Cat/Suit: Prelude 1, Another Stray (Patreon)

Cat/Suit

Prelude- Part 1: Another Stray

Faux stepped up on the secretive hilly path on the wide outskirts, overlooking the vast capital of Breeg. The moonlit sky hung overhead, a reflection of their own world, and somewhere inside Faux knew on that reflection in the sky was his own reflection staring back at him. His green eyes adjusted to the long night, reducing to a slit to better take in the contrast of luminosity of the countless towering homes and business of Breeg’s many districts, while absorbing the beauty of the infinite sky and darkness above, the thousands of stars twinkling. 

“Master?” Faux asked looking about, a surprisingly gaelic undertone of accent to the lupine mouthless snout spoke. It was a thicket he stood before, garbed in a belt covered in torn and broken collars and leashes, trophies from their long period of Edgt. Faux’s tail swished and bent with the wind, voluminous and near balloon-like, though nothing ever lost that ever present appeal of rubbery gloss to it when it came to an Edgling. “Master Lynx?”

“I’m over here Faux,” replied a voice, deeper than Faux by leagues and coming from past the bushes up ahead. Though the white skinned fox knew there was cliff edge waiting if he moved too far, still he pressed forward to find his master. Past bush and forest he moved, bending twig and lopping gingerly over low brush and coming to a small diameter clearing overlooking Breeg by a cliff face. A single long root shot out from the dirt and rock, bound and winding into the hill and sitting at a deep sloping angle reclined a figure swaddled in black. 

“Master, why do you not simply do it yourself?” Faux asked with a puzzled backstep, one mittened arm outstretched to brace on a coil of branch from a tree that overshadowed them both and swayed with the gentle wind. The figure swaddled in black sat up, their curled tail unfurling from beneath the thick and protruding root of the cliff and their legs stretched out as did their digited hands. “Ah… my dear I was actually thinking the same thing the other day you know?” Faux’s master turned on the root then, staring back and standing in one smooth graceful motion. They had a red checkered scarf, long and billowing  that framed the ebon figure well. A man with pale yellow eyes inside a catsuit shaped like a cat, a stray black cat in fact, his body build one of tough demeanor and past its prime. “And you know what happened?”

“No, you did not tell me. Is this when we stopped in that fishing village two days ago and you left me to the market shopping Master?” Faux stepped closer, wrapping their pillowy tail around the same tree root their mittened hand held for support.

“It is the very same.” Faux’s master spoke with a near grandfatherly appeal to his voice, one that betrayed the strength and physicality of his still impressive build from inside the lacquered skin of their edgling. “The Crow came to see me, appearing just as I was thinking seriously of taking on this task myself. I was telling myself, I said I could do it. I could fix all this. I just have to sit them down one at a time, and explain what has to happen for everything to work out. It’s what I do, it’s what I’ve always done. But then…”

“But then why not Master? You have done it before. Your exploits are… they’re legend!” Faux implored, stepping forward and speaking with an earnestness that brought out just that much more of their gaelic accent. 

“Forgotten legend my dear…” The black cat turned on the root, crossing his arms along his chest and staring out at Breeg, the many lights moving here and there flickering across his pale yellow gaze. “Vargul rules and has forgotten why he rules, and the rest have fallen into fear. They’ve forgotten who they are… really are at their hearts and embraced these… comedies of their former selves. Breeg rots from the inside quite literally, and soon due to where it lies on Edgt, the whole world will begin to rot. It’s a malady-”

“One you can fix!”

“One that I helped cause, my Faux… one that I helped cause.” Faux’s master slumped, his red scarf failing to catch the wind and knot on the root he balanced upon. “I was just considering how to fix everything, when the Crow appeared… he appeared and said...well, first he said he liked coffee, then offered me some coffee-- er, incidentally Apprentice, let this be my final lesson to you, always accept the Crow’s coffee. But second, he said ‘This world has always had a habit of taking just what it needed to find its balance, and it will do so again quite soon.” The black suited stray turned on his root then, his back to Breeg and pale yellow eyes on Faux. “But every action comes coupled with consequence, and the price for mine own would be calling on the same card as the forthcoming balance.”

The white suited fox named Faux stepped closer once, falling silent. “Master...do you know when?”

The man on the root that was Faux’s master seemed to smile, the edgling muzzle spreading a smile wide with a toothy grin. “Yes… and you’ll have to forgive me for not telling you sooner my dear.”

A rumble shook, the rumble of something denizens of Edgt knew well. The rumble of a new piece of world. It followed no precise schedule or predictable pattern, there was no way of ever knowing when a land mass would be added atop an already existing portion of Edgt or what that mass would be. Some areas which seemed safer then others were the more populated chunks of Edgt, while the untamed wilds saw sometimes constant additions of reality in slabs and chunks. Edgt was a world that constantly built on itself, developed atop it's already existing mass in chunks. Sometimes an island would appear, sometimes a lake or an ocean would manifest every odd century, but most times lately it was buildings, pre-built structures and designed structures. They would appear atop of and smash down whatever was below it, creating upward infinitely until whatever was beneath was crushed into a fine glowing white powder deep below the surface of Edgt. Some thought that glowing white powder was the dust of creation, and coveted it. Others knew better, others knew what that powder was. 

Tonight it was a 4th of a city block, appearing first as a dark shadow that spread out across the surrounding area and overlaid and replaced the shadows of the buildings and streets and homes that laid beneath it. It was a 4th of a city block that manifested not far below the conversation between Faux and their master. Neon lights burnt out and crackled as the first hints of metal and edifice and stonework seemed to seep into proper reality. To see it is like watching a mass of anything rise from the surface of a body of water, slivers here and there on every surface and detail, what lay beneath mercilessly crushed without thought or care to what or who may be there. 

“Master…?” Faux’s mittened paw outstretched as the black cat on the cliff root leaned back, clearly preparing to fall into the developing building of reality. “You can’t! That’s suicide!” And it was for all known purposes just that. No one really knew what happened to a person, Edgling or otherwise if they intersected with a new portion of existence that Edgt was bringing onto itself, but the general thought was at best evaporation into non-existence, and at worst something far worse than just ceasing to exist. 

“I have a message for you to deliver to her Faux… 'Never on Wednesday'!!! Remember that!” The black suited catsuit of a man slipped off the tree root and began to fall as his apprentice jumped out, only in time to grab hold of the red scarf that dangled. 

“What does that mean?! Master? MASTER LYNX!” Faux shouted in a panic reaching through the now billowing red scarf.

All he heard as his master tumbled into the quickly developing reality of the new buildings was a boisterous laugh. “That is the irony Faux! I have no idea! Hahah! We will meet again--!”