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 Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:14 am
 Neser was slowly getting adjusted to his new surroundings, but he was still not entirely sure how to deal with all the new things he had to learn. Ottah's clinic was different to the other hound houses he had seen, and while there were some familiar tasks to do, the alien scents and doctor stuff was freaking him out a little. Nothing in school had prepared him for that part, so he was heavily dependent on others telling him what to do and how to do it. He was just getting back after fetching water, and while there wasn't much water left in the pail he felt he had made progress since last time - he had only got lost twice on the way. His fur and paws were wet from spilled water and he realised with horror that he had managed to make a trail of muddy tracks from the back door to the kitchen. Oh no! His wet paws had picked up the dust and dirt outside and it was now inside. This was not good at all.
He put the pail down and tried to figure out how to clean up before Ottah saw what a mess he had made. Rubbing at them was no good, since the paw he used was muddy, and as he moved about he made even more tracks. He needed a cloth, but fetching one would spread the mud further... Oh, this was really bad. Neser desperately tried to think of a way out of the situation, but his stressed out brain couldn't come up with a better plan than "RUN! HIDE!" and that was not really an option. A small sad noise escaped his throat as he sat hopelessly in the middle of the muddy mess he had made.
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:13 pm
“What on…?” Kara followed the tracks, her voice muffled by the large quantity of flowers she had picked for a vase in the office. Her eyes widened at the messy kitchen, the flowers dropping from her mouth and she found the culprit. “Neser!”
Poor Master Ottah, he was so nice to his slaves but this one was just useless! What was he thinking getting the house all dirty and then just sitting there like a statue, watching the mess he’d made? Was he trying to be sent back to the market? She could only think of what the others would say if they saw this and the cloths she’d washed earlier in the day – she’d have to go fetch them and then wash them all again.
“Akila cleaned the kitchen this morning. She will have your hide if we don’t clean this up quickly!” The patched girl said quickly, setting the flowers on a balcony before she faced the slave again. She sighed and then raised her voice again. “Why are you just standing there?!”
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 2:55 pm
Neser flinched and his ears flattened against his skull in a most miserable way. You'd think Kara had tried to yell his ears off judging from his strong reaction. The brown slave was too high strung for his own good, and the constant stress made him mess up more often. Not that Neser realised the connection, he was just distressed and extremely unhappy about what he had done.
"I don't want to make it worse," he wailed and shifted his weight from paw to paw as if he wanted to spring to action but was unsure what to do, "I didn't mean to... this..."
He trailed off and looked down at his muddy paws. Akila was the scary one, and the last thing he wanted to do was to upset her. Neser didn't want to upset anyone, that was the thing, but one failure just seemed to follow the other when he tried to perform his tasks and remember what to do. And then he slipped up somehow, and stressed out about it, and then his unhelpful brain just shut down and he started to forget things and mess up even more.
"There's water in the pail," he said very quietly, focusing on something he could control. The flowers would not stay pretty in the heat without water, "For the flowers."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:38 pm
Kara sighed, looking exasperated at first and then resigned. For all the patience she had regarding the faults of Hounds, very little seemed to be left for her fellow slaves.
“Go outside and get your paws cleaned. I have cloths drying in the sun. Bring some back.” When the other slave started talking about the water, Kara assumed he meant to use it to clean the floor. When it turned out he was thinking of the flowers, Kara looked surprised though not negatively so… “Oh… that’s nice.”
She paused, eyeing the other cat appreciatively as if trying to figure out why he was always so nervous and making mistakes. Finally, she took the pail – carefully, doing her best not to step on any mud splotches and carried it to the office along with the flowers.
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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:58 am
Neser snapped into action and hurried out, trying to step on the floor as little as possible on the way. It was a small miracle he didn't slip and hurt himself. Outside he washed his paws carefully in the very place designated to washing before entering the house. He knew it was there, it was one of the first things he had been told and he should have used it before... he just forgot. Why did he have to forget so many things? The cloths were easy enough to find and they were only a little bit damp. Neser tried to fold them as quickly as he could, and then returned inside, carefully checking his paws for dirt before putting even one claw over the doorstep.
