Lam-Chops
Traveling proved to be more difficult than I’d expected, and it was all my fault anyway. The Royal Family was officially hunting for me in Ponydale, and not only did I have that on my plate, but there was also word of the Rhubarb Ranch looking for someone fitting my description. Well, before I cut my hair all over again. The vision I had of my future had scared me plenty and was more than enough to make me change my appearance as much as I could. Even my traveling companions couldn’t identify me from the sketches that were posted in the towns on the way to the Centurn/Choret border, and that was exactly what I was going for.
I stopped playing my undlegar for a couple of weeks while we crossed the land without searching far and wide. There was also more weight loss in my path as well as budding friendships with most of the people in my group, even if they by and large didn’t trust me as far as they could throw me. In my eyes, I had bigger fish to fry like avoiding capture by the Equinish Crown, a term with the Ranch, or being caught and made to play for someone else for whatever reason. I didn’t even like playing music while in Ponydale, so when we finally crossed the border into Chorell, I was glad to be able to unholster my undlegar and play a couple of songs. Wonderous wasn’t the word for it. Ecstatic describes how I feel, not the pure joy of being free to play my music again. My group enjoyed it as well, though none more so than a Sun Woman named Kihasha, or Kiha for short. She came to me whenever she was feeling down about having to leave her home, and I was happy to play her a song to cheer her up. I’d like to say we developed a more romantic bond, but we honestly grew closer platonically. For all it was worth, we still ended up going our separate ways. She went to the steppes and I headed further toward Coranett with a few other Moon People, though I don’t know why the group split up the way it did. When I asked about it, I just got a standard ‘We stick with our own’ answer that I’d come to expect for the Chorets.
During my time with them, I’d noticed the differences between some of the races and found my begotten information unsurprising. Of course each culture was going to be different, and none more so than the hyper-religious, homo-hating Chorets. Even the Centurns had made more sense to me in Hooversdum, but I don’t know if that’s because they acted like I used to or what. I mean, the Centurns as a whole were generally a generous, kind race while the Chorets took their kindness and doled it out as they saw fit. When they’d believed that I was just another one of them, I’d been treated no differently than any of the other ex-pats. Once it was revealed that I was a River Man, I was set aside from the group in a way that upset me a little. Instead of being treated as just another warm body, they started revering me like I’d come through some great struggle to get a second chance at life, or like I’d actually done something worthy of note. To my knowledge, the most noteworthy thing I’d ever done was make songs, and even then they didn't like all of the ones I played for them. Centurns were a lot more forgiving with their tastes in music, but Chorets abhorred anything with too many swears or sexual references, so a lot of my music was censored for their benefit as well as my own. Little made me want to stay with the cell I’d split off with since they still treated me like an outsider, so I made sure that I wouldn’t run into that particular problem and split off from the group for my own purposes.
Being on my own again didn’t bother me for once. I mean, the nights were lonely, but I was starting to feel like I was better off on my own. No one to look after, no one to answer to. It was nice in its own way, but there was an emptiness to my life that made my heart ache with the need to find some manner of social interaction. I found myself often doting on memories of my dove and my little cat guy, or of drinking with Luce, or just chilling with Max and Gloss. Thoughts of my music made me want to play some, so I accompanied my travels with songs and ended up just strumming along as I went step by step. I traveled across rolling hills and dry steppes that held little in the way of food to be found, but it was easy enough for me to find edible plants out in the middle of nowhere. My group had set me up with plenty of food, but even as I walked on and supplemented my supplies, I was running low and needed to get to Koachma, a medium-sized Choret town, within a few days or I would be out of food and nearly out of luck. I had Centurn bits and Gertt drachs, but no Choret chocks. I hated that the Chorets were famous for not accepting foreign money from fellow Chorets, but it wasn’t going to be a problem very long once I got into town.
While on my way to the state/province I did eventually come across more people in the form of a Denosian Caravan heading north to Stalfisk. I got a word with one of the leaders and a meal from them as well in return for warning them about the death and destruction in Ponydale and the capital thereof. I figured the favor was worth what I got, so I broke away from the group ad backtracked on my way to Koachma, making my way there after two more days. When I touched ground in the new place after having only seen tiny towns and villages, it was… Well, it was Choresh, to say the least. Everything reminded me of some kind of religious establishment with the dominant color being green with accents of yellow and pink adorning the walls. The pink and green portions were all of the same patterns in the same shape of a triquetra, though when I came closer to inspect one of the drawings, I evidently garnered some unwanted attention. Standing and staring at the image didn’t really help me discern what it was supposed to be, but the shape of the mosaic was obvious enough. It took a little guesswork, but I assumed that the patterns were made of faces of the same little girl just stretched and distorted. The picture made me feel better about being in a new place full of strange, unknowable people, but turning around to see a semi-circle of young Choresh women around me?
Terrifying.
