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Despite hurrying, it was still at least ten minutes before Ari returned. All might be forgiven, though, as the tantalising scent of salmon proceeded her through the bedroom door. Ari was balancing a large plate, a small glass and a small pile of cloth napkins. Backing the door closed behind her, Ari then set things down on her mostly-cleared desk.

If the cats peered (as they no doubt would, with food involved), they would see a large salmon portion on the plate, though its size was eclipsed by a mass of greenery. In front of each cat on the bed, Ari whipped down a few folded cloths.

"'Scuse fingers," she said, picking up the salmon piece and breaking it roughly in half. The pieces (still quite large, for cats) were placed on the napkins. "Dig in," she told them.

The small glass was moved to the nightstand. It was short, fat and full of milk. "You two will be fine sharing a drink, right? I couldn't exactly ask for two glasses without everyone knowing something was up."

Her guests fed, Ari settled on the other side of the bed with the plate and dug into her caesar salad.

Finishing her lunch shortly after Jada was done, Ari set aside the plate. The napkins that had held Jada's fish were mostly clean, just a few tiny flakes here and there (and some fish oil). Ari removed it from the bed before anything transferred to the quilt cover, sitting them on the empty plate.

"Sure, I can keep Castor here while you meet with Zirconia." Part of Ari wanted to insist on going, but someone had to man the fort, as it were. As Jada pointed out, if anything did go wrong, someone - some human - had to be able to step in and claim Jada-kitty. And that was easier if the person could be easily found.

"You'll have to let me know what numbers to dial," Ari said. And then she'd be keeping very quiet while Jada made her no-really-I'm-sick-but-definitely-in-no-way-a-cat phone calls.

Ari stayed quiet through the phone calls. It wouldn't do for the 'sick' Jada to have a friend making noise in the background - having a friend over was hardly the behaviour of someone claiming to be as sick as Jada was telling her family and boss.

"At least it's over with," she offered with a shrug. "Everyone bought it, so we've got time to get you back to normal."

Habit had Ari reaching out for the exposed belly of any cat. She quickly realised before getting too close and snapped her hand back to her side. Heh, she somehow thought Jada might not be so happy to have her belly scritched. Ari gave the scritches to Castor, instead. He, at least, wasn't going to turn back into a human and give Ari strange looks for rubbing his belly (or so she really, really hoped).

Ari grinned and gave a short laugh. "It wouldn't be a problem at all. The staff aren't allowed to clean in here, so they won't notice. And my parents are mostly busy with work - but on the off-chance they do look in, I'll leave it open just enough for a cat and they shouldn't notice."

It generally wasn't the windows they were checking up on, after all.

"I'll leave the window open anyway," Ari said, shrugging. No skin off her back. If it got cold, it was easy enough to find extra blankets for her bed. Ari thought that was preferable to Scylla spending the night under a bush, feline or not.

She just had to hope that Castor wasn't the sort to be tempted by the open window and decide to go exploring. Well, he was an indoor cat so it was quite possible that he would choose warmth and luxury over a cold, unknown outdoors.

... As long as he didn't try to follow Scylla out.

Crossing to the window, Ari opened it just wide enough for a cat to slink out. "Well, good luck and I'll see you later tonight."