Smells Fishy (Fishbones)

[Amersis]

Glade 87, 122

CWAK CAW CARH!

A flight of fat seagulls leapt into the air, annoyed, as a shaggy, large black feline trodded along the tops of the shipping crates the birds had been perched upon. A scroll was carried in this cat's mouth, his padded feet carrying him along nearly silently. The day was warm and the Scepter overhead hung bright. The cat paused, looking out over the terribly busy harbor that was Tertium, seeing another new ship coming in. This one had deep crimson sails, and the cat rolled its eyes and yawned, before turning and plodding along.

Red sails, what a silly idea. And ugly.

He hopped down an impromptu stairwell of crates until he was pathing over the finely cobbled stones. He stood taller than most felines in this town, but of course he did, for he was better than most felines in this town. He glanced up through the moving throng of sailors, dockworkers, merchants, and new arrivals, spotting the road that he needed, the entrance tucked between a tavern where the flagons spilled as much as the barmaids' bodices and a pawnshop.

He crouched down, his muscles coiling, before he sprang forward, leaping between a surprised trader's legs. He dashed left, startling a young lady, ripped right, ducked under a low slung carriage, and jumped up, claws extended, grasping at the fabric of a brick shithouse of a man's backpack. The cat climbed its way up to the man's shoulder, being mindful enough to not claw him so as to not get brained by one of the hams he called fists. Perched there, the man looked over, recognizing the cat, chuckling, continuing along his way, before the cat leapt off, bounding from tripointed hat, to wagon, balanced along the ed--- shit slipped into the wagon, falling against a sack of rice. He reowed in annoyance. He laid there for a long moment, his tail lazing back and forth, before getting back up, and hopping out of the cart.

He moved along slow now, the fun of the chase lost. He was large enough that people avoided him without kicking him. Down the street he went. He meandered through a number of stalls, rubbed up against Domina Ottavia's bare leg, as she flashed him a mischievous smile before he moved on. He saw his destination ahead, slinking towards it. A pudgy foreign human, one who was so terribly pale that the cat thought he might be a corpse back to life entered a door, setting off the tinkling of the entry bell. The cat slipped inside.

The smells of the butcher shop overwhelmed the cat, his mouth watering and his stomach grumbling. He slinked past the fat man, who smelled horrible drenched in sweat, and he hopped up on the butcher's counter, presenting the scroll to whomever happened to be behind the counter. It was an order and receipt from the ship that the cat was working on next, for a shipment of bones stored in fat, of dried rations of fish and meat.

And the cat waited there, hoping he'd be given a fat fish for his prompt arrival and that the counter work was particularly pleasing on the eyes.

[Fishbones]

Fishbones leaned against the counter, face propped up with one hand. He had already re-counted the till — it had been near-dead this morning. He idly pressed down on the small counter scale with a finger, seeing how high he could make it go when his boring morning was interrupted by two customers.

A pale foreign man was first, and spoke so quickly that the shark could only parse some of his common. After a confused blink and a moment, he caught up to the request — a large order of preserved meat, both salted and smoked, for travel rations, and a whole goat to celebrate a good deal. Fishbones took a pencil and wrote an order slip, and handed it to the man to sign. The price must have been agreeable, because he simply grunted, signed, and left — payment on pickup, which was apparently in two days.

His attention turned to the large cat on the counter. "Ahh, kitty." He cooed in Vastian, and then he picked up the scroll, humming to himself as he read it. "An errand-cat," He said again, though he could recognize a fellow Rathari, especially with the intelligence in its eyes. He was an odd-looking person himself, thin but strong and strangely colored with webbed fingers and a white butcher's apron. Not that he was doing much butchering with his father in the back. He had a pretty face, and long hair that was tied up tightly around his head, black and shimmering in unnatural colors.

"Dad!" He called to the back in sing-songy Nepthal, and then he moved away from the counter and into the doorway of much larger series of rooms for everything from chopping meat to curing and smoking it and storing it cold. "Two orders. A shipment of bones stored in fat, fish and meat rations, unspecified. And an order of a whole goat for roasting and meat rations, no fish. The receipts are here..."

Fishbones leaned back out of the doorway and looked at the cat, and then disappeared into the back. It was only a moment before he returned with a bowl of sardines cured in salt and olive oil. "I hope this is to your liking, errand-cat." He leaned on the counter again. "Do you want some goat's milk?"

It was a rhetorical question, and he reached into a refrigerated cupboard below the glass meat display and counter and pulled out a glass bottle of milk and a saucer, and it too was presented before the big cat.

[Amersis]

Amersis gave a bombastic side eye as the pale, sweaty man grunted and left. Hearing words sent his way, his head lazed back toward the pretty Neptori that was behind the counter. His eyes studied the man slowly as he read through the scroll, an interesting sight to behold indeed. Amersis was pleased, grateful the pale, sweaty man had not been the one to wait on him.

A warning growl uttered from him in response to 'errand cat'.

He didn't actually mind being called an errand cat, but that was for people who knew him. His tail beat lightly, playfully, as he shook his head, eyes finding those of the butcher. Then the young man hollered into the back in a language that Amersis had heard but did not know. The language of the Neptori. A reow escaped his maw as he jumped down off the counter, following the man, ears taking in the sounds of the foreign to him language. He stared up at the man who was now leaning back into the foreroom, and Amersis darted forward to head in the back as well.

Why not, right? No one ever kept him out of anywhere, he was a Ship's Cat after all. It was a high honor and a special title.

But before he could make it back there, the man was back, with gifts glorious, presented upon the counter. A quick leap and Amersis was back in their original meeting state, giving a delighted meow before devouring into the food. Sardines were picked up and swallowed whole and the milk was lapped up greedily. Amersis had always had a large appetite and he never, ever passed up a chance to fill his belly to bursting. He'd been on ships that had run out of rations, hit doldrums, etc. He was all too familiar with the clawing ache of hunger one could have at sea.

So when he could eat, he always ate.

When he was done, he leapt down from the counter, rubbing against the Neptori's leg, purring loudly. He slinked toward the door, more to take up more of the man's attention and space, than any other real reason, before he transformed slowly into his elvish form, his back to the Neptori. Once he was finished, he turned, casting an amused glance toward the counter worker, and then slunk forward. He leaned forward against the counter, a playful grin on his face.

He did not offer a hand to be shook, but did make an observation. In their shared Vastian, "You'rrre the most beautiful butcherrr I've everrr had the pleasurrre of laying eyes upon." Subtle. Then his gaze grew sharp, pointed, a bit stern to the right observer, "I'm no errrrand-cat. I'm Amerrrsis, a Ship's Cat." He didn't bother to elaborate. His features dropped back into an amused smile, then remembering the manners hammered into him by his mother, who would always say, 'Food and water must always be thanked for, there is nothing more valuable.'

A low purr, "Thank you forrrr the fish and milk. Spectacularrr."

His eyes lazed back around the shop, curious, darting to and fro as details stuck out to him. His pointed ears twitched at the sounds of chopping from the back, at the grunting of a person therein, to a scritch scritch sound. His eyes grew wide, his upper lip pulling back to reveal his sharpened teeth, "Might I rrrepay your kindness? You have a trrresspasserrr." His gaze was locked over the Neptori's shoulder, his ears tilting in the same direction. The scratching was subtle, most likely neither the Neptori nor the presumed butcher in back would be able to notice, but that sound was what Amersis spent his entire life pursuing.

"I will be quick."

His eyes once more found the Neptori's, a ferocity and a hunger, deep and dangerous, in them.