I didn’t know what my armed and dangerous looking friends wanted, though I had the most sneaking of suspicions that it wasn’t tea and crumpets. No, I hoped that they were there for a snack that consisted of what I had in the pack on my back instead of a slap or a smack to be tossed in my direction. There was little to do at the moment, so I looked at the symbol again, looked at the ladies, then back to the symbol, and let my gaze rest on the women before me.
“Excuse me, but could anyone tell me if these are faces in this thing?” I asked politely.
An ashy-haired woman with a rather square jaw stepped forward. “Your hair.”
Her accent was dreadfully thick, being a gross combination of phlem and mouth-vowels. “Yeah? I know it’s uneven.”
She shrugged. “River Man?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I came from the River of Rebirth.”
A couple of them sidled closer. “And you come here where there is no River.”
“There isn’t a River in Chorell?”
The one I’d been talking to rolled her eyes, and a few of them started whispering. I heard translations through the hubbub, but another woman came forward instead of talking with her associates. This one had brick-red hair, signaling her status as a Daylight Devil. “There are rivers here, but no banks for the River. You should have a Partner, River Man.”
I shrugged in turn. “Why do I need one? The first one left, the second one died, and I don’t want to lose a third in the slightest. I’m good.”
That made her furrow her brow. “... You did not sell her? Your Partner?”
There was no stopping my lip from curling, but I could have stopped myself from spitting in her direction. “Who the fuck does that? Stella was nothing but kind to me until she bolted, and I’d never repay that by selling her like some fuckin’ cheap jewelry. You might be used to a different kind of River Person, but that sure as fuck ain’t me.”
Apparently that was worthy of a round of applause. Ash Head stepped closer along with Brick Head and they folded their arms. Ash rolled her eyes and said, “Then where did she go? Hm?”
“I don’t know. She took my Companion and ran. I didn’t follow.” I scoffed and shook my head. “Didn’t think she’d leave like that.”
Brick took her turn. “Your Partner… Willingly left you? Yes, we believe that. We sure do.” She started coming closer.
I let my hand brush over Clockly and go to my knife. “Y’all sure you wanna do this?”
“River Man versus Choret? I think we’ll take our chances.”
I whipped my knife out and put it in my right hand before drawing Clockly with my left, my Arca already loaded into my bullets as I’d done over the course of the past few months. While they weren’t lethal they would still hurt plenty, though the recoil from my shots was more manageable than I remembered. That factor allowed me to get four of my five shots off before I even had to swing Doug, the women in question falling to my rounds handily. I didn’t see any blood, but I also didn’t see any reason to go easy on people who just assumed that I was a bad guy. My knife connected with a dark-haired woman’s side and I brought her to the wall after firing my last shot. There was no time to reload, so I bounced her head off of the stone and jutted my knife out again, catching the thigh of yet another overly aggressive Choret. I had a funny feeling that they were the revenge type and I also knew for a fact that they were faster and stronger than me, so I had to play as smart as I could. It didn’t help me dodge any of their blows, but with my frame being lighter than ever before (At this height, I should say), it felt almost as if it were natural for me to be throwing out attacks and eating blows of my own. There was… A clarity, I’ll say. A certain lucidity that fighting brought to me that made me feel alive, made me feel stronger. I was getting my ass handed to me by people without weapons for the most part, but there was… It made me feel alive. It made me feel safe and warm and loved, and it just…
There’s no telling if I needed the fight or if I just wanted it, but I felt better while beating the shit out of a bunch of people than I ever had while playing music. Doing damage felt good, and I didn’t want the good times to stop. Making someone else feel the pain that I’d felt for days? Weeks? Months? Since I fucking got here? I had to stop myself before I went to far, standing above eight women that had brought their hands to the knife-n-gun-fight. Five more were picking themselves up behind their fallen sisters and eight men were standing behind the ones that had chosen not to fight. All were looking at me as I nursed the thousandth swollen eye, hundredth pair of fractured ribs, and who even knows how many broken noses I’d earned in my lifetime. It was crunch time, but something rose up in me as I used my willpower to balance myself. I didn’t say much about the strength behind some of the hits I’d taken, but they’d been liberal with the amount of force behind them. This time, something was probably fractured other than just a rib and that something was my fret-hand, which made me both sad and upset. Lefty was my favorite limb since I was ambisinister and liked to mess with people who thought I could only write terribly with one hand.
I backed up to the wall and dumped my cases from Clockly, eyeing the crowd suspiciously. I’d literally cornered myself with the semi-circle forming around me, chants of ‘Slaver’ and ‘Betrayer’ being thrown about like candy in a parade. I was scared to be sure. The men had brought weapons and some of the women who’d chosen not to fight were now brandishing knives. The only reason, and I do mean only reason I was able to hold my own previously was because I had the only weapons. Now that the playing field was weighted even further out of my favor I didn’t know what there was to do. Then I thought about where I was and the resources afforded to me, so I sheathed my knife with my back against the wall, holstered Clockly, and brought out the undlegar. The opening notes of Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Under the Bridge rang out in the air and I changed the tune mid-song. I started with heavy, low notes that thrummed through my bones and started playing a melody I’d sworn to forget. The song I’d played for Prince Lumo in the dream had to have been the cause of the mini-riot/mosh pit, so I did the only thing I could thing to do and unleash the beast through my strings.
