2020-08-08 - WIP: Tensions Need Attention

Summary:

WIP: Tensions are high in Mutant Town since the Hunter offered sanctuary to some criminals as part of a deal for intel she needed, Laynia arrives with supplies, and Catseye after with a different sort of treasure.

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Sat Aug 8 00:11:31 2020
Location: Mutant Town

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

None

catseyeklavdiya-vasilievlaynia-petrovna

Mutant Town is tense. Not nearly so bad as when they were under siege by the Russian Razors, but there is definitely an air of expectation of danger. The Pride and their allies know there is a chance those Hunter has chosen to protect may draw threats upon them. So far, at least, none have chosen to argue with her about that choice, and the former gang members are still under her watchful protection in a sanctuary somewhere within Pride territory. But that air of expectation is something those familiar with this part of the City would notice.

Fewer of the oldest and least physically stalwart amongst the Pride are out and visible on the streets.

Some of the noted second-tier leadership of the Pride are in almost constant presence at various locations, including the food kitchen, the clinic, and the abandoned church.

The biggest clue may be that when the Pride come to the food kitchen for their one meal of the day, there are visible watchers outside, notably coordinating with one another, in addition to the invisible lurking presence of Hunter, surely there as always and just waiting for trouble.

And the clowder of cats that usually accompanies Hunter is in abeyance, nowhere to be seen. How or why is unknown, but they are out from underfoot and out of sight.


Catseye grew up in New York, well, more accurately, UNDER New York. After the stress of the past few months, she's taken to visiting her old haunts. Which means prowling around in cat form in tunnels and back alleys, sniffing around, and looking for trouble. She emerges into Mutant town still in furform with a cranky kitten carried by the scruff of it's neck. But the kitten has spots, a stub of a tail, and tufts on the eartips. Oh dear.
Catseye ignores the people (and any odd looks) looking for the cat colony that lives here… she knows they have three nursing momma cats that can help nurse a kitten. Even a kitten that might grow up a little… large.


Laynia is more than a tad aware of the tension as she approaches with her delivery run this week. And — she's driving a new car, this one still older, but it is a Jeep, complete with roll bar and everything, manual transmission. Not nearly as cute, but…rugged, reliable and something she knows well enough. Ironically it is old enough to be considered a classic.

She looks to one of the watchers, nodding, and quirking a brow. "Trouble, Zap?" The mutant in question one she's familiar with, all the watchers are really. This one is essentially a living taser, not able to hurl lightning she can deliver a heck of a jolt!

Enter the *lavender* lioness and cub. A rather big cub.

Rather then bug anyone, Laynia just creates a darkforce wheeled palette and loads it up with a ton of supplies.


Zap nods to Laynia. "Hey, Darkstar." As with almost all of the Pride, Zap has given up her 'slave name' and uses only her mutant name, and treats others the same. The Latinx woman makes a sign to one of the other watchers, and then changes position to follow Laynia to her parking space. "We're not all sure." she answers in her usual thick NYC drawl. "We're kinda expecting one of the OC groups to come callin.' Hunter's taken in some strays, and they're wanted." Others amongst the Pride might not share all of this with Laynia right up front, given her SHIELD connections, but Zap likes the blonde Ruskie, and considers her 'good for Hunter.' She has also decided, for reasons of her own, that Laynia knows how to prioritize 'her people' over SHIELD and their interests, and keep her yap shut.

Maybe she's right. Maybe she's wrong. But Zap doesn't second-guess herself. Ever. She just lives with things as they are.

One or two of the watchers do spot the lavender lioness and her cub, and they know who that is. But they do not approach; cats be on cat business, and don't need bipeds gettin' all up in it.

Catseye would be able to scent that it has been a few days since the cats have been to a few of their more public nesting spots. However, it would not be hard for her to follow their trail, and Hunter's. Hunter is on a rooftop nearby, watching over the food kitchen, as the Pride is in there eating. That makes getting up to meet with her challenging for Catseye with cub in two, but not impossible. The cat colony seems to have moved to their nest under the abandoned church at the edge of Mutant Town and Disaster Zone territory.


Catseye has an advantage in that her mutant power lets her go straight up the sides of buildings, but the kitten needs to be fed. And so she take the cub to the cat colony under the abandoned church, and gets it settled and nursing, spending a few minutes grooming and soothing, making sure the little one is accepted. Then she goes off to meet up with Diya. After all, it is cat business, and Hunter needs to know about it!

Catseye goes up the side of the building, and once up there headbutts Hunter, and rubs against her. Scent would tell the tale if Hunter wasn't in smoothskin form, and Catseye spends a minute or so giving Hunter a look that says clearly that Catseye does NOT want to use her words, and why is Hunter in that form? Then with a heavy sigh, Catseye make herself think in language again. "Rescued cub." There! Words!


Laynia likes Zap, no doubt this is why she approached the Latina for info. Unaware of why the Latina returns the favor, the Russkie (other than the one on the roof!) expat nods and her expression tightens as she gets her game face on. "I will drop off the supplies, then see what aid I can offer." She looks about, using her own training to figure which rooftop the Hunter is lurking on, and then grips Zap's shoulder a moment in a friendly squeeze. "If you check under passenger seat, there is some Plov, take for your friends, da?"

In fact, she doesn't even need to ponder where Hunter is, because who else would Catseye be seeking? The *lavender* lioness proving adept at wall climbing, no, beyond it, she knows where to go. Most likely anyway. Once the unloading is done, Darkstar just jumps through the Darkforce Dimension to that rooftop - she portals from inside the building of course, and appears near the center of the rooftop though a darkling rift, the area around it chilled by the hole.


