All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Lords of Kensington, Part 3
Word Count: 1723
Note: Being that I'm in CampNano mode there is a whole lot of nothing in this piece. Sorry about that.
"This is being reasonable?" Katrina exclaimed as she stepped into a lavish suite on the twenty-first floor of the Fairmont Regency Waterfront. She dragged the heavy kennel into the middle of the huge living room - and huge it was, easily bigger than her first apartment had been - and clapped a hand to her forehead in shock. "Ryder, what..."
"If you think I'm sharing some cramped room with those mongrels," he commented, thumping his hand on top of the kennel as he pushed it against the wall, "you've got another thing coming." He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto one of the armchairs, stretching his long arms over his head as he made his way to the enormous windows against the far wall. "Besides," he said, pushing aside the curtain to stare out at the night sky, "I thought you would like it."
"My father is going to kill me," she muttered, discarding her own jacket and kneeling to open the kennel doors. "Though I guess..." She looked around again, then sighed in resignation. "I guess it's not so bad..." she reluctantly agreed. "It'll be nice to have the space for one -" Her words ended in a yelp as the kennel doors swung open and she was immediately bowled over by two fuzzy, mottled bodies - Thaddeus and Crispin, her "pets", came crashing out of the confined spaces like miniature freight trains, their wiggling and excited bodies falling over her as they chirruped in their odd, warbling voices. Giggling, Katrina collapsed on her back and allowed herself to be snuggled.
Calling them "show dogs" was grossly inaccurate, but then again, there weren't really words in common language that could describe them. The Fel'danai called them keesin, dog-like creatures with the physical build of cats, six legs, and two whip-like tails. Their velvet-like pelts were an uneven pattern of spots, stripes, and splotches, in any color combination one could imagine. Thaddeus, the larger of the two, was black with silver and pale blue markings, and Crispin was white and deep burgundy. A ridge of rubbery spines ran from the center of their forehead to the middle of their back, and their narrow faces had the lolling grin of hyenas with a long forked tongue that they seemed to have trouble keeping in their mouths. Huge ears sprouted from the sides of their heads, wide and round at the base and tapering to a thin tuft of hair, soft and pliable so that they flopped about their heads. But it was their eyes that Katrina loved the most - they swirled and changed color like mood rings, and glowed in the darkness like tiny flashlights.
Typically they were not pets in Rion Fell - the locals there viewed them as bad omens, harbingers of disaster. They lived deep in the rain forest, far enough that they were rarely seen and often considered an urban legend. Katrina had found them imprisoned in one of the Taggart labs, and at the time they'd been three pound kits, hardly aware of their surroundings and barely able to open their eyes. Her heart had broken for the defenseless little beasts, and though Ryder and Eli had insisted it was a bad idea to take them in she'd eventually won them over to the idea. The remarkably intelligent beasts had quickly learned to share the living space in Eli's home, though the bigger they got the harder it was to keep them from toppling furniture - and people - when they got too excited. When she'd decided it was time to try moving home, it wasn't even up for debate what would happen to her boys.
"Hey sweeties," she said, wrapping her arms around their thick necks and hugging them close to her body. "I'm sorry you were stuck in there so long." She kissed their long snouts and was rewarded with their grunting, purring noises of contentment. "Let's see if we can get you something to eat, huh?" she asked, and pushed herself to her knees to grab the room service menu from the desk beside her as Ryder dug in his duffel bag. "Anything you want?" she asked him.
"I'd settle for anything right now," he replied, headed for the bathroom with a change of clothes in hand. "I'm going to grab a shower. Surprise me."
The menu was the sort where she could barely pronounce anything on it, so choosing a surprise wouldn't be much effort at all - she wandered into the bedroom as she scanned the items and collapsed on the king-sized bed, somewhat horrified at the prices and cringing at her father's inevitable reaction to the credit card bill. But, as much as she wanted to be frugal, the four of them hadn't eaten anything decent for nearly twenty-four hours and she was far too hungry to be picky now. Fortunately, the keesin were able to eat just about anything - their digestive systems were so adaptive they could survive on rocks, if necessary - so she didn't have to worry about what they could eat, just what she could get to them before they decided the furniture would be tastier.