The effect wasn’t immediate, but it was there. The crowd became agitated before my very eyes, pushing and shoving at each other as it grew, everyone jostling for a position closer to me while staying a decent distance away. There was no time to waste. Directing the flow of the tune, I turned the aggression up to eleven and only stopped long enough to pull out my pick. The notes were even louder now and drew in the crowd, rowdy as they were. I hadn’t added the lyrics yet, but things were already starting to turn hot and agitated. The first punch was thrown with the most impressive slide I’d performed to date and shouts took over the crowd. I ended up dancing on my ground-level stage, dodging random people that got shoved my way like I was a natural or trained practitioner. Excitement coated my heart as my plan came to fruition, the Devil’s Tongue worming its way into the devil’s music: Metal. I didn’t actually know many metal songs, but I knew what they sounded like. Things were getting crazier and crazier with each rapidly passing measure, so I got the fuck out of the center of the circle once I saw a gap and left the mob to break itself up. With that in my trail behind me, I took my happy ass the fuck back to my inn and told the keeper that he’d never seen me. He said that he had and I slipped him the contents of one of the wallets I’d found while making my exit. Apparently my music makes people want to throw their money or something, because I’ve noticed that happening more often than not when I perform for a crowd. Valuable projectiles aside, I was set for a little while and I had money that would actually take me somewhere in the country- er, province, which was a plus. A Huge negative, however, was the fact that I didn’t have a partner and the Chorets thought I sold her. Go figure, am I right?
There I was, the biggest advocate for freedom and liberty that I knew of, on the lam in another province, but this time for practicing the shit that they themselves did. I mean, it was common knowledge that the people of Chorell sold their children when times got tough and that was just a fact of life. Something completely different was their view on how people treated their legally begotten property, which sounded like a case of throwing the soap and shampoo out with the bathwater to me. They could easily fix the situation by not selling kids, but nooo, they just need to be one of the few provinces that actually practices slaving on top of slavery. And then condemns people for it. God, the practice is one thing, but to judge for doing something socially acceptable makes no sense to me, and the Chorets made no sense to me as a whole. Their religion was as convoluted as their culture in my eyes, and I couldn’t wrap my head around any of what I was seeing. The deep-seated roots of the Church were evident everywhere one looked, and the Church supplied Welcome Centers with Choret children to offer as Partners. To condemn your religion and still follow it is the most mind-boggling, absolutely baffling thing is the most ridiculous thing I’ve come into contact within the normal realm of stupid things, that by far being the stupidest.
Ranting aside, I had the funniest feeling that I was in a bad place again, except this time I’d started a riot and had actually hurt people myself. It honestly felt like I’d finally screwed the pooch, but as I made my way downstairs, I ran into a familiar face that I’d never have thought I’d see down the road. Valen stood before me wide-eyed and confused, asking a simple question. I told her that she had the wrong guy and almost got away from her before she snatched my arm and whirled me around.
“Gage Gauner,” She said numbly.
Lying seemed like a good idea. “My name is-”
“Gatian, yes. [Why are you here, Gatian? What brings you to the home of holiness?]”
Now, my Bastard-Hebrew was rusty, but I thought I got the message clearly enough and didn’t just want to hear ‘home of holy’. [... I’m… Daroo?]
She furrowed her brow and brought me closer for inspection, making me lean away. “[Why are you here, ‘Daroo’?]”
“[I… My sister was sold, but, I… Um…]” I shrugged. “[No greeting or anything? You’re just going to shellfish lamp?]” I tilted my head and thought about that. “[Sorry, I’m not a native. I’m only Choret through heritage.]”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Ah, you became good liar, Gatian!”
“[... Whaaa?]”
“You not Gatian?”
I pointed at myself and tried to shrug her off. “Daroo.”
“But that’s not true either…” Valen seemed to be doing mental gymnastics and scoring a lot of low digits.
“While you figure that out [can I go find my sister? I heard she got sold by her Partner and-]”
Valen gasped. “[You’re the guy everyone was talking about! Lopsided hair, bruised eye-]”
I jabbed her in the throat for being a turncoat and for also not being on my side, though I also shoved her for good measure. Remaining in the inn was a horrible, terrible idea, so I stole a hat from a rack and shuttled my ass the fuck out of Koachma without getting half the supplies I needed for the next leg of the journey. I figured it was more pertinent to stay safe than to get started doing what I do goodest, though there was an cinkling in the back of my mind that told me that I was being followed. When I settled down for camp halfway into the moons’ ascent, I found out exactly who was following me and it was yet another familiar face. Or it was a normal Fauxlain that happened to be either grey or blue-ish. Either one. When the thing entered my tent, it made sure that it was on top and that I wasn’t going anywhere fast. Its paws felt soft against the decent enough fabric of my tunic, but I was worried about the claws within said paws. The Faulain was larger than Felix had ever been, and by a good fuckin’ margin at that. When I say that I was under the foot of an apex predator, then I friggin’ mean that this thing was bite-half-your-head-off big. However, it didn’t seem to want to hurt me which was a plus if I’d ever seen one.
