An Alliance Between Two Lonely Cats
This a log between kitty!Arthur and Kiku, for the first event. The only backstory you need is that Gilbo got Arthur and Kiku cracked out on catnip and they got into a little...catfight.
He slid down, sitting next to the smaller one. Then, in kitty language, "I wouldn't mind them much. The white haired one is obsessed with cute. He doesn't notice after he realizes how cute we are. I'm not sure about your master, though."
Arthur sat down next to Kiku, with something akin to a feline shrug. "I don't know about Alfred myself, sometimes." He looked at Kiku. "You seem familiar. Like I should know you. But I'm quite certain I've never seen a human like you before."
His ears flicked a bit, "I've seen plenty of English short hairs but not ones with such ghastly eyebrows..."
"Fah. They'e not eyebrows, they're just markings," he groused. "I haven't the foggiest why I have them. And for the record, I am a Semi-longhaired British shorthair, thank you very much."
"Because there's such a difference." his slanted eyes rolled. "My sort have differently named breeds than your type."
"Oh?" Arthur asked with feigned interest. "By the way, I apologize for my ghastly behavior, earlier. I'm not sure what came over me," he said, with a false gentility that was nigh on transparent.
Ah me too," his sincerity was even thinner, "our breeds depend on what were meant to do."
Well, at least they'd reached some degree of civility? Yes, quite. "Ah, like a mouser, then?" He looked forward once more. "Truth be told, my -kind- technically holds little stock in breeds. We're all Jellicles. We don't care much about sub categories."
"Well maybe. Mostly were pets or do housework or... Specific things our masters will want. Like me, for example. I was bred to preform special tasks."
"...Special tasks?" Arthur repeated incredulously, then sniffed haughtily. "It's beneath me to think of serving a human. You say your kind are bred for that purpose?" he asked, looking as if he'd smelled something raunchy.
"Its not like we decide that... The trade has gone on for so long there's no way to get out."
"Sounds like you're rather bollocksed, then. You seem free enough now, why don't you run? You're a bloody cat, aren't you?"
"Where would I run to?" he stretched, flexing his paws and yawning. "Besides, my master is a wonderful man. He's more my pet than me his."
"Brilliant for you, then! That's how it should be," Arthur said smugly. "Some of the humans can be downright dense with how little they notice..." he said, and it almost seemed wistful. Only an idiot wouldn't notice the way his eyes traveled to Alfred.
"Oh I know. My masters a painter. He's so kind but things go straight over his head, you know?" he stretched. "I just feel bad for the cats who manage to find some brute for a master."
"My kind would rather be homeless than suffer the injustice of a cruel master. After all, you know, a cat isn't a dog. The humans don't expect total loyalty from us. Or, they shouldn't. I should think they would be even less likely to harass your kind, given that you're nearly human-sized."
He shook his head, "noo... That just makes us better targets for beatings. It's never happened to me but... Were specifically bred not to fight back. It's annoying, having some inbred fear of stupid humans..."
"That sounds annoying," Arthur said, and looked down at his paws as if trying to imagine not being able to defend himself. Or attack Francis. Goddamn that frog bastard. Fah. It was too horrible to imagine. "If you looked more like a proper cat, I would welcome you to join us for a proper Ball at some point. It's rather exhilarating."
"Hm... What exactly goes on there then?" tch. A proper cat... Just because I'm more developed and better than you...
"It's...hard to explain," Arthur said, and licked his paw to wash his face idly. "The Jellicle Moon gives us energy and power, and we spend the night exulting in our strengths as members of the proud feline species. It's absolutely glorious, and intoxicating, and...difficult to remember the particulars of the morning after.
He smiled a bit, nodding. "It sounds wonderful."
Arthur looked over at Kiku, and then smiled faintly. "I know who you remind me of now," he said. "And he's so inoffensive and polite that he never states his honest opinion." Another lick to his paw, and then his face.
"Oh? I'm like that?"
"Just earlier, you were fully willing to bait me over the merits of the Jellicle Ball, and now that we're being civil to one another you seem to have suddenly changed your tune."
"I was feeling a bit odd then," he explained. "From those mice. Now I'm fine."
"...Oh. Right. That pasty-haired git had us flying higher than a kite." A tone of extreme distaste. "Something about you still strikes me as remarkably similar to Kiku, though," he remarked, glancing the hybrid over.