"Got them," he said and started to work on getting the kitchen floor clean with one of the nearly dry cloths with limited success. It looked better where he had scrubbed, but his ears lowered as he realised that he wouldn't get the floor spotless without water. And fetching water was his job. And he had only managed to get a small amount this time.
"More water," he said to himself, trying to remember where the pails and water skins where stored.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:12 pm
Kara returned to the kitchen after placing the flowers and the water Neser had carried in the pretty vase. She sighed when she saw the other cat with the cloths. It had been her idea (or order?) but to see the things she had cleaned so carefully earlier getting so dirty again was still more than a little annoying. Her tuft ears dropped as she eyed the Neser critically. Well, at least he was trying to clean his mess.
“Be careful not to rip them. And yes, we do need water.” She searched for a large pail and almost gave it to Neser before she reconsidered. He hadn’t managed to bring that much water the first time around. If they were going to fix things before Akila or master Ottah noticed the mess, they had to be quick about it. “I’m going to get the water. Don’t do… hum… just stay still.” She was out the door as soon as she was done talking, running as fast as she could while carrying the large pail.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:38 pm
"I'll be careful," he said, barely more audibly than a whisper. She was upset, and while a fellow slave couldn't very well whip him he was covering under her gaze nonetheless. Ottah liked her, and she might tell on him and that would get him whipped for sure. Or she could claw him in the face, he hated getting clawed in the face. He looked from the floor to the door to his paws and then started scrubbing again, but very carefully. He didn't make much progress that way, but he wouldn't rip the cloths either.
Fetching water was his job, and Kara wasn't supposed to have to do that now. He felt guilty for doing such a lousy job that she wouldn't even trust him to fetch water for cleaning up. Neser's ears were almost flat agains his head, but he kept scrubbing as carefully as he could. It worked a bit better when he tried spitting on the cloth, but soon he had sort-of-cleaned everywhere he could reach. And... She had told him not to move. And so Neser sat in the middle of an almost perfect circle of slightly cleaner than before floor when Kara returned.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:59 pm
“What are you…?” Kara started as she stepped inside slowly, carrying the pail half full. Unused to straining work, that was the amount she managed to bring and even that was enough to wear her down, making her paws tremble when she put it down. Why was he just standing there in the weird looking circle? It couldn’t be because she’d told him not to move… could it? Oh, why wasn’t he normal?!
Kara sighed, shaking her head. She was a firm believer that one should clean his own messes but in this case… she wanted to get this done quickly before anyone found them. And yet, it would deeply annoy her to do another slave’s work… again. The patched slave pushed the pail steadily towards the other cat after taking some water with the smaller pail Neser had used before. Master Ottah might want a drink later and it wouldn’t do well to waste all the water on the floor. Though Neser would still need to get more later.
“Alright, here’s the water. Just finish it up.” She said, finding a compromise. She wouldn’t do the work for him but he couldn’t mess up if she was supervising, right? Right. This would work.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:22 pm
"Thank you," he said in a very small voice, wondering how he could repay her for doing his own job. He couldn't possibly do her chores as well as she did, and he wondered if she would be upset if he offered to help. Probably. One of his teachers had used him as punishment for other slaves. As a punishment you will be working with Neser today. Boy, that was a real confidence booster. No, he had to figure out something else, or just offer to do whatever she told him to do... Was that good enough? But first: the floor.