Not knowing what to do seems to be my norm, so I went with, “Heya, friend-o. That’s a mighty soft paw you have there.”
If I didn’t already know a talking cat, I might’ve been surprised when she answered. “You smell of blood. Choret blood. And the River.”
“I’ve taken a lot of baths since I got out of the River.” I was actually kinda offended by that.
Her lynx-like face fell toward mine. She sniffed my lips, so I licked her nose and got sneezed on for my trouble, but that was pretty much it for the bodily fluid flying. She let off me with her paw and decided to lay her head on my stomach instead, another familiar gesture. “You smell like home, Human.”
“... Would you happen to know a little red ohsum?”
“Most ohsums are red.”
“Oh. That’s a fun fact.”
“Fun? A word I’ve not heard in these crags for many years.” She snorted a heavy sigh.
“How many winter’s have you seen, Ms. Ohsum?”
“I am no ohsum, and I have seen more winters than most creatures that walk these lands, save for the Elder Drakes.”
“Wow, so I’m talking to… Well, who and what are you exactly? If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”
“I do mind, Home-Human. It is night. Your kind sleeps during these times.”
“I’m a Moon Man.”
“... A Moon Man of the River?”
“It’s not that weird.”
“Bad tidings come my way, then. Your kind is an ill omen.”
I flicked her because I felt like we were bonding. “That’s not very nice. And to think I’m still being so kind as to-”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Yammer on incessantly?”
“My emotionables.”
She popped a glowing, sky-blue eye open and cast her gaze to me. “You are bad luck and a loud pillow. Accept these things, Moon River.”
“That kinda sounds racist.” I laid back and let the large cat do as she pleased.
“Deal with it.”
“... Could you at least-”
“No.” She interrupted.
“Shouldn’t I know-”
“Shut up.”
I shut up and let Ms. Kitty have her beauty sleep. Thankfully I’d limited my water intake and had went wee-wee before beddy-bye, but there was also a twenty to thirty pound head on my stomach that also happened to be pressing on my bladder. It was shaping up to be a long, warm night under the fur of Ms. Kitty, and I had no one to blame for this particular random event. Apparently I’d been sniffed out by someone related to someone I’d spent a long time with, but who that was escaped me. The most likely suspect was Felix since it didn’t seem like the Faulain had wanted anything other than a nap when I’d implied that I knew him, although that was pretty much the ‘All black people know each other’ thing. Just because they were both talking animals didn’t mean they actually knew each other, but then that begged the question of what ‘home’ was for Big Cat Lady and what that meant for my status as a meal. Like it or not, I was stuck yet again, and this time I didn’t want to hurt anything. It’d felt like another drug when I started really laying into the violence and chaos and that just wasn’t who I was or what I wanted to be. Distancing myself from the outright bashing of brains seemed like a good idea, and keeping the big gray cat in a good mood seemed pretty important.
Sleep got me like the sneaky bastard it is and had me wake up when the Faulain moved her head off of me. Come to think of it, I just assumed she was a female because of her voice, but the thing could have easily been asexual or androgyne or whatever. That didn’t change the fact that her name was Ms. Kitty until further notice. Speaking of notice, my bladder let me know that I needed to go, so I followed Ms. Kitty out of the tent and had myself a tinkle while the moons were still up. I figured it’d be a good time to pack up camp since I didn’t have afire or anything, so I got everything together, stuck it on or in my pack one way or another, and continued on my way down to Coranett, though I had the sneaking suspicion that I was going to need to find a Partner before I could call myself safe in these lands.
As it turned out, Ms. Kitty fucked off and left me alone, so I waited for a little bit until I reasoned that if she’d found me by my scent once, she could do it again. I was proven correct when I felt rather than heard or saw her coming back to join me again. It wasn’t that the ground was thrumming with her step or anything so much as her presence just being noticeable once you know what to look for. It went from dawn to feeling like dusk the moment she bounded back to my side, rubbing her coat along my arm and leg. I let my hand rest on her back and welcomed her, which earned me a purr.
“Now that I seek you no longer, I find your softness inviting,” she said as I stroked her fur.
“What were you looking for me for anyway?”
“I smelled my home away from my home. It was interesting and you are interesting. You have proven to be good luck so far.”:
“Have I? Did you go hunting while I’ve been walking?”
“Yes, and I was successful. Why did you not join me in the hunt?”
“If I hunt, I’m probably going to lay traps. I’m not very good at killing things outright.”
She turned a baleful eye to me. “You are a Human. Murder is in your nature.”
“Not really.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot that you were of the River. I smell its waves rolling off of you nearly as strong as the scent of home.”