She peeled off her layers of clothes after placing the order, savoring the feeling of her skin being exposed to the air. Climbing into her favorite pair of flannel pants and a ribbed tank top, she retrieved her tablet from her purse and nestled herself into the stacks of pillows on the bed as she checked her emails and tried to find information about the flights for the next day. So far there was little information aside from the usual apologies from the airlines for the unavoidable inconvenience - the longer she searched for information, the more she was convinced they'd have to rent a vehicle and make the nine hour drive to Kensington.
She relayed this information to Ryder when he finally emerged from the bathroom, and he stood in the doorway with a towel draped around his neck, absently scruffing his hands through his hair as she gathered her toiletries and headed for the shower.
"I'd almost prefer that to flying," he told her, following her back to the living room and stepping around and over the keesin wrestling in the middle of the floor. "But no point worrying about it now."
She took her time in the shower, feeling like it would take hours to wash away the sticky discomfort of traveling. The lights were uncomfortably bright so she stood with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth on her heels and enjoying the streaming water, the raspberry scent of her body wash as she lathered her skin. Her body felt alien to her - the healing scabs on her elbows, the scarred punctures encircling her left shoulder, the tender barely-healed purple welts of four claw marks curling around her waist and angling up beneath her ribs. She'd been nearly flawless before she left for Rion Fell, with only a couple tiny marks from chicken pox on her lower back and a tiny hook-shaped scar on her ankle from a protruding nail on the dock at her grandfather's cabin. She'd live her life carefully, not cautiously, relying more on knowledge of her surroundings and blind luck to keep her safe when she couldn't resist doing crazy things like clambering down the side of a mountain to examine a particularly rare species of lichen, or jumping into freshly excavated, highly unstable tombs to study etchings on ancient pottery. Surrounding herself with plants and the dead didn't often put her life in danger and it made the eight months she'd spent in Rion Fell feel entirely surreal, like a bad dream she was just managing to wake from.
The sound of a knock on the door to the suite pulled her from her thoughts, and she shut the water off as she heard Thaddeus and Crispin start their excited yipping. Ryder was standing over the cart of food when she left the bathroom, lifting covers off the steaming dishes and examining the contents as the two beasts at his heels drooled on the carpet.
"Stop teasing them," she ordered with a laugh as she snatched a pair of plates laden with shepherd's pie and brought it to the bathroom, placing it on the tiled floor. "They're starving, poor things."
"So am I, but I don't see you laying food out in front of me," he pointed out, and managed to sulk for the two seconds it took for her to uncover the steak she'd ordered him and shove the plate into his hands. "Oh. Touche."
"You're welcome," she responded, rolling her eyes as she took her coconut-crusted lamb and sat crosslegged on the couch, her stomach growling loud enough that Crispin looked up curiously, his muzzle covered in mashed potatoes and gravy.
"Great choice in food," Ryder chuckled, pointing at the keesin with his fork. He sat beside her and balanced his plate on one knee as he poured two glasses of sparkling water, sliding one across the coffee table toward her. "Hope you're looking forward to bathing them."
"I'd kind of hoped they'd be smart enough to not wear it," she moaned, tucking her wet hair behind her ear. "But as long as it means they'll let me sleep tonight, I'm willing to wash them off." She sliced the corner of her lamb chop and chewed it thoughtfully, relishing the rich flavors - not the best choice of meal in the wee hours of the mornings, but she was far beyond the point of caring. She was about to ask Ryder how he was enjoying his dinner when she noticed the pulse of light off the coin around his neck. Confused, she leaned over and tapped his knee. "Hey," she said. "You alright?"
"I'm fine," he replied, a little too quickly and flatly.
"You seem..." She hesitated, searching for the right words. "Rattled."
"I'm just tired." He gave her a weak smile. "Long day."
"Yeah..." She squeezed his knee, trying to convince herself that he was telling her the truth. It didn't work, though. "You'd tell me if something was up, though, right?"
He rested his hand on top of hers for a moment before gently pushing her away.
"Of course," he said, and wouldn't meet her eyes.
