Puss in Boots

[Chota Vana]

((NOT mature, believe it or not. XD It's also open for anyone to join. =3 ))


The town square was bustling in the afternoon. Hordes of citizens pushed and shoved to get to merchants, whose stalls were open all around. Some stalls had such great deals that people were being crushed and trampled just so that others could get to the merchandise. It was fortunate for Chota that in his feline form he was small enough not to be noticed and agile enough not to be stepped upon. Not that a few hadn't tried, of course.
No respect, these humans. One or two had even tried to kick him aside in their rush! But Chota could forgive them, for after all, they did build plenty of nooks and crannies for little cats to perch in. They made great vantage points, especially if one was looking for something very specific in a mess of people milling about. Chota sat now in one of these vantage points, ears forward and whiskers spread. Now where had he left his clothing?
That was the trouble with not touching things with blood. Chota always regretted it, and yet he never changed his ways. He wouldn't have this problem on that particular day, either, except that he had forgotten that he bought drinks the previous night-- just enough to get some townsfolk tipsy so they'd loosen their tongues. He was broke. Broke and hungry.
And then that cute little family walked past, with the little girl who looked quite like an animal lover. Of course she was... All Chota had to do to win her over was switch into his little feline form and play the hungry stray act. The key words were 'Can we keep him?' And once they had left the little girl's mouth, Chota had become 'Mr. Snuggles' for the past hour or two.
So under that new alias, he was given a full meal of leftover mutton and set loose in the house, and all he had to do was sneak out. But the thing about cats is that they don't have thumbs. Doorknobs are tricky without thumbs, you know. So Chota had to switch back to human form to open the front door of the family's house.
It wouldn't be that easy, though, for Chota, because the mother of that little girl that so begged for the little kitty to come home happened to come into the foyer at the time, and seeing a strange man wearing nothing but boots in one's foyer is rather traumatic, of course. Would it have been better if he wasn’t wearing his boots? Maybe. Still, that woman’s shriek caused him to whirl around to face her (which, of course, was a mistake), and he had to struggle with the door while nakedly dodging pots and pans and very breakable glassware. But as soon as that door was open-- consequences be damned-- he was a cat again, and he ran like he had never run before.
So now he was a tiny cat, for he couldn’t turn into a naked man in front of this huge crowd, looking for one pile of clothing in a big area of town. Had it been a tavern that he had transformed in? A back yard? A conveniently open house? Oh, that’s right! It was the alley at the other side of the square! It was just getting there now...
He leapt from the edge he had found to perch upon, his claws scraping against the cobblestones as he landed. Ahead of him lay a forest of flailing feet, but he remained undaunted by the task he had ahead of him. Spotting an opening, he made a mad dash for it and slipped through, only to trip up a man with a heavy crate at the other side of the crowd. Yowling as he was trodden upon, his tail fluffed a bit and he scrambled away, the unkind words of the angry man echoing across the square behind him.
The man had become obsolete, though, for there ahead he had spotted the broken barrel where he could recall stashing his clothes. He skidded to a halt in the shadows of the alley and dug out the leggings first. Making certain no one could see him, he slipped to human form and pulled the leggings on, relieved that he was now safe from judgment. Next thing was his tunic, but... What was this?! Was that... urine? Had something PEED on his clothing?! His sensitive nose picked up the scent of rats and dirty water. The filthy beasts!
...Oh, well. It was a relatively small amount and, though it was on white cloth, it shouldn’t be noticed. If he was still in cat form, though, his ears would have fallen back. He reluctantly pulled on the tunic, gagging a little as his face passed through the article of clothing, and belted it at his waist. Now he needed new clothes. He had a reason to look for money, but who could he beg it out of..? Slipping from the alley, he looked around for a susceptible victim.

((Okay, turned out lamer than I would have liked. I'll get better as we go, I promise. XD ))

[Elliot Siva]

Elliot didn’t actually like shopping, but, like many other werecats, he happened to like gold and other such shiny trinkets, and so he slipped through the crowd, keeping his ears open for anything that caught his interest. Yesterday had been a good day, business-wise; he had some extra coin to spare and, more importantly, time to kill. At the very least, he could head towards the Boar and get a drink.

On that train of thought, Elliot brushed past the various shoppers and towards an alley, hoping to find a shortcut, a less-traveled route, or, at the very least, somewhere he could stop and figure out how far through the square he was. He succeeded in finding a dim little side-way, but it wasn’t entirely empty; a ratty little fellow had found it first (although, by the looks of it, he was just about ready to leave). Elliot wrinkled his nose; the stranger smelled like the faintest twinge of werecat, just enough to make you uncertain, but he also smelled like something a little more foul.

“...Hello,” he said, eyeing the fellow warily. Curious, he leaned around to stare at the alley over the stranger’s shoulder. “...Is this a bad alley to walk down or do you always smell a bit odd?”

