Cats and Demons
Log Info
- Title: Cats and Demons
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's apartment
- Summary: Andelena returns home from the Colosseum from one of quite a few recent extracurricular trainings with a bandage on her face. She discovers that Patches the kitten is curled up on a sleeping Dolan's chest, and while Dolan insists that Patches is not his cat... Well, it's clear what's happening to at least Andelena and Patches. Dolan heals Andelena's wound, and the two discuss what happened at the hostel stay gone wrong while they try to determine their next path forward.
There's been a new addition to Andelena's routine as of late. Rather than training fully at the Temple of Daeus and her occasional bouts with Aryia at the Colosseum, the Sunguard has been attending some additional bouts at the Colosseum, engaging in extracurricular and more secular training with weaponry and forms of armor that a Sunguard doesn't normally use.
This evening is one such occasion where she's arriving home later than expected. As the Sunguard slinks back to the house, she's sporting a bandaged cheek... and she looks mildly miffed about it, if her glare at just about anything and everything that moves suggests anything. "Bry's gonna have a cow," she mutters as she stalks to the door.
Brydion has been supportive of her seeking additional training, and very often accompanies her to the Colosseum. He seems to have redoubled his own training efforts, as much as his studies, and has even shown her how to care for the more complex armors. Today, though, he declined, claiming a headache, which has been a bit of a problem from time to time since they returned from that abortive trip to the countryside. He's a bad liar, and it was instantly obvious that he wasn't kidding.
The inside of the small apartment they share is quiet when she approaches the door.
Andelena unlocks the door and heads inside, locking up behind her. Normally, she'd loudly announce her presence, but she knows that the last thing that he'd want when he's got a headache on the mind is for her to come crashing in like a rather inept or careless burglar with all the grace of a cat wearing booties.
"Bry, I'm home," she calls out--just loud enough to make herself known, but not be obnoxious to the headache sufferer. "Need me to make tea?"
The sight that greets her, aside from the dimness, is an adorable one. The house is tidied, the batch of laundry that they had sent out on arrival returned and folded, gear tucked away, and more. He's crashed out on the couch, wearing only drawstring trousers, his artificial eye removed and probably in the other room. He has not bothered with an eyepatch or other cover, but his primary cover is a somnolent calico cat, curled up in a ball on his chest.
She moves first, looking up when the door opens, then stands up and stretches luxuriantly, a high arch from her toes and curled tail.
Brydion blinks, looks up. "Brightest of days, baby," he says sleepily - and that's when he catches sight of the white patch across her cheek in the dimness.
Well, there's no way in the Hells that Andelena's impervious to this. That steel-grey gaze of hers melts as she quietly coos at the sight of that small calico cat curled up on top of her man's chest. "Brightest of days to you and your cat, babe," Andelena replies with a grin. She has an idea of how she'll respond to that.
She walks closer to Patches and Brydion. Bry gets a kiss first, followed by a kiss to Patches' multi-colored head. She knows that he'll complain if she kisses him with the slightest bit of fur on her lips. "Little scrape at training today," she explains, seeing his gaze on the bandage. "Small, nothing huge. Won't scar over or get worse unless I do something stupid, like roll in rotting meat or something."
"My cat, my arse," Brydion answers, sitting up more fully and setting Patches unceremoniously aside. Cats are excellent at looking offended and/or confused, but she yawns hugely and trots over to Andelena, sniffing her ankles and shoes quite intently.
His flesh-and-blood eye blinks, focusing on the bandage, and there is not a trace of a smile. He stands up, frowning. "That lot likes to fight with live steel. Someone's going to get hurt." He pats around, hunting for a minute, and finally extracts the holy symbol from beneath the sofa. With it in one hand, he reaches to remove the bandages with the other. "Let's see it, baby."
"Yeah, and I'm pretty damn lucky, too," Andelena says with a huff as she helps Dolan take the bandage off. "Hate to think about what could have happened if the steel got any closer than it did. Just a matter of time before they really send someone to the Soldier's Defense--or to the Temple of Vardama."
