Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue.
*`*`*`*`*`*`
Star Date: 80-80006094- Year 94770...Wait. No....it's actually 02.20.04....Hooray! Tis a Friday, my boyfriend is visiting me tomorrow, so happiness is my daisy! Oh, this story is going to be a lot longer than I had first planned....ENJOY!
Last half of the chapter is somewhat inspired by 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Black Cat'. And just because his name is Angel, don't think for a moment I'm going to make him a nonviolent cute little thing....
~NeoNaoNeo
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Chapter 8: What's Your Name?
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"'Full of w-w-...."Angel sounded out.
"'Wretchedness'. The 'w' is silent."
"Oh, okay," the waltz nodded. "'Full of wretch-edness, dread, unbearable:'"
"Keep going," Lenore urged.
"'As that I-I wouLd lie..." Angel said, sounding out the L of 'would'.
"That L is silent as well," Lenore corrected.
"Right! 'As that I would lie'..." Angel continued, waiting for Lenore to give him a sign of approval to go on. When she did, he obligated. "...with my own mother, breed children from...w-w-...womb..."
"wHOM," Lenore sighed. "The 'w' is silent too. So say wHom."
"...from whom all men would turn their eyes." Angel finished.
"Ah, 'Oedipus Rex'. A favorite of mine," Lenore sighed. The mage seemed to be able to read better silently, his bright yellow eyes darting back and forth as he continued reading the text to himself. The library where they were both residing was large and beautifully done, a high ceiling sporting a skylight peering through the desert sands. They had been in there a good few hours; the night was inky black with scant illumination by the stars. Angel looked up to the sky above, some instinct slightly kicking in, calling him to that open space. Lenore noticed him dazing skyward. "Do you like this story so far?"
"It's interesting," Angel nodded. "Can I look at some other books?"
"Feel free," Lenore shrugged, gesturing to the shelves. "If there's a word you don't understand...?"
"Look it up in the dictionary!" Angel finished. Lenore got up to leave, but was stopped momentarily by a small tug of her coat hem. "You're leaving?"
"I'll be back to check on you later." Lenore reported.
"Oh, o-okay." Angel sighed and ran off to browse the shelves. Lenore left him to his own devices and when she came back, only a half hour later, the waltz was laying on the semicircle couch, fast asleep. His wings draped limply over his body, his head lay comfortably in the open pages of a thick book. Lenore didn't express much of a reaction toward this unbelievably adorable sight as she nonchalantly lifted his head an inch, just to have a peek at his choice of reading.
"'The Unabridged Edition of Raptors and Raptor Anatomy', interesting selection pet," Lenore snorted. She shifted Angel into her arms, carrying him away from the couch he had made his rest on to a room she had prepared for him. The waltz muttered in his sleep and then, to Lenore's surprise, kneaded his small talons in her luscious silver hair, drawing himself as close to her as possible. Lenore smiled, thinking of what her father's reaction would be if he saw her babying the waltz like she had been for the past half day.
"Sleep tight pet," Lenore cooed, starting to feel that the Waltzs' common compulsion toward violence had been lost in Angel. Lenore had kept a few of the black mage guards and human servants her father had hired in the dungeon for later use, to perhaps nurture and entertain the child's bloodlust, if it arose. She hadn't thought it possible for him to be without it.
She opened the door to a small room, dimly lit by a lantern. A sneaky figure sulked into corner of the room, attention starved and feline in form. Its milky white fur was dyed orange by the weak flame's light, yellow eyes glittering with a feral spark.
"Meet your new roommate Mogget," Lenore said, tucking Angel into the bed. The cat leapt up on the headrest, glaring at Angel with a jealous air. "Get used to it."
The cat mewled and hopped on the bed, curling up near Angel, showing Lenore she meant no harm.
"Hmph," Lenore grunted, despising this cat with nearly every fiber of her being, but it was one of Kuja's favorites in life, so the girl felt obligated to keep it alive. "Good night to you both."
The genome walked out of the room, extinguishing the flame with a mere will.