[Chota Vana]

Chota found himself whirling to face someone yet again that day, and it was yet again because he hadn't expected to be spotted. And just after he had been in an alley buck-naked... Chota silently thanked his lucky stars this guy hadn't come across the alley any sooner. He hesitated as the man of relative height posed a rather sarcastic question. Then again, if he smelled like a dirty bum, perhaps he could write himself off as one and get some money from this guy. He managed to hide the small smile that had crossed his face, replacing it was a sad, shaky frown and a furrowed brow.
"No, no, it's perfectly safe. Just me and the rats back here," he said in a hushed tone, his accent shining through purposefully as if it would help his cause. “Any reason you’re asking, kind stranger?” he asked, tilting his head ever-so-slightly for a more helpless look on his own part. His nose filled with the horrid scent of rats and their waste, he hadn’t noticed the familiar undertone of werecat on this stranger. If he had, he might have worked this differently...

((Sorry, short. XD ))

[Elliot Siva]

((Bah. That's not short, that's fine. XP ))

Elliot rolled his eyes, holding back a groan. You didn’t assume a stranger to be a ‘kind stranger’ unless you wanted something from him. He wasn’t completely heartless, but Elliot lived by chivalry, and it didn’t apply to men, who were perfectly capable of finding work by whatever means possible.

He opened his mouth to shoo away the beggar, then paused. That faint, faint twinge of the forest, a werecat’s scent, tickled his nose again. He considered the man again, this time leaning forward and pretending to assess the poor fellow worthy of attention or not. Using that as a guise, he also did a quick scent-check. By smell, definitely a werecat. A werecat with a spot of rat piss on his tunic, but a werecat nonetheless. Well, that merited a little pity, at least.

He sighed, casting his gaze back down the alley. “Rats aren’t bad,” he muttered. (True; maggots were worse.) Cautiously, he slid his eyes back to the beggar. “I’m hoping to avoid the crowds. It’s a mite packed out here.” He hesitated a moment more, then retrieved a coin from his pouch and tossed it to the stranger. “If I were you,” he added, “I’d stay away from the rats. They don’t seem to be leaving you the right kind of gifts.”

[Chota Vana]

((Well, it looked shorter before I posted it. XD It's not bad now it's posted.))

Chota found himself leaning back a bit as this stranger leaned forward. Still, as much as it weirded him out, it seemed to instill some compassion in the man. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that the rats had gotten to his tunic... Chota couldn’t help but grin as he caught the coin in mid-air out of reflex. Score!
He would have scurried off right then and there if it weren’t for a few words from the generous stranger. Chota hesitated, nodding slowly and skeptically. “I suppose not,” he agreed, if only to speed this conversation up. “It’s a wiser idea to cut through the alleys, in spite of the little beasts.”
And again, he made a motion to leave, but once more, the man opened his mouth and Chota found himself facing him again. He was, at first, inclined to be mad at the sarcastic remark. Chota wasn’t the kind to have more than small flare-ups of temper, though, and that initial anger faded, leaving him unable to do anything but chuckle. “Must be they don’t like—“ He paused, catching himself before revealing his species, though what he didn’t realize was that he had already been found out. “—bowyers,” he finished almost seamlessly, not letting his expression change.
True, he was a bowyer. He looked to the stranger, a begrudging look now on his face. True as it was, Chota wasn’t in the mood to work his trade. He supposed he would if the man asked, only because he felt he owed him something for the little donation, but he wouldn’t like it, by God. Attempting to quickly change the subject, he glanced at the alley, then over at the crowd, then back to the stranger. “Give me a chance to get changed out of this tunic and I’ll show you a better way of avoiding crowds,” he finally said. Well, admittedly guiding this guy to his destination was better than having to make a bow or a quiver of arrows, but... Only just better. Chota frowned with regret.

[Elliot Siva]

Well, the little cat was happy, the alley was, agreeably, an effective way to avoid the hustle-bustle of the market, and everything worked out all right. Granted, the beggar still smelled like rat piss and he couldn’t be a very skilled bowyer if he had to resort to begging, but those were his problems.

Elliot bit back a bitter comment on how a good bowyer wouldn’t need to work out of an alley, and instead nodded. (He’d put the rats’ anger down to the smell of cat rather than the smell of bowyer.) Then it was his turn to move and stop, interrupted by the stranger. At the offer, he glanced up to the sun; it was still high in the sky, leaving plenty of afternoon to waste. He could spare some time for the cat’s trick. “Sure,” he said.