Word Count: 1723
Note: Being that I'm in CampNano mode there is a whole lot of nothing in this piece. Sorry about that.
"This is being reasonable?" Katrina exclaimed as she stepped into a lavish suite on the twenty-first floor of the Fairmont Regency Waterfront. She dragged the heavy kennel into the middle of the huge living room - and huge it was, easily bigger than her first apartment had been - and clapped a hand to her forehead in shock. "Ryder, what..."
"If you think I'm sharing some cramped room with those mongrels," he commented, thumping his hand on top of the kennel as he pushed it against the wall, "you've got another thing coming." He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto one of the armchairs, stretching his long arms over his head as he made his way to the enormous windows against the far wall. "Besides," he said, pushing aside the curtain to stare out at the night sky, "I thought you would like it."
"My father is going to kill me," she muttered, discarding her own jacket and kneeling to open the kennel doors. "Though I guess..." She looked around again, then sighed in resignation. "I guess it's not so bad..." she reluctantly agreed. "It'll be nice to have the space for one -" Her words ended in a yelp as the kennel doors swung open and she was immediately bowled over by two fuzzy, mottled bodies - Thaddeus and Crispin, her "pets", came crashing out of the confined spaces like miniature freight trains, their wiggling and excited bodies falling over her as they chirruped in their odd, warbling voices. Giggling, Katrina collapsed on her back and allowed herself to be snuggled.
Calling them "show dogs" was grossly inaccurate, but then again, there weren't really words in common language that could describe them. The Fel'danai called them keesin, dog-like creatures with the physical build of cats, six legs, and two whip-like tails. Their velvet-like pelts were an uneven pattern of spots, stripes, and splotches, in any color combination one could imagine. Thaddeus, the larger of the two, was black with silver and pale blue markings, and Crispin was white and deep burgundy. A ridge of rubbery spines ran from the center of their forehead to the middle of their back, and their narrow faces had the lolling grin of hyenas with a long forked tongue that they seemed to have trouble keeping in their mouths. Huge ears sprouted from the sides of their heads, wide and round at the base and tapering to a thin tuft of hair, soft and pliable so that they flopped about their heads. But it was their eyes that Katrina loved the most - they swirled and changed color like mood rings, and glowed in the darkness like tiny flashlights.
Typically they were not pets in Rion Fell - the locals there viewed them as bad omens, harbingers of disaster. They lived deep in the rain forest, far enough that they were rarely seen and often considered an urban legend. Katrina had found them imprisoned in one of the Taggart labs, and at the time they'd been three pound kits, hardly aware of their surroundings and barely able to open their eyes. Her heart had broken for the defenseless little beasts, and though Ryder and Eli had insisted it was a bad idea to take them in she'd eventually won them over to the idea. The remarkably intelligent beasts had quickly learned to share the living space in Eli's home, though the bigger they got the harder it was to keep them from toppling furniture - and people - when they got too excited. When she'd decided it was time to try moving home, it wasn't even up for debate what would happen to her boys.
"Hey sweeties," she said, wrapping her arms around their thick necks and hugging them close to her body. "I'm sorry you were stuck in there so long." She kissed their long snouts and was rewarded with their grunting, purring noises of contentment. "Let's see if we can get you something to eat, huh?" she asked, and pushed herself to her knees to grab the room service menu from the desk beside her as Ryder dug in his duffel bag. "Anything you want?" she asked him.
"I'd settle for anything right now," he replied, headed for the bathroom with a change of clothes in hand. "I'm going to grab a shower. Surprise me."
The menu was the sort where she could barely pronounce anything on it, so choosing a surprise wouldn't be much effort at all - she wandered into the bedroom as she scanned the items and collapsed on the king-sized bed, somewhat horrified at the prices and cringing at her father's inevitable reaction to the credit card bill. But, as much as she wanted to be frugal, the four of them hadn't eaten anything decent for nearly twenty-four hours and she was far too hungry to be picky now. Fortunately, the keesin were able to eat just about anything - their digestive systems were so adaptive they could survive on rocks, if necessary - so she didn't have to worry about what they could eat, just what she could get to them before they decided the furniture would be tastier.