*`*`*`*`*`*`*`
Despite his 'roommate's' unquestionably disagreeable manner, Angel didn't mind the small room Lenore had set him in for the night. It was small and cozy, a small writing desk near the back of the room near a dresser/bookshelf. The sandstone red blankets of his bed were disheveled from his constant handling; the waltz was looking over everything in the most scrupulous way. Angel clambered back into the bed, pulling the blanket over his wings and shoulders, absolutely adoring how comfortable and warm it made him. Before he could doze off again, Mogget nipped at his finger and dashed off across the room, narrowing her yellow eyes contemptuously from behind a mirror.
"Ooh! What's this?" he chimed, knowing very well no one was there to give an answer. The waltz hopped off the bed, letting the covers drop and went over to examine it. Another being stared back at him from the surface of the peculiar frame, large falcon wings clasped neatly to his body. Angel adjusted his hat, his doppelganger doing the same. The waltz shifted his weight forward and rapped the glass with a claw, the image in the mirror mimicking him exactly.
"I-is that me?" he wondered. Angel spread his wings quickly, the mirror copied without a moment's hesitation. The waltz let his appendages rest when he noticed Mogget watching him curiously from the top of the small wooden desk. Her glare was calculating and watchful, as if waiting to spring a trap. "W-what's your name?"
The creature didn't answer; her disposition was oddly silent and inviting. Angel smiled, thinking this new creature had perhaps dropped her mysterious grudge against him. He asked his question again.
"What's your name?" Angel repeated. The cat didn't answer, so he took a few steps away from the mirror in the corner to the small desk. There was an inkwell, quills and a few blank pieces of parchment, common writing utensils that still remained anonymous to the waltz. Mogget continued staring at Angel from atop the desk, a paw by the inkwell.
The waltz wandered up to the edge of the desk, his own glowing eyes caught in the cat's bitter gaze. Slowly and gracefully, the cat rose and stretched, arching her back nonchalantly. Angel watched in slight marvel as the creature turned her gaze away from him to the bed, arrogantly and slowly. She curled her tail around the small glass pot of ink and, with a quick flick of her rear appendage, flipped it over, splattering it in Angel's face. The waltz sputtered, spitting out the sooty fluid, completely baffled by this contemptuous action.
"Hey! *cough* That wasn't very nice," Angel scolded, wiping his face with his sleeve, smearing the staining black ink all over his clothes. The cat seemed to grin, eyes perked in a dominant way. Mogget hopped off the desk, not so much as a smudge of ink on her white fur. Angel, however, was frantically trying to get the stained color of black from his sleeves and gloves when he noticed some of the messy fluid had found its way onto his wings. Angel ruffled his feathers and shook his appendages out, hoping to rid it of the ink. It only managed to get flecks of black all over nearby furniture.
Mogget was watching him, amused. The waltz examined himself in the mirror; small splotches of ink covered his under wing's feathers and completely drenching the front of his shirt. A puddle had even formed where the remainder of the inkwell shattered on the ground. He couldn't believe how messy such a small amount of liquid could be!
He didn't find any shame in his ink covered image, not knowing how untidy it seemed to an observer, so he went over to the small puddle of ink and dipped his finger in it. Mogget narrowed her eyes from beneath the bed, silently disliking this winged specimen.
Angel shook the ink off his fingertip, letting it splatter over the nearby furniture and himself. The waltz seemed to be...enjoying himself.... an opposite reaction of what the cat had wanted. So Mogget crept over silently, slinking, not making a noise. The waltz tensed his wings and turned around facing the cat.
"So what's your name?" he demanded playfully again, a small drop of ink plopping off the brim of the hat. Mogget hissed and spat, raising a clawed paw and catching the waltz across the face. Angel quickly retreated back, holding his face with his hands. He pulled his hands away from his face, the left eye's vision was completely blurred by his own blood, two thick scratches going across his oculus and its protecting eyelids.
