A/N: Sorry for the updates slowing down! I've been really tired lately and have to fly back to Canada next week and... yeah. Sorry...
Thank you for adding the story to fave/follow: SeraphinaMarie22, bluebelle94, rayne-chan, weaseldale, Kasper the Friendly Ghost, lilmeika!
allykat: Thank you :)
Luminaaa: Wow. That's a lot of chapters to read! I'm glad you like it.
Zeila27: Thanks! Hisoka is a sadomasochist, I think.
laxusdrayer: Huginn and Muninn, coincidentally (or not), are named after Odin's two ravens. The man wants the place closed down because it is mafia owned, and basically simple cruelty. Most clubs like that (and brothels and all other unsavory places) are probably owned by mafia in the Hunter x Hunter world. It's also the reason Hisoka finally gets to do some fighting later. And when isn't Hisoka a sadist ;) Haha! She really did all that for ravens! She completely ignored Hisoka and dropped her tag during the hunter exam just for Orion, so I think she would do something like this. She's just a sucker for animals. Or should I say she's a sucker for dangerous and unique animals? The ravens' names are kind of related to their roles too.
What did birds taste like?
Orion had no doubt that a mouthful of feathers wouldn't be pleasant, and the tough feet and claws and beak would be disgusting. Not to mention the eyeballs… He shuddered. Yet, as much as he imagined the nasty taste of raven, he couldn't fight the urge to snap them up in one gulp and swallow them whole.
The cat glared at the two birds preening on his mistress' shoulders, all the while sending him superior smirks.
Really. He met Luna first. He was the one who always tried hard just to impress her, or at least keep himself from disappointing her. Yet, when he woke up from his nap, there were two dinky little birds stealing her attention. Orion was quite sure it was their nefarious plot to steal his mistress away from him.
It was working too. She was almost smiling, and he could almost see a glow of happiness surrounding the assassin as she played with the birds. Who played with birds anyways? Birds weren't good for anything except flying, eating, and pooping. Cats, on the other hand, were cuddly and playful and, in general, nice. Not birds. Cats.
The cat glared at the two ravens. They were deceiving his kind and wonderful and lovely mistress!
Orion let out a low rumble, his claws scraping softly across the floor. The area he had been scratching for the past few hours had gouges now, and honestly, he really didn't care that he was working his way through marble. Who made marble floors anyways? He certainly didn't care that it was expensive, or that the prissy man would throw a fit when he found out. He just wished it was the birds under his claws instead of the cold floor.
On another note, at least Hisoka didn't look too happy either. Orion glanced at the man only to see a finger tapping incessantly at the table and no smile on the face. Well, Orion thought, it was only to be expected. Luna had ignored everyone and everything in favour of playing with her new friends, and apart from the night she returned and Hisoka kicked Orion out, she had paid him no attention whatsoever.
Maybe Hisoka angered her that night? It wouldn't be the first time, even though Orion had seen his mistress get angry at Hisoka before. But he was sure it was a difficult task, because getting along nicely just came with being mates. After all, life was horrible if one didn't get along with their mate. It was a possibility that Hisoka had actually angered her and caused her to ignore him, but that didn't mean Luna would ignore Orion as well.
And honestly, Orion had no idea what happened that night. He wasn't really interested in sitting outside the door all night, and he was hungry after his short nap. Or perhaps it wasn't that short, since the girl had time to go out and collect two new pets to replace Orion in her affections, and to become saturated with the smell of blood. Still, sixteen hours was still a short nap, wasn't it?
Pondering that thought, Orion had ventured to the kitchen instead of waiting for his mistress to take pity and let him back in, and ransacked the pantry, consuming every last bit of meat he could reach. He ate the smelly yet yummy thing too, the hard yellow thing that tasted kind of like milk, yet smelled a hundred times worse and was really salty. He had then settled down for a good night's sleep, of course.
He hadn't minded the two ravens back then. They were just there, strutting around on high surfaces and pecking at crumbs. Orion didn't even mind them grabbing and consuming the meat he couldn't reach. But if they tried to do the same thing now, they would become meat.
"Chibi-chan," Hisoka finally said.
"Yes, Misora?"
Hisoka blinked, stunned. "Chibi-chan, who in the world is Misora?"
"Himitsu, Kasuka, whatever your name is," Luna said absently.
Hisoka growled, outright scowling at her. She forgot his name? That was the last straw. His poisonous glare shot over to the birds, his fingers twitching with the urge to wring their necks. And they had the gall to smirk back at him! He was the human! He was the superior one! Yet those little balls of feather dared mock him?!