He raised his eyebrows. "My name is Kiku."
Arthur did a very good impression of suddenly deciding that there might be a hairball in need of expulsion. "You don't say," he said, when he had recovered his composure. "That is rather strange. I'm starting to believe I've stumbled into an alternate universe from my own."
"I think so. One of the men here look just like my master. He's not and it's upsetting." he licked his fingers, running them over his silky ears, cleaning.
"And that isn't my Alfred," Arthur supplied. "Why are we here, though? I usually come to these meetings with Wyn, but...Wyn isn't here," he said, and his ears flattened a bit.
"I don't know... It bothers me." he laid down, tail drooping. "My master is completely helpless without me... He won't remember to eat or wash.. Ugh I shouldn't be this worried."
Arthur didn't know what to do. So he did what he usually did, when the people in his own world got despondent over their missing "England." He butted his head against Kiku's shoulder, and curled up next to him contently, purring lightly. "Perhaps time's paused in our own worlds," he mused. "Or maybe there's a shade of us that's there in our place." He didn't want to think about the alternative. His own Alfred had confessed to him multiple times, fingers tangled in his shaggy fur, that he had already lost England, and he wouldn't know what to do if Arthur disappeared as well. Arthur was just as afraid for his Alfred, as Kiku was for his master. And Arthur hated having to worry about the humans.
Arthur didn't know what to do. So he did what he usually did, when the people in his own world got despondent over their missing "England." He butted his head against Kiku's shoulder, and curled up next to him contently, purring lightly.
"Perhaps time's paused in our own worlds," he mused. "Or maybe there's a shade of us that's there in our place." He didn't want to think about the alternative. His own Alfred had confessed to him multiple times, fingers tangled in his shaggy fur, that he had already lost England, and he wouldn't know what to do if Arthur disappeared as well.
Arthur was just as afraid for his Alfred, as Kiku was for his master. And Arthur hated having to worry about the humans.
He nosed the other cat, snuggling comfortable. ""I hope thats the case... Otherwise I don't know how to handle this."
"Well, the humans I know have meetings like this every so often, but they usually end quickly. So we'll probably be home soon anyway." I hope.
"What sort of meetings? Herakles-dono barely left our apartment... I don't know anything about this place."
"Why should I have paid attention to what they were talking about?" Arthur asked, as his paws disappeared under his fluff and body to make him look like a loaf with a head. "Something about human politics. I came because they pet me." And because it felt so right to be there. But he kept that secret.
"I didn't know if you knew is all." Kiku snuggled him, purring softly. "I only recognize a few people... Gilbert-san and the man who looks like Herakles-dono."
Arthur rubbed his head against the other feline idly, and something drew him to the other, like two islands alike in their isolation. Funny. He purred lightly. "I recognize most of them. They come to meetings, or else they come to meet personally with Wyn. There's Ludwig, and Roderich, and Elisaveta, and Toris and Feliks, and...that should be Ivan, but the Ivan I know is more masculine than that..." he trailed off thoughtfully, glancing around and then resting his head on his paws. He missed his own world.
"I don't know any of them..." he curled around the smaller, licking a bit of Arthurs sticky up hair flat idly. "I don't like it here..."
The fur bristled right back up, because Arthur wasn't used to being groomed. At all. He was just slightly too old to have tripped the older queens' maternal instincts, in the Junkyard, and he didn't spend enough time among the Jellicles to have a sweetheart. They were nice enough, but the only time he felt at home with them was during the Jellicle Ball, and even then there was a part of him that felt like he didn't actually belong there. "They're essentially the same people," he murmured thoughtfully, more to himself. "Alfred is still Alfred, even if he's not -my- Alfred. There has to be a reason why we're all here..."
"but... The man who looks like master smells nothing like master. I couldn't fake that all, just for pets."
Arthur's fur bristled. He wasn't a slut for pettings, and resented the veiled accusation. "I...I..." he shook his head. "My Alfred doesn't smile," he said finally. "This Alfred...he doesn't smell exactly like mine. My Alfred smells like freedom, smells like the exhilaration of dodging shoes from a fencepost in the middle of the night, smells like a flagrant disregard for authority. But both Alfreds smell like the sky.
Like wide open spaces, and warmth and light and all those things that make lazy Sundays so enjoyable." Arthur was grinning as much as any cat could by now, just describing what had drawn him to this Alfred, despite the difference.
