Returning from Obscurity [Open]

[seeing_eye_cat]

Arhu was almost surprised to find himself back in Stacy proper. He almost hadn't thought that he'd make it - almost, because he was nothing if not confident in his own abilities. His memory of where he'd been was...muddled on the details, but he thought he remembered being told to jump through flashing orange and blue circles and a frustrated voice

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[zouichi]

Oh, look at that. It was a kitten, sitting by the riverbank.

...a kitten?

Zouichi did a double-take before deciding to slowly approach, hoping he wouldn't frighten it away. Unfortunately, he hadn't brought anything suitable for a feline diet -- he only had some treats for Alan, who was peering curiously over at the kitten from his perch on Zouichi's shoulder. Without fear, obviously; Alan had never encountered any cats.

"Hello," Zouichi said softly.

[seeing_eye_cat]

Arhu lifted his head and peered over his shoulder at the ehhif who had the bird on his shoulder, and resigned himself to not chasing the bird. Much. His experience with Alessh and his pet rat had exposed him to that, to the strangeness of ehhif being protective over food-animals, but anything was better than the slop that Stacy provided. Except for maybe whatever he'd been eating in the interim. Maybe he hadn't eaten that explained why he was so hungry.

"Dai stiho," he replied absently, turning back to the water. He thought he'd seen the flickering of fish in the movement of water...

[zouichi]

Well, either that was an extremely odd sneeze, or that kitten had just spoken another language. In which case, why wasn't the ship's translation system working?

Zouichi waited for a moment, watching the cat stare into the water -- for fish, no doubt, though the last time he'd been here, he hadn't seen any. He was content to wait until the kitten made an attempt at a fish to continue trying to engage him... although Alan was not quite so patient, hop-fluttering over to Zouichi's other shoulder to get a closer look at the strange furry animal.

[seeing_eye_cat]

His paw flashed down, and a healthy-sized carp was smacked up from the water, his claws catching it and flinging it onto the shore. He batted it back a ways so that it wouldn't go flopping right back in to the water, and then leaned down and bit right at the spot. End the life quickly and cleanly, no suffering. He knew better than that.

Then he sat back and eyed the ehhif, as well as the ehhif's bird.

"...what?" A ear flicked. "Right. I'm Arhu. Hunt's Luck to you."

[carrieswar]

Jr. loved cats ... and dogs. He had a dog back home, but his current name happened to stem from a feline. So when he passed by and Arhu caught his eye, he initially smiled, assuming he was just any another cat. Not wanting to scare him away, when Jr. crept closer, he leaned down a little and called quietly.

"Psssst, hey there little guy."

[seeing_eye_cat]

He sat back from the water with a sigh, both ears flicking back.

"Dai stiho," he replied, the wizardly greeting in the Speech that meant go well, both a greeting and a farewell when it needed to be. "What do you want?" And okay, maybe that was a little bit more snappish than it needed to be, but he was hungry.

[carrieswar]

Jr.'s eyebrows raised when Arhu spoke, as the realization quickly hit him. The red-head stood back up straight, waving a hand down at him with an awkward smile.

"Ahaaa, sorry about that. Didn't realize you were the same as Councilor Rhiow."

[seeing_eye_cat]

"It's okay. We're not usually supposed to talk to you ehhif in the Speech, but this is a special situation." Life raft ship that managed to pick up the survivors of various multiverses? Yeah, that was a special authorization right there, if he was any judge of the situation.

Something else twigged at him then.

"Wait, Councilor Rhiow?" The word was definitely an ehhif one, and he was pretty sure that he remembered Rhiow talking to or about other people called Councilors, but this was the first time he'd heard of her being one.

[on_errantry]

It helped, Rhiow found, to have a daily patrol.

Back in Manhattan she'd walked to work, one more commuter in the teeming millions. On Stacy she kept to the City unless she needed to be elsewhere, and there was more short-jumping than she usually would have used, but the distances to be crossed were massive. Some days she didn't get over to everything.

But she kept an ear out for the Whisperer, and when Arhu's location became determinable in their pocket of the universe again, she didn't wait a second before jumping there.

She almost felt bad at the bang when she appeared.

[seeing_eye_cat]

The Eye might be somewhat useless for Seeing too many things when Stacy was traveling, but that didn't mean he couldn't still See some things when the Whisperer felt like telling him. That meant that he had just enough warning to spin around to face the spot that Rhiow was appearing in, though the bang of displaced air was still enough to ruffle his fur just a little. It was always different, being on the receiving end of that sound rather than being the one making it.

"Rhiow!" He bounded toward her happily.

[on_errantry]

"Good to see you back among the crew," she said. "When your location sat listed as Unknown for so long I thought you'd been put back in the pods. Just AI experiments?"

She was powerfully resisting the urge to wash his ears. Despite how composed she sounded, she'd missed Arhu badly and was glad to have him back aboard. It helped her, to have another feline and another wizard around.

[seeing_eye_cat]

"It's good to be back. And I guess so? Some crazy voice wanted me to figure out puzzles and got pissed off when I did them. I guess she wanted me to use some hhort-halh hhun. Though that was pretty interesting, I'll admit, because it made little portals that were something like worldgates. Short-range, limited-transit though. I wonder if it's possible to re-create something like that onboard Stacy," he muttered, distracted by the concept. His empty stomach would get his attention shortly once again, but not just yet.

[dragonlordbight]

Crucible had taken a rather liking to the river that ran through the city, the fact that it was the only source of water to allow the dragon a good swim on occasion. Thus here he was once more, moving against the current as he swam just beneath the surface, relaxing after a long few days spent as Bight.

As sharp as his senses were it did not take long for the Bronze dragon to notice even one as small as Arhu, at first he thought that it may have been Rhiow once more however on closer inspection the other looked a good deal different. Nonetheless Crucible's interest was piqued and thus slowed his approach and rose his large head slowly from the water, his neck and head in and of itself larger than the previous resident of the river as he peered on down to him. The Fish in question drawn more towards Arhu due to the fact of a rather large dragon just up stream of them.

[seeing_eye_cat]

Arhu lifted a paw as the fish came flooding by all of a sudden and slapped one up and out of the river, batting it away from the river before he leaned down and killed it with a quick motion.

And then the big shape in the river caught his attention.

Slowly the cat turned and looked up, and up, and up. Very slowly, he licked his nose once, and managed to say, "Dai stiho," the wizardly greeting in the Speech that could be both greeting and farewell.

[dragonlordbight]

Crucible watched him for a brief moment, he could only assume that the others words were a greeting of kinds, "Greetings to you," He rumbled out even as he moved over to the bank, resting the rest of his form still beneath the water. Trails of water still tinkling down over his scales.

[seeing_eye_cat]

After a moment Arhu licked his nose again. Ith could be just as big, when he felt like wearing the shape of his People's Father, but he didn't see Ith in that shape very often.

Still, there was no need to act like some meek little kitten! Pulling a tom's attitude around him, he turned to nonchalantly groom the fur of a shoulder down.

"Hunt's Luck. My name's Arhu."