Solo Experimentation Days

[Leeta Snow]

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TimeStamp 12th of Summer 515AV

There was a slighted feeling as Leeta grew bored. There were some of her classmates who said they would join her for a drink, but now it was half an hour later and no-one showed. Constantly she faced things like this, hatred for her talents and for her quick understand of Morphing. Her teacher had taken a liking to her and in fact advised her on many things. This caused many of the other kids to be just plain rude to her, desiring to see her fail. She was finally free of her family and enjoyed the fact.

Grumbling she left the bar after paying her tip and for the drink, making sure not to bump into anyone on the way out. She was a bit tipsy and it wasn’t too hard to go crashing into another’s table and starting all kinds of problems. It really took some balance and careful steps. Her endurance was weak when it came to alcohol, and while she’d love to down copious amounts of kelp beer with sailors, she knew where that would lead. No, she cut herself off after a couple mugs of the nasty foul liquid and then headed out of the tavern. The evening light was shining down on her from the moon and she looked up to it. It was a beautiful sight and she could almost distinguish the features on its surface for a moment. Then her eyes blurred and she remembered she wa a bit tipsy. She decided to walk it off, passing many drunks who had determined to lay down on the street after being overcome by their alcohol. That wasn’t going to be her, some floosy tavern wench that ended up in an alley.

An alley, that was a good idea to her suddenly as the feeling of kelp began to rise in her throat. “Ok...gunna throw up.” She ran into the alleyway and threw her hand up onto the wall to brace herself as the vile liquid came out of her. It was twice as bad coming up as going down and she hated the feeling. All in the interest of meeting and making some friends. That’s what led her to this alleyway. She kicked a wooden crate near her; being legitimately pissed off. An eruption of hisses and spewing hatred came from the wooden domicile that evidently was home to some rich person’s estranged cat. At first she yelped in fear, but seeing it was a useless alleycat she began to settle down.

It then charged her with malicious intent and took ahold of her shin in its mouth, trying to rip through her boot to get to her skin. It began to claw at her boots and started to move up them toward her flesh. Leeta was the offender here, attacking its home, and its response was noble. However that didn’t stop Leeta from jumping back a bit in fear and then bringing her other leg up as high backward as it would go and then kicking the mangy cat in the head. Her hefty boots made such an impact that it struggled for a moment, blood coming out of its face and then flopped over. She held her mouth in shock. “What did I do. Sorry kittycat”. She scooted back and saw as the cat struggled a moment flopping about and then was dead. She was suddenly much more sober, not only from the excitement, but having the kelp beer out of her.

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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Leeta Snow]

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The scene was gruesome, but she didn’t want to dwell on it or think on the various elements of the cats demise. She kicked it, it died. That’s all that she could think on. Yet being a maledictor she saw a chance to explore the cat and not let it go to waste. With a careful set of fingers she threw its body back into the crate and wanted to go to her room to get her tools but with the box underarm, she first she wanted to dunk the cat in some water and keep it there held under in case there were any ticks or fleas. She went down to the bay under the cover of darkness and on the shore there she held the crate with the dead cat under the water, keeping it there until all manner of critter had fled from its fur or died. Then lifting the crate out of the water she carried it back to her room in the inn. She hugged it and didn’t let anyone see inside while she brought it up to her room.

Most people were off drinking anyways and only the keeper was there; a very nice girl who she had befriended recently, yet even her she tried to sneak past. Quietly she turned the handle on the door to walk in. She could almost get the door open without sound, but then at the last moment the door clicked as she let go of the handle. She damned herself for letting go so hasty. She wasn’t a ninja after all! So she walked in as if nothing was different than normal and before the woman could ask Leeta what she had in the crate, Leeta said, “Goodnight, can you wake me up at eight in the morning? Thanks!“

She shuffled past out of the view of the woman and then almost nearly ran down to her room. It was a hurried pace to say the least, and with her clunky boots it wasn’t silent. Upon entering she looked to the left and the right. The coast was clear. Once inside she closed and locked her door and like a kid with a present she got to work right away. Carefully with her now retrieved tools, she began to peel the layer of fur away from the cat, as one would do for plucking a chickens feathers. In her journal as she removed each layer she would take her quill and ink to record in her journal next to her extensive research on rodents and the human body, this new entry about the cat. Some may call her actions macabre, but it was very useful, and sometimes in the pursuit of magic, it could be borderline macabre.

