You'll Fit Right In

It is an odd feeling, being both utterly terrified and overjoyed at the same time. It is not the same sort of exhilaration one feels at a fairground - it is much more potent and overwhelming. For Judeus, it was the result of flying for the first time. The Siamese cat's face had been more or less glued to the window of the flying boat since they had ridden the calm harbour waters out of Zyka on their way to Ovght. If there was one country that the cat was sure would not be crowded with pestilential tourists, it would be Cazenra. The heavy thrumming of the engines vibrated the whole cabin, causing his rapidly cooling cup of coffee to quiver. When last Judeus Mackenzie had been a free cat, aeroplanes were little biplanes with rickety motors and windswept pilots that were more arguing with the aircraft than controlling it.

The flying boat landed with a heavy whumph as the skids made contact with the waters of Port Kittswyr, the guiding buoys flashing green and red in the late evening. Relief flooded through the feline as he felt the vehicle securely tied to the wharf. The danger had passed, for the most part. However, he would not be happy until his paws touched solid ground, where he belonged. The world of aviation was a fascinating adventure, but Judeus had had enough of it for now.

Stepping onto the pier, the cat drew his long brown coat around himself and shivered in the evening breeze. This was the most North he had ever travelled, and apart from the coat, he was not dressed for it at all. Judeus quickly made his way up the pier and bustled into the first coffee shop he could find. He had converted his money to the Cazenran currency, the Links as they were called. Soon he had a hot mug to press his paws against, warming them. Slowly he sipped at the piping hot liquid, feeling better already.

He would stay the first night in whatever cheap hotel he could find for himself. Then, in the morning, he would use their telephone and contact the estate agent to get his keys. Apparently, telephones were actually reliable these days. You didn't get crossed lines so much, or that weird crackly spitting noise if there was ever a slight breeze. He had arranged to rent a place, though he had no way of seeing the property beforehand. Finishing his coffee, the Siamese leant back and yawned, stretching his arms back, straight into the head of someone in the next booth.

"Do you mind?" the smaller creature asked, sounding faintly annoyed. Judeus did not even turn to look at them. Instead, he gave a singular chuckle and shrugged.

"Sorry," he said, amused at hearing such a polite word come out of his maw. He rose and paid for the coffee, eyed the waitress and caught her attention. "'Scuse me, are there any cheap hotels nearby?"

The girl nodded, "The Vanders Lodge is just down the road. A fancy name for a few small rooms. But it's clean."

Judeus nodded and left her to clean his table, as he stumbled out into the fast approaching night. He sniffed the cold air deeply, and squinted down the road, before huddling up in his coat and taking a walk.

Night had finally fallen. The rising moon dominated the Cazenra sky like the sun never did, casting the shadow of a small female figure on top of the roof of a hotel. The air sent a chill up Miranda's spine, but she had gotten used to it after spending several centuries in the northmost country. She assumed it must have been worse for her, considering her body provided no internal heat, but she had forgotten long ago.

She could feel her life draining away, growing older by the second. She looked down to her wrinkled paws, and was reminded of a memory of a memory, of being 58 again. It had been so long, her mind had distorted the memory until she almost craved it as much as blood. But her fangs had a mind of their own, baring themselves every time she smelled a younger person near. The word younger had lost nearly all meaning to Miranda in the past few decades. Everyone was younger than her. She curled to the roof to keep warm, and stay out of sight. She was on the main island, with two mountains, one on either side of her, but it did nothing to keep the wind away.

She peered down to the street below, and saw various Lizard-dock workers lighting up a strange mix of torches and electrical lights around the town. But then she saw a rare sight. A feline, like her, but instead of a cheetah, a cat, walking to the hotel. Surely no one would miss such a outlander in the land of the dead...

She crawled along the roof, occasionally looking down at the cat to keep track of him. He obviously didn't come from Sanuki, he was shivering and bundled up to his jacket like he was expecting a tropical paradise. Miranda grabbed the gutter and swung down a floor, grabbing on to a windowsill to stop herself from hitting the ground like a rock. She jumped down the first floor and hit the ground a bit to hard for comfort. She would enjoy gaining her youth back.

Miranda stayed a safe distance behind the other cat, avoiding a couple close calls of him seeing her before he entered the hotel out of sight. She stood next to the wall next to the door and tried to reach in with her sight to know what her soon-to-be victim was doing, but she was met only with the back of her own eyelids. She was drained of power and she knew it.

She decided to risk walking in, and saw the cat gain a key from a Koala girl behind a desk. The cat, who she realized was rather large, then walked over to the public phone and started putting in a number. She took this chance to scurry up to the Koala, who was sharpening her nails.

"I would have like a room, please." She asked, words feeling strange in her mouth.
"Alllright, that'll be--" But before the Koala could finish, Miranda shoved out the money necessary. "Umm, miss, I didn't tell you how much money it was..."
"You will, don't worry." Miranda responded, before hushing her tone "And, if I could, get me a room next to *his*" She nodded her head to the feline on the phone.

The Koala was happy to oblige to the seemingly crazy woman, though she could swear that the woman asking for the room had much larger canines than normal. Before the bigger cat could hang up the phone, having what seemed like a argument, she bolted up the stairs to her room, and locked the doors. She sat down on the bed, and pulled out a small bottle from a pocket in the robe she was wearing. She opened it, dipped her left index finger in it, and then wrote a rune made from a light blue paint on her hand. When she was done, she put the hand over her eyes, took a deep breath, and let her sight leave her body. She peered into the room on the right of hers, and immediately wished she hadn't when she saw a half-naked reptile guardsman admiring himself in a mirror.

She shook the disgust off, and with the last of her magic, peered into the one on the left. The large cat was in there, taking off his shoes and throwing them against the ground. Her vision faded, and she realized she was blind due to lack of magical willpower to continue. She took advantage of the lack of distraction from that sense, and listened carefully.

"Ohh, my my, you are a pretty one, sssssss--"

She pressed her ears as far away from the room to the right as she could, plastering herself to the left wall and sticking out her tongue like a grossed-out child.

"Damnit! I come all the way across the world, and I don't even have a house. Double crossing basta--.."

Her vision came back, piece by piece. The side effects of the spell were over. She decided to wait another hour or two, until the cat had fallen asleep.

-------------------------------------------------

Miranda carefully opened the window on the side of the building, making sure she didn't wake up the Siamese cat. He was on his side, back turned to Miranda. Perfect. She crept up to him, sneaking a look at the clock to make sure she had time to get away. It was only 2 AM. 'Good' she thought to herself.

She lowered down to the cat, slowly and steadily, and then struck out like a viper, spreading the cat's shoulder and head so she had a clear bite, and then sinking her teeth into his neck before he could even wake up. He was almost completely drained of blood by the time he tried to scream, but failed.

Miranda rose up from his now-dry corpse, all her wrinkles and old bones turning younger, until she looked like the fairly-good-looking 27 year old she once was, hundreds of years ago. The white fur she wore was covered in blood near her mouth. She was always a messy eater.

She wiped the blood off on her sleeve and then looted the cat's body for money. She found a record in one of his pockets, detailing him as "Judeus Mackenzie", a ex-convict that spent years in prison for the murder of a child. Miranda sighed. She often didn't like killing furs to eat, but she--

Suddenly, she was struck with a vision of the future, of the cat she had just killed following her into a frozen-over cave, and then jumping to her, covered in runes, and then, her, alive and without her fangs that she had grown accustom too. She knew she didn't have the fangs because she was smiling in the vision.

By the time she was back to seeing the present, she noticed that the cat she had just killed was standing up straight, lifting her in the air by her neck. His eyes were milky white. She spent every ounce of her magic she regained from the blood she had just drank, and reached into the bones of Judeus, and throwing him out the window, and right next to another new outlander, someone she immediately smelled as a otter, but she wasn't sure if he had any magic or weapon to defend himself, and kill Judeus. She had to stop this from going out of control and killing someone she could potentially use.