Jaguar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kittydesade) wrote2006-05-12 03:14 pm
kittydesade) wrote2006-05-12 03:14 pm
Entry tags:
BDL #100 - Young Wizards
Title: Unashamed Felinity
Fandom: Young Wizards / Book of Night With Moon
Characters: Rhiow
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Summary: The morning routine of a soldier against entropy, Eldest, Fairest, and Fallen, greetings and defiance. Cut for spoilers.
Politeness is always at the core of feline interaction. Protocol governs who goes first, who sets the spell and who cleans up afterwards. What humans would observe as the simplest of actions could be the rudest of gestures, carried out so subtly that no one but another feline would ever know.
It's not a rigid system, by any means. It's flexible. Fluid. Cats understand that life changes, and that they must change with it. Just because a poor queen sits down and has a good scratch in the middle of your conversation doesn't mean she's bored with you; she might have some kind of unnoticed skin condition. The team leader might not set the spell if the technician is more adept at transportation, and vice versa.
But there is protocol for everything, up to and including the final battle. Just because you are about to address and confront gods does not mean you have to be rude about it.
Every cat is born to learn about the Great Battle at the foot of the Tree, the tableau at the heart of the world. It's the core of the greatest sport, hauissh. They don't believe it, of course, but they learn.
Every wizard cat is bound to learn that it's true.
Rhiow's morning routine is different with Hhuha gone. She has to make sure Iaehh remembers to fill her bowls, and that usually by twining herself around his legs until he drops his precious briefcase. But he's always contrite when he realizes he's forgotten, and it's better now.
She drinks the water that's given to her, sometimes disdaining her bowl for the sink or the tub or even that bowl where the humans use perfectly good drinking water for hiouh. Part of their silly wasteful culture, but they'd be lost without it, and it does keep sickness down.
If she has time she'll laze about for a wash in the sun, turning over a problem with a particularly stubborn Gate or sorting out Arhu's schedule between here and London. Her team is one of the more eclectic she's worked with, and then she reminds herself that every team has its strengths and weaknesses, every team is different. What makes her team a point of pride one day will bring her endless grief the next. Hubris, she thinks with a smile, is every cat's downfall.
Every morning, without fail, in her meditation she gives thanks for what she's lived through. It isn't even every cat Wizard who has a Goddess in her and survives with a few lives intact.
Rhiow is better now. Quieter, older. A life and a few months short, after the last two big jobs. Wizard's holiday, indeed. And every morning she looks down from the bed by which only one pair of shoes now rest, and thinks about what it's cost her.
Hhuha. My oldest, dearest friend.
And then she squares her paws, straightens her tail, and marches on out the door to confront the Tearer once more.
But politely.
Fandom: Young Wizards / Book of Night With Moon
Characters: Rhiow
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Summary: The morning routine of a soldier against entropy, Eldest, Fairest, and Fallen, greetings and defiance. Cut for spoilers.
Politeness is always at the core of feline interaction. Protocol governs who goes first, who sets the spell and who cleans up afterwards. What humans would observe as the simplest of actions could be the rudest of gestures, carried out so subtly that no one but another feline would ever know.
It's not a rigid system, by any means. It's flexible. Fluid. Cats understand that life changes, and that they must change with it. Just because a poor queen sits down and has a good scratch in the middle of your conversation doesn't mean she's bored with you; she might have some kind of unnoticed skin condition. The team leader might not set the spell if the technician is more adept at transportation, and vice versa.
But there is protocol for everything, up to and including the final battle. Just because you are about to address and confront gods does not mean you have to be rude about it.
Every cat is born to learn about the Great Battle at the foot of the Tree, the tableau at the heart of the world. It's the core of the greatest sport, hauissh. They don't believe it, of course, but they learn.
Every wizard cat is bound to learn that it's true.
Rhiow's morning routine is different with Hhuha gone. She has to make sure Iaehh remembers to fill her bowls, and that usually by twining herself around his legs until he drops his precious briefcase. But he's always contrite when he realizes he's forgotten, and it's better now.
She drinks the water that's given to her, sometimes disdaining her bowl for the sink or the tub or even that bowl where the humans use perfectly good drinking water for hiouh. Part of their silly wasteful culture, but they'd be lost without it, and it does keep sickness down.
If she has time she'll laze about for a wash in the sun, turning over a problem with a particularly stubborn Gate or sorting out Arhu's schedule between here and London. Her team is one of the more eclectic she's worked with, and then she reminds herself that every team has its strengths and weaknesses, every team is different. What makes her team a point of pride one day will bring her endless grief the next. Hubris, she thinks with a smile, is every cat's downfall.
Every morning, without fail, in her meditation she gives thanks for what she's lived through. It isn't even every cat Wizard who has a Goddess in her and survives with a few lives intact.
Rhiow is better now. Quieter, older. A life and a few months short, after the last two big jobs. Wizard's holiday, indeed. And every morning she looks down from the bed by which only one pair of shoes now rest, and thinks about what it's cost her.
Hhuha. My oldest, dearest friend.
And then she squares her paws, straightens her tail, and marches on out the door to confront the Tearer once more.
But politely.