Chapter 6 - In Which the Cat Village is Visited

Ahhhh...I haven't added to this story...for...so...long....

Why it came to mind, I'll never know.  It just did.  I'm sitting around, bored, and I'm just like, "Hey, I should post more BoE!  Yeah, totally!" and I post more.  Yeah, like that.  God, I haven't posted on this story since...May, for crying out loud!  How could I deny my roots?

Shutting up now.  After I whine about how long it's been since I didn't have to say that the whole thing doesn't belong to me.  Just one...family, I suppose.

The Starr family (&pets, who are introduced here and now) (c) Werecat13

All other characters (c) Zopponde

Italics=thoughts
* * *=breaks
[these]=(these)

 

 

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The next day, the group woke up, had eggs for breakfast, and left their campsite in the same formation that they stopped in the day before.  Amazingly, there were no stops or creatures on the road until Katrina saw a small calico cat and recognized it.

Blake was standing at the side of the wagon, glaring at Peter as he always did, when he realized that Katrina was walking away from the wagon.

“Hey Katrina,” he asked her loudly, “Where are you going?”

Katrina kept going away until she stopped and squatted, then turned around and shouted, “I found my cat!”

“What?” Blake yelled back.  “You sound your hat?”  He turned to Peter and quietly added to him, “Hey could you stop for a moment?”  Peter nodded and stopped the horses.

“No, I—oh, never mind, just come over here!” she replied.

Blake came over, followed by Teu and the rest of the band, and saw that Katrina was petting a small, mostly black cat, with white going over his shoulders, down his front and onto his belly, with four orange paws.

“This is Namir,” Katrina explained.  “He’s my cat.”

A hummingbird came over and began scratching images in the dirt.

“And this is my hummingbird Media,” she explained.  “She’s very smart.”  She observed the pictures and said, “I’m glad to see you, too, Media.”

Katrina glared at the hummingbird, following its movement with her eyes.

“Krystal,” Katrina started nervously, “could you please not eat my hummingbird?”

Krystal nodded, but didn’t stop her constant watching of Media.

They all walked back to the wagon with Katrina’s pets in the lead.  When they reached the wagon, Peter said, “Your pets may come, but they will not be allowed inside the wagon.”

Katrina opened her mouth to protest, then closed it, then said, “Okay, but if Namir gets tired, can he sit up front with Haylay?”

Peter hesitated, then told her, “Yes, he may, but he may not go into the back of the wagon.  Besides,” he added smiling, “he doesn’t seem to trust someone up here.”

Sure enough, Namir had his back arched and seemed on the verge of hissing.

Katrina nodded in agreement and made a mental note of this behavior.  Namir usually could tell if someone could be trusted or not, though with three people he never met before in the front, he was the only one who could be sure as to which one shouldn’t be trusted.

The convoy continued its trek until Blake said, “When’s lunch?”

“How about now?” Krystal asked.  “I’m really hungry.”

“I forgot to mention,” Peter said, “that we have left Dimin Town.  We are currently in Sector A1B2, inhabited almost completely by demons.  We only have about fifteen minutes until we reach a village belonging mostly to cat demons.  I’ve made some friends there, so they should let us stay there for a night or two.  They have some really good food.”

“What’s this village’s name?” Krystal asked sharply.

“Highfire Village,” Peter told her, “renamed ten years ago after their war hero, Kusise Highfire, who protected them when a forest fire—”

“I’m not going,” Krystal told him severely.

“Did you make some enemies there?” Peter asked.

Krystal said nothing.

“Look, if we have to go around it, then we have to go around it.  No harm done, but that means we’re camping again and we’re probably having ramen—”

“You have one more vote for going there,” Violet interrupted.

“I think I’m for,” Katrina added.

“For!” Haylay enthusiastically told them.

“A real bed sounds great!” Teu exclaimed.

“Okay, more for than against, so we’re going,” Peter told Krystal.

Krystal looked at them, then shrugged, resigned, and told them over her shoulder, “Fine, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
 
* * *
 
Fifteen minutes later, as Peter had said, they reached Highfire Village.

Highfire Village was fairly simple, built on an oasis, with a wide variety of demons, though they were mostly cat demons.  There were houses made out of various elements, though stone and adobe seemed most common, with several log houses.  The demons dressed, for the most part, simply, though there were some in multi-layered velvet clothes, fit specifically for the wearer and trimmed with gold- and silver-colored lace.  Blake hoped he didn’t have to wear anything like that here, seeing how hot it was.

