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 Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 1:21 pm
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On most nights, Evan could hitch a ride home, curl up in bed, and sleep until he had to wake up for work the next day—but then, most nights Zack was there to give him a ride back to his place. Tonight, Evan had to walk.
On its own, it wasn't even a bad night to have to spend a few extra minutes outside, but it was the principle of the matter. He'd been on his feet, working—slaving over a hot stove. Which, if he'd been more careful while doing, he wouldn't have knocked an entire saucepan of buffalo sauce onto his foot. The damage wasn't so awful, but the mess had been, and he was thankful he had limited dress code at work and outfits composed of a largely black ensemble. But even after cleaning himself up, he was still splattered with sauce and favoring his ankle.
He'd made it a good portion of the way home when he was regretting not favoring it a little more, so after a moment of strained limping he decided the best thing to do was just take a seat on that comfortable looking sidewalk and give his muscles a few minutes to work all that out.
He dropped his bag next to him and flopped onto the cement, leaning back and letting his muscles relax.
It was when he was leaning back that he first spotted her; in the darkness it took a minute to identify what he was looking at, but once he realized it was a cat—with strange metal poking out of her ears, it looked like, he was worried and sat up a little straighter.
If she was a street cat, he didn't want to chase her away, but if someone had been sticking things in that poor cat's ears, he didn't want to agitate her and scare her off. Especially if she needed treatment.
So, he did the next best thing and sat still before he made two quick kissing sounds and called out, "Come here, kitty."
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 6:56 pm
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Being a black cat, against a darkening skyline had it's perks. For example, it made catching birds and mice far more easier than trying to do it during the day. However, at this point her preferred bait had all retired to higher perches scattered throughout the city, so she had to settle or the small mice that weren't smart enough to stick to the inside of buildings. This is how she'd spent the better part of the evening. A good old fashioned game of catch and release. With the added extra of an occasional kill.
What could she say. She sometimes liked to play with her food.
The young cat was about to pounce on a mouse she had corner, when a noise made her ear twitch and startled the mouse deep inside a crack in the wall. Iolite scowled, her ears laying flat on her head, as her tail twitched irritably, it long hair flicking across pavement. Damn it. Oh well... All good things must come to an end, one supposed.
Her head turned, looking for the source of the noise and, of course, the noise was human. She couldn't help but huff at the use of the term 'kitty'. Cute. Rolling her eyes, she slowly padded over towards the young man. The black cat sat just short of his reach, her head dipping to smell at his ankle. Well that was weird. The boy seemed ordinary enough though, aside from his unusually smelling ankle. Wrapping her long tail around her paws, Iolite stared at him for a long moment before meowing.
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 7:59 pm
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Cats were infinitely smarter than dogs, and they knew it, and Evan knew it. This cat was smart enough to come close to a human, but smart enough to keep her distance in case she needed to get away. A dog would either run away or barrel into you. Or bite your face off, but Evan didn't really like to think about that option.
"Hey," he said softly, leaning over to inspect the cat. "It's okay, I won't bite. I don't eat cats," he continued, in the same sweet voice. He figured it was more important how he said it than what he said, anyway.
Everyone knew cats didn't speak English, so what did it really matter.
He might have been used to talking to himself, or just thought the easiest way to make a street cat trust you was by having a conversation with it (with yourself), but he chewed the side of his lip and muttered, "What have you got all over you? —Piercings?"
…Which was really weird on a cat. That didn’t look like some cruel torture, it looked like some shiny gems and expensive metal. It wasn't that it was unpleasant to look at, but why would you spend so much attention to piercing a cat and just let it roam around on the streets?
"…You've got a dozen earrings but no collar? Either someone really likes you or they really don't, huh?" he asked, holding out a hand tentatively. He didn't want to get rabies or all clawed up, but she was such a pretty cat, he just wanted to pet her.
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 8:46 pm
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:00 pm
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Everything seemed to be going according to plan—better than planned, at least, because he hadn't scared the cat off yet.
And then she started talking.
Which wasn't part of the plan.
Evan stared blankly at her for a moment, and it seemed like the realization was very slow to hit him. His eyes narrowed skeptically but he dind't recoil beyond lowering his hand. Very slowly he questioned, "What?"
The word was drawn out, as if he were having a hard time processing a decent response. He shifted positions uncomfortably and suddenly seemed very paranoid, glancing out around the darkness. Goosebumps prickled his skin, but he was wearing so many layers it would have been impossible to tell.
It was a mistake to walk home alone—it was always a mistake to walk home alone. His hand went to his phone and he wondered if he could beg Zack well enough to get a ride home because suddenly this had his stomach in a knot and his gut was telling him to go very far away.
His brain tried to tell him that what was going on was unreasonable. He was sleep depreived, that probably had something to do with it. Oh! Or, he'd eaten something bad! No, that was impossible, Evan would never cook something awful enough to get sick from it. Maybe those mushrooms he'd been dicing up weren't the mushrooms he'd thought they were? …Zack probably wasn't stupid enough to lay something like that in the kitchen, but sometimes you couldn't tell.
…No, that was unreasonable. But, more unreasonable than a talking cat?
Slowly, he pulled his bag closer to him.
