Jade Threats & Ivory Lies [Fawn]

[Mino]

19 Frost 120

The dumpling shop was probably one that didn't draw much attention outside of patrons. Didn't see any sort of less than kind visitors. Mino didn't know much about them, to be fair, but he supposed he would know a lot more by the time the night was done. Berry had dropped him off at the rendezvous point, leaving him the capable hands of Ocean. Ocean, who placed a hand on her hip and sighed in the wistful way she always did before stating, "I heard they had good dumplings."

Perhaps the woman in blue ought to consider the matters at hand. The things at stake. But he doubted she ever would; she wasn't the one doing the actual work. Just overseeing, sometimes out of morbid curiosity and sometimes because she got a second-hand rush. He huffed, slinking through the shadows. The pads of his feet were silent against the ground, his ears twitching and swiveling to catch incoming footsteps.

No one had taken notice of the caracal. They hadn't caught the gleam of green eyes in the night as he pushed off a crate onto a ledge, and onto another ledge just before a cracked window. He nudged it open with his head, tail curling in the air behind him. He gave a trill he knew Ocean ought to be able to hear, and a thumped sounded that made it clear that she did.

The Jade Dumpling was a respectable shop, he'd heard. A place that had been passed down through generations. From parent to child, for as long as anyone in the area could remember. Which was saying something, considering what a lifespan was to some people. But what was most talked about was their impressive collection of family heirlooms. Some remained on display, as they had been part of a profession that was even more lengthy than ownership of the restaurant. Something to do with the harvesting of a jewel or another - probably the same jade. He wouldn't be surprised.

What did surprise him was how lax they were about the security of it. The rathari sniffed at the air, gaze sweeping over each room. Some were easier to open than others in his beast form, but some would decidedly need fingers. Ocean wouldn't be bothered to drag herself away from her perch at this point, and she wasn't dressed for the occasion. He let out a soft yowl of distress before he nudged another door open. His shoulders rolled as he sat back on his haunches, ears flicking.

Someone was home.

[Fawn]

[FUCKED UP. this post is gone. lovely. sorry. General idea was she came back, drank some water, heard something, went into the foyer with a broom and tripped as she swung at the cat and fell over]

[Mino]

19 Frost 120

Mino might have mentally berated Berry and Ocean for faulty intel if he didn't know that things tended to change on missions. Surprises happened. It was probably why he'd gone still as a statue when the first call for the owners of the shop had sounded. If he was still enough, whoever it was would move on. They sounded drunk enough for such a thing to work. However, luck was not with him.

The voice itself was familiar, something that struck him a little late. Sky would have said something dreadful about fate, but all he had to go on was mere coincidence.There were only so many places that people could live in the city. At the very least, she was on the street. That would have made her susceptible to Lady Honey, and gods know what kind of chaos she would cause under the woman's guidance.

But she came at him with a broom. A broom. That wouldn't have done much for a true intruder, someone that intentions to actually harm the girl. He scampered away from the end of the broom, a trill of indignation leaving him. No more than a glorified meow, making him seem that much more like a large cat. She had shit aim, but apparently her grasp on standing on two feet was much the same at the moment.

Rather than see her land face down, he attempted to cushion the fall. Attempted being the keyword. She would still fall over, but with a cat beneath her that let loose yet another yowl as her abdomen met his back. He crouched low, squirming out from under.

He didn't have time for this. His ears flicked as he listened for other members of the household coming back. His tail whipped from side to side, eyes narrowed in vague annoyance. There were better ways to shoo a cat off than a broom of all things. He forgive her only for how much she reeked of alcohol. That surely had clouded her judgement.

But - an idea struck him. Maybe he wouldn't need to shift to use fingers, after all.

[Fawn]

19th of Frost, 120 : Nightxx

Fawn hadn't found herself this drunk in years. The last time had been at Marina's birthday party two years ago, where she'd downed nearly an entire keg of mead and still managed to win the blindfolded horse race. Albeit, barely hanging on. So as she came crashing to the ground, it came as a surprise to her when the ground was not as hard as she'd expected. No, in fact it was rather soft. And it meowed.

'Wait...'

The girl lifted herself up with one arm and grasped her swirling head, nearly screaming again when the realization that the cat had broken her fall suddenly dawned on her. Perhaps it was the natural caretaker in her though that furrowed her brow in worry. The girl may not like cats, but she certainly didn't want to kill one.
"Oh no- I'm so sorry- are you okay? Oh gods please don't be dead." She whispered. Her hand reached out, twitching and recoiling a few times in fear of the creature's claws, but eventually poking it's shoulders. When finger touched fur she pulled her hand back rapidly and stood from her position. Good- not dead- it was still breathing. Fawn let out a sigh of relief as she rushed to grab the broom once more and stood facing the large cat.

