Quote:
Caroling has been a tradition for years, so it’s really no surprise when you hear a soft chorus from outside. What is a surprise is the fact that it’s three in the morning, and the moment they start singing you feel a chill in the air. It’s a song you’ve heard a hundred times before, but something about this version makes you go cold. If you move to the window, you will find no carolers, but the song is loud enough that you know you should be able to see them. They sing one song, and then there is silence. An eerie chill lingers, and your dreams are haunted by strange voices. You’ll probably never be able to hear that song again without feeling a chill.
Sprawled comfortably on a chair with tail twitching slowly, Tiberius was enjoying doing nothing. There was no reason for him to get up and do anything at present, nor did he plan to - no senshi required his particular talents for awakening nor upgrade, no officers requested his cloaking skills. No half-youma making dark marks in the library for the umpteenth rendering of 'gibbous' in prose heavy and fancy to be bothered in the pursuit of a singularly spectacular feline high.
With the holidays, Tiberius found that very few wanted to be out and about, even with the strange glittering gem-shaped snow or the rest of it. And so, he was able to lengthen himself upon one of Stroud's chairs, stripes stretched and gloriously in place from countless hours spent meticulously grooming them into perfect place. He was as much an ornament as Lazarus or Delphine, or any of the other pieces on display in the richly appointed space, after all.
Notes, tremulous and ghost-like pricked at his ears. It sounded as though some group or other had decided to carol nearby, but that was ridiculous.
'O come, O come, Emmanuel~'
'And ransom captive Israel~'
Oh, sure, humans had been caroling for ages - that wasn't ridiculous. But that they'd come here, where he could hear them. That was. Tiberius didn't want the oddly cryptic music slithering into his ears and along his spine, but it was too late. Even if the words were innocuous enough, the tone was a minor key - or seemed to be - and held a particularly unpleasant sort of dissonance that grated and set his fur on edge.
'That mourns in lonely exile here~'
'Until the Son of God appear~'
Rising from his comfortable position on the chair with a low and rumbling growl, the Mauvian jogged towards the nearest window; movement turned solid growl into something closer to a wub-wub-wub-wub-wub sound that seemed to shift as his thickly furred body shifted. Tiberius gathered his legs under him and sprung into the window sill so that he might gaze out at the snow covered expanses for the offending noise makers, certain he should be able to see them from the increased volume of the carol's lyrics through the air and into his rapidly flicking ears.
"This is some bullshit, where are you little bastards." He muttered, not wanting any strangers to see that he was actually able to talk and thus blow his cover somehow, but also being quite off-put by the whole hearing the god-rotting vocalizations without being able to see the bastards producing them. Maybe the other window... But even as Tiberius thought it, some part of the Mauvian knew it wasn't a strong argument. The sound was full enough where he was perched that he should be staring into a collection of rosy-cheeked, red-nosed carolers.
But there were none.
He confirmed that the other window produced no better visuals by grumpily wubbing his way over, muttering darkly as he bounced up another chair about crappy music tastes, weird holiday bullshit, and how there were no proper feline earplugs available. Staring out at the space where carolers should be, Tiberius's fur puffed out even further. Thankfully there was only one chorus - or maybe the...whatever...only knew one - because it stopped pretty quickly after that and the Mauvian was once more left with only the usual sounds of Stroud's apartment around him.
Unfortunately, the damage was done. Tiberius had a helluva time getting himself settled back to nap properly, and when he finally got up to investigate the song that had been sung, he found he couldn't stomach it at all. "Oh well that's great, it wasn't even appropriate. A ******** advent song. Pfft."
His bluster was entirely to block out his discomfiture...and when he decided to go lay on Lazarus' bed for a while, it had absolutely nothing to do with feeling creeped out. At all.
Word Count: 665