"And this Alfred smiled. This Alfred -grinned- like I've never seen mine grin before - but somehow, I felt like I missed it more than I would have missed my own leg.
My Alfred pets me, and loves me, but he says I remind him of 'Arthur,' and he's always so busy looking for some wanker named England, that he's just too sad to smile like that..." His eyebrows furrowed. "I say that England bastard can go fuck himself, for deserting someone like Alfred.”
He smiled at the fondness in the others voice. "My master smells like the sun on a clear morning when you can just lay out and sleep the hours away. He smells like oil paints and canvas and his peach tea and sometimes olives and the food his mother brings us sometimes... He smells like clay and that nice kind of sweat, clean sweat..." his toes curled a little. "Hes so wonderful and carefree..."
Arthur sighed contently, and leaned against Kiku, paws curled up to his chest, green eyes closing lightly in thought. "You do love him, then," he said. He didn't fault Kiku that. Nooo. Just because cats were independent didn't mean that they couldn't get attached to humans. After all, he had waxed poetic about his own Alfred just a minute ago. The images were so vivid and beautiful, and while it brought back happy memories, it also made him terribly homesick.
There was a pause then he nodded. "I do. I'd be so upset if he were gone..."
Arthur butted his head against Kiku's hand-paw comfortingly, nuzzling his cheek against the hybrid. "We'll get home," he said. "Buck up, old chap. You'll see, we'll get home and everything will be just the way we left."
He pet him a little, feeling odd. Petting another cat the way a human did... He nosed him instead. "I hope it's soon. Well, at least you're here... These dumb humans just pat me I. The head and act like I'm some idiot animal... Tch."
Arthur purred, a light feline chuckle. "Perhaps a union, then," he said, and looked up into Kiku's dark, almond-shaped eyes. "Between two lonely cats. After all, I believe we're the first two in this entire place to realize that we're not...as my Alfred would say: 'in Kansas anymore.'" A lighthearted smirk. One eye winked shut as he was nosed, and he rubbed his cheek against Kiku's face in response. "Besides. I don't know about you, but something feels right. To me, anyway."
"I'd like that," the hybrid nodded, still nosing idly, "and you're right. Something does feel right about this." he got bored and rested his chin on the other, nuzzling.
He slid down, sitting next to the smaller one. Then, in kitty language, "I wouldn't mind them much. The white haired one is obsessed with cute. He doesn't notice after he realizes how cute we are. I'm not sure about your master, though."
Arthur sat down next to Kiku, with something akin to a feline shrug. "I don't know about Alfred myself, sometimes." He looked at Kiku. "You seem familiar. Like I should know you. But I'm quite certain I've never seen a human like you before."
His ears flicked a bit, "I've seen plenty of English short hairs but not ones with such ghastly eyebrows..."
"Fah. They'e not eyebrows, they're just markings," he groused. "I haven't the foggiest why I have them. And for the record, I am a Semi-longhaired British shorthair, thank you very much."
"Because there's such a difference." his slanted eyes rolled. "My sort have differently named breeds than your type."
"Oh?" Arthur asked with feigned interest. "By the way, I apologize for my ghastly behavior, earlier. I'm not sure what came over me," he said, with a false gentility that was nigh on transparent.
Ah me too," his sincerity was even thinner, "our breeds depend on what were meant to do."
Well, at least they'd reached some degree of civility? Yes, quite. "Ah, like a mouser, then?" He looked forward once more. "Truth be told, my -kind- technically holds little stock in breeds. We're all Jellicles. We don't care much about sub categories."
"Well maybe. Mostly were pets or do housework or... Specific things our masters will want. Like me, for example. I was bred to preform special tasks."
"...Special tasks?" Arthur repeated incredulously, then sniffed haughtily. "It's beneath me to think of serving a human. You say your kind are bred for that purpose?" he asked, looking as if he'd smelled something raunchy.
"Its not like we decide that... The trade has gone on for so long there's no way to get out."
"Sounds like you're rather bollocksed, then. You seem free enough now, why don't you run? You're a bloody cat, aren't you?"
"Where would I run to?" he stretched, flexing his paws and yawning. "Besides, my master is a wonderful man. He's more my pet than me his."