It was then, lit by streetlights and the twin moons, that she was able to finally look over the cat in detail. The first thing she noticed, aside from it's larger-than-street cat size, were the long hairs jutting out from the tip of it's ears that elongated it's form. Her gaze trailed down to the rest of it's caramel colored body and she gulped at the size of it's paws. Which likely held unfairly sharp, thick claws. She snapped her eyes to it's own and stared into them. They were strangely familiar, which both confused and unnerved her, causing her to reaffirm her stance and shake the broom.

"Alright, now get out, I don't want to hurt you." She said, poking the cats rear with the end of the broom and motioning to the front door that she'd left slightly ajar in her drunken entrance. "Shoo- shoo!" The thought hadn't much occurred to her that she'd probably been the one to let it in. Not that it would have helped if she hadn't, if only because cats did seem to just get everywhere. You'd lock all your doors and still find a tabby climbing on your stove, or in the shelves of the pantry. It always pained her to have to chase the creatures away, but another part of her knew it had to be done. That, and if she didn't she'd end up shredded at some point by the whims of a randomly aggressive feline. They never did make much sense.

[Mino]

19 Frost 120

She looked him in the eyes, and perhaps saw something she didn't like. That was what he could assume, but he noted that she wasn't one for cats to begin with. A large cat appearing in the middle of where she must live was probably not much different. He let off a trill, moving when she thumped his butt with the end of the broom. She wanted him out, but he wanted in.

Particularly, in to the room that smelled the most like the owners. A room well-visited, and well loved. The stench of cleaners and polishes filtered out from under the door, but it was hopeless closed behind a door that required ten digits to move. He let off another rumbling trill, stepping forward to sniff in Fawn's general direction with a loud purr. Two more steps forward, head bowed low.

There wasn't much distance between them to begin with, but he closes the remaining gap painfully slow. Eyes still on her. You would think that Mino is the one approaching a wild animal, and not the other way around. His ears swiveled, perked up and stilled for a moment before they moved again, long tufts of hair making it seem as if he were directing someone. He brushed past her leg, pushing against it before he went for the door that smelled of polish.

If he couldn't open it, she could. Fawn could certainly be of use to him if he managed to convince her to do it. If not, there were always other means he could use. He'd just have to be rid of her first.

[Fawn]

19th of Frost, 120 : Nightxx

To think she'd started her night singing, and ended it screaming. Perhaps one of the gods was laughing down at her now, teasing her with the bane of her existence in the form of the strangest looking cat she'd ever seen. If she'd have guessed, she'd have said it may have been a baby mountain lion. Or perhaps a magical creature of some kind, though it seemed perfect un-magical at the moment. Whatever it was, it certainly didn't belong in a dumpling shop.

Fawn froze as it took a few steps forward. "H-hey- stay back." She spoke softly, her hair a mop of red tendrils splayed over her shoulders that bounced lightly as she flinched the closer the cat got. Her feet shuffled backwards until one of them bumped against the wall- she stopped. The creature had begun brushing itself against her leg and purring. The familiar sound perked up her ears and her then fearful expression turned to confusion. She recalled Pumpkin and wondered then if that meant the animal was safe to touch like she had two nights ago. Or...

That was it. She had her thick cloak on still, and as she was staying essentially as a guest in the Jade's home it fell upon her shoulders to keep fur out of the food, among other things. With a huff, breathing deeply to steady herself, the farmgirl rested the broom on the wall and turned to face the cat. It had been walking onwards, as if uncaring of her effects to shoo it away, and towards the owners office. Fawn took one more deep breath and focused as much of her drunken brain as she could.

'Just pretend it's a goat. It's a goat. Just... Pick it up like a goat.'

She thought to herself, and after a brief moment of hesitation bent down and scooped the large cat up into her arms. But the creature was heavy. Nearly weighing as much as a roping saddle and also moving, she had her arms strung under it's front legs while the others dangled below. She grunted, realizing she'd be unable to hold it exactly like a goat, and bounced the creature in her arms to adjust her hold. "Come on- let's go, out out out-" She groaned as she began to hobble herself and the cat out of the shop.

[Mino]

19 Frost 120

Good, great. She set the broom aside. This was going -- it was not going how he'd planned, but at the very least she'd stopped screaming. Now, though, he was faced with a different problem. His hind paws dragged over the floor, claws digging in for purchase to keep her from making progress toward the door. He squirmed and wriggled. She wasn't supposed to be taking him outside, she was supposed to open the door. The last thing he needed was for Ocean to see him being put out of the house like a misbehaved cat made to think of its actions. She'd get a real kick out of that.

And he would need to find his way inside again.

He huffed, stretched out his arms and made himself go limp. It made him dead weight, plus the resistance of his claws stuck in the floor. Which - hurt, but he would have to endure. For the sake of his job and to not have to deal with Lady blue being on his case. He shuddered to think of what she would do to him if he came back empty-handed. The caracal wriggled again, tried to wiggle his way out of her grasp. Or, at the very least, make it difficult to progress any further. She would need to adjust her hold on him eventually.

