Real Estate for Mages

[Meow]

(Closed to Cinderella Man)

Feru slept in her room of the Blue Tower. It was a nice room with a bed made for a girl with veils to slightly obscure her sleeping form. She was almost perfectly still as she clutched a toy cat to her breast. Something that Kahn had dug up from his old toys, the ancient toy was still soft as ever, when he realized that Feru wanted him to sleep with her like she did to him when a true cat. What was platonic to Feru who was a cat before being turned into a cat girl, made the human magus turned cat a little uncomfortable. The old toy cat was just the solution to that problem.

Feru shifted in dream for a moment then writhed and cried out in nightmare. Some shadow of her mind was eating the cat girl alive, finding the time to laugh and taunt her. Still the catgirl slept through until claws dug into her leg. “nya?” Feru moaned weakly as she was forced from sleep, her body glistening of the sweat from her semi human side.

“Feru, get up!” Kahn hissed the order. “The tower’s under attack and I need you to get out. The sorcerer Kalin has attacked, he realized that I am unable to defend it. I need you to run away. He won’t hurt me.”

“meow but… I don’t want to leave you, maybe I can help.” Feru whined as she rose out of bed, tear of grogginess mixed with tears of sorrow.

“No you must get out, you won’t be any use of him other than a plaything. Get dressed and run, I’ll see what I can do.”

Feru nodded quietly as she quickly put on her dress while keeping her eyes on Kahn. She didn’t want to leave, it wouldn’t be hard just use the window, her room was on the floor like most apprentices. But Kahn growled. “Hurry he comes.”

Feru nodded, took her spell book and fled out the window, running and trying not to look back. Sadly she did not get away unseen, A man in the brown robe of an apprentice called after her then began chanting when he saw the catgirl running away.

Feru heard the chanting end and she looked back, a black wolf was coming after her. the man was an apprentice summoner and had summoned the odd canine. Feru put more effort into running as she weaved through the trees, her feet cracking the dry leaves on the forest floor. But no matter what she tried, the wolf was gaining. Soon Feru had her back to a tree as she found her new body wasn’t very good for climbing. “Stay back!” Feru whined before she let out a hiss and a fireball. The fire magic flew strait at the beast who did not dodge, wince and ran right into it, the only reason that the spell didn’t hit strait on was the fact that Feru’s aim was a little off but the blast sent the dog skidding to the ground and dissolving into nothing.

Feru panted as she went forward, no trace of the dog was left. But there were others out now, howling and hunting. They could smell her scent and would get close. Feru couldn’t escape like this, she had to do something.

All the kitty girl could think of was rain to wash her scent away, that’s the best she was capable of. With her writing stick she drew a circle in the mud then several symbols for water, wind, lightning and thunder. She stayed still for a second to make sure her drawing was right and it seemed right when she compared her notes. Once she was sure she bolted.

=^.^=

The spell worked alright, there was enough rain to was away most the forest’s scents but it also made a lot of mud and it covered Feru feet as she kept moving along, mewing in the discomfort her spell caused. She had so little control over it that it must have had a thunderhead over the whole region. Feru felt safe that she lost the conjured wolves. “meow, what am I going to do. My home’s gone!” The cat magus cried as she felt her tears wash away with the rain.

Feru continued further until she saw a town, there was a light of hope. Feru had thought long and hard as she slowed her pace on how she could save Kahn from the sorcerer and his goons. There was one idea but she couldn’t do it alone, she needed help.

~*~

The town was awfully quiet as Feru entered, the rain had driven everyone away but there was a tavern. The magus entered, her hair and dress clinging to her body while her mated tail swung like a heavy pendulum. “Meow um hi.” She tried to sound upbeat but her exhaustion and worry easily broke though the façade. “I, I really need some help? Please?”

Most the people in the bar put a cold eye to the girl, they had their own problems and the rain didn’t help and who cared about a soggy cat girl. Some others saw something to be gained from the girl and they stared at Feru’s body, quite enjoying the way the soaking dress clung to her, but they weren’t willing to help and the looks sent Feru to hide out of their view.

[The Cinderella Man]

“And it started of as such a sunny day.”

Victor sat on the windowsill, peering through the window that seemed to be neglected when the last spring cleaning took place in the tavern. Or the summer cleaning. As a matter of fact, the smudgy thing seemed to miss every single cleaning session from the time it was put there. It consequently made the rain-sopped world outside distorted, a heap of indiscernible images that blurred and transformed from one vague shape into the other. He didn’t care much about it. It was the sound that he loved, the constant, chaotic taptaptaptaptaptap of the raindrops that soaked the world. The tavern patrons that invaded the common room as soon as the rain descended had no such sentiments towards that dastardly rain that made them finish their day’s work early. Victor didn’t see why they complained so much about it. They could start their daily imbibition sooner this way.

Sheb’s was a shithole tavern in just as shithole town called Darth’s Ditch that stood settled somewhere between nowhere and the Comb Mountains in the north, smackdab in the middle of the Concordia forest. They worked with wood – what town in Concordia didn’t? – and they weren’t very good with it. But they were hard working folk, unafraid to roll up their sleeves and break more then a couple of drops of sweat. Victor respected this. That was probably why he stuck around longer then he planned. There was something uncanny in such simple folk, something so simple in their humdrum lives that simply looked inviting. They got up, they cut trees down, they got drunk, and if they were lucky they made love to their wives. And in that perpetual cycle they were satisfied, in this little world of their own in a sea of trees, unconcerned by the politicking and bureaucracy that was common in towns like Radasanth or Underwood.

So instead of passing through it as he intended two weeks ago, he took the job as the tavern bouncer. It was a tedious job, sorting out fights between drunken patrons, telling them when they had one too many, and kicking them in the ass if they decided to make an argument out of it. The pay was measly as well, just enough to get him by and save a coin or two every other day. But people welcomed him. People in these kind of communities always welcome hardy bluecollar people like Victor. Simple-minded and open-hearted, they seldom held a grudge longer then a day and soon enough they begun to know him as a Slow Thunder, that kept silent until a certain boundary, but struck like a mallet if they took a step over it. Sheb – the bald-headed one-legged owner that buried two wives already and had a gut so big, he barely fit behind the bar – told him that he was the best bouncer he had ever since someone called Doug. Supposedly Doug was a nice guy whose gambling problem got him into an accident. How else do you call a twenty foot oak falling on top of his head? Victor thought attempted murder was a good way to describe it.

So today – that started pretty damn sunny and then changed to downpour in a matter of minutes – Victor was doing his usual job, keeping an eye on any trouble that might arise from all those down mugs. Due to the rain it was a rather busy day and the locals were getting tipsy in a hurry, but he didn’t have to intervene yet. That was good. He didn’t like to be disrupted while he listened to the rain. So the prizefighter merely sat on the windowsill, wrapped in his black leather coat, occasionally eyeing Anna the chestnut-haired, freckly barmaid that navigated between the tables with elven agility. She was no elf though. Ditch born and Ditch bred – and would probably wind up Ditch dead since she didn’t seem like the kind that would just go out to see the world - Anna was Sheb’s stepdaughter and was a rather cold bitch as well. Still, damn pretty. Pretty enough to make his deter his eyes from the rain every once in a while.

“I, I really need some help? Please?”

It was a voice that certainly didn’t fit into the rowdy atmosphere, the desperate plea almost getting swallowed by the boisterous voices of the tame lumberjacks that grew a pair when they got some liquor into them. Victor’s eyes once again left the blurry world outside, scanning the interior quickly. It didn’t take him long to notice the peculiar girl standing at the entrance. She was a miserable little thing, young looking lass drenched to the bone with the saddest eyes he ever saw. Not a human girl though. It seemed that fate once again crossed his path with somebody with a feline gene or three in them. Most ignored her utterly. No matter how welcoming these people might seem, when it comes to trouble, they too have an ability to look away when necessary. And even if they didn’t look away, they weren’t keen on helping.

“Hey, there. Why don’t you sit here on my lap?”

“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your, if you get my drift?”

“I’ll make all your troubles go away, little one.”

Those and several more, all accompanied with a wink or a disgusting motion of the hips, were the only response she got from the clientele of the tavern. Sheb shook his head at this, but stuck to his neutral disposition, not helping but allowing her to make her plea. Victor was appalled by this. Such good men on any given day, and yet all boozed up they seemed like the scum of the world.

“Back, you scallywags!” he shouted at those that neared the girl and started to inspect her lithe form, his wooden bat striking the wall with enough force to draw everybody’s attention. “Back or I’ll throw ya out in the rain. Leave the lass alone.”

They knew better then to go against him, especially when he held his bat and especially not over a scrawny little half-breed that came begging for money. They withdrew to their chairs, ordering another round to wash down the disappointment. Victor paid no heed to them anymore. He stood before the catgirl, and though his bulk might be imposing – especially when he had that bat in his hand – his face was kind enough to offer her a mild smile.

“Don’t you mind those scoundrels. They talk big, but their wives have them by the...” he paused, giving her a wink before he continued. “Well, you get the picture. Now, come on. I don’t know what’s bothering you, but we can discuss it standing here where it’s drafty, or we can sit down and do it over some tea.”

“Anna!” he shouted to the barmaid who noticed him even though she was on the other side of the room. “Bring us some tea.”

“Come on. Tell me what’s so urgent that you had to come here during this ghastly weather.” the prizefighter-turned-bouncer spoke to the furry girl, leading her to the closest free table and taking a seat.

It sucked being a do-gooder. Victor experienced that countless times on his skin. Doing what seemed right had a tendency to get people like him into a world of troubles. It happened with Doji, it happened with Asuka, it happened with that bitch Meredith back in Radasanth, where all of them got him involved in something way too big for him, into hero stuff. And he was no hero. But there was this thorn in his side that he couldn’t get out no matter what and it poked at his insides every time he would see somebody in distress. And unlike the people around him that toasted and cheered and drunk the rain away, he couldn’t look the other way.

“I’m Victor, by the way.” he remembered that introductions were in order, especially if you were about to have a palaver with a stranger. “Victor Callahan.”

[Meow]

Feru started to feel scared, the comments seemed to be friendly from the various patrons that took notice but there was an edge, something about them that was deceitful or at least too friendly. Then one of the men came forward, his fury scaring the other men to their chairs and leave her alone. The cat girl felt paralyzed as she wondered if this man wanted her to his self for some reason than to help. She tried to think, better to run, fight him with her magic or use the magic to stun and injure to assure a getaway.

Too late, he was close enough to reach out and ring her neck before she could get a spell off or turn tail and run, he had the strength. Feru thought she was going to die, and then the man smiled.

It was an earnest smile that caused Feru to relax. The man truly seemed to want to help and the feeling she got from the other offers was not there. He had the general want to help.

The man offered a seat wand tea that Feru gladly accepted with an eager nod. She smiled in return, a sweet relieved smile that eased the pain of her recent loss. A barmaid came with some tea and gave Feru a look that threatened to burn holes into the cat girl but it didn’t last long since the other men wanted some female attention since the cat girl was labeled off limits.

Feru was so nervous and cold she couldn’t help but shake and simply sipped some tea to warm her body before she could divulge the information. While the helpful man waited he introduced his self as Victor. “Nice to meet you, meow. I’m Feru Magus.” She finally replied as the tea warmed her welt body and the man warmed her spirit. She continued while fighting away some tears.

“I lost my home. A sorcerer had taken it from me and Kahn.” Feru looked at the man’s face wondering if he looked like he was going to abandon her now, since trouble with sorcerers was always big trouble. “I ran away from his apprentices, barely could escape. But he has Khan and I don’t know what will happen to him.” Feru could not suppress the sob that came after mentioning her master and friend.

“I need to help him but I’m not very good at magic and I can’t do it on my own. Please can you help me?” Feru asked as her tears begged. He was her only chance now, if she tried to find another place then she might be caught but if he helped than there might be a chance, Victor was strong, intelligent and kind. He could help her, he was her only choice but he had some virtues and he could definitely be a good protector.

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor was never a mushy man. His eyes didn’t well up after he read a sad story, his heart didn’t clench at the sight of every beggar that sat on the street in rags that smelled worst then his gym bag. But there was something about seeing a girl cry that made him swallow dryly and struggle with this surge of sympathetic emotions that his mind emitted, inspired by his soul. A pure soul, Delilah always said. He never saw Delilah cry, never really got clarification that his soul was indeed pure, but Feru’s tears were more then enough to make him feel like crap. And as if the timid tears weren’t enough, she spoke with such heaviness in her voice, such undisputed woe, that struck him so much he knew that there could be no other answer to her question but the affirmative one.

His sarcastic side put in a rebuttal almost instantly. She spoke of sorcerers and magic and all the really cool stuff that got a person killed. Her plea was something best left to what Victor liked to call the Big Swords of Corone, the keen-eyed honorable knights that rode around with a stick up their ass, fighting for justice and honor and all the good stuff. People like Letho Ravenheart who he met in Radasanth. People like Damon Kaosi of which he heard through stories that couldn’t be true. People who were not down-and-out boxers that did odd-jobs just to scrape enough to put bread on the table.

So once again he was in a pickle. On one side there was Feru and her tears and her goddamned eyes that burned their way to his mellow inside timidly. And on the other there was the trouble that was waiting just around the corner, like a trap laying dormant, waiting for him to set his foot outside the door in order to spring it.

“I’m very sorry to hear about your home, Feru.” the prizefighter spoke, but it was really just an expression of sympathy that was supposed to buy him some time to conjure a real answer. Unfortunately, it didn’t buy nearly enough time and after looking into her green eyes for a couple of seconds he decided to take a sip of the tea. Still nothing. Not even a yes or a no. He had to say something though, the silence was passing that threshold between courteous and uncomfortable.

