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Post by Nightingale on Aug 9, 2017 10:23:14 GMT -6
 It was a nice and clear late summer afternoon. Rose found herself stretched out on a bit of flat land, lost somewhere in the middle of the very lush pastures behind the old farm that's been feeding her for the past moon or so. The mice are ridiculously stupid, sometimes not even able to tell a cat's whiskers from a nice stalk of hay.
Out of the corner of her almond eyes, she watched a small smattering of sheep wander through the green grass. One in particular caught her attention; a baby, a sheep kitten of sorts, stumbling through the ferns. She watched it, critically, for a few moments before she decided it was none of her concern and shut her eyes again, enjoying the feeling of the sunlight stretched over her cream body. It wasn't until she heard a baa painfully close to her that she opened them again.
"Be gone, you wretched thing," she meowed, not particularly kind. The sheep kitten had wandered close to her, too close for her liking, looking at her with big, brown eyes. "Avaunt! Do you not understand me?"
To no response. She sighed dramatically, when she was able to detect a fresh cat-scent through the overwhelming, musky scent of sheep.
"Oh, hello there," she meowed in her most theatrical voice. "If you don't mind, I'm just having my own little soliloquy with this sheep kitten here."
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109 
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Post by Cleo on Aug 9, 2017 11:08:00 GMT -6
Cleo once again found herself mingling through the sheep. She enjoyed spending time with the fluffy cloud creatures, and pretended that they enjoyed her company as well.
Noticing one of the babies distancing itself from the rest of the sheep, Cleo followed it with a confused expression. She took it upon herself to protect the small, defensless cloud. She watched from a short distance as another cat began...scolding it? Telling it off? She wasn't sure.
Cleo moved closer for inspection, greeting the cat with a friendly smile. "Soliloquy?" Cleo repeated slowly. "What does this word mean?" Her French accent was heavy, and she hoped it wouldn't be too hard for the feline to understand her. "Sheep kitten? No, no." Cleo shook her head lightly in amusement, brushing her tail softly along its 'fur'. "What is the word... Lamb? Yes, I think lamb." She had known the word easily in French, but couldn't be sure about the English one.
Cleo perked her ears as one of the sheep gave out a loud 'baa', and the lamb was quick to respond, heading back to what she assumed was its mother. She looked at the stranger, sitting down, her posture calm and relaxed.
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 9, 2017 11:16:35 GMT -6
Rose allowed herself a little smile.
"Oh, why thank you, my sheep saviour," she meowed as she rolled upright, hopping onto her paws. Whoever this stranger was, she seemed to be well acquainted with sheep; or at least well enough that she knew the name of a sheep kitten: a strange, foreign word that she'd never heard before - 'lamb'?
Rose preferred sheep kitten.
Anyways, a sheep whisperer may be useful in the future, if they ever try to bother her again. She wanted nothing to do with the big, lumbering animals; hypocritical, yes, that she'd wander out into the pastures where they grazed, but Rose didn't feel as if she owed an explanation to anyone.
"A soliloquy is somewhat of a monologue without an audience."
A moment passed before she realised that the definition may still be too complicated for this newcomer to comprehend, so she rehashed it again.
"It's like when you speak your thoughts out loud, even though no one is listening," she explained, looking over at the she-cat with big, deep blue eyes. "You should try it sometime. It's rather therapeutic."
Feeling her English accent becoming stronger than ever before, she turned back to the stranger with a small smile.
"I hope you don't have any problems understanding me... and is that a French accent I detect?" she meowed with a hint of her old warmth, her old humour. Hearing the accent, so smooth and beautiful, brought her back to moons ago when she was only a little kit.
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109
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Post by Cleo on Aug 9, 2017 11:35:15 GMT -6
Cleo tried hard to understand the first definition of the strange word, though she found herself with more questions. 'Monologue? Audience?' She didn't voice these words outloud, not wanting to become annoying and overbearing.
She was quite thankful when she explained it further, repeating it a few times over in her head to memorize it. Perhaps it would serve a purpose one day. She didn't exactly understand the word 'therapeutic', so she pretended instead, humming softly in response.
Cleo felt delighted that this cat had an accent-one that she had never heard. She really hadn't met anyone when she was a kit who didn't speak French, other than a few friends who had helped her learn English along the way after her parents both died.
'I hope you don't have any problems understanding me... and is that a French accent I detect?'
"Yes, it is." Cleo purred, the excitement rather obvious in her tone. "I don't believe I am familiar with your accent...." She felt rather silly, talking to this feline. It was clear she had a vast vocabulary of words, while Cleo herself only really grasped the concept of simple ones.
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 9, 2017 13:05:47 GMT -6
She smiles softly.
"I've got somewhat of an English accent," she meowed, tipping her head to one side. She, herself, has got very limited French - possibly reaching conversational, but definitely no further, so she wouldn't try and converse with Cleo in it.
"So, I'm assuming you're not from around here?" Rose meowed, flicking an ear. "Neither am I, to be honest. I was born close to here, but not quite."
She didn't like to think about where she was born, because now, it was the least like home a place could get. The light in her eyes faltered for a second, just thinking about it, but she chased away the memory and the light returned.
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109
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Post by Cleo on Aug 9, 2017 13:45:11 GMT -6
Cleo smiled politely. "I think it sounds rather beautiful. Your accent, I mean." She purred. She lived listening to those sorts of things. Like the throaty sound of a sheeps call, or the smooth melody of a bird. Rose was much like this to her; beautiful sounding and strange.
