[OPEN]Its a cat thing.

[Kumo Perry]

A soft meow escaped her maw as she crouched, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, facing a stray cat. Kumo came here often, the little tabby always lurking around the place. After the second or third day of passing the animal by she had started to buy food for him. Then after that, maybe one or two days after, she gave him a name. “Splodge.” Was the best thing she could come up with, but in some strange way, it suited him. Kumo ducked her head down a little, resting it on her knee’s as she watched with awe. Above everything else, Kumo loved cats. She loved how free they were, and how even in the toughest of situations, when all hope seemed to have abandoned them, they could look on the world with a steadfast gaze.

‘Splodge’ yawned quietly, and a thrill ran down Kumo’s spine. So cute~ she thought to herself, inching ever so slightly closer. She was hoping that one of these times the tabby would allow her to sit with him, and maybe allow her to stroke him. She wanted to take him in, or at least take him to the rescue she worked at; he looked so skinny, and his fur was so thin...

Kumo shook her head, no time for depressing thoughts! And really... She should be getting home. She turned her head to the side, looking up the path that would eventually lead to her little cottage. Something tickled her hand and, looking back round, she noticed that ‘Splodge’ had risked coming close enough to sniff her hand. Slowly, Kumo opened out her fist, showing the tabby the palm of her hand. A rough tongue licked it once then, after decided she had no food, rubbed the side of his head against it. Kumo resisted the urge to squeal in excitement. ‘Splodge’ was letting her touched him! Oh, how she wanted to bounce up and down.

Truly, she was happy. And after a long, boring day at school, that really was something. Kumo could now officially call ‘Splodge’ her friend~

A chill wind rushed past the two of them, ‘Splodge’ taking fright of some strange scent being carried on the wind- Kumo assumed. She was almost certain it hadn’t been her. Shivering, Kumo fished around her bag, and shortly removed a favourite hat- it was her kitty hat; the garment had ears, eyes, a nose and a mouth sow onto it. She found it in the shop and thought it simply adorable and so obviously had to buy it. She slipped it onto her head, rearranged strands of her blue/black hair and stood, turning and facing the direction she should be heading down. Although she didn’t move, her gaze kept returning to the spot where ‘Splodge’ had been, she was hoping he would come back but she knew that once a stray cat took fright the chances of them coming back immediately after were slim. She would just have to return tomorrow...

[DARIUS BLACKTHORN]

The day had been a boring one so far, at least in the eyes of Darius Blackthorn. The young man simply couldn't sit still long enough to enjoy things around him - that was, of course, unless he was napping the day away. As usual, he took off at random, pulling only a thin little coat over his back to make walking through the streets just a bit easier. It wasn't that he was trying to hide his wings, in fact he frequently showed them off by making a scene and flying away. No, he simply didn't want them getting in the way as they tended to do. Navigating busy streets was tough enough without the two extra and very fragile limbs. He couldn't risk getting jostled enough to break one of his wings, so he just tucked them away to be on the safe side.

As he walked the streets, he ended up in what appeared to be a park. Of course he had frequented the parks often as he loved the spaciousness of the fields that were usually surrounded by various trees. At the moment, there didn't seem to be many people here, but he did catch a glimpse of a younger girl with a cat. Of course his first thought was that she was a fellow shifter - one of the genus amicus. However since the cat made a break for the closest bush when it noticed his approach, he was proven wrong. If she was an amicus shifter then the cat would have gone on the defensive. He couldn't help but let out a bit of a scoff at the thought. It really was difficult to tell the amicus and solidus from normal people - unlike the medius such as himself.

"Cats are pretty skiddish don't you think?" he said more than asked. He didn't know if it was the avian blood in him or not, but he didn't feel like he could ever like a cat. Sure he could put up with them if he had to, and the shifters who had cat DNA were also fairly tolerable, but there was just something about your average everyday house cat that just made his hair and feathers stand on end. The human in him told him not to be afraid, but it was just one of those sixth senses that he simply couldn't help.

(note: he looks like he could be about 15 or 16 but is actually 22 )

[Kumo Perry]

Having a cat run away from her was an average day occurrence when they were strays. After all, it was to be expected; though that didn’t mean she particularly liked it either. Kumo let out a small sigh, her eyes closing for a brief moment. Her hands found their way to her bag, the black messenger’s bag decorated with a number of different badges. Having removed her phone she checked the time. 16:56. She was meant to be home by 5 at the latest, but she really couldn’t bring herself to move. She was sorely tempted to searched for the tabby. ‘Splodge’ had let her stroke him and she was determined to pick him up and take him away from the lonely, tough streets.

It was when she was about to move forwards that she finally caught the figure of a man in the corner of her vision. Kumo jumped, hands grasping the strap of her bag out of nervous habit. She wasn’t sure when he had gotten there, and Kumo was slightly disturbed that she had been so lost in her own crazy thoughts to not have noticed him. Things like that could get her in trouble- or something. It really wasn’t worth thinking about, and to be honest scared her to think of things that happened to unaware people who were on their own in a deserted area. A shiver ran the length of her spine as she finally pulled herself together. She was just overreacting like she always did.