[Chota Vana]

Chota managed not to let his face show his disappointment at that one little word. Why couldn’t this be a modest stranger who needed no help and wanted nothing from him? He offered it, though, he supposed. “Wait here, then,” he said, making sure he didn’t sound as begrudging as he felt. And h turned toward the market stalls, eyes scanning for one with tunics.
Pressing through the swaying crowd, Chota reached the clothing stall in time to get the very last white tunic off of the merchant, paying with his recent donation from the stranger he was obligated to return to. Then again, he could just leave and hideaway in the Dragon’s Keep until he was sure he wasn’t being looked for... But he couldn’t bring himself to it. Sometimes he hated his conscience. He found a rather secretive place to change behind a few of the stalls, then used the unclean tunic to shoo away the crowd as he walked through.
When he reached where the stranger stood still, he tossed the shirt back into the broken barrel (adding a bit of spit to it, which he hoped the stranger wouldn’t notice), wrinkling his nose as it landed. “There. Keep it, you pests,” he muttered before once more addressing the stranger.
He felt as though he looked a bit better. His leggings had avoided the revenge of the rats and his new, crisp white tunic practically glowed in the sunlight of the square. He had fixed his leggings to lie flat and vanish beneath the rims of his boots, and now they perfectly showed the muscles in his legs without making themselves too conspicuous. And his nose wasn’t filled with ammonia-ridden rat waste, so his mood had lightened a bit. He supposed that called for a bit of an introduction.
As he reached his hand out to shake with the stranger, he couldn’t help but notice that faint trace of werecat that (unbeknownst to Chota) had already been noticed on himself by this stranger. Not so strange after all, eh? Good at hiding his revelations, though, Chota didn’t falter. He was going to use an alias before. Now he knew he was in the presence of his own kind, though... “My name is Chota Vana. Thank you for buying my new tunic,” he said, waiting expectantly for the fellow werecat to shake his hand as humans often did in greeting.

[Elliot Siva]

Almost immediately, the beggar dashed off. Elliot rolled his eyes; there was at least a fifty percent chance he wouldn’t be seeing that poor fellow again. But for an estimated fifty percent, he could spare a few minutes to wait. He leaned against the wall and people-watched.

Time passed, as it inevitably does. Just as he was about to stroll onwards, the unexpected surprised him, and the little cat scurried back and tossed his dreary off-white tunic into a barrel. (He must not have been too poor of a beggar; otherwise, he would have bought food.) “You’re welcome,” Elliot replied, albeit reluctantly. “A darker color might have been better, though. Especially if you frequent shady alleys.” Not to mention the pure white was annoyingly bright on a sunny day like today...

At the subject of names, Elliot paused to think a moment. He could share his less-used first name with the fellow werecat as a small sign of trust, but he didn’t want to walk around town answering to ‘Elu.’ He hadn’t gone by that in a while. “Elu Siva. Call me Elliot,” he said, returning the introduction and the handshake.

[Chota Vana]

“Really?” Chota replied to the fellow werecat’s comment on the tunic’s color. He hadn’t really thought of that, though he supposed it was because he was good at blending in without camouflage. Plus, he liked how white clashed with his relatively dark human-form skin. He managed a smile, looking down at his arms to see that clash in action. Just as dapper as ever! He wouldn’t let himself look too vain, though.
“To tell you the truth, I spend more time in taverns than alleyways,” he concluded, hoping that wouldn’t make him look like a drunk. Crap. Probably already did. His expression still unfaltering, he shook the man’s hand and listened as he introduced himself. Odd... His nickname was longer than his real name... Chota wondered briefly if this Elliot fellow had chosen to disguise himself with a fake name as Chota, himself, had planned to do. But, to each his own.
His smile grew, if only just a tiny bit. “Good to meet you, Elliot Siva,” he replied, withdrawing his hand. “So, Elliot, where is it you need to go?” he asked, his hands gracefully landing on his hips while his chest puffed out. Short as Chota was, he was still sure he looked impressive like that. He was like the knowledgeable ranger, guiding the helpless through the urban wilderness. At least that’s how he justified to himself not ditching Elliot when he had the chance.

[Elliot Siva]

Oh, a drinking beggar. That rather explained how a bowyer ended up in a dark alley with more rats than he had coins. Sadly, judging by the other werecat’s smile, the fashion suggestion had gone overlooked. What a shame; he could’ve saved a little coin on clothes and worked on looking a little less scrawny.

Ignoring Chota’s little burst of hubris, Elliot focused on the actual question. Shopping was a bore, so he might as well skip right to heading out for a drink. “I suppose we could both be happy going to a tavern,” he mused. Cados had two pubs, but it wasn’t tough for Elliot to choose. “The Stubborn Boar, then.” Now to let Chota do...whatever it was that he planned to use to get through the crowd.

