revivalproject | Warm Fuzzies

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Warm Fuzzies

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.

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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.

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.

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.

The girl giggled as she watched his little black paws flail about. "You have enough room in there?" Even though she'd offloaded some of her inventory, it hadn't been too much, but it didn't look like that was about to thwart a chilled cat.

Slowly she got to her feet, dusting off her knees. At least the fuzzy creature didn't add too much more weight to her bag, although he was notably heavier than a full-sized mothcat. But then he didn't look like he was built for flying, so there was that.

"Well, I was going to visit Tony and my squad. Promise you'll be on your best behavior," she said as she turned to head towards the library.

It was a bit of a tight fit, but made for a more comfortable ride than Sabrina's backpack. Salem would have to suggest she replaced all of those annoying books with a few blankets, for the ambience. With a generous amount of squirming, he got all of his legs into the bag and twisted around to brace himself and bracket his nose between his paws toward the front, where he could see where they were headed. Luckily, he was always on his very best behaviour, so he gave a cheerful chirp in response. Unluckily, his best behaviour wasn't very good.

With how at ease he was in clambering into her bag, Omega forgot the possibility of him being feral as she lowered a hand to give his head a scratch. How could she not when he was being so cute?

The library wasn't too long a walk, the snow only making things a little more slow-going than usual. Omega was glad to finally reach it, the difference an immediate thing once she pushed open the doors and stepped inside. "Hellooo~" she called out as she let the doors close behind her. "Anyone here?"

She had a feeling she knew where she'd find the mothcat mob, already resuming her walk deeper within.

The temperature was much improved, and the distinct smell of animal was overwhelming. The purring the Salem was more than happy to provide on the walk over for the low price of head scratches petered out as he sniffed, and his ears flattened anxiously. He turned his face up toward the girl, eyes wide and worried, asking if she was really sure about this and just how many animals she had lured into her bag. Was this her thing, had he fallen for an obvious trap? Those doors had seemed pretty heavy. Maybe he didn't want to be a mafia cat.

Omega glanced down at him as she felt his head shifting under her hand. She smiled reassuringly.

"It's okay, they're friendly. ...although I'm not so sure how they'd react to you. You do kind of look like them, just...without the wings and green fur." She patted his head. "Don't worry, if they don't seem to like you, we'll leave. -oh! There you are, Tony!"

She'd turned her head upwards to find the large mothcat stalking along the top of the empty shelves beside them, not at all an unusual place to find her. It might be a little unsettling to see such a creature suddenly drop down to glide onto the girl's shoulder, although Omega herself didn't seem to be at all bothered by something that big using her as a perch. The only real awkward thing was the size difference.

"You know you're not a kitten any more!" she laughed, trying to maintain her balance.

Salem wasn't used to being the one missing the fashionable flair, though he didn't particularly like the sound of green fur. He didn't really like the look of it either, he found, ears back and shrinking down into the bag as the animal appeared above, and giving a pathetic growl that was supposed to be a warning and sounded more like a surrender. That was a big kitty, and it could fly. Some kind of kitty-dragon.

The mothcat loomed and moved her head closer towards Omega's bag where the curious scent was coming from, drawing back just slightly at the sound before resuming her investigation. She stretched out to paw at the bag, fanning her wings out to steady herself.

"Ah! Tony, what did I just say?" Omega sighed, but she wasn't actually upset as she moved to give the mothcat a gentle push off of her shoulder. The winged feline gave a trilling sort of sound as she glided to the ground, but she continued to circle the girl's legs before pushing her head towards the bag again. What is it, what is it?

Maybe it wasn't so bad, the animal seemed just as confused about Salem and they sniffed at each other while Salem considered lifting his head out of the bag again. Up until it was flying again, anyway, and he shrunk back down until just his ears were showing, then his eyes to not lose sight of it. He was just a housecat, he couldn't be getting tangled up with wild animals, he didn't have the constitution! What if it...bit him?! Never mind that he had been doing plenty of biting of scampering things he was finding out on the street. Wait, he could also bite! Who needed magic when you had teeth?

Gathering his courage (very minimal, a herculean effort), he bounced out of the bag to land in a cautious crouch next to the animal, ears still back and tail lashing as he sniffed again for any more information. The feathers were disorienting, making it smell like something very edible.

"Oh!" Salem's maneuver surprised both Omega and Tony. The mothcat fluttered back with a startled sort of rrrowl?, paws lightly settling upon the floor before she began to pad cautiously back towards the furry little wingless shadow. She sniffed back.

"Be nice," Omega said, stepping tactfully around Salem so she was positioned more between the two, although not directly. She however looked ready to intervene if she thought she'd have to.

Salem was being incredibly nice, thank you. In fact, so nice that he was getting tired of it, and this was clearly a bad idea, and he should have stayed in the bag. The moment the girl had kind of interrupted the line of sight, he was bolting; a blind run into unknown halls, letting out an anxious sob that echoed after him as he ran from the big bird-cat. He just wanted to make himself at home on a comfortable mattress surrounded by pillows and blankets, and maybe a treat of milk and cookies that girls liked to share before bedtime. Was that so much to ask?

"Wait, come back!" Omega called after him as the black feline ran off. She looked back at Tony in time to see the mothcat tensing, eyes sharpening as she looked after the fleeing creature.