"…Is this some kind of joke?" he asked suddenly, seeming to take on a very defensive stance almost immediately. Flustered, he continued, "…Because if it is, it really isn't funny, and I certainly don't want to meet whoever's got the time to attach—attach a voice box to a cat and go around bothering people like that."
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:32 pm
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"Then I would have bled," he snapped, recoiling his hand to his lap. He felt very cold, and he knew how gullible he was, so he doubted himself for even thinking she might be telling the truth. Realistically, this had to be a joke—and he should have known better than to fall for it.
But, here he was, still talking to her, as if he wasn't still trying to convince himself this was a prank. "And you would have gotten a mouthful of blood, and I'm sure we both would have gone home in a sour mood because of it. —You know, if it was such a bother, you could have walked away—you came over here. And, you know? —I'm really not going to sit around and let a cat insult me." (For which, he did seem genuinely hurt; she had been such a pretty cat and he had been enjoying their interaction prior to this surprise).
If his ankle wasn't still pulsing with warmth and agitation, he might have stormed away and gone home. Where things at least made a little sense.
"I don't know how you can be a talking cat and be offended when it seems like a joke. Cats don't talk. So either you're not a cat or I've lost my mind, and neither one really sounds great to me. What are you?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 10:19 pm
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"It would not have been the first time I had done such a thing..." She commented off offhandedly. "Personally, that doesn't really leave me in a bad mood. If it was on my fur... well, then I would be sour." It was a b***h to clean her fur sometimes.
"Did it ever occur to you that I'm not a typical cat?" Ears flattened once more as the cat's eyes narrowed. "Honestly... How can you live here and not know what's going on..." Io shook her head with a sigh. "I am what is known as a Mauvian." She said as she moved closer. "In the layman's terms.. I suppose you say I am similar to a cat. However, I am different. There are quite a few like myself that run around this city.
Iolite stretched to stand on her back paws, her front ones resting on the bag. "Seriously... You question the fact I have pierced ears, no collar- to which I do by the way, yet you failed to notice the glaring difference between me and a normal house hold feline. Seriously child, how did you not notice the fiery star on my forehead?"
Iolite hopped up on to the bag before sitting once more. "However you daft creature, I can assure you that you have not lost your mind. This is happening and believe me, there are far more concerning things to worry about then a talking feline."
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Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 5:54 am
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It hadn't really occurred to Evan that she would be anything other than just a typical cat because he liked to believe in simple, ordinary things, and if talking cats had never been on the news, then certainly they couldn't exist.
His face burned with he condescension and her insults, but he kept an even expression. With the darkening light he had just assumed it was some weird coloring on her forehead, and if that was a collar it was a hell of a morbid way to claim someone. He was expecting a cute, shiny little tag with a name and phone number, like you'd find on normal cats.
But apparently this wasn't normal so everything he knew was supposed to be thrown out the window.
Evan's lips remained pursed until he was ready to speak, at which point he said, "Like what? What is there for me to be worried about?"
His biggest concern right now was getting home before he ran into the wrong crowd, and the long her wasted time here talking to a cat (or not-cat), the more time he had to get into trouble.
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 5:10 am
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Evan's brows furrowed and he was torn between the pressure of walking away to avoid further insult, and the need to have some sort of approval for a correct answer. At least he couldn’t answer his name wrong, right?
"Evan," he said, though nearly faltered. "But I don't see why that matters, or why you've made such a big deal out of talking to me. And if your whole purpose in this was to mock me because I don't pay enough attention to the news—I don't care about stuff like that. The world can tear itself apart for all I care, I just want my nice little corner and to be left alone. If you're talking about the terrorists, I've got no business with them."
He knew about them, sure, but to a limited degree. He had never gone to seek out information; it wasn't that he didn't care, necessarily, but that he was immensely bothered. To a degree, scared, though he wasn't sure how much of that showed when he spoke of them.
So he simply did not speak of them.
It was too depressing, too upsetting.
He just wanted to cook. If it weren't for the job opportunities and being afraid of starting out all on his own somewhere else, he wouldn’t have even been in Destiny City; this place was awful.
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:48 pm
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"—I can't do right by you no matter what I do. Either I'm not educated enough, or any education I get is the wrong education—and I'm not sure you're not just a talking cat, no matter what you're calling yourself," Evan snapped; he spoke very quickly trying to readjust. He had bristled when she climbed onto his shoulder; he seemed to be expecting an attack of some sort and scrunched his neck closer to his body. He was wincing and pulled his head away a bit, as if afraid the piercings in his ear might get caught on hers.
He didn't comment about his little corner. Maybe, deep down, he knew she was right. Maybe he thought if he acknowledged it, it would make it true. But that was too serious a conversation to have with a stranger. He needed the idea of a safe little corner, where he could hide away and be safe and the world could pass him by. He didn't want to learn about people. He didn't want to be around people.
…But he couldn’t stand to be alone, either.
"—And it does not smell like piss, okay?" he snapped. Vinegar, maybe, but the last thing he wanted was for her to start running around and spreading rumors that he'd pissed himself too or something. "I dropped my sauce when I was cooking. What are you doing?" he squeaked, half frozen and still totally off balance with her extra weight. "I'm gonna fall, I can't stand like this. You're throwing me off balance!"
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