“Speaking of home, is your home a small red ohsum and a Changeling?”
She stopped suddenly and whipped me with her tail. “I know of what you speak, but that is not my treasure to have. I am too old for family, Moon River.”
“So you don’t have a son?”
“I did not say that. All Faulain are my children in the eyes of the creator. Once I stopped birthing, they took care of the forests themselves. I am simply the first. The Alpha.”
“Oh, so what can I call you?”
“What would you need to do that for?”
“To find you. Get your attention.”
“Someone else shall choose a name for me. ‘Kitty’ is degrading.”:
“Right… Well, aren’t you nocturnal?”
“I am.”
“What about Nyx? You’re pretty blue and you’re like, the first of your kind, right? Nyx was the first of the Egyptian gods besides Nut, I think.”
“... Nyx. That is a good name.”
“It’s also because you scratch things.”
“I don’t scratch, I claw, as in I’ll claw you for making that dreadful pun again.”
“Sorry, Nyxie.”
“It’s Nyx.”
“Nyxie.”
“Nyx”
I patted her back, smiling. “Won’t you be Nyxie just for me?”
She whacked my back with her tail and tickled my neck with the tip for a second. “Won’t you be lunch just for me?”
“If it comes down to it then, yeah. You can eat me if we’re both starving and there’s no hope.”
“... I was not expecting you to answer in such a way, nor to be so serious while saying such a thing.”
“Hey, I have a feeling you’d kill me quick. I’ve never really starved, per se, but I can imagine that being extremely hungry sucks. Why not kill two birds with one stone? End my suffering, fill your stomach; boom. Win-win.”
“If you would not taste like moon dust and River mud I would consider it, but you do not have the makings of a good meal. I suppose I should apologize for-”
“Don’t apologize, it’s just nice to talk to someone who just… Talks back, I guess.”
“Have you been talking to many faulains?”
“No, not since my Companion, the ohsum. I-”
“Oh for feather’s sake!” Nyx hissed suddenly, stopping on three paws. She scanned the ground before sitting down and examined her right front paw, a couple of thorns stuck in there deep. I got glared at for chuckling. “Do you think thorns in paws are funny? Now I have to find a bird!”
I whipped out a small pen-knife I had on hand that I only really used for cutting paper. “Give me a sec and I’ll get ‘em out for ya, Nyx.” After pouring some Everclear from the Nonstop Party-Pop (The flask I got from Max), I lit the blade on fire with a small Arca, let it burn out, and made sure the blade was just a little warm when I went to work on Nyx. She was chicken when it came to getting patched up, whimpering and mewling like a fucking kitten while I carefully pushed and dug the thorns out of her paws. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if they weren’t serrated, but still. I managed to get most of them out with a slide rather than ripping them out one by one, so I was greatful for that. The hard part came when I convinced Nyx to let me pour some alcohol in a spray bottle I had in my pack and spray her wound. She let me do it, but I hadn’t known that cats had so many colorful curses in their limited language. After trying a few different styles we found a way to wrap her paw that was both functional and pragmatic, so without further ado, I took the lead and Nyx eventually stopped limping once the healing started. After all the fuss, she was grateful that she hadn’t had to let the wounds heal over the thorns since she just healed that fast, so I asked how many thors she had in her paws and she said ‘Enough to make every step hurt when I think about it’, so I asked her if she’d ever been to an animal doctor.
Of course, the ancient Cat Goddess-thing had never been to someone to see about getting the amount of thorns one collected over the course of a few thousand years out of her paws. Seriously, apparently she had over a dozen thorns in her paws at varying lengths, and she trusted no one other than me to go digging around in her paws for them. When I mentioned that I could sedate her and cut the thorns out whenever we had time, she asked if we could hurry and get it over with so she wouldn’t have to worry about it ever again. Understandably (I hope), I was reluctant to practice surgery on an animal that could kill me without thinking about it, especially since said animal was becoming a friend of mine and I was also starting to appreciate the dialog we kept up. I’d only cut the other thorns out because I’d seen them go in, which didn’t make Nyx mad, it just irritated her that I wasn’t willing to something I had never done before. Then she said that she had literally regrown each ear, her tail, multiple teeth, and both front paws multiple times. I did what seemed natural at the time and let the giant, darkish blue cat Demi-Goddess convince me to perform open-paw surgery on her in the least sanitary of places outside of an actual sewer.
