Old Friends (Ranarath)

“So… tired…” Ziran thought, dragging himself into Southern Tybalt. He was normally bursting with energy, but even he couldn’t go a whole week of constant travel and no sleep. The poor feline barely avoided passing out in the middle of the countryside.

He collapsed in the middle of the cobble-stone street, but managed to flop onto his back. If he was going to be laying there for a bit, he could at least take in the sights. Sadly, there wasn’t really anything to see. The southern end of Tybalt was the slum, and what few buildings he saw were in varying states of disrepair.

Kunto sighed and shifted into his kitten form. If he was going to sleep in the street, he may as well be in the form that was the most comfortable to him. As soon as he curled up, he was visited by the Sandman…

~

“Tie that bag like that…”

“Yeah?”

“And that one like that…”

“Okay.”

“There we go.”

Ziran opened his eyes and yawned, wondering what the ruckus was about. He couldn’t have been asleep for more than ten minutes. That meant it’d be another ten minutes before he could change back to his hybrid form, unfortunately for Kunto.

He was surrounded by a small group of rag-wearing children. They ranged in ages, with the youngest looking to be a mere toddler and the oldest in his early teens, but they all shared one common bond: They were all staring at him.

The windigo rose, and instantly found out why. The children had tied small bags to each of his paws, making him very uncomfortable. He tried to shake the bags off to no avail. The children tied the bags too tight for that. In fact, he could now feel the string cutting off the flow of blood to his paws.

“Mew!” he protested, and tried to get away. The bags severely limited his speed, and one of the younger children caught him, squeezing a pained mew from him. Whether the squeeze was accidental or not, it definitely wasn’t an accident when the kid threw him back into the center of the group, making the poor kitten hit the street face-first.

“What are we gonna do with it?” one of the children asked. A multitude of suggestions reached Ziran’s ears, each one worse than the last. Every single one involved harming the kitty in some way, or doing something generally unpleasant with it. One child even suggested cooking him.

“Alright,” the oldest one said, picking Ziran up. “My idea’s better than all of those. Who here wants to play catch?”

“What did you say to me?” Sora demanded, rising from the table she had been sitting quietly at. A small glass full of water was still clutched in her hand, some of the liquid slipping over the sides.

A burly man looked down and into her mismatched eyes, “I said people like you aren’t welcome here. You may be a pretty girl but anybody could smell the stench of demon around you. So why don’t you leave now, filthy-” He didn’t managed to finish his declaration as the woman’s fist flew straight into his face, the glass still clutched inside it. A wet crunch was heard as the man’s nose broke but that was muffled by the louder and higher sound of glass breaking. He cried out in pain and grabbed at his face, only succeeding in pushing the glass shards in deeper.

At this point, several others in the tavern, men and woman, stood up and made movements to go after Sora. She simply held up her bloodied fist and glared at the bar-goers. At that point, the barkeep decided it would be better for his establishment if he stepped in. “Alright, sit your arses down be for I sit them for yehs,” he barked at the rising men and woman. Then he turned to the half-breed, “An’ you, cough up the money for that glass yeh broke.” Even though the barkeep had the perfect right to request that, Sora knew that, she still shoved the money into his hand and stormed out of the tavern.

“Bastards,” she muttered under her breath. It didn’t take much to make her mad. In fact, her volatile temper was well-known to her friends and even sometimes the butt of jokes. But being called out against because of her blood really pissed her off. Picking up a small rock, she threw it as hard as she could. It hit the side of another building and bounced off loudly. The hunter turned down an alleyway, “Crap,” not wanting to meet whoever owned that building.

As she walked down the alleyway, she heard the laughter of some young children. She saw a group of street urchins, the only appropriate name for the boys dressed in rags with dirty hair, throwing a ball between them. One of the boys missed catching the ball but kicked it back up in the air. As she walked closer, Sora noticed the ball was furry looking and had fours things dangling down. As it was thrown again, she heard the ball meow.

