Stepping closer, so that only a few centimetres came between them she stared at this Eteri being with a darkening gaze. “Why did you steal his soul?” she asked.
It could have been for many reasons. After all she did have a solid hole in the myriad of those swimming around her. It was … scary almost. A void of nothing, where a person's being usually was. Stare blinked for a moment in the aura sight and then out.
Finally, the cat-girl sighed and unfolded her arms. She seemed to struggle with Tradespeak. Stare raised her brow until she figured out that this girl was not all that comfortable with the common tongue. “Eteri said. Only took bad bit. Bit that made man cranky. Not steal. Ok … did take no permission.” She shoved her hand in the satchel and rummaged around in it before pulling out the vial that contained the man's soul. “You want. You take.”
Stare was taken aback and raised her clawed hands, aware that there was a street of people watching them. Or, rather, a crossroads. Her rough skin was clear, as she waved them in complete denial.
“No thank you, I'm not one for taking them. Just seeing them.” She dropped her hands, paused and stepped slightly closer and lowered her voice, trying to not be heard by the rest of the people. “You didn't answer my question before - how do you have a void at the centre? Right there,” she pointed, “Where your own aura should be. I think, I'm still getting used to it so …”
The cat girl seemed to understand what she meant. In broken tradespeak she spoke:
“Eteri no have soul. Found one. Big plant lady had. But red angry thing no go into vial.” Eteri sprawled out her fingers and wriggled them about, right up in Stares face. No sense of personal space this girl. “Went oooo and dug way inside. Now stuck. Stuck good.”
Stare now furrowed her brow. Deep so that the ridge was low over her creepy full black eyes. A tilt of the head, a surge of dislike as the cat girl remained in her personal space. But she needed to be close. In fact she peered closer and … there. True enough, a tiny grasp of soul actually inside the void. A vile, dark black thing with purely evil intentions and a chaotic sense of being …
Stare gasped and stepped back, further away from the cat woman than before. “Ow,” she commented. “That doesn't look healthy.”
The catgirl beat her chest proudly. “Eteri much healthy.”
“Uh huh,” Stare replied, looking at the mass of souls circulating around this girl’s satchel. And her in general. Tiny pieces of souls, from so many races and genders and ways of life. “I'm not convinced.”
She paused a moment, then thought. Cat folk she was sure came from near Akashima city. They even called themselves a racial name by the language - Nekojin. Kenku themselves took their own race name after what the Akashimans could pronounce …
“<Ah,>” she said, trying her best to remember what Akashiman she could, though she was not the best. <”excuse me is this better?”>
