Chapter 26: Another Cat

"Oh right. Thanks, I'll go right away!" replied Kira, excusing himself from the table and wondering why he hadn't asked to do that earlier.

Heeding James' advice, he stopped off back at his shared room on the way out from the palace and donned an extra fleece over the shirt before heading outside. In the palace grounds, the air was cold and cut at his lungs when he breathed it but, if he kept moving, he could keep warm, and he hurried towards the gate, careful not to slip on the wet leaves covering the path. Approaching the guards at the entrance, he asked them what the day's password was and committed it to memory before stepping across the threshold and out into the city.

But, before he had taken another step, a guard called out from behind him, "Know where you're going?" in quite a cheery fashion.

Hearing him, Kira realized that he actually didn't have any idea of what direction to go in, and so he stopped and turned to face him, "No, I just have the afternoon off." he stated.

"Ah," replied the guard before suggesting and giving directions to a certain backstreet establishment that he frequented with his fellow guards. Whilst being told about this place, Kira noticed that these fellow guards were smiling slightly and looking down at him like he was being set up for something. But with nothing to lose and being a manipulator, he was confident that he would be safe enough just about anywhere in Ostermark, and he began following the man's directions.

They led him down a series of roads and narrow alleys that threw him out before what he assumed was the establishment that the guards had been referring to. However, he didn't know if he would name it as such because it didn't seem like it was being run by anyone. The evidence for this lay outside the front door in the form of three adult demi-humans all sleeping in the street. Had this place been run in a reputable manner, then they wouldn't be there but they were and, carefully stepping over them, Kira made his way inside through a doorframe that was missing its door and skewed to one side.

The interior that greeted him lived up to his expectations based on the exterior perfectly. The whole place was fitted into a single large room with a drooping ceiling propped up by pieces of rotten wood that looked as though they were just about ready to give way. The area was divided into two, and on his left were several large tables around which groups of people sat betting money on games involving dice or cards.

Some of the bets seemed to be quite substantial as they had attracted large groups of people that stood around the table exclaiming loudly at any turn the games took. However, other tables were only occupied by one or two people, evidently either playing alone or for much smaller sums.

Off to the right was an open space that people gathered around to watch various fights. At least this was what Kira assumed was happening there because there were no windows, and it was all lit by burning torches that filled it with thick smoke, making it hard to breathe and impossible to see the opposite wall in any detail.

With the smoke clinging at his eyes, making them water, and catching in his throat and all of the noise of the gathered crowd combined with the all too familiar smell of mushrooms, the atmosphere was completely overwhelming. The guards had been right, he thought; this clearly wasn't the sort of place he was suited to being in as someone pushed past him to go and throw up in a corner.

Before this admission of defeat, his stubbornness had taken him into the centre of the business and, as he turned to leave, he thought that he spotted Cat, who stood leaning against one wall and watching a fight that had just started between two demi-human men. To get a better view, Kira walked around the back of the assembled crowds and stopped next to one of the pillars supporting the roof. From there, he was certain that he could see him and he was also certain that Cat had spotted him because he disappeared off into an enclave in the wall. Pushing his way over, Kira approached where he had seen Cat go and rounded the corner to enter the space. Waiting for him was a demi-human girl wearing the exact clothes that Cat had been.

For Kira, this confirmed that he, or she, was indeed a manipulator and Cat sat on a stool watching him expectantly, "So you are a manipulator?" he asked, or rather stated.

"Yup took you long enough to realize it, though."

"You can shapeshift?" questioned Kira, having to shout to make himself heard and cringing slightly as several people slightly turned to look at him shouting such a strange thing.

To spare him any more embarrassment, Cat, the girl, the boy, or whatever they were, went to stand closer to him so that they could talk more privately but, when they next spoke, Cat still had to shout, "Yup, know what my secondary is?"

"Secondary ability?" Kira said, knowing what Cat meant but using this as a moment to gather his thoughts in the chaotic environment that he was in.

"Yus!"

Thinking back, the reason that he hadn't been able to conclude, with any certainty, that Cat was a manipulator before was that their aura had seemed to change as they changed form, and so he guessed, "It's to change your aura so that you can trick even manipulators, isn't it?"

"Mmhmm, but I don't really change it. No one can do that, I just change how you perceive it, and so if you aren't expecting to find a manipulator, it works well enough."

"I was; I just couldn't tell that you were the same person."

"Ha," laughed Cat, "Well, you're just a bad manipulator, aren't ya?" before glancing at the fight and nodding towards it, "I'm going to be making some money outta that."

