Let Down Your Hair [Ageru]

[Hadrian]

45th Spring, 511 A.V. Sometimes Hadrian felt like that girl in the children's story who lived in a tower with a witch, a tower with no doors, who let the witch in and out by climbing her long, long hair. At least one man flew in through his window, the Kelvic lammergeier, Ethan. There had been that cat, as well. He finished gazing out the window like the forlorn girl in the story and poured his leftover milk into a bowl and set it in the shade on his stone windowsill, then settled in his armchair with a notepad where he was practicing over and over again the circular sigils he had learned from Jilitse for the purposes of Animation. Kendall wouldn't like that, but Hadrian wanted to understand better the process by which the girl he had fancied had become the man he rather adored. His knowledge was basic at best. No matter how much he read, it was not the same as actually drawing out the glyphs and attempting an Animation with them. But he was at least doing the drawing part now, which was half the battle. He would have to pick up some scraps of things to make little animated toys for the orphans at the Welcome Home again. They seemed to like them and Stitch deserved all the help he could get. Chewing on his lip, he concentrated on the precision of his glyphs, carefully eying the geometry of his layouts. He all but forgot about the milk on the windowsill.

[Ageru]

Ever since Ageru met the nice man that had fed him he hadn’t strayed far from the persons place. It was nice to be fed, and petted, and held, and he was going to press his luck. He was feeling rather lucky today and yesterday too. Remembering that nice encounter as he rounded the corner in Syliras he was headed back to the house he visited yesterday. It was nice not having to scrounge for food elsewhere, and it was actually good.

How he was feeling showed in how he walked, and although he was quite small for a cat his age he didn’t care. It helped with begging and he knew it. In this town he needed to use all the cards that were given to him and that was what he was intending to do. There was a sort of confidence in his walk, the way he paced himself, the way his back rippled as he walked. The confidence of someone one a mission, and one that it could easily, and it was that confidence that he had that set him apart from all the other creatures in this place. A predator’s confidence.

Stopping just short of his destination he took a moment to sit and look up. Seeing the man out his window made the cat wonder what he was thinking about. He looked reminiscent, forlorn, bored. Ageru knew what could cheer him up, or just bring him out of the state that he was in. He didn’t mind warming up to this person; he had fed him after all.

Watching him go in, the cat tilted his head a little, still sitting tail swaying lightly behind him he spied the bowl of milk that was left on the windowsill. Not needing any more of a hint or invite the cat would get up and jump up on the window. It was much easier the second time around. Meowing happily at the milk he announced his presence to the man before dipping his head to start to lightly lap up the milk.

Pausing from the milk the small cat would peer up from the dish and stare happily at the man and his doodling. Curious as to what he was drawing, but he wouldn’t let that drive him, at least not now, and so he sat there with his milk, or presumably his milk, and looked to it before back to the guy again and then back to the milk before he started drinking again. Though not before one more meow as a thank you.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian smiled up at the cat, oddly comforted by its presence there. It had such simple needs, was so easily pleased. He could not recall ever being content. There was no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that kept him marching and made him more alive than the others, or so he thought. The cat was looking at him, and suddenly they were having a bit of a good-natured staring contest, but then his eyes erred back toward his work, and he was turning the page and starting over with an animation circle that would aid him in copying the soul of a cat, transferring that copy to an inert golem, animating it with that copy of soul, that complex arrangement of djed that he was not capable of creating on his own out of thin air. "A mechanical cat," he mused to himself, "would drink... mechanical milk...? No, what?" He continued to mumble to himself, then glanced at the cat again. "Would you like a copy of yourself made of metal and gears? You could blame everything on it."