The wound is true to Andelena's description: a slight graze in the cheek that'd be more welcome on a hock of ham. It's a slender wound that's already been tended to with some basic first aid, but could always benefit from Brydion's touch.
Meanwhile, Andelena looks down at Patches at her feet, grinning. "Y'know, she likes you an awful lot," she says. "How long were you two like that?"
Having inspected Andelena's shod feet most thoroughly, Patches rubs up against her and twines around her feet - and dislodges a lace on her boot, which immediately becomes a fiendishly naughty string, and only Patches can defend her humans from the foul evil that is the boot lace! Claws come out, she rolls over on her back, biting and chewing and clawing at it.
"I haven't got any idea," he admits, as he inspects the graze. "I've been asleep." He reaches out, his holy symbol in the other hand, and runs a finger slowly over the mark. "Holy Knight, bless this woman with Your compassion as you heal her wounds," he prays. A brief glow of light, and he stands up on tiptoe to kiss her cheek where he'd just touched. "Better safe than sorry. I like your beautiful face too much to let anything mar it, whether it's a stupid macho prick or the foulest of demons."
Andelena smiles warmly from the kiss, and she chases it with a kiss to his lips as she puts a hand gently to his cheek. "Thanks, babe. Y'know you're not bad on the eyes either, right?" she says with a smirk. That might be the part that Bry never wholly believes, but the warmth in her eyes always insists on that truth. "I've had enough of demons for a good little while, though."
The shoe lace warrior's efforts are not ignored. Andelena looks down and laughs at little Patches. "Okay, okay, you crazy little girl," she says as she leans down and scoops up the kitten. "Sometimes I think she's so crazy about feet that she's just trying to get the shoes off me when she does that."
The smile Brydion had been wearing, the one he returns the kiss with, immediately fades, at the mention of demons, and Patches is largely forgotten. "She's making my boots hard to lace," he grumbles. "Go snuggle with your mama," he tells the kitten, who is actually wriggling. She wants to PLAY!
"I meant to talk to you about that, Andie," he starts, turning away. "I've been thinking. I didn't like that incident at all. How in all the green garden hells did it end up there? I thought they got rid of it."
This is definitely bothering him, because he starts to pace the room, his arms folded, fingers drumming on his biceps. "That invitation didn't come from Papa or Mama," he explains. "They don't do invitations. I'm always welcome and I know it."
Andelena gently puts Patches down on the ground and retrieves a cat toy nearby--there's always one somewhere close by. This one's a stick with a small white feather tied to a string, which is naturally the favorite of many a cat.
"Wait a minute," Andie says as she looks up from wriggling the stick around. "You're saying--if they didn't invite us, that's a trap. Meaning they were hoping to catch us unawares... And that they knew about both of us."
There's an edge in her voice as she says that. She's painfully aware that's precisely what Bry never wanted.
"Yeah. That's what I'm saying. If Papa and Mama didn't send those invitations, who did?" No, Brydion is definitely unhappy about that. "And - we'd better go check in on the family. Without that self-righteous prick of a lizard," he adds with a snarl. The Redeemer has made his opinion of Rocky quite clear in the intervening days.
"I know, babe," Andelena says between swings of the string-toy. The warrior-kitten's engaging in the traditional butt-shimmy before she leaps and strikes at the incredibly evil feather on a string. "We won't have to deal with him."
Patches catches the feather in her needleclaw grips, and Andelena lets her have it for the moment as she looks at Brydion. "I'll have to get that new armor commissioned sooner rather than later," she says. "Been saving my coins for a bit now. If we're going to travel, and your parents..."
She doesn't say the rest. It's horrible to imply that Bry's parents are possibly beset by a demon, let alone say it out loud.
Now, that is enough to make Brydion's blood run cold - and it's a very real possibility. They need to go back to that village anyway. So focused is Brydion on this that he's entirely forgotten that the right side of his face is completely uncovered and his eye isn't in. It's not a nice look, and one he usually avoids, but he seems unaware of it. He has bigger things to worry about.