Kira looked back towards the two demi-humans as they circled one another, throwing punches and wrestling each other to the ground. He had many things to ask Cat, mainly about how to find an ability for himself because Cat seemed to have managed to do it at such a terribly young, age but this was hardly the place for an in-depth conversation. Before he got the chance to ask if they could go outside, Cat said to him, "Excuse me for a moment." and headed towards a counter that had blackboards on it stating the odds for the fight, and a bored-looking man sat behind on a perilously rickety chair.

They (Cat) must have sensed the coming end to the fight because, whilst one of the demi-humans had thrown the other one to the ground and was busy stamping their head against the stone-flag floor to the roaring of the crowd, they collected their winnings from the counter. Cat pocketed it and made their way back over to Kira's side, "Wanna go out then?" they asked.

Rather than bothering to try and make himself heard over the racket, Kira nodded, and they made their way towards the entrance with Cat swiping a half-eaten tart from a counter beside a sleeping man. Kira was careful to step over the people lying outside in the street, but Cat ignored their presence and walked right over them, somehow not waking them. They must have been rather drunk. Following Cat through the streets and being curious as to what the answers may be, Kira began asking a couple of questions that he had been carrying with him for quite a while, "If you're a shapeshifter, what gender actually are you, and what's your age?"

"Can't you tell," replied Cat, munching on his new tart, "This is my normal form, I'm a boy." whilst changing back to the original form before Kira's eyes.

"Then how did you get an ability at such a young age?"

Whilst listening to the question, Cat crossed behind Kira and walked out in front of him, looking back at him, "You realize that abilities have nothing to do with ability, right?"

"Kind of…" and he added, "I have nothing for you," having noticed the light tug on one of his back pockets when Cat had been behind him, "I just don't understand how to find one."

"Well, keep thinking," Cat said, entirely unhelpfully, "it's got to be personal to you, right? So just think what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it and maybe think of something that would help you out as an ability."

"I've already thought of that," Kira mumbled, disheartened as he struggled to be specific about exactly what it was that he wanted. Still, he added, "If I can think of something, then how would I make an ability to do with it?" keeping the conversation going as they rounded another corner onto Church Street.

"How would I know?"

"Because you have an ability?" Kira snapped back.

"It's individual, though!" Cat shouted back at him, grabbing at his hand and leading him over towards Gretyl's shop, "Ever been in here?"

"Yes," replied Kira, making Cat stop and look back up at him, "I was going to ask you about other manipulators living in Ostermark."

"So you know how it works?"

"How what works?" Kira replied quickly because he was aware of the afternoon coming to an end and that he hadn't found out that much despite finding Cat again.

"The shop." stated Cat, as though it were obvious as he kicked open the door revealing the same dingy space that Kira had seen before, "What's special about it?"

Knowing that he had no good reply, Kira concentrated his aura in front of his eyes again. This time, when looking at the shop with its door open, he noticed a subtle difference between how the space within the building looked as opposed to the space around it. He couldn't explain this difference and, with Cat looking expectantly at him, he admitted, "I don't know, it just looks different."

"It's an ability space, a special space created by a manipulator whose ability allows that sort of thing, and they control what happens within it. It's a pretty weak combat ability though, in fact, it doesn't help with combat unless you are within the space, and other manipulators should find it easy to avoid the space as it can't be easily moved. But, Gretyl having this ability is how she has survived the manipulators in the palace because she isn't worth the effort that would require to catch her in her own space."

This did all make sense with Kira because it worked to explain the odd occurrences in his earlier encounter with Gretyl, such as the shop being bigger on the inside, but it still didn't explain one thing, and so he asked, "So, what are we doing here?"

"I'm going in, she makes some nice drinks…" and he stopped talking for a moment, looking behind himself as though something had happened, but Kira didn't see anything different, "Anyway," he continued cautiously, "You just be careful practising manipulations in the palace – there are lots of nasty manipulators in there…."

"I will…"

"Good!" Cat cut him off before stepping back and closing the door behind him, leaving Kira alone in Ostermark.

A moment later the door opened again and Cat thrust his head back out looking sternly at Kira, "You're a bad, well maybe just inexperienced, manipulator so be careful because I only noticed that you were one when you concentrated your aura in your eyes to get a good look at me earlier."

"Then how does that make me a bad manipulator?" returned Kira.

"It's simple: really bad manipulators don't need to hide what they are because they won't get noticed by others anyway. Then good manipulators don't need to hide because they are strong enough on their own."

"How does that even apply to me…."

"You're only bad, see, so you need to hide that you're a manipulator."

"But, oh never mind… Then doesn't that make you a bad manipulator, too, Cat? If you're hiding and unnoticed all the time…."

"Nope, no, I'm not that bad, I'm just not a fighter, so I have to hide from other manipulators." and he closed the door once more with a greater sense of finality, apparently satisfied with what he had told Kira.

