flowerbox | Cats in London

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Cats in London

People had been disappearing.

Which wasn't all that unusual, really. Not in a big city like London. People went missing all the time. Maybe they wanted a new life, maybe they died, maybe they just fell through the cracks. Normal.

Except there were more than usual, many of them happened around Trafalgar Square, and people were seeing things in the western fountain. So. Not so normal. And, strictly speaking, not actual his area. The Midnight Mayor was supposed to defend the city - the city, not the people. The Aldermen were keeping an eye on things, but as long as it was just people disappearing, as far as they were concerned it was just another magical oddity. None of their concern, unless things got worse. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to be dealing with this at all.

Matthew had always been very good at doing the things he wasn't supposed to.

Although now that he was here, he was starting to think that maybe the Alderman was wrong. The fountain felt...wrong. Off. Out of balance, on a deeper level.

They planted their palms on the edge of the fountain, leaning over to stare into it. Would something reach up out of it, try to make them disappear? Would they see the flickers of a vision, off the odd, far-off places they'd heard about? If they let their senses drift, flow deeper into the waters, would they be able to find what it was that was taking people away...

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A fountain was not where Arhu had expected to turn up. The Gate had been stationed in the London subway, not the middle of a square with a fountain in it. And when he'd checked the patency on the New York side, he'd seen what he'd expected to see: the dark platform, the eyes of the member of the Gating team on the other side, and the familiar city where his sister lived.

So hopping through the extended Gate and landing with a splash in said fountain resulted in a yowl and a bolt for drier ground, which also involved a lot of splashing. The human in the way--

--oh vhai, someone saw me!--

--got a faceful of water, but at least he didn't get a faceful of cat claws, as Arhu managed to avoid blundering right into him. Just barely.

Matthew cursed, instinctively jerking backwards and reaching out to gather the power from the glowing lamps nearby into their fingers. Their mind hadn't yet registered what what had happened, only that something had come out of the fountain that he knew wasn't right, and they were almost about to lash out to defend themselves at the unknown threat when he realised what it was.

He stared, mouth gaping open. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but a bloody cat wasn't it!

Even if they hadn't already known that something was up...well. He knew for sure now. Cats didn't just emerge from fountains. Especially since he was dead certain that just a moment before, there hadn't been a cat at all. But cats were urban creatures, as much a part of the city as rats and pidgins and foxes. He wasn't particularly partial to cats - he preferred the foxes, really - but he'd make do with what he had. They shook their head, dislodging the water that had been splashed on their face, and took a deep breath as they regarded the cat.

This would be easier if he had something to offer - some kind of meat, most likely, or anything that a cat might like to eat - but he hadn't exactly expected to need to bring any meat with him today. Instead, he just reached out, in that indescribable way that all sorcerers were connected to the city. His magic reached out to the cat, projecting a sense that he didn't want to hurt it and just wanted to talk. At the same time though, he didn't reach too strongly. For all he knew, the cat might be more than it appeared. They wanted to be careful.

"Hey there, kitty cat," he whispered softly.

Dripping tail lashing, fur fluffed up in an attempt to keep the water off his skin-- and in reaction to water; Arhu had bad experiences with water, in his past, worse than most cats had to contend with-- the cat eyed the man warily. There was something he was doing, some kind of... magic? It wasn't like anything Arhu had ever felt before.

But he didn't seem dangerous exactly, and it meant that this was a fellow wizard. So, he spoke in the Speech, hoping he'd be understood, whatever alternate universe this was: "Dhai stiho. I am on errantry and I greet you. Though I don't know where I am, exactly. Or what problem I'm supposed to fix."

The Eye was telling him modern London, but not which modern London, which wasn't particularly helpful. Obviously not the one he meant to be in. The Eye was also telling him that the problem didn't actually have all that much to do with the Gate, because it was showing him nothing regarding it. Also not helpful.

Matthew froze. He was pretty use to Weird Shit happened, but a cat talking - talking in a strange, alien language that they didn't know - they, the gods of the wire who knew all languages! - and yet could still understand. What that cat spoke was magic, that much was bloody obvious, but he hadn't the faintest clue what kind of magic it was.

Or how a cat was using it.

"Um," he said, blinking. "...Hello?" Could the cat understand them? Or was the magic language only capable of one-way communication? A normal cat Matthew knew how to talk with, even if 'talk' wasn't necessarily the right word, but this cat - who clearly wasn't a normal cat - he had no clue.

"Can you understand us too?"

"Well, sure." Shuddering as a bit of water trickled through his fur to his skin, Arhu sat down and started pressing it out with his tongue. Between licks, he continued, "I'd be a hiouh-poor wizard if I couldn't understand what people were saying." The one unfamiliar word in the middle, a little softer than the rest, was obviously not English or even the unidentified universal language he was actually speaking.

"I'm Arhu," he added. "And that Gate didn't spit me out where I was supposed to go, so I guess there's some kind of problem here?"

"You're a wizard?" They said, surprised. Wizards were...well. Human, usually. Animals had their own kind of magic, yes, but it was different to that of wizards. Or it was supposed to be. They couldn't help it; they giggled. He was talking to a cat that could speak, and said it was a wizard! He had the feeling that they Alderman were going to think him completely insane if he tried to tell them about this.

"Sorry. It's just...well, you're a talking wizard cat! " he said, once the fit of giggles died away. "I'm Matthew, I have no idea what Gate you're talking about, but yes, there's a problem." He looked at the cat, weighing him up. The cat looked harmless enough, but that was no guarantee of anything. For all he knew, Arhu might actually be the cause of the disappearances. "...What exactly were you trying to do?" he added slowly.