“I... I don’t know how I can help you though. You say that they are sorcerers, these men that took this Khan fellow and your home. Well, to tell you the truth, I know as much of magic as I do about...” he lacked a good comparison, so he sighed and continued: “Well, not a whole lot. Why do you think I do this grunt work in the first place?”

It was supposed to ease the tension, that last sentence, but it did no such thing. Feru was still miserable, her damp hair still clung her head, making her look even sadder, and between her sobs and her minute shivers, he was losing the argument. With himself, with her, it didn’t matter, because he couldn’t stand seeing her like that, regardless of the fact that he met her only minutes ago. So instead of giving the catgirl a cold shoulder like the rest of the locals, he offered her a small reassuring smile before he spoke again.

“Alright, tell you what? First we need to get you dried up and somewhere warm. No use going against these magicians and dying of pneumonia before getting there.” he hoped that this jest would draw out at least a minute smile on her doleful face. “I have a room here where you can rest. Tomorrow, if the time is fair, we’ll do something about these bastards. How does that sound?”

He stood up and offered her a handshake as if to seal this uncanny deal that would likely form a camaraderie of two come morning. In reality, he had no idea what would be that something that they would do to the bastards, but he simply couldn’t stand those sad eyes of her anymore. It was either this or turning his back to her and he couldn’t force himself to turn down Feru’s plea. Perhaps it was because she was a girl. Females always had the right thing to say in order to lure his mind into doing their bidding. But then again, that was a weakness that came with the gender.

“Come on. You look like you need some rest.”

[Meow]

Disappointment welled in Feru’s heart when she heard that the only man to listen had showed no desire to face sorcerers and she couldn’t blame him. Though the thought that she had lost everything with no hope of getting it back threatened to make her cry.

But before Feru could lose the last bit of dignity to the loss, Victor changed his mind, offering to help once the she had some rest, he even offered his room for a place to sleep and dry off. Feru smiled slightly as she felt a ray of hope that she might be able to save Khan and her home. Feru wondered why he squeezed her hand and guiding the lithe hand in a motion. But it felt friendly and it gave Feru some more comfort.

Victor led the way upstairs while Feru followed diligently, she really got bad vibes from the other men in the room and they protested and continued being lewd. “Damn hypocrite, he tries to knock us down and takes the cat girl any way.” On complained but another was more up beat. “Hey when you’re done with him I’ll show you what a real man feels like.”

Her ears pinned back to hear the words clearly but they made the girl follow in more haste. The men still had that feeling that creepy feeling for Feru. Luckily Victor was the opposite, a warm haven in the rain, a man that was honestly concerned and wanted to help. Being around him was making her feel better each moment.

The room that victor led Feru wasn’t much to look at, a few sparse furnishings and wood that looked like the rest of the tavern, old and worn. Still it was warmer than outside in the cold rain that Feru made. The one bed wasn’t big but the sheets and blankets would be comfortable enough. It would be a fine place to warm up and dry.

Though there was one problem, Feru’s dress was sopping wet and if she wore it to bed it would not dry and neither would she. The cat girl moved one of the straps that clung to her shoulder then blushed. Kahn had taught her that clothes were important for two reasons, one was to keep worn and the other was the fact that humans were aroused sight more than scent and seeing a girl naked was like smelling their pheromones. “Um can I have a moment and a some clothing?” Feru blushed as she requested but Victor nodded and left the room.

Feru quickly removed her dress with a wet smack as the sobbing cloth hit the floor. Feru then went to the closet and found a white shirt and a towel to dry. She dried off for a moment before putting on the shirt that hung loosely on her and was big enough to give her the needed modesty as it hung down to her lower thighs; Victor was definitely bigger than her. “You can come in now!” Feru had a much brighter smile, feeling better now that she was no longer wet.

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor’s room was by no means the nicest place in the chintzy tavern. Actually, it was the complete opposite. The only reason why Sheb offered him to stay here instead of making him find a place of his own was the fact that he had a room so crummy, he couldn’t make a profit out of renting it to his regular clientele. It was a bit drafty, the roof had a minor leak and the only window was a narrow ghastly looking thing that reminded Victor of jail cells. Still, he managed to make it homey rather easily. After all, how difficult could it be to make a home for a homeless? He dusted the place thoroughly, took out the cobwebs that started to form grayish curtains, put a sizeable bowl under the leak and soon it became a livable place. Not cozy, not lofty, but neither as backbreaking as the gutter or the park bench.

He felt the need to explain the rather simple surroundings to the girl, but her question for some clothing and a moment of privacy postponed the unnecessary explanation for later. Ever the gentleman, despite his unremarkable exterior, Victor nodded ardently. “Of course. There are some clothes and towels in the closet here. Might be too big for you, bit it’s better then being naked. Or wet. I better go.”

He left the room, his tongue making him look like a fool as per usual. One-on-one, women had the tendency to make him feel disquieted, especially if there was dialogue involved. He always had this prominent respect for women and though it should’ve been a chivalrous quality, with Victor it went too far. In fact, it went so far that most of the time he felt unworthy to converse with females, unworthy of the presence of something so delicate, so beautiful. It wasn’t just Feru though. This jittery feeling was something that followed him for what seemed like eternity, hanging from the back of his mind like a monkey that kept reminding him that he was a bum and a loser and that he would be better of scraping enough money to buy a night with the local harlot. Only Darth’s Ditch had no official harlots.

After some shuffling on the other side of the door – that inevitably made the prizefighter form a mental picture or three in his mind – the catgirl declared that the interior of the room was once again safe. What she didn’t declare was that on the other side of the door there was one of the sweetest things he ever saw in his life. Standing timidly in one of his shirts that left enough room for at least two more Ferus, the girl was a seraphic apparition that strayed straight into his bedroom. Victor had to leash his eyes with his mind, preventing them from exploring her lithe form any further and given the fishhook that pulled them ever lower, it wasn’t an easy endeavor. Between getting the cold shoulder from Anna the Catty Barmaid and eyeing occasional village lasses and their healthy perkiness, the boxer had little chance to actually feast his eyes on something so dulcet. But he steeled his focus and allowed only a meek smile. Because she was smiling as well, weakly and precariously, and lovely enough to drive a man insane.

“Well, at least you’re not wet anymore. I’ll ask Anna if she has any spare outfits, but for now you’re stuck in that I guess.” he spoke, taking a couple of step forwards, but not breaching what he liked to call the Safety Perimeter. Capital letters obligatory, because it made it sound more fancy. What the Perimeter really was depended on the situation, but right now it was some five paces. “I have to get down now though, before they get rowdy and start breaking stuff. Once Sheb closes the bar, I’ll return and we can discuss on this tribulation that befell you. You should take some rest. Or, if you’re not sleepy, I have some books here. Sheb wanted to use them as tinder. Nothing too fancy though.”

He took the first book from the stack, some idiotic tale about a fruity bard that went around wooing women and getting out of pickles by using his harp. Ridiculous and dumb. He never found the patience to read that one. The one reason why it stood at the top of the pile was because he was using it to support the leg of the table that was shorter then the others. Unfortunately, the books weren’t the only item on the wobbly table. Beside them, a bunch of yellow parchments stood alongside a quill, a handful of them crumpled in little uneven paper-balls. And on each of them there was the same thing written, the same phrase that stood on one of the remaining parchments. Dear Delilah... and then some poor attempt to tell her how he feels about her without really disclosing the simple fact that he still loved her. Despite the fact that she was in Scara Brae. Despite the fact that she didn’t care about him anymore. Despite the fact that she was with another. He never got past second sentence before restarting.

“Let me just get this out of the way.” he said hastily, opening one of the drawers and just pulling the jumbled mess into it with a sweep of his hand. “Now then, you make yourself at home, alright?”

[Meow]

When Vic offered to see about getting dresses from Anna, Feru mewed. “Don’t worry, this is fine. Not as pretty as I’m used to but it’s really comfy.” Somehow she doubted that the bar maid would give Feru anything; she didn’t seem at all fond of the little catgirl.

But Victor was extremely nice, Feru felt easier around him even though that somewhere beyond the rickety walls of the tavern was a sorcerer that was after her and had stolen her home away. But Vic had other needs to attend to with doing his job and leaving the kitty girl alone to sleep.

Feru went to the bed and under the covers, trying to sleep but she couldn’t. Being alone let the fear sink in now that all that was left to think about was that she had lost her home. How would she get it back? Could she? She was just an apprentice and not good enough to take on a strong sorcerer and even with Vic that wouldn’t change.

There had to be a way to save Kahn, to save her friend and master but what could it be? The thoughts made Feru toss and turn, moments felt like hours as she failed to try and sleep.

“Meow that’s it! I can’t sleep.” The cat girl got up and looked at the books that Victor pointed out. None of them were spell books but there might be something interesting. One was artistic poetry that Feru couldn’t get and another was a strange story that didn’t really do much to entertain the girl. That didn’t do much for her but it brought her mind off of the tower but she was almost done.

Feru decided to scour the room for something to do; she looked in the drawers noticing a bunch of crumpled paper that Vic pushed away. They must’ve been important since they weren’t thrown out; Feru unwrapped them and looked at the handwriting. They were to this girl but what was after them was some of the sweetest things she read. Victor definitely had a sweet side but Feru didn’t know that it was this sweet. This Delilah must have been lucky to warrant the attention. Somehow Feru felt a little more at ease having read the failed letters that she might be able to bring herself to sleep. And once she went under the covers, she fell fast asleep.

[The Cinderella Man]

“Oy, oy, you were mighty fast there, champ!” one of the regular rummies spoke, the same one that fired a couple of cheap shots just before Victor led Feru to his room. Up until now, the prizefighter would let the whole matter slide, but the man started to nark him, ignorant to the lack of wisdom in the simple act of prodding a sleeping bear with a really short stick. Two of his brothers-in-ale sat at his table, all broad-shouldered and tipsy enough to gurgle a laugh instead of uttering it properly. “She must’ve wriggled like a fish.”

A punch in the face was a reward for people like these. Come Sunday, they all lined up in that fancy chapel, listening to the tedious preaching of the Draconus clerics. But once they got their engines all greased up with alcohol, once their boldness was supported by a handful of others, they suddenly had the biggest balls in the known world. But Victor wasted no words on the man. Instead he merely eyed him for a couple of seconds, acknowledging the fact that the man liked to careen back and forth on his chair, and using this simple information. His foot kicked at one of the chair legs just as the man swayed as far back as gravity would allow him, and about two hundred and fifty pounds of idiot fell down on the floorboards.

“One more word from you and you’ll be drinking rainwater next.” Victor said, looming over the fallen man, his brow forming a dire frown. It was his battle frown. It didn’t work on the pugilists that he faced, but most of the villagers found it mighty intimidating. With that settled, the bouncer moved towards the bar where Sheb eyed him questioningly.

“If you keep bruising my customers, I soon won’t have any.” the voluminous man said, taking a pair of steps – TAP!-THOCK! sound, due to the wooden leg, no parrot though - towards Victor who took a seat on one of the stools. In one of Sheb’s meaty hands, a glass mug twisted and turned, perpetually wiped but never bound to be spic-and-span again. His face, like his tone, refused to show any sign of sternness.

“This is the only tavern in the town. Where else would then go for their daily poison? Twenty leagues southwards to Underwood? I think not.” the prizefighter retorted in his characteristic indifferent manner. Most employers took no sass from their workers, but Sheb was past the point where such sarcastic jabs provoked any genuine grudge. In fact, he fancied the fact that he had one balsy bastard when the flock got one too many in their system.

“Maybe they’ll just stop drinking.”

It wasn’t a serious statement and as such both of them acknowledged it with a grin. As if to support their conclusion, a voice rose from the back of the common room, slurry and barely discernible, asking for MOOO’ALEE!!!, followed by the rapid tapping of the mug on the table. Anna was already working on it, squirming her lithe frame past the oversized blob that was Sheb in order to reach the tap.

“So, what did the furry lassy want from you?” the barkeep asked, obviously not terribly interested, but deciding to chew the fat now that most of the customers were slowly sucking on their bitter brews.

“She’s nothing but trouble, that hussy. I can sense it. We women had... whaddaya call it? Fifth sense.” Anna spoke, filling another mug deftly, proud at herself for designating Feru in the manner that she knew was right.

“Sixth sense.” was all that Victor replied to her.

“Whatever. I’m just saying. Whoever comes begging for money is bound to bring trouble on her tail. And this one actually has a tail, mind you.” the pale-faced barmaid spoke, nodding her freckly face in confirmation before squeezing past Sheb once again and proceeding to deliver moo’ale.

“She wasn’t begging for money.” the boxer continued despite Anna being halfways across the room already, slapping away hands that greedily reached for her backside. “Apparently her home was attacked by some magicians or whatnot. Captured her Kahn – whoever that is – and kicked her out.”

“Magicians you say?” Sheb finally showed some interest in the dialogue, raising one eyebrow at Victor and putting his thinking cap on. “I think those Yedda freaks won’t like that. Nuh-uh, not one bit, I reckon.”

“Yedda freaks?” Victor asked. He heard of Yedda, this rogue goddess that once seduced Draconus or whatnot, and now she was soaring over the free skies. Supposedly, as the legend goes, Draconus made the Corone continent to impress her, but failed in doing so. There was some other religious ballyhoo that he read while he was in the Scara Brae university, but such inane information tended to fade away with time and hits in the head. Mostly with the hits in the head.

“Aye, those flowery druids that think we should all wear loin cloth and scamper through the woods like fairies. They are very... ah, bollocks, what’s the word?” the fat man’s eyes went far away for a second, as if they were searching through a library – a rather shabby dusty one – for the right word. “Te-rri-torial. Yes, that’s it. They are very territorial. They sure don’t like anybody else fiddling around with magic in their forest.”

