Warm Fuzzies

[small_compromise]

WHO: Omega and you?
WHERE: Temba and Sh'Ka
WHAT: Making sure the locals are warm
WHEN: Through the month
WARNINGS: N/A


This time around Omega was much better prepared for what to expect once the season shifted. She had more than enough free time and had started spending some of it in going through the available department stores for materials, clothes she could use. The nice Hunter had given her a knife so she could cut things up properly, and she'd managed to do so without slicing off any fingers and only giving Echo a mild heart attack.

Her sewing skills were rudimentary at best, but she remembered what she'd been taught during the rain fair that had seemed so long ago now. All she really needed to do was make sure one piece of material attached and stayed attached to another.

Depending on when one came across her, she could be found leaving little makeshift scarves and bundles of blankets by spots she'd seen Funfronds and Barrys frequent, in Temba or Sh'Ka proper. There's also the library where she might get sidetracked in her warmth dispersing and end up buried in mothcats. Or she could be found either carrying a very large bundle of cloth in her arms or in the process of winding what turned out to be a very lengthy, patched together scarf out around a snow-dusted outcropping of rocks that had settled near the spiraling depression of the Temba memorial site. Weird girl.

Comments

[catchable]

Salem was much less prepared for the winter. For starters, it was supposed to be summer, for at least another two months, so this one had really gotten the jump on him. Second of all, while Mars was never that warm, he'd gotten used to an entirely indoor life over the last couple of decades, and the only exposure to the weather that he really knew was very controlled. Going from that to being homeless in an abandoned city was a bit of a change.

If he just had his magic, this wouldn't be a problem, and he wouldn't be watching a little, blonde girl cheerfully arrange rags on the floor like she was laying out glistening sashimi. His patience was limited, and he was darting out the moment her back was turned to investigate what exactly she had foolishly left behind. Those tiny scraps were particularly baffling, but sniffing through the bundle of fabric revealed nothing more than a cozy bed for the discerning housecat. It was so nice to have his nose warm, he forgot the rest of the process, leaving him buried headfirst in the bundle, tail twitching out in the cold, winter air while he let out a sob of gratitude.

[small_compromise]

"Oh, hello?"

If not for that strange sound, Omega had otherwise been ready to head on to her next stop. She adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder, the bag itself looking plenty plump yet from most likely more scraps of cloth.

She crouched down to peer at the black swishing tail and the currently headless body that had dove into her warmth offerings. Not necessarily what she'd expected to attract, but she wasn't going to scold a poor creature for wanting to be warm. If...that was what this one wanted, anyway.

[catchable]

Patience would have gone a long way. It would have saved Salem from startling with a panicked, "Guh!," then freezing with his back feet planted and tense, and his head still bowed down into the warm hug of the blankets. She wasn't going away though, she was coming back, she could still see him even though he wasn't moving. He could save this, just look cute.

Very slowly and reluctantly, he twisted around to poke his nose back out of the blankets (bad), and give the girl a slow, wide-eyed blink. He had no idea where all of this fabric had come from, he just woke up like this, she should have been more careful.

[small_compromise]

Omega tilted her head as she watched him. At least the fuzzy black creature didn't seem hostile. Cautious, yes, but that was to be expected of most of the creatures she'd seen around here. The sound it had made earlier was a bit strange though.

"Are you related to Tony and the others?" she asked, a rhetorical question as she studied his sleek fuzzy body. She smiled and turned her attention to her bag. "Here. I think I should have something better...those blankets are too small for you."

[catchable]

Those big, black eyes narrowed, then shifted to the side in confused thought, quite unprepared to be hit back with a genealogical question. Especially one so broad. Maybe that association would suit him, though, if he could work out a way to answer that was believably cat-like; 'Tony and the others' sounded like it could be a classic mob crew, and Salem would rather be smoking cigars and playing poker.

Luckily, he was rescued from having to express all of that in a delicate 'meow' as she all but invited him to crawl out and up onto her bag. To help her look through it, of course. His nose was in it as fast as he hands, sniffing hopefully.

[small_compromise]

She certainly hadn't expected him to get over his shyness so quickly, so when he suddenly appeared there she gasped in surprise. Maybe he wasn't a mothcat, but he sure acted like them.

Omega had to laugh a little at that. "You're making it a little difficult to find anything this way," she chided, not that there was any heat to it, and she wasn't doing anything to discourage him from it lest she startle him. The bag was handsewn in black and dark red, and filled with more tiny squares and a few odd strips of cloth, but there were a few larger pieces tucked in that had been rolled to make space.

[catchable]

Making things difficult was a special talent, and Salem would not be discouraged from his calling. After all, the bag about satisfied his needs itself, if it would just let him in; with a little hop, he was in headfirst to find out how soft everything in it was collectively, his back legs stuck out awkwardly as he squirmed to try to fit. If he stayed in the bag, maybe she'd even bring him inside somewhere, past those dastardly tightly shut doors.

Library

[crystalmaster]

As an intellectual, Radley loved the library and trying to solve the mysteries of the Agrii. As a kitty lover, he loved being around mothcats. They were definitely getting used to him by now, and he had to chuckle when he was strolling down the corridor and saw someone being swarmed by them.