The look Arhu gave him was one that probably fit all cats everywhere, even adolescent ones that looked half-grown at best: it was that "are you new?" look that cats are so good at. "There are plenty of cat wizards. We're best at Gates, since we can work with hyperstrings and things without needing to use spells in between. But there's dog wizards and bird wizards-- not very many of them, though. And ehhif wizards, too, sure."

He went back to grooming, and kept talking between licks again. "A Gate. It's what opened up when I came through the water." Shudder. "Did you see that? The other place on the other side? I was trying to go to London, but the Gate is supposed to open up in the subway, not up here."

They listened to this for a moment. There seemed to be only one response.

"...What?!"

Wizard cats and dogs and birds? Gates? Hyperstrings? Even though he was a sorcery, Matthew was still pretty familiar with wizards and what they did, as well as the many other kinds of magic that people practices. But he'd never heard of...whatever this was.

"No, we didn't, but there were reports...I...okay, what the bloody hell is going on? What on earth is a Gate, and why are you calling yourself a wizard when you don't sound like any wizard I've ever met?"

Arhu's slightly-oversized ears skewed, annoyance and confusion both, and he paused in his grooming to squint at this other wizard. "A Gate. It takes you between places." He lashed his tail, decided not to elaborate further, and asked, "Didn't the Powers tell you about Gates...?"

Or did he have a rogue in his claws, here? Or worse, a new wizard on ordeal? By Iau, he hoped not! Arhu wasn't very good at gauging human ages, but this one did seem a little old for an ordeal, at least.

"Well, I guessed that much, although to be honest I was hoping for something a bit more specific. Like exactly which places they go between, and how the bloody hell one ended up in the fountain, and whether or not I need to worry about any infernal creatures of darkness that might decide to pop out and start unleashing a reign of mystical terror, that sort of thing." he said.

Infernal creatures of darkness would be just his luck, really.

"Um. Which Powers, exactly?" he added. "Do you mean the Beggar King, or the Bag Lady, or the Seven Sisters...?" Although he couldn't really understand exactly any of the City's major powers would have to explain to him about...well, anything. Usually that was supposed to be the Aldermen's job.

"Any of them. I don't know what you call them here, everyone has different names for them, it could be any of them." Arhu wasn't exactly impressed with them here, though. Apparently things worked a little differently in this reality. "But if none of them have told you anything, then they're vhai'd rotten Powers."

He shook himself again, at least moderately dried off, and hopped off the rim of the fountain, wanting a little more space between him and it. "You shouldn't get any infernal creatures, though. A Gate is just... a portal between places. You might get some really confused people who belong in another reality, though, and that causes its own problems." He didn't want the balance to shift on them, and potentially wipe out one reality or the other....

"We'll have to figure out what's wrong, then. Or I will." He eyed Matthew with misgivings. This was really what the Powers decided would help him best? "Since you don't even know what a Gate is. What do you specialize in? Or do you specialize in anything yet?"

Matthew wondered how the kitten would react if he told him that, technically, he was also one of the city's Powers. Also, he was pretty damn sure that dispensing out information was not the job of the city's major powers.

Certainly it wasn't a part of his job. Defending the city from mystic doom, yes. Explaining things? No. Especially when he didn't even understand how the hell the thing he was apparently 'supposed' to explain even worked in the first place.

"...Are we talking about the same Powers here?" he said, still feeling extremely befuddled. "Because, I hate to break it to you, but here you don't just go up to the Bag Lady and demand that she tell you...well, anything. Nothing without being really really nice and making a hell of a lot of apologies for bothering her." And even then, you sure as hell had to hope that she didn't take a disliking to you.

Everything that came out of this cat's mouth (and he still couldn't quite believe that there was anything, period, coming out of a cat's mouth) seemed to just...not quite make sense. It was as if Arhu was operating by a whole different set of rules and expectations. Like asking him what he 'specialised' in - it was an odd question to ask a magic practitioner, especially when you didn't yet know what kind of practitioner they were.

And sorcerers weren't the kind of magic practitioner that tended to specialise. Learning magic for sorcerers was more about learning control than anything else.

"Why do you want to know?" they asked, trying to buy time while he figured out what the bloody hell was going on here.

Arhu flicked his tail, unimpressed. "Ehhif are so weird about their Powers... People do it much more sensibly. But I want to know because if I know what you can do, then I'll have a better idea of what I'm supposed to do. The Powers would have put us together for a reason, you know, didn't I say that? What you do and what I do are probably what they need to fix whatever the problem is."

Whether or not he knew Matthew was technically a Power-- or housing one, anyway-- probably wouldn't have affected much. Cats showed respect to their gods, in some fashion, but not when they were being dense.

"People? What, like I'm not? What am I supposed to be, a toaster?" he said, grumbling. Bloody cats. This was why he preferred foxes; they didn't constantly act like they were superior to you in every way.

He shifted, still eying the cat with a suspicious air. "And how do I know you're not part of the problem? You're not making the slightest bit of sense here, kitty-cat. Powers don't go around putting people together. Cats aren't meant to talk. And anything that comes out of a fountain that's been making people disappear doesn't just get to demand whatever the hell he wants to know."

"I am part of the problem," Arhu huffed impatiently, giving his still-wet tail a lash, this time, rather than just a flick. "I'm just as out of place as everyone else who's gone through this gate without knowing it. And I can't go back until I know more about what's going on."

He turned quickly to lick his shoulders one more time, then hopped down off the fountain's ledge. "If you aren't going to help me, then I'll just start looking myself."

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Cats in London

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