Achromaticism » Hibernal Den » Cat

Cat

(#86418132)

Yeah, I'd rather not be here either.

Energy: 49/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

1.11 m

Wingspan

1.12 m

Weight

1.51 kg

Genetics

White
Iridescent

White
Constellation

White
Underbelly

Hatchday

May 26, 2023
(11 months)

Breed

Adult
Fae

Eye Type

Arcane
Common

Level 1 Fae

EXP: 0 / 245

STR

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Ivory
Aviary

Offspring

none

Biography

__.__.__.246
PROTOCOL: MAGRITTE

spaceapcerspr

Cat cared for little but gambling, crude jokes and drink; their simple day-to-day poisons, the staples of a life lived too long. There was no meaning to any of this anymore; it would stand to reason that after so many of these pointless games, they'd lose all semblance of coherent motivation to continue their campaign of righteous slaughter.

And yet, as an unloving world faded into the inky black and paper white of another game of death, they took up arms once more against the darkness. That they had been drawn into this game could mean that there was evil afoot, the only evil they would raise a weapon against.

Vampires.

Was it altruism? Hardly. Cat could barely spare concern for themselves anymore, let alone any permutation of those around them. If one were to be brutally honest, they could not spare a mention of the fact that Cat, by this point, had become a townie in name only.

Was it vengeance? Of course not. It had never been about vengeance. They grew up too idealistic and self-serious for that. It had been about justice.

Was it justice now? Maybe, in one of the weakest senses of the world. They were killing evil. Was that not justice in its most bastardized sense?

Did they want a challenge? Not anymore. How many games had it been since their battle of wits against that monster had reached its victorious conclusion- surely at least three? They'd, admittedly, stopped counting, hoping each game beyond it would be their last. No greater love or hate had been earned by that cruel, tragic nemesis, the same who had crumbled to dust in their arms, slain by their own hand. Cat just knew that had been the point when they, themselves, had died.

Bereft of the meaning that had once galvanized them, the only thing that could drive them to act further was the hunger.

That was the only way Cat had ever seen it adequate to describe the sensation. An aching, agonizing hunger that resided somewhere far deeper than could be contained in their body, the primal need to emerge from hiding, to stalk through the yawning abyss for a monster to eradicate, to cleave lifeless flesh from brittle bone and, if only as an effigy of themselves, reduce an undeserved life to dust.

As much as Cat had wanted to lay down and let themselves succumb to another's bloodlust, it was the pain of clean hands and magical starvation that drove them to keep moving.

The hunger had been festering inside them even before the first night. Enough that it drove Cat through the first day's pointless pleasantries in a daze, directly into on a circuit of the town that ended at the home of the Magist, a shady character who could only have been taking refuge in the obviousness of his vampiric nature. But, already so late in the night that the sun was beginning to peek over the inky horizon, when he didn't so much as flinch as Cat pressed the silver ring that had detected many a vampire and burned many a palm before into Nephrys's hand, Cat was forced to concede.

Luck would not stand against them for much longer. It had not been that far into the second night when Cat watched the Youngest descend from the skies, that all-too-familiar sensation of hunger emanating off of them like an aura. Cat didn't even have to test their prey with the silver ring, lunging out of the alleyway they had sequestered themselves in and plunging a stake into the vampire with the suddenness of the most prolific ambush predator. As Nos crumbled in front of them, Cat's quick scan of the perimeter alerted them to the fact that this was someone's house. The monster was hunting too that night. It made the hunt's conclusion feel that much more filling.

Not only had the previous night's hunt been so successful, but the third day had brought with it the death of the second Vampire. Enough to satiate, it must have been...

And yet, it wasn't.

On the third night, Cat hadn't managed to even step out of their own door. Rather, the night's potential hunt appeared on their doorstep. Was it the emptiness in their eyes that had caught the attention of the ethereal Consort? Or was it the prospect of a kill with no resistance that had attracted another Vampire? The non-effect of the silver ring against her palm indicated it had been the former. Shiro turned out to be better company than Cat had found themselves among in quite some time. With her seemingly preternatural ability to soothe the mind, she turned out to be an effective guard against the darkness consuming the hunter.

