Book one: I hunt, therefore I am!
Chapter two: You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care!
"We need to have a talk about your young Mr. Kantrar..." Captain Stewart demanded as he approached Alexander who was standing out in the noonday sun surveying the seemingly endless horizon of sea, sea, and more sea.
"Has he actually found a way to get himself into more trouble since last night? After his little incident with ill chosen musical selection I told him that he should stick to the hold. Has he disobeyed my orders?" Alexander replied.
Stewart found it hard not to approve of the silver haired man's tone when it came to that last comment, it certainly sounded like Alexander would be ready whip the insolent grin right of that redhead's face if he had gone against his direct orders.
The problem was that he hadn't, just like last night's dinner James Kantrar hadn't even bothered to come above deck for breakfast.
"No, he's kept to himself all right it's just... Well you may know how sailor's tend to be, a more superstitious gathering of fools you couldn't find. They say that he's preforming some sort of dark ritual in that section of the hold where I had you store your belongings. The men have complained about what they can hear coming from behind the door, high pitched, pained sounds." Captain Stewart explained.
Alexander seemed to promptly return to his never ending quest to discover exactly how much smarmy smugness one could possibly squeeze onto the human face.
"I don't know what I can tell you or your men captain. I'm aware that sailors tend to be not the most learned of men, but I'd hope if they took their shoes off they'd be able to count to twenty. There are twenty members of your crew after all, and in turn four of us besides James. All four of us are standing on various parts of the deck as you might notice.
As for your crew members, are any of them missing? If not, then what do you suspect James is doing? Do you think that we somehow smuggled on board some chaste maidens just so that one of my companions could have the pleasure of torturing them to death aboard this vessel?" Alexander put it rather bluntly to say the least.
"Not as such..." Captain Stewart admitted. Doubtlessly they might have smuggled some unconscious maidens on board the ship in that blasted coffin, but such a plot felt needlessly convoluted and unlikely even to the a mind as suspicious as that of Captain Eli Stewart.
"Let me say it plainly, I understand that I and my companions make for unconventional passengers, but we're certainly paying you enough for a little leeway. I did not intend to mention this since it is in no conceivable way your business, but at least it might help put matters in context.
That fallen companion we are bringing with us, a closer friend James Kantrar never had. I've seen too many men broken by the deaths of those they cared for to intrude upon his grieving. Now of course I would not dream to bar you from visiting any part of your own ship.
You and your men are of course completely free to investigate the section of the hull you gave to us to our to our mystical trinket and coffin any time you wish Captain." Alexander delivered that last word with all the deftness of a assassin sliding home a knife in a man's gut, and not much less in the way of malice.
He was a canny bastard Captain Stewart reflected. Stewart certainly wasn't going to actually order his own men to step into that section of the hold, in fact he was starting to think that it might be for the best if he had it boarded up after this trip was over and done with.
(Scene Break)
"So, do any of you like Hugonon Lewis and the Diviners? James casually asked the other occupants of the room, figuring that they didn't have anything better to do than make a little chit chat at the moment.
"Oh where are my manners, you probably haven't even heard of him, since he's part of a group of bards from Kartakass and somehow I doubt any of you have been there recently. They started out a little too wishy washy for my tastes honestly, but this year, I feel they've really started to hit the sweet spot not matter how you slice it.
Anyway, I think their undisputed masterpiece is 'Rich to be Poor' a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should! Because it's a song that perfectly encapsulates the easy come easy go nature of money for adventures like myself! You'll get paid a king's ransom for rescuing his daughter one day, and blow it all on some brand new magical garter-belt that repels dire snails or whatever the next!"
James' 'guests' still seemed more interested in pointless endeavors like trying to escape than making proper use of whatever time they had left. It was depressing the way that some people just didn't know how to prioritize!
He played a few quick notes on his harmonica and then an entire stanza to see if that improved their dispositions any.
"There you go, though of course they play it a lot better than I can, but we had to travel light and I couldn't bring any of my magical recordings with me.
Anyway right now, just looking at your eyes I bet I know what you're thinking. You're wondering, why there all these sheets of parchment scattered about the place? Well I grew up in a library and a little mess helps me feel a bit more at home. Oh and you might be wondering why I'm wearing so much red, well I'm not as good at adventuring as Alex and the others are and I don't want something as simple as a bloodstain to ruin a perfectly good outfit. That and I think the color suits me, don't you?" James informed them
One of his 'guests' let loose with a wordless cry of fright and and despair.