There wasn’t much in my bag of Arca that actually made Nyx do any more than blink when she didn’t want to, so none of my D-Class healing would work. The highest rank spell I even had was still in the C-Class range, but even then all of that was combat stuff. I wasn’t made to be a medic, but something that had been said to me in Ponydale rang in my ears, and then a few campaigns of D&D. Rudy Rhubarb had called me a Minstrel which was like a Bard, and I already had a ‘Frenzy’ song. I wondered what the most chill, relaxing song I’d ever heard with the most depressing lyrics and came up with Dust in the Wind by legendary Kansas. I had to play it on my undlegar since the bass was negligible in the song, but before I knew it, I had Nyx crying herself to sleep, moaning about how pointless it was for me to pull the thorns from the paws of a ‘Worthless, pathetic dust bunny’. That was worrying, but she was also slammered to the point where being drunk was like being sober. Seriously, feeding that damn cat moonshine cherries and having her gag at every kind of shine I could think of was hilarious, but in the end, it was good old American apple pie that soothed the savage beast along with a depressing song. Apple pie and depressing music. That really is American as fuck. Now I regret not calling Nyx Molly Ringwald or something. Oh well, that cat pun was bad anyway.
I had a stolen book with me from the Equinaire castle, or rather Castle Unity as it was colloquially called, but it wasn’t my usual genre. It was an instructional book on some more combat Arca, a few field-medic-y things and a couple of disease-ridding charms that were all but useless without the right tools for the job. I wasn’t an Artificer, which was who the book was mostly for, but there were still a few disease runes that were simple enough for me to cut out in paper and use the stencils for them. They all had different indicators that would show if they worked, but the lights that were supposed to ‘glow with the intensity of a loose candle’ were more like nightlights in the dawning sunlight. I suppose a ‘loose candle’ could be somewhat dim, but I wasn’t too concerned about it. After making sure that the Anti-Infection Rune and the Pain-Relief Rune (C- Class) were both glowing as they should have been, I got started pulling the myriad of thorns from the figurative lion’s paw. Nyx was definitely as big as a lion, but she was sleeping as soundly as a cub when I made my first incision. I tried not to cut the middle of the paw while I was operating, but there was little I could do about it when I started finding thorns.
The majority of them were so deep I couldn’t get at them with my fingers, but a bit of quick thinking got me a pair of sturdy twigs that I skinned, straightened, and narrowed down. They worked pretty well once I added ridges for gripping which made me wonder about the use of smooth chopsticks. Bullshit aside, I managed to pull out several thorns before Nyx even started to twitch. Blood was all over my clothes and hands, but it was dark and non-arterial, so I wasn’t worried about her bleeding out on me. By the time I finished with her front two paws, she was starting to stir and growl, so I sang her a simple lullaby that I thought up and she was out again like a light. The second I got her back paws finished, however, I came to the crashing realization that I could have been healing her as I went along with some runes from the book instead of using my immaterial arca, so I took care of that before she woke up. The wound had long since stopped bleeding and I couldn’t feel anymore lumps in her paws, but what amazed me more than the fact that she both trusted me to knock her out and cut her open was how fucking fast she healed. I’d never seen a cut actually close before my very eyes, but the time-lapse was real with this one. In the span of about fifteen minutes, no matter how deep the cut and with little help from my Terru/magic, the lacerations mended, the flesh knit back together, and before long, there wasn’t even a scar to show that anything had happened. I couldn’t be proud of my handy-work since I was still mostly covered in blood from the waist down, although I was still happy to help someone who needed it.
I stayed with Nyx for awhile, just in case she woke up and saw that I wasn’t there. When she came to she was a little groggy but overall less irritable than she’d been when she’d first laid down. After a few minutes of her not waking up, I decided to write this out with my spare time. I’ll pick it up again here in a few, Booksy, so don’t worry. I have a feeling that this is going to be a day to remember, especially with my talking cat as my new friend and conversation-pal. Let’s see what the day has in store for us, no?
I’m not adding a page break here because I forgot to do it earlier and I already wrote out the ‘I’ before I could remember to do it, so deal with it. With my first and hopefully only surgery having been a resounding success, I welcomed her to the waking world with a little water and a bite of some meat I had in my pack. Before we knew it, Nyx was back on her feet and she deigned it worthy of her time to bitch at me for actually putting her to sleep. I’d been unaware of the fact that she’d wanted to be awake for the operation, but I figured it was for the best anyway. Her ire was plenty enough to make me apologize though I had to actually ask her how her paws felt. She shut up for a second and started bitching about the same damn thing again, so I told her that I’d never pull another thorn from her paw as long as I lived and was pretty stubborn about it until she literally stepped on a sharp rock four hours later into the day. Then for all the moaning, bitching, and whining she’d done, Nyx asked me to get the rock out of her paws so she wouldn’t chip a tooth on it and I caved since I’m too nice for my own good. She then started bitching again, so I went with ‘Eat me or shut the fuck up already.’ and she shut up.
The journey from then was pretty quiet till night fell, with Nyx breaking the silence when the moons rounded the horizon. “Moon River, you seem annoyed.”
“Hm?” I’d barely heard her the first time and had to think over what she said. “Annoyed? I’m not, really. I don’t stay one way for long.”
“Still, I feel ungrateful. You assisted me with no incentive.”
“My incentive was the feeling I got from helping you. That’s all I’ll ever need, Bast-urd.”
“I thought you didn’t know my name?” She was as surprised as I was.
“I thought you didn’t have one.”