"Brilliant for you, then! That's how it should be," Arthur said smugly. "Some of the humans can be downright dense with how little they notice..." he said, and it almost seemed wistful. Only an idiot wouldn't notice the way his eyes traveled to Alfred.
"Oh I know. My masters a painter. He's so kind but things go straight over his head, you know?" he stretched. "I just feel bad for the cats who manage to find some brute for a master."
"My kind would rather be homeless than suffer the injustice of a cruel master. After all, you know, a cat isn't a dog. The humans don't expect total loyalty from us. Or, they shouldn't. I should think they would be even less likely to harass your kind, given that you're nearly human-sized."
He shook his head, "noo... That just makes us better targets for beatings. It's never happened to me but... Were specifically bred not to fight back. It's annoying, having some inbred fear of stupid humans..."
"That sounds annoying," Arthur said, and looked down at his paws as if trying to imagine not being able to defend himself. Or attack Francis. Goddamn that frog bastard. Fah. It was too horrible to imagine. "If you looked more like a proper cat, I would welcome you to join us for a proper Ball at some point. It's rather exhilarating."
"Hm... What exactly goes on there then?" tch. A proper cat... Just because I'm more developed and better than you...
"It's...hard to explain," Arthur said, and licked his paw to wash his face idly. "The Jellicle Moon gives us energy and power, and we spend the night exulting in our strengths as members of the proud feline species. It's absolutely glorious, and intoxicating, and...difficult to remember the particulars of the morning after.
He smiled a bit, nodding. "It sounds wonderful."
Arthur looked over at Kiku, and then smiled faintly. "I know who you remind me of now," he said. "And he's so inoffensive and polite that he never states his honest opinion." Another lick to his paw, and then his face.
"Oh? I'm like that?"
"Just earlier, you were fully willing to bait me over the merits of the Jellicle Ball, and now that we're being civil to one another you seem to have suddenly changed your tune."
"I was feeling a bit odd then," he explained. "From those mice. Now I'm fine."
"...Oh. Right. That pasty-haired git had us flying higher than a kite." A tone of extreme distaste. "Something about you still strikes me as remarkably similar to Kiku, though," he remarked, glancing the hybrid over.
He raised his eyebrows. "My name is Kiku."
Arthur did a very good impression of suddenly deciding that there might be a hairball in need of expulsion. "You don't say," he said, when he had recovered his composure. "That is rather strange. I'm starting to believe I've stumbled into an alternate universe from my own."
"I think so. One of the men here look just like my master. He's not and it's upsetting." he licked his fingers, running them over his silky ears, cleaning.
"And that isn't my Alfred," Arthur supplied. "Why are we here, though? I usually come to these meetings with Wyn, but...Wyn isn't here," he said, and his ears flattened a bit.
"I don't know... It bothers me." he laid down, tail drooping. "My master is completely helpless without me... He won't remember to eat or wash.. Ugh I shouldn't be this worried."
Arthur didn't know what to do. So he did what he usually did, when the people in his own world got despondent over their missing "England." He butted his head against Kiku's shoulder, and curled up next to him contently, purring lightly. "Perhaps time's paused in our own worlds," he mused. "Or maybe there's a shade of us that's there in our place." He didn't want to think about the alternative. His own Alfred had confessed to him multiple times, fingers tangled in his shaggy fur, that he had already lost England, and he wouldn't know what to do if Arthur disappeared as well. Arthur was just as afraid for his Alfred, as Kiku was for his master. And Arthur hated having to worry about the humans.
Arthur didn't know what to do. So he did what he usually did, when the people in his own world got despondent over their missing "England." He butted his head against Kiku's shoulder, and curled up next to him contently, purring lightly.
"Perhaps time's paused in our own worlds," he mused. "Or maybe there's a shade of us that's there in our place." He didn't want to think about the alternative. His own Alfred had confessed to him multiple times, fingers tangled in his shaggy fur, that he had already lost England, and he wouldn't know what to do if Arthur disappeared as well.
Arthur was just as afraid for his Alfred, as Kiku was for his master. And Arthur hated having to worry about the humans.
He nosed the other cat, snuggling comfortable. ""I hope thats the case... Otherwise I don't know how to handle this."
"Well, the humans I know have meetings like this every so often, but they usually end quickly. So we'll probably be home soon anyway." I hope.
"What sort of meetings? Herakles-dono barely left our apartment... I don't know anything about this place."
