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 Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:34 am
With winter came hard times for everyone, and every alley cat, stray dog, and street-smart rodent was looking for something to fill their gut. Sometimes this meant any alley cat, stray dog, or street-smart rodent. You took what you got, and life had taught him to be an opportunist.
So was the dog that had found him in the park.
Yowling, Arthur was a bolt of white rushing through the snow, covering the field where tamer, leashed dogs would play Frisbee during the summer months.
"You don't want me! I'm old! I taste like dried leather!" He cried, before he turned around a tree, through a shrub, and went up a tree. Tail between his legs, he looked down and waited.
And waited.
It was a good few minutes before he let himself breathe out.
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Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:47 am
Faust had not so elegantly discovered that snow sucked metric ******** of a**. Not only did the black cat fail to blend into the untouched new snow, but even the flurries pounded down and ground into blackened smears by cars never quite lent camouflage to his coat. Instead, the fluffy Mauvian loosed feline grunts of disgust while he tramped through the snow, repeatedly shaking out his feet for each step that left thick clumps of icy mess stuck to his toe fur.
It was disgusting, and wet, and he hated it, and this whole damn venture outdoors better pay off with a senshi to awaken or a youma lying dead in its own pile of dust.
However, very little meandered into the landscape stricken cold and white, for the algid temperatures paid no courtesy to those brave enough to venture out. Occasionally he found people pacing the streets with friends, boyfriends, wives or sons. Laughing or solemn. Together or paced far enough apart that the wedges between the people in their lives were as evident as lines in the sand. Some attempted to chase him, to steal away the pile of fluff that patrolled the streets as steady as always, but Faust tried his damndest to bolt across the road and steal himself away in an alley just wide enough for his feline dimensions.
However, all this running and darting through people left his coat detestably wet on the underside.
Finally Faust leapt onto a bus bench dusted with snow, rather displeased to sit in more of the irritatingly wet flurry that assaulted his fluff. And once he finally gave in to rest his haunches, he heard the racket of a snowball bolting straight through the snow and darting up a tree, as a massive wonder of screwed-up physics.
Until he realized it wasn't a snowball.
Faust cast a glance out toward where the cat came, but nothing followed as one would expect. Then he glanced back toward the snowball-c**-cat and blinked slowly, recognizing the very unusual presence of both glasses and a forehead star.
"Mrrrow," he started, low and trilling.
And then he tried to charge up the tree.
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Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:03 pm
For Arthur, winter was to his advantage. Being all white, he blended perfectly with the surrounding. Not so much during the other months, when his white body made him stand out before iron gates, green fields, and dirt-covered roads. Well, he was white to a degree, save for the slight graying of his fur that even tongue-wipes could not get off. Oil was a terrible mistress.
Curled around the tree, he clung to the branch when he saw the black creature. Small. It could have been a smaller dog with a pack, and the meow had him wondering if they just found another cat.
He looked up the sky to give the cat a silent prayer that it got away.
Instead, he looked back down to see that the black streak was actually a cat and one that was running up tree.
Scooting down the branch, he gave the new cat space to sit. "Dogs are being vicious today." He said, noticing the star. Any other cat he would meow to, but with no one around and the star, he guessed this one could talk too.
He also guessed it went up the tree because it was being chased.
Looking back down, he breathed out and looked back. "Did they get ya?" He asked, looking at the black cat for any bite marks. Concerned (and a bit cold), he moved closer to check the cat out.
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Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:10 pm
Faust remained silent for a great span of time after he reached one of the thicker, lower branches. His eyes prowled the street for any sign of passersby that might linger to point toward the cats and make their own observations. once he was certain that no one stood around waiting to hear a feline conversation, he finally turned his attention to the fellow occupant in the ******** no," he remarked as sassily as possible. "Like hell some goddamn dog would try to bite my a**. I'd shred its nose into confetti in a heartbeat. Damn, son, I fight youma. With my people. Ain't no way in hell I'm gettin' my a** beat by a dog." Faust scoffed, puffing himself up and displaying his chest prominently to indicate his grand presence.
"I didn't see no dog anyway. Looks like you lost it."
Faust eyes continually drew to the star on the cat's forehead, the single splotch of gold on an otherwise white body. Faust grunted. "Yo, by the way. I'm Faust. What's your name? And how long you been, you know, one of THE cats? Sheeit, there's like goddamn none of us around on these streets. I'm wonderin' if the rest of the crew is a bunch of fatass spoiled housecats that just sit around with their senshi.
"Oh, and yanno, you look kinda... Uh." The Mauvian paused a moment to consider politically correct diction, and soon gave up on the matter. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like you went slip and slidin' through a shitpile. What happened to you, bro?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:13 pm
Arthur stared at the other cat with the same silence as the other displayed, but not out of fear of being heard. Instead, he was more alarmed by the tone.
"Oh." He said at last, considering what he said.
"Your….people?" He slowly repeated. "OH! Your owners. " Of course his owners would protect him. They were great for that. A caring partner to work with you and give you food and watch over.
As for youma, he only clung to the tree a little more, dragging a claw innocently down the bark and brushing off a bit of snow.
"Oh…those. Yeah, well. They sure are around." And he sure wasn't around them when they were. It was bad enough avoiding the average obstacles he couldn't outwit, but youma were a nasty lot that had too many close calls.
At introductions, he turned about, moving to be face to face with the other. "Arthur. Nice to meet a…cat like yourself." He was nice at least, all swears aside. At least he wasn't yowling and scratching his nose to confetti.
"I don't see nothing wrong with house cats. Don't you stay with your ..uh..the people? They keep you warm and fed? Being in a nice home is nothing to be ashamed about." He rather enjoyed his – at the time.
The other questions were ignored. He didn't feel that Faust, after bad mouthing lazy house cats, would enjoy his answer.
His ears went up as he was told about his coat, and he looked at himself, raising his front paws up to regard himself. "I didn't think it was THAT bad. I guess the semi engine was a bad place to rest, but I was going to wash up tonight." He turned to check his back and frowned. "Hmm. Maybe I'll go to Chang's Garden Takeout and steam clean my coat by the vents."
He set his paws back on the branch and looked down.
"Why are you out in the cold when you have people?"
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