Sheb felt mighty proud at both the information he provided and the word he was able to remember, pride shining on his face in a form of a smile. At most times Victor found this pride rather ridiculous, but today it seemed rightfully there, because the man just gave him a hint at what exactly was that something that he might do for Feru. He could take her to these druids, make her tell them what she told him, and with any luck they would take care of the sorcerers that took over her homestead.

“Where can one find these druids?”

“Dunno. From what I heard, they say Concordia is their home. All of it. Mighty greedy from them to claim such a big home if you ask me. The last I heard some lumberjacks saw them up north, near the mountains. They don’t meddle in our business, but here and there they come around to tell us that we’re killing the forest. All pansies if you ask me.” Sheb concluded with a rather disgusted tone that made his face crumple in a frowned mask. Victor barely noticed it. His mind was already wrapped in his incessant calculations, creating what should’ve been a plausible plan. He kept it simple though. Go north, find the druids, talk them into helping, save the girl, be a hero. What could go wrong?

“You’re not thinking of going after them?” the barkeep added after seeing the mulling look on Vic’s face.

“Perhaps. I still have to talk with Feru.”

“You two are still talking about that hussy?” Anna once again materialized behind the bar, her gentle, slightly irritated frown on. She didn’t like not being at the other end of Victor’s gaze and she certainly didn’t appreciate some skinny little furball stealing her thunder. Victor rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“You’re going to be alright without me for a couple of days?” he asked Sheb.

“Aye. But you don’t work, you don’t get paid.”

“Well, there goes my retirement money.”

***

It didn’t take long for Sheb to close the tavern for the day. The rain meant that the drinking started early and that consequently meant that most were ready to waddle their way to their homes a couple of hours after nightfall. Those that didn’t find enough steel in their knees to walk out got Victor’s boot that sent them on a crash course towards the mud outside. Some snapped out of torpor before hitting the boggy soil. Most didn’t. That made Victor happy. Nothing quite like seeing a grown man rolling in the mud, not knowing how the hell he got there. Surprisingly, some inbred instinct always led them home.

So before long, Victor was once again entering his room, this time almost on his toes. Feru was sleeping, curled in a little ball with some nightmare haunting her dreams. She must’ve gone through hell, the prizefighter thought, so young and unblemished and yet faced with the loss of her home. It was a surprise she summoned enough courage to come here in the first place. The catgril was sure as hell more brave then he was and that meant a lot coming from a man that gets hit in the head for money. He didn’t gaze over her lithe frame for long though, despite prominent desire to do so. Instead, he took the blanket that she pushed down in her struggle with unseen enemies and pulled it up to her neck, covering her body completely.

Next, he slowly took off his leather coat, hung it on the door of the wardrobe, and sat on the chair that was bound to be his bed for the night. He wouldn’t mind, not when he knew that he gave his bedroll to somebody who needed it much more then he did. And besides, he slept in worse places since leaving Scara Brae. Only once the time for sleep came, it refused to come. It was partially because Victor Callahan was a creature of habits and one of those habits did not involve sleeping on a chair. It also didn’t involve having a young furry girl sleeping a couple of feet from him. So after twisting and turning for a while on the chair – as much as a man can do that while sitting – he resigned to just sit there and look at her sleeping visage. In the sparse light that got filtered through the narrow window, he couldn’t see much of it, but it was still a sight sweet enough to eventually lead him into slumber.

[Meow]

Early morning came with pale sunlight through a clouded day, no more rain but the aftershock of Feru’s magic left a gray morning. The kitty girl moved and stirred tiredly, climbing out of the covers and moving around on all fours as she stretched and yawned.

Victor slept in the chair, its tattered cushions did not seem like a great place for a human to sleep. She looked with confusion; it was odd to her that Victor would choose to sleep on the chair like that when she was willing to share the bed. But still it was nice for him to sacrifice for her like that; he seemed to be sacrificing a lot for Feru and the cat girl. “I should do something for him. May be a present when we get to the tower.” She whispered to herself while beginning to move around the room and groom herself.

Feru started with her face as she licked her wrist and hand then used her arm to wash face and then licking it some more to clean off the little bit of grime. Not a human way to clean her self but she was a true cat and there wasn’t a fountain of warm water like that tower where she would wash herself.

While Feru groomed and cleaned she was beginning to think about the morning birds, they weren’t singing. Feru liked to watched the birds as they sung and moved about in the morning which she flicked her tail and chattered to them in hoped of luring over closer, something that kept her connected to her old life.

Moving to the window, Feru smiled to see the sun peak through the clouds, the afternoon should be sunny once the clouds from the storm cleared away. It would be a nice day for a walk through the forest, but the sorcerer might still be about, Feru quivered her tail when she thought about the sorcerer and then something moved outside.

Feru moved closer, maybe the birds were out but the longer Feru saw the thing that flew about it didn’t seem to be a bird. No it was a disembodied eye. Feru howled with fear as she saw the thing look right at her. It was a minion of the sorcerer. “Victor wake up!”

Feru jump on Victor in hopes of rousing him from slumber. Her tail twitched as she started to grip the bouncer that was helping her. “We have to get out of here. The sorcerer found me. He must have there’s something outside. It has to be his.” Feru went to grab her book and damp dress then went to the door. “Hurry, Hurry!”

[The Cinderella Man]

Though it seemed otherwise, Victor was awake roughly at the same time Feru made her way out of his bed. During his youth his mother liked to say that a rabbit fart out in the garden was enough to wake him up. It was a strange way to describe it, but it was a rather accurate explanation of just how much was enough to break his slumber. So when the catgirl gingerly made her way out of the sheets, his eyes were open ever so slightly. But once he saw her get down on all fours and start to neaten herself in the same manner real cats do, he decided to keep up the ruse and play dead for a while longer. It was so uncanny to see her act so primal, and yet so intriguing at the same time. There was something peculiar about her, some sort of exotism in her innocent movements that genuinely surprised Victor. He knew she looked a bit like a cat. She even meowed here and there in her speech – which he actually found strangely attractive for some reason. But he would’ve never imagined that she acted like one as well.

As if to further establish this fact, once Feru approached the window and leant over the windowsill to look outside – which lifted Victor’s shirt dangerously up her thighs – she jumped back with a shriek. Her lithe form leapt into his arms, her tiny hands pulling on the collar of his shirt and erasing every trace of slumber from his system. He didn’t understand everything she said hastily as her panicky emerald eyes peered into his own, but he managed to catch something about sorcerer finding her. The prizefighter wasn’t quite certain how this magician could eye her through a window when there were so many windows on the tavern, but the sheer terror in her voice was more then enough of a clarification that there was something amiss. In a flash she was at the door, holding her dress and her book, ushering him out of the room. Victor, ever a slow starter in the morning, had to lumber his bulk from the chair with significant effort, allowing a yawn and a stretch that made the bones in his back line up after a rather uncomfortable night.

“Alright, alright. Let me just get my coat.” he spoke, taking his coat off the wardrobe door and throwing it over his shoulder with another yawn. “Tell you what. I’m going to clobber this goddamned sorcerer for coming this early and we can go back to sleep. It’s too damn early.”

He knew this probably wasn’t the appropriate time for jokes, but that was his goofy way of handling the pressure. He fished his wooden bat out of the stack of broken umbrellas and crooked walking sticks that stood behind the door and led the way out the door. “We’ll just make a quick stop at the kitchen, get some provisions. We can’t go into the forest...” but his voice stopped just as they reached the stairs, his arm outstretching sideways in order to stop the catgirl from moving forward. Down below, a pair of figures dressed in pristine black attires seemed to be interrogating Sheb and they sure as hell didn’t have a friendly disposition. Unfortunately, the sudden movement made his hand connect with the girl’s bosom ever so gently before he withdrew it as if he touched a hot stove.

“Uhm... Sorry about that. But... uhm... I think those bastards are down there. We’re going to have to get out through one of the windows.” Victor spoke, then pondered only for a second which one would be the best option. He was of no use to anybody if he jumped down and broke his leg in the process. The window at the end of the hallways seemed like a reasonable option, looking down on the roof of the back porch. “Come on, follow me. We’re getting out of here.”

The bulky boxer led the way down the hall, opening the window with little difficulty. The air outside was refreshing, the morning bathed by the rain pulsating with life. He usually loved the mornings after a rainy night. It made the world looked rinsed, as if the gods decided to wash it from all the filth and give it a new start. But the new start didn’t seem that divine this morning. Luckily for the both of them, the back porch was reconstructed about a year ago, when a winter storm torn it asunder, and it was sturdy enough to handle their weights. Unluckily for them, down below one of those peculiar men in black was watching the back exit. Victor pressed his finger against his lips, mimicking to the furry lass to stay quiet. Once he was certain she understood what he meant, he took the coat in both of his hands and spread it wide. And then he jumped down.

His feet landed hard into the mud, but they landed evenly and his coat fell over the sorcerer impeccably. Victor wasted not a second, yanking on his coat and wrapping it around the man’s head before he fired a pair of hooks at the blinded enemy. The leather of his coat dampened the sound, but he was pretty certain that he broke either a nose or a jaw. Or both. Either way, he took his coat from the knocked out man swiftly, throwing it over his shoulder and calling Feru down wordlessly. The forest adjacent to the town was wide open for them and they had to make their exit before the magicians noticed one of their own had his broken face in the mud.

“We should start moving north.” he whispered to the lass once she was down, still looking funny and sweet in his oversized shirt, only now genuinely startled. “I think there might be some people that could help us there. But this is no place to talk. Come on, let’s make haste before they realize we are gone.”

[Meow]

Feru’s heart jumped when Victor stopped her, not because of the taboo place that sent him into recoiling with embarrassment but because she knew that those men were the sorcerer’s apprentices and meant trouble for her and Victor.

Feru followed her new friend up the stairs and they went out through the back window to a creaky porch and another apprentice but Victor was on top of him before he could respond, the viciousness of the fist fighter caused Feru to look away. He could be really scary but still Feru felt safer with him though his suggestion seemed odd.

“Meow, north? What’s north?” Feru asked, as she looked though the trees, trying to see if something was different about that direction and what lay there that could help her free her master and her home from the evil sorcerer. “Nya, you’re probably right. I guess we’ll need all the help we an get.” Feru decided as she headed north. There were some barbarians in that direction, and maybe they had a trick or something but what Feru thought she didn’t know.

The forest was quiet and the birds were not about, afraid of the sorcerer’s minions. The damp soil made walking pretty comfortable with the cool soft earth acting as a cushion and thankful not a mud hole.

“We’re lucky that storm’s over, I thought I over did the spell, the weather must’ve wanted a storm.” Feru was sick of the silence and decided to make conversation, it seemed that the Sorcerer’s servants weren’t that close and she hated walking through the silent forest.

The more Feru walked the more she felt at ease, she had escaped once again and now had a protector to help her rescue Khan, and if Victor was right about north she would have even more help. Maybe she could get back her home. Things were finally going her way. And the mages and demons couldn’t patrol the whole forest and maybe whatever found her was by complete luck and not some strong magic that could keep tabs on her the whole time. But still doubt surface. “Meow, I hope whatever we need isn’t too far. I don’t think we have much time. They might hurt Kahn if I don’t save him soon.” they might already have. Feru felt a dark side of her mind say and she shivered. Don’t say that! the other side screamed.

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor forgot just how it felt to travel with somebody. Sure he spent countless days on the road, wandering from one town to the next in search for a bout or three, but he always traveled alone. And though it was always tedious work, he got used to conversing with his own thoughts. So it came as no surprise that soon after they left Darth’s Ditch, the silence crept between the two, uncomfortable and as thick as the morning humidity. Luckily, Feru wasn’t the silent type. She meowed again, a dulcet sound that made him smirk inadvertently, and spoke in her tiny voice about her Kahn that Victor assumed was her beau.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know how far we have to go. Back in the Ditch I heard that there were these druids a bit further up north and they didn’t like magicians playing around on their turf.” the boxer spoke as the pair walked through the forest at a steady gait. The soil was a bit too soft for his liking, but there were no bogs yet and they broke away from the town with relative haste. Still, it was uncannily silent, so much so that they voices sounded louder then they really were. Victor continued: “So I thought that you might tell them what happened to your home and they would help you sorting out those nasty wizards.”

Another pause followed, broken with nothing but the sound of rustling leafs beneath their feet and the sound of their clothes in motion. The bulky prizefighter decided it was his turn to break the silence. “Speaking of wizards, you must be a mighty one yourself. I mean, if you can make it rain at will, you must be able to do some really funky things. Which makes me wonder just how strong were these mages that attacked.... WHAT THE HELL?!?!”

His shock wasn’t directed at her, but the puzzlement by what he saw was just too much to handle. At first sight, he thought it was a dandelion seed descending through the air, but when he caught one and an icy wind slapped his scruff like an angry father, he realized it was not so. No, it wasn’t a bloody blowball that his hand caught, but a genuine snowflake. As if to confirm that, another gust of wind swept from behind, tousling his coat and chilling him to the bone. It was queer coldness, unnatural in a way that it bypassed his clothes and grabbed his limbs like an untamed beast.

“It’s snowing. It’s goddamn snowing and it’s autumn.” he muttered as he stopped in his tracks and looked up to the canopy above. Through it the flakes started to descend gently at first, but in a matter of seconds they were whipped through the air by the harsh wind. Only then he realized that the snow was a big piece of the puzzle and he was too dumb to put it together until now. Of course it’s snowing, why not? If Feru could make it rain, her pursuers – that were obviously more powerful then her – were bound to be able to make it snow. He looked at the catgirl before he spoke: “I don’t suppose you can make it stop, could you?”