[Chota Vana]

Chota nodded quickly, turning to look around. “The Stubborn Boar... That’s on the north end of town, right? ...Or the east...” he muttered more to himself than to Elliot. All the better to lose confidence, he thought sarcastically, though he supposed it would be fun to not have any trust from the fellow werecat and prove himself the more reliable for it. He stifled a laugh. “No, I remember now,” he managed, and he turned and began to lead the way toward a different alley.
Not as shadowy or damp, this particular alley was more often used by the townsfolk than the one Chota had stashed his clothes in earlier that day. But it wasn’t the alley he was terribly interested in. It was what was piled within the alley. “You’re pretty good at jumping wide gaps, right?” he asked absently, waving a hand over his shoulder at Elliot. He didn’t wait for the answer. Instead, he climbed onto a rather large pile of crates, which wobbled dangerously as he got his footing on top, then leapt to an old hanging shop sign, which was within a yard of the crates. He balanced himself on his feet on the bar that held the sign up, holding his hands out to his sides as he turned to look at Elliot.
“I can coach you if you’d like,” he called, ignoring the watching eyes of the few people in that particular alleyway. They were probably only there to head for the shop whose sign Chota was perched atop, anyway. And speaking of, he was beginning to lose his balance, so he sprang on all-fours to the nearby rooftop of the shop. From there he peered over the edge, waiting for Elliot to either answer him or begin the short climb up.

((So, uh, Chota's maybe slightly insane... XD ))

[Elliot Siva]

...Oh, hell, Chota was insane.

He had thought about leaving when the boy seemed lost, but put his confidence in the following reassurance. Really, he should have been suspicious of the ‘wide gaps’ the other werecat brought up at the next, yet he had stupidly assumed Chota meant something simple, like a large puddle or a torn-up chunk in the ground.

But no. Chota Vana believed that the best way to avoid crowds was to combine travel with street-performance and use the roof. Elliot glanced among the few groups within the alley, then shrugged. No one he knew well enough to care about. He bounded up the stack of crates and hopped to the sign immediately, minimizing the stack’s wobble time and joining Chota on the roof. Sighing, he motioned for the bowyer to lead the way. “Just so you know,” he muttered, “this isn’t exactly what I’d hoped for when I wanted to escape the street crowd.”

[Chota Vana]

Sure, he normally did this in cat form. Sure, they might get in trouble with the law for climbing around up there. Sure, Elliot spoke his misgivings, but Chota knew just what he was doing. He was just as agile in human form as in cat form—or so he thought—and he could cross the rooftops like nothing. After all, he knew Cados like the backs of his hands, especially from up here. In fact, there was a mole on the north end and some scars to the south and east that he could already see from this vantage point. Okay, he was joking with himself.
He managed a short grin back at Elliot, then dashed forward and leapt to the next rooftop, just managing to catch the edge with his hands and chin. That might’ve hurt a little, but he wouldn’t admit it. “Get a good running start now,” he called back to Elliot as he dragged himself onto the next roof. And when he had gotten his rear up over the edge, he sat there and smiled casually. If nothing else, the fellow werecat would never ask him to lead the way again.

[Elliot Siva]

Chota’s overconfidence wasn’t at all comforting. Elliot rolled his eyes, took a moment to be thankful that his job left him in good shape, and started the advised running start. A few people on the streets below murmured (and while he couldn’t see it, he knew they stared), but he tried not to think about that as he leapt off from one roof and to the other.

He didn’t share Chota’s experience, but Elliot did manage to get a sufficient grip on the next roof, and he thought quickly enough to let his feet keep the rest of him from smacking into the building itself. Climbing up was even worse; by the time he rolled completely onto the roof, he’d already earned a few new spectators below. He pushed himself to his feet, brushed away some of the dust on his clothes, and sighed. “Don’t sit around, Chota. Much as I regret it, you’re still leading,” he grumbled.

[Chota Vana]

Chota found himself craving a snack as he watched Elliot struggle. He was just impressed that this other werecat, who seemed to begrudge Chota’s choice of paths through the city, had managed to leap far enough to get a grip. Once Elliot was on the roof (finally) Chota sprang to his feet and trotted off again.
There was another gap, but it was barely more than a step, for below was just a thin, dark alley. Then, across the next roof from that, there was a particularly wide gap, which was only connected by a particularly heavy clothesline. Good enough for Chota. A devious look crossing his face, he crouched on all-fours again, then made a mad, catlike dash across the clothesline.
As confident as he was, Chota had only just made it and ended up leaping the last yard or so of distance, slamming hard against the wall at the other side. He managed not to seem sheepish as he rolled over the edge and panted there for a moment. Then, with a grin spreading across his face again, he looked over at Elliot. “That one’s trickier. I can find a better way if you’d prefer,” he said, though in a taunting tone that hinted at pathetic-ness for the other werecat if he couldn’t make it. As he waited, he rubbed his right knee, which would definitely bruise after that.