A Lonely Cat and a Hotspring (Zahara, Jet, Misto)

[mysterykitten]

Zahara remained standing, so she could act out parts of the story, and then she began her tale in an eerie tone. "Long ago, when the now dusty mansion was new, a high ranking sage was the one who owned it." She walked several steps one way, and then several steps the other, gesturing with her arms every now and then. "Everybody loved him, he was one of the best, but one day, he changed." The she-cat paused. "It happened after he found an old book, one filled with the ways of dark magic"

The assassin looked to her audience, "Every night he would go down in the lowest part of the mansion and read from the book, practicing the spells until dawn, doing this made him exhausted during the day. After awhile he had completely fallen into the clutches of dark magic, he was obsessed with it, some thought he had gone insane." Zahara made the insane gesture with her paws, crossing her eyes for a brief moment. "He was so deep in the dark magic, he actually /did/ go insane, he needed subjects to test his new-found magic on, who was closest? Family, of course! One after another, he used the magic on his family..." The she-cat faced away from the audience. "Every member dying, it was obvious he wasn't the cat anyone knew before..." The assassin held up a paw and unsheathed the claws as far as she could. "Now he was started to e on the wanted list, no longer a sage, and a blood thirsty murderer. No one really knows what happened to him after, he just simply, disappeared. This is the end of my tale." Zahara made the finish, turning back towards the audience and bowing.

[Kitsani]

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[atrb=background,http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n533/KitsaniCat/JetforumMiddle.png] Jet settled in as the story started, pressing her tail to her side and running her fingertips over the bells of the belt that lay strewn beside her. The dancer’s ears lowered at the start of the tail, as Zahara mentioned in a dark-growing tone about the books this great sage had discovered. She passed an eager glance over at Misto, grinning slightly as she listened to the story continue with excitement. She flinched; he had used dark magic on his family!? How frightening! She shuddered inwardly at the very thought of the wicked curses and pain. Dark magic frightened her. Her own magic frightened her! She wished she had been born as a dabble all the time, but kept very quiet about it. Most didn’t even question whether or not she had abilities; aside from of course, the very observant eyes that noticed her elongated tails and ears that signalled her out as an elite. At the end of her tale, Jet clapped, her ears pricking up again. “Ohmygosh, is it true?” she exclaimed with a bright smile, but deep down truly hoping it wasn’t. Cats could be so ruthless, she didn’t doubt its ability to hold some reality. She sat up a little more, her bright blue eyes growing wary of the shadows spread around them in the night time. Ghost stories always made her hackles prickle nervously, but that was a sign that the tale was good! And she thanked Zahara with a smile for the excellent storytelling. But Jet felt safe with these cats! They were her friends after all, and she trusted the group wholeheartedly. It might have been a bit foolhardy or kittish to trust others and grow so loyal this quickly, but she couldn’t help it sometimes. They weren’t making her open up. They weren’t making her tell them everything about her from the depths of places she never wanted to re-visit. For that she silently thanked them. At the thought of inner secrets, she wondered about some of the others. She didn’t even know what Zahara did for a living. But they were kind to her; that was good enough for the dancer, and she slid back into her comfortable position against the tree as she pushed the wonders from her mind. Who needed to know?

[icyreflections]

