Monday, October 5, 2015

The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s9c

As afternoon passes into evening Svansglidaren hangs around the apartment with the sick child Tryggtass tires to warm with the purpose to try to catch the full name of the mother. If he manages that he would have much greater power over her dreams. He also convinces Tryggtass who can read to sneak into the apartment and try to find the name on any of those important papers that humans keep around. Sadly she doesn't manage to find any paper lying around. As the night falls Tryggtass again sneaks up to the baby and crawls up to it and warms it. She has also noticed that they hasn't thrown away the baking towel they covered the child with earlier. Whomever of the two parents who find it first in the morning seems to assume the other put it on their child and folds it and puts it among other cloths and every night Tryggtass covers the baby again.

Later at night Svansglidaren appears to try another dream walking and to dampen the mother's fear of crushing her child so that she would lie close to her child to warm it instead of separated from the child. This time Svansglidaren tries to from the beginning take control over the dream environment and shape it before introducing the mother and the child close together. As he tunes to her and enters her dream world he gives her the feeling of being a spirit version of herself (the humans believe that the spirit partly releases itself from the body during sleep, the cats know that that's the case) looking down on herself and her child sleeping in the apartment. In this version the child wakes up apparently not feeling well and crawls over to the mother and although it can not talk yet it in the dream tells the mother that it's not feeling well and needs warmth. The baby then lays down close to her and hopefully that won't trigger her panic as furiously and it will then be more manageable. Svansglidaren tries to build up as much positive feelings as he can with the image of the child voluntarily coming close to her. Svansglidaren fights with her feelings and nightmare of crushing her child. It's an even fight but suddenly she calms down and realise that if she only is a little careful she can sleep close to her child and the fear of crushing it is gone.

There's no guarantee that she will lie close and hold her child each and every night but now her fear is gone so at least she would do it when needed. Tryggtass and Svansglidaren watches as the mother hold her child and slightly enthusiastically talk about how Svansglidaren managed this time and almost wake the parents so they calm down. Svansglidaren is still quite upset after the fight with the nightmare so he leaves to go home to his burden and sleep and rest. As he jumps up in the window he suddenly feels how a rat tries to pass his warden in the hole down to the sewer. As he stops and thinks of what to do a lemures attacks the warden of his burden's domus. Conflicted which to tend to first he hesitates in the window alcove.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s9b

As they return and jump up to the roof to have a necessary nap in the sun they spot a new very large white rat sitting in the shade peering at them while chewing something. As soon as they move towards it it looks up and stares at them. They rush towards it to kill the rat. They have the upper hand in that they probably can cut it off from it's expected escape route (the hole they discovered earlier).  Grå jumps up to a window alcove to be able to jump the rat when it tries to escape while the others rush directly at the rat to drive it towards Grå's ambush. The rat runs but doesn't get to Grå's ambush before Tryggtass and Svansglidaren catch and kill it.

The very curious Tryggtass can stop herself from trying to get through the small hole where the rat escaped earlier and the extremely agile Grå managed to get through when they examined the escape route the other day. With some effort she squeezes herself through the hole. It's almost at a point where Svansglidaren decides to push her from behind but he never has to, with little margin. She looks around in the apartment and discovers a woman who looks surprised at the cat that almost materialised in her apartment. "Meow" says Tryggtass and looks hungry. The woman keeps on looking surprised and then squats and pats Tryggtass on the head in that manner the humans have with their children and adds a "Oooh, little kitty". Tryggtass fawns a little to uphold the charade and suddenly she gets a fish, a quite fresh fish even. She eats it while peering around in the apartment. She also feels the scent of rat towards the door out of the apartment. The rats seem to have crawled under the door and then run towards the hole in the exterior wall. There's also some rat scent under the raised ember. Tryggtass jumps up to the window and out to the other two.

They leave the street roof and runs into the inner court to the hole where the rats come from. It's a very small hole but that doesn't stop a curious cat Tryggtass. There's a great stench and they can hear running water somewhere inside downwards. She squeezes through and Grå follows her. The balance on a very narrow space with room for about seven paws. There's a very steep wall down to running water. It's probably possible to run down to the water somewhat controlled but most probably no possibility to stop halfway. They don't see so much, it's dark even for cats and return out to tell Svansglidaren. It seems like the hole went into the sewers where the rats usually lives. They discuss how they could stop the rats. If they could convince Svansglidaren's burden to renovate the building. He has been convinced such things before. They are interrupted by a furious hissing from the hole. They jump around and turn towards it ready to kill. Something big is in the hole. They growl back. Svansglidaren moves to the side to move out of sight. Tryggtass tries to lure it out when it suddenly attacks her. Tryggtass backs off fending herself while the other two jumps the rat. A fight erupts where the rat bites after Tryggtass paw and Svansglidaren smashes it. The fight continues furiously but is short. Even if it's a big wild rat they are three cats and the fight ends with two of them catching it and killing it. Some humans cheers at them for killing the rat and come down to them with a bowl of garum, totally okey fish sauce (although Svansglidaren is used to better). They try to alert the humans to the hole and the rat but they seem to think a cat is stuck there and when they don't see a cat there they return to their business. Grå and Tryggtass knuffar in the killed rat into the hole. Svansglidaren then casts a Ward against rats over the hole with the rat as sacrifice to Pluto for power.

