Thread by @fuwasdeadinside

#scaralumi | scaramouche’s no-good-very-bad day

The last thing Lumine expects to find in mid-search for the Goddess of Wisdom, is a kitten hissing in the center of the Sanctuary of Surasthana.

“Oooh, what’s a kitten doing inside here? Paimon didn’t know Nahida had a pet!”

Considering that Nahida had been imprisoned by her own nation for centuries, the kitten had to be a recent development. Lumine falls into a crouch, meeting its cobalt gaze.

The creature had frozen in place at their entrance, body coaxed into a watchful statue.

Now, when she extends a hand, it shifts gears into pure aggressiveness, fangs bared, and a paw reaching out to bat her fingers away.

“Mrow!”

“Hey, ” Lumine admonishes gently, curling the digits away from imminent attack. “That's not very nice—ah!”

And it seems her attempts at brokering peace are futile, as two pounds of bristling fur launches itself straight at her.

“What—let Lumine go! Paimon doesn’t like this cat—grrr, let go of her, right now!”

“Mrooow!”

“You know, Paimon,” Lumine concludes after a few minutes of careful wrestling, the kitten still valiantly endeavouring to chew off her thumb, “I don’t think this cat belongs to Nahida. It’s too… feral.”

The kitten growls again, biting harder into calloused flesh.

It sort of… tickles. And the way its watching her, fierce, like it's a prowling Rishboland Tiger and not a tiny little whelp of a thing—a giggle flutters in her chest, and Lumine gives into the urge, her free hand darting in to scratch the kitten under its chin.

“Do you think it’s a stray kitten that wandered in by mistake?” Paimon floats in a lazy circle, wisely retreating when the creature arches its back, a catapult ready to launch.

She hums. “Must be,” Lumine agrees, rising back to her feet. “Anyway, it looks like Nahida isn’t here.

Let’s ask the guards if they know where she's gone.”

It’s already pretty late. They should get going if they want to catch her by nightfall.

At the threshold, though, a low whine floats to her ears. Barely audible, yet there. And its just a stray, Lumine thinks,

and she’s not in the business of adopting cats either. But…

When she looks back, at that solitary spot of black in the wide, empty cavern, something in her hesitates.

“Hey,” she calls out. The kitten cocks it’s head. “Do you want to come with us, kitty?”

xxx

“You can’t keep growling at us every time we call you kitty.”

“Grrrr.”

“Hmmm. Paimon thinks that maybe it’s because he’s not used to it! We should call him kitty until he understands it’s his name! Kitty kitty kitty—aaah! GET OFF OF PAIMON!”

xxx

After a brief bout of hissing and clawing at her hands, the kitten imperiously agrees to perch on her shoulder.

Well, agree in the sense Lumine plopped him on the shoulder and told him to stay there, unless he wanted to be thrown back into the wilds where a real Tiger could snap

him up for lunch. Surprisingly, the little creature listened to her after that, digging his claws into the scarf around her neck for balance.

And it would have been fine… except.

“Mroooow!” the kitten yowls, as she throws herself to the side, wind whipping around her,

narrowly dodging a ball of flame. The heat licks her cheeks, and only a last-minute cradling hand keeps the kitten from being doused in fire.

“Sorry, kitty!” she cries, shooting bolts of dendro at the approaching fire fungus. Nudges it back onto her shoulder. “Almost done—woah!”

She almost doesn’t see the winged cryoshroom behind her. It’s only instinct that has her ducking, the icicles spit whistling above her head.

But the motion jostles the kitten, precariously trying to find stability on her shoulder.

Horrified, Lumine watches kitty yowl furiously as he goes sailing in the air. Right into the middle of a group of very angry, very aggressive shroomkin.

And instead of cowering or running away like any sane kitten would do, kitty bares his fangs and pounces.

Oh no.

Five minutes later, Lumine is catching her breath and crouched over a miraculously unharmed, non-contrite kitten. Who has the audacity to lick his paws and glare at her, like it's her fault!

