked her head into their small circle. Her eyes were bright with joy, which usually meant she'd solved the plot problem she'd been dealing with. "You guys aren't talking about me, are you?"

Miane shook her head. "Of course not!" she peeked quickly into the other room, hearing the noise of people turning over. Luckily it was just sleep-movement, but it was enough to distract Windflame. The fairy muse was quick to take over the conversation. "I say we work out some more plotlines. There's Immortal Rangers, Prophecy, a hundred and forty seven bazillion series by a certain dragon muse. . ."

"It is not a ----" Windflame launched into an impressive detailing of all the series and standalones in mind, and the other three muses just looked at each other. Knowing the deep-set connection between the dragon's mind and her author's, they had the strangest feeling their midnight conversation was going to wind up at Muse Central.

It's about time the Sisterhood Muses had one, Ebony thought, curling up. Then she made a note. There were a few other muses that would need inviting to the next Grand Meeting. . .now that the Sisterhood had some male members. Things were definitly changing these days.