"I need to see about strengthening the enchantments on the sword before we go, but we'd best make it quick." The mobile side of his face creases with worry, and he turns his blind side to the wall, looking down at the floor.
Andelena nods just a little, her gaze falling briefly on the toy in her hand. She sighs and pulls it away, hiding the feather from Patches so that the kitten doesn't continue to strike. The mood to engage in kitten shenanigans has fallen.
"We should," she says, turning to Brydion. "And we should probably let a few people back here in Alexandria know what's happening. That way, if we don't come back before a certain date, or we don't send word--maybe they can come looking for us in the event we're held captive."
She smiles a little. "Granted, the Temple'll notice if a Sunguard and a Redeemer both go missing, but better to be safe than sorry."
Brydion pauses, digesting that, and nods. "Yeah." He doesn't seem to be paying Patches, who stopped when the feather disappeared and now her her eyes fixed firmly on Andelena's hand, much mind. "You let one or two people know and I'll let one or two people know. One of the people between us ought to be in the Temple. When do you think it'll be ready?"
Andelena thinks for a moment, pressing her lips together into a line for a moment. "I'll see if I can't pay a bit more for a rush order," she says. "We're talking the full deal. Plate from head to toe. I'll look like a real fuckin' holy warrior now." There's a slight smirk on her face. "Either way, would probably take a few days on a rush order. I'll talk around some of the smiths and see."
She casts a look back at Patches for a moment, presumably just to make sure the cat isn't about to pounce onto her. "With all of this training I've been doing outside of the Temple lately, it might as well be time to put it into practice," she says. "Plus, you wouldn't ever object to me being better defended."
Patches has sat back on her haunches, eyes still on Andelena's hand, tail swishing back and forth. She looks like she might just be ready to pounce, but hasn't done it yet. Meanwhile, Brydion turns finally towards Andelena, fully facing her. "No, but you'll feel like you're living in a turtle shell. You get to clean it yourself, too. They tell you to make sure to oil the metal and the leather both?" She will have seen him do this many times.
Even without his eye in, Andelena gives him a fuller smile as he turns to her. "I've seen you do it a million times," she says. "And that's not a complaint. Specially when you've done it shirtless." Jury's out on if she was paying attention to the armor cleaning or the man doing it on those occasions.
She looks at Patches for a moment. "And we'll have to find someone to check in on her again," Andelena says. "Or... find someone we can leave her with. I don't know anyone with a cat or that has experience with cats, though."
"I'll ask the Wardens, they probably know someone." Some of Brydion's cheeky grin returns at the reference to his habit of doing chores shirtless when convenient. His reference to the clergy of Gilead is an easy one. "Leave her with the Hunter's temple while we're gone, maybe?"
Patches' tail slowly stops swishing, andfinally curls around her toes. She looks up and down between them with big, round eyes.
Andelena just stares at Patches for a long moment. "Gods, cat," she says with a chuckle and a shake of her head. "I swear that she knows that we're talking about leaving her. It's just for a little bit, okay, sweetheart?" She goes to pick up Patches and loves on the kitten--if permitted.
She looks at Brydion, now that she's firmly had her 'crazy cat parent' moment. "I'm just concerned that she'd run off if she's at a temple. Big places with lots of doors and lots of places to hide. They'd lose track of her easily there."
The first response from the kitten is a purr and head rubs against her face, and she snuggles against Andelena. Brydion, though, isn't convinced, completely. "Let's find out." Despite the seriousness of the conversation, he still finds a cheeky grin somewhere and applies it in her direction, his face turned entirely towards her, and he leans against the end of the sofa. "Think we've got time to have a little fun, though. That is, if you're up for it."
Andelena offers a wicked grin in response to Bry's proposal, steel-grey eyes filled with glee. "Always got time for that, Bry," she replies. "Just... lemme put the cat down and out of the way first."
Poor Patches will have to find other ways to amuse herself for a little while.