She peeled off her layers of clothes after placing the order, savoring the feeling of her skin being exposed to the air. Climbing into her favorite pair of flannel pants and a ribbed tank top, she retrieved her tablet from her purse and nestled herself into the stacks of pillows on the bed as she checked her emails and tried to find information about the flights for the next day. So far there was little information aside from the usual apologies from the airlines for the unavoidable inconvenience - the longer she searched for information, the more she was convinced they'd have to rent a vehicle and make the nine hour drive to Kensington.
She relayed this information to Ryder when he finally emerged from the bathroom, and he stood in the doorway with a towel draped around his neck, absently scruffing his hands through his hair as she gathered her toiletries and headed for the shower.
"I'd almost prefer that to flying," he told her, following her back to the living room and stepping around and over the keesin wrestling in the middle of the floor. "But no point worrying about it now."
She took her time in the shower, feeling like it would take hours to wash away the sticky discomfort of traveling. The lights were uncomfortably bright so she stood with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth on her heels and enjoying the streaming water, the raspberry scent of her body wash as she lathered her skin. Her body felt alien to her - the healing scabs on her elbows, the scarred punctures encircling her left shoulder, the tender barely-healed purple welts of four claw marks curling around her waist and angling up beneath her ribs. She'd been nearly flawless before she left for Rion Fell, with only a couple tiny marks from chicken pox on her lower back and a tiny hook-shaped scar on her ankle from a protruding nail on the dock at her grandfather's cabin. She'd live her life carefully, not cautiously, relying more on knowledge of her surroundings and blind luck to keep her safe when she couldn't resist doing crazy things like clambering down the side of a mountain to examine a particularly rare species of lichen, or jumping into freshly excavated, highly unstable tombs to study etchings on ancient pottery. Surrounding herself with plants and the dead didn't often put her life in danger and it made the eight months she'd spent in Rion Fell feel entirely surreal, like a bad dream she was just managing to wake from.
The sound of a knock on the door to the suite pulled her from her thoughts, and she shut the water off as she heard Thaddeus and Crispin start their excited yipping. Ryder was standing over the cart of food when she left the bathroom, lifting covers off the steaming dishes and examining the contents as the two beasts at his heels drooled on the carpet.
"Stop teasing them," she ordered with a laugh as she snatched a pair of plates laden with shepherd's pie and brought it to the bathroom, placing it on the tiled floor. "They're starving, poor things."
"So am I, but I don't see you laying food out in front of me," he pointed out, and managed to sulk for the two seconds it took for her to uncover the steak she'd ordered him and shove the plate into his hands. "Oh. Touche."
"You're welcome," she responded, rolling her eyes as she took her coconut-crusted lamb and sat crosslegged on the couch, her stomach growling loud enough that Crispin looked up curiously, his muzzle covered in mashed potatoes and gravy.
"Great choice in food," Ryder chuckled, pointing at the keesin with his fork. He sat beside her and balanced his plate on one knee as he poured two glasses of sparkling water, sliding one across the coffee table toward her. "Hope you're looking forward to bathing them."
"I'd kind of hoped they'd be smart enough to not wear it," she moaned, tucking her wet hair behind her ear. "But as long as it means they'll let me sleep tonight, I'm willing to wash them off." She sliced the corner of her lamb chop and chewed it thoughtfully, relishing the rich flavors - not the best choice of meal in the wee hours of the mornings, but she was far beyond the point of caring. She was about to ask Ryder how he was enjoying his dinner when she noticed the pulse of light off the coin around his neck. Confused, she leaned over and tapped his knee. "Hey," she said. "You alright?"
"I'm fine," he replied, a little too quickly and flatly.
"You seem..." She hesitated, searching for the right words. "Rattled."
"I'm just tired." He gave her a weak smile. "Long day."
"Yeah..." She squeezed his knee, trying to convince herself that he was telling her the truth. It didn't work, though. "You'd tell me if something was up, though, right?"
He rested his hand on top of hers for a moment before gently pushing her away.
"Of course," he said, and wouldn't meet her eyes.