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 Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:33 am
When Angus Cowden went to let the cats in at eight PM, he thought he was seeing double. Casper's white-furred bulk trundled past, seeming distinctly peeved tonight despite his usual imperturbable nature. Still left on the back steps were a pair of orange tabbies. Angus rubbed his eyes, but the pair of cats remained. He frowned at them. "C'mon, Wendy," he said, shooing the cat he definitely recognized into the house.
His eyes remained fixed on the second tabby. "Lu?" he called. "We've got an extra cat."
"What?" asked Tallulah, poking her head out of her bedroom. She looked to the door, where the tabby sat as if waiting to be invited in. "Tomlin!" she exclaimed before she could help herself, and rushed to cover with some kind of explanation for why she recognized the mysterious stray. "He's a friend's cat," she explained to Angus, rushing forward to scoop the tabby up from the stoop. "She's been looking for him, I'll call her and let her know I found him - can you get me a can of tuna? I bet he's starving - and feed Casper and Wendy?"
She deposited Tomlin into her bedroom and hurriedly closed the door before the other two cats could sneak in. They were both on strict diets - nothing but kibble for them. But Tomlin she could always spare some albacore for: he was just skin and bones after all!
Angus passed her a can of Chicken of the Sea and a can opener through the door, and Tallulah quickly shut it again. She opened the can and set it on the floor in front of the guardian cat.
"What are you doing here?" she asked quietly. "Is something wrong?"
Clearly, she wasn't used to personal visits from guardian cats.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:30 am
Tomlin walked all the way around the house three times before he decided that he'd found the right place. Tracking an Eternal senshi was one thing, but following a civilian was a harder trick, even though he'd watched her powering down. It was a nice area, with nice cats that had sniffed him then ignored him as Not One Of Them. They left him alone as he poked around their territory, and seemed unconcerned that he was checking the windows for openings. For the most part, he ignored them too, but when they both gravitated towards the door, he was quick to follow their lead.
He waited, tail swishing along the steps, until Tallulah appeared, pleased that his stalking had paid off - but his relief was short-lived as the girl picked him up. His fur fluffed up immediately, even though he knew this was Europa. He bit his tongue to stifle the string of protests in front of the unknown but presumably parental figure.
Fortunately, she let him down before he could get himself truly worked up about it. Safely back on the ground, he sat with his paws neatly tucked in, a picture of well-behaved kitty, and tried to pretend he hadn't just been panicking.
He settled down further as the tuna made its appearance. It was very difficult to be upset in the face of tuna.
"Nothing's wrong," he assured, his voice likewise soft, "At least not at my end. I wanted to see how you were doing. It's a big job you've got here, the court."
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 5:02 pm
Tallulah practically sat on her hands to keep herself from reaching out and giving Tomlin a scratch behind the ears. While it was easy enough to treat him like a normal cat in front of her dad for, you know, appearances sake, behind closed doors she found it all rather awkward. She'd had the same issue adjusting to dealing with Abel, way back when: it was undignified to scoop the nearest guardian cat up for belly rubs when there was work to do.
"Yes, I guess it is," she nodded. In all honesty, Tallulah hadn't had time this week to be stressed out. Distress over Leto's corruption had faded into a dull ache of anger and frustration: Europa had known her cousin was in over her head with the Blood Moon. Why hadn't she tried harder to get her out? If Kallichore and Maia could cut their ties with Ares, then why hadn't she been able to convince Leto to do the same before the darkness seized her?
"All this stuff with my cousin," she said softly, leaning against her bedframe. She twined her fingers into the cartoon animal comforter, finding a loose string and tugging on it. "And then pulling the court together - I mean, I'm glad I called the meeting, but-"
Tallulah stared at the weave of the carpet. "Sorry," she murmured, giving the cat a plaintive look. "Thanks for stopping by. Really. I mean, it's not like I'm not used to having a lot on my plate."
Though this was admittedly more than usual.
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:33 am
People were different when there was only a cat in the room, even a Guardian cat. He’d heard Europa’s meeting voice. He’d heard her comforting-Callisto voice (and endlessly approved). He hadn’t heard Tallulah before.