Zap smirks at Laynia and makes a bit of a happy face. "Hey, thanks. Shell loves that stuff." Sure, the help is welcome, but Zap doesn't expect miracles from anyone. Laynia is acting like one of them, even if she's a well-bathed, cleanly dressed one of them, and that's good enough for her. "You walk safe, Darkstar." That's one of Zap's usual lines; she has never explained why, but it's just her way.

Once Zap has Plov, she waves and heads back to her spot … and past it, heading for another of the watchers. Shell does love that plov stuff.

The homeless veteran with the predator scent turns as Catseye reaches her rooftop, the shift bringing her out of careful camouflage to something more visible; not that Catseye needs that cue, but it can't hurt.

Hunter accepts the headbutt, and brushes with hands rather than grooming with tongue to welcome the lavender lioness. She may not be quite as good with scent in her unfurred form, but she can figure out enough. She doesn't smell any hurt on Catseye, and only mild distress from the lingering kitten scent. "Good." she murmurs.

Hunter is not one much for words, either.

Hunter's scent, to Catseye, smells of a lot more dank, damp places than normal, with the must of tunnels. Also, more gunpowder scent than usual; she has been shooting, though not in a day or so. There's also decent evidence Hunter bled into that coat of hers a week or so ago, but no injuries more recent.

Hunter continues to pet and scritch over Catseye as the rift of darkness opens on her rooftop; sheesh, what is this, a convention?! She does offer a nod towards the blonde when she emerges, but does not let that distract her from showering Catseye with affection. She leans in close, and murmurs for the lioness' ears: "Shift hurt, me. No word." And given she has to coordinate with a bunch of bipeds, she needs to be able to speak, even if she does not always like it.


Catseye rumbles reassuringly at Hunter. Not Hunter's fault that her furform can't talk two-legs. It is that it is. She curls around Hunter, peering at …. ah, it's the fighter with the dark-cold power. She's not sure about darkforce, what she's seen of it makes very weird Math in her head. Though to be fair, a lot of mutant powers make weird math in her head. She leans against Hunter, careful of her weight, but the pressure reassuring by feline standards.


"Is lamb, hope you like…I might have been a bit overzealous when I made batch." The Darkstar answers Zap. She grins. "Shell's love of it might have been factor." She admits, and then nods. "And you, tovarisch."

Laynia smells of lavender soap and shampoo, sweat, cold, rice and lamb meat, carrots, onions and garlic - aka Plov, and a bit of gasoline (she topped off her gas tank en route). Yes, Hunter, it -is- a convention. A fairly unconventional one at that.

When she's not shot, Laynia relaxes a bit, she'd had a shield up just in case, the shield fading as she relaxes. "Privyet, Okhotnik." She greets, and then looks to Catseye and offers a toothless smile. The portal closes behind her, though the chill lingers a bit, and then Laynia approaches and conjures a pair of darkforce brushes, offering one to Hunter, and then hunkering down to kneel beside Catseye if permitted. She waits for permission before she starts with the brushing. The brushes are cool, the bristles mingled with stiff and looser.


Catseye's calm acceptance and presence is nice, and Hunter is feline enough that contact-pressure actually helps her to react less strongly to the portal and appearance than she might otherwise. So, no shooting. Just a nod to the other Russian.

Hunter has never had something of a Darkforce construct offered to her use, so she looks at the brush long and hard before experimentally reaching out to take it, testing its feel, experimenting before finally bringing it closer to Catseye, letting her sniff at it and decide before it is used instead of au naturale Hunter fingers.

"OK?" Hunter eventually asks Laynia. Yes, she is aware that Laynia just tends to want to 'check up' on her; it's irksome. But she always assumes anyone coming to her might, just might, have a problem. Besides, the last time they talked in-depth, Laynia had a problem and no clear answer to it. Best to check in on that. Just in case.


Catseye sniffs at the brush, cautiously rubbing her nose then her cheek against it before nodding. It is acceptable, and grooming is good. She looks over Laynia, then decides to permit more grooming. She cocks an ear curiously at Hunter's question. Catseye is now debating what to do about the illegal cub's owner. Human brain is now working and ugh. Thinking. RESPONSIBLITY. How annoying. Much nicer just to groom, be groomed, and purr. Maybe she can just drop a dime on the idiot, get someone else to do the work.


The brush smells of cold, it /is/ cold, but is has mass, the grip akin to wood. There's no other scent on them really, until touched of course. It is really hard to explain it, but cold is the only word that fits for the scent of the brushes. They're also durable - absurdly so - roughly the toughnesa of a front line battle tank.

Permission granted, Laynia pitches in. She's no stranger to work, and the purring is ample reward for her efforts.

She is silent a long while, not a problem with *this* crowd, before she answers Hunter. "So-so. I have had no other incidents, but I have had some very bad dreams…dreams I did not remember. Those were bad nights, little rest. Even sches."


Hunter considers what Laynia has to say, but her concentration is clearly on brushing and grooming Catseye. No need for conversation right now. If she knew Catseye needed someone to deal with the former 'owners' of the bobcat cub, she would step up to help. But for now, she just pays proper attention to a lavender lioness.

Eventually, Hunter does find that her subconscious percollates some thoughts about Laynia's situation. She considers them, and then shapes the tiny few words to express the concepts at hand. "Cameras, watch sleep?" she questions. If Laynia is having rough nights that she feels might be connected to the earlier her/not her experience, might she not enlist some unsleeping eyes to watch over her supposed sleep, to make sure sleeping, however unsettled, is all she's doing?


Catseye rumbles, "Or friend, if trust." And understands that Laynia might not have such a friend… but she might not want a recording of her in such a vulnerable state around. Not everyone has sharp teeth, claws, and a tendency to bite while asleep to keep them safe after all. Thankfully, her family doesn't have to be in the same room to wake her. So person vs tech is… a tradeoff. Up to Laynia which way that swings.


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