“No, Bastet is my first name. I find it odd that you know of it.”
“No, I don’t. I know of a Goddess with that name back on Earth, but she wasn’t real.”
“Your Ascended do not exist beyond the River?”
“... You have Gods here?” It was news to me. The only people I’d ever seen do so much as pray were Choret.
“They rise and fall as all things do, but yes, we have Ascended Beings here on Septural.”
“That’s really cool, actually. Which one is the God of Death and Rebirth?”
She stopped so suddenly I thought she was about to step on something else, so I looked at the ground around her paws and waited to see what she was seeing. Then I realized she was seeing me because that’s where her face was pointing. “What concern is that of yours?”
“That sounded kinda weird, but you basically asked why I cared, right?”
“That is correct.”
“Ah, then I care because there’s flaming zombies sticking the cocks into every orifice Ponydale has. It might be worthwhile to send up a prayer to that guy in particular.”
Bastet, as she was apparently called, snorted. “Are you sure you should be asking the embodiment of the Ultimate Mercy for a favor? Especially with your circumstances.”
“What do you mean?”
Bast started walking again, so I followed closeby. “I mean that there is no God of Rebirth on Septural. We do not live second lives away from the Plains of Rest and the Forest of Mercy, and even then, my children and their kin must be delivered to their final slumber, or they walk the earth as Revenants.”
“What?”
“Revenants.”
“Bast, I know what a Revenant is, dammit! I’m asking why the fuck your dead people turn into zombies!”
“They tend not to. The Dreadnots are a creation.”
“So if I die-”
“No one knows. You may very well be allowed to live yet another life.”
I shrugged. “That doesn’t sound like it’d be worth it.”
“Three lives for the price of one? You would call that a worthless trade?”
“Two for one is a deal, three for one is suspicious. What purpose would anyone have for keeping me alive for so long? Especially after I threw the first chance away and would probably fuck the second one up if I haven’t already.”
“I have not eaten you. I would say that you are doing well.”
I patted her back and chuckled at that. “You sure do have a way with words, Bast-turd.”
“I feel as though you just insulted me.”
“Do feelings really matter, Miss Dust-Bunny?”
“... We will never speak of that again.” She growled.
I pretended to wipe her coat off until she looked back at me. “Sorry, thought you might’ve been shedding.”
“Liar.”
“Cat.”
“I am far more than a simple cat, Moon River.” She huffed, tail going up into the air.
I poked it a couple of times and smiled as it recoiled with each touch. “Yeah I’d say you are. This kinda reminds me of a story I read a few times about this guy and his Companion. Except the guy was handsome and so was the wolf.”
“You would attack both of us simultaneously?”
“If I take a shot at you and not myself, is that really fair?”
“You are strange, Moon River.”
“Would you care to hear about the story?”
“As aimlessly as we’ve been wandering, I would welcome anything to break the monotony.”
“Well then, there was this story about this guy, right? Except the guy was special because of some prophecy and everyone kinda expected him to be normal. The thing was that the guy was reborn on a different planet and everyone he was meeting were aliens, so he kinda had to adjust to the fact that the people had Human faces, but ears like a horse, tails like a smaller equine, and sometimes wings or… Horns.” I thought for a second. “Huh. I think I might be living a furry’s ideal life right now.”
“A furry dream?”
“No, a furry is a person who is sexually attracted to like, animals and Humanoid races like the Centurns or the Minotaurs, I think. I’m not too sure, but a lot of them dressed up like animals and proceeded to do the dirty while wearing the fursuits, so…”
“Humans.”
“Humans indeed.”
“What about the man’s wolf? Where does she come into play?”
“Why do you assume it’s a she-wolf?”
“Because that’s how all stories go. A male and a female embark on a quest, fall in love, and have kits. Many tales go this way.”
“Well, how’s a Human supposed to have puppies with a wolf?”
“I gave birth to many species. It would not be impossible for one such as I.”
“... What.”
“Was that a question?”
“I meant it to be, but it didn’t really come out as one. Bast, are you saying that you’re like, Mother Septural?”
“I am nothing of the sort. If I was, would I need a mortal such as yourself to pull so many thorns from my own four paws?”
I tapped my chin and thought about that. “Y’know, I could still see you being a Demi-Goddess or something of the sort.”
“What does ‘demi’ mean?”
“It means something like ‘kinda’ or ‘lesser, but similar’ in context. Otherwise, I think it’s just a replacement for ‘semi’.”
“I see. This would also be incorrect. I claim no divinity.”
“Are you revered?”
“As a mother should be,” she replied proudly.
“Well, then I dunno what to call you. What even are you, anyway?”
“A faulain, you kit.”
“I know that, you pussy. I was asking why you’re blue, huge, and-”
“I am not huge, I am sizeable.” Bast sounded pissed like I’d just called her fat, which made no sense because she wasn’t a fucking Human.
“Cat, are you fucking my dick right now?”
“Am I… I beg your pardon, Moon River, but I believe your language slipped from Common for a moment.”