A dog appears on the court. They recognise it but dogs are moody so you never really know where you have them. It's not one of the more sapient dogs and it tries to out it's nose into the hole with the rat. Tryggtass tries to convince it to not put it's nose there and after a while it understands and tries to use it's paw instead. Tryggtass sighs deeply and tries to convince it to stop, to go away. After a battle of wits against stubbornness it walks of. A few children looks at them and giggles at the dog. Suddenly Svansglidaren feels how someone tries to get through the ward from the inside. A mental fight starts and suddenly Svansglidaren jumps startled as he's overcome and a furious white rat storms out of the hole. They jump that rat as well it's soon captured and killed. It's strange that so many albino rats have appeared within such a short time span. They drag the rat out of the court and manage to budge it up to the street roof and push it into the hole into the apartment as a sacrifice for a ward over the street roof agains Skarpöra.

They discuss if it's possible to get to the rats in any reasonable way but every way they can think of involves more or less water and they decide to not do anything particular right now. It is worrying with these large ferocious rats though. They could harm or even kill a human baby.

Friday, October 2, 2015

The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s9a

The three cats spend parts of the first part of the day (after a morning nap) talking about Ärrnos, Skarpöra and Tofsöra and what they were or are after. What's the point with the strange dominance game they've been playing and what was the point with Skarpöra's manoeuvres that seemed to stretch out out of the area made up out of the the cats' territories and the area in between? They decide to go on a scouting tour following an imaginary line from Skarpöra's territory to their territories and onwards.

They follow that line until the border of their region which is to the corner of and including Ara Pacis - The altar of Augustan peace, a strange monument over one of the humans' leaders, not a god or godess as one would expect. Speaking out half loud and frustrated Svansglidaren wonders why the humans all the time have to clean away his sacrifices when they so obviously understands this with sacrifices and the importance of places for sacrifices. "Well" a cat says "they even clean away in the temples." One of the temple cats have appeared and answers Svansglidaren's unintended question. The cat goes on and tells them about how humans don't really know so much about sacrifices anyway. For one thing they brun their sacrifices because they don't think the gods and goddesses can utilise the sacrifice otherwise, unless the sacrifice raises up to the skies where they're supposed to live. Svansglidaren withdraw his statement about humans understanding, it just looked like that. Svansglidaren steers the discussion to Skarpöra and whether she were hanging around there or tried to sway cats around here. The temple cat says that he did recognise Skarpöra when she appeared in court so probably she has been around here but both she and the other two cats are, according to the temple cat, cats you don't really notice or care about so he doesn't really remember. Another temple cat, out of three, also appears and joins the company. In the end it seems like they just did it to be cool and because they could do it and to be cool.

Suddenly the temple cats look at each other and explains that the humans are about to sacrifice, they smile and they say that they need to watch the humans so that they don't burn themselves on the fire. Svansglidaren asks if they could join them and watch the humans. The temple cats are happy for the attention and even invites them upp on the upper roof where the view is good both over the sacrificing humans and the park that's included in the temple area. The humans are always sacrificing outdoors since they believe that the sacrifice has to raise up through the air up to the gods and goddess. They all gather up on the roof and look at the humans below.

As they watch they realise that they donät recognise the god the humans are dedicating the sacrifice to although cats have a good knowledge about the gods. On the other hand; since the humans have misunderstood so many other things, like how to sacrifice, why shouldn't they misunderstand the looks of the gods and goddesses? One of the temple cats notice their surprise and says that it is a little funny, it's not one of the gods or goddesses they're sacrifising to. "Ah, it's their forefathers?" Svansglidaren says and thinks he has gotten why they didn't recognise the god from the statue. The temple cat looks at him and smiles "Nope...". "Ooookey, then who is it?" Svansglidaren asks perplexed. "It's their Great Leader." the temple cat says, still smiling. Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå looks down at the humans baffled. Apparently they have just one "consul" who makes all the calls all the time, weird. Then the temple cat tells them that he doesn't even come here and eat the grilled sacrifise to get it's power or something. Other people come there and eat the meat from the sacrifices. Apparently the gods and goddesses get the less tasty parts of the sacrifice. "If they get any power from that at all it must be a pity thing from the gods and goddesses" Tryggtass concludes. "They look down at them and goes 'Aw, cute humans, here, have some prosperity." According to the temple cats they have repeatedly tried to sense magic at these sacrifices and never managed so they have concluded that the sacrifises doesnät work. At other temples where the humans actually sacrifce to gods and goddess it seems to work although very inefficient when taking the size of the sacrifices into account.

As the humans go about with their rituals they discuss what's beyond The Peace Altar and the border of the region. According to the temple cats it's the humans central square (named after the humans living here in the city, The Roman Square) and the main temple area beyond there.

Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå thanks the temple cats and walks away to the main square which is quite small for being a main square. There's no commerce going on but it's still packed with people, lot of people ooooh:ing and aaaah:ing when they men at a large podium states things. It seems slightly wild and disorganised evenf or cat standards though. They sneak around the crowd (which feels slightly uncomfortable and untrustworthy for the cats) and take a look at the temples beyond. Among one they find Merkurius' temple, a little like if the humans had misinterpreted a ferret god maybe - a trickster and thief and lover of shiny objects. They don't understand what Skarpöra was after and give up on trying to understand, maybe they did it just because they could. They do notice that there are a lot of corveids in the area though which seems reasonable if there's actually some sort of communication going on between the humans and the gods and goddesses. There is a rumour that there's actually an Egyptian temple in Rome but it's not Bastet - Sekhmet as one could have expected but some other Egyptian gods or goddesses. humans, you never understand them. The humans are getting more and more agitated over at the square and are sounding more and more like dogs gathering in flocks and barking at something and running after something wildly barking. It makes the cats uneasy and they decide to walk around the area and return home. As Tryggtass concludes; she will soon be very busy taking a nap in the sun so she doesn't really have time to watch dog-like humans. They return to the street roof.