James got up off of the coffin he'd been using as a bed, walked over and pressed a single finger to the captive's mouth.
"You know what? Be quite, kitty is talking. If you don't have something useful to say then don't say anything." He instructed his prey.
"Also you can quit fidgeting and flopping about like that. It's most unbecoming and all together pointless... I broke you backs when I captured you. A spine a terrible thing to have splintered, it won't kill you, but barring some serious healing magic you'll never walk again.
Having given his instructions, James returned to laying placidly upon the coffin.
"By the way, since I'm being honest with you about your crippling injury let me be frank about a few other matters. My name isn't James Kantrar, it's James Firecat at least that is the name I feel suits me best. Bet you never would have guessed that would you? I'm pretty good at passing for a normal person most of the time, though some things I've never been able to fix..." As he spoke James lifted his hat up and revealed his ears.
Instead of growing from the side of his head as normal in humans they jutted from the top, a pair of red furred twitching feline cat ears sitting atop an otherwise human head.
"Still, I've heard that a lot of lycanthropes have it worse. Ones who can't control when they shift, ones who loose command of their own bodies, who have no memory of what they do. I on the other hand, I am always me, my nature is my own and set in stone no mater how fluid my form." The captives looked at him with wide horrified eyes and James simply laughed.
"Don't waste your time. Looks alone won't save you. Neither of us are quite that lucky. I've heard that in other places, lands beyond the mists there are werecreatures are even luckier than I am. That they can eat like normal human beings.
Me? I was finicky eater from the start, and it got a lot worse when I was in my teens. All of a sudden, fruits and grains which had never really agreed with me to begin with, they just stopped doing anything at all for me. I could eat them, digest them, pass them along so to speak, but... they didn't help, they left me as empty as if I'd been eating grass. Not even cooked meat appeased my hunger, no I needed it fresh and raw.
Granted I don't need a tremendous amount of it, that was why I was, why I am so good at hiding my true nature from others. A little fresh meat here, a little fresh meat there, preferably from something killed by my own claws, it's not that hard to come by. Hell I don't need to tell you that do I? None of you would be here if I could eat like a normal person." James confided half mournfully half playfully.
"So I want you to understand, I'm not the monster you probably think I am right now. I'm just being true to my nature, I need meat to survive, not cooked, not spiced, not salted, only the freshest of the fresh will really do. I've learned a trick or two about it though, I need my meat to be freshly killed, but not necessarily freshly caught! I was so proud of myself when I realized that difference, if I'm careful I can still 'store' my food, at least in my own special way.
If things proceed for us without some drastic turn of events, I'll be taking each of you down, and feasting upon you one by one as the need strikes me. That lets me turn one nights hunt into several days worth food, quite an accomplishment isn't it?" James' question fell upon deaf ears however, his prospective meals remained remarkably unimpressed with his accomplishments.
"Look, sometimes life comes down to nothing more than raw brutal contest of survival between predator and prey. I don't like it, I'd happily change it if I could, but I can't. Right now from where I am sitting it is very clear who is the predator in the room. " James rose to feet once again and approached his row of captives.
"Let the defendants know that by the laws of the jungle, they stand accused of the crime of being delicious while I am hungry. How do you plead?" James demanded imperiously.
"SQUEEK!"
The now quadriplegic rat cried out in pain as it wiggled about in midair. The creature was hung upside down by its own tail and clearly not enjoying the experience.
James pressed a gloved hands to its neck and forced it too look up directly into his eyes.
"If you insist on continuing to make mindless outburst like that and I'm afraid I'll have to find you in contempt of court. If you still haven't realized it yet, I don't eat people, I don't even kill people, well not unless they're trying to kill me first, and I know rats can be people at times. I've heard that wererats are horrible creatures, they plague cities and spread evil wherever they go... but wererats are people.
Maybe you're not even wererats maybe you're some poor fool who has fallen afoul of a mage and been transformed into a rat but left with the ability to speak as a cruel mockery of your lost humanity?" He offered the rat wondering if this would coax more legitimate conversation from it..
"SQUEEEK!"
James's red gloved thumb came to rest on one side of the rat's neck, his index finger on the other.