"Ah… Hisoka," Luna said, as if suddenly recalling his name.
Hisoka debated between cooing at her for remembering, and snapping at the birds for having made her forget in the first place. In the end he had no time to do either before Luna stood and the birds flapped off to land on the bedside table. Immediately both Orion and Hisoka's eyes were trained on the two birds, golden eyes glinting with the desire to hunt.
"I'm going to get food," Luna said, suddenly feeling hunger now that her attention was no longer focused only on the birds. But at the doorway, she paused, frowned, and turned to glance at the two males. "And I want Huginn and Muninn alive and in one piece when I come back."
Hisoka's lips twitched. He had a few ideas about how to keep them in one piece. It involved cutting most of the way through flesh, and leaving the part hanging by threads of muscle and skin. Orion wasn't smart enough to think that far, of course, but he too had a few ideas about chewing on the balls of feather for a while, without biting too deep.
Luna's frown deepened at the looks on their faces, practically identical. Perhaps Orion had been spending too much time around Hisoka, to develop the same sadistic tendencies.
"Hisoka. Orion," Luna said, drawing their attention again. "I want them unharmed as well. No blood, no bruises, no cuts, no broken bones or broken anything. In fact, just don't touch them with anything. That includes projectiles."
Well, Hisoka mused, accidents could still happen…
"And no harming them accidentally on purpose either," Luna warned.
Thinking for a moment, she concluded that she had thought of everything, and left. Hisoka sat there pouting, Orion watching him carefully. Even if Orion didn't have any ideas, Hisoka should be able to find a loophole, right? Because the cat really wanted the birds gone, and he really didn't think opening the window to let them fly out would work.
"How foolish."
"I agree. Only idiots get flustered and jealous because two birds are stealing a girl's attention."
"Just because they are not interesting enough to hold her attention…"
Hisoka and Orion stared in disbelief at the ravens. Did they just speak? And not just the one or two words birds usually said. They spoke fluently, all the while badmouthing them! Hisoka smiled pleasantly, the smile almost a mirror of Chrollo's when the Ryoudan leader was displeased, except with a tad more bloodlust and sadism.
"You know, Luna really didn't say anything about pulling their feathers out," Hisoka said casually.
"Don't touch, don't touch," Muninn squawked.
"Oh, I don't have to touch you. Orion doesn't either. But anybody else can, right?" Hisoka purred. "So I can call a maid in, and demand she pluck out all your feathers."
"We will tell Luna!" Huginn snapped. "She will hate you!"
"She doesn't know you can speak, now does she?" Hisoka's eyes narrowed. "What is stopping me from killing you and replacing you with two ravens from outside?"
The two birds fell silent at that, their eyes blazing as their feathers fluffed out in the normal behaviour of birds trying to make themselves look bigger. It only amused the two predators several times larger than they were. Hisoka rose to his feet and took a menacing step forward, eyes glinting in delight. Next to him, Orion did the same.
Luna frowned, suddenly feeling shivers run up her spine. They couldn't… They wouldn't… right?
Suddenly she turned on her heel and raced back towards the room.
Who was she kidding? Of course they would.
The door burst open and she walked in to see Hisoka and Orion lounging on the bed, identical grins on their faces as they watched the frightened maid pluck out the third feather.
"Stop," Luna said.
Her voice was soft, but it was angry enough that everyone in the room froze, the maid dropping the raven in her terror. As if Hisoka and Orion weren't frightening enough, the girl who looked so nice and delicate was ten times more scary right then. So the maid bolted, swearing never to serve this room again.
Huginn and Muninn, with wounded pride and a little too much haste, flew clumsily back onto Luna's shoulders and glared at the two males, feeling a lot braver now that their mistress was here to protect them. Luna mirrored their glare, her expression dark enough to send Orion crawling backwards on the bed, not even stopping when he fell off with a thump. His ears lay flat on his head and he cowered in the corner of the room, hoping that she would forget about him when she finished with Hisoka.
"Orion, Hisoka, outside the room now," Luna said quietly, but there was no mistaking that her words were an order to be obeyed. The moment the two were outside, Luna stared them down. "Do not move from this spot. You are allowed to go to the bathroom only for five minutes, only in this room, and only if you ask for permission first. You are not allowed back in this room until I allow you to enter, and you will not go find a more comfortable place. Sleep on the floor by the door. Good night."
The two males, one cat and one human, stared at the closed door with shocked expressions. Maybe bullying the ravens wasn't worth it…