[Riverside Isle Park] Feelin' catty today? [Wrenmae]

by **Katsa** on May 10th, 2012, 12:10 am

Spring of 512 AV – Day 52

It would be an understatement to say that Katsa hated people. The truth of the matter was, despite being of the Kelvic race, she had developed a strong dislike of people in general over the last year and a half. It didn’t matter the race or gender of the person, or even their personality or temperament, Katsa found that contact with others only lead to conflict in the future – conflict that Katsa desperately fought to avoid. Despite her cool outer persona, she was actually sickeningly sensitive to harsh comments made by others – a trait Katsa found absolutely abhorred.

But nevertheless, Katsa was a Kelvic, and therefore sought out the company of her master regardless of her intentions. In fact, that was what she’d be doing at this exact moment if she actually had a master. Her pervious master had died peacefully of old age, a feat noteworthy in this day and age, so now she found herself her own master and quite frankly hated it. It wasn’t as if Katsa was incapable of caring for herself. On the contrary, she had adapted just find to the crude life of the Sunberthian streets. No one went out of their way to be friendly, and that suited her just fine; however, her Kelvic nature nagged at her to find someone to serve, anyone as long as she was able to please.

But alas, her secluded and distant nature proved to be a hindrance in this issue. People just couldn’t connect with her, and she’d be damned if she tried to connect with people. Her instinctive distrust of others prevented it, whether she wanted it to or not. And if people can’t connect, they can’t form bonds – and if they can’t form bonds, well . . . it seemed to Katsa that she’d be her own master for a while yet, a thought that quickly dampened her already dark mood. For someone to be her master, they would first have to be able to deal with her cold indifference, and then find some way to creep into the young Kelvic’s icy heart. If some person were to walk up and simply state “I’m your master, now do as I say,” Katsa wouldn’t even stop to consider it. She would brush on by and continue doing whatever it was she was doing.

An inaudible sigh escaped the confines of Katsa’s tiny cat nose. She wasn’t the type to give into feelings such as sadness or loneliness, but at the moment, she was coming fairly close. It had been nearly two seasons since her previous master had passed away, and since then she had lived alone in the dangerous city of Sunberth with minimum interaction with the population. Currently, she was wedged between two forked branches located in the high parts of a tree, her body swaying slightly as a breeze came and pushed against the branches. Her light and small cat form gave her the ability to reach the places in trees most people found difficult to reach, simply due to their body’s heavier weight on weak and frail branches. If she were in her human body, she would be able to make it just a few meters below where she was currently at.

Her blue eyes scanned the area around her lazily, dully making a mental note to herself to stop by the weapons smith on her way home to purchase a desperately needed form of defense. You could only stay in the city so long without being armed, and Katsa was long overdue in obtaining a source of defense. She ran over various weapons in her head that would be beneficial to her (and that was also within her prince range), until she decide some form of knife or blade would do her just fine. Preferably something small and easily concealable. She wanted to be safe, but she didn’t want it to be obvious she was walking around armed (though everyone knew more than half of the population was already armed).

Satisfied with her decision, she allowed herself to lean back against her branch and bask in the warm afternoon sun, her tail flickering lazily back and forth.

by **Wrenmae** on May 12th, 2012, 3:33 am

He couldn't remember. The most pervading sensation at this moment was loss. His mind was in a tumult, bombarded by Sunberth and the scowls of citizens. Wrenmae couldn't remember. What had he been doing? What time of year was it? He remembered a little of Ana, the blonde thief he'd saved from the alley...saved her from himself, Shroud. Now what? How long since he'd last been in control? Days? Weeks? Months? The warm sensation of spring breeze across his arm was a frightening indication of change. He remembered....he remembered the winter, the way the cold had whispered around the ramshackle buildings and sunk into his bones. He remembered the way the wind howled, a lonely dirge of souls and blood. He remembered the frost spiderwebbing across the cobblestone. This? This? This was not his memory. It was Spring, and the rest of Winter lay behind him, lost in those unsure moments between being himself and...someone else.

He slid back against a tree, shaking his head, trying to make sense of things. The dagger at his belt clanged against the cobblestone, and Wrenmae jumped, cursing himself thereafter for the stupidity of his cowardice. Frankly, his mind was just in disarray. He'd taken Hypnotism too far, had plodded past the safe area he should. All those years ago, the book that warned him...he should have read the preface and discarded it. Thrice accursed magic.

Resting his head back against the trunk, he looked up into the branches. Above him a cascade of newly budded emerald shadowed his brow and body. Among the branches, a grey cat flicked its tail and stared down at him, wide eyes fixated on his.