Ending things there was probably a good thing given that Kira had been planning to get back to the palace in time for dinner, and on the way back he thought over what Cat had said. The manipulators that inhabited the palace would definitely be an issue because he would have to take more care when practising, so that he would not be noticed, which limited the opportunities to do so even more.

This meant that his progress would be even slower, which pushed him towards the idea that staying as a slave in the palace was a bad idea. He might have even felt some regret because had he come to Ostermark and met Cat without being a slave, he would have spent more time with him which would have increased the likelihood of the boy actually saying something useful.

Despite his efforts to get back, he arrived a few minutes late and had to sit among the other scribes who had already almost finished their meals. As he was still eating, he was made exempt from taking part in the usual card games, but his meal still took longer than normal as he had to keep pausing to answer questions about where he had been. His cover story seemed to hold up, and the questions had almost entirely died out by the time he had finished and excused himself from the table.

When he returned to his room, Aura was already there, and she asked him why he was late. He didn't have the heart to tell her the same cover story that he had already regurgitated several times downstairs and so, asking her not to tell anyone else, he told her that he had been looking around the city with a friend of his. When he told her this, Aura looked in his direction, with a barely concealed smile, to question him as to why she needed to keep such a thing a secret, and the best answer that he could come up with was, "I don't know," as he internally cringed wondering why his tired brain had jumped to the idea that a cover story was a necessity.

Lying in bed, his thoughts again turned over to what his ability could be, but he struggled to narrow down what he wanted to do from a general sense to help people with it aside from it being a combat-focused ability. Thinking about this, he must have fallen asleep because his concentration was taken by a pair of beautifully white rabbits bouncing through a meadow that he couldn't see beyond.

The bunnies were all-encompassing, and aside from them, he could only perceive the grassy ground at their feet that they occasionally stopped to sniff at, exclaiming with delight, "This area smells like a roasted rabbit!" before joyfully hopping off to somewhere else. Over time the grass turned red, but this didn't bother the rabbits, and therefore, it did not bother Kira, who only observed the rabbit's happiness. However, this happiness did not stop his body from shifting uncomfortably in its sleep as he observed one of the rabbits – it was his favourite one because of how one of its ears drooped more than the other – eat its companion.

The remaining rabbit then returned to its starting position using a different route that should have never returned it, but Kira still knew that it was the original place. Without the other rabbit being present, the grass didn't seem as green as before, and the single rabbit's joy was dampened.

Suddenly, Kira was inexplicably woken from his dreams when the window was still dark and, off to his right, Aura was still sleeping.

Before him, he could just about make out two dots slightly apart from each other that seemed to be emitting small amounts of light. They were both orange in colour and, as he watched, they briefly disappeared and reappeared a moment later. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Kira realized that he was looking right into someone else's eyes.

"Hey," said Cat, crouching on the end of Kira's bed, "Now, I know what you're thinking - oh no, a weird guy has been watching me sleep! But, don't worry, I've only been watching you for a while and on that topic, you really don't sleep well, do ya?"

"Cat, what are you doing here?" asked Kira, noticing that he wasn't wearing his usual rags but instead was dressed like one of the noble-born children around the palace, "If they catch you here, you'll be in some trouble you know that right?"

"Thanks for the concern, but since I can shapeshift, I can practically get in or out of anywhere provided that I look like the right person. You just don't seem to fully appreciate my talent."

"Wait," started Kira, gathering his thoughts, "If you can look like an adult, why do you choose to appear as a child so often and how old actually are you?" hoping for a better answer than last time.

"People are more trusting of children than adults." replied Cat, "Would you mind me sleeping here tonight if I'm gone in the morning?"

"Why do you have to wait until the morning, and how did you even find me here?" asked Kira.

Cat started to reply, but this was when Aura woke up and saw him crouched over Kira. Kira and Aura exchanged looks, and then she asked, "Is this your friend?"

"I'm Cat!" replied Cat energetically before Kira could explain the situation to her, "I'm going to be staying here until morning, so you better hadn't tell anyone that I'm here."

"Why wait until morning?" asked Kira for a second time.

"Because that's when the guards open the gates to let the morning worshippers enter the cathedral," replied Cat rolling his eyes like it was obvious, "As I'm going to be here all night, mind if I share beds with you, Kira?"

"Fine," said Kira, lying back down, "But you had better be gone in the morning because otherwise, you won't be the only person in trouble." wondering how he would explain this to anyone who saw them.

Upon hearing this, Cat crept up and lay down beside Kira with his head resting on Kira's shoulder and an arm over wrapped him like he owned him. "So, this is a friend of yours?" repeated Aura.

"I am labouring under that impression, yes," replied Kira and, failing to think of anything else to say with Cat already asleep curling up on top of him, he and Aura then exchanged one last look before settling back down themselves.

After this, Kira slept well, with no more rabbits in his dreams, and when he woke, the Cat was gone too.