"Why should I have paid attention to what they were talking about?" Arthur asked, as his paws disappeared under his fluff and body to make him look like a loaf with a head. "Something about human politics. I came because they pet me." And because it felt so right to be there. But he kept that secret.
"I didn't know if you knew is all." Kiku snuggled him, purring softly. "I only recognize a few people... Gilbert-san and the man who looks like Herakles-dono."
Arthur rubbed his head against the other feline idly, and something drew him to the other, like two islands alike in their isolation. Funny. He purred lightly. "I recognize most of them. They come to meetings, or else they come to meet personally with Wyn. There's Ludwig, and Roderich, and Elisaveta, and Toris and Feliks, and...that should be Ivan, but the Ivan I know is more masculine than that..." he trailed off thoughtfully, glancing around and then resting his head on his paws. He missed his own world.
"I don't know any of them..." he curled around the smaller, licking a bit of Arthurs sticky up hair flat idly. "I don't like it here..."
The fur bristled right back up, because Arthur wasn't used to being groomed. At all. He was just slightly too old to have tripped the older queens' maternal instincts, in the Junkyard, and he didn't spend enough time among the Jellicles to have a sweetheart. They were nice enough, but the only time he felt at home with them was during the Jellicle Ball, and even then there was a part of him that felt like he didn't actually belong there. "They're essentially the same people," he murmured thoughtfully, more to himself. "Alfred is still Alfred, even if he's not -my- Alfred. There has to be a reason why we're all here..."
"but... The man who looks like master smells nothing like master. I couldn't fake that all, just for pets."
Arthur's fur bristled. He wasn't a slut for pettings, and resented the veiled accusation. "I...I..." he shook his head. "My Alfred doesn't smile," he said finally. "This Alfred...he doesn't smell exactly like mine. My Alfred smells like freedom, smells like the exhilaration of dodging shoes from a fencepost in the middle of the night, smells like a flagrant disregard for authority. But both Alfreds smell like the sky.
Like wide open spaces, and warmth and light and all those things that make lazy Sundays so enjoyable." Arthur was grinning as much as any cat could by now, just describing what had drawn him to this Alfred, despite the difference.
"And this Alfred smiled. This Alfred -grinned- like I've never seen mine grin before - but somehow, I felt like I missed it more than I would have missed my own leg.
My Alfred pets me, and loves me, but he says I remind him of 'Arthur,' and he's always so busy looking for some wanker named England, that he's just too sad to smile like that..." His eyebrows furrowed. "I say that England bastard can go fuck himself, for deserting someone like Alfred.”
He smiled at the fondness in the others voice. "My master smells like the sun on a clear morning when you can just lay out and sleep the hours away. He smells like oil paints and canvas and his peach tea and sometimes olives and the food his mother brings us sometimes... He smells like clay and that nice kind of sweat, clean sweat..." his toes curled a little. "Hes so wonderful and carefree..."
Arthur sighed contently, and leaned against Kiku, paws curled up to his chest, green eyes closing lightly in thought. "You do love him, then," he said. He didn't fault Kiku that. Nooo. Just because cats were independent didn't mean that they couldn't get attached to humans. After all, he had waxed poetic about his own Alfred just a minute ago. The images were so vivid and beautiful, and while it brought back happy memories, it also made him terribly homesick.
There was a pause then he nodded. "I do. I'd be so upset if he were gone..."
Arthur butted his head against Kiku's hand-paw comfortingly, nuzzling his cheek against the hybrid. "We'll get home," he said. "Buck up, old chap. You'll see, we'll get home and everything will be just the way we left."
He pet him a little, feeling odd. Petting another cat the way a human did... He nosed him instead. "I hope it's soon. Well, at least you're here... These dumb humans just pat me I. The head and act like I'm some idiot animal... Tch."
Arthur purred, a light feline chuckle. "Perhaps a union, then," he said, and looked up into Kiku's dark, almond-shaped eyes. "Between two lonely cats. After all, I believe we're the first two in this entire place to realize that we're not...as my Alfred would say: 'in Kansas anymore.'" A lighthearted smirk. One eye winked shut as he was nosed, and he rubbed his cheek against Kiku's face in response. "Besides. I don't know about you, but something feels right. To me, anyway."
"I'd like that," the hybrid nodded, still nosing idly, "and you're right. Something does feel right about this." he got bored and rested his chin on the other, nuzzling.