10 - What the cat dragged in
writing Willow10 - What the cat dragged in
The rain fell in dense sheets as bright colors flashed in the clouds overhead. I felt suffocated by the pressure - of the water, the freezing air, even the blanket of sound that drowned out the world. Gradually, though, something emerged from the noise behind me. A voice, I thought - hesitantly, I turned away from the cabin, just in time to see Brask emerge from behind a tree, shouting after me.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he sounded terrified. As soon as he saw the cabin, he shrank back into the woods and went quiet, frantically beckoning for me to hide with him.
“Lily, what the hell are you doing?!” Brask hissed, barely audible over the rain.
“I don’t know, I thought I was asleep!”
“We need to get the hell out of here. Now!” His voice was shaking like a leaf.
Despite knowing what I came here for, I couldn’t help but worry that it was a mistake. I nodded without a word and started to move away from the house.
Brask followed suit, but we didn’t get far before I heard swearing from behind me. I turned to see him hanging by his ankle from a rope tied to a nearby tree, and his expression told me he knew he was about to die.
I leapt into action, and before my conscious mind had fully processed what was happening, I was already halfway up the tree to cut Brask out. The surface of the tree was as cold as one would expect, but the soul inside it was so hot that it felt like I was putting my hand on a stove. Still, I knew it wouldn’t actually burn me, and I didn’t have any time to hesitate.
Brask shouted up after me. “Run! Fucking run, don’t worry about me!”
I climbed out on the branch as fast as I could. When I reached the other end of the rope, I realized it wasn’t a rope at all, but a vine growing directly out of the tree. I reached for my knife, but found nothing; I didn’t think to grab my tools before I sleepwalked out here. Instead, I shifted my position to hang by my knees, and dangling over the forest floor, I grabbed the vine in both hands and bit down as hard as I could. The taste was terrible, and the soul inside was so bright that it felt like I was gnawing on a steel rod fresh from the forge, but as I pulled harder, the fibers began to yield, and Brask landed ungracefully in the mud.
Brask struggled to his feet. “I told you to run, get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you behind!” I clambered down the tree and hurried to help him up.
After Brask was on his feet, we made a run for it, but didn’t notice the figure appearing from the house’s doorway until it was too late. The forest came alive, the roots and brush shooting up from the ground and weaving into a wall to block our path.
Brask looked between me and the wall before grabbing my shoulders and looking deep into my eyes. “Lily, If you find Alys…” His voice was weak, scarcely audible over the rain. “Tell her Papa loves her.”
My eyes went wide with terror. “No, you-”
Ignoring my protests, Brask tightened his grip, lifted me over his shoulder, and hurled me over the wall.
As the air rushed past my ears, I instinctively twisted my body to reorient myself and land on my feet, but my momentum was still enough to bowl me over.
From beyond the wall, I heard a woman’s voice speaking English. “Hey! Hey, wait up a second!” She panted, evidently exhausted from hurrying to get outside and meet us. There was something familiar about her voice, but I couldn’t quite place it. “S-Sorry for all this, I don’t mean you any harm, I just wanted to ask where-”
Brask roared, and the flash from his attack lit up the canopy. I heard the woman shriek, and a piece of wood was blown to splinters. Something began to rustle, and though I could hear Brask struggling, it only took a few moments for everything to fall below the noise of the rain.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard him spit at the Celestial’s feet. “Make it quick.”
“Uh… All right, I guess I can rule out English-speaking countries.” The woman sounded worried. “I, me! I, friendly, talk, no fight! Er…” Presumably, she was trying to communicate by gesture.
I paused for a moment in surprise. Hesitantly, I called out in English. “Hello?”
“Oh, thank goodness! Just a second.” The wall started to pull back into the ground. “Do you know what’s going on, where we are? You’re the first people I’ve seen in days-”
As the plants receded below eye level, we both froze. She was surprised, I assume, because she had never seen a cat-person before. I, however, was surprised because even in the dark, I recognized her face.
“Paisley!” I leapt over what remained of the wall and almost bowled her over with a hug, tears of joy already running down my face. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
Paisley squeaked before pushing me away. “Sorry, personal space! I don’t know you!”
Seeing Paisley look at me like a stranger felt like a dagger in my stomach. “O-Oh, right, of course, I look like this now…” Looking up close at her face, I noticed something odd: there was a shape over her right eye that seemed to be “cut out” of reality, like a portal to the night sky.
“Hey! Excuse me! What the hell is going on?” Brask shouted, still trapped in a tangle of branches and vines. “You can talk to it?!”
“Oh, fuck. Hold that thought.” Paisley was confused, but I turned away from her and switched back to the local language. “Brask, I’m really sorry, there’s a lot I haven’t told you, but I hope you’ll understand why once I explain.”
“Lily, I thought I was going to die! What possible reason could you have to let me think that?”
“Okay, first big reveal.” I took a deep breath. “I’m a Celestial.”
“Wh… You… No, you aren’t! Obviously not!”
“And the-” I faltered. “Wait, what? Why ‘obviously not’?”