"That's it!" he growled at the feline, heckles bristling, half blinded and seething with anger. Mogget glared at him, not intimidated by his sudden change in tone. Angel retaliated her previous attack with one similar, raking his talon tipped fingers across her hind leg. The cat yowled; the white fur of her hindquarters was beginning to turn red with blood. This wild cry, the sight of blood, both giving Angel an amused rush. The waltz stood up, towering over the feral little animal, and stepped toward the cat, menacingly. Mogget hissed and arched her back, telling off the waltz in her own snarling, feral language. Angel knocked Mogget over with a back sweep of his arm, chuckling evilly as the cat tumbled head over heels into her own puddle of ink.
Mogget shook out her fur, humiliated and terrified, her pride hurt more than anything. Angel marched over to the cat again and, to Mogget's surprise, began running his hand gently over her back in a friendly way.
"What's your name, this is the last time I'll ask," Angel grumbled.
"Meow," Mogget mewled sheepishly.
The waltz's face lit up into a smile over this useless breakthrough.
"See? That wasn't so hard, now was it Meow?" Angel asked chirpily, lifting the cat into his lap. Mogget looked around, completely taken back by this sudden change in the waltz's personality. "Do you know what that thing in the corner is? Th-the thing with us in it?"
If Mogget could have spoken, she would have said the boy was insane.
"Come here, look." Angel invited, setting Mogget on the ground and walking to the slightly ink splattered mirror in the back of the room. "See? We're in it!"
Angel waved to himself; the color of red had joined the black ink on his sleeve. Mogget looked at her unattractive reflection in the mirror, black and red discoloring her once white fur. She romped off to a corner to clean herself, leaving the waltz to stare at the mirror, but Angel followed her, curious of the cat's doings. Mogget's pink tongue was working quickly to clean off the blood from her leg before it dried and created an even harder mess to clean. Angel watched her intently, studying every movement with the utmost curiosity. He noticed that the red in her fur was slowly disappearing as she ran her tongue over it and was becoming very intrigued.
"Hm..." Angel muttered and went over to the mirror, looking at his wings mainly. Small and large blots of black covered the under wing, making an embarrassing pattern resembling a poorly bred Dalmatian hide. The waltz looked back over to Mogget, who was still licking herself clean and tried it. The small waltz was making a miserable fool of himself in front of Lenore, who had just opened the door a crack to see how the two were getting along.
The waltz stuck his tongue out and turned his head toward his folded wing, neither close to reaching the other. He tried turning his head, but his whole body moved, pulling his wing further away from his tongue. He stopped for a moment and looked back up to the cat.
"What am I doing wrong?" he asked Mogget, who only lifted her wounded leg into the air and began licking the fur on the other side. Angel spread the wing he had been trying to clean the moment before, realizing how much more flexibility and mobility it had while spread. The waltz managed to maneuver the wing over his shoulder and towards his tongue, but he drew back and spat out a splotch of ink. "Yuck!!!"
"What on Gaia are you doing?" Lenore asked with a small growl, somewhat embarrassed by the waltz's foolish behavior. Angel spread both his wings and rolled them back onto his shoulders in a smooth motion.
"Um, well...Meow spilt this black stuff all over me and I scratched his leg and he started licking himself so I thought I could clean the black stuff off the same way," Angel spat out hurriedly, making little to no sense whatsoever. Lenore noticed one of his eyes was completely closed, two scratch marks going across his eyelids. The girl bit her lip and decided to interrogate him over the matter momentarily.
"First off, the cat's name is Mogget and it's a girl," Lenore corrected.
"But Meow said 'meow' when I asked her what her name was," Angel defended.
"MOGGET is an animal, and animals can't talk." she told the waltz. "They can only make noise and, since Mogget's a cat, she says meow."
"Oh," Angel murmured.
"Second, that black stuff is ink, and you get it off by taking a bath." Lenore said.
"A bath?" Angel asked. The girl plopped down on the waltz's bed and called out to him.
"Come here," she demanded, opening her arms. Angel hesitated, but slowly stepped towards Lenore and scrambled into her lap. "Look at me. Both eyes open. Chin up now."
