The Sweet
Kero and Aura headed southeast over the Yellow Sea. Flocks and flocks of birds crowded the area. Aura and Kero were well fed on poultry and the occasional fish. The place was full of food for them, birds and fish everywhere. Aura looked around. "I wouldn't mind swimming for a bit, my wings are getting really tired." She said. Kero nodded and the two dove down into the water, scaring several birds into the air at the same time.
Aura dove down and began to move her tail and hind paws back and forth. She slid under the water easily, slowing her pace to match Kero's. Kero paddled along on the surface, humming to himself without realizing it. Aura surfaced for air and heard. She began to hum along with him.
Kero stopped humming and scowled. "Great, you have succeeded in getting that stupid song stuck in my head." He growled. Aura hummed and grinned, diving back under the water. Aura swam along to the music in her head, diving deep down, half way to the bottom, before turning and swimming up like a rocket. She straightened herself out to a torpedo shape and shot out of the water. She screeched like a bird of prey, opening her wings a moment and skimming the surface, before closing them and diving down again. Kero watched as she dove, surfaced, and dove again.
Kero was felling a little bit of a mean streak he picked up from Aura just then and he began to fly over her. He slowed down and she shot up in front of his snout. He grabbed her tail as it shot past. She yelped and fell back into the water with a splash. Kero let go of her tail, flying out of range when she surfaced. Aura swam along on her back growling. Kero laughed and circled.
Aura watched him in the air and grinned. She opened her mouth and set a small jet of flam at him. Kero yelled and floundered in the air and lost altitude. Aura swam over and grabbed Kero's tail, dragging him into the water with her. Kero spluttered to the surface and Aura cackled. He swam along and splashed water at her. She yipped and twisted in the water, dousing Kero thoroughly with water.
The pair went on like this, splashing each other and being splash until Aura looked around and stopped laughing. Kero looked around too. "Kero, where are we?" Aura asked. Kero shrugged. "I dunno." He said truthfully. Aura looked around and dove down, darting to the surface like a torpedo. She popped up into the air and looked down. Kero wondered what she was doing until she surfaced and began swimming a bit to the right.
"Where are you going?" Kero asked. Aura looked over. "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so it's just before noon, so my shadow should point west and I can figure out everything else." She said. Kero nodded blankly and swam next to her.
Aura slowed down a while later. "Kero, I'm getting hungry, I'm going to go hunt for a while." She announced, diving down. Kero flapped into the air, partly to stay out of Aura's way and partly to distract nearby birds. Aura swam under the birds, noting they all kept their heads to the sky. She picked out a fat one in the flock, with the sun over its head, and swam to it, diving deeper down as she approached. The bird never knew what hit it.
Aura exploded into the air with the bird squawking helplessly in her mouth. She crushed its skull with her teeth, landing back in the water with a splash. She swallowed the bird in one gulp and then saw Kero's worried expression. "What…." She said.
"Aura, you had more than a bird in your mouth there." Kero said looking a little sick. Aura floated in the water on her back. "More than a bird? I didn't taste anything funny." She said. Kero gaped.
"You couldn't taste THAT! You just swallowed a card!" He yelled. Aura was startled. "A card? What card??" She asked poking her stomach. Kero looked almost at a loss for words. "The Sweet card, you didn't taste that! You ate one of the cards and didn't even notice?" He asked in total disbelief. Aura began to make gagging noises and opened her mouth, twirling on to her stomach and keeping her mouth open. Kero watched as she stopped, and out slid a wet, slimy, yellow puffball, about the size of a golf ball.
Sweet raised her arm and looked at the goop dripping off them with a revolted expression. Aura flipped onto her back again. "Sorry." She apologized. Kero picked up the poor card in his paw. "I still don't see how you couldn't taste that." Kero muttered. Aura looked at him. "And I can't understand how you could either. A dominant part of me are cats, and cats don't have the ability to taste sweet things, I can sort of taste, but it's my weakest sense so I don't pay much attention to it. It's almost non existent." She said. Kero blinked. "Wait, cat aren't supposed to be able to taste sweet things?" He asked. Aura nodded. "Read about it twice, different reliable sources." She said. Kero made a confused whine sound and dropped into the water.
"Come to think of it, if I could taste any better I'd probably be dead by now." She said. Kero blinked. "Why's that?" He asked. Aura looked over. "Well, remember in the rematch, how my foot got caught in that net and I had to chew it off so I didn't drown?" She asked. Kero nodded and winced at the memory. Aura continued. "Well, anything and everything that's ever bit me hard enough to draw blood tells me that I taste awful, in some wording or other. If I couldn't have tasted how bad I'm supposed to taste I might not have been able to chew fast enough" She said. "And then I don't always have a good place to hunt so I will scavenge for food if I need to. Some of that meat would have to taste bad enough to keep me from swallowing if I could taste it. There's worse, but I don't want to make you sick when I get the urge to add descriptions to it." She said. Kero sighed. "Thank you. Well, let's seal Sweet up… Where's the cad?" He asked. Aura looked around. Sweet had given them the slip while they were talking.
Sweet flew over the water, landing on the other shore. She looked over her shoulder; pleased to see she hadn't been followed. She began to walk into the woods, to find a sign of civilization and sweet stuff.
Aura and Kero flew out over the water. "It's a good thing you can find cards so well from the sky." Kero said. Aura nodded, focusing on the land where Sweet had gone too. "So where would Sweet head?" Aura asked.
"Wherever she could find something sweet of course." He said. Aura ginned. "Well then, the first place we see a town we should find her. Cool!" She said. Kero followed her as she turned to the left a little and sped up. They could see some sliver of land ahead. It was covered in ruins of a dead city. Kero shuddered. "They really need to fix this place up a bit." He said.
The two landed in the shell of a city, completely abandoned, wiped out by the plague. "Wow, I didn't realize how bad the plague hit some places. Look at all this, when there were people, it must have been like a can of sardines, I was in a small lonely area when it struck, so it hardly touched where the town was, but in a city…" She trailed off. Kero nodded numbly. If this were a normal town, what would Hong Kong, the cards home and birthplace, look like? He felt dread twisting his stomach at the thought. He shook his head. They would see when they got there. Right now they had to catch a card.
Aura looked through the gray city. She had to secretly admit, she sort of liked it out here, and there were enough of the buildings left to give warmth and shelter, plenty of left over food too. She could feel small patches off vegetation growing over the concrete, and prey was moving in too. The air was clear and there were several good hiding spots. It was covered in places to hunt from, and the place had enough hiding holes for prey so they would stay. She smiled a little and pawed a patch of dirt, digging out a small hole. The worms were here, so the birds would come, the birds would make the rabbits feel safe, and the rabbits would keep the worms fed, so it would grow and then some predators would come. With all the animals the trees would grow from the worn down pavement and the place could someday become a nice forest. She looked around fondly.
She turned as she heard a small grunt. She crept up to Sweet, who was trying to open a candy bar wrapper. Aura walked over and swung a big floppy paw down onto Sweet. Sweet squealed and squirmed, but she was pinned. Aura drew out her staff and captured the card. She looked around again. "Kero, I'm going to let everyone out for some fresh air, okay?" She asked.