"Hi there," he said, leaning on a nearby bookshelf.

[small_compromise]

Omega could only imagine that an actual library filled with books would be even more amazing than Temba's mostly empty one, but she liked the people who made this one home, and the furry ones even more so.

The girl giggled as she sat up from the floor, hugging one of the mothcats in her arms while another had crawled into her lap. Another had flopped behind her and one more was sticking its head in her bag. "Oh! I didn't see you there," she said, giving a little wave at the man then. "Hello."

[crystalmaster]

Radley still hoped to find a clue somewhere in there. But meanwhile, it was a nice building and the mothcats were adorable.

"I'm Radley," he smiled. "Do you come here a lot? They seem to know you pretty well." He petted one walking on the bookshelf.

[small_compromise]

"I'm Omega," the girl replied. She smiled faintly. "Guess you can say that. Sometimes we go on patrols. Or at least we used to. It didn't work out very well." She'd tried, but in the end it always turned out to be more herding than patrolling.

"This one is Launch, and this is Trapper. I'm pretty sure that's Tumble behind me, and here is Dart," she said, nodding at the one who had by then started to try crawling completely into her bag.

[crystalmaster]

"Yeah? Did you get attacked?" That was an unsettling thought.

He smiled as she introduced him to them. "Those are interesting names," he said. "Are they named for things they do?"

[small_compromise]

That was a sudden jump but Omega supposed it was a fair conclusion. She shook her head. "Oh no, they're just... Well, they don't take orders very well," she said, enduring a headbutt as Launch rubbed her head into the girl's face.

She laughed. "Well, yes, more or less. I thought it'd be appropriate to name them the way I've heard soldiers I know chose or got their names."

Memorial Site

[kree_soldieress]

Walking was good for the heart, and good for the body. Lauri’s new studies of medicine had stressed the importance of exercise to help keep the body strong.

What she wasn’t expecting was the work going on.

“Omega?” She said, voice soft and confused. How interesting as she approaches. “What is it that you are doing?”

[small_compromise]

"Hello Lauri!" the young clone greeted, waving from where she had climbed up on the rock mound. It was quite an out-of-place heap, and certainly hadn't been there in the spring.

Omega tossed another looping length of the makeshift scarf over its top, reaching over to try tugging it around to maintain its downwards spiral. One could have thought she was decorating a substitute Christmas tree.

"Just making sure my friend's warm!"

[kree_soldieress]

"Your friends?" she asked, approaching closer still. "You befriend rocks? I have known rock-people species. It is nice of you to do."

And she can absolutely help the young woman with it.

[small_compromise]

"Friend, singular. I haven't seen any others like him. This one followed Tony to the city, I think." Omega smiled. "He might be hibernating though, but he seemed to nap a lot in general even when it was warmer."

[kree_soldieress]

Interesting. Well, she supposed this was a good thing to do, to help a friend.

“May I assist you in your bedecking of your friend in warmth?”

[small_compromise]

Omega blinked before smiling brightly.

"Of course! It'll be much easier with two. He's pretty big," she said, not that this wasn't obvious enough.

[only_an_echo]

Whenever Echo wasn't out trying to keep himself busy with patrols, he made use of the downtime relaxing. Not entirely dropping everything to laze about, of course - he cleaned and checked his gear and kept Omega company. While he didn't need to watch her so closely, he still made the effort to take interest in whatever activity she was preoccupying herself with.

This time, however, was more out of concern than curiosity. Mostly because of the sharp object she now wielded in hand.

"Where did you get the knife?" he asked, casually enough so that it didn't seem too out of place seated next to a thin layer of miscellaneous fabrics.

[small_compromise]

Omega was at least being extremely careful with the blade, quite mindful of how sharp the thing was. She was also using a piece of metal as a straightedge to run the knife against as she made her cuts.

"Cayde," she replied simply as she pulled the blade along to slice through another length of cloth.

[only_an_echo]

Cayde. His expression said it all. He was hoping it wasn't Cayde, but who was he kidding? As far as he knew, no one else in Temba seemed to have a habit of storing knives unless it was part of their profession.

Echo squinted a bit during the pull, quietly relieved when the blade didn't catch or tug on the material. He already had one heart-stopping moment, he didn't want another. "So he just handed it to you?"

[small_compromise]

"Kind of," the girl said as she held up the piece she'd cut. "He came down and saw me picking at strings and said this would be easier. And it is!" She finally looked over at Echo, smiling.

"Don't worry, he showed me how to use it and made sure I cut away from myself because he said you'd kill him if I sliced off my fingers."

[only_an_echo]

The days when he used to think about setting up a security system were mostly dead in the water, but it still came up every now and again.

At the admission, lines crinkled at the corners of the former ARC Trooper's eyes as a faint smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. "He's right about that," he replied with dry confidence, picking up some of the scraps so that he could fold them. "And what about all of this?"

[small_compromise]

They were such weird friends.

"Oh! I'm trying to make things for the Funfronds and the Barrys to keep warm. Blankets and tiny scarves. I don't know if they'd used them, but I wanted to try. They live here too, after all."

She picked up the rest of the cloth she'd been cutting from, what turned out to be some kind of sweatshirt of sorts before she'd taken a knife to it. "And maybe something for the mothcats."