Angel stared her straight in the face, one of his eyes was slightly reddened and squinting, two of Mogget's bloody claw marks on either side of his eyelid.
"Close your right eye," Lenore directed, indicating the uninjured one. The waltz held up both hands, checking to see which one made the letter 'L' with his thumb and index finger, and finally closed the correct eye. Lenore held up a single finger. "Keep your eye closed, now, how many fingers am I holding up? Count aloud so I know you didn't merely miscount."
Angel pointed a finger, slightly angled away from the digit Lenore was holding up and began count.
"1....2..." the waltz started proudly. "...3....4! Four fingers."
"Open your right eye and tell me how you get four out of this?" Lenore asked. She waggled her index finger like a teacher would to a student who got a bad grade. "Barely a day out of that jar and you're already seriously damaged."
"D-damaged?" Angel asked.
"A part of you isn't functioning properly, your eye in this case," Lenore said, more angry at that accursed cat than anything. Her voice became stingingly quiet and collected. "Well, at least you can still see from it."
Lenore cast a healing spell to help the scratches clot and lessen the irritation to the wounded eye. She turned her gaze to Mogget, who was on the desk again, licking the soft fur under her leg. Lenore eased Angel out of her lap and walked toward the cat, grabbing it by the scruff. Mogget yowled and clawed at Lenore, fur bristling and fangs brandished. The waltz got the same giddy feeling as he did when he wounded the cat, something about the tormenting cries made him excited.
"Now why don't you give little Mogget some pay back?" she cooed. "An eye for an eye, as they say."
"Really?" Angel implored, somewhat hesitant. Lenore nodded, setting Mogget on the ground, though she still held the cat's scruff. Angel's good eye lit up into an evil grin, raising his arm. He raked his talons across Mogget's eye. The cat gave a deranged howl, blood dripping onto the floor in streams. But Angel couldn't help himself from continuing, making her suffering longer, more painful, his violence fueled by the cat's cries of anguish and pain. He brought his foot back and ended up kicking the feline from Lenore's grasp. Mogget mewled pathetically, blood dripping from her mouth, insides broken and bruised. The waltz picked up Mogget by the scruff, lifting her up to eye level. He toyed with the idea of killing her right then and there, to end her suffering, but decided against it. To Lenore's surprise, Angel brought Mogget into his arms, holding her gently. He didn't know why, but he couldn't bring himself to extinguishing the life of the proud and once beautiful creature.
"Why didn't you kill her?" Lenore asked, intrigued.
"Because she's soft," Angel replied, nurturing a childish instinct to hold and handle things pleasing to one's touch by stroking the cat's stained and soft fur while she was too wounded to retaliate. Angel held the cat closer to him, worried that his behavior had been too erratic. "Did I do bad?"
"No pet, not at all," Lenore sighed. She was relieved to know the waltz had kept Mogget alive for a greedy reason, not from compassion. At least now she could guess that he would have no problem killing monsters and perhaps even humans...all it would take is a little training...
Angel laid Mogget down on the blanket to keep warm and turned to Lenore. His clothes were bloody and covered in ink, feathers stained after this first skirmish with the cat.
"So, what's a bath?" Angel asked, remembering his unanswered question.
*`*`*`*`*`*`*`
Author's Note: Aw! Isn't that so cute!? *goes to huggle little black waltz Vivi* Come here you!
Vivi: You have issues! W-Why can't you just leave me and my family alone?
Neo: 'cause you're black mages and black mages just fit so naturally into the angst category.
Vivi: What is it with you and making us things we're not!?
Neo: I dunno...*gets out needle and syringe* MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Vivi: What are you doing!?
Neo: Making you into Mike Tyson!
Vivi: o_O
Oh and if you're curious about why Vivi didn't freak out completely when the cat scratched his eye, it's because he kind of has the same little mental....'programming' as the other black waltzes and mages, to ignore pain and injury basically. So even if he's half blind, he'll just continue his own little self-set mission....of cute! AWWWWW!!!!