Tomlin stared into the depths of the tuna tin, listening as much to the tone of the girl’s voice as he did to the words. He wasn’t truly starving, not the way he had been, not since he’d found Callisto, but the well-padded resident pet cats hadn’t looked like they’d needed it, so he ate. It gave him something to do while she talked. He hated to hear that much sadness in her voice, and hated worse that there was nothing he could do to put it right. Death wasn’t any less devastating for knowing there was a possibility of re-birth. Her cousin was a casualty, and while they could search for a way to cure her corruption, plan and try and hope, it was a distant thing right now. Hard to promise, however much he wanted to.
Abandoning the food, he jumped up onto the bed, ostensibly to examine the thread she was picking at, a guaranteed cat attracter. His whiskers brushed her hand.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you called it, too. I think they all are. You really took care of Callisto at the meeting - you reached out to them all.” It was obvious he’d been impressed by everything she’d achieved. Equally obvious that he was still concerned for her. “But you don’t have to do it alone, you know. Many as one?”
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:03 am
Tallulah caved and gave Tomlin's head a stroke. There was something soothing about a cat, even if it was a talking cat who was probably smarter than you, being close by and warm. "Callisto," she said thoughtfully. "Callisto's going to be okay. She's just... really young." Any younger and she'd be a chibi senshi, wouldn't she? Thank heavens for small mercies - at least she didn't have to look out for any actual children. There was what felt like a universal opinion among the senshi that the front lines were no place for chibis.
"I can't imagine being fourteen and being thrown headfirst into things as they stand now," she sighed, flattening out the lump she'd tugged in the comforter. "I was sixteen, and... it was a more innocent time. The Negaverse wasn't as strong. We hadn't lost any of our own."
It was just... vandalism, and she was a sixteen-year-old girl with a camera phone and a burning desire to find out more. Who'd have possibly guessed then how far it was going to progress? She gave Tomlin another scratch behind the ears.
"I'm glad someone was listening," said Tallulah, managing a small smile for him. "Do you think I inspired anyone at that meeting?" She'd been a bit pre-occupied to notice if the court was terribly cohesive from the get-go or not. Hopefully the cohesion would come, though... She needed to meet with people.
"I've had a team fall apart before," she sighed, rubbing her temples. "I don't think I can deal with that again."
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 7:28 am
Tomlin settled on the comforter, claws unconsciously pin-pricking into it as the fabric shifted, eyes half-closing at the attention.
“She needed to be able to defend herself. She’s more ready than you think,” he assured, thinking of his little steel-blue senshi fondly. There were moments, more than a few, when Tomlin had wondered if he should have waited on Callisto, but his heart couldn’t countenance any delays. If he’d left her unawakened, he might never have found her again. Everything she’d done, since the moment she lifted her pen, had proved him right. And he’d needed her. It was very simple, when he thought like that. He thought, too, of Chibi Hygiea, with her little pink toy and her lecture. Age didn’t matter so much, when the heart was so strong.
He listened to the rest without comment. When had it gotten so bad, he wondered. He should have been here.
“It was a good speech,” he said, but he couldn’t offer much more reassurance than that. Keeping up the energy-damping on the roof had been a higher priority than following the discussion. As far as Tomlin was concerned, the court was in motion now. There would be difficulties, push and pull as they found their orbits, weaving themselves together. But it would settle down. There was an inescapable rightness to the idea of the team. He had a sneaking suspicion his senshi were doing his job for him.
And Europa. Europa was even more experienced than he’d guessed.
“Fell apart?” he asked gently. “What happened?”
He rubbed his head against her, comforting (or perhaps just begging further petting). Subtext: whatever happened last time, we will not let it happen again.
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:18 am
Tallulah took the hint, letting her hand drift back to the cat's head. "I don't really..." she stopped herself, because it wasn't true. She did know what had happened with the Basterds and she did want to talk about it. Only, there was no one to talk about it with. Angus had certainly noticed that his daughter's 'study group' had stopped meeting, but Tallulah didn't want to tell her father any more than she had to about her secret life and she'd already told him too much.