It was a tension breaker, a sentence that stood somewhere between jesting and seriousness and a mild smile was there to confirm it. “Come on. It’s best to find some shelter and wait until it stops. That way they won’t be able to find our tracks.”

It seemed like a great idea, but wasn’t. The Comb Mountains were leagues away and there was no cave to provide them shelter. The best they could do was a huge oak tree that had a crown so thick, the area beneath its wide trunk was nearly untouched by the summoned snow. By the time they found the spot though, the day around them drifted through the afternoon and the gray clouds above the forest turned it into an early evening. And the snow just kept falling, riding the sharp wind and hitting their faces like a razor. They needed a fire if this went on, or else they would both be human icicles by morning.

“I’ll try to gather some wood for the fire.” he said, though how in the hell would he make it burn was something he didn’t even consider. He was no boy scout and as such he couldn’t make fire with neither a couple of sticks nor a magnifying glass... which he didn’t have. But given the fact that Feru was somewhat of a mage, he hoped that her magical prowess would aid him in this task. Before he went to gather wood though, he took off his coat and handed it to the lass. “Here, to keep you warm until we make fire.”

It was actually rather difficult to find firewood and keep close to the mighty oak. More then once he would almost give in to panic, thinking he got lost while prospecting for something that would burn, but luckily that never really happened. And on top of that, it was so cold that he felt like his dark shirt was actually made out of paper. But after a short while he was back under the ancient looking tree, lowering the gathered fuel for the fire Feru could hopefully make. “Do you think you can set it ablaze with your magic? I... uhm... I’m not really skillful with this wilderness stuff.”

He felt a bit embarrassed by it, but his pride faded in comparison with the heat that the fire could provide. Still, the sarcastic bitchy side of him that lingered somewhere beyond his regular rigid-thinking psyche, asked rather bitterly just what kind of a rescuer was he when he couldn’t build a fire in the wilderness. What kind of a hero was he with his half-baked plans and pugilism as his only skill? A damn lousy one, he reckoned.

[Meow]

The druids that Victor was after didn’t like mages messing on their turf. Feru slanted her head in confusion as she wondered why would they care about the tower, it was Khan’s Turf after all. “Nya, I hope you’re right and they’ll help.” Feru said to herself as much as her friend. She really didn’t know what the druids would bring and something about what Victor said made the Kitty Girl feel cold.

Victor said she was good wizard for making it rain and Feru blushed. “Meow, It’s not much, I was clumsy and over did it. I just wanted it to wash my scent away, not drench the world.” Feru shivered again as a cold flake of snow touched her nose. “Meow, Meow, Meow! Drenuda ceren vrego.” She panicked forgetting to speak in a human speak and mixed up her cat and hidden tongues.

“Oh Sorry. This is messing up the balance of nature. They must really be after me to mess with nature so much. Meow, I’m sorry I can’t make it stop.” Feru followed her friend to the shelter of a great oak. The snow was now coming down hard, the light flakes made it hard to see for twenty feet. “I can’t make it stop, I’m only an apprentice.”

Victor left her under the oak tree to look for firewood and left Feru feeling alone and afraid. While the large fighter was truly taking the worst of it, even left his jacket on Feru since the oversized shirt was not enough to keep the girl from catching her death but Being alone wasn’t fun, All Feru could do was let out some chattering whimpers and the thought of the sorcerer’s flunkies in the snow kept her from howling for company out of fear like she was in heat, even though the snow would cure that problem if she was.

Still her face beamed with joy when Victor returned as her soul at least got a little warmth from seeing him again and also he had some dry firewood. “Meow, don’t worry. I know a fire spell.” It was an easy spell for Feru, and also the first for the girl to master. “Just hold a focus and concentrate.” She said to herself feeling proud that she could help for once. Then a flicker of flame grew into a marble sized ball and sped into the pile of fuel, resulting in a small explosion that left the potential campfire scattered, causing Feru to yelp as sparks and embers stung her skin but left no noticeable injury. “I’ I’m sorry. Meow.” Feru apologized looking at the mess she made instead of a campfire, scattered branches were black from the slight scorching and some still burned.

But all was well as the dry wood still was burnable and the ones still burning could be used to ignite the others and there was a rather pitiful fire that might have been better if Feru could better control her magic. Still Feru moved Close to Victor to share their warmth. “Meow, This isn’t so bad.” Feru said softly, she would have purred with it if she weren’t still aware of the miserable snow.

Feru still felt comfort being with the man and especially this close, she liked being close to people like this, though men seemed to take some embarrassment at being with a girl like this for some reason and even Khan did so too. But somewhere Feru’s mind got lost in the warm feeling and fond the sweet written words that she found in Vic’s room. “So who’s Delilah?” Feru asked while trying to stay close to victor. “Every time I saw her name there were some sweet words next to her. You must be really good friends.”

[The Cinderella Man]

When the catgirl nearly blew their firewood to smithereens Victor started thinking that overdoing it was something that she did quite often. But he couldn’t be angry at her, not after she apologized coyly for her mistake. “Hey, you did a better job then I could ever do.” he comforted her, his voice soft as he gathered the branches that still burned vividly and piled them into a rather humble fire. As far as he was concerned, she was the goddamn hero in this entire tribulation. Her home attacked, her khan captured, weaponless, helpless... Most of people her age would’ve thrown in the towel, rolled over and died. Feru didn’t. She ducked, she ran but she kept trying and it was an amazing feat.

Still, in the crisp chill that settled around them with the coming of the snowy covering, even such an unremarkable fire was more then a welcome change. It crackled tenderly, opposing the wind and the renegade snowflakes that managed to mug through the tree crown, and it made them feel significantly more comfortable. Especially Victor. After giving Feru his coat, he was left with nothing but his shirt to protect him from the untimely winter. The furry lass was either aware of this or she too felt pretty damn cold, because she motioned herself gingerly to his side, their arms touching and exchanging some of the warmth. And she was right, suddenly it wasn’t so bad. Sure, his fingers were slowly going numb with coldness and he didn’t even dare to touch his frozen ears, but when she meowed and leant on his side, he felt that her presence was more warming then their little fire.

Victor considered draping his arm around her shoulders, pull her closer, then opted against it. Then another wind gust slapped him relentlessly and he reconsidered his initial decision. He embraced the girl tentatively, feeling a bit too jittery for a bloody twenty-six year old boxer, but feeling that way all the same. But once her body was leant closer to his own, he started to relax a little bit. Feru felt so warm, so soft, like a dream that promised to stay close throughout the night. At a moment such as this one, when there was nothing but the hooting of the wind and the silence of the falling snowflakes, he pondered on the only thing that he could while sitting in the middle of forest with a girl in his arms. He asked himself was she the one that wouldn’t be just an ally, a friend, a passerby that would discard him at the end of it all. And then he would call himself a dumbass for getting so sentimental over somebody who he knew a little over a day.

She snapped him from his mulling with a question, and as it turned out, a rather shocking one as well. Delilah? She wanted to know about Delilah? Victor wasn’t certain that he wanted to talk about. He wasn’t certain that he could talk about it. Delilah was his little mystery, his secret that he held out of sight, a hopeless hope that he clung to even after years went by without a word from her. And she was a wound, the one that his memories kept picking open, renewing his heartache.

“You’ve been going through my desk, huh?” he asked, his tone-semi strict, but his face was soft and distant, peering into the fire. “It’s alright. It’s not like it matters a whole lot. Delilah is... she’s a...”

What was she? It was a question that he had a hard time to answer even when he was back in Scara Brae and she cared about him deeply. Was she his friend? His lover? His soulmate? His punishment? Perhaps all of those combined.

“Delilah is somebody who refuses to become a memory. And most of the time I’m the one disallowing her to become one.” Victor spoke, discovering that he indeed could talk about it, albeit in a doleful voice, his eyes lost in the timid flames of the fire. He always seemed so old and weary when emotions and memories pressed down on his shoulders. “I thought she was my soulmate, you know? My one true love. And for a while I think she thought that too. But there was too much distance between us and I’m not talking about miles. She was of noble blood, I was a lowlife that accidentally walked into her life one summer some four years ago.”

“We never touched, we never kissed... And yet our letters were filled with such passion that we believed we can overcome, that we can show everybody that they were wrong. And then the summer ended and she got more and more detached from me until ultimately she said it was over. She couldn’t bear the distance anymore, the lack of contact breaking her from the inside out. I didn’t blame her. I still don’t blame her. But a part of me still believes that we could make it.” he paused, his head dropping and his mind screaming at him for revealing something so personal to a complete stranger. What did he hope to accomplish by revealing this? Sympathy? Pity? A comforting word? He couldn’t tell. But even though he felt like a sentimental fool for speaking of it, he felt relieved a little bit.

“So I still write to her from time to time. Only every time it’s harder then the last one. Hence all the thrashed papers. It's foolish, I know, but she's the only one that really cared about me.” he finished with a smile, but it came out false and thin, his clumsy way of saying that he was alright after speaking about it. He couldn’t even imagine how Feru would react to all of this. Would she look at him differently then before when he was just a brute that punched people for living? And why did he care so much about what she thought?

“But enough about that.” he finally spoke again, trying to break the dour atmosphere. “What about you, Feru? This Khan you speak of... Is he your husband or something?”

[Meow]

Feru listened to Victor speak of his love and Feru regretted asking. She had opened up Victor’s heavy heart and did not know how to close it again or to comfort it. All she could do was comfort with her body while tears streaked down her face. There just wasn’t anything she could do except keep him warm.

Feru was a cat and they loved differently than humans. A female knew in her heart that if she made love to a male that love would not last past the passion. The tomcats would wander about taking females for a quick bout of pleasure and then leave while the female would hope to bear kittens. That was where the love was, in the children and then if the male came it would be the mother’s job to drive off the male. Cat love was so different than human love. Feru saw this as a kitten and knew her life would be like that, until she met Kahn.

“Meow, I’m sorry. It must be painful.” Feru said, as she held close. Maybe the simply being close would cure the heartache and maybe Feru could say more but somehow her mind was blank until Victor changed the subject.

“Meow, Khan? Husband?” What was a husband? Feru asked herself before deciding it wasn’t important. “Khan’s my master.” Feru said with a smile. “He’s a great magus who brought me in and made me his apprentice.” Her tail swished a little more happily as she thought of the old man now cat. “I was a lost cat and he found me when I was cold and took me in and changed me. I once had all fur and four legs but he changed me.” Feru snuggled warmly thinking nothing of it. She was a cat and enjoyed the feeling.

“But now he’s a cat and lost his magic…” Feru looked to the ground feeling the twinges of sadness well up again. “…and can’t do much against the sorcerers anymore. I don’t want them to hurt him but I don’t know if I can do anything. I’m not much a magus and they’re strong sorcerers.” Feru shivered as the cold bit into her again. “But you’re here to help me.” Feru chimed with a hint of hope in saying that, with help she could save her Kahn.

[The Cinderella Man]

People always said they were sorry. Most of the time it was an empty, instinctive phrase, a universal defensive mechanism made out of false sympathy that managed to subtly maintain the distance. But Feru’s sorry was different somehow. Victor couldn’t say whether it was the tone of her voice that sounded genuinely sad or was it the fact that she cuddled closer to him, but he felt that she was sorry. And that warmed him more then any fire ever could. His hand embraced her a bit more boldly now, joining their bodies in one frozen and miserable entity as the blizzard around them slowly started to quell. The snow was still falling, but the flakes were larger and puffier now, the kind that announced that the conjured clouds above neared the end of their job. But even without the wind, the coldness crept up their bones like a serpent.

When Feru spoke again, saying that Khan was her master, Victor first thought was naturally the most pessimistic one. Khan was her master – probably a perverted old bastard that liked the scent of young flesh – and she was his unfortunate slave. Of course, once she elaborated, it was clear that the prizefighter was way off. Khan was her master in the magics department – and not a husband, which was a very comforting thought for Victor – and the violet-haired lass was his apprentice. Apparently he found her as a cat – which perplexed the boxer, but he held his tongue and tried not to make too much of an idiot by asking questions – and took her in, changed her... whatever that meant. The important thing was that he was now somehow transformed into a cat and he couldn’t do a damn thing about these renegade wizards that prowled around. A part of Victor – a mean callous part that always lurked in the shadowed recesses of his mind – said that that’s what people get for messing with stuff like magics, but then Feru shivered and her tone saddened and Victor silenced those thoughts. It was no good though, because as he silenced that part, the bitter sarcastic part spoke. The loser part.

“Yep, now I’m here to help and I’m walking through the forest in nothing but my shirt, towards what I hope is north, with a frightened catgirl, praying that the hearsay from back in the Ditch is correct. You picked one helluva savior, missy.” was what that part spoke, but all it came out was a mild frown and a smile that was supposed to be heartily but wasn’t. But then her body pressed further against his own coyly, and his pessimism was blown away for the time being. Maybe his jinx - that’s been following him around like a shadow - wouldn’t ruin this attempt at giving a desperate girl a helping hand.

“Well, I couldn’t leave you to those roughnecks in the Ditch, now could I?” the prizefighter spoke and his smile finally transformed from a courteous one to a genuine one. “They’re good folk most of the time, but they don’t like things that go on outside their little box, if you know what I mean.”

“It’s a careless life, a simple life, but if you’re not used to it, it might seem mighty dull.” Victor continued, diverting his eyes from the fire and looking at what seemed like a bulge in the snow covering. It shook a little bit, and he discarded it as a critter of some sort that got blindsided by the summoned snow. “It certainly seemed that way to me. I arrived there a couple of weeks ago and already I feel like...”

