Housebreaking the Cat (Naledi)

[Skylar]

Skylar looked like she was going to blush from the cat's display, but she did not. Probably because she could not. Still, the way Skylar folded her hands and glanced down, she definitely seemed embarrassed by everything the other girl was doing. She said softly: "I'm so relieved. I really don't like asking things of you... too much. I'm so happy you're okay with it." Skylar's lip quivered in a standard prelude to tears, but none came. She had no ability to cry.

Nevertheless, in a display of intimate emotion, she embraced Janene, burying her face in her bosom rather shamelessly. She made sounds a little like crying, but they seemed a rather half-hearted effort, as though she wasn't sure what crying was actually like.

"You're too good to me, Janny! Far, far too good. You should just leave now and go away forever and not come back because I don't deserve you at all. I'm a horrible, horrible person who kills lots of people and hurts everyone and I'm just a terrible creature who shouldn't even be alive!" She continued her wailing, meanwhile squeezing the Kelvic so close escape was impossible.

She looked up into Jan's face, her own still rather disheveled from her recent display. She looked incredibly pained. "You should go, because you'll leave eventually anyway. Everyone always does. Because one day I'll be mean to you as well and you'll just want to leave and you just will! So leave now before I love you so much it'll kill me to see you go! No matter what you say, you won't promise to stay no matter what, will you? You're too scared to say that so you can't!"

Skylar, seemingly unable to bear the woman's gaze, buried herself in Janene's lap, making uncertain, sorrowful sounds once again.

[Naledi]

Surprised, Janene stiffened, unaccustomed to being cuddled. This was definitely a side of Skylar Janene had never seen before. The expressions, the body language, the quavering voice, all of it was different to what Janene had come to expect. Naturally she was suspicious, and unsure of whether or not to believe this display, but she desperately wanted to believe that Skylar was not all cold touches and hard words.

Working her arms free, Janene uncertainly embraced Skylar in return, placing one hand on her cold back and one in her hair. She listened with growing indignation and some other warm feeling that may have been affection. It felt so alien to her nowadays that she wasn’t sure of what she felt.

Skylar thought she would leave. Skylar was crying, because she thought Janene would end up abandoning her. This mortified Janene and made her almost angry. Her voice was fierce and passionate and she was feeling thousands of different emotions at once. Not to mention she was feeling awkward because of both of their obvious nakedness and their close proximity to one another. Nevertheless, every word was genuine and sincere.

“How many times do I have to say it? I’m sure I’ve said it a hundred times already. I am yours. I am definitely not going to leave you. It’s true I’m a little afraid, but I’ve sworn myself to you already and to be honest I’m a little affronted that you don’t seem to take my promise seriously.” She gently touched Skylar’s face to tilt it upwards so their eyes could meet. “I will never, ever leave you. No matter how horrible you are to me. Even if you bring me close to death, I swear, I will stay loyal to you and try as hard as I possibly can to serve you, no matter what. Whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do it to the best of my abilities, and if I’m not able to do it I’ll work at it until I am. Anything for you. Anything to be able to stay with you.”

With boldness that made her surprised at herself, she pulled Skylar up into another embrace, unable to suppress a shiver at the other woman’s cold skin. “You have to promise me, though,” she said, speaking over Skylar’s shoulder. “Please, please tell me you’ll never leave me.”

[Skylar]

Skylar collapsed into the warm embrace of the little pet creature she had roaming about. It occurred to her that she had probably named the creature at some point, as the beast had no business going about without a name. That was certainly an affronting level of disgusting: Going about without a name. Skylar did it a lot, just to see what it was like. She had not remembered the name she gave this creature, and so it suited her to simply invent another one.

Well, right now the little thing that was holding her was going on and on about herself. Skylar wiggled her fingers invisible to... let's say, Miranda's gaze. If she could see it it might have looked like she was miming the piano. She was not playing the piano. She was pulling puppet strings. This creature between her arms was just another wooden doll, albeit one that could see its strings. And boy, did the wound run deep.

Skylar smiled. She was deliriously happy. The only thing that would make the devilish creature happier was being covered in blood and death and murder. Oh, no, not even that was as blissful as the absolute feeling of control that washed over him like a drug. He wanted to exercise this control somehow. Snuff something beautiful out. Something innocent.

"Oh my dear Miranda... why would I ever promise that? At a moment's notice I might kill you or abandon you or simply grow tired of you. And then you'll be all alone in the world. All alone. Again. Forever. Because no one will love you except me. I mean look at yourself, you're embarrassing and strange and... not all that bright." Skylar pulled away from the embrace and grabbed Miranda's chin and looked into her eyes. "But be useful to me and I'll keep falling in love again. With you. Forever. Stay useful to me because you can never. Ever. Leave me."