Wrenmae smiled, breathed, fished in his bag for a bit of rations and crumbled up cracker, spreading it on his lap. Part of him didn't really expect the cat to come down to him...he was a person after all and in Sunberth people might sooner eat a cat than pet it.

She reminded him of Ket though, his cat he'd left with Allric across the sea in Alvadas...and that comforted him a little.

"Hey," he whispered up at the cat, "Hey, you hungry? I'm...not really hungry today so...I thought maybe if you wanted some food?" He indicated the crumbled rations, "I'd appreciate a listener if you're not too jaded on we humans." He offered a small smile, then sighed, "I'd be suspicious too...but I'm not from here, really."

He sat back again, closing his eyes, "Would you believe me if I said I got shipwrecked here?"

by **Katsa** on May 13th, 2012, 4:17 pm

Katsa stared down at the man that sat against her tree with suspicious eyes. No sane person would willingly talk to a cat as if they were a person, nor would they offer their food to some stray who would probably die out on the Sunberthian streets a few hours later. (Of course, Katsa wasn't a stray, and she most certainly would not be dieing out on the street anytime soon if she could help it.) The man's strange behavior made Katsa instantly cautious of him, and she deemed it safer up in her leafy haven of branches than down on the cobblestone with him.

However, her Kelvic nature pulled her towards the man below her like a moth to light, and she soon found herself stealthily moving down the tree despite her instincts bitter warning. She paused on the branch just above his head and allowed her eyes to roam over his person for any signs of hostility. It was then that she noticed the dagger.

Of course she had heard it when it had hit the cobblestone a few moments ago, but her previous position in the tree had prevented her from pinpointing the source of the noise. A red light went off in her head then - this man was dangerous. Her better judgment yelled at her to retreat to the safety of the higher branches, but the Kelvic part of her refused to. So she crouched on that branch for a few moments more as a silent war raged inside of her. Should she just ignore the human and go back to her previous look out, or should she chance it and approach him? She looked from the mans face to the crumbled rations spread across his lap, inwardly scolding herself for what she was about to do.

With a graceful leap, she fell the short distance from her branch to the ground, landing on all fours beside the man. She made sure that she was on the side where his dagger rested on his belt so that if he made a move to grab it, she'd have the opportunity to escape back into the tree.

It wasn't as if Katsa was particularly hungry. In fact, just a few hours ago she had feasted on a pair of skinny street rats she had hunted down by her place of residence, craving fresh meat instead of the plain food that her rations provided her. But thinking it better to act like a starved stray (even though her appearance looked anything but starved) she inched closer to the mans lap and proceeded to sniff at the food. She didn't know what poisoned food smelt like, but she trusted her feline instinct to pick out any food that smelt out of place or spoiled.

Groaning inwardly, she tentatively placed a paw on his leg and pushed herself up on her hind legs. Katsa felt very uncomfortable at the moment. Why couldn't the man have placed the crumbled rations on the ground? Does he not know that no sane animal, especially one living in Sunberth, would ever eat off a person's lap? She shot an accusatory glare at him before bending her head to nibble on the crumbled pieces of the man's ration.

by **Wrenmae** on May 21st, 2012, 6:51 am

The cat's progress was marked with slow deliberation, almost painful caution in every contour of her body, every twitch of her muscles. She came, oh yes, she came eventually, slinking down the tree like a gray tear, leaping to the ground and observing him with her unnaturally blue eyes. Wrenmae offered her a smile, indicating the crumbs. Admittedly he should be eating them himself, his stomach growled and moaned that he submit, but company far outweighed his physical comfort at the moment.

She eyed him with suspicion, marked intelligence in Sunberthian animals, and Wrenmae kept his hands well away from his dagger as she started to nibble at the crumbs.

"I know it isn't really your favorite meal," he said to the cat with a sigh, "But I'm not exactly rolling in fish at the moment...and I thought I'd offer what I had." If she had an opinion otherwise, she didn't speak it and Wrenmae took it as an invitation.

Gingerly he lowered a hand over the cat and brushed along her back, quick at first, then slower, aimlessly petting her as his mind wandered, tripped over itself, continued.

He sighed.

"Bet you think I'm crazy, don't you? Talking to a cat...gods, I am insane." He laughed, sudden and desperate, smacking his head back against the tree and sighing. "I should have never left Alvadas...something was wrong with me and my captors made it worse." Pausing, Wrenmae lowered his head to look at the cat with a helpless sort of smile spidering across his features. "I...should probably elaborate, I guess. When I got to Sunberth in the summer, some men knocked me out and held me underground...when I came out, it was winter...WINTER. I missed Fall entirely. I don't know what happened to them, but I spend most of my time here unaware of what I'm doing."