Meow? “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” the hunter shouted and ran up to the group of misfits. They turned to her, eyes wide with fear, and ran, the kitten falling to the ground as no one was around to catch it. “Sorry,” she murmured as Sora knelt by the calico. It mewed pitifully at her and tried to stand up but feel back to the ground. “Aw,” she reached down and untied the bags around the kitten’s feet that were preventing it from standing properly. Standing up, it mewed happily and rubbed against her hand. The half-breed smiled and scratched the calico’s ears, “Hey, you’re kinda cute.”

“Yay!” Ziran thought, purring and mewing happily. “I’m saved! I’m saved! I’m… Wait, I know her…”

He stopped mewing for a moment and got a good look at his savior. The black hair, the red and green eyes, the lightly tanned and horribly beautiful face. Where had he seen her before? He figured that he must’ve seen her back before he was ‘smushed’, but where?

“I can’t believe those kids would do that to a kitten,” she said, a mix of disbelief and disapproval in her voice. Her continued scratching eventually forced Kunto to start purring again. The little guy couldn’t help himself.

“Hmm… No, Sin was dark and not so curvy, so that’s not him. Not that Gorin guy either. How many curvy people do I know? Hmm…”

It suddenly dawned on him, and he started to mew happily and lick Sora’s hand at a hyper pace.

“Sora Atichae, of course! How could I not recognize her?! Yay! I’ll be able to turn back into a kitty-boy in just a few minutes, and then we can catch up!”

To his surprise and sadness, she suddenly stood up and, ascertaining that the kitten was okay now, started to walk away. Ziran ran after her and clung to her leg, careful to avoid scratching her. He wasn’t about to let her just leave. It felt like it’d been years since they’d seen each other!

“Mew!” he said, forgetting for a moment that she couldn’t understand him. “Mewmew! Meow, mew! Meewwwww!”

After the last one, tears showed up in the kitten’s eyes. Sora was one of the few friends that he could actually remember. He didn’t want to lose the opportunity to be with her.

“Just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes…”

OOC: Sorry for crappiness. Saving my CJ’s for the tourney.

OoC: Yays, I poshted. ^^

BiC:

“Hey,” Sora exclaimed after the kitten suddenly attached itself to her leg, mewing excitedly. She carefully pried it off and held the feline up to her face, “Look, as happy as I was to help you, I can’t take a cat with me. I wouldn’t even know how to take care of you. So, you had better find another person to be clinging with.” The hunter set the calico down and started walking away once more... only to have the kitten follow behind. She groaned and rubbed her forehead. I guess I should’ve know that this cat would want to follow me. After all, I’m probably the only person to have showed it some kindness. “Okay, okay,” she sighed and then crouched, holding out her arms, “Come here and we’ll see if we can’t find you a home ‘cause you still can’t come home with me.” Instead of jumping into her arm, however, the kitten seemed to shutter and... grow bigger? To surprised to making any kinds of movements, Sora stayed crouched as something much bigger than a kitten leaped at her.

“Sora! I’m so glad to see you!” a childish voice gleefully said as a face nuzzled the female’s own. “I haven’t seen you in such a long time. Where have you been? Did you get out of that temple okay? What happened afterwards? Did you ever see me walk away as a kitten? I’m sooo happy you’re here!” He punctuated that statement with a lick to Sora’s cheek. Somehow, a kid licking her cheek wasn’t quite as adorable as a kitten.

“Hey! Heyheyheyheyhey!” the hunter shouted and struggled underneath the child-like form, “Just who the hell are you?” She finally managed to push the boy off of her and onto the ground. Then she was slightly puzzled by his appearance. He was a boy, probably not much older than 12 or so. However, a pair of cat ears stuck out of his brown hair and a brown tail wagged cheerfully behind him.

He smiled happily, “Aw, come on, don’t you remember me? It’s me, Ziran!”

She wiped the cheek he had licked, “Ziran?” That name did sound familiar. But where had she met this person before? Surely she would’ve remembered meeting a cat person. That isn’t exactly something the hunter saw everyday.

Ziran nodded frantically, “Yeah, yeah. I’m the Windigo. Remember? With the red hair and horn? We went to that medallion temple together along with a couple others. It’s so good to see you!” He made another leap at Sora but she moved to the side and he simply landed right beside her.