Skylar lay back against the rough hewn stone and grinned, a manic mood to her soft and strange appearance. "Now cry some for me."

[Naledi]

“Miranda?” So the name hadn’t been so very important. Miranda was affronted by the sudden personality change. It frightened her. But there was a fierce kind of determination in her now, to find again what seemed to her Skylar’s soft side and make it permanent. She needed to know the frightening hate Skylar showed the world wasn’t all that was there, so she made herself believe it wasn’t. She made herself believe somewhere, inside Skylar, was some kind of warmth, hidden by the cold skin. And she vowed to find it again.

Miranda knew what Skylar was saying was probably true. Or perhaps Skylar was just getting to her. Skylar had refused to promise to stay. A sound like a whimper left her and, despite the anger that bubbled at Skylar’s words, she felt tears pool in her eyes, hot, angry tears that threatened to flood over her lids at any second. She brushed them away, irritated, her breaths coming in short, quick in and out motions of her chest.

“No,” she agreed, dragging an arm across her eyes and feeling hot liquid streak across it, “I won’t leave you. I promised that much too many times.”

Just when the wolf becomes a sheep and the other sheep welcome it, it shows its true colors. Hadn’t that been a phrase her worry-wart mother had used?

[Skylar]

Skylar stood up suddenly, her body finally accustomed enough to itself to allow her to stand, perhaps walking would be next. Then, perhaps she'd eat. She did love food. It was an entirely mechanical desire, the desire to eat, she had neither stomach nor sense of taste nor hunger. Only every now and then she enjoyed the feeling of wet, slippery things sliding down her throat and into her stomach.

Or at least, she did now. A new day was here, a new Skylar. New needs, new desires, new thoughts in a new head. "What kind of person am I now, I wonder? A fighter? A lover? A gambler? A coward? Am I profane or priestly? Am I good or evil? ... wait, I know that one." She gave a wink. "What kind of woman am I today, hmm?"

She began walking, yes, slowly the body obeyed the mind. She covered herself up and checked her hair in a mirror shard she kept in her coat. "Hmm, looks like I'm rather vain. I don't mind that. I suppose."

"You coming, child?" She asked, her voice sweet and sincere.

[Naledi]

The girl curled in on herself as Skylar rose. Already she was shrinking from shadows and flinching at small sounds. The cat-fear. She hated the cat-fear. It was like the human-fear, but with thousands of years of fear behind it, rather than only two.
The Kelvic stood at Skylar's question. She did so uncertainly, like she was unsure exactly how to move. The fluid grace with which she normally moved was awkward and halting. "You said you would prefer it if I wore clothes. I would if you asked it, of course, but I haven't any. I don't have money with which to buy clothes, either." The girl's voice, usually liquid and expressive, was just as awkward as her movements. The primal fear made her speak in staccato, cutting her words short, in case they ran on too long in the cold silence.
A question floated to mind. She asked it hesitantly, unsure if it was okay to actually have a normal conversation. “Do you ever miss your old body?” she asked. “When you move on to a new one. Do you ever miss being what you were before?”

(You came back! You DO love me!)

[Skylar]

((Yeah, I did. Let's finish this thread and move on to greener pastures))

Skylar gave a crooked look at the little furlein before her. The barest hint of the tiniest of strangest of smiles graced her features. All of a sudden she was in charge. Graceful, elegant, elite. She could feel the physical euphoria of knowing how much she was greater than that naked strange little creature sitting there.

She scoffed.

"Forget about the clothes. I'll get you something, until then, I don't think you'll offend anyone with your nakedness. And don't ask silly questions. Do you miss the hairballs you cough up out of your silly little throat?" She shook her head then extended her hand.

"Take my hand, creature. We're going. This talk is over."

She couldn't help but giggle. How good it was to be immortal.

[Naledi]

So Skylar didn't miss her old bodies. It was a silly question, anyway, the Kelvic thought, trying to rub some heat into her arms in the chill stone room.

The girl flinched as Skylar extended her hand. It was an unwonted movement of fear and paranoia, and the girl immediately regretted it. How ungrateful to flinch away from your master, the very person who took you in. The girl extended her own hand and slipped it into Skylar's, the cold skin sending shivers up her arm and down her spine. What was it like to feel warm flesh, the girl wondered? Her memory was blurry and she couldn't remember ever being less than cold.

As she rose to walk with Skylar wherever she went, the Kelvic was afraid, afraid of her mistress and the cold and the big wide world that had no sympathy for small cats, and she clung to her last hope of survival even if it was the thing she had learned to fear most. It all began and ended with Skylar, she thought, so she would begin and end with Skylar, too.

This was the twisted version of love that she began to believe in. And she had no choice but to love Skylar.

[[OOC: I'mma end it, if that's fine. I mean, we're going in circles, here. ]]

END