~NeoNaoNeo
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Star Date: 80-80006094- Year 94770...Wait. No....it's actually 02.20.04....Hooray! Tis a Friday, my boyfriend is visiting me tomorrow, so happiness is my daisy! Oh, this story is going to be a lot longer than I had first planned....ENJOY!
Last half of the chapter is somewhat inspired by 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Black Cat'. And just because his name is Angel, don't think for a moment I'm going to make him a nonviolent cute little thing....
~NeoNaoNeo
*`*`*`*`*`*`
Chapter 8: What's Your Name?
*`*`*`*`*`*`
"'Full of w-w-...."Angel sounded out.
"'Wretchedness'. The 'w' is silent."
"Oh, okay," the waltz nodded. "'Full of wretch-edness, dread, unbearable:'"
"Keep going," Lenore urged.
"'As that I-I wouLd lie..." Angel said, sounding out the L of 'would'.
"That L is silent as well," Lenore corrected.
"Right! 'As that I would lie'..." Angel continued, waiting for Lenore to give him a sign of approval to go on. When she did, he obligated. "...with my own mother, breed children from...w-w-...womb..."
"wHOM," Lenore sighed. "The 'w' is silent too. So say wHom."
"...from whom all men would turn their eyes." Angel finished.
"Ah, 'Oedipus Rex'. A favorite of mine," Lenore sighed. The mage seemed to be able to read better silently, his bright yellow eyes darting back and forth as he continued reading the text to himself. The library where they were both residing was large and beautifully done, a high ceiling sporting a skylight peering through the desert sands. They had been in there a good few hours; the night was inky black with scant illumination by the stars. Angel looked up to the sky above, some instinct slightly kicking in, calling him to that open space. Lenore noticed him dazing skyward. "Do you like this story so far?"
"It's interesting," Angel nodded. "Can I look at some other books?"
"Feel free," Lenore shrugged, gesturing to the shelves. "If there's a word you don't understand...?"
"Look it up in the dictionary!" Angel finished. Lenore got up to leave, but was stopped momentarily by a small tug of her coat hem. "You're leaving?"
"I'll be back to check on you later." Lenore reported.
"Oh, o-okay." Angel sighed and ran off to browse the shelves. Lenore left him to his own devices and when she came back, only a half hour later, the waltz was laying on the semicircle couch, fast asleep. His wings draped limply over his body, his head lay comfortably in the open pages of a thick book. Lenore didn't express much of a reaction toward this unbelievably adorable sight as she nonchalantly lifted his head an inch, just to have a peek at his choice of reading.
"'The Unabridged Edition of Raptors and Raptor Anatomy', interesting selection pet," Lenore snorted. She shifted Angel into her arms, carrying him away from the couch he had made his rest on to a room she had prepared for him. The waltz muttered in his sleep and then, to Lenore's surprise, kneaded his small talons in her luscious silver hair, drawing himself as close to her as possible. Lenore smiled, thinking of what her father's reaction would be if he saw her babying the waltz like she had been for the past half day.
"Sleep tight pet," Lenore cooed, starting to feel that the Waltzs' common compulsion toward violence had been lost in Angel. Lenore had kept a few of the black mage guards and human servants her father had hired in the dungeon for later use, to perhaps nurture and entertain the child's bloodlust, if it arose. She hadn't thought it possible for him to be without it.
She opened the door to a small room, dimly lit by a lantern. A sneaky figure sulked into corner of the room, attention starved and feline in form. Its milky white fur was dyed orange by the weak flame's light, yellow eyes glittering with a feral spark.
"Meet your new roommate Mogget," Lenore said, tucking Angel into the bed. The cat leapt up on the headrest, glaring at Angel with a jealous air. "Get used to it."
The cat mewled and hopped on the bed, curling up near Angel, showing Lenore she meant no harm.
"Hmph," Lenore grunted, despising this cat with nearly every fiber of her being, but it was one of Kuja's favorites in life, so the girl felt obligated to keep it alive. "Good night to you both."
The genome walked out of the room, extinguishing the flame with a mere will.
