[Stone Garden] A Bit of Air [Cathan]

[Hadrian]

84th Winter, 510 A.V. It was a cold night, but here in the meditation park he could see the stars without leaving Syliras, and so here he was, sitting on a bench. At first, he had plans to meditate, but finally he settled for a thoughtful quiet, breathing the winter air, observing the heavens, and letting the events of the past few seasons trickle through his consciousness. Less than a year graduated from the University of Zeltiva, and he had experienced quite a bit: the discovery of an almost pre-Valterrian workshop; near death in Sahova due to a psychotic über-golem; magecrafting triumphs; adventure in the city of illusion... Hadrian pulled his winterbane coat closer around his stork-like frame, tall and slender, all but impervious to the Syliran winter in it, at least for the time being. He would certainly require more heavy gear if he ever spent a winter in Avanthal or the like. Where would he go from here...? Back to Zeltiva? Stas had spoken of Sunberth, and that was a possibility. He needed to make money if he was ever going to have his own laboratory and be able to work on those enchantments which he actually wanted to do. He startled at a sound, unsure if it was imagined or not. Time spent in his hometown was not comfortable. Every eerie occurrence had him sure that the ghost of his poor mother would appear to haunt him, though why he feared that was anyone's guess.

[Cathan]

Not a year had passed since Cathan last visit in Syliras, yet the kelvic had forgotten why he had come to loath the city during his last stay. In the dark rabbit warren that was the city the wolf felt constrained; caged. Rarely he found windows or alleys showing the sky and he felt residents stare at him no matter if he explored the stone labyrinth on four legs or in the discomfort of his human skin. The population was too large for his tastes. The streets and corridors too narrow. More often than not the kelvic found himself slinking along the walls, one shoulder touching stone when he shared the hallway with someone else. And after he had made a few women and children shout, turning around a corner unexpectedly, Cathan had resolved to make his expeditions on two legs rather in the form he preferred.

When he had stumbled into the stone garden the first time, he had immediately come to appreciate the wide open place, the silence. He was seldom a lone visitor, yet others rarely paid him much mind. Despite the cold and to Cathan's confusion, most seemed to enjoy sleeping in the open; sitting, eyes closed. More than once the kelvic had been tempted to ask if it would not be much more comfortable for them to rest in a bed where it was warm. He had not been able to get himself to.

Tonight though, the man was not watching others meditate. He was not snoozing in the cold night air which reminded him about the forest outside. Tonight, he was hunting. Prey he had found to be sparse in Syliras. There were no fish innards to be stolen from busy fisher wives, there were no deer or hare roaming the dark bowels of the city and the pigeon he had come to chase the past few days were almost impossible to catch.

However, at some point every hunter grew lucky. In the shadows of stone gardens he had found new prey. Wonderfully lively prey. An orange white tabby cat. Her sight had made Cathan grin a little. It would have been easy for the kelvic to change form and leap at the corpulent animal to tear its throat out. Only in the open place of the garden he did not dare to. Instead the man went after it in his more city fit appearance. The task was not as easy as Cathan had imagined it to be. For over an hour he had tried to sneak up on the burly mouser, but the cat resisted his attempts to catch her with inherent calm, even with less elegance than one might expect from a cat. When the cat climbed an over grown garden wall, the man followed. When it jumped down the wall on the other side, an enthusiastic Cathan was right behind it.

Together they landed a mere half step away from the bench Hardian was sitting on.

[Hadrian]

His Auristic vision snapped up immediately at the all but silent landing of the cat, its flash of washed out orange catching his eye immediately. It was a live cat, certainly not the ghost of the one who had died at his hands for the talismans of the Knights. He had just enough time to reach a hand out as if to coax it over for a bit of warmth and comfort when a larger, darker shadow overlaid with a wild aura dropped down atop the poor creature. This startled Hadrian backward, nearly toppling off the bench, one hand bracing him and the other raised, glowing a faint green already as his body produced res instinctively to protect him from whatever threat he might face. That the shadow seemed more interested in the cat than him was a detail that only came after a moment, as did more information from that not-quite-human aura, more like an animal's aura than a man's, by which he guessed it was a Kelvic. His hiss of startlement was brief and gone, but he merely eyed the shadow, the Kelvic, warily, his hand still raised to ward it, him (as there was a definite masculine cast to the colors), off with magic. "Who are you?" he asked warily. "What do you want?" He hoped it was mostly just the cat.

[Cathan]

Cathan managed to not land on the cat, but barely so. To his feet the cat snarled in angry protest as the man reached down to grab it by the soft fur around its neck. "I told you there was no point in running, my fat little rat chaser." Holding the animal close to his face, the tomcat vigorously tried to lash him across the face. With a curse the kelvic dropped his quarry, the orange fur ball seeking refugee below the bench and behind Hadrian's feet. It wasn't until then the man noticed he was not as alone as he had thought at first. Still crouching, Cathan watched the young man before him, amber eyes curious.