[Ageru]

Ageru continued to drink the milk that was, presumably, left out for him. The life of a cat was not an easy one, no, not when the cat had no place to live and everywhere to go. Everywhere to go and not one person to claim him as their own, everywhere to go and yet no one found. Though this milk, a sign of good fortune to the cat, surely brought with it the promise of another day, he was being fed and therefor he could keep up his energetic way of life wandering the streets and begging. Here though he didn’t have to beg for food, he just had to come. That fact comforted him and soothed the hardships that were welling up inside him, dulling that almost physical pain of having no one, because for the short time he is here he has someone. A person to entertain and be with. If only more people were like this. Though something like this, or rather someone was few and far between.

Looking up from his drink, his earned meal, the feline stared at the man and his work. The thought of wondering exactly what he was doing crossed his mind, but it quickly faded as he noticed the man was staring right back. Eye contact unbreaking as he watched, observed the little subconscious and unnoticed twitches the man had, the subtle movements of a person in thought. Though how they twitched says a lot about them. Actions speak louder than words because words can deceive and be interpreted wrongly. The kelvic liked to work on instinct, not on words or promises, which meant hardly anything to him. Actions are the things that speak to him.

Once the eye contact was broken and the guy started to mumble to himself the cat would move closer to man. Going off the windowsill to the floor in a fluid calculated leap the cat landed first on his front two paws and shortly after his hind ones met the floor. His anatomy allowing him to absorb the impact of a much greater fall this was nothing for him as right after he landed he walked over to the man seated in a chair who was talking about mechanical cats. Going up to the man Ageru looked up at him and gently rubbed his head against one of his legs, purring a bit. He liked it here.

[Hadrian]

His quill scratched across the large expanse of parchment, gradually elaborating upon the two circles with precise runes and links, marking out one circle for source and the other for destination. A chain of runes led from one to another, a latent conduit between them through which the copied soul would travel. But it wasn't until the cat rubbed up against his ankle that he even remembered he was there. Blinking down at him, he smiled, bemused. "Oh, hello again." He reached down to pick up the cat and put him in his lap. Though he liked animals well enough, he wasn't going to explain the process to an animal that wouldn't understand, but a purring cat in his lap might help him think.

[Ageru]

Having got the man’s attention the cat was happy and purred some more as he was picked up and set on his lap. However when he was picked up by the hand his gnosis once again activated, being a passive one that its power is tapped upon touch he really had no control over when it was going to be active. The gnosis giving him a slight glimpse into his desires though right now it seemed simple enough the guy was just drawing. Just by watching people he could sometimes pick out what they want, but that was by observation alone, nothing concrete like his gnosis.

Once on his lap the cat got comfortable and meowed up at him before laying down, nuzzling his little head on the man’s leg slightly before stopping just enjoying this position more than the floor. Then again people always made better places to rest than the ground. As he got comfortable in the lap his tail swayed back and forth slightly twitching as he purred. The low noise expressing his content and happiness about just having someone to be with.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian was content for the moment to share the warmth of his lap, the comfort of his hand in the cat's fur, but the purring did get him thinking as long walks often did, and after a while, he scooped the cat up and over his shoulder, giving him plenty of support under to keep him comfortable. His furry stole draped there, he stood up and took the cat out of the room in search of something to make his idea manifest. Eventually he walked them into a room that smelled of a man older than Hadrian, but certainly related. There remained faint, too, the faint scent of a related woman. "It's been almost a year," he told the cat, or perhaps himself, turning his cheek into the soft fur. One-handed, he dug through the wardrobe until he pulled out a dark blue scarf, thin and lightweight, but still quite warm. "This is Denvali cashmere," he told the cat. "They sheepherders there have to gather it in the spring when they moult their winter coats, and the soft underdown gets separated from the coarser guard hairs... this is probably boring you..." He draped the scarf over his shoulder, and it definitely smelled more of that faintly remembered woman than the man. Hadrian returned to his room.

[Growl]

Appreciation Time! Name: Ageru Experience: +1 Observation Lore: The Taste of Milk Name: Hadrian Experience: +1 Glyphing Lore: Being Comforted by a Cat Additional Notes: PM with questions or concerns.