OOM: Christmas dinner with Pyrrha and Egil

[ostro_goth]

[[Ctd. from here.]]

Teja opens the door, laden as he is.

His usually comfortable, creatively untidy room is still that -- there is even Ferdinand the cat, sprawling all over Teja's bed, fast asleep. There are simply two new doors, one of them leading to a kitchen that provides all the modern comforts and appliances as well as a space to comfortably sit and eat, the other leading to Egil's room in Loki's apartment on the 12th floor.

One better should not think about how that works.

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"Perhaps we should open these presents first, then," Teja says.

[scarred_grin]

"Right there," she says nodding toward the pile. "The ones in the paper. Egil's aren't wrapped."

One is about the size and shape of two DVDs bundled together, probably because it is. The other is a little bigger and heavier, a shallow wooden box of some kind.

"He can open his after dessert. Or we can open them for him. They're clothes and a blanket."

[ostro_goth]

Teja takes the one in the paper, and unwraps the DVDs.

[scarred_grin]

Hey, look at that.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch--in her world, a documentary--and Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, which continues to be fiction.

Loki's spending most of his time watching TV these days. He appreciates the value of movie night plus cuddling.

[ostro_goth]

"I have met her, here!" Teja says, looking at the first DVD box in amazement. "She used to come, a long time ago. Had I not known her, I would not have learned many important things."

[scarred_grin]

"You were saying," she says with a grin. "I love her art, and she can really sing. Andi and her band do one of her songs."

[ostro_goth]

"So now, we can see what she is like in her world," Teja nods.

[scarred_grin]

"I already know every word by heart," she says. "You're in for a treat--I hope it won't change your opinion of her too much. It's not always a pretty story, but then again, whose is?"

[ostro_goth]

"I know that mine is not," Teja says, nodding.

[scarred_grin]

"Yeah."

She catches Egil's cup before it can fall off the edge of the tray, and hands it back to him. Apparently foster-mothers develop mother-superpowers too.

[ostro_goth]

Teja slowly reaches for the wooden box, and opens that, too.

[scarred_grin]

It's velvet-lined, because of course it is, and it holds two pairs of collars, two red and two black.

The collars all have a little silver tag on them. One in each color has a tag shaped like a cat, and the other two have a tag shaped like a crescent moon.

There is also a note, in Loki's handwriting:

Have fun with these, you two. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.
-L

[ostro_goth]

Teja looks at them, and then laughs in amazement.

"Cat-shape, and wolf-shape, whenever we would wish for it!" he says.

Pause.

"We will likely not even do all the things he would, and he knows that."

[scarred_grin]

"Cat-shape and gender-swap," she says. "He says he could get us fox too, when Egil can change on his own, but cats smell better than foxes, and you're not really a redhead."

Not that she is either, unless you count crayon-red.

"He also says he's probably already done all the things we're likely to do, and there's very little he wouldn't."

[ostro_goth]

Teja nods at that. "I don't know if I ever told you, or him, about the time when I was a centaur, and Tonio a siren -- it was the first Cubefall in this place, I believe...."

Pause.

"How do we get the collars off again, if we are both cat-shaped at the time?"

[scarred_grin]

"He says--really? He says he asked Santa for a centaur this Christmas and didn't get any, and maybe he was just focused on the wrong holiday."

Oh, Loki.

"We can take them off each other, or find a non-judgmental person to take them off for us. Whatever clothes we had on when we put the collars on come back when we take them off. That's good to know."

[ostro_goth]

"So we can change in the bar, if the person we wish to find is there," Teja says.

Pause.

"Maybe I will be offered centaur-shape again next Cubefall," Teja says. "It was the mythical creature on my list a few times."

[scarred_grin]

"I really don't think you want to be his centaur."

Not with the mental image she's getting.

"He says they're like other cat collars, made to come open if they're pulled on pretty hard--like if a cat falls out of a tree but the collar gets caught on a branch and it's hanging there, it'll come open so the cat doesn't get hurt. It's like that."

[ostro_goth]

"So we can rip them off, if we do need to," Teja nods.

[scarred_grin]

"He wouldn't want us to be trapped and unable to free ourselves," she says. "I wouldn't want that either. This way, we're safe."

[ostro_goth]

"That is good to know," Teja says. "We must try them soon: - hunting demonic rabbits in the snow, in the moonlight..."

He remembers doing that, with Yrael and his cats.

[scarred_grin]

"I'm not really a hunting kind of person," she says, picking one of the collars up.

But she can't resist putting it on.

She still has her stripe, as a cat. Egil leans forward to see over the edge of the tray, and laughs.

[ostro_goth]

"Oh, Pyrrha!" Teja says, holding out his hand for her to touch him, as a cat would.

[scarred_grin]

This feels weird.

Not just the sudden change in size and shape and position--the senses and coordination take some getting used to also.

Disoriented Pyrrha!cat, looking up at him.

[ostro_goth]

"Do you want me to take it off again?" Teja offers, touching her fur as he bends down.