“There’s a good hotel on the next street,” Peter told them.  “The owners aren’t too greedy, either.”

“What’s that mean?” Haylay asked.

“Basically, it’s not expensive,” Krystal explained.  “There isn’t any currency here, it’s all barter.  Owners who aren’t greedy won’t ask as much as
greedy owners will.”

“So it is,” Peter added, impressed at her knowledge of the town.

A minute or two later, the party came to a large house with the words, “The Cat’s Meow Inn” hanging over the large door.

“I’ll go in, make arrangements, and you come in when I come out and get you,” Peter instructed.

Ten minutes after he went in, Peter came out and told Teu and the band, “I got us a few suites, but there were only three open.  I booked all three, but the owner would rather that we give up at least one.  What do you think?”

“There’s seven of us,” Violet pointed out.  “If we give up two, we have seven people in one room.  We can only give up one if we plan to breathe.”

“Well, they’re suites, not rooms,” Peter explained.  “They each have five multi-purpose rooms and two bathrooms.  We could probably fit into one fairly comfortably.”

A short argument ended with the decision to give up two of the rooms.

Teu, Peter, and the band walked into the inn.  As they climbed the steps to their rooms, the owner, Jali Shadowtail, stopped Krystal.

Jali’s ginger hair was pulled back into a tight bun with blue hair sticks to hold it together.  One of her eyes resembled a window looking out to a bright blue sky, but the other was a small globe of glass with a white line of scar tissue running from above her eyebrow to the corner of her mouth.  She wore a long blue shirt over baggy brown pants.

“You look familiar,” she told Krystal.  “What’s your name?”

Krystal said the first name that came out of her mouth.  “Kaiya Whiteshadow.”

“Well,” Jali stated, “I guess I don’t know you.  Carry on.”

Krystal mentally sighed.  It wouldn’t be good if she recognized me, after what I did to her, she thought.

Meanwhile, Blake, who was currently near the top of the stairs but could still overhear their conversation, opened his mouth and said, “But—” before Haylay, who was a few steps behind him, interrupted with, “I think we need to discuss something when we get upstairs, Kayia.”  She emphasized the name to indicate that it was the entire problem.

“But that’s—” Blake tried again.

“Blake,” Violet interjected from several feet behind Haylay, “not now.”

Blake opened his mouth again to be shushed by Violet.  He responded with a glare before ascending the remaining stairs.
 
* * *
 
“Krystal,” Violet demanded after the band had settled into their suite, “you have some explaining to do.”

Krystal grinned sheepishly.  “It’s a long story…”

“Fine then, we’ll just sit here until the clock strikes ten and we can go downstairs and join the party for the end of their school year,” Violet patiently responded.

“Okay,” Krystal sighed.

The clock on the wall ticked away the second.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Blake sighed.

Tick.

Tick.

“What time is it?” Krystal asked.

“About ten minutes past ten,” Violet replied.

“Well, party time!” Krystal exclaimed.

“…in the morning.”

Krystal paused, horrified, then said, “So, when’s lunch?”

“Twenty minutes should be a good time to wait,” Violet placidly told her.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

“What time is it?” Krystal asked, her hysteria creeping into her voice.

“It’s still ten past ten in the morning.”

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tock.

“Ha!” Krystal exclaimed desperately, making everyone jump.  “A minute passed!”

“But nothing more,” Violet calmly told her.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

“AAAUUGH!” Krystal screamed, jumping out of her chair.  “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!”

“Well,” Violet told her, still perfectly calm, “we’d be able to pass quite a bit of time if you’d tell us this supposedly long story of yours.”

“Fine!” Krystal yelled at them.  “I’ll tell you my freaking story already!”

“Could you please calm down first?” Peter asked her, emerging from the bathroom.  “I don’t think you’re helping anyone with that screaming.”

Krystal glared at him, then took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.  She calmly told them, “Fine.  I’ll tell you.

“I used to live here,” Krystal started.  “The other side of this town, if I remember right.  I lived there all alone, because Dad was dragged to Central Capital for a court trial for, like, ‘the assistant of the unauthorized creation of a new species’, or something said in really long words that meant the same thing, and Mom died in our old house defending me from some demons that didn’t think I should exist.

