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[isawallflower]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHEERYCHERRY. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 019.46.820.17 *** CHEERYCHERRY has joined 019.46.820.17 <CHEERYCHERRY> It's Riley! <CHEERYCHERRY> Please leave a message! <CHEERYCHERRY> Please be someone with their priorities sorted out properly!

main: CheeryCherry
anonymous: panthera, aed
retired: gflynn (anon)

Comments

[isawallflower]

[ Almost wistfully, Riley pokes at her kitty's nose, letting him paw at her finger. ]

You should've seen him when I first got him. He was just...skin and bone. Could fit almost completely in my hand. Just a scared little thing.

[ ...But now he's happy. Enthusiastic. Her little cat. ]

[knifemonopoly]

[...oh.

That'd be a very small cat.

The other Yugi can feel the affliction coming on where the closer he gets to a cat, the more inane his thoughts become. This is absolutely wild for a creature of darkness, a manifestation of judgment, to experience, because while normally his brain is buzzing with alertness and contingencies and observations, all he can think right now is, little cat. Fits in hand. Scared? No! Bad! Protect cat. Should be happy.

With effort, he pulls together a question that is reasonably intelligent:]

Did you pick his name?

[isawallflower]

[ She turns her attention back to the other Yugi, neck doing that...strangely flexible thing, as she doesn't move her body at all but seems to be looking right at him. ]

Hm? Oh, yes. He... I don't think he had one when they gave him to me? They don't seem to— [ Wait. Rewind. ] Has anyone told you about the bugs?

[knifemonopoly]

...bugs?

[From the look on his face, clearly not.

He is unsure how bugs can lead to kittens. There are horrible possibilities in his head. But he's about to find out.]

[isawallflower]

[ Riley simply sighs, long and frustrated. ]

Okay. So, when I first...woke up here, back in November, it was in this...underground tunnel system. Apparently, these...weird bugs the size of children found all of us who'd just been dropped on the ground by the freakin' fog lady, and decided to...wrap us up in their webs for a party for their queen.

[ ...She shivers a little. It wasn't...as bad as it could have been. She knows that now. But she still didn't like it. ]

And when we woke up, they had...like— they kept handing out party favors? A bunch of deep-fried rocks and other...stupid things they thought we could eat. [ She starts gently massaging Maple behind the ears, and the kitten just...he loves it. He flops over. ] Some of them...were little kittens. He probably wasn't even a month old. They definitely didn't know how to feed them, or worse, thought...we would want to eat them. So... Well, there was no way I could just leave him there.

[knifemonopoly]

...oh.

[Inside the other Yugi's brain, two subroutines are running. One is filing away the data: that's three entry points he's aware of, all of them involved initial immobilization and safety before leading to rescue, but rougher and more painful ones aren't unheard-of.

The other is--]

Of course you had to keep him.

[He'd thought Maple had come from Poundmates; apparently, though, he's a rescue, and yes, Riley was good and right to keep this cat, love and protect Maple for the rest of his life.]

...are the bugs still there?

[isawallflower]

[ With a humorless smile and creased brows: ]

Knowing my luck? Of course. [ She adds, ] Last I saw, they burst into everyone's places to spread what they understood Christmas cheer to be.

[ From her tone? It sounds like it was awful! ]

[knifemonopoly]

[He makes a disgusted face and noise.]

Eesh. Sounds pretty upsetting!

[Bugs breaking into your home? Gross. No one wants that even when it's regular bugs!]

What part of the peninsula was their cave in?

[Who's got two thumbs again that he didn't have five minutes ago, and is totally going to scope it out to see if they're still there and what they're up to because he wants to look into arrival scenarios? This bat!]

[isawallflower]

[ Riley corrects: ] Not cave, they've got a whole part of like...a town. It's in Kulen. An abandoned building or two, a tunnel system... Who knows if they're still there, though.

[ She raises her hands, and Maple thinks it's a game, so he jumps at them. Riley seems used to this. ]

I haven't set foot near them and will continue to not do so.

[knifemonopoly]

I can understand that!

[A bug town in Kulen...

That sounds pretty gross. But he's totally going. Maybe not tonight, but it's going on the quest list.]

Thanks for telling me all this. But it's late for you, isn't it? You've been a real help, Riley -- I'm grateful! But it'd be a shame to repay you by overstaying my welcome.

...

[But he doesn't want to fall into the same miscommunication-mistake Adam did. He should be clear about this.]

...if you want, we can hang out another time?

[isawallflower]

[ Late for her? It's late in general, she almost says, before remembering right. Right, he's probably nocturnal now. Vampire and all that. It's thinking about this that reminds Riley of the time, and she fights a yawn; the girl's more of an early riser than anything, so he's very correct. ]

Right— you probably have other things to do, too. [ And she actually doesn't mean that in self-deprecation! She smiles, just now realizing how tired she really is. ] I'd like that.

[ It echoes their conversation in the other world. ]

...But, next time you should probably use the door.

[knifemonopoly]

Yes, I'd prefer that, too. I don't want to be a Dracula!

[All resemblance to events in Bram Stoker's novel tonight is purely coincidental and unintentional, and he does not want to reenact it again!]

...but you'll have to tell me which door leads out.

[It's not completely clear, since that's not how he came in.]

[isawallflower]

[ So he says to Riley, who knows like, so much more about Twilight than Dracula. She at least gets the reference, more or less. ]

Oh! Right, yes, of course, just this way—

[ As her head feathers crest slightly, she bustles up toward the front door, which the living room opens up to. ]

Go fast, okay? Maple's been learning how to be an escape artist.

[knifemonopoly]

[The other Yugi wouldn't want to be an Edward Cullen, either, if he knew. He'd never want to dislike himself that much! Self-loathing's not a good look, even with sparkles.

He follows her to the door and gives a quick, firm nod.]

Okay.

See you later!

[And when she opens the door, he....for all this talk about Edward Cullen, the other Yugi sure does superspeed out the door, fast enough to leave a feather-ruffling breeze behind in his wake.]