“You’re not human! You don’t have the Stars’ Mark! Any number of other reasons!”
It took me a second to fully process what Brask said. Once I had, I did my best to speak in a measured tone, though some of my emotions still showed through. “Okay. Thank you for that information. It would have been helpful if you told me that a month ago.”
Brask’s anger diminished, being replaced by concern. “Why is that..?”
“Because. I had a life on Earth, I got run over and died, I woke up here, and the first person I met told me that people from Earth are called Celestials, and that we’re hunted for our magic! I’ve spent this entire time thinking that I’d be dead if anyone found out I’m not from here, and now you’re telling me I was scared for nothing?”
Brask opened his mouth to respond, but Paisley interjected. “Hey! I hate to interrupt, but it’s very cold out here!” She gestured to the house with a sheepish grin. “I’d really prefer if we moved this inside..!”
Paisley’s house was very interesting. The walls and furniture were all a bit lumpy thanks to being made of living wood, but the inside was a pleasant temperature, and there were even cabinets and light fixtures. The plants weren’t burning up like the tree or the wall from before, but they were still faintly warm. Paisley was growing some towels from the wall for us, and I could feel the soul-heat radiating across the room.
Brask was hesitant to enter at first, but now he sat at the table with me, massaging his temples. “So no one on Earth has any magic? You didn’t steal it all in the war?”
“Yeah. No one even knows this place exists, let alone anything about a war.”
“Okay…” Brask sounded doubtful. “I assume your real reason for wanting to join the Celestial hunt was to find another person from Earth?”
I fidgeted nervously. “I thought that if I got to them first, I could help them blend in, and we could travel together.”
“That makes sense.” Brask pointed at Paisley. “Next question, how do you know her?”
“Do you remember when we were talking about our old friends before bed in Millstone?”
Brask thought for a moment. “Yeah, from before you escaped-” He smiled, burying his face in his hands. “That’s your sister.”
I nodded.
“And I’ve been interrogating you instead of letting you talk to her.” He waved me away. “Go on, you’ve got catching up to do.”
Paisley handed me a towel. “Got everything figured out?”
“Yeah, more or less.” I began to dry myself off.
“You were having a pretty spirited conversation. Are you two..?”
I recoiled. “Oh, no! Absolutely not. We just travel together.”
Paisley laughed as she finished Brask’s towel, tossing it toward the table. “Just kidding, just kidding. So, how do you know me?”
“What, don’t you remember me?” I smirked, speaking with mock indignation. “Four years is a long time, but I’d hope you could recognize your own sister!”
Her jaw dropped. “No way! Lily? You’re in there?”
“Yep.” I spread my arms out. “In the flesh!”
Paisley burst into tears, pulling me into a hug. “I’ve missed you so much!”
I squeezed her as hard as I could. “I missed you too, more than anything!”
“Even more than indoor plumbing?”
“Yeah. More than indoor plumbing.”
“So.” Paisley broke off our hug and put her hands on my shoulders. “Tell me everything!”
I hesitated for a moment. “Uh… Well, I guess it started when I died.”
“Oh shit, I didn’t… Sorry, I’ve been trying not to think about that part, myself.”
“That makes sense, it’s not fun to think about.” I smiled sadly. “Though… Knowing you’re here makes it a lot easier.”
“Yeah, same here.”
“Anyway, after that, I woke up in this fancy carriage riding through the storm, and I almost died again when it got blown up by a bolt of lightning.”
Paisley gasped. “That’s terrible!”
I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s not even the half of it. First, it’s legal to own animal-people like me as property. We’ve got something like spider-sense, so my ‘owners’ were trying to use me for advance warning. After that, I roughed it in the woods for three days, some wolves chased me up a tree… Brask happened to pass by and saved me, then we went to a nearby village where we met…” My eyes went wide. “Shit, we left him alone at the campsite.”
Paisley looked horrified at my story, then confused when I interrupted it. “Sorry, who?”
“Raaf, he’s another animal-person like me. Uh… Can you use your plant magic to make an eye patch or something?”
“Yeah, probably, why?”
I took a deep breath before launching into a hurried explanation. “People from Earth with powers like yours are called ‘Celestials,’ and I just learned that that thing on your eye means that you count as one. I really would have liked to know about that detail before today, because that power of yours is supposed to be one of their gods’ gifts, and I’ve spent the last month paranoid that if anyone found out where I was from, they’d kill me to take it back. Evidently, I’m some kind of exception, but you aren’t. There’ll be a whole caravan of adventurers trying to find you in the morning. Right now, Raaf’s sleeping alone in a tent in the middle of all of that, so both of you are in danger.”
The rain hammered down on us, multicolored lightning and thunder roaring overhead as we emerged from the treeline to find our camp just how we left it. I led the way; somehow, I could remember the route I took when I sleepwalked all the way out here. At the same time, I was doing my best to act as an interpreter.
Brask was bringing up the rear. “I still think this is too risky.”
I scoffed. “At least this way, we have a chance to get her out of here.” I turned to translate for Paisley. I could barely make out her basic features in the dark under her hood, I doubted any of the humans here would be able to see anything.