If her heart could hammer any harder against her chest, it did. He had spoken to her, out of the blue. Had he really been there long enough to see her with the cat? Creepy. Kumo turned her blue gaze to meet his emerald one. He was relatively good-looking, but she couldn’t pin-point his age- not that she had ever been good at that sort of thing before. But he did look younger than what his eyes seemed to portrait. “Ah-“ She paused, should she really talk to him? But he didn’t seem like the nasty type. Kumo mentally shrugged, bucking up her courage and taking a slightly deeper breath in. “Y-yeah.” Her eyes flicked back to the bushes ‘Splodge’ had just recently run into out of the hope that he might come running back. “Can’t really blame him though.” She risked a smile, her attention now turning back to the male.

((( Yay! A reply! (: Thought I was never going to get one for this thread x3 *flop* )))

[DARIUS BLACKTHORN]

Darius found the girl's reaction to his presence somewhat amusing. She definitely showed that she was younger by her shaky physical reactions and the stuttering in her voice. The young man knew that he appeared intimidating, even with his short stature of just over 5 feet tall. His height didn't seem to matter, but it was the way he held himself and his general appearance. Since he didn't really have a steady home, this came out in his appearance. His clothes may not have been in the best shape, but they weren't filthy or anything. All in all he still held the appearance of what one could consider a hoodlum, which was only half true as he was the leader of a gang of shifters.

"I didn't mean to startle you." he said, returning the girl's smile in his best attempt to be chivalrous. "Was just by chance that I happened by." He wasn't lying either, as opposed to most of the time when he talked to the normal civilians. Granted, that might change as the conversation went on, though only if the conversation continued. For now, he was simply a young man out for a stroll in the early evening, and he just so happened to come across a teenager who was trying to befriend a stray cat.

"It's not the best idea to be walking alone, especially in a park." he said after staying quiet for a bit. His presence itself was unintentionally creepy, though that was from a combination of his aforementioned physical appearance as well as his poor choice in conversation. "There are too few people around, and too many hiding places." Just like with the rest of his decisions, he may have started out with good intentions, but he executed them poorly. The result was him sounding like he was up to something rather than giving a friendly warning.

[Kumo Perry]

Kumo avoided making any eye contact with the boy in front of her, looking anywhere other than in front. Sub-consciously she ran her fingers under her fringe, moving stray strands of hair from her eyes. Despite always telling herself not to judge other people by how they looked she couldn’t help but be weary and frightful of the boy- given the circumstances. This was the exact situation in movies were people ended up running for their lives. It was terrifying the way she was thinking about it, but Kumo did her best to give anything away. It was pointless to show just how fearful she was because he could turn out to be someone really nice and then he would be offended that she had jump to such a dramatic conclusion.

“I-It’s okay!” She waved her hands around in dismissal. “Its a park. People are gonna walk past.” Which was true. It was just something about the time of day that made it seem spooky. God... Kumo got ridiculously freaked by the tiniest things- such as conversation with a stranger with the sun setting behind her and no one else around.... She took a deep breath in through her nose. She was being really stupid.

Kumo couldn’t help but think the conversation was just flat out creepy. “I-I know.” She glanced over her shoulder. She could only see one or two more people besides herself and this boy. “Really I should have been home by now...” She just got side-tracked by the adorable stray cat just now~ To cute...

[DARIUS BLACKTHORN]

The awkwardness of the situation was growing thicker by the moment. Clearly this girl was the more introverted type that was shy when meeting people for the first time and talking with strangers. A more extroverted girl would have picked up some topic to be able to keep him from walking off. Of course the reason he knew this was because he had experienced such an individual before for one, and because he had given a few subtle hints at trying to spark a conversation on his own, none of which she had grasped and run with.

A smart man may have kept going and trying to find a topic of conversation until he found what she would latch onto, but a wise man such as Darius chose to give up while he was ahead. "Well then you'd best be off before the sun completely sets then haven't you?" he replied to her last comment, even if she had been talking more to herself than to him. With a brief and courteous smile, he gave the girl a bit of a wave that looked more like a salute than a wave since it was nothing more than a single wave of his hand with his two first fingers.

Even though he didn't know the girl, a part of him felt as though he should at least tail her home to make sure she didn't run into someone with ill intentions. After all, it really was getting fairly late, there really were those types of creepers around, and Darius would kick himself if he looked in tomorrow's paper to find that familiar face missing. Then again, he did have friends who were better at tracking than even the best police scent hounds. Chuckling at the thought of a rescue mission for a moment, he then sighed as he continue to walk to the other end of the park. He was still debating whether or not to tail her. Either way he was going to end up in the air, and he didn't exactly want to just spread his wings in the middle of the park.