"The cat would be enough for me, it is a fat one. Unless you have something else to offer?," the man asked with an amused growl, his eyes again on the hissing cat as if he was ready to dart forward any second to go and grab it. Suddenly he looked up, the smile fading from his face. "It is not your cat, now it is?" With the heat of the moment gone, the kelvic remembered the last few instances he had hunted in cities. The memory involved a few crying children and angry parents. He also realized there was the chance he had gotten himself into troubles once more.

"I am Cathan." The kelvic tilt his head to the side. "Might got carried away a little," the man admitted slowly. Clearing his throat, he noded towards the stone gardens stretching out around them. "Do you came here to sleep like the others? It was not my intention to interrupt."

Dropping backwards Cathan came to sit on the ground, wrapping a coat of rabbit skin a little closer around himself. He was a tall, lean man with slightly messy hair. When he spoke one could see his elongated canines.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian continued to stare at the man. The Kelvic. Cathan. The information filtered through his mind, and he was able to relax a bit. What did he see when he looked? Well, as his eyes adjusted, what he saw of this Cathan seemed to align with his initial assessment: a Kelvic. If he was only hungry, then it was unlikely he would hurt Hadrian. So far as he knew, he had no enemies in the City, and Kelvics rarely hurt humans unless it was at some master's bidding, or if the human in question was being stupid and threatening its den or its offspring or something of that nature. "It's not my cat," he said, dropping his gently glowing hand down to where the cat could see, wriggling his fingers and mesmerizing it with the flow of the living blob of res that flowed over and around his hand. The tom seemed to have learned that some humans could be trusted, and certainly Hadrian had kept its pursuer at bay. The natural reaction to something upon which it could pounce got the better of it, and it prowled out from under the bench, following his hand until it was sitting there next to him. Then he leaned down to peer into its eyes through his fingers, attempting what he had learned of hypnotism while in Alvadas, a simple order: don't move. Though he poured his will into it, the cat seemed more interested in the bait, and so he let the res slide off his hand to pool on the bench on the opposite side of his lap from the cat, then reached out to pet it, which it didn't seem to mind. Until he grabbed the scruff of its neck and held it out to Cathan. "Feel free, but be careful. Kitty likes to scratch." He held it far from his face to avoid its claws, which couldn't seem to find too much purchase in his winterbane coat, and his free hand passed over the puddle of res, which ceased to glow, turning into mere water, and quickly beginning to freeze over. "I'm Hadrian," he said, "and I just came here to think, but you're not interrupting, and you might as well enjoy your little feast here if you like."

[Cathan]

Cathan was used to be stared at. It did not make him feel uncomfortable. In most cases he would only stare back in turn, with eyes large and yellow. Tonight though his prey had his full attention. Or almost. The glow around Hadrian's hand was noted with quiet interest and a discomfort the kelvic could not quite put into words. It was not his first experience with magic. Kendall could ooze fire from the palm of his hand, hot enough set a campfire a blaze. It had made the shapeshifter nervous at first, but he had come to accept the man's strange gift. Maybe because he had come to know the man himself. He could not claim the same knowledge about Hadrian.

"You cheated," the kelvic pointed out mildly, after the man offered him the hissing tomcat. Reaching out Cathan touched not the animal, but the frozen puddle. Quickly pull his hand back. "With magic." In his voice lingered an hint of accusation. With the slightest of hesitations he took the cat from the other man, careful to hold it in save distance to his head. Instantly the smile returned to his face.

"Yes, we have a great hunter here. How many mice he must have caught to grow that fat." Cathan tilt his head to the side, examining what he intended to make his late evening meal. "Although, someone might just have fed him too much." In the kelvic's experience some people liked to the feed cats. Albeit not meant to be eaten like cattle or sheep, many seemed to take kindly to smaller felines. Or dogs for that matter. No one seemed to care much about wolves. Those were more likely to end dead and skinned, their furs becoming bed rugs and fur trimmings to winter coats.

"If you like I will share with you. It is much meat for one man, I am sure we get our fill from it both." One hand closing around the animals neck, Cathan reached for the hunting knife at his belt. "You could have the fine meat and I take take the rest." Most humans the kelvic had come to know did not care for the best parts of an animal. Heart. Lungs. Liver. Too many frowned on what every pack leader would claim for himself given the chance. "However if you know what's good you will take a piece of the heart."

Pressing the animal before him on the ground, the kelvic closed his fingers tighter around the wooden hilt of his blade. With the precision of the skilled hunter, Cathan slid the cat's throat.

[Hadrian]

"I did cheat," he admitted with a vague smile, "with magic. But I'm not so great a hunter as you, or the tom. I have to use what I've got." That the Kelvic accepted the cat seemed to denote that he was all right with Hadrian's skills, if not entirely comfortable with them. Hadrian was used to being stared at too, and judged, when people learned of his calling in life. "Likely he was cosseted by neighborhood children, or fed scraps from people's doors. True hunters don't get fat," he observed. When he was offered raw cat flesh, he did not recoil. He had studied anthropology long enough and with enough real life case studies, that different cultures didn't shock him often. That didn't mean he relished the idea, but he had killed a cat to power a charm. This Kelvic was going to kill a cat to feed his belly. There was a balance to all this. It would be rude to decline. "I have already eaten," he began, "but it would be rude to decline your generosity. Cut me a small piece of the heart and I will share your meal, but keep the lion's share for yourself. If I hadn't been here, you would have caught him on your own."