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[atrb=background,http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/libbyoc/forumblack.png] Though the material mentioned within the story was rather grim and gruesome, Misto couldn’t help but grin with satisfaction. The story was both sad and invigorating and it just made the young tomcat want to leap to his paws and examine the abandoned house closer. He wasn’t a very intelligent cat and he knew it. Sure, he was clever but he wasn’t ‘intelligent’. And from the sound of the story- it was the sage’s intelligence that drove him insane; his thirst for knowledge and his understanding of the raw power that was dark magic. His mother always warned Misto to be wary of the rich and powerful cats for they were usually educated and the intelligent cats were the cats that were able to control others. They somehow knew how to manipulate thoughts and feelings of those less than them. Though the stupid and ignorant could be dangerous- if power fell into their hands and they didn’t know HOW to use it properly, there could be fatal consequences- however, if a smart cat had the same power but knew just how and when to exploit it the results could be much worse. Smart cats know how to cover their tracks and plan ahead- while the stupid cat was captured and banished for abusing his power, the smart cat would sill be in control… until another smart cat took over. Misto never really had reason to single any cats out based on their inner or outer traits. He didn’t necessarily believe his mother when she said all intelligent cats were conniving but he did think it was strange how the ‘intelligent sage’ could so easily turn his cleverness from good to bad like he did. Didn’t he KNOW what was good and what was evil? Did he care? Did power just do that- makes the line between light and dark slip away and not even an intelligent cat like the Sage could tell the difference? So perhaps intelligence really had nothing to do with it- maybe it had to do with curiosity. Which wasn’t very good- because Misto was properly the most curious feline in existence. He really wanted to check out the abandoned mansion and made a mental note to go by there tomorrow. Maybe he would see the Sage’s ghost and he could ask him about the battle between light and dark and what drove him to become insane- was it plan greed, curiosity, thirst for knowledge or power? “I wonder,” Misto said aloud as his thought ran wild with the details of Zahara’s story. “If his ghost haunts the mansion today… and if it does I wonder if he regrets his actions. Would he still be insane or was that simply an illness that vanishes after death?” At this thought he brightened and excitedly squealed, “oh! Oh! What if the entire family is in there right now? I wonder if they forgave him or if they are cold to him and he haunts the mansion alone, awaiting the day that they forgive him. Maybe I could help them-” he looked off into the distance thoughtfully as he considered the situation. Coming from a family of gypsies, Misto knew plenty about superstitious entities. However, due to his curious nature, Misto was always fascinated and eager to hear more about the other worldly elements while his family shunned the unknown. Misto was quite strange to them and they often warned him that he would get the family into a ton of trouble if he went looking for trouble like that. Misto certainly didn’t want to curse the family but he did want to help the family of ghosts make up so that they could move on into the next world happy and together. Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, Misto turned his attention to Jet, he crept up to her form against a tree, and hovered his face above hers. “So?” He grinned and waved his tail happily. “Do you have any stories you’d like to share?” He looked over his shoulder at Zahara, “You would be interested, wouldn’t you?”

[mysterykitten]

Taking a seat next to Jet, Zahara looked to Misto. "Perhaps there are ghosts there, but really you'd just have to look and find out." she replied, twitching an ear. Looking to Jet she smile. "Yes, if you do have a story I'd love to hear it, and add yet another to my collection.

'What an eventful night!' Zahara thought. 'To think that hours before I was sitting alone, and look now! Two new friends and stories being told! This is great.' Waiting for the sokoke's answer, she just couldn't help but grin when she thought about how much her day had improved.

[mysterykitten]

Gonna throw out that Kit is gone so this doesn't get considered dead~

[Kitsani]

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[atrb=background,http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n533/KitsaniCat/JetforumMiddle.png] Jet lowered her ears, turning a soft shade of red around her cheeks. Oh dear, talk about on the spot! The sokoke dancer had never gotten stage fright before; the public was her element, and the stage was where she belonged. But only when she had complete confidence in what she did, which in the typical case was dancing. She was no storyteller! She didn’t even know any stories aside from past ones she’s heard in taverns, which weren’t exactly the type of things she wanted to go around repeating. Well, Jet thought with a soft sigh, she may as well tell that one tale she had in the back of her head somewhere. The main reason she had learned not to go sticking her nose in places it didn’t belong. “Well,” she mewed slowly, “we’ve heard a fantasy and a scary folklore tale, I guess that leaves one other genre,” she laughed. True story time. Fun, fun. As she began, leaning casually against the tree trunk, she let the words roll off her tongue, not really knowing what she was doing but deciding to tell the tale as casually as if she was speaking of any other topic. “I remember this one time ,back when I was just a kit, my mother would always fret how important it was that I never stick my nose in places it didn’t belong,” she chuckled, “I always obeyed my parents, but I guess I kind of learned the hard way why I should’ve continued doing so. It all happened a couple summers ago, when the leaves in the trees dappled everything that passed under them with sunlight. I was wandering through the forests, and by wandering, I mean I had absolutely no clue where I was going,” she mewed with a smile and a dramatic shrug, her tail flicking behind her. “So I was walking around, and couldn’t help but notice these bright, good-looking berries on a bush. My first thought of course, was that they looked like they would be fun to play with. So I took them” Jet mimed out her actions with her paws as she spoke,” And clapped them together!” The brown tabby clapped her hands gleefully, as if still back to the time where she was just a kitten in awe of her discovery. “They were all much and an odd, light blue colour, and made a mess all over my paws. After rubbing around berry juice on a rock painting pictures, it came across my mind that perhaps they might taste good, too. I popped one into my mouth, and I swear it was the most revolting thing I had ever tasted to date!” Jet meowed, sticking out her tongue. “Luckily, it didn’t leave any random side effects apart from the most putrid of after-tastes. Of course, it was right after that that I heard a soft, shuffling sound. As if somebody was stoking their paws against a pile of dead leaves in the fall. I had never heard anything like it, and stuck my head back into the berry bush, looking around for the source of the odd sounds. Not my brightest of moments, I admit. “Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the light catch something very darkly colours, and it wasn’t furry. I actually no idea what it could possibly be, and stumbled blindly after it, tail raised curiously. As a kit, I wasn’t exactly stealthy, and I don’t know if it heard me, but it started moving quicker. So I did too, until I burst out from the other side of the bushes just in time to see a dark tale slip underneath a crevice in the rocks. Still mystified, I stalked over, sniffing the little crack. I stuck my nose in a little farther, then a little farther, then WHAM!” Jet threw her paws in the air, and proceeded to break into giggles. “The friggin snake was like, this long!” She meowed between laughs, stretching out her paws in a clear exaggeration as she snickered at the memory, her bright blue gaze flashing with amusement. “I moved away quickly enough and ran home in tears. It hadn’t got me, but it sure gave me a scare. Haven’t stuck my nose in any cracks, since!” She added, fluffing out her chest proudly, as if this was an immense accomplishment for herself.