She recorded the various skin layers, segmenting them and then one by one classified each organ. The cat was fairly similar to a rat in body organ positioning as well as many other features, which she laughed thinking how cats always chase rats. It was like they should have been friends. Even the porcupine, which was a rodent, was very similar to a cat. She took time to observe its jaw, the skull, and various bone structure. All of this enabled her to use the cat as a model to transform into without worry about where certain body parts were. Granted she didn’t need to do this, but sometimes you didn’t know when a creature would have some random varied organ or special thing to it. She couldn’t identify everything, but it for the most part made sense to her. The cat was ferocious, wild, feral, and she wondered what good she could sculpt from its skull. Cats were said to have good vision as well, being able to see in darkness better than humans. While the cat’s prevalent nature might have been its ferocity, she thought she could harness some of its power into something else. There were times that she wished she knew jewelry crafting. Some of those bones looked like they were bendy and could have been used for ring making.


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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Leeta Snow]

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Time passed and eventually all that wasn’t separated in the crate was its tail. She played open the skin there and saw how it held individual bones. That she had somewhat figured, but wasn’t sure after looking at rats tails. This was much more complex and now that she was done, she washed her hands in the wash basin in her room. It was nearly the middle of the night when she had finished and now she took up the body and drained the blood into the wash basin. There wasn’t much left after the crate soaked it up into its dry wood, some leaking out into the bay, and the rest contained within various vessels. With a careful eye by candlelight, she walked the room to see if there was any blood. She didn’t see that she had spilled any in her experimentation and after having clean hands, the only evidence of the cat left was the parts themselves, which she proceeded to wash off in the water, and the crate. She took her water basin and making sure no-one was nearby, she tossed the water out into the street, knowing it would be diluted enough on the cobble to not cause any staining or freak anyone out wondering if there was a murder of some sort.

There was a bit of a splash sound, but other than that, there was no sign. She now took the cat’s clean skull and began to light a fire. She just wanted a low burning one, just coals, until the flesh had left the cats skull. She intended to make an ornate token, almost like a coin from it that could be kept in her pocket, hoping that she could force the will of the cat to part from madness and instead harness that ferocity in battle. She also wanted to see if she could fit a small piece of glass into the center of piece. Now however it was time to dispose of the body and crate. With silence she moved out of her room and down the hall, covering the crate with a small piece of cloth. A stirring sound came from behind the counter, but no-one came out. Eventually she made it completely out the door without alerting anyone to her leaving and then headed out of sight of the inn. She went down the street and to the edge of a grassy field. Therein she dumped the cat’s body, out of sight of people, but within the sight of birds and birds of prey. By morning light most of the cat would be gone.

As for the crate, she snuck back to the bar and placed it back where she found it, yet off to the side and disturbed. Then going down to the docks once more she washed her hands even better, having more water at her disposal. The whole trip took just a few minutes and she then hurried back to her room. Therein she could see that the water was only steaming at this point, but still some flesh had risen to the surface.

“Okay...getting there.” She plopped down and continued to write her thoughts on the cat, documenting how this particular cat was crazed after disturbing its home and how it attacked her. All of these documentations meant something, if not for her, perhaps someone else chronicling Malediction in the future. As always she wrote in common about the anatomy, but made certain annotations considering malediction in nader-canoch on the side, concealing it from prying eyes who didn’t know dead languages. She as always styled it to look like some sort of journal page with pretty artworks on the side, but really it held information.

As the skull came to be finished she took her pliers and pulled it out to set on the stone of the hearth. She had to let it dry, so in the meantime she opened her window to fan out the smell and took up her whittling block, intending to draw circles on it, yet not complete them. She didn’t want to actually do malediction right now, but rather practice her fine works. She even used a needle at some points to mark very small circles and tales in the wood. She had to use her magnifying glass and the dull light of the candle to see what she was doing though.

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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts