Dolan's Cat
Log Info
- Title: Dolan's Cat
- Emitter: Dolan
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's (soon-to-be-former) apartment
Dolan and Andelena's cramped pad, early evening.
The door opens into the pad, and Brydion, who's been gone for the better part of a week on a trip to a little town at the edges of Alexandros called Karda's Ford, shoulders his way through it, leading with a basket of bread and what smells like a tureen of hot chicken stew, redolent with herbs and potatoes and carrots. The greatsword is anchored across his right shoulder, and much of his gear is notable for its absence, save only the greatsword, the pack over his back, and the cuff on his left shoulder, and he smells of the soap used in the Temple baths.
"I'm home, baby," he pronounces wearily, kicking the door closed behind him. He seems to have swapped eyes at some point on the trip, for he now wears the black garnet where his right eye should be, and he grits his teeth as he sets the iron tureen, and the basket balanced atop it, near the hearth where it will keep warm.
It's odd to see so much of Brydion and Andelena's lives packed up in wooden crates, but that's precisely what litters the cramped apartment. Much of the bigger items have already been moved to the new house, but the smaller items are what Andelena's been hard at work packing up and getting ready.
Unfortunately for the Sunguard, she's currently staring at a fuzzy tail that's pointed straight up in the air from a wooden crate. "Spot, just because you're sweet doesn't mean you're getting packed with the jar of sugar," Andelena says in exasperation. Indeed, the smaller of the calicos is nestled in the crate next to a jar of sugar. Green eyes peer up at Andelena as though to protest.
Andelena shakes her head and instead offers a warm smile in Dolan's direction, standing up from the crate and walking over to him with arms outstretched for an embrace. "Hey babe," she says brightly--until she notices the swapped eyes and the gritting of teeth. "You doing okay? How's the shoulder?"
"Just tweaked it," Dolan answers, straightening and reaching to accept the embrace, keeping his arms low for it as the shorter of two embracing so often does. "It's been looked at, don't worry. How's the packing going?" He leans in for a kiss as he asks the question. "You ready to stop and come to dinner?"
Andelena gives him a kiss back, but she doesn't pull away from him immediately. She looks at him with such warmth flecked with a little bit of concern in those steel-gray eyes, even if he's consoled her a little. It's her natural state as a Sunguard at times. "It's been slow-going because we have two cats who want to help by being packing inspectors," Andelena grumbles, but a little grin perks up on her lips. "I'd fucking love dinner."
She gives the air a sniff. "I mean, shit, it smells good, Bry. You pick up the best stuff on your way back." Andelena releases him from the embrace and helps take the food over to their dining table--one of the two pieces of major furniture that hasn't been moved yet. It and the bed will be taken last. "I've been bouncing back and forth between here and the new place all of today, really."
One thing is clear in the embrace - among the things left behind is his armor, because it isn't like hugging a metal blanket. Still, Dolan grins up at her as the embrace parts. He lets her take the basket and tureen to the table, instead going for bowls and spoons. "Packing inspectors, eh? Well, we have to pack them too, at some point, yeah? Maybe you could just stuff them in with their food," he suggests helpfully, depositing the bowls and spoons on the dining room table - those that haven't gone to the new place yet, that is. "Let's eat. You've moved a lot while I've been gone."
"I'd get paranoid that we--or the guys I found that have been helping us me move crates over--would forget what crate's theirs and their crate ends up squished or forgotten somewhere. I mean, listen for the meowing and all, but..." Andelena shudders. "I'd almost rather just carry the little rascals over in my arms. Don't want anything bad to happen to 'em."
She takes a seat at the table and begins to distribute the food out, giving her husband a little 'thank you' for getting the bowls and spoons in the process. "What happened with your armor?" she asks as she ladles herself some chicken stew into her bowl, steaming gently as hot soup ought to.
That clearly hadn't occurred to Dolan, who while Andelena is talking, opens the breadbasket to reveal a fresh loaf of bread, and tears off a chunk to lay beside his bowl while he waits for his turn with the ladle. "I didn't know you'd hired help," he replies, but seems accepting enough. "Probably for the best, yeah, handle the girls yourself. Besides, if they're in the boxes, they aren't in our dinner." A wide, cheeky grin accompanies that.
The grin fades, though, at the question about the armor, and he gets that look he sometimes does when he doesn't want to talk about a topic. "I left it at the forge," he explains. "It needs a little repair work. We worked it out, though the girl's killers all died in the years since." The smile, by now, is lnog gone.
As if though on cue--more accurately, at the word 'dinner' spoken by the man of the house, who the calico cats adore--Spot pokes her tricolor head out of the crate, hopping out and padding over to Brydion's feet, staring up at him with pleading feline eyes. She has never been fed, ever. Andelena is a cruel cat-mother.
"I did pack up that tin of fish-flakes, so I bet they're not happy," Andelena says with a little smirk and a shake of her head as she turns over the ladle to him. "I hired some folks who were just passing through. Caravan guards in between jobs. Figured it was the only way we were gonna get most of our shit in between here and there. All we've got left is the little shit, the bed, and this table and our chairs--and my gear, but I'll be wearing that out with when I'm holding the cats." Yes, the valiant Sunguard in all of her armor... and her two calico cats.
Andelena peers at her husband a moment longer, nodding gently. "You did the work of Daeus, baby," she says. "Justice. It goes where people need it to go. Armor needs repair work, though--how much?" It's said a little cautiously. If it was just a little dent here and there, he might have worn it home. If it was left right at her forge...
Dolan bursts into good-natured laughter and sets aside both of his weapon belts, the serious mood immediately shattered into a million pieces by Spot's abrupt appearance. "You little monster," he tells her, finally seating himself, taking the ladle and serving himself his own share of piping hot stew. "Well, you wait a minute, and you'll get your share." He does this all the time - he doesn't seem to be able to resist the Precious Moments eyes that Spot and Patches are so good at giving him.
"There's no rush on the armor, baby," he answers uncomfortably. "You do it when you've got time. This comes first, yeah?" Having finished serving himself, he dips bread into stew and takes a bite. "Mmmmph. This is really good. It's not from the Temple kitchen, I'll have to find this again."
"It'll be a priority, babe--armor's what keeps you safe and coming back home to me and our little monsters." Andelena has that tone in her voice like she's catching onto what Dolan's leaving unsaid, but she knows better than to push him on subjects that make him look like he's being haunted. "Don't you worry. I'm not, and won't be, mad at you, just mad at whatever had the balls to try and hurt you."
Andelena offers a little snort then as she adds, "Well, big balls and tiny pecker. But yeah, babe, this is good. Did you get it from a stall or something? I haven't been at the Fernwood in a hot minute, but I don't recognize this off their menu."
Spot chooses to remind Dolan of their pact. She slinks up to his leg and rubs against him. Another common cat-tactic. Pleading eyes, slinking in between and against legs--Patches and Spot know what they're doing. Thankfully for their cat-father, Patches appears to be snoozing somewhere else and is missing the Promised Chicken Stew.
"I'm not going anywhere for a fortnight or two, baby, don't you worry." Dolan's still eating, but sets down his hunk of bread into the stew and looks over the side of his chair when Spot starts rubbing up against him. "Come here." He sits back and pats his lap, then grabs his bread and takes a bite from it while he waits for her to accept what is clearly an invitation. "These little shits are deserving of everyone's wrath, baby. We never did find out why they did that, though. It seems - beyond the pale."
He snorts at the mention of big balls and tiny peckers. "A smaller place on the edge of the Temple District," he explains. "Closer to the festival grounds, really. Not much more than a shack, but a lovely couple." He takes another bite of the stew-soaked bread. "They flayed her skin off of her and nailed it to the underside of the gallows so she couldn't be released. Why would anyone do that?"
Spot takes the bait. The cat hops up into Dolan's lap and, in a touch of the dramatic (as befitting a magnificent tricolor beast like herself), she throws herself against Dolan's torso, loving on him. The sight gets a grin cracking on Andelena's face.
That expression quickly falls when Dolan elaborates on what he'd seen, what he'd encountered. Andelena stills at the mention of flayed-off flesh. She'd been eating bites here and there, and while she's a seasoned enough adventurer to have seen some things--men covered in bacon grease and all--there's still some things that make her pause in eating. That's one of them.
"Some people," Andelena says, a little anger simmering in her voice, "are fuckin' evil. Or they're taken in by the words of someone evil and do some evil shit that they wouldn't do normally. Sometimes it ain't demons, devils, fiends--sometimes, every now and then, you just meet people who are... fucked up beyond belief. I don't understand it either, but that's what separates us from the fucked up folks."
"Sorry, baby. Shouldn't have mentioned that while we're eating." Bread in one hand, Dolan drops the spoon in his other hand into his bowl to pet the lovey furbean butting up against him. He coos down at Spot, stroking head and shoulders. "This lot were an evil bunch, though. The ghost got them all, one by one, but nobody knew what happened to her. S'pose we've laid her to rest, though. Damned good thing. She weren't evil, but there was sure as shit some evil in that hall."
The bread joins the spoon in his bowl as Spot's persistence takes precedence. "Miss me, did you?" he grins down at her.
"Hey, I'm talking about peckers and balls, you get to talk about what happened," Andelena comments with a small smile. "Not like we're having dinner with the Princess or some shit. Just you, me, and apparently Spot." She takes another bite of her stew, watching Spot love on Dolan and watching Dolan love on a cat that he insisted wasn't his cat.
Joke's on him. He married Andelena, that makes Andelena's cats his cats.
"You laid her to rest and did her the Knight's justice that she clearly didn't receive in life," Andelena says gently. "That's what Daeus asks us to do as His servants. Wish I could have gone with you, but both of us being away from the girls for a week--and not moving into that damn fine new house we got--would have been a dumb move."
She looks at Spot again. "Look at her. She's a total daddy's girl. Yeah, both the cats missed you. They've been curled up on your side of the bed together every night."
Dolan looks up, still stroking a very lovey Spot who quite simply does not want to stand still at all. "Baby, the day you aren't talking about peckers and balls is the day I know something's really wrong, yeah?" That cheeky, lopsided grin suffuses the mobile half of his face and tugs at the scars. "Glad that's done, though. That poor girl. And all for being different. Unfortunately, in the small villages, that's just how it is. People as is born different don't stay, because they can't. That's no life to live, trying to fit in when you don't. His grace see her to a better place." He sighs.
Then, he looks down at Spot. "You're a scamp," he tells her. "I still say they're your cats." It's a halfhearted protest, though. "Do I need to get the bed and the table moved, or will the folk you've hired be doing that? I ain't supposed to carry much, but I can help take it apart."
"They're our cats, babe, and you're gonna have to deal with it until we have kids that look like you and me scampering around," Andelena answers with a wicked little grin of her own. "If they're anything like me, though, they're gonna ask you why you keep pretending they're not your cats."
Spot doesn't have much of a response to being informed of her profession (one of many) beyond purring and continuing to love on him. Andelena snickers a little, before she looks more thoughtful. "There's something to be said for the simple life of a small village," she says, "but I'd rather our kids live somewhere that's understanding. Not that you and me are like some of our friends with fancy bloodlines an' shit, but--I feel like there's somewhere we can raise them that isn't a fancy-ass mansion and somewhere that isn't a village of people ready to kill someone for something that ain't even a crime."
She shakes her head a little before she adds, "Nah, the movers'll get the bed and table. I just held off on getting them moved until I had everything packed--and as you can see, I ain't there yet." There's a wry little smile on her face. They both know exactly how successful she is at packing.
"Let's hope they're more like me than like you, then." Dolan's grinning too, the unspoken mischief mingling with affection and acknowledgement of her success levels at packing written into the gleam in his lone brown eye. "Now I can surely help with packing, and I promise not to pack the cats. Let's see if I can't get us into that gorgeous new house in a day or two, yeah?"
He peers down at the furry little scamp in his lap. "Spot, I need to finish my supper." He fishes a chunk of chicken from his stew with his hand, and tears it into smaller pieces, then makes sure she sees it before setting the pieces on the table next to his plate, far enough away that she'll have to vacate his lap to eat.
Once again, Spot takes the bait. The calico glides in a smooth little leap from Dolan's lap to the table and goes to secure her treat before her benevolent cat-father can steal it away from her. This frees Dolan to finish his food in peace.
For the moment.
"Well, you'll be giving them more practical education than I sure as shit ever got," Andelena replies with an affectionate sort of huff, grinning at him. "Hey, if you're up for it once we're done eating, we can get one last tumble in this apartment before we say goodbye to it--and all of our neighbor complaints--forever." That's a blissful thought indeed.
Dolan takes that opportunity, eating as only a farmboy can while Spot is consuming her prize. He does so mostly in silence, mopping up the last of the stew with the last of the bread. Clearly he's been eating road food for several days, and he hasn't eaten much today, from the attention he gives to his food.
Finally, he tosses the spoon into the bowl, and his grin turns wicked. "I haven't properly informed you of just how much I've missed you. I really ought to do that, once we're done here."
Andelena's grin turns just as wicked as Dolan's, and she hastily finishes what's left in her bowl. "Yeah, you really ought to, because I missed you too, babe," she replies. "Let me go kick out Patches."
Or she tries, anyway. The moment she goes to stand and walk to the bedroom door, Spot thinks surely, there must be treats that cat-mother is hiding and is going to go get. Which is why Spot follows Andelena into the bedroom as she goes to evict Patches from the bed--and then has to evict Spot from the bedroom, too.
But the Daeusites get to have their fun. They always do.