Another one. No, two of those bulges appeared, this time usurping more snow, providing more then enough of an oddity to stop him from speaking. “Look, do you see that? What is that?” he asked Feru, pointing at one of the moving spots in the snow. His first assumption was a mole rat of some sort that was trying to surface. As it turned out, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even an animal.

Even as the pair turned their attention towards the multiplying spots in the snow around them, vines erupted from beneath the snow and darted towards them. Victor was stupefied. Vines, sinewy and stringy, akin to those lifeless greenish things that hung from the trees, now charged at them like bewildered snakes. Dozens of them burst from the soil, a pair crashing through their fire and scattering the embers. And before they could react with anything but a perplexed look, the vines struck them and struck hard. Victor was shoved backwards, sliding through the damp leaves and striking the oaken trunk behind his back. But it didn’t stop there. The animated vines wrapped around him, tying up his wrists and ankles like ropes and before he even managed to put up a fight, he was mummified and tied to the tree. He hoped that Feru managed to get away, but not even her catlike reflexes were enough. She was tied right next to him. The magicians have found them, Victor thought. They found them and he didn’t do a goddamn thing to stop them.

It was over.

“So, you are the ones that mess with the weather in our forest, huh?” a raspy voice came from the other side of the thick trunk to which the pair was tied to. Victor tried to move his head, but found himself unable to trace the speaker. In a couple of seconds he could stop trying. An old man stepped in front of them, his robes faded gray and tattered, his face wrinkly but remarkably vigorous, just like the silvery-white hair that seemed to glimmer. His staff was an unsightly mangled looking thing. His eyes were ancient.

“Look, we’re not the ones you’re looking for. We are being chased...” Victor tried to explain, but he was cut short by two things. One was a shout from the old geezer and the other was a vine that gagged him efficiently.

“Silence! The forest knows. You can’t fool the forest.”

And then BAM!, the staff darted towards him, hitting the prizefighter’s forehead and knocking him out.

[Meow]

Feru could hardly get a thought in as she was attacked by cold vines that were hidden under the snow. She squirmed and wiggled in hopes of getting free but they held too tightly for her to do anything, she might have had a chance if she seen them earlier and blasted them with the fireball spell but being wrapped up in Victor’s warm embrace had made her numb to the world until it was too late.

“Meow, Let me oomph!” Feru tried to complain but the vine gagged her and a quick blow to her head left her asleep.

How long was it until Feru woke up to the bright daylight reflecting on fresh snow. The magical snowstorm was over but the world still had a chill. Winter was early now and the snow might last until spring. Feru shivered knowing she was outside but when she crawled forward she was met with had branches that wouldn’t budge and thorns to cause pain to any who thought to force their way out.

Feru yelped when she saw that she was in a cage, one fashioned out of magic. Was she prisoner to the sorcerer and his minions? Still being in a cage upset Feru, passed thought. “Meow, meow, meow!” Feru whined while sitting by the cage, while occasionally pacing back and forth. “Please let me out!” The kitty girl screamed as she flicked her tail in fear and frustration.

“Shut up!” Yelled a voice of an old man, so powerful that it stopped Feru’s whining in her tracks. “You are held for using forbidden magic and controlling Nature. This is a heinous offense… abomination!”

Feru Cringed at the word and cowered towards the far wall, not wanting to touch it for the thorns, looking to see if there was something that wasn’t against her in all the world. Victor was with her and gave a sliver of comfort. Feru hoped he was all right but the old man spoke again.

“You are sentenced to leave your unnatural form, you won’t be able to do this harm again.” The cold gray glare of the druid froze the feline magus more than the snowstorm last night. But the threat lit a wild fire of panic.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Feru howled with her tail puffing up. “I don’t want to be a cat again. I don’t want to!” The idea of nothing else to do be chase mice had Feru upset to no end. She wanted the fun of learning magic. A whole world was open to her and now the old man threatened to shut that world out and doom Khan to the sorcerer’s whims.

[The Cinderella Man]

There was nothing interesting in waking up after a head trauma. People oftentimes compared it with waking up after a night spent getting wasted, but in its essence, the two were completely different. Booze hit you from the inside, polluted your system and clouded that little track down which the train of your thoughts went. You woke up with a weary, disconcerted feeling, wondering if you made an ass out of yourself in the hours that went missing from your memory. A hit to the head didn’t do that. It sledgehammered the track, the train and most of the environment, leaving you with a cold, beaten feeling and a piercing headache. Victor knew this because given his profession, he got his brain railroad destroyed quite a few times. Today at least, it happened for a good reason.

When he came to, the cold feeling was there, begging his muscles not to move. The desperate meowing that filled his ears urged him to do otherwise. He listened to the latter, did his best to open his eyes and get up, and then regretted with because his forehead almost split open from the pain. Still, Feru kept begging somebody to let her out and Victor pushed aside his physical discomfort, finally regaining his consciousness completely. He was just in time to hear the argument between his furry companion and their captors and see the catgirl retracting further into the cage after the ancient-eyed old man made his sentence.

“Whoa, whoa there, old man. She is not responsible for this snow.” the prizefighter spoke, getting up to his wobbly feet and feeling a bit woozy. The cage around him – a peculiar thing made from wood intertwined with more of those dastardly vines – didn’t swirl in response to his abrupt motion, but it got a bit blurry for a second. When it came back to focus, the gray-haired geezer peered at him through the wooden bars.

“We’re running away from those magicians when they summoned the snowstorm to slow us down, alright? We were searching for Yedda’s Druids. You don’t happen to be them?” Victor spoke, approaching the wall of his cage, but not touching the thorny vines. The robed man on the other side seemed unfazed by the speech.

“We’re not druids, whelp. We are servants of the nature and our beloved Mistress Yedda.” he responded, a touch of pride appearing in his gray eyes.

“Fine. Whatever.” Victor said, not really caring much for the titles or the specifics. “Look, this girl came to Darth’s Ditch asking for help because some wizards attacked her home and captured her master. I thought you folk might be interested in helping.”

Again, no reaction on the wrinkly-but-not-old face of the druid. His three comrades – that sat in half-circle on a lush patch of flowery grass in the midst of all the snow – didn’t seem to even notice the dialogue, mumbling something amidst themselves.

“These are evil men we’re talking about, old man. The kind that don’t give a crap if their magic destroys half a forest.”

This was Victor’s trump card. If these Yedda’s nature freaks are really so into the forest, they wouldn’t allow this mischief to go unpunished. And they might even find it in their bark-encrusted hearts not to kill the messenger. But the druid just kept looking at him, expressionless and tranquil, waiting for the boxer to finish.

“We know of these wizards and we intend to take care of them. And you are right; the abominable girl isn’t responsible for this snow. She is, however, responsible for the rain on the day before. And that is in conflict with the laws of the forest. She must be punished.” the druid said, turning away from the cage.

“So summoning rain is against the law and summoning vines isn’t? Sounds a bit unfair to me.” Victor said. His sister Yavannha – who was growing to be quite a scholar back in Scara Brea – would’ve used the word hypocritical, but Victor’s vocabulary seldom dipped into such complex phrases.

“We don’t summon the vines, infidel. We don’t summon animals to do our bidding. We ask them, we ask the forest. If the forest sees it fit, it aids us.” the druid spoke, clearly uninterested in further conversing, joining his pals and forming a complete circle in the grass. They started to debate something in whispers, leaving the pair at peace for the time being.

“I fear that coming here wasn’t such a bright idea, Feru.” Victor said, his back still turned towards the girl. He messed up and now she was going to be turned back into a cat, and even though on regular days the boxer wouldn’t think that was possible, after seeing conjured snow and animated vines, it didn’t seem that inconceivable anymore.

[Meow]

Victor tried to defend Feru with his words but the old man didn’t care and he went along with his plan. Step one was to bind and gag the girl to keep her from biting and cease her whining. Step two would be to make sure that Victor couldn’t interfere and the cage was halved by another bramble wall. Step three would be to make sure there were no protective Charms on Feru, a search that made the kitty girl unhappy as it was a bit to personal for the girl to tolerate but she had no. Step four was the chant and it went for what felt like a whole day but was just ten minutes.

Feru felt the vines let go but all she could do was fall on to her hands and knees while whining in pain before completely collapsing and curling up inside of the shirt that Victor gave her, she was no longer a cat girl but just a normal cat like she was. “Meow.” She said over and over in various tones but she could not manage human speech.

“Consider yourself lucky, cat.” The old man spoke with a cold voice. “We were considering having you killed.”

Feru ignored the man as she walked over to victor, her jet-black fur covering her entire body. But the wall was still there and the cat stopped before getting stuck with the brambles and simply looked at the fighter. She had failed and brought him into this mess, what would they do to him; he didn’t cast any magic and was just a human. Would they let him go?

The air suddenly shifted, Feru shook from the dark feeling. Something wasn’t right and it seemed like the old druid was aware of this, he old face cringing. The other Druids started to move around like ants preparing for a disaster and the world went silent, all that could be heard were footsteps.

In walked a man in black robes, his face was handsome with some features that one would use hawk like to describe. He walked in as if he was crashing a party but nobody could so anything about it.

Several Druids moved to ready spears and staves in defense of their home but the sorcerer, Feru knew that hawk like man was the sorcerer that was hunting her down and not one of his apprentices.

He smiled Darkly: “I recommend you don’t raise a fuss.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm and let out a rune-covered vial to slip out and shatter against the ground with liquid pouring out. The spill changed and formed runes on the ground and then glowed while releasing smoke. In another moment when the smoke cleared there was a huge monster the size of a bear and covered in chaotic black spines.

“I’ve just came for a pet, a cat and a girl but I do believe that she’d just a cat. So nice of you to change her while I was scrying, might not of found her if she wasn’t pulsing with magic like that. Now be nice little druids and give her too me.”

Several of the stronger druids charged the sorcerer and his minion and some raised the magic binds, but the wizard was protected by a barrier and couldn’t be touched and the demon could care if he was touched or not. The demon roared with anger and tore into the nearest druid while simply ripping up any vines that tried to obstruct it.

The sorcerer simply moved to Feru’s cage and cast a quick spell that turned the vines into dust, then moved to pick up Feru, who tried to run but the dark mage was faster and had the cat in his arms. “Well I have what I want and bid you good day, do be pleasant for our demon guest.” He cast a quick spell and flew into the air with invisible wings, heading strait for Khan’s tower and his new home.

[The Cinderella Man]

Everything happened in a rapid succession and Victor was no more then a spectator. When the druids came to do their foul deed on Feru, the brambles and roots sprung from the earth once again, this time separating him from the catgirl with a thick thorny wall. Behind it, all that the boxer could do was watch as the druids – the very people that were supposed to aid them – bound and gagged the girl, then proceeded to murmur something that sounded like genuine gibberish to the trapped prizefighter. However, that gibberish sent Feru writhing in pain and before his eyes – and they were a pair of skeptical eyes when it came to magic – she simply changed. Her body started to shrink, started to morph, and still Victor thought it was just an optical illusion. But once the violet-haired girl disappeared in his spare shirt completely and a small pitch-black cat jumped out, the boxer was dumbfounded.

“Feru? What the hell?!” was all he managed to say, squatting down and trying to touch the furry animal through the peculiar bars of the natural cage. He was pulling a blank at what to say, and that went double for what to do. He felt the need to apologize, but a simple sorry wouldn’t do here. Sorry worked when you burped while eating, it worked when you pushed somebody in the bustle of the Bazaar, it even worked – to a certain extent – when you say something dumb that hurts the people you love. But when you get somebody shapeshifted into a bloody animal, sorry seemed a little bit like giving an umbrella to a person that you just chained in the path of the incoming tsunami.

However, he never got a chance to apologize. Their pursuer finally caught up with them, entering the druid’s groove as if he owned it. Clad in black like his apprentices, the sorcerer was a dominating figure in both posture and magical prowess. He took care of the druids – even the ancient-eyed elder – as if they were children playing marbles in his backyard. His summoned demon – a malicious looking thing with swirling pair of horns and eyes that burned with blue flames – swatted the robed figures as if they weren’t even there, sending them facedown into the snow. This barbaric display gave the wizard ample time to collect Feru. The walls that looked so sturdy and unyielding to Victor moved away like a stage curtain in front of the magician, and before the prizefighter managed to utter...

“You leave her alone, you bastard!”

...the black cat was picked up by the scruff. And then, after a rather sarcastic farewell, the magician flew away with Feru struggling and scratching in his arms. For a couple of seconds the wind was tempestuous, as if it was provoked by the unnatural flying spell, and then it too died. All that’s left in the clearing was a caged boxer, a demonic summon and two pair of lifeless tree-huggers.

“Bastard. You could’ve taken your pet with you.” Victor thought, precariously stepping backwards once the demon homed in on his liveliness. The two gigantic paws grabbed the thorny bars, the beast roaring angrily at the pain but tearing the vines nonetheless. Only now that is stood so close to him could the prizefighter see the true girth of the creature, all eight feet of it and what must’ve been at least five hundred pounds. It was bound to tear him apart like toilet paper.

Gibberish again. This time a bit less melodic and hasty, but still the same half-whispered, half-spoken chant akin to the one that turned Feru into a domestic animal. It was subtly silent and soft, but powerful enough to creep in between the roars of the beast and reach Victor’s ears. And even as it did, the beast snapped its horned head backwards, but before it even opened its maw to utter another deafening shriek, it was caught in a shroud of white flames that ate through its flesh like acid. In less then a second the conjured creature was erased from existence completely. Instead of its menacing face, a bruised visage of the elder druid now looked at the boxer. The old man was leant on his staff, drawing in audible raspy breaths. Victor sighed, prominently relieved.

“That was way too close. You’re pretty good with those magics, old man.” he said, stepping towards the gap in the cage wall.

