RP Time? You betcha!

[shipwreck_light]

"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.



Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

Comments

[one_eyed_nemo]

Nemo leapt down from his perch on the upper deck of Jenna. He meant to land neatly on the catwalk.

Instead, he landed neatly in soft soil.

He sniffed it, found it didn't smell like soil from any planet he'd been on, nor remotely like Jenna, and growled to himself. He could smell water nearby, though, and water was the whole reason he'd jumped down, so he stuck close to the trees as he padded toward the smell.

Nemo is about two and a half feet high at the shoulder and four feet from nose to the base of his tail. His tail is long, at least as long as his body. He's an orange mackerel tabby, and he only has one eye.

[shipwreck_light]

(OOC: would you be terribly offended if I reposted canon!Seb's reply from last time? Want to play with Claude instead? Or any number of cuddly elementals?)

[subluxate]

(I would not be offended in the least! I have more time to actually play this time, which pleases me. Tag him with whomever you want.

Also, preference on a version of Johnny?)

[shipwreck_light]

Siebenkas did not especially /enjoy/ the quarterly meetings. Some meetings were of interest to him. They presented actual facts. Quarterlies? Arbitrary nonsense. And in this case, exploding coffee carafes. He hadn't exactly escaped that one himself, and it left him with this curious sense: perhaps his ducking skills were not what they had once been?

It was strange. Ever since he'd come back from the mission with Roa, he'd been wary down to his bones. And then this morning, over the meeting?

Just all of a sudden. Coffee. And it had surprised him. Also, his somewhat better autumn suit jacket, which was now in a dry cleaners' bag, which was going in the dry cleaning /pile/, assuming Ambra hadn't toted that off herself.

Siebenkas considered he should probably just run the damn thing over himself, not that he was running anywhere at all with a cane. Or in his rattiest pair of jeans, matched as they were with a very fine linen shirt of such caliber he was somewhat embarrassed to own it.

Other things he really should have taken note of: it was quiet in the manor. Too quiet.

He needed no other explanation for finding himself in a garden and all when the hallway did usually end in the common room.

Usually.

He sighed, hitched his bag over his arm and rubbed his toes in the grass. Counted to three. Just smelled. Just breathed. Just took in the sunshine without a hint of smog.

And then.

Peering out over today's touch out of place world.

He saw.

The cat.

The great, big, glorious cat padding around the edge of the garden, sniffing and flicking his tail.

Siebenkas's heart went splish-splash.

He didn't know this cat. It was surely big enough to take a serious bite out of him.

But the mere sight of that /cat/. All of that cat. Combined with the long and tragic absence of a (small, house) cat in his day-to-day life.

He sort of gaped.

Well.

No sort of to it.

(OOC: Sweet! Whichever Johnny you bring, he's going to get jumped by someone here. So, a Johnny who doesn't mind getting jumped.)

[one_eyed_nemo]

Nemo most certainly did not startle when he saw the human appear from nowhere. Literally nowhere; he hadn't walked out of anywhere, and Nemo hadn't smelled him before he appeared. Startling was for demis, and Nemo was not a demi.

The man didn't look threatening, just like a man with a walking stick. Nemo was fairly sure the man didn't have a weapon, and he was absolutely positive he could outrun and out-climb him.

So he strolled over, looked up, and said, "Where you come from?"

[shipwreck_light]

First blush of talking cat talking to /him/?

Siebenkas bristled with his senses trying to sort the information out.

But, there was no way around it. That big, beautiful kitty-cat. Was talking. To him.

And he really had seen stranger things on these little jaunts. Just, not cat-related things.

Having cleared his own throat and not exactly bitten back his smile, he answered. "Well, I was just in the hall of my apartment in Asil 9, which itself appears on what I understand is a rather bland permutation of planet earth. And you?"

(OOC: You do realize I've managed to avoid naming the city in JoR for 500,000 words, but a CAT just got it out of Seb? Damn, man. I am so putting "Weakness: cats" on his personae entry.)

[one_eyed_nemo]

"Was on Jenna. Clever-class ship." At the man's blank look, Nemo tried again. "On our way to Iota Aurigae system."

OH MY GOD I JUST LAUGHED SO HARD. Ask Sara! At any rate, SCORE ONE FOR NEMO.

[shipwreck_light]

(OOC: Winrar is Nemo. And you XD.)


Actually, that made a certain amount of sense. If you could build starships, why not talking cats?

"So, you've been out sailing the stars?" Siebenkas asked. "It must be a shock to find yourself in green all of a sudden, surrounded by people who've never been... And the gravity isn't bothering you?"

Siebenkas wasn't right then enjoying the mental image of a cat cavorting in zero G. Nosiree.

[one_eyed_nemo]

"Jenna has grav drive." If she hadn't, Nemo never would have stayed with her and Bryta, no matter his affection for them. He couldn't stand zero G. "Lighter than this, but plenty planets this heavy." He turned one ear toward where he heard a twig snap; once he decided it was nothing worth paying attention to, he continued, "I Nemo. You?"

[shipwreck_light]

Beautiful, giant, talking cat. Doing kitty radar ears. Siebenkas honestly had to stop him laughing, just from how happy the sight made him. So much adorable in such a singular, fluffy instance. "I am called Siebenkas and I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Nemo. So, if there's anything I could tell you or do for you..."

He wouldn't have made that offer to a human such a little way into their acquaintance. But a cat? Cats were different.

[one_eyed_nemo]

Nemo considered the offer, giving Siebenkas a piercing look as he did so.

Possibly that might be unnerving coming from a predator his size.

And then he decided that Siebenkas could be trusted not to say anything about the lack of dignity in asking, "You good at ear rubs?" Bryta was, when she wasn't busy, and he'd planned to go see if she had downtime after he drank.

[shipwreck_light]

Well. Cats stared right through humans as an aspect of their being cats at all. It was something of feline nature that he appreciated. You couldn't lie to a cat.

But, if he didn't feel more naked before Nemo than he would have with every evoker in the city laying hands to him.

So no. He was not going to lie to Nemo. He wasn't even going to try. He would accept his yes and he would be happy.

Accepting though did happen to involve his carefully working his way down into the grass. So that he could sit there and stretch out his injured leg.

"It's been a while," he said with a smile. And after a bit of an oof. "But I do very much enjoy giving ear rubs and I did have a lot of practice once upon a time."

[one_eyed_nemo]

Good enough. Nemo situated himself with his back legs stretched along the grass in front of his stomach, tail draped lazily over them, and propped himself on his forelegs. In what Bryta would call 'an imperious manner', he butted his cheek against Siebenkas's chest. "You have cats?"

[shipwreck_light]

role. If you have female genitalia, you want to be a woman, have a man, and get fucked passively. Boom, says the Standard Model. Done.Siebenkas found himself suppressing a purr of his own at that. It had been so, so long since any cat had done that to him. Let alone such a majestic one. That demanded ear scritches with human speech.

He flexed his fingers and sank them slow, first to Nemo's ruff, then creeping up the fur, careful to stroke it back into place after. There, until he came to the silky spot on top of his Nemo's head and there. Oh, there he stroked along the bottoms of those lovely ears, coming up one and then the other for the most tender rubs.

"No," he said, somewhat misty and quiet even to his own ears. "The person who owns my apartment is allergic to cats. I miss having them so much."