"One left to the Blood Moon Court," she sighed, ticking them off on her fingers. "Two coupled up and went to do their own thing..." Which stung, because neither had really willingly talked to her since and she suspected it was her own fault. Blame it on the concussion if she wanted to, but it had just been a bad situation all around. "One was never really in it to begin with." Castor had come to a few early meetings, but there'd always been a sense he was just there to check things out. He fared better as an aloof mentor than as a team player.
"One formed another team, itching for leadership, I guess," not that she blamed Pomona. Tallulah knew now what she'd done wrong, and couldn't begrudge anyone for leaving. "Two kind of faded off the radar, one took the cat with him." Which left two more Basterds. One she'd been avoiding thinking about and one who hadn't ever really left the team until Europa finally threw in the towel.
"One would have stayed, except no one else did, so I let her go," sighed Tallulah, entwining her fingers into Tomlin's fur. "And the last one... dumped me. But it was my fault, really. I had it coming. And it wasn't right." Not in this lifetime, at any rate. Maybe not ever. It had yet to be seen.
She glanced down at Tomlin. It felt good, to finally have it all out there. The collapse of the Basterds, a tale in three acts about a team that had never really functioned all that well in the first place. "I didn't trust them enough," she sighed. "I want to trust the Jovians. I'm pretty sure I can trust the Jovians."
Senshi needed independence and responsibility. Treating your teammates like kindergartners would never get you very far. Tallulah knew that... now, at least.
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:29 am
Big team, he thought approvingly, even if it hadn’t lasted. Tomlin wondered what the focus had been, but with Tallulah so melancholy, he thought it best not to ask. Individually, each loss was nothing too serious, but he could understand how the slow unravelling of the team must have been maddening to the one trying to bind it together. Perhaps the most surprising thing was that the other cat had left. Tomlin couldn’t understand that one - Tallulah was really good at ear-scritchings.
He stretched out, claws dragging on the coverlet until the one loose thread was joined by a couple of others.
“Nobody died,” he pointed out, ticking off his own little list. “Nobody was corrupted into leaving...?” He paused, waiting to see if he’d be contradicted. He was assuming the senshi who had gone to the Blood Moon was the cousin, Leto, but if she’d been the first to leave, her later corruption couldn’t have been the reason for it. “So it didn’t last. That’s not your fault.”
The romance aspect of the issue passed him by. He only saw a senshi beating herself up over people going their own way. But people would do that, had to do that. In his opinion, it was a poor senshi who only followed orders.
“Trust can be hard. But I don’t think you need to worry. I trust you.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:38 pm
Tallulah brightened - just a little bit. It was true, she hadn't 'lost' a senshi on her watch yet. "You're right," she agreed, feeling a little better about her capabilities as a leader. "No one died or was corrupted, nor since - erm - could you be a little bit more careful with the furniture?" She winced at the new bit of raggedy thread on her comforter. Tomlin was smarter than the average feline, and where Casper or Wendy would have been kicked out into the hall he was getting politely asked.
"Thanks," she blushed, entwining her fingers into his ginger fur. Guardian cats confused her, she decided. Some could be so no-nonsense, but Tomlin seemed perfectly content to be treated physically like any other domestic shorthair. And being connected as he was to Callisto, having him around felt more proper than 'borrowing' someone else's cat, like it had always been with Abel.
"It was a good idea, right?" she asked the cat quietly, drawing her knees up to her chest. "Bringing them together?" Because, as far as she could tell, teams based purely on astronomical connections were fairly rare. It was enough to make a girl wonder if there was a reason why no one else had tried it.
"I mean..." Tallulah flopped over on her side, and gave Tomlin a long look. Sustained eye-contact with a cat... was a little bit unnerving. "Is it what you would have done?"
Guardian cats were, in her experience, fantastic organizers. (Albeit with short-lived attention spans. After all, look at where Astraea had left them.) Nothing could rally a group of senshi quite like a guardian cat with a plan and some stern words.
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:46 am
The furniture? Tomlin gave her an uncomprehending look. The room looked nice, not that he'd seen that many bedrooms, and all the furniture seemed solid. He hadn't felt the bed shift when he'd jumped up, and it wasn't like he was that heavy - certainly not as big as the white cat that lived here. If anything, Tomlin had to admit he was still underweight, despite the generous application of lunchmeat and tuna. It wasn't a problem - he'd hate to be too heavy to hitch a ride on Callisto's shoulder.