(Oi, she’s never dealt with such a large group of fungi so quickly before.)

“This,” she tells the unrepentant feline, whose now gone onto grooming his tail, “is not going to work out.”

“Meow.”

“Don’t worry, Kitty. I have another idea.”

“Mrroooow!”

xxx

The Eremite lowers her axe. She looks incredulous, staring at Lumine’s torso like she can see through her clothes.

“Oi,” she says, slowly, like she can’t believe what’s coming out of her own mouth, “Is there something wrong with...”

and waves a hand in the general direction of Lumine’s breasts.

“What’s wrong?” Lumine asks, ignoring the screech rising from that very direction.

“There’s something… moving.”

“Oh. Pay it no mind,” she adds, a hand unsubtly rising to rest against her neckline.

“Just one of those things, I guess.”

The Eremite stares. “Girl. You need to get that checked.”

“Huh?”

“Unless… you have something in there?”

“Of course not!” she denies, right as a furry head pops out from her cleavage, yowling like it had finally escaped the twelfth floor of the Abyss.

It’s spitting and clawing at her clothes, trying to pry itself out, and only succeeding in drawing snags across her bodice.

Both of the fighters stop in place for a moment, watching the kitten worm one darkpaw out and then a stubby tail, before trying to sink its teeth in Lumine’s hand.

“If you hate hiding in my dress so much, you should have told me,” she tells Kitty later, back on her shoulder,

as they draw closer to the cliff where Nahida is supposed to be. The kitten meows irately, which could be ‘I did, multiple times, and you stuffed me into your chest anyway’ which is, in all honesty, entirely fair.

The Eremites had retreated after the axe vanguard took one look at the infuriated creature, and decided she drew the line at hurting kittens. Understandable.)

“Look,” Lumine murmurs, “it couldn't have been that bad, right?”

Kitty stares at her. His gaze drips disbelief.

And when Kitty stubbornly tries to scratch her eyes out, this time, Lumine’s expecting it.

xxx

“Nahida isn’t here either. Do you think we missed her?”

“Paimon thinks she might have gone back! It’s pretty late after all…”

“We should call it a day too. Maybe we can catch Nahida and ask her about the Balladeer tomorrow.”

“Grrr!”

“Stop growling at Paimon! Paimon wonders what we should do with Kitty. Would Nahida will take him in?”

“Let’s ask her when we see her.”

“Hmph. Paimon thinks we should leave him somewhere else. Ooh, the Asase shrine? Bet Neko’d teach this mean kitty some manners—OW! NOT AGAIN!

xxx

She’d leave him in her teapot, if she could.

But he’s too little to survive alone, not like the other strays. And Lumine doubts Tubby is well-versed in caring for tiny kittens like this one, so…

While she had fun today, she’d have to return Kitty to the city tomorrow.

Nahida would help them find him a home, and she could leave him in safe hands, in confidence (with the hopes he wouldn’t bite those hands too.)

For tonight though, she could take care of him.

“You’re pretty cute, you know,”Lumine coos, lifting him up into the air.

“And you’d be much cuter if you stopped being so destructive.” He doesn’t even deem to reply with a meow, squirming out of her hands and settling on the couch.

But Kitty doesn’t move away. And Lumine reaches out, slowly, ready for another hissy fit—

He’s remarkably docile when she sets her hand on him.

Success! Lumine grabs the chance and pets him. Down his spine to his tail, firm, long strokes. And she can hardly believe it, but Kitty is relaxing, chest rumbling—

“Kitty,” she whispers. “Is that—are you purring?”

The feline freezes. By the time she blinks, he’s already on the other side of the room, tail raised.

Archons. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looks embarrassed, of all things.

xxx

“You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?” Lumine asks him that night, after seperating a raging Paimon and the cat that was gleefully chomping on the faerie’s dinner. Now he’s lounging on the floor, watching her make the bed. “There you go,” she hums.

Scoops the kitten up and plops him on top.

