Felix stepped into the tavern, the hood of his new knight robe hiding his face. Slowly he walked to the bar and sat on one of the high wooden stools, his tail just brushing the floor. Sitting on normal chairs can be a pain with a tail sometimes but a stool is just fine.
As he waited to be served Felix's left leg bobbed up and down. He could sense something strange in the air... perhaps evil, perhaps anger or maybe... even love. No. Felix's heart was for Crusch.
As he was thinking to himself a voice perked up behind him making him jump slightly.
"Hello there! What would you like to drink today?"
"A glass of milk will do just fine m'lady"
"Sure. Anything else madam?"
Felix giggled to himself.
"Nyo thanks."
The green haired waitress returned with a tray, his glass of milk sat in the middle. Felix stood and took the milk off the tray.
"Do you have any lodgings here?" Felix asked, milk coating his top lip as he sipped.
"We do. Upstairs. Would you like a room we have one left?"
"Yes please. I'll pay in the morning."
The girl placed the keys into his hand and nodded to the stairs at the end of the tavern. With his glass of milk and sack, Felix made his way up the old wooden stairs.
As he neared the top he began to pick up his pace. He wanted to read his book. Quickly he stepped up... only to feel himself, strangely going back down the stairs. As Felix looked up his face collided with what appeared to be a human being. His glass of milk flew from his hand and smashed on the stairs. Slowly he was falling backwards... everything was going in slow motion... would this steep staircase be the end of him?
Half way up the stairs, Duncan paused as something smacked into his lower back, producing what he registered as an almost comical sounding 'Oomf!' as a glass of milk went whizzing past his head to crash into the stairs in front of him.
A tired sigh escaped the bald man. After the day and-a-half he'd been having and being so close to his room where he could properly (attempt to) clean himself up and then quietly freak the hell out over having suddenly become
Freaking Superman, there was only one thing he could possibly be thinking at that exact moment:
'Oh, God. What now?'Looking over his shoulder quickly, he found his answer; the form of a person about to have a very fateful meeting with that old mistress
Gravity and her good friends
The Stairs.
"Shit."On instinct, Duncan's hand shot out and grabbed his accidental-almost-manslaughter victim by the collar, holding them up in the air with all the effort it would take to lift a piece of tissue-paper and, most importantly, preventing them from rag-dolling down the stairs and breaking their
everything.
Exhaling with relief as that brief moment of tension finally passed, Duncan took a moment to look over the individual he was holding up in the air in what would, at any other time, be considered a fairly threatening fashion. Unable to stop his brow cocking slightly as he noted that it was, in fact,
another cat-person.
It wasn't at all lost on him that the last time he ran into someone of that variety,
he got blown up.He could've been angry. He could've chewed them out, told them to watch where they were going, smacked 'em upside the head maybe... but instead he just opted for a tired sigh.
He didn't have the energy for any of that right now.
"Sorry about that." Duncan started as he gently let his quarry back down onto the stairs
"You alright?"Felix stil had his eyes tightly shut. He could feel his heart beating fast. But wait... he was not injured. Slowly he opened his eyes to find a very bald man, holding him by the collar.
"I am so sorry sir I didn't mean to run I just accidentally..." he was out of breath, speaking too quickly.
The man placed Felix down on the step. Once again Felix could sense something, this time... a mixture of anger and confusion.
"Relax..." Duncan replied firmly, yet with a slight tinge of humour and a dismissive wave of his hand, almost like a veteran soldier talking to a squirrelly newbie that just got out of basic and was used to having people screaming in his face at all hours of the day, as his new acquaintance began sputtering up an apology
"You certainly didn't hurt me none."'Heh...'Old habits, he guessed.
He did take the moment to give his feline subject a once-over, however, noting that aside from the fuzzy ears and tail, they
did appear to be wearing some kind of uniform. One that, if all those videogames he'd played in his youth and the genre-savvyness the bred were anything to go by, denoted that this random person he'd run into (or rather, the exact opposite of that) held
some kind of rank.
'Well, that bears investigating.' He thought with a slight rise of his brow.
"You got a name, kid?" Felix managed to get ahold of himself and bowed down to the man his hand placed on his chest.
"My name is Felix Argyle, royal knight for the Karsten household." No matter what Felix was doing he couldn't stop looking at the mans head... so shiny he giggled to himself quietly.
"I am also an accredited healer and user of water magic. Sorry to cause you probe-YEOWCH!" Felix jumped into the air, the man, once again managing to grab him.
"Oops... stood on the glass."
Duncan, for his part, just looked a little puzzled as he once again gently lowered the knight back onto the step.
'Felix?' he thought, the gears starting to turn in his head as he gave the (rather effeminate-looking) mage in front of him another once-over
'...But that's a guy's na-ooooooh, I get it now.' As his eyes quickly darted over the young (apparent) man's frame, he caught sight of a few small pieces of glass littering the stairwell out of the corner of his eye, a slight glint in his peripheral causing his eyes to flick back to his own arm to find yet
more glass sticking to him along with the rum and sawdust caking his frame.