Red hair and a horn? Well, she certainly remembered the temple with the medallions but... “Ah crud.” She moaned and slapped her face. Yeah, she remembered Ziran now. He always seemed to flying above them, far too happy and way too drunk. Though, it was sometimes hard to dismiss a perpetually happy personality. Especially when they were happy to see you. She turned back to his cat-boy appearance and grinned, “Okay, so what exactly happened to you?”

“Well,” Ziran replied, sitting and hugging his knees, a massive smiled on his face, “I’m not exactly sure what happened to me. Remember how we all had to fight our nightmares?”

Sora nodded. Kunto flopped onto his belly, trying to resist the urge to pounce on her again. How long had it been since he’d seen a friendly face? Sure, some people were nice to him when he was a kitten, but nobody was nice to him when he was a kitty-boy.

“My nightmare was an ape,” he said, continuing. “A really scary one. Anyway, I turned into a monkey too for some reason. Did you turn into your nightmare? Anyway, we fought ‘til we fell in a hole. Then the hole caved in on us.”

He suddenly rolled onto his back and clapped his hands once, as hard as he could. Kunto ignored his stinging palms and continued. “We were smushed. I woke up a bit after that as a kitty, and here I am.”

Ziran flopped back onto his belly and rested his chin on two open palms. The catboy ‘s tail swished back and forth. A butterfly landed on the tip, and he turned to look at it. His already large smile grew just a bit, and he turned back to face Sora.

“So,” he said, his mind bursting with questions, “I like being a kitty. Anyway, how about you? What was your nightmare? What did you do afterward? How’ve you been? How long was I smushed? Am I a good kitty?”

He’d stopped swishing his tail about, trying to avoid disturbing the monarch sitting on its tip. The butterfly felt wonderful. Nice and tickly.

OOC: Short, bad, I know. I’ve got quite a bit to catch up on.

Sora chuckled at Ziran’s enthusiasm. Normally, such hyper people would begin to get on Sora’s nerves but something about the cat-person simply made her smile. Did she like him before when they had traveled to the temple? No, I don’t think. In fact, I think I was ready to kick his arse. She shrugged unnoticeably, “So, which question do you want answered first?”

The transformed Windigo was staring at the butterfly on the tip of his tail, half-looking as though he wanted to pounce and play. “What was your nightmare?”

“Right. It was an ice demon I had fought when I first became a hunter. He was probably one of the toughest demons I’d ever fought.” She purposely omitted the fact that the demon had been her brother. Not a detail the hunter liked to bring up.

He rolled over, “Did you turn into the ice demon, too?” The kitty-boy then realized the monarch had started to fly away and pounced on it, catching it in one of his clawed hands.

“Yeah. It was actually...” she smiled as she thought back, “kind of fun. I wouldn’t mind be able to fly again, anyway.”

“Oh yes, flying is much fun.” Ziran rocked back and forth, gently holding the orange and black butterfly in his hands. “You can zoom around and scare people really easily. Not to mention that it makes getting around simpler than walking.”

Sora leaned forward a little in curiosity, “Say, can you still fly around?”

He nodded vehemently, “Wanna see?” The insect fluttered out of his hand as he stood up and held his arms out horizontally. Sora felt a slight breeze stir the still air. The wind began to concentrate around the Windigo and become stronger. Soon, he started to slowly lift off the ground and then, without warning, he simply shot into the air. Ziran let out a cry of exhilaration and the half-breed couldn’t help but to let out a laugh at his joy. He twisted through the air, doing flips and corkscrews that looked like they might make him dizzy. Sora figured the tricks probably did; making himself sick with fun sounded like something Ziran might do.

Presently, however, people started to peek out their windows and gather in the streets, muttering about the flying boy. “That’s awesome, Ziran, but you had better come down now,” she called to him. The female decided that creating a scene might not be the best thing to do. These people didn’t appear to be the type who enjoyed strange doings in their town.

OoC: Yes, I'm still alive.