“Bruh.”
“Are you feeling well?”
“Okay, Bast, I’m going to ask you one time and one time only, and if you fucking lie to me, I’ll never get off your tail and subsequent hindquarters until you tell me the damn truth; Are you sensitive about your weight?”
“... Maybe.” She said softly.
“... Alright, I accept that and you for who you are, no further questions asked. How are your paws feeling?”
She turned to look at me. “Better. Much better. I should have thanked you earlier.”
“I should’ve been more certain that you were okay with how I handled things, or rather how I was planning to. Still, glad your walking pads aren’t constantly causing you pain.”
“I’m still old, though I forgive and thank you for forgetting.”
“You don't’ sound old, and you carry yourself as…” I collected my thoughts as Bast waited for me to continue. “Well, you carry yourself like an important person who doesn’t want to be important. Then you have to think about how you’ve had to deal with responsibility and crap since like, day one, so you’re used to stressing about everything. I’d say you sound like your average mom of four with no dad in the picture.”
“... So I sound like I am very stressed, possess some level of stature, and have annoying, young children?”
“I mean, how you got that last bit from what I said is reasonable enough, but the specificity of it was pretty friggin’ great. Grade-A assessment. Deduction. Whatever.”
“Why do you sound intoxicated half of the time?”
“Because I’m drunk on misery and depression or some shit like that.”
“Are you sure it’s not that bottle you’ve been sipping out of since-”
“Well, would you look at that! A lil’ birdie!”
“... You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“I’m honestly surprised it took you this long to notice.” I shrugged it off.
“... I’ve lived long, Moon River.” She said, her voice lighter than before.
I almost looked back, but decided against it. “I don’t like where this is going, so why don’t we not and just get to our destination.”
“I’ve walked among Humans in my time. Long enough to know when there’s a problem.”
“I know I have a problem, but it helps and I’m perfectly happy with my life at the moment.”
“Didn’t you just say-”
“I know what I said, but I didn’t mean it. Why are you worried about this, anyway?”
“Ill omens don’t come to pass for foolish reasons. I am with you for a reason.”
I finally looked back and saw a gray Cat-Humanoid thing with blue clothes on. The tunic had paw prints around the hem, which I though was cute, and the pants were stylish as far as Septurn standards went. A little out of fashion if what Kiha and Felmie had told me was up to date, but still. If it wasn’t for the whiskers, ears, and a button nose, she’d almost look like a really ashy Human. I glanced behind her and saw a tail, so I stared for a second and turned my gaze back to her.
“Why the fuck aren’t you a cat?”
“I am always a cat. Why are you drinking yourself silly?”
“Makes me play better. Clouds up the bad thoughts, bring out the good times. You don’t know me well enough to say otherwise.” She shrugged and made no move to continue, so I stopped. “What? Do you think you’re on some quest to make me stop drinking or some shit?”
“You helped me, so I will help you. You are obviously a friend of a friend.”
“How so?”
“You smell like home.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You smell like the dust of the stars,” she answered cryptically.
“That means nothing to me.”
“It means that someone that has crossed your path and bore some manner of adoration for you was formed of the stars during gestation. Does this clarify things?”
“... Are you just a wisdom spouting, shapeshifting cat-person now or something?”
“I was already wise. I have been ‘spouting’ wisdom at you all day.”
“You spent half of it bitching about getting knocked out by a song.”
“While that is fair, we were speaking of your drinking problem.”
I shook my head. “Look, I don’t know why you decided you only needed two legs to have this talk-”
“Is this form not more familiar to you?”
“Not by much, no.”
“Oh.”
I sighed. “Don’t sound so nonchal-” She flashed brightly and appeared on four legs. “Well, damn. That was quick.”
“I’ve had many years to practice. Should we not discuss this?”
“Well, if we do, can we do it on the move? I’m kinda running from a government, a shadow organization, a town, and some rabid fans at the moment, so maybe we could…” I gestured behind me with my thumb.
“Where are we going? This is not a wise road to travel for a Slaver.”
“Fucking- Why does everyone automatically think that!? Fuck-mothering-dick-suck-fuckling-bitch-cock-juggling-blither-faff-bugger-bloody-snatch- you know what? You know fuckin’ what? She left me! I didn’t want her gone! I didn’t want her to leave! She just did! And nothing is going to fucking change that!”
“So that’s why you drink.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
Storming off didn‘t make me look mature, but I really didn’t want to deal with her shit at the moment. Bast followed and caught up easily because I also didn’t really want to be alone again, which in and of itself told me that I needed some kind of help. That was a hard realization to come by since I was already used to drinking myself to sleep and into a stupor when I woke up. Keeping a buzz for the past few months had gotten me through them, and yeah, I left my drinking out of my journals. So what? Maybe I just didn’t feel like it was worthy of mention? Because it’s-
It’s not...
I can stop if I want to, I know I can…
Right, Booksy? You know it too… Don’t you?