*`*`*`*`*`*`*`
Despite his 'roommate's' unquestionably disagreeable manner, Angel didn't mind the small room Lenore had set him in for the night. It was small and cozy, a small writing desk near the back of the room near a dresser/bookshelf. The sandstone red blankets of his bed were disheveled from his constant handling; the waltz was looking over everything in the most scrupulous way. Angel clambered back into the bed, pulling the blanket over his wings and shoulders, absolutely adoring how comfortable and warm it made him. Before he could doze off again, Mogget nipped at his finger and dashed off across the room, narrowing her yellow eyes contemptuously from behind a mirror.
"Ooh! What's this?" he chimed, knowing very well no one was there to give an answer. The waltz hopped off the bed, letting the covers drop and went over to examine it. Another being stared back at him from the surface of the peculiar frame, large falcon wings clasped neatly to his body. Angel adjusted his hat, his doppelganger doing the same. The waltz shifted his weight forward and rapped the glass with a claw, the image in the mirror mimicking him exactly.
"I-is that me?" he wondered. Angel spread his wings quickly, the mirror copied without a moment's hesitation. The waltz let his appendages rest when he noticed Mogget watching him curiously from the top of the small wooden desk. Her glare was calculating and watchful, as if waiting to spring a trap. "W-what's your name?"
The creature didn't answer; her disposition was oddly silent and inviting. Angel smiled, thinking this new creature had perhaps dropped her mysterious grudge against him. He asked his question again.
"What's your name?" Angel repeated. The cat didn't answer, so he took a few steps away from the mirror in the corner to the small desk. There was an inkwell, quills and a few blank pieces of parchment, common writing utensils that still remained anonymous to the waltz. Mogget continued staring at Angel from atop the desk, a paw by the inkwell.
The waltz wandered up to the edge of the desk, his own glowing eyes caught in the cat's bitter gaze. Slowly and gracefully, the cat rose and stretched, arching her back nonchalantly. Angel watched in slight marvel as the creature turned her gaze away from him to the bed, arrogantly and slowly. She curled her tail around the small glass pot of ink and, with a quick flick of her rear appendage, flipped it over, splattering it in Angel's face. The waltz sputtered, spitting out the sooty fluid, completely baffled by this contemptuous action.
"Hey! *cough* That wasn't very nice," Angel scolded, wiping his face with his sleeve, smearing the staining black ink all over his clothes. The cat seemed to grin, eyes perked in a dominant way. Mogget hopped off the desk, not so much as a smudge of ink on her white fur. Angel, however, was frantically trying to get the stained color of black from his sleeves and gloves when he noticed some of the messy fluid had found its way onto his wings. Angel ruffled his feathers and shook his appendages out, hoping to rid it of the ink. It only managed to get flecks of black all over nearby furniture.
Mogget was watching him, amused. The waltz examined himself in the mirror; small splotches of ink covered his under wing's feathers and completely drenching the front of his shirt. A puddle had even formed where the remainder of the inkwell shattered on the ground. He couldn't believe how messy such a small amount of liquid could be!
He didn't find any shame in his ink covered image, not knowing how untidy it seemed to an observer, so he went over to the small puddle of ink and dipped his finger in it. Mogget narrowed her eyes from beneath the bed, silently disliking this winged specimen.
Angel shook the ink off his fingertip, letting it splatter over the nearby furniture and himself. The waltz seemed to be...enjoying himself.... an opposite reaction of what the cat had wanted. So Mogget crept over silently, slinking, not making a noise. The waltz tensed his wings and turned around facing the cat.
"So what's your name?" he demanded playfully again, a small drop of ink plopping off the brim of the hat. Mogget hissed and spat, raising a clawed paw and catching the waltz across the face. Angel quickly retreated back, holding his face with his hands. He pulled his hands away from his face, the left eye's vision was completely blurred by his own blood, two thick scratches going across his oculus and its protecting eyelids.