Another breath.

"I'm a hypnotist, you see, I mean...a good one, or at least I think I am...but magic, erm...it gets in your mind, petches it up bad. Now I think I have...other selves, and these other selves are making me do things I don't want to. I'm afraid, ok? I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I go to sleep, I won't wake up as me. I mean...I mean. I woke up today and it was Spring...I...my last memory was snow on the ground. Snow on the petching ground!"

Tears crowded his eyes, making his vision swim. He lost the cat for a moment, all of Sunberth in unrecognizable blurs.

"To top it all off," he said quietly, rubbing the water from his eyes, "I'm a petching plague to everyone I meet. Blight touched, Vayt-born, whatever. Ever since I was ten years old...all I do is make people sick around me while I stay healthy. Gods...gods...petching kill me or something."

He swallowed a broken sob and dumped the crumbs out on the ground beside the cat, gently picking her up and placing her on the ground before standing. "I'm just going to make you sick as well, and you have enough problems to worry about around here without some broken mage messing with your health." He sniffed, snuffled, rubbed a hand along his face again and looked around the alleys for eyes, nervous.

"Enjoy the bread, and um...for what it's worth...thank you for the company." He bent and rubbed her along her head, smiling through the bright brown eyes, closed against the tears seeping at their edges, "You remind me of my old cat, a dear friend I left in Alvadas...thank you so much for your time and patience with me, I know I'm a wreck...and you probably don't understand me."

He stood up and shook, shaking his head around before leaning against the tree. "Just revealed my secrets to a cat, I'm pretty much insane."

But no one was there to tell him differently. Just a cat. And just the crumbs.

by **Katsa** on May 21st, 2012, 7:56 pm

‘This man,’ thought Katsa, the crumbs at her side momentarily forgotten, ‘he’s not insane. He’s just broken.’

Throughout the man’s story, Katsa had found herself listening intently as he recapped all that had happened to him. Some unfamiliar emotion stirred within her as she gazed upon him with her slightly narrowed eyes, which reflected the sun’s light and made them shimmer like liquid silver.

She didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. He was broken, yes. Believed himself insane because of it. But so was she, wasn’t she? She was a girl with no memory of her past. Every emotion, every feeling that one ought to feel, she didn’t. Did she ever feel things like compassion, loneliness, or understanding? She didn’t know. That dull ache in her chest as she thought of her former master let her know she was feeling something. But what it was, she could not grasp.

He knew though. He understood what he felt, she believed. He was afraid of himself - he admitted to it. But Katsa did not understand. How could you be afraid of yourself? What was fear really? She wasn’t sure what fear felt like. She thought back to the moment her mind woke up. She was alone and in tattered rags. Dirt covered her skin like a thick coat, and her hair hung haphazardly around her sickly pale and boney frame. She didn’t know where she was, who she was. Was she afraid then? She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be sure. She had nothing to compare it to.

She continued watching him, no longer stiff with caution as she had been before. He was tired, that much was evident, and his body shook with the strain it took him to stand upright, even while leaning against the tree. She heard his stomach growl as it let its hunger be known, and her eyes quickly flickered to the crumbs. If he was hungry, why give her the food and not eat it himself? It didn’t make sense.

She turned her attention back on the man, studying him as he rubbed the water out of his eyes. What were they called again? She vaguely remembered her former master telling her about this phenomenon. When humans felt strong emotion, water would leak out of their eyes as a form of emotional release. What did he call them again? Ah, that’s right. Tears.

She could see the turmoil in his eyes, in his posture. Her ears flattened against her head. What was she to do? She was only a cat. She didn’t understand human emotions. She couldn’t even understand her own emotions.

His stomach grumbled again. She looked down at the crumbs, blankly staring at them as her mind tried to figure out this human. Maybe he was just hungry. Animals became unsettled when hungry – maybe all he needed was some food. Although, she doubted these crumbs would offer him any solace. But it was still worth a shot.

She took one of the larger crumbs in her mouth, and made her way over to the man’s side. She dropped it at his feet and backed away slightly. She looked up at the man’s face, realizing he had not noticed her uncharacteristically kind gesture, and glowered.

With an agitated snort, she flattened to the ground, and then sprung up the man’s legs. Nimbly, she used her claws to climb up the man's profile. She couldn't be bothered with whether or not her sharp claws hurt him as she quickly found her balance perched on his shoulder. With a soft mew, she pawed at the man's face until she was certain she had his attention. She pointed her nose down at the crumb, and then turned back to him with expectant eyes.

'Eat,' she seemed to say.