In another life they might've been the best of friends. There certainly turned out to be more to her than met the eye as well; by the close of the third night, she had shattered Cat's win streak at poker so devastatingly as to bring home with her a not unremarkable portion of their savings. But even with such a dent in the bank account Cat hadn't bothered to maintain for some time now, the conversation- if not the presence of such a worthy opponent when it came to games of chance- gave Cat the sense that maybe, just maybe, they could stand to sustain themselves a little longer. With that hope in mind, they invited Shiro back the next night for a rematch.

Cat would come to regret that decision when, as Shiro left, carrying with her the soothing magic of the stars, the hunger that had been held back by its effects made itself known.

The fourth day was far too soon after the deaths of two Vampires, one of which had even been by Cat's hand, for the hunger to be so... intense. It was a gnawing emptiness within them, every train of thought derailed by considerations of who among their midst may be under the effects of vampirism. It only grew as the day went on. Was it the helpful Sheriff? The reckless Transporter? The fearful Miller? As the Poisoner was eliminated- quickly, violently, and finally- Cat was picturing the palm of a hand set alight by mere silver, undeniable proof of future guilt. Especially for the Miller, who had spent the majority of the game on the defensive, in a manner typical of those with something indefensible to hide.

They were preparing to set out to catch Millicent in the act of converting an innocent when Shiro returned. As they had invited her to. As they had forgotten they had invited her to. Cat would have left anyway if it weren't for that damned magic of hers, dulling the pain to eminently tolerable levels and clearing the mental fog that had descended upon them. Well, enough for a game or several. The competition was good, the growing sense of starvation wasn't. And no matter how hard they stared at it, her hand still wouldn't react to the silver ring. The hunger hit them like a truck once more when Shiro left. She didn't mention returning, and they don't remember having mentioned it themselves.

It was a hunger far deeper than Cat had ever experienced before, one that not even the hunts seemed to satiate- but still, they tried. The world, a haze of malice and shadow and undeath, moved forward without them. They barely spoke as the question of Shiro's whereabouts this whole time had arisen. They were barely listening as the accusations of arson began to fly. There had been a fire...? Yes, there must have been. The air was thick with ash. Cat could almost believe it was the dust of a slain Vampire for a minute. It barely registered with the Hunter that those accusations culminated in the end for their impromptu gambling buddy until the remaining members of the game cleared out of the square, leaving a dazed Cat in front of Shiro's broken corpse, now bereft of the magic that had kept the hunger at bay, and the subtle, infectious vitality that would have made Cat want to live on despite it.

So that's what happens when you question the poor, innocent Miller.

If Cat's memory served them well- which it very much hadn't- Shiro had certainly had her fair share of doubts about her. And this was what she got for them. She'd certainly been right to have her reservations, Cat reflected, though Shiro was misguided in her belief that Millie was of the Mafia, as Cat had heard so often from the other faces that had blurred together in Cat's confusion until their words were Shiro's.

Desperation held the pen that marked down, in the Hunter's mind, that Millie had to be the third- and potentially final- Vampire.

And Cat certainly knew how to dispose of a Vampire.

The subtle grace of the second night's Hunter had been vaporized. They lurched out into the street, bumping into a passerby without so much as acknowledging the impact and moving ever forward without looking back. They didn't notice the can of gasoline in Euram's hand as they nearly threw him aside.

The Miller changed places often, doubtlessly running from the consequences of their crimes. Tonight's circuit would be of all the places that one guilty little monster might be hiding.

Not at home. Cat ruled out not Millie's presence in the houses of anyone else, but the trustworthiness of any other individual in this town, as the sharp knock on the doors of each remaining person went unanswered. If Cat didn't find Millie anywhere else, they'd be forced to resort to forceful entry.

Not in the alleys. Sound worked strangely there, and footsteps could echo from the other side of the system of winding back-alleys. Years of doing just this meant that Cat could read the sounds of a set of alleyways like a book. The words of this one, however, failed to register in Cat's clouded mind, to the point where they almost seemed to be entirely blank.

Not in the destroyed sector of town. The ash had been mostly blown away in the wind by now, leaving only the solid rubble. Lots of places for a Vampire to hide, but nothing moved or breathed among it.

Not in the town square. Or in any of the millions of little hideaways Cat's mind conjured up, places far too small for an adult quasi-Fae to enter. Cat searched them all regardless.

