Homely.
The house could only really be described as such. It had a calming aura, of softly mismatched colors with worn out furniture and carpet. It felt as if a family had lived in here for years, with every stain and crack. It would be a soothing sight to Lilith, now Leah, if she weren't in a rattling cage. Or, for a more understandable reason, if she weren't stabbed sixty three times by a man she swore she never met.
Lucy placed the cart down by the door and started picking objects off the ground. Adam, however, sat beside the kennel and glared at Leah.
"You aren't going to help clean up just a little bit?" Lucy flicked her head back, her eyebrows furrowed.
"No," Adam answered curtly. And, as if scripted, another fight broke out between the two, with even more names and snide remarks. The loud argument made Leah's head throb with pain. It was awfully tiring just being in their presence.
Leah lowered her head and began to think about what to do next.
She could always escape. It would be easy to find an open window, or dash between their legs when leaving the house. She could always do something sneaky while they weren't looking. The only perks of staying with those two would be food, shelter, and clean water. Downside would be the humiliation, hearing loss, and less leeway to investigate her own murder.
The kitten shook her head vehemently. The best option she would have was to not do anything, and live the rest of her days as a sheltered cat until she died. Unlike her previous life, she now had the opportunity to live a relaxed life without having to worry about basic living needs. After all, this house was way above average for anyone living in De'Lapin. It could pass as an upper class family trying to live a rather normal lifestyle.
Leah watched the two continue on with their bickering and cleaning.
'Are they siblings or lovers? Or married?' Leah's nose scrunched up at