Mino did have another option, but he would have preferred very much to save that as an absolute last resort. His clothes were tucked neatly under Ocean's arms and they would be there until he returned with the item he'd been sent for. Which meant that shifting now would leave him a lot less clothed than he would like to be in front of someone he just met in this particular instance. Anywhere else - and he was open for discussion. But, the closer they got to the door, the more he was starting to consider the possibility that he would need to shift.

Rather than a trill or a purr, he opted to hiss. He could only hope that Fawn knew it as enough signal to put him down, lest he lash out. If she did, he would bolt for the polish-smelling door once more, this time butting his head against it before peering at her, crouched low and tail flicking toward the knob.

[Fawn]

19th of Frost, 120 : Nightxx

Fawn huffed and groaned as she dragged the cats body across the floor. Each heave forward felt like she was back on the farm transporting bales of hay. Except this bale of hay was moving and hissing. And as it did she yelped and dropped it's body to the ground, quickly scrambling back herself and watching in fear as it ran to the other side of the room. Her brow raised as she breathed heavy, drunken vision swirling in front of her.

"Aiishh- come onnnnnn get out. Pleassee." She begged, tired, and panting as she brought a hand to her forehead and sighed, dragging her fingers across her alcohol-numbed face. Then a thought occured- it was hungry! It must be! She quickly dashed off into the kitchen and began rummaging through the fridge. A few knocked over bags of marinating pork later and the girl emerged from the kitchen holding a large slab of fresh tuna. She'd not enjoyed borrowing from her landlord, but she'd made sure to leave enough silver to cover it's cost on the counter. It glistened in the dim light from the street and she slowly backed herself towards the front door.

"Here kitty.. come get the fish... you greedy little fuck.." Her cheery voice didn't falter even as she insulted the creature, her hand outstretched in offering as she attempted to lead him out the door. It should work. Should. Hell if every cat in the damn city was happy to chase her for a chance at a skewer, then it would stand to reason that offering a piece of tuna nearly the size of the creatures head would be enticing enough to draw him to follow.

[Mino]

19 Frost 120

She dropped him without much fanfare and he huffed softly. Getting manhandled wasn't something he much enjoyed in this form, much worse when it was a fully grown drunken woman than a curious child. His tail flicked as he continued to butt his head against the door, nearly rubbing the entirety of his body down the wood. He wasn't sure how she couldn't smell it; the room positively reeked. They must have cared a lot about the items inside for them to use such heavy cleaning methods.

His ears twitched as she ran off to get something. A key? He hoped for a key. Or something that would open the door so at the very least he could slip inside. Fawn banged around wherever she had gone. Each thump made his ears swivel and turn, head tipped back to watch the steps. The last thing he needed was the older couple waking and finding him. But it remained quiet there. And, much to his annoyance, she didn't come back with a key. Instead, she came back with a raw slab of fish nearly the size of his head. He stared first at it, then at her and gave an annoyed yowl before he turned back to the door. But she persisted, tried luring him away with it. The front door remained ajar, but no more inviting than it had been before.

Mino had been in situations similar to this on some occasions. People thinking he could be lead away with the promise of a juicy morsel. They had been wrong, just as Fawn was as well. He turned his attention back to the door, a soft trill leaving him as he rubbed his frame along the door. Enough so that he turned over onto his stomach, legs sticking up. A louder trill left him as he right himself and started the process again.

[Fawn]

19th of Frost, 120 : Nightxx

She sighed when she realized the cat was not interested in the meat. What was it with this creature? The first cat to willingly turn down food, and at the worst time too. It wouldn't be good if the Jade's came down to see what the commotion was about, or if the cat wasn't out by morning. The last thing the girl wanted was for an old couple to have to deal with a wild cat. She stood then, furrowing her brow and groaning as she tossed her head back and threw the piece of meat out the door in one last attempt to lure it away.

But the thing didn't want it.

She frowned, aggravated, and stomped her way towards the cat one more time. On her way she picked up the broom, clutching it tightly as she approached and swatting it hard on the rear with the soft end. Just enough to forcibly make it's body budget, even if it's feet stayed in place.
"Now come on! I can't be in here all night-" She said, bumping it thrice more and then squishing herself bravely between the cat and the door. Her leg pushed it's shoulder, she staggered briefly, and looked down at it with annoyance.

But something stirred in her stomach. She gulped it down and shook the oncoming nausea away. But only briefly. Against her will, up her dinner and partying travelled until it came rapidly spewing from her mouth and onto the cat and floor in front of her in a vile, sour mess. In a rush as she felt the next wave coming Fawn sprinted off to the bathroom next to the kitchen and hurled once more into the toilet. She shuddered, her body shaking in the discomfort of her newly understood drinking limits, and after cleaning her mouth off in the sink sighed. "Lovely... city booze is stronger than I thought..." She muttered to herself, leaning on the counter of the sink as she looked back into the hallway to see if the cat was still there.