“Well, from that in itself, you probably figured that nobody thought I was meant for this world.  It wasn’t much different at school.  I was teased for my appearance as well as my form.  After all,” Krystal grimaced, “it’s almost hard not to tease a girl who would be considered albino if it wasn’t for a green eye.

“There was a lot that happened, if you want details, but I don’t want to get into them, and all you need to know is that, well, I went berserk and killed half the town.  Jali knew me; she’s my mother’s cousin.  She tried to stop me from killing the whole town.  And I slashed her eye out.  That’s why she has that glass eye.  But it woke me up, so I ran away.  It just so happened that I ran into Dimin Town, and from there I tried to rebuild my life.  And I guess you guys all know what happened from there,” she finished.

“Wow,” Blake commented, “I guess it sucks to be half demon.”

“I wasn’t known as that,” Krystal told him.  “I was called half human.”

“Of course she was,” Peter said vaguely, startling the group sitting in the main room.  “We all are.”

Everyone stared at him.  “Um… ‘we’?” Krystal asked.

Peter seemed to realize what he just said and practically shook with fear.

“Well?” Krystal demanded, glaring suspiciously.  “We’re waiting.”

Now there was no doubt—he was definitely shaking.  “Well—I—um—erm—you see—hey look!  An albino cardinal!” he stammered, pointing out the window.

Krystal glared at him.  “Now I know something’s weird about you.”

“Yeah—well—I mean—I can explain this,” Peter stuttered.  “I-I have a—a sister—yeah, a sister—and she’s a half demon—like you,” He said to Krystal, still obviously terrified.

Krystal was still frowning suspiciously.  “Then what about you?  If she’s your sister, you have the same parents, and you’re a half demon, too.”

“Uh—um—well—she’s my, um, my half sister,” he said nervously.  “Her mother is my mother, and she’s a human, and then my dad—ran away, and then Mom found this other guy, who was a demon, and then, well…”

Krystal’s frown slowly faded as she told him, “All right, but I’m still going to keep my eye on you.”
 
<>  <>  <>
 
Arotu sighed inwardly.  That was a close call, he thought.  If I had let my true identity slip, Lord Oronagi’s plan would have failed.  We wouldn’t even have to worry about it if that damn Janelle Zopponde person hadn’t been so damn rebellious.  Then we wouldn’t have had to take care of her and her daughter wouldn’t need to come here to avoid suspicion and I wouldn’t have to lie about Ritha being my half-sister.  I’ll have to apologize to my family for lying about them later.  But for now, I should just watch my step.  No sympathizing with Krystal, no matter how similar we may be.  I cannot allow this plan to go awry.  Father is depending on me to do as Lord Oronagi says, and I cannot be distracted by another half-demon…even if I fall in love.

Krystal yawned and announced, “I call the room on the far left,” before picking up her bag and walking into it.

“Mind if I join you there?” Violet asked her, picking up her bag and following Krystal.

“Sure,” Krystal could be heard.

“Is that a ‘sure I mind’, or ‘sure, you can come in’?”

“I don’t care, but if you want to be in this room, then come in.”

Haylay picked up her bag and walked into the middle room without asking anyone or announcing it, but if anybody had any problems with it, they could deal with it.

“Is anyone using that room?” Teu asked, indicating the room to the right of Haylay’s.

“Only if you do,” Katrina told her.

“I’ll join her in there,” Blake decided.

“Oh no you don’t,” Krystal told him from her doorway.  “You’re going to sleep in the boys dormitory with Peter.”

“Wha—”

“She’s right,” Katrina added, “you’re stuck with Peter on the far right.”

“But—”

“Blake, we can’t leave you to sleep in the same room as an innocent girl,” Krystal told him with a look on her face that had a sympathetic brow, amused eyes, and a smiling lips.  “It’s simply unacceptable.”

“But—”

“Deal with it,” Krystal suggested forcefully as Katrina left for the room to the left of Haylay’s with her bag in hand.

Blake glared at Krystal’s back as she returned to her room and closed the door.

“Blake,” Peter suggested, “you should get some sleep if you want to go to that party.  It’ll be going into tomorrow morning, and there may be some plans to extend it to noon.”

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Comments?  I've gotten absolutely none on this story, ever.  Pleeeeeaaase?
 


 

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