"That's it!" he growled at the feline, heckles bristling, half blinded and seething with anger. Mogget glared at him, not intimidated by his sudden change in tone. Angel retaliated her previous attack with one similar, raking his talon tipped fingers across her hind leg. The cat yowled; the white fur of her hindquarters was beginning to turn red with blood. This wild cry, the sight of blood, both giving Angel an amused rush. The waltz stood up, towering over the feral little animal, and stepped toward the cat, menacingly. Mogget hissed and arched her back, telling off the waltz in her own snarling, feral language. Angel knocked Mogget over with a back sweep of his arm, chuckling evilly as the cat tumbled head over heels into her own puddle of ink.
Mogget shook out her fur, humiliated and terrified, her pride hurt more than anything. Angel marched over to the cat again and, to Mogget's surprise, began running his hand gently over her back in a friendly way.
"What's your name, this is the last time I'll ask," Angel grumbled.
"Meow," Mogget mewled sheepishly.
The waltz's face lit up into a smile over this useless breakthrough.
"See? That wasn't so hard, now was it Meow?" Angel asked chirpily, lifting the cat into his lap. Mogget looked around, completely taken back by this sudden change in the waltz's personality. "Do you know what that thing in the corner is? Th-the thing with us in it?"
If Mogget could have spoken, she would have said the boy was insane.
"Come here, look." Angel invited, setting Mogget on the ground and walking to the slightly ink splattered mirror in the back of the room. "See? We're in it!"
Angel waved to himself; the color of red had joined the black ink on his sleeve. Mogget looked at her unattractive reflection in the mirror, black and red discoloring her once white fur. She romped off to a corner to clean herself, leaving the waltz to stare at the mirror, but Angel followed her, curious of the cat's doings. Mogget's pink tongue was working quickly to clean off the blood from her leg before it dried and created an even harder mess to clean. Angel watched her intently, studying every movement with the utmost curiosity. He noticed that the red in her fur was slowly disappearing as she ran her tongue over it and was becoming very intrigued.
"Hm..." Angel muttered and went over to the mirror, looking at his wings mainly. Small and large blots of black covered the under wing, making an embarrassing pattern resembling a poorly bred Dalmatian hide. The waltz looked back over to Mogget, who was still licking herself clean and tried it. The small waltz was making a miserable fool of himself in front of Lenore, who had just opened the door a crack to see how the two were getting along.
The waltz stuck his tongue out and turned his head toward his folded wing, neither close to reaching the other. He tried turning his head, but his whole body moved, pulling his wing further away from his tongue. He stopped for a moment and looked back up to the cat.
"What am I doing wrong?" he asked Mogget, who only lifted her wounded leg into the air and began licking the fur on the other side. Angel spread the wing he had been trying to clean the moment before, realizing how much more flexibility and mobility it had while spread. The waltz managed to maneuver the wing over his shoulder and towards his tongue, but he drew back and spat out a splotch of ink. "Yuck!!!"
"What on Gaia are you doing?" Lenore asked with a small growl, somewhat embarrassed by the waltz's foolish behavior. Angel spread both his wings and rolled them back onto his shoulders in a smooth motion.
"Um, well...Meow spilt this black stuff all over me and I scratched his leg and he started licking himself so I thought I could clean the black stuff off the same way," Angel spat out hurriedly, making little to no sense whatsoever. Lenore noticed one of his eyes was completely closed, two scratch marks going across his eyelids. The girl bit her lip and decided to interrogate him over the matter momentarily.
"First off, the cat's name is Mogget and it's a girl," Lenore corrected.
"But Meow said 'meow' when I asked her what her name was," Angel defended.
"MOGGET is an animal, and animals can't talk." she told the waltz. "They can only make noise and, since Mogget's a cat, she says meow."
"Oh," Angel murmured.
"Second, that black stuff is ink, and you get it off by taking a bath." Lenore said.
"A bath?" Angel asked. The girl plopped down on the waltz's bed and called out to him.
"Come here," she demanded, opening her arms. Angel hesitated, but slowly stepped towards Lenore and scrambled into her lap. "Look at me. Both eyes open. Chin up now."