Paisley chuckled, though I could tell she was a little worried too. “I bet there are plenty of edgelord-silent-loner types hiding their faces here, I’ll fit right in.”
When we reached Raaf’s tent, I paused to whisper to Paisley. “He’ll probably wake up when we come inside, let me talk to him first.”
Unexpectedly, Raaf was already awake when I opened the flap, and before I could even see inside, he had pulled a knife out from under his pillow and pointed it at me. “Stay away! I’m…” He blinked, and I could almost see his fear melt away. “Oh, thank goodness! Where the hell were you?”
I grinned sheepishly. “Sleepwalking, if you can believe it. Sorry for scaring you.”
“Sleepwalking?! Here?!”
I put my hands up defensively. “I know! I know. But! I found something important, and I need you to have an open mind.”
Raaf’s curiosity overcame his anger. “Found..? You mean you know something about Paisley and Alys?”
I shrugged. “…Something like that.”
Raaf sat cross-legged in the corner, his brow furrowed. “So you’re actually a human from Earth, you died and came here, but somehow you’re not a Celestial?”
“Do you… Actually believe me? Just like that?”
“Of course not, but I can’t think of a reason for you to lie about all that, either. What does this all have to do with what you…” Raaf paused a moment to think. “No. Wait. Hold on a second… You and your friends’ names, the way you act around humans…” His face was filled with dread. “And the only thing you could have found that would have anything to do with that is the Celestial.”
I hesitated, seeing how Raaf was reacting.
Raaf hugged his knees to his chest as he began to panic. “Please tell me it’s not here?!”
“Hey! Hey. Calm down. She’s my sister, she isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
His breathing slowed. “Your… Sister?”
“I had to lie about our circumstances a little, but everything else I said about her was true. I’d trust her with my life.”
Raaf closed his eyes and took deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to calm down. “Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.”
“So… Given that she’s currently standing out in the rain, do you think you’re ready for me to let her in?”
Raaf gulped. “Y-Yeah. Sure.”
“All right, just a second.” I peeked my head through the door and beckoned to Paisley.
Paisley hurried over and ducked through the flap of the tent, dripping water all over the floor. “Oof, finally! I’m soaked, what-” She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Raaf shaking, his ears flat against his head. “Oh, poor thing! He’s terrified of me, what’d you tell him?”
“I told him you’re my sister and you aren’t going to hurt anyone, but… Well, how about you talk to him yourself?”
“All right, uh… Hi, my name’s Paisley, it’s so nice to meet you!” She extended her hand for a handshake, but Raaf shrank back.
He looked a little surprised when I began to translate, and when he spoke it was more than a little stiff. “H-Hello, my name is Raaf. It is nice to meet you as well.” He cautiously shook her hand.
It took Raaf a while to calm down; the key was when he mentioned he was a cook. Paisley said she had something to show him, pulled the flap of the tent open, and a carrot shot out of the soil and landed in the middle of the floor. After further explanation, the thought of having access to unlimited fruits, veggies, and spices overcame any fears he still had.
Paisley and I were still drenched, and the water that Paisley tracked in had collected in a huge puddle on the floor. We were trying to scoop it out by hand when I had an idea. “I wonder if it works with water…”
“What’s up?”
I stuck my finger in the puddle and pushed my essence out, and though I felt even less coordinated than usual, I was able to expand throughout the water, gather it together, carefully pull it up, and dump it outside. “Nice.”
Paisley was fascinated. “Ooh, you can do magic too?”
“Sort of, I’ll explain it in the morning.” I finished drying off our clothes and patted my sleeping bag. “You can sleep here for tonight, I’ll use the floor.”
“What? No, that’s ridiculous!”
I shrugged. “I’ve already had to sleep on gravel, this is small potatoes.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t want you to go through that again when there are other options.” Paisley nudged me toward the sleeping bag and smirked. “C’mon, let’s spoon for warmth, it’ll be like old times!”
We definitely had done it before; we were never terribly responsible with our planning when we went camping, so we got caught in a winter storm or two, and things got a little dicey. Arguably, we shouldn’t have been camping unsupervised at that age, but our parents were never very interested in actually parenting us.
“…Fine,” I sighed.
Raaf was fast asleep, as far as I could tell; he had managed to tune us out and go to bed while we were still trying to dry out the rest of the tent. I envied people who could just go to sleep like that - given the night’s events, I had a lot to keep my mind occupied. Still, though I was embarrassed to admit it to myself, I was really cozy, snuggled up like this… Gradually, a purr began in the back of my throat.
“…Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing?” Paisley whispered excitedly.
I shook my head. “Argh… It’s an instinct that came with this body, I guess. Sorry, it’s probably weird for you.”
“Are you kidding me? That was adorable, please don’t stop on my account.”
That’s curtains for act one! Based on my current plans, we’re around the halfway point. The next chapter’s going to be fun, as a break from all of this serious plot (and because I feel a little bad about what comes next). Get ready for act two after the intermission!