[icyreflections]

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[atrb=background,http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/libbyoc/forumblack.png] Misto listened carefully to Jet’s story. It was indeed unusual and interesting how she pointed out the various types of stories that were told tonight. He had never really taken the time to appreciate the genres before and suddenly had a new respect for professional storytellers. He always assumed they told legend and stories from experience but- what other tales did they tell? Misto puzzled over this for a moment longer than he would have liked- he wanted to hear Jet’s story! Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he blinked back into the present and focused his brown gaze on Jet. When she had mentioned stumbling blindly into the forest, Misto couldn’t help but chuckle and purr in a friendly, knowing voice, “wandering around blindly in the forest is the best way to find something interesting.” He stuck out the tip of his tongue playfully and winked, “it always served me well. But go ahead, Jet. What did you end up getting yourself into?” He laid on his belly, propped up on his elbows white his chin in his paws. His black and white tail waved contently behind him as he listened interestedly to the dancer. Misto had spent a good majority of his kithood stumbling through the woods just for the sake of curiosity and exploration. He quite enjoyed himself, but his siblings and cousin comrades often huddled close together in a large pack of sniveling, cautious kits. Misto always headed the group and outpaced them eagerly by more than a few feet. He often had to turn around from his voyage into the woods and fetch them and make sure they were all right. Kits that were inexperienced and frightened by the unknown often made foolish mistakes. Misto often noted how they spoke in loud whispers, cracked every twig under their paws, and were startled and screamed at every bird that took flight overhead. Misto knew that they just wanted to see the witches in the woods to brag about the trip later, but he also knew that they would get killed if they weren’t more cautious and courageous. Thinking about his past experiences as a kit traveling in the woods, Misto felt more connected to Jet’s story. He couldn’t help but wonder, as he reflected on his cousin’s reaction to the forest, how Jet coped on her own for the first time? He hoped she was okay! When hearing about the berries, Misto laughed nervously at Jet’s reaction to them being bitter but he couldn’t stop the numb tingling sensation that turned his veins to ice. What if the berries were poisonous? Jet wouldn’t be here right now… He watched her, he saw he mouth moving but he couldn’t hear the words. He could no longer her Jet’s lovely voice as it rose and fell with the words and tone of her shared memory. Suddenly, it was like looking at a ghost. Like Jet wasn’t SUPPOSED to be sitting in front of him or COULDN’T be sitting there. Misto liked the prospect of speaking to a ghost one day- but he was not at all comfortable with the thought that one of his friends could have died when she was little and alone and he wasn’t there and he would have never met her…. Misto was normally open-minded and cheerful but right now, he felt completely drained of energy and sick. The story he once felt such familiar relation to suddenly put a bond on Jet’s head and Misto didn’t like it there one bit. ‘Please, please,’ Misto thought to himself desperately, ‘just forget it. Don’t do this. She is fine. It happened in the past, move on.’ And although Misto couldn’t cure his ailing gut feeling, he began to come back into focus once more and put on a smile again and laugh along with Jet as she told them about the snake. “I always thought a snake would be a neat pet,” Misto commented brightly, whiskers twitching. “He’d be convenient because I could just put him over my shoulders- I’d be able to keep my paws free. And if I played my violin, I wonder if he would dance? I think that would be quite a sight!”