"No, I come from..." Cleo hesitated. Their wasn't exactly a name for the place she was born and raised, so she offered a sheepish grin. "Well, somewhere not close." She was pleased to know that Rose had come from somewhere else as well. "Have you been here long?"
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 9, 2017 23:08:28 GMT -6
Cleo's words brought a bright smile onto her face.
"Thank you," she meowed, her voice more genuine that it's been for a while. Her accent was something no one had complimented her on, ever before. Perhaps that's the difference between wild cats and the ones she knew; one looked on the inside, the other the outside.
She nodded to Cleo's vague answer, understanding it fully; she still didn't have a proper name for where she came from, either.
"I'm from... someplace complicated," she meowed. It seemed that everyone'd been rehashing her past recently, even if it was her fault. Pausing for a second, she simply gazed at this stranger, wondering whether or not to carry on. She sighed ever so slightly and continued.
"I was... my family was linked to humans," she began, but quickly interrupted herself. "But I wasn't a pet! We had freedom to roam wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Our parents were able to fight, to catch mice."
The mention of her parents almost visually pained her, but she forced the smile to stay on her face.
"I... no longer suffer from such conditions."
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109
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Post by Cleo on Aug 9, 2017 23:33:30 GMT -6
Cleo's eyes were full of compassion, and she found a soft frown tugging at her lips. She could see the pain in the felines expression, and she could feel every bit of it. To a certain extent, she had felt it herself. Cleo shuffled closer to Rose, placing a paw softly on her shoulders. "I'm so sorry." She pulled her paw away a few moments later.
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 10, 2017 2:58:53 GMT -6
"No," Rose squeezed her eyes shut in frustration at herself, internally yelling at herself for letting all of that go. At least she didn't tell this stranger everything, right?
She looked over at the she-cat.
"No, don't be." She almost flinched at the touch, but forced herself to stay still. "No, I'm pretty much over it. They weren't good parents. King and Queen, yes, but not good parents."
She almost gasped in shock a second later, realising she had just let another big chunk of her past fall through. Muscles tensed under her pelt, she didn't move, hoping that maybe the stranger would forget it.
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109
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Post by Cleo on Aug 10, 2017 10:17:10 GMT -6
Cleo was confused as Rose suddenly grew frustrated, and naturally she assumed it was because she had touched her. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to..." She wasn't sure of the words she wanted to use, so instead she kept her mouth shut and listen to what Rose had to say.
Cleo pursed her lips at the new information of 'king and queen', eyes sparkling softly. "So you are... what's the word.... uh, princess?" She struggled for awhile trying to find it, although eventually the word 'princess' had managed to come out.
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 10, 2017 13:16:48 GMT -6
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The words echo in her mind relentlessly, her smile still unfaltering on her face.
"So you are... what's the word.... uh, princess?"
A heavy sigh pushed its way out of her lungs, and she gave a slight nod.
"One could say such a thing. Princess... princesse, for you," she meows, lightening up slightly at her French vocabulary. But the lightness of her voice sounds artificial, fake, everything it's not supposed to be, so she just drops the act.
"I really don't want to talk about it, though, if you don't mind." Her voice now sounds desperate, pleading with this stranger through the way her vowels were cut short, how each of her words ended with the tiniest of exhales. "It's not a very fun time of my past."
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109
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Post by Cleo on Aug 10, 2017 15:17:43 GMT -6
Cleo was rather amused the the word 'princess' sounded so alike to it in French. She would definitely have to keep that in mind.
It didn't take long for Cleo to notice the rather obvious pleading tone arose held.
"Of course." She purred softly, trying to lighten up the felines mood. She hated seeing other looking so down. "I'm sorry for over-stepping."
Cleo hesitated, though she decided that this cat had spilled a lot of her past, and it was only fair for Cleo to do the same. "My mother died when I was five moons old, and nearly a moon later so did my father. I understand what you're feeling." Cleo didn't mention how they both died, knowing it'd be much too painful.
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 11, 2017 3:55:27 GMT -6
Rose felt it uncharacteristically calming to just listen to this stranger talk. Her accent soothed her ears, almost lulling her into a sense of safety. She had to almost violently shake herself out of it.
"I'm so sorry about your parents," she meowed sympathetically, blinking slowly at the other she-cat. "I can't even imagine something like that."
Deep blue eyes twinkling in the stardust, she looked back over at the wide field.
"Shall we perhaps venture into something a bit less depressing?" she meowed, tail tip flicking. She really had no interest in staying here and marinating in her own sadness.
NOTES ;notes here |
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Cleo
Apprentice
Posts: 109
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Post by Cleo on Aug 11, 2017 10:06:00 GMT -6
Cleo dipped her head in thanks as Rose sympathized with her, feeling grateful for it. She wasn't the kind of cat to pretend everything was okay when it wasn't.
Cleo followed her gaze, nodding with a slow smile. "Sure, lead the way." Cleo flicked her tail. She only did this because she was unsure what Rose really wanted to do. Did she want to hunt? Explore?
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Post by Nightingale on Aug 11, 2017 22:51:06 GMT -6
Rising up on her long legs, Rose quickly padded out into the pastures, where the sheep had already wandered off to somewhere else. Her pace slowed as she waited for the stranger to catch up, realising as she did that she didn't even know her name.
"My name is Rose," she meowed lightly, relishing the cool grass drifting gently past her paws.
"Yours?"
NOTES ; ahhh sorry short
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