Nevertheless, he settled back down so as not to rock the bedframe if it was a concern, kitty-loafing his paws neatly beneath him.
"A very good idea," he agreed. But what he would have done? That was harder to say. His eyes slid away from hers, glancing around the room again as he considered. There was no doubt in his mind that he belonged with Callisto, but it was equally true that she wasn't the only senshi that called out to him, though the exact details of that sense were still something he needed to figure out. Yes, he'd have still come looking for Europa and Ganymede and the rest. And it would be easier to keep up with them if they were all in one place, and preferably on speaking terms. He would have tried to edge them towards a team eventually. They belonged.
"Yes," he said at last. "I would have. You've saved us some time."
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:32 am
Tomlin's gentle reassurance set Tallulah at ease. She bit back a sheepish smile and ran another hand down the cat's back. It had never really occurred to her before to wonder why the senshi advisors took the form of housecats, but right now it seemed to her to be strictly a function of their therapeutic value. Talking to a therapist was more comforting when that therapist was fluffy and covered in fur and you could give them ear-scritches.
"Glad I was helpful," she blushed, going limp on her bedspread. After a while, she piped up again: "I guess, are you going back to Erika's tonight?" Not that she'd mind Tomlin staying over. He was probably way less likely to try suffocating her in her sleep that Casper or Wendy. On the other hand, though, Erika would probably worry if her kitty didn't come back home...
"I've got class in the morning," she sighed, rolling onto her back. "And now I have to take the subway all the way to campus."
It was practically a war of attrition: how many days could Tallulah force herself out of bed at 6 AM before the apartment hunting began again. "I'll open the window for you if you want," she offered.
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:55 am
Tomlin rolled onto his back too, but his bracers made his legs too heavy to be comfortable in the air. He stretched them above his head for a moment, enjoying the soft bed, before rolling back onto his feet.
"Yeah, don't want to be back too late," he agreed, all business again. "Maybe I should check out the subway. Might be quicker than walking here." He didn't know much about public transport, but he figured it couldn't be that much different to cars. More difficult to jump out of, though, he assumed. No traffic lights to stop it. Maybe not the best idea after all. Or at least, not to mention to his senshi.
Claws still out for traction on the abused comforter, Tomlin stalked across the bed, jumping straight over Tallulah, and then made the short leap onto the windowsill. He surveyed the garden though the glass, getting his bearings. The ground-floor view didn't offer him much in the way of cityscapes, but he knew the direction he'd come from. And now that he'd confirmed which window was Europa's, he wouldn't have to wait on the housecats to get him in next time. He turned back to the girl, tail swinging gently over the edge as he waited for her to open it.
"You're okay here?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 8:17 am
Wincing for her comforter's sake, Tallulah rolled over and undid the window latch, sliding it up a few inches so Tomlin could slip out. "Maybe avoid the subway," she suggested quietly, reaching up to give Tomlin one last scratch behind the ears. "I'm not sure how they feel about rogue housepets."
Of course she knew better than to think of Tomlin as a housepet, but that didn't mean Destiny City Security did. A cat on the subway was likely to get picked up by animal control... or hit by a train. "It'll take longer," she said, swallowing dryly, "But please just walk back to Erika?" She had an additional temptation to ask him to have Erika call her when he got home... but that might be a bit overbearing. Hadn't she just had a whole conversation about trusting her teammates more? It was time to put it into practice!
She gave the cat a smile. "Yeah," Tallulah assured Tomlin. "I'll be fine. Got my parents, got a can of Ener-TEA..."
There was a thud at the door, followed by a long feline yowl.
"Got Casper and Wendy clawing at the door," she finished, smirking as she rolled off her bed. "You better go, I've got to let them in." She turned her back on him to open the bedroom door. A lithe streak of ginger fur and a fat white cloud bolted for the can of tuna on the floor.
When Tallulah turned back around, the guardian cat had gone from the window. Smiling to herself, she closed the latch. Everything wasn't magically better - but all you could do when you fell into a hole was dig yourself out of it.
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