“It’s not magic, whelp.” the druid spoke, a bit irked but not as callous as while his three companions were alive and breathing. He did roll his eyes and took several weary steps from the cage. “That thing was a conjuration and as such unnatural. I simply banished it.”

“Well, whatever you call it, it saved my ass.” Victor said, then paused just as he stepped over the broken branches and torn vines. “Which makes me wonder. Whose side are you on, oldtimer? First you tie me down and hit me in the head, and then you save me from being demon’s lunch.”

“I don’t take sides, young one. I do what’s best for the forest.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re not doing a very good job. I don’t think a mad sorcerer roaming free is the best for the forest.” Victor said, his lips now curled in a patronizing smirk. The druid whipped him with his azure eyes in response, but the staff in his hands remained dormant.

“Don’t you lecture me, boy! I mayhap underestimated this mischievous mongrel, but he will get what’s coming to him.”

The prizefighter wasn’t terribly touched by the tinge of anger in the druid’s voice. If the man listened to Feru and him and didn’t run around like a maniac shouting “This is the law of the forest! Forest knows all!”, this might’ve never happened.

“How soon?” Victor asked, picking up his leather coat that dusting it off.

“Huh?” the druid responded, his brow furrowing.

“How soon will he get what’s coming to him? Because if you haven’t noticed, he has a rather helpless girl in his hands and I doubt he took her to give her some milk.”

The druid seemed ready for another tantrum, some bitter rant about patronizing and disrespecting the elderly, but he opted against it. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Victor was right. He prioritized and he did it the wrong way, focusing on the girl instead of her pursuer.

“As soon as I revive my brothers. They will help me summon the Rootwalker.”

[Meow]

Feru struggled with the levitating mage for a short while but she soon gave up when it seemed futile and the fall painful, though not as much for a cat but still. The trees looked like bare skeletons as she flew overhead and the blue tower was soon in view. Sadly the normally Azure tower was now gray as the crystals seemed to reflect more of the gray sky. Feru didn’t like seeing her home like this.

The sorcerer landed and strode through the front door with his apprentices opening it. “I’m home!” He called out in mock cheer while Feru thought: this isn’t your home. It’s mine and Khan’s! Feru growled at the same time.

“That’s no way to treat the man who brought you home is it?”

He carried Feru through the hallway that was just plain stone and always looked cold even when Khan was in charge and the tower in its full glory. Soon the two were in the lab where a gray cat was in a Cage. Khan, Feru meowed loudly with excitement and trepidation at seeing her master albeit in a cage.

“See what I have Wizard? I think you might recognize her.”

Khan mealy stared back in defiance, he knew it was Feru but he was afraid to talk and give him anything but then spoke. “Wow a new playmate how nice. Maybe you aren’t so bad since adopted a stray.” Khan mocked Sorcerer’s snide attitude.

Feru felt pain and she pitifully whined while her neck was squeezed but Khan made no answer to the cruelty. It really hurt Feru to see her master show no care if she was harmed or even killed. But he sorcerer stopped, he wanted to kill the girl but then he wouldn’t get what he wanted.

“Ack do I have to show you everything, I never thought a wizard could lack intelligence. No wonder everyone thinks senile old man when it’s about wizardry.” The black villain went into his pocket and took out a demon gem, a prized fuel for powerful magic that imprisoned the soul of a demon, the next spell was going to be powerful and important, demon gems took weeks to recharge and were only good for one spell before the needed recharge.

Feru shook with dread as she felt the black mage’s hand caress her fur while pulsing with dark energy. The demon sorcerer chanted low in commands as he commanded the demon of the gem to reveres the flow of magic on the black cat, who howled in pain as the blighted magic crawled through her like worms and ate at her form, not eating but changing.

Khan watched with horror as he saw the cat scream in agony, was this torture that the warlock had planned for him, no that was Feru. The feline howls turned into her semi human screams a voice that when normal was quite cheerful and cute but now it was sad and painful. Khan looked away not wanted to see her body wreath in transformation as the fur receded to the tails and ears and her violet hair would grow back and seeing her naked always made him uncomfortable but seeing her naked and like this would make him feel sick. Khan’s lovely apprentice was at the mercy of his enemy. But thankfully the transformation ended and Feru’s only sound was panting roughly. Khan took a look to see not much of her had changed from when he saw her last except for the wear from the transformation.

Thankfully the spell had took a lot out of the warlock, he cast a spell that he did not know and used the demon gem make the magic work, it was tough on his body. “You know if I don’t get what I want I’ll have to harm her more.” The black wizard moved to the doorway. “Put her in a cage and let Khan think about what he has to do, he only has one choice but his addled mind needs time to figure it out.” He was gone and the apprentices had forced the cat girl into an iron cage that was made for some experiments and easily held her size, though she simply collapsed from exhaustion and Khan was too shocked to do anything if he even thought he could.

[The Cinderella Man]

“What the hell is a rootwalker?” Victor asked as the old geezer went from one of his buddies to another, murmuring the same spell thrice and helping the druids back to their feet. Around them, the snow already thawed and slowly dissolved into nothing but cool water.

“A rootwalker is an avatar of the nature.” the druid said with somewhat of an exasperated tone, as if the explanation was common knowledge that the boxer was supposed to know. “He is the protector of the forest, Yedda’s emissary.”

“Sounds big. Can he fight?”

“Can he fight?!” the druid said, clearly shocked by Victor’s ignorance. “Of course he can fight! Why do you think we would summon him?”

“I don’t know. You guys are pretty weird, turning innocent people into cats and all.”

Once again, the old man rolled his eyes and barely managed to steady his hand from knocking some sense into the thick-skulled pugilist.

***

For what seemed like hours to Victor the four druids sat and muttered their endless chants in their little clearing. Each of them sat at one side of the clearing, forming one corner of a rectangle, and seemingly succeeding in doing nothing but annoying the hell out of the boxer. He was a man of action, a head-on kind of guy, and all this waiting was starting to be more then he could handle. Several times he wanted to approach the old man – that in the meantime identified himself as Bob, a false name if Victor ever heard one – but he was given explicit instruction that told him to stay outside the clearing or risk completely scotching their efforts.

One thing he did notice while standing beneath one of the trees was that the previously grim day turned into a rather chirpy evening. The snow was melted completely, gave way to the lush grass that seemed not just rejuvenated, but actually growing fast enough to be noticed with naked eyes. And not just the grass. Now that he ascertained the environment, it seemed that everything was flourishing at an accelerated rate, from tree branches to soft frolicky flowers in the grass.

“He is here.” Bob the druid said.

Victor scanned the entire length of the clearing, the turned around to look behind his back. “He is where?”

“HERE!”

And as if that word was a cue, all four druids lifted their hands skywards, causing such a deafening sonic boom that it nearly threw the boxer off balance. Dry leaves and twig fragments spun and twirled as if caught in a whirlwind, starting at the edges of the clearing and becoming more and more dense the closer to the center they came. When the tornado became thick enough so Victor couldn’t see through it, another deafening sound – this time the sound of crackling wood – resonated through the clearing and with it all became silent.

And in the middle of the clearing stood the rootwalker. It was a creature of mesmerizing girth, a titan warrior encrusted in dark brown bark. To Victor it looked like a gigantic armored knight with three horns on his helmet. His feet were heavyset and seemingly made out of entwined roots and mossy branches. His eyes were hidden deep within the head, shadowed but sparkling in a bright azure twinkle.

“Damn! Now, that’s something.” the prizefighter spoke, eyes locked on the rootwalker as he stepped into the clearing. The four druids were slowly regaining their footing, obviously weary from the ritual of summoning.

“Listen to me, Victor. The Rootwalker will take us to the Khan’s tower...” Bob begun, but Victor cut his short.

“Wait, you know Khan?”

“Yes, we go way back, but that’s not important. The Rootwalker will take us to the tower and take care of whatever defenses that wizard prepared. But he cannot venture into the tower. The five of us will go in, and while we fight this wizard, I want you to go find Khan and change him and his girl back to their human form.” the druid continued, deadly serious and holding the boxer’s shoulder.

“Wait, hold on. I am going to do that?”

“Yes. Take these two scrolls. Even a dumb brute such as yourself can read the enchantment on them.” the man said, handing over a pair of rolled up parchment that seemed to radiate with eerily power. So much so that they actually had unnatural weight, making Victor feel as if they were made out of lead. “Now, we go.”

***

The teleportation spell was the oddest thing Victor ever experienced in his life. He felt as if his body was broken into a myriad of tiny particles and he could feel each and every one of them floating around before they were sucked into the earth. And even as a myriad of tiny voices started to panic, they sprouted up from the soil, assembling themselves back together into his body once again. The first thing that Victor did when he got his arms and legs back under control was fall on his knees and regurgitate what little contents his stomach held.

There was no time for a pause though. Even as they emerged in front of the crystal tower, they found themselves under the barrage of magical projectiles. They seemed like fireworks to the boxer, a deadly fireworks that could turn you into smoldering ashes, but fireworks nonetheless. The rootwalker took care of those though. His arm extended forwards and even though there was no immediate effect, all the spells were simply devoured by the invisible barrier. And that was just the beginning. After a couple of minutes of sustained fire, the magic in the barrier accumulated that much energy that when the rootwalker fired it back at the mage apprentices that stood on the tower balconies, the sheer might of it incapacitated the black-attired magicians. And now the path to the tower was open.

The four druids led the way through the dim stone hallways and Victor plodded after them for minutes. And just as he was to throw in the towel and tell the druids to slow down – Victor was never a long runner – the four stopped in a large circular hallway where the black mage waited serenely.

“Go.” Bob said, pointing towards one of the exits, and before the boxer had a chance to doubt this command, a fireball was launched at the five of them. The elder druid bounced it with his staff, sending it into the stone dome above where the explosion shook the tower. That was all the reassurance that Victor needed that this wasn’t his battle. He needed to get the scrolls to Feru and Khan.

With the battle raging behind his back, the prizefighter expedited through the hall - that was luckily for him pretty straightforward - that eventually led them to what seemed like a chemistry lab. He stopped in his tracks, surveyed the environment for enemies, then after finding none proceeded towards the cages in the back. And despite the direness of the situation and the tower quivering from the spells cast in the main hall, Victor had to stop and look at Feru for a short while. A small cat beside the naked girl was meowing like crazy, but the boxer was temporarily captivated by the sheer beauty of the furry girl. It might’ve been because he didn’t have a woman for what seemed like ages now. Then again, it might’ve been because in a certain hidden way, Victor wanted Feru from the moment he saw her all drenched and shivering back in Darth’s Ditch. She was just so damn beautiful and beauty was something that he didn’t have a whole lot in his life.

Another boom woke him up from the enthrallment. The tiny cat at Feru’s flank was frantic, jumping and meowing and letting out the hissing sounds that cats usually did when they were edgy. It was enough to ensure Victor that he spent enough time ogling at the catgirl. He tried the door to the cage, but when he found them locked he left to procure a crowbar and break the padlock. Once he was in, he took off his coat and covered Feru with it while speaking in a rather panicked tone: “Feru! Feru wake up! I have these scrolls here that can help change the Khan back.”

[Meow]

Feru didn’t want to wake up and she wouldn’t have if the voice belonged to anyone but Victor or maybe Khan yet both of them were too much stay asleep. Feru stirred, as if in a dream. “I don’t want to learn anymore spells today, I’m not feeling well.” She curled into a ball.

Khan looked to the stranger that came in, he was staring at Feru before trying to wake her. But somehow the magus knew that he was a friend. “Feru, get up. Get up or I won’t make you breakfast!” Khan yelled in his disapproving tone to play toward the cat girl’s dreams.

Feru shot up as fast as lightning. “Meow! Master, I need to eat to feel better!” She said before she could realize what was going on. “Meow Victor?” Feru tilted her head to the side but then when her mind caught up she released her tears “How did you find me? I didn’t think I’d find you again.” She ran to hug him while forgetting her lack of clothing but fell to a stop when Khan yelled.

“Feru, stop goofing around, read the scroll and return my form before Kalin gets up.” Khan hissed while Feru groggily grabbed the scrolls, they were written in hidden speak with a phonetic translation to tradespeak. They were a vocal spell that would restore Khan and get them out of this mess. It was almost over, she could read the spell and Khan could chase the sorcerer and his flunkies away.

“Meow, alright, I do it.” She sounded excited as she started to read the magic; she would be safe and could curl up in her own bed. The words had the feeling of power and Khan trusted the words and so it must work. It was going to work.

But then another set of arcane words exploded and Feru was knocked down to fall on her bare but, the scroll floating in mid air and before the cat girl could jump up to catch it floated into the grasp of the dark sorcerer Kalin. “Naughty, naughty little kitty. No playing with magic while I’m asleep.” He held the scroll and then looked to Victor. “Well you’re just in time to see me torture the girl to learn get the cat to talk and then I’ll wipe those silly druids and their pathetic demigod off of the face of Althanas.”

HE strode up to Feru and gave a wicked smile, causing the cat magus to squeal in fear and try to hide away. She didn’t want to be tortured but all she could do was cower away and mutter, “Meow, meow, no, no nya!”

“Don’t touch her!” Khan yelled before he could look down. “I’ll tell you the secret if you let us go.” The cat hated himself for what he just said but he couldn’t watch Feru be hurt and killed and he could only do what he could and maybe he could buy some time. “You have to speak the oath of the magus and write down the sacred rune of everything in your spell book on the dais in the center of the grand chambers.” Khan lied hoping that he could buy some time to escape.

Feru sighed in relief as the warlock left and went down the hallway. The druids were about but they were nothing to him and neither was the silly cat girl, the old wizard or the tough guy, they’d all die once he truly took over the tower.