[Cathan]

"Very true," the kelvic admitted with no sign of modesty. Blood spilled over the stones when Cathan gut the tabby, the animal's fleeing warmth causing the snow on the ground to melt in faint wafts of mist. One hand in the cat, the man produced the already still heart after brief search. The ball of muscles got cut into half, one piece presented to Hadrian.

"It is always best when still warm."

Flipping the second half into the air, he caught them between his teeth, the organ swallowed without chewing. The man started to clear out the animal corpse, showing much gusto and little delicacy while doing so. "Do you like watching others eat?," the kelvic asked between bites. "Seeing others feed always makes me hungry." He was hungry most of the time. "It is worst when I came to shift form previous." Even when wearing the same skin for extended periods of time however, Cathan rarely turned down a meal. One never knew when one got the next.

He licked his fingers. Taking the knife once more the kelvic started to skin the cat to get to the rest of the meat. On other days, on days when he could rely on his strong wolf yaws, he would have eaten his meal with hair and fur both, but he found his human teeth were unsuited for such endeavors. Sadly. But so he would come to a soft patch of fur as well, nothing to look down on. He could bring it home as a present, for Kendall or maybe Sondra. Woman liked fur, as he was well aware of.

Four, five cuts and Cathan had gotten hold of the scruff. Fingers digging into the soft fell he yanked it backward, using the knife to separate flesh from skin when pure force was not enough.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian took the hot little heart from Cathan, watched him quickly down his half and decided that would be the best for him as well. It reminded him of going to the docks at Zeltiva where sometimes the fishmongers and other merchants would offer oysters as a sample of their catches. Thinking of that, Hadrian swallowed the cat's heart without chewing, not sure he would enjoy the consistency, and it wasn't so bad. There was nothing wrong with killing a thing and eating it, after all. Certainly there was less of a moral dilemma there than sacrificing something on the altar of magical progress. "Not bad," he said, his smile a flash of white teeth in the moonlight and lamplight as he watched the Kelvic eat. "And I don't know... I think if I was a little hungry, watching you eat might whet my appetite, but I've eaten and now I've had a snack so I think I'll be all right. "From what I understand of Kelvics," he continued, "the shapeshifting requires energy, so that would make hunger a logical side-effect. And that would explain why I've never seen a fat Kelvic as well. I wonder if it is the same for the Dhani, being that they were goddess-created..." His mind worked like that, following tangential logic lines, but he had rarely had an opportunity to speak with a Kelvic like this so he reined in his natural impulse to think in all directions in order to continue a proper conversation. "Anyway, if you're that hungry, I could get you something to eat. The hunting probably isn't very good within the Citadel, so it would have to be human food, but I wouldn't want you to go hungry."

[Cathan]

"You know what's good then."

Hadrian had eaten the meat, without chewing the tough muscle for endless minutes and more admirable without complaining over its uncooked state. In the heat of the moment Cathan had entirely forgotten about a detail he usually let others deal with: cooking. He was no talented cook. His mastery of the art encompassed the knowledge to put meat on a fire and to remove it again when it was done. Preferably before it turned into a piece of charcoal. While of no importance to him, he knew most races deemed cooking a necessity. A long second he searched Hadrian's face for any offense taken, but found none. Pleased the man turned back to his feast.

By now the cat lay before the Kelvic bloody and raw; skin, hair and tail missing. The fur buried in a heap of snow for the cold to preserve it, the meat peeled in stripes from the carcass, there was little left of the formerly corpulent animal. The dry breaking of bones echoed over the place as Cathan nodded to Hadrian's musings, the little of it he understood anyway. "I know no Dhani." It was too cold for the snake breed in the northern reaches the Kelvic hailed from, even when that fact eluded the shapeshifter. "But changing skin makes one hungry, the way long runs make one hungry. So both might be similar demanding. In some way. Maybe."

He had never really thought about the process itself. Shifting came natural to him, like breathing. Had he not tried to sate the obvious curiosity of his newest acquaintance, Cathan would not have bothered explaining at all. It worked the way it worked. Like the sun rose in the east each morning and birds could fly. When the other man continued, he nodded again.

"Hunting is difficult within the city proper," the Kelvic agreed. "Your best choice is between rats with wings and those without. And in a place with so many holes and niches the later are as hard a catch as the former." Large prey was hard to locate and the wolf shied from hunting animals with all too visible signs of ownership. Collars and leashes – they only meant bother in the large picture of easily caught meals.

"I would not say I am that hungry," Cathan continued and his amber eyes shone with quiet amusement. "I know how to buy food for coin when hunger urges me to." Some thought him unable to fend for himself that way and truth was the Kelvic forgot about the possibility more often than he remembered about it, yet in theory he knew that buying food was an easy, acceptable way to archive a full belly.

He tilt his head. "Most don't understand the thrill of hunting ones own meal, but I take a fancy to the exercise if you so will." No matter if they prey to be had was hare or fowl or deer. Or cat. A few seconds the shapeshifter watched Hadrian. "However, if you still want to invite me, I would not say no."