"They say don't judge a book by its cover, though let me remind you all I grew up in a library. During that time I realized something... they put covers on books to inform you about what is supposed to be inside. So maybe I am over thinking this, maybe you just really are a dumb little keekee. What do you think of that possibility?" He pondered.
"SQUEEEAK!"
CRUNCH.
It only took a simple twist of James' wrist and the rat fell silent for good. Turning his attention to the other six rats who still remained alive James nonchalantly shrugged.
"You can't say I didn't give him a fair hearing. Who knows maybe you are all people who have been transformed and still are as intelligent as I am, but you just can't speak. The problem is that once you start buying into that possibility you wind up unable to eat anything for fear it might be something else! Who knows maybe that blade of grass you're about to step on was a person under an evil spell? I do my best to be fair and let the Mists make of it what they will." James calmly ruminated as he returned to the coffin with meal in hand.
He swung the dead rat back and forth by its tail a few times watching its movements carefully even though it was no longer capable of independent motion of any sort.
"They say that it is in the nature of the werebeasts to desire human flesh above all other. I'm not sure I believe it personally. It's just that humans are everywhere and there's so much meat on them. I'm sure that makes them easy prey for some." He ruminated.
"But you see... there really is just SO MUCH of them! I'm a werehousecat not a weretiger, I want to eat a pound of fresh meat every day, no, not even a full pound!
To someone with my nature, my desires, hunting humans makes about as much sense as a human jumping on the back of a whale with a knife and fork!
So killing a different human every few nights just so that I can nibble away at a body which is going to begin rotting soon enough? Please, I'd have to be crazy to do that. Do I look crazy to any of you?" He asked the dead rat.
The rodent for its part was understandably quiet.
"SQUEEK!"
Granted its remaining companions were under no compulsion to let him feast in silence.
"I'm going to choose to take that as a vote of confidence." James told and then began to lower his latest meal into his waiting maw while it was still warm.
FN: So yeah that happened. My goal in this chapter was to create the written equivalent of hearing the Silent Hill Air Raid Sirens playing Turkey In the Straw (its the tune ice cream trucks play). Something wrong was going on, but it just couldn't be what it looked like... could it?
If this was a more serious story I'd have done a lot more to delay the reveal of James' nature (maybe reveal he was a werecreature this early but certainly not that he's a werehousecat) so early on. That said, I also knew that I'd never get another chance to do a scene quite like this and have the reader go into it properly "blind" to James' true nature.
James' eating habits are a perfect example of how I don't mind my characters having weaknesses/restrictions placed upon them so long are they are interesting/open up story ideas. In this case, what James says about his diet is a pretty damn accurate representation of the nature of True (as in he was born with it rather than was cursed or bitten by another werecreature) Lycanthropes as revealed in Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts the definitive work for werecreatures in the setting of Ravenloft, or at least quite close to it.
James has to eat raw fresh meat (as a housecat is not a scavenger but a hunter), but on the other hand he also only needs to eat the same amount of it that the animal he can transform into would desire. He also possibly has to only eat one half of that given that non-evil werebear (the only kind of possibly non-evil werecreature he talks about but I'd assume the same situation would apply to any kind of non-evil werecreature).
With the above said, I will admit that book doesn't talk at all about something as on the face of it as ridiculous as werehousecats but it does mention that Van Richten personally believes that werecats exists and since he mentions weretigers flat out I can only assume he does mean werehousecats are a cannon (if not common) occurrence in Ravenloft. Also it's cannon that you are allowed to have "good" werecreatures in Ravenloft so long as they make sure not to eat sentient creatures for food, which as you can see James doubtlessly making a good faith effort and then some to avoid.
Which brings us to our next point, the size differential, James' feline form is that of the Ravenloft equivalent of a Maine Coon Cat, which is the biggest breed of housecat out there. Here's some pictures for reference.
/2014/02/32 ... up-in-bed/
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And just to really drive the point home...
VOL23/187 ...
Maine Coons, because I wanted to have the "dire" and "domesticated" template on the same animal.
I think we can all agree that a cat that big qualifies for the "small" rather than "tiny" size so one of them can serve as James' animal aspect. It also helps that Maine Coon's are known are terrific mousers, so that makes perfect sense also!
Also forgive me if these notes are sometimes just reiterating information you already know, but I write them for other places I post the story were common knowledge of Ravenloft is not a given.