Cleaning with water worked much better than cleaning without, and even if he might lack every trace of skill and finesse he got the job done. Slowly, very slowly. His paws were trembling slightly from the way Kara looked at him, He had to try to focus fully on the circling motions of his paw and the cloth on the floor or risk freezing up completely from stress. If he just focused everything would be all right. If he started panicking he would fail. But no thoughts like that! Just scrub, scrub, scrub. Scr... The cloth snagged on a rough part of the floor and Neser froze. Had he ruined it? He closed his eyes tightly, as if that would help.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:37 pm
Kara kept a close watch on the other slave’s work. While she wouldn’t like to admit it, his quiet “thank you” had somewhat melted her and she found her mood suddenly improving and stopped eying the slave as if he was a nuisance, her eyes following the pretty patterns on his coat.
“See, Neser? You can do it when you’re caref-…” she smiled kindly but her smile faltered when she heard the familiar sound… Gods and curses! Did she have to keep an eye on his paws at ALL times in order to keep him from making a mistake?! She had a stony expression now and by the way she was speaking so slowly, it was clear that she was having a hard time containing her wrath. She didn’t dare to look at the cloth. “How bad is it?”
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 5:30 am
It could have happened to anyone, but to Neser this little setback was just another proof that he was an useless slave. Hear that said about you a hundred times and you will believe it... Say it to yourself another hundred time and you will become useless. He could hear that Kara was upset, and he held the cloth up in shaky paws to show it to her, but without opening his own eyes. Neser was sure he had ruined the cloth, but he had stopped as soon as he felt the snag and the rip was tiny. Not that he saw any of that with his eyes closed.
"I dunno," he admitted, "I... Did I ruin it? I can't do anything right..."
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:40 pm
Kara moved a little closer, leaning forward to watch the little tear on the cloth. She sighed – quite loudly – but didn’t really have the heart to further admonish the other cat. If he had been arrogant or sly about it, Kara would certainly have given him an earful but Neser looked so pathetic that she really couldn' bring herself to make it worse. It seemed that anything negative always seemed to clear his mind of any rational thought, instantly paralyzing him on the spot.
“It ripped a little. I can fix it.” She said quietly, stepping back and sitting down gracefully. “It’s a good thing the Master has allowed me to have some sewing lessons.” It wouldn’t be perfect but certainly good enough. And it was a chance for her to practice all that she’d learned lately.
“Just keep cleaning and try not to make it worse.” Kara didn’t know where the rest of the household members were but it would be wise to finish before Akila or Ottah returned. It would probably be alright if Flint caught them but she'd rather not risk it with the others.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 12:06 am
Neser finally dared to take a look, and he had to agree, it didn't look that bad. And good thing Kara knew how to fix it. He folded the cloth carefully to hide the little rip inside and continued cleaning the floor even more carefully than before. At this rate it would take forever to get the work done, but he wouldn't give up this time! He paused for a moment and to his surprise he realised that he was almost done with the kitchen and would only have to remove his tracks from the door and back. He could do that!
Neser scrubbed carefully on one last spot on the kitchen floor before starting to work towards the door. He was making progress and that made him start to question his sudden luck.
"You know," he said with a nervous laugh, "This is usually the point when something terrible happens."
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 8:31 am
“See, you can do things when you’re careful.” Kara said with a tone that was very close to condescending, following after the brown cat. It was within her right to speak in such a way when Neser’s little mess had brought so much trouble (small exaggeration perhaps but it did feel like a lot of trouble) to the grey patched cat.
“Well, don’t ruin everything now. Make sure your paws are clean. You can fetch more clean water afterwards but just leave it outside, okay?” Kara said distractedly as she watched the brown slave finish the last bit of work before walking around Neser and hopping outside with a graceful leap. “And give me that when you’re done, I need to wash it before I fix that tear.”
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 8:48 am
It wasn't a very heroic feat, but when Neser managed to clean his way to the door and finally could step outside again it felt like a miracle. The floor was clean, the rag was not completely ruined after all, and he had actually finished a task. He wouldn't have had to if he hadn't messed up in the first place, but still.
"Is it all right like this," he asked, still a tiny bit anxious that some unforeseen disaster would jump out and bite him. "I'll be more careful when fetching water this time... And clean my paws... And leave it outside... Where did you want the cloth?"
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