Angel stared her straight in the face, one of his eyes was slightly reddened and squinting, two of Mogget's bloody claw marks on either side of his eyelid.
"Close your right eye," Lenore directed, indicating the uninjured one. The waltz held up both hands, checking to see which one made the letter 'L' with his thumb and index finger, and finally closed the correct eye. Lenore held up a single finger. "Keep your eye closed, now, how many fingers am I holding up? Count aloud so I know you didn't merely miscount."
Angel pointed a finger, slightly angled away from the digit Lenore was holding up and began count.
"1....2..." the waltz started proudly. "...3....4! Four fingers."
"Open your right eye and tell me how you get four out of this?" Lenore asked. She waggled her index finger like a teacher would to a student who got a bad grade. "Barely a day out of that jar and you're already seriously damaged."
"D-damaged?" Angel asked.
"A part of you isn't functioning properly, your eye in this case," Lenore said, more angry at that accursed cat than anything. Her voice became stingingly quiet and collected. "Well, at least you can still see from it."
Lenore cast a healing spell to help the scratches clot and lessen the irritation to the wounded eye. She turned her gaze to Mogget, who was on the desk again, licking the soft fur under her leg. Lenore eased Angel out of her lap and walked toward the cat, grabbing it by the scruff. Mogget yowled and clawed at Lenore, fur bristling and fangs brandished. The waltz got the same giddy feeling as he did when he wounded the cat, something about the tormenting cries made him excited.
"Now why don't you give little Mogget some pay back?" she cooed. "An eye for an eye, as they say."
"Really?" Angel implored, somewhat hesitant. Lenore nodded, setting Mogget on the ground, though she still held the cat's scruff. Angel's good eye lit up into an evil grin, raising his arm. He raked his talons across Mogget's eye. The cat gave a deranged howl, blood dripping onto the floor in streams. But Angel couldn't help himself from continuing, making her suffering longer, more painful, his violence fueled by the cat's cries of anguish and pain. He brought his foot back and ended up kicking the feline from Lenore's grasp. Mogget mewled pathetically, blood dripping from her mouth, insides broken and bruised. The waltz picked up Mogget by the scruff, lifting her up to eye level. He toyed with the idea of killing her right then and there, to end her suffering, but decided against it. To Lenore's surprise, Angel brought Mogget into his arms, holding her gently. He didn't know why, but he couldn't bring himself to extinguishing the life of the proud and once beautiful creature.
"Why didn't you kill her?" Lenore asked, intrigued.
"Because she's soft," Angel replied, nurturing a childish instinct to hold and handle things pleasing to one's touch by stroking the cat's stained and soft fur while she was too wounded to retaliate. Angel held the cat closer to him, worried that his behavior had been too erratic. "Did I do bad?"
"No pet, not at all," Lenore sighed. She was relieved to know the waltz had kept Mogget alive for a greedy reason, not from compassion. At least now she could guess that he would have no problem killing monsters and perhaps even humans...all it would take is a little training...
Angel laid Mogget down on the blanket to keep warm and turned to Lenore. His clothes were bloody and covered in ink, feathers stained after this first skirmish with the cat.
"So, what's a bath?" Angel asked, remembering his unanswered question.
*`*`*`*`*`*`*`
Author's Note: Aw! Isn't that so cute!? *goes to huggle little black waltz Vivi* Come here you!
Vivi: You have issues! W-Why can't you just leave me and my family alone?
Neo: 'cause you're black mages and black mages just fit so naturally into the angst category.
Vivi: What is it with you and making us things we're not!?
Neo: I dunno...*gets out needle and syringe* MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Vivi: What are you doing!?
Neo: Making you into Mike Tyson!
Vivi: o_O
Oh and if you're curious about why Vivi didn't freak out completely when the cat scratched his eye, it's because he kind of has the same little mental....'programming' as the other black waltzes and mages, to ignore pain and injury basically. So even if he's half blind, he'll just continue his own little self-set mission....of cute! AWWWWW!!!!
~NeoNaoNeo