And not any damn place else.

The Hunter returned to the monster's dwelling, preparing to batter their way in, when in the distance the faint noise of machinery reached their awareness. Of course, the Transporter! How opportunistic of them to make a quick buck off of the guilty's evasion of due justice. Or were they another vampire in cahoots with her? Their weapons could handle another monster's worth of dust. As that iron chariot of theirs drew closer, Cat scrambled into the darkness of the alleyway beside Millie's home to ambush them when they finally emerged from the vehicle.

The chariot came to a halt in front of the Vampire's home, but nobody emerged for a good while. Enough for habit to take over and the starved Hunter to settle into an old, memorized stance, as if their muscles recognized their proximity to the end of this misery and found the strength to continue.

And continue they did.

When the door on the passenger's side opened just enough for the monster within to climb out, Cat struck. Driven by the knowledge that their pain was soon to be over, the strike was faster and stronger than that which had brought down Nos. More powerful than the one that had struck down the one monster Cat could not have wanted more- or less- to eradicate. More sudden than the blow that had destroyed Shiro while Cat wasn't looking. The Vampire Hunter's stake found its target in a crunch of green scales and torn flesh.

The thing about the weapons of the Vampire Hunter is that when enough force is applied behind them in just the right spot, they're just as deadly to normal dragons.

Cat saw the blood trickling down the handle of the wooden stake long before they'd realize who it belonged to, and just what that meant. The sudden protest of their body at having been cheated out of a hunt certainly didn't help defuse things- especially not when Fenrir finally shook themselves free of their shock and screamed. Of course. That was the monster. It took a few seconds, both arms and a leg to pull the stake loose from the not-Vampire's throat, as the other Fae struggled to reactivate the chariot to escape. Not nearly fast enough. Cat wrenched open the door the green impostor had emerged from and climbed inside.

Trembling hands attempted to unlatch the door on Fenrir's side as Cat closed the distance, stake first, throwing their entire weight against them instead when that failed to produce the desired effect. Because, of course, this strike was the one that missed, affording the Transporter enough time to get the driver's-side door open, sending both hunter and prey tumbling out onto the ground below. Fenrir, rolling out from under Cat, wrenched themselves free of their grasp for a moment and made to fly away, only to get caught by a wing and thrown back down onto the ground.

Right on top of an upwards-pointing stake.

The night's second betrayal was not received well by Cat's famished form. And nor was the sudden, chilling, entirely lucid awareness that all that Cat had been left with was blood and solitude. There was already a dark red pool of the stuff growing from beneath Fenrir, trickling further and further away from the carnage as if not even their own blood wanted a part in this.

The blood on the other side was doing the same. The blood of the Miller-who-should-have-been-a-Vampire still continued to flow, and Cat circled around to the other side of the iron chariot to gaze once more upon the body of-

Danuria.

What was left of the adrenaline of the failed hunt vanished in a chilling moment, and left nothing in its place. There was no part of Cat's mind that could possibly interpret this at a moment's notice. They staggered back, sliding into a seated position against the Miller's house, wearing an expression contorted in pain and shock.

The Nocturne had barely been able to move, almost half-reaching for Fenrir, from where she had been tossed aside after the stake was retrieved, before the sheer volume of blood she had lost had become too much for her. There was still so much of it... So much that Cat couldn't put back.

Fragments of thought came and went. Not much of it made sense in the end, a cascade of orphaned names and shortened questions and inward sobs of how much it hurt- until a single realization solidified in their mind.

Mere effigies could no longer sustain them.

This was a life stolen from someone else, somewhere, who was far more deserving. Their body always should have stopped moving when their soul died, and this was the only logical conclusion that could have arisen from the fact that it hadn't. Cat was no more alive than one of the vampires they hunted, and they had been just hypocritical enough to overlook their own undeath-

Cat didn't get up from that spot again. Even as, bereft of the hope of its alleviation, the pain of their predicament grew, the increasingly frantic realization that Cat was going to die like this taking the place of any other thought in their mind, they refused to budge. Starvation would take them, and then all of this would be over. That which was earned by a life no longer fit for living was finally coming to fruition, and the game's final Vampire would end their blight on the survivors.

Cat didn't turn to dust when Hunger finally obliged their wish.

spaceapspcaer

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