[The Cinderella Man]

When the malicious magician appeared, Victor had every intention to beat the bastard to a bloody pulp, but never got a chance to land a blow. The wizard stepped into the cage doggedly, knocked Feru down with an invisible shove and then, when the boxer went for the haymaker, he repeated the same attack. It seemed effortless and so effective that the prizefighter found himself slamming into the iron bars of the cage as if he just stepped in front of a charging bear. For a while all Victor could hear was the little black cat – supposedly this Khan the catgirl was speaking of – meowing frantically, and then the black mage walked away as if he got what he came for. Obviously, everybody except the boxer was deft in understanding cat talk.

Once the threatening man was gone, Victor brought himself back on his feet and approached the furry pair. Feru looked – other then completely naked – genuinely confused and startled, and once again he felt sad to see one so gentle and innocent going through all this mess. She shouldn’t be dealing with shapeshifting and crooked mages. She should be dealing with boys chasing after her and first kisses and all the good stuff the youth offered. Life really could be a treacherous bitch sometimes.

“You alright, Feru?” he said, hunkering next to her and trying not to look uncomfortable around her shameless nakedness. To remedy that, he picked up his coat again and draped it around her shoulders, offering a mild smile to the girl. The cat beside her meowed ceaselessly, making Victor wonder if Khan was this annoying when he was in a human form. “I was worried that the bastard would hurt you or something, especially while you were a cat.”

Regardless of how truthful that sentence was, the prizefighter found it weird to hear himself say it. While you were a cat. It sounded like some bogus reincarnation voodoo that gypsies pulled on you during annual fairs, where they told you what you were in past lives. Granted, this transformation happened in this life, but it was still terribly odd to say it and actually believe it.

“What about you, little guy? You holding up?” he asked the cat, scratching his furry head gently. Khan the Cat hissed and moved away, clearly not satisfied with the pet-like treatment. Another set of explosions and eerily arcane words boomed through the tower, reminding Victor that the druids are still fighting the evil magician. And while there was probably little use of a pugilist in a magic fight, he couldn’t just sit on his ass and wait for the final score. He wasn’t any good with magics. Hell, he wasn’t even that good in hand-to-hand combat. But he was a good cannon fodder and a possible distraction and that was what he could do for Feru. Whether he succeeds or fails wasn’t a real issue. If he managed to help in the defeat of the wizard, all will be well and this fiasco would turn into a genuine happy ending. And if he failed, they were all as good as dead anyways with the demented magician in control of the tower.

“Now, you two stay put. I’m going to go help Bob and the other druids.” he said to the two, his eyes were locked on the emeralds of the cat girl. And suddenly he had a premonition – a cold perfidious sensation that seized his mind - that he was looking at her for the last time. And even though most of the times Victor was as sentimental as an assessor and was terrible at goodbyes, he leant forwards and planted a swift kiss on Feru’s cheek. It was a silly thing to do – after all, they hardly knew each other – but it felt right and that was enough for him to smile and walk out of the chemistry lab.

The wizard wasn’t too hard to find – all that the boxer had to do was home in on the sound of ruckus and take the corridors where it was louder. Soon enough he was standing in a doorframe that looked over a large circular room with a stone dais dominating the center. Bob was the only druid left standing, leaning on his staff like a handicapped beggar as he chanted once again, launching a vibrant energy orb at the wizard that stood in the center. Though he wasn’t exactly standing. The man was bent low with his back turned to Victor, scribbling something on the stone surface, not terribly concerned with the druid whose projectile was diverted from its trajectory as it came too close to the mage. This was the boxer’s chance. He could take him down from behind and punch his lights out before he could fire some of his razzle-dazzle. He could save Feru.

He tiptoed half the distance, then, when he was confident enough that the bastard wouldn’t have enough time to react, he dashed towards the center. Bob was waving his hand at something, but Victor paid no heed to it. The druid was probably evoking another spell and thus distracting the mage even more. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. What Bob’s hand was gesturing was for the prizefighter to stay away.

Victor acknowledged this the hard way. As soon as he reached the dais, his entire body hit what seemed like an invisible stone wall. The impact nearly forced the air from his lungs and nearly knocked some of his teeth out before sending him stumbling backwards. It was then that the mage turned around abruptly, his hand outstretched as if he was trying to grasp something. And he was. The pale fingers moved in a squeezing motion and Victor could feel them around his neck even though the mage and the boxer stood ten feet apart. The invisible clutching hand lifted him in mid air as if he was a bag of dry sticks and the dark mage smiled. However, what the wizard didn’t see was that his abrupt turn sent one of the scrolls flying out of his pocket and rolling down the stone tiles.

[Meow]

“Meow, yeah.” Feru replied to Victor’s concern for her. She was mostly tired and cold from having no clothes or only having fur on her ears and tail but before she could say anything the fighter had given her another article of clothing to fight off the cold and make her feel less naked. All Feru could do for a thank you was to meekly smile.

“Feru, you should do more than make cute faces. We need to get out of here or stop Kalin. And you’re the only one with magic.”

Feru listened to Khan but then kept her focus on Victor as his lips met her cheek in a human sign of affection. Feru felt warm and almost dizzy as she wondered what the kiss meant. Did he like her or was it a goodbye kiss or maybe for good luck. But still she couldn’t stand to let him get himself killed by the sorcerer.

“Meow, Khan, I’m going after him.” Feru said to the cat as she moved through the door to follow victor, her cattail twitching with apprehension.

“Feru, you might die. Don’t go.” Khan asked and gave Feru pause. This seemed like something that Khan would scream out a command, not ask nicely. It almost made the kitty girl think about not following.

“Meow, I must. I have to help him. He needs to escape.” She moved through the door in a run, she knew where the mage would be and where Victor would be. She went strait through the stone halls that were darkly quiet, the druid’s siege was over and all was left was silent halls. But then Feru heard the sounds of magic and pain as she came up a spiral staircase to a large room, the biggest in the tower. Feru ran up the stairs until something rolled under her foot and she slipped and fell falling on her face.

The kitty girl tried to hold in a scream but merely whimpered from the pain. She looked to see a scroll underfoot, the shape changing scroll that Victor gave her and the dark wizard took away. Still it might be useful and so Feru took it in hand and continued upward.

“Victor!” Feru cried when she reached the room, he was floating and struggling against unseen hands of the warlock’s magic. “Let him go! Please!” Feru Begged as she fell to her knees.

The sorcerer just smiled.

He wouldn’t let Victor go until the man was dead but what could Feru do? Her magic would be counted easily. She just wasn’t good enough. Then there was the scroll that was meant to change people. Could it work? Maybe.

Feru looked at the words, it was to change people to whatever they desired, and she needed a change. She needed it to be what she desired. She needed to find the word that was key to that point; one word would change the spell to what she needed. Victor was dying. What word could save him? Feru swallowed hard and started to chant the spell, letting it flow and hoping she could feel the word that needed to be changing.

“Give it up cat girl! You’re a pathetic excuse for an apprentice!”

Feru kept trying, her breath growing short and her body growing hot. There was magic in the air and something was going to happen. Feru’s finger arched with sorcerous power and the sorcerer looked at her with disdain.

“That spell’s way too advanced for a silly Kitty.” He was sure she was going to fail. But the fighter was tough and still alive; he couldn’t let him go just yet to silence a cat girl.

Feru felt her body go weak and sprawl against the floor as she spoke the final words. Did she finish the spell? Who knew? But something strange about the tower, the walls were glowing with runes. Kalin didn’t complete the ritual did he?

“You are a stupid cat girl. Now I have the tower and its magic. That glowing shows it had chosen its master and will lend me its power…” The mage stopped his gloating for a moment. Something wasn’t right. Well getting all that power would feel funny, so why was he worried? “Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!” Wait he wasn’t human anymore; he was a Mouse!

Feru smiled a little. “Hey mousy.” She sounded weak as she tried to get into a feline pouncing position. “Meow, I’ll get you.” She said but then decided to curl into a ball. “Just after a little catnap.” Still she looked at Victor to see if he was ok. “Victor, thank you…” She smiled warmly before deciding to try and get up and pawed towards him on all fours, slowly since she felt so tired. “I’m sorry for causing this whole mess.”

[The Cinderella Man]

The fact that life didn’t flash in front of Victor’s eyes should’ve been a proof that he wasn’t dying, but his body thought otherwise. It writhed and twisted, struggling to somehow outlast the inhumanly strong magical choke, feebly contorting the throat muscles in an attempt to draw breath. The boxer’s sight blurred, became nothing but mush of grayish colors with a few starry spotlights, his arms trashing in front of him in search of something coherent to hold on to. But there was nothing tangible holding him, nothing that sheer physical force could prevent from killing him with magical asphyxia.

“Damnit!.... Killed... by a... bloody mage...” was what the prizefighter knew would be his last thought. He always saw himself dying from brain hemorrhage caused by getting hit in the head one too many times, or shot in the back by a bookie that had a bad day and lost a wad of cash on his last bout. Sometimes he could actually see himself as an old man, sitting in a rocking chair with a grandchild in his arthritic hands, telling stories that every member of his family heard at least twenty times already. But he never thought that he would killed by an overblown bunny-in-the-hat magician.

But then, when his hopes diminished to the point of nonexistence and the ref’s count seemed to reach the number nine, something happened. At first he couldn’t hear or see anything, his senses overruled by sheer agony, but the clutch around his neck seemed to lose a fraction of its unyielding power. Victor did his best to strain his eyes, forcing them back into focus only to see Feru on her knees, chanting something that sounded a lot like that hoodoo the druids blurted out before their spells. It was draining the catgirl though, so much so that she seemed on the verge of conking, but even as she concluded the chant, Victor felt the clutch around his throat loosening, then disappearing completely, allowing him to crash onto the stone floor from his levitating position.

He coughed and clutched to his chest and breathed like never in his life, his inhales shallow and frantic, making his lungs burn and ache. It caused him to close his eyes and once he managed to open them again, the dark apparition that nearly squeezed life out of him as if he was a sponge was no more. Instead of his ominous figure there was a... Mouse? Yes, it certainly seemed so. A tiny white mouse screeched in panic, reminding the boxer of Khan and his uncontrolled meows. It was enough to draw a smile on his face despite the fact that his body was still in the recovering from suffocating stage. The diminutive rodent seemed confused at first, burying its head into the small paws, and then when the inspection seemed to be done, he scurried towards the door. He would’ve made it too if Bob’s foot didn’t catch his tail just in time, the old man leaning wearily over his staff to pick the mouse up.

“Oh no, you don’t, you pesky bastard.” the druid said, holding the animal by the tail and swinging it in front of his face. Victor didn’t care too much about that, not when Feru approached him on all four, looking so terribly ridiculous in his coat and so terribly cute at the same time, apologizing for the trouble she caused. Victor’s vengeful grin that was directed towards the metamorphosed wizard turned into a soft smile once she was close enough for to cuddle close to him, obviously weary from the exertion.

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” he said, huddling her a bit closer to himself and running his hair through her violet hair tenderly. “It’s not your fault. It’s that bastard magician that caused all this mess. You were just caught in it. But it’s over now. You did good, Feru. You saved my life. I should be thanking you.”

He wasn’t certain how much of his words she heard because, by the time he was done, the sweet catgirl was firmly asleep, tenderly leant on his side. Victor didn’t care that he was sitting on a cold stone floor in a middle of a drafty room. He felt that he could stay in this position forever. Bob the Druid had other ideas though, approaching with what now seemed like an obvious gimp, holding his staff in one hand and the mischievous transformed wizard in the other.

“You’re not going to turn her into a cat again, are you Bob?” the boxer asked, looking up from his sitting position.

“No. She did well. Better then I expected, as a matter of fact. And now that Kalin is robbed of both his humanity and his power, all is well with the forest.” the old geezer spoke, his ancient eyes now looking antediluvian and weary.

“Your buddies... They’re going to be alright? You can do your resurrection voodoo again, right?” Victor asked, but the expression on Bob’s face gave him an answer even before the druid spoke. It seemed that the whole raise the dead shebang was a one time deal.

“They are to be returned to the forest, for which they gave their lives. But that’s the way of the forest. Life and death are just stages in our lives...”

“Yeah, the first and the last one.”

“Do you really believe that?” the man asked, peering from above in amicable eyes. No, of course he didn’t. His father was a preacher, and while most of the religious mumbo-jumbo went in one ear and out the other, afterlife was one of the things the prizefighter believed in. Whatever it looked like. “You should get her somewhere warm. I’ll go have a chat with Khan.”

Victor nodded in acknowledgment. Still rather weary from the struggle with the wizard, he forced himself up to his feet and with a muffle umph! he picked up the lithe girl. Trial and error got him towards a rather spacious study, and though there were no beds there, there was a lofty sofa resting under one of the overburdened bookshelves. He put Feru down tenderly, pulled her coat around her a bit more tightly so it covered most of the her womanly charms, then proceeded to cover her with a scarlet blanket. With that done, he finally collapsed into an armchair beside the couch, feeling his muscles relaxing instantly. It felt as if a taut rope was slowly being unwound and loosened.

((I reckon you make Feru wake up, maybe bring in Khan transformed back in a human form and Bob. Or not and Victor and Feru can have some...private time. ;) Your call. ))

[Meow]

This was strange, Feru didn’t remember going into the study so why would she wake up there. Did she fall asleep while reading arcane theory again, that would explain why she would wake up in the study and maybe even the nightmare.

But if it was a dream then she didn’t know victor and that would be terrible, she was feeling something for him. The man didn’t think much of himself but he was a brave, strong and kind man, he was her hero. Sure he had human quirks like getting embarrassed over seeing her naked but the kitty girl sorta liked it. It was cute and chivalrous the way he’d place a shirt over her when her clothes were soaked or lost and it did keep her somewhat warm.