“You can leave if you want,” she says, as he makes a series of unhappy noises and jumps off the bed. But it’s a cold night, and you’ll freeze to death. Trust me.”

Of course Kitty doesn’t listen, curling up in the farthest corner.

“Fine then,” she shrugs. “Your loss.”

xxx

In the middle of the night, Lumine feels movement. Something brushing against her arm.

Warmth pools under her skin. She smiles and goes back to sleep.

xxx

There’s something in her bed with her.

Kitty, Lumine reminds herself. She’d slept with the kitten last night.

That made sense. Sleep beckons her again, and she loses herself in it willingly.

Except.

Kitty is tiny and the something is much heavier, much much heavier. A warm brand around her waist, legs tangled with hers. Breath fluttering against the crook of her neck.

Lumine wrenches her eyes open.

And screams.

xxx

Urgh, would you stop your hideous screeching, you banshee! You’ll—”

“Why—“ And no, she is not going to stop shrieking, especially not when the Balladeer of all people tells her to, thank you very much, “—are you in my bed?!?”

“You invited me yourself.”

The Balladeer sneers, in her bed, naked in HER bed, glaring at her with his hair mussed and the imprints of the sheets still on his cheek. Eyes half lidded, and when he pulls the sheets higher to his bare—BARE—navel, she has to drag her gaze up.

“What kind of sick game are you—”

and then her attention catches on his ears.

His Black-furred, twitching /cat/ ears.

“Heh. I knew you were slow, but this is honestly pathetic. Finally figured it out, have you?”

/No./

If Lumine lets out another ridiculous scream, and attacks Scaramouche with the nearest weapon—a pillow—only to backpedal and screech when the sheets almost uncover him, well, that’s between them.

(And no one else will ever find out.)

xxx

“Ah, so he was with you!” Nahida’s bright smile is at odds with the kitten behind her, settled back on the platform he was first found on. “I’d been worried for a while, until the guards informed me you visited. Thank you for taking care of him, Traveller.”

“But-but why is the Balladeer a cat?!” Paimon yells, pointing a pudgy finger at the cat (person?) in question.

Kitty—the Balladeer—sends the faerie a disdainful look. Archons, now all the expressions make horrifying /sense/.

“The Balladeer had sustained far too much damage from the battle,” Nahida explains, “To heal him, we had no choice but to put him under suspended animation.”

“Like a coma?”

“Yes, something along those lines. However, the Balladeer wasn’t amenable to the idea.

So we agreed to compromise. He would allow us to heal him on the condition we find a way to keep his consciousness.”

“To keep it short, we needed a host that was compatible with the Balladeer, and willing to cede control for a few weeks.”

With a flourish, Lesser Lord Kusanali points to the kitten. “So here we are!”

There’s something unbelievable about the fact that Scaramouche willingly chose to live as a cat. He had been comfortable in the form though—he’d leapt into battle like it was his body all along.

And thinking about the battle reminds her of Kitty—no, Scaramouche, clinging to dear life on her shoulder. Scaramouche pouncing on Paimon. Scaramouche hidden in her shirt as she faced the Eremites—

She had stuffed the balladeer into her cleavage.

If there was any good time for the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles to materialize and smite her where she stood, this moment would be it.

“And the teapot?” Lumine asks faintly. “Where he became…” a catboy?

“Hm. I can only hypothesize but…

since the teapot is a separate adeptal realm governed by its own rules, and Balladeer still has some of his powers left…” Nahida trails off, deep in thought. “Perhaps he had the ability to manipulate the form he takes. Or his body gravitated back to its natural state.”

“But, I do have good news,” Nahida chirps, bringing her hands together. “He should be all healed up by tomorrow. Which means I can keep my promise and help you find your brother. Why don’t you come back here in the morning?”

In the morning. She would be back in the morning.

For her brother.

(All that power, Lumine thinks, glaring at the Balladeer, and he couldn’t even materialise clothes.)

xxx