"Tony, no," the girl said, stepping in front of the mothcat to tap a finger on her nose. "I don't think chasing our new friend will help." She paused at the strange sound that followed the little shadow. "...is the squad here? Oh no, I'd better find him before they do."

There had to be a way out of this place that wasn't those big, heavy doors. That green cat must have had a way in and out that didn't rely on the girl. Except, that cat could fly--maybe something up high? By then, Salem had stopped running, but hadn't exactly stopped sobbing, crouched under a bookshelf where he would surely die, if he wasn't attacked by wild animals first. Maybe if he could climb to the top of it, he could get to the top of that window that seemed to be broken and boarded up. There weren't any books in his way, after all.

All he would have to do was confront his fear of heights. The fear of being eaten might have been just a little bit stronger right now, and had him dangling from a shelf with his back feet kicking weakly at the air.

It was like one of those suspenseful moments in movies where the quiet build up strung the tension of its audience and then jerked that line even tighter with the subtlest thing. In this case, it was an almost inquisitive purr. It might have even been cute, if one wasn't so terrified that he might be eaten by whatever made the noise.

The mothcat that peered down at him wasn't nearly as big as the first. Still young, perhaps. It looked down at the dangling Salem with great curiosity, even as it positioned itself quite unintentionally as a certain traitorous lion over his unsuspecting brother.

The sound made Salem freeze, gasping and holding his breath with his toes drawn up against his soft, vulnerable, very delicious looking stomach. Slowly, reluctantly, he looked up in time to see another strange cat appear above him. They locked eyes, and Salem wailed, "Noooo!" as he let himself fall to his death, a whole two inches from the ground.

It was back to sobbing and running. That tactic would have to work eventually. Stairs! Going down! If the flying cats were going up, because of the flying, then maybe down was safer. Salem went crying into the basement, where hopefully the worst thing he was going to find was a water heater and the level 10 cauldron.

Did that come from that creature? Omega came to a halt at the voice that sounded, and it didn't belong to any of the usuals here. She heard the sobs continue even as she broke into a run again, catching sight of one of her squad as the mothcat looked off in the direction Salem had gone.

"Tumble, did you see him?" She hardly expected an answer but she did look down the way towards the stairs. She'd never been down there herself, always waylaid by fuzzy, winged company whenever she paid a visit. But she wasn't going to just leave a potentially wild animal to run around here, especially not when she was the one that brought it inside in the first place. So the stairs she headed!

It was kind of dark down these stairs. That would be perfect, if the green cats didn't happen to have night vision. Not that they would need the help, because Salem continued to sniffle as he went slinking under a desk to shrink himself down as small as possible, tail wrapped around his gathered feet and watching the shadows from the stairs. The problem was, he was going to have to go back up there eventually to get out of here, but maybe if he stayed long enough, they would forget about him.

A beam of light cut through the darkness as Omega activated her torch, shining it down the steps.

"Hello?" she called as she stopped at the top of the stairs, looking around. "Please come out. No one's going to hurt you..." She wasn't sure that the creature would understand, but it didn't stop her from addressing him anyway. Carefully she started down the steps.

Kids could be cruel, Salem had forgotten that in his hurry to get in out of the snow, and kids could lie, and he probably shouldn't trust any of them. This one didn't sound very cruel, though, and she had been very nice to him with the bag, and he didn't want to die in this basement. He could already feel himself starving to nothing. "I'm just a houseca-a-at..." he hiccuped in response

The footsteps paused at that, Omega giving the tiniest gasp. "...so that was you," she marveled. As tempting as it was to move the light about to try and locate him, the girl remained training it on the steps in front of her as she carefully came down another few.

"I'm not sure what a house cat is... I've only ever seen the mothcats and they're native to Temba. I'm sure they didn't mean anything, they were just curious. They probably haven't seen anything like you either. Do you have a name?"

Luckily, kids could lie and nobody should trust any of them, so if this kid went around telling people that she could hear cats talk, she would probably get ignored. Probably. "You can't tell anyone," Salem said, just to be sure, still whining miserably. "They can't know about your special powers." See, it was her that was the weird one, he was just a normal cat.

Maybe that was a little mean, because she wasn't even giving him some humiliating new name like Mr. Stinkypaws. He crawled a few inches out from under the desk, sticking close to it in case he had to disappear again. "I usually don't have to introduce myself," he admitted, feeling awkward about having to announce his name at all after living as a pet for so long. His reputation preceded him when everyone else in the house warned about him getting out. "My name is Salem."

It only seemed polite to ask his name if he could give one. The girl was simply being practical. She let the light range along the last few steps she had to walk down.

"Special powers?" Her expression wasn't so much one of wonder than dubious confusion. Her tone just suggested the notion ridiculous. "Well, I won't tell anyone that you can talk if that's what you really want."

Once she was at the last step, she sat down on it. As much as she wanted to move the light in the direction she'd heard him, she decided to let him reveal himself on his own if he wanted. "I'm Omega. It's nice to meet you, Salem. I'm sorry if the mothcats scared you. We can leave if you want. I can take you somewhere else."

As much as Salem didn't want to be in this menagerie anymore, he didn't really know where else to go that wasn't just back outside in the cold. Not great options. He lingered in the dark, lamenting this cruel life and how much he didn't deserve it, leaning his suffering weight against the side of the desk. "Were you leaving those things outside for them, too?" he ventured. Maybe if the choice was mothcats, or mothcats AND cold, it got a little easier to decide.

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