She stretched herself awake and looked around the study, mostly books and dust with some common magic components scattered around to confuse her smell but she smelled victor and that made sure she would smile this morning.

Feru’s heart pounded when she looked at the rising and falling of his breath. Feru was sure that she hadn’t liked a human as much as Victor and that was including Khan. Victor was her hero and she felt zap through her whole body when looking at him sleeping quietly. Feru swished her tail and smiled. She had to thank him.

The kitty magus crept up like she was stalking that mouse that she changed the sorcerer into, how did she manage to do that to a mage that was so much greater than her was unreal. Feru wish she knew what she did to change him like that. She did remember parts of the spell and might be able to work it into a lesser spell. But the one she cast was great, far greater than one would expect of an apprentice.

Feru! Think about Victor, he’s what’s important now! You can play in the books anytime you want but if Vic leaves you might not see him again.

Feru shook her head as she got closer, her body starting to purr like a happy Kitten and she purred a little more each little bit she got closer. Soon the magus was crawling over the Chair with her tail flicking nervously.

How to thank him?

Oh I know! Feru grinned before pursing her lips and moving them over his cheek like Vic had done earlier… no there was a better spot. Feru brought her lips over Victors and pressed them against them and then sucked a little. That would get his attention and Feru knew the way she would thank him.

[The Cinderella Man]

There was a lot that Victor went through during his twenty-six years, but there was only one dream that he yearned for ever since he was an adolescent brat with no other concern in his young mind except the fantasies about the local lasses that pranced around Scara Brae, all beautiful in their own way and all equally out of reach. This one desire haunted his thoughts, disappearing and reappearing from time to time, like a ghost of something that should’ve happened but never occurred outside his mentations. And he thought that once it actually took place – once he would be awoken from slumber by a kiss from somebody who cared about him – he would’ve found the one thing he searched for. The One person he searched for.

That was his first thought when he felt moist pressure on his lips and tiny coy hands holding on to him. His mind wasn’t jumpstarted yet, oblivious as to whom was the one kissing him, but Victor didn’t care at this moment. Instead he kept his eyes closed, returning the tender buss and embracing whoever was the owner of the suave softness and the sweet taste. “Feru!” his mind soon screamed the obvious information and once his eyes opened, he could confirm the claim. The catgirl was settled in his arms, her lips breaking from his own all too soon before she opened up her stunning emerald eyes. Victor couldn’t help but smile.

“Feru? Are you alright?” the boxer spoke, still a bit blindsided by the whole awakening but anything but repulsed by it. His arms held her close, their faces remaining mere inches apart as his hand found its way to her hair, tenderly caressing the violet locks. His heart was like a steam engine, puffing and ready to explode from the closeness of the beautiful girl that seemed genuinely interested in him. Whether it was because of his feeble attempt at heroics or... Well, it had to be that since Victor couldn’t think of any other reason. Still, he wasn’t going to let this shot at happiness pass him by. Scarce were the ones that cared for him after Delilah, but given the decay he fell into after the breakup, he wasn’t terribly surprised. But Feru looked at him with the eyes of someone who at this moment wanted to be nowhere else but in Victor’s arms. And that felt amazing.

He hesitated at first, but after she didn’t recoil, he kissed her lips again softly. And she felt like everything he ever wanted, her taste, her smell, her warm body pressing against his own... It was all so perfect it had to be surreal. He would take her, and make love to her, and marry her, and... and... And there was nothing there. In the long run, there was nothing he could offer her, nothing but a life of a vagabond that went from one town to the other in search for a fight. There was no security in that kind of life, no firm foothold that Feru deserved.

“Wait, wait, stop.” he spoke, breaking the contact with her lips despite the fact that his body begged him not to do so. “This... This isn’t right.”

He squeezed from her arms tenderly, getting up on his feet and leaving her on the lofty armchair. And even as he looked back at her, all he could think about were those lips, those caresses of her hands, those wonderful eyes that even now tore his insides to shreds. She was everything he wanted and he had to leave her behind because the path he walked wasn’t meant to be threaded by two pair of feet.

“You’re a wonderful girl, Feru. And I’m so glad that I met you, despite everything that happened. But now I have to go. You have a good life here and I don’t think there’s place for me here.” he spoke, the severity of the emotions boiling in his insides apparent in his tone. But he was given the choice between what felt good and what felt right and he opted for the latter for Feru’s sakes. With her looks and her innocent charms, she was bound to find somebody better.

“If you ever need me, for anything at all, look for me in Radasanth fighting arenas. I’ll always be there for you if you need me, alright?” he concluded with a smile, weak and forced at his lips before he bent towards the catgirl and kissed her forehead, hoping that he would be able to leave his farewell at just that one kiss. And at the same time hoping that Feru would do something to prevent him from leaving.

[Meow]

Feru couldn’t help but smile when she saw Victor awake from her kiss. It felt so right to her and she felt like Victor was the right man to kiss like that. His lips felt so much softer than the rest of him and Feru enjoyed feeling hers touch his.

The handsome fighter asked if she was all right and the cat girl giggled. “Of coarse meow!” She chimed but then he moved to kiss her. This one was better than the first since it was one that interacted. Feru had seen humans kiss and never knew what the big deal was; it was like cleaning each other but less useful. But this was something wonderful the way they could feel affection by sucking on each other’s lips was something that Feru was glad that she was feeling.

She loved Victor, or so she thought.

Then it was over.

It wasn’t a violent pushing off but a request and Feru got off obediently, a rather un-catlike reaction but she felt something for Victor and didn’t want to do anything to him that he didn’t want it. But why didn’t he want it, just a moment their kissing had so much love and affection. No he loved her. Feru hoped he did anyways. Maybe it was she was a cat and he a human.

Tears welled in her eyes but she resisted sobbing and crying, forming a lump in her throat as her tail swished worriedly. As she listened to his words and not wanting to break his sweet voice say that it wasn’t her fault and that he wasn’t right for her. Maybe he was right. Though the thought hurt her heart. He offered to help her whenever she needed and told her where to find him.

He kissed her as a good bye.

Please come back. She thought, maybe just for another visit.

Then he was gone. A man that Feru loved so briefly was gone just like that.

“There you are Feru, where’s your friend. I want to thank him for helping me.”

Feru looked to the voice to see not a cat but a man, and old gray man with long gray hair and a gray beard with a smile on his face that caused the kitty girl to smile as well.

“You’re Back!! Meow!” Feru ran and hugged her master, he was back to normal and all well.

“Yes, yes silly girl, I’m back.” He returned her hug, both sharing each other’s warmth without words. Feru didn’t want to talk, just hold someone though she did start purring.

Bob the druid came down the stairs to see the two holding each other in a sweet embrace that a father would his daughter. ”I’ll leave you two alone for now. I’m sorry Feru for reverting your form.” He said no more and left the two alone.

(spoils: metabolt: this spell is an alteration of the polymorph spell that doesn't use the tower. Instead it uses a shape chaging bolt that is similar to a fireball without the explosion, the spell does minor to moderate physical and if it deals the killing blow the victim would be turned into an animal instead of dying, the animal is allways small, the largest being a medium sized dog.)

[The Cinderella Man]

When Feru did nothing to prevent him from leaving, Victor Callahan trudged his way through the tower halls and ultimately out of it, fighting the desire and reason that opposed each other in his mind. On one side, there was this sweet girl that – despite having a pair of ears and a furry tail – was simply perfect, more so because she wanted him around her, that cared for him. Ever since Delilah, he searched for something resembling a relationship, something that would overshadow the affection that refused to die in him.

And yet, he got lost in this search. He kept his eyes on the goal and his head in the clouds, failing to see the path that he was threading. And now that he looked down from the divine place where Feru’s closeness took him, he saw that he was walking towards a canyon. It wasn’t that he had nothing to offer to Feru, but rather that he had nothing to offer to any girl period. Living from one day to the other and making ends meet wasn’t the life you want to give for those you care for.

So he walked out. He left the girl, the study, Bob the Druid, Khan the Cat and the whole mess that revolved around them behind his back. But despite all the things he lost, on that day he gained something as well. It wasn’t exactly a revelation, but rather the determination that he needed, an incentive that was bound to pull his face out of the mud. He would clean his act up, probably hang his boxing gloves on the wall and find a decent job, strike a foundation to what a real life should be. He would make himself worthy just in case another proximity infatuation came around. He was a grown man, for god sakes, and not getting any younger. It was time to stop living in the dream world and face the reality.

“Well, this was certainly a smart idea, Padre.”

The reality for the time being was the forest and the night that fell over it while he was playing a life-or-death game with the demented mage. The Rootwalker creature was gone, so were the apprentices, and the serenity of the woods was somewhere between soothing and scary. Still, despite his utter lack of ranging skills, Victor had to get out of here. There were too many emotions in play, too much complexity in the life that he liked to keep simple. Maybe one day he would be able to wrestle with it all, but right now it was time to put the tail between his legs and run. His feet didn’t take him away from the tower in a dash though. Instead, they started ambling towards what he was pretty certain was west in hope to strike the South Road before getting lost. Whether they would take him up or downhill remained to be seen.

((SPOILS: Some extra cash that Victor earned while working as a bouncer.))

[Dissinger]

Overall:

I have to thank you guys really; you turned an hour and a half commute to San Fransisco and back into what felt like ten minutes. That being said I feel you guys did a damn good job here, and while I may be critical it’s because I know you guys can do better and wish to help you get there. So, just know that if I seem critical I still loved the thread and you guys will only get what I feel you need to improve.

With this in mind...

Onto the judging!

Introduction: 6 I felt the introduction from Feru was a bit more confusing than Victor's. A lot of it was just moving so fast I didn't get a chance to really get a good grasp of what as going on. You gripped me but with the confusion of that first post I nearly let go. Introductions can be hard, but if you take your time and just slowly work through the transitions it will flow better. Victor's was good as it helped paint the scene in the Ditch.

Setting: 7 This was used well by both of you. I feel you guys did a good job of painting the scenery in my mind, and giving me something to help with how you guys were doing. The atmosphere of the bar is something few people seem to do properly and with the hooting and hollering it was done perfectly. It certainly made things easier on me when trying to figure out what was going on.

Strategy: 7 You guys did an excellent job here. I didn't feel things were forced. My only qualms here were the sudden change of heart. While it was plausible, I didn't feel the Yedda Priests would have taken Victor along with them. I would have seen it more that they would have run off without him, leaving him to trudge his way through on his own. There were a few other areas where the strategy was a bit off, like the Wizard trying to choke victor to death. That’s something I can see Seth do since Seth began as a thief, he’s a physical guy. However wizards like the ones portrayed I see as using a spell to stun or kill. It was little things like that that made me give you this score.

Writing Style: 5 You guys wrote well, however as I seem to keep nitpicking, and I know I am very guilty of, there was spelling mistakes throughout. As Meow posted more hers went away, and Duro I know that sometimes it’s hard to see them. A few of the times was also careless grammar, like not capitalizing the first letter of a sentence. If you can fix that I can give you guys a higher score next time. The little errors kept interrupting my reading of it as I had to take even the smallest amount of time to figure out what you meant. This score was basically all technical merit, now you need to bring the rest of it up.

Rising Action: 7 This thread flowed very well and strategy aside you guys helped build up to that one moment, that final climactic battle. At first I seriously thought it was Khan who would do the job, but was genuinely surprised to see Feru take up the task. Things like that give you guys a bonus here.

Dialogue: 8 You guys had me laughing with some of your lines. Feru's naiveté and Victor’s grumpy bitter man speeches were solid. I also like how the Priests of Yedda kept insisting they weren't druids, and the barkeeps mentioning of traipsing around in loin clothes like fairies. It was the small things in life that got you this far. Congrats on that awesome dialogue.

Character: 9 As much as I dislike giving out so high a number, I can't help it guys. You did an awesome job of displaying character. The only thing that kept you from the coveted ten was the small strategic flaws that the characters showed. However, you did an admirable job of showing who was who, from "Bob" the Yedda Preist to Kahn the wizard, you put up a solid performance. I also found it funny how the barmaid was being so angry towards Feru, while she turned down old Victor. It was those small things that made me smile and helped you guys get here. Congrats.

Climax: 6 The climax wasn't quite solid as I felt maybe separating the ending of the chant with the transformation into a rat/mouse would have helped build that last bit of tension. Creating a situation where you sit there and have to wonder what’s going on and if he really did claim the tower as his own. Other than that I felt you guys did a rather good job of displaying a climax. It definitely had a high point and when I think Climax I know where to go in this one. That’s something that even Duro can attest to, that I have problems with.

Conclusion: 7 Poor poor Victor. Just when it looks like he's getting a break everything comes crashing down. I know you call me a bastard for half the stuff I do to Seth, but I see Victor slowly making his way to the same "never getting love" club that I attribute to most of the characters I write. I felt it rather fitting that he didn't want to stay in the tower, and realized he had nothing to offer Feru. While I may disagree with the whole I gotta go and may be back things, I felt it was well done and deserved.

Wildcard: 10 Can I give this anything else. Like I said guys you put up a solid effort, don't you forget it.

And the verdict is…..

72!

Spoils:

Meow gets 815 EXP, 100 Gold (Someone felt she needed a little financial help and slipped the gold in her spell book when she wasn't looking, an apology from the Yeddas probably), and Metabolt as written. I would like to point out that RoG still needs to approve this upon your next level update.

The Cinderella Man gets 1415 EXP and 300 Gold (Some people tipped really heavy some nights and apparently a mysterious femme slipped a little extra into his coffers.)

Any EXP rewards given are based off of the new equation. Any questions regarding what was said can be addressed to me via PM or AIM SethDahlios.

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

EXP and GP Added!