'Must've fallen off when I caught him the first time.'"Yeah, sorry about that..." He explained, lifting his arm and indicating towards the offending piece of bottle half-glued to his body
"There was a guy in here earlier that decided that my shiny skull was a half-decent place to break a bottle... and a chair... and his hand..."He paused for a moment as the words left his throat. Any other day, at any other time, that would've all just sounded like some locker-room boasting or dialogue from an overly-edgy comic book. And, by his expression, that fact was clearly not at all lost on him.
"...It's... been a very weird couple of days."A small moment of silence passed between the two men after that awkward explanation, before the bald one finally broke it by extending his hand toward the cat-knight to shake.
"Duncan MacAiden, Royal Canadian Mounted Police."Felix looked up to him and smiled. He stank of rum and pieces of glass were inserted into his skin here and there.
"I'll get this glass of ya."
Felix held his hand over the mans chest. A golden glow surrounded him and slowly the small cuts began to heal, the shards of glass dropping out onto the ground.
"Hmm. Maybe would don't wanna smell like rum either."
Felix closed his eyes and cupped his hands and the drops of run began to fill up his hands. Awkwardly he looked around realising he had nowhere to put it.
"Errrrm."
'I'm sure it'll be fine' he thought to himself drinking it up.
The bald man cocked an eyebrow at that but still seemed more than a little impressed as he brushed the lingering, now-dry sawdust off his frame and stared at the tiny, closing wounds across his body he hadn't even registered, pausing for a moment as he noted that though the glass had pierced his
skin none of it seemed to dig into his
muscles... something he promptly stowed in the back of his mind as his eyes flicked back toward Felix with readily apparent gratitude.
"So a guy broke his hand... on your head?" Felix prodded Duncan's head. "You are extremely strong boned for a human... please elaborate."
Duncan, for his part, felt his brow furrow a bit as he contemplated just how to explain the bizarre, convoluted and downright
silly turns his life had taken in the past forty-eight hours, his mouth opening and closing a few times as he tried to form a somewhat sane response, before he gave and just turned from the knight and headed back up the stairs, motioning for him to follow.
"Well, it's a bit of a long story..." He began, walking up the stairs and heading for his door, unlocking it as he spoke.
"But yesterday, before I... arrived... in your country, I wasn't nearly as 'Strong Boned' as you put it."The older man clearly struggled to find the words to explain his particularly unusual set of circumstances as he opened the door and entered, casually walking past the rack from which his red serge, hat and gun-belt hung as he made his way toward the window.
"After spending the night in an alleyway with the Watch, I came here and passed out. Had weird dreams, woke up to the smell of bacon, ate like a pig... nothing unusual, all things considered."Okay, that was a bit of a lie.
Everything about the past two days had been pretty damned unusual.
"Then some damned kid showed up, started preaching about Elven rights when most of us were just trying to not draw attention to the elf so she could eat in peace, riled some people up and then I wound up having a nice little encounter with I'm still not convinced wasn't a bear wearing a man-costume..." He continued, opening the window and pointing toward the still-whimpering, still lying-in-the-remains-of-a-fruitstand wreck of a once intimidating man in the street below
"Long story short, it ended with that."Turning back to Felix, there was a moment of silence as Duncan studied the knight's expression, both to make sure he was keeping up and to see if he might have any answers.
"I gave him a single shove from inside the tavern, and he flew out of it and across the street..." the Mountie finally explained, how unusual he found his own strength quite clear in his voice
"...And I have no idea how the hell I did that." Felix stood in the mans doorway. His tail swished as he thought, and his fluffy ears twitched and turned at every noise.
"You are very interesting Duncan." The man stood, looking as perplexed as he did before.
"Hmmm... if I could just check his gate out I might be able to explain."Once again he walked up to Duncan and prodded him. These muscles where almost inhuman.
"
Nyow I'm going to explain what's happened..."
Quick as a flash Felix touched a finger to the mans forehead and he fell unconscious.
"Oh SHIT. I forgot he was standing."Felix pounced under Duncan's falling body, being mildly crushed but avoiding any injuries for the man.
"Ouch..."
Felix placed his hand onto the bald mans head once more and began to take a little mana.
"Interesting... Water Magic huh..."
"You've been awake for about an hour and a half and you're already laying unconscious beneath a fuzzy-headed ladyboy. Nice work, Kid.""Oh Goddammit, why are you still here?""I was here first.""...The fuck does that even mean?"
The Cat-knight tapped Duncan's forehead again and he regained consciousness.
Felix giggled. Duncan looked... well, he looked rather annoyed actually, and only partially due to Felix's face hanging over him if how his eyes immediately started darting around looking for someone else was any indication.
"You have been gifted with water magic... But how do you
nyot remember discovering it?"
"Well, between the surprise-vacation, a pair of murdering psychopaths, a few explosions and a loooot of bodies..." Duncan started, grunting slightly as he sat back up and rubbed at his forehead, both for the grogginess and to try and figure out
what the hell just happened.
"...I miiiiight've misplaced the orientation pamphlet." Ah, sarcasm: The last refuge of a man in a world getting stranger and stranger the longer he spent in it. Must've been making progress though, as his response to new and bizarre things didn't seem to be
anger anymore.
...Well, maybe a little.
Blinking the last bits of sleep away, he raised a finger to enunciate a point.
"One... Do I have an off-switch or something, and can you warn me next time you hit it? Because that was really weird." He raised a second
"Two; didn't have any of this two days ago, so your guess is as good as mine.""An off-switch?" Felix laughed
"
Nyo its just my magic. I can make peoples bodies relax when in pain or
whenyever I want."
Felix's tail batted around the room. It always seemed to have a mind of his own when he was thinking.
Felix looked out of the window at the crumpled man and then back at Duncan.
"You did THAT! Wow you're stronger than I expected." There was only one way Felix could think he could understand this. He had muscles... but not enough to do that.
"Fight me." Felix said, staring at Duncan with a more serious face.
"...Wait, what?" The bald man in question responded after a few seconds of stunned silence, pausing by the window and halfway to being back on his feet.
"DO IT."
"Why in the fuck would I-"He found his unfinished answer as something hard, cold and wet slammed into the side of his face, the world began to spin and he landed face-first on something flat and hard. To his credit it only took him about half a minute to realize he was now laying on the street in front of the tavern, two stories down and, noting the bits of shattered ice scattered about his head, he took an experimental rub of his sore jaw and felt a small trickle of blood escaping his lip.
The Mountie simply took a long breath in, before levering himself back onto his feet with his fists, popping his neck and letting that breath back out. Clearly just a
tiny bit mad now.
"Okay then..." He growled more to himself than anyone else as he spat out just a little bit of red, taking a few steps back from the building as he wasn't exactly sure where from within the Feline Knight was gonna pop out from.
"...Guess we're doing this now." Felix's face popped up at the window.
"Got you mad have I?" He grinned, showing his cat-teeth. "Catch me... if you can!"
Felix removed his shoes and threw down his cloak.
"My first proper fight... keep it cool."He jumped down from the window and landed without making a sound, Duncan instinctively falling into the fighting stance drilled into his head since his youth.
"Felix, knock it off, I don't want to fi-!"The bald one's words were very swiftly silenced as yet another, even faster ball of ice careened into his skull and sent him flipping ass-over-head on the suddenly frozen ground beneath his feet as Felix casually licked the back of his hand and brushed the fur in his ears.
Growling, cursing and swearing as the new small cut over his brow throbbed and poured blood down his face, Duncan got to his feet yet
again and snarled, clearly getting mad, yet still somehow reigning in his temper.
"Argyle, seriously. Stop." With that simple statement he lurched forward, intent and grabbing the younger man and
making listen... but at the very last second Felix pounced into the air and Duncan felt the very moisture in the air behind him to freeze and harden into the shape of a bettering-ram, driving him into a wall.
"Oopsies! Didn't quite catch that, what were you saying?"
Extricating him from the indent he made in the wall and spitting up a bit of blood as the blow had left the wound above his brow nastier and wider and a new horizontal gash along the left of his mouth, Duncan turned toward his opponent, absolutely
seething with rage as steam began to roll off of his body and his eyes took on a faint sea-green glow.
"I don't... want... to hurt you..."Felix giggled.
'Now we're getting somewhere...'A strange sensation filled his body. Almost like a sudden adrenaline rush.
"You honestly think you can? Witness the power of water!"
Felix ran to the man in the crushed cart and held out his hand. The man began to shake and shake until suddenly he stood upright.
"What are yo-?"Felix was puppeting the man, making him dance around the courtyard.
Duncan could only stare, eyes widening at the horrifying sight before they narrowed again and a dangerous growl escaped his throat.
"...That's enough." He stated, a new edge to his words that didn't go completely lost on the Knight.
'That's good!' Felix mused as he continued his casting, purposefully ignoring Duncan's words and forcing what must've been a man having the absolute worst day of his life flop around on the ground like a possessed rag-doll.
'C'mon, show me what you can do!'"I said THAT'S ENOUGH!"Something akin to an explosion resounded in Felix's ears as his head snapped around to Duncan's location... only to find a small crater and flying bits of dust and stone where he once stood, the result of him launching himself forward with enough force to leave him
directly in front of the Knight, still airborne, with his fist cocked back for the mother of all haymakers in the span of seconds.
'Oh.' His mind thundered as his jaw dropped, his ears drooped and the adrenaline coursing through his head made that brief second seem like an eternity.
'...Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.'In that half-second before impact, he forced the entirety of his mana reserve into his face, to which he'd owe the fact that his head didn't immediately
explode as the impact sent him rocketing down an alleyway and into the wall at the end of it, face-first.
For a while, Duncan just stood there, sucking in all the oxygen he could as the dust settled. Eventually, the steam roiling off of his form subsided, the glow in his eyes faded and he was returned to his senses.
"...What the hell?"For a minute longer he just stared down at his hand, opening and closing it a few times as if it were a new and terrifying alien thing... until a solitary thought suddenly struck him.
'Felix.'His head abruptly snapped up as he stared down the alleyway he'd just unceremoniously deposited him into, his blood suddenly running cold.
"Oooooh, shit." And without another word or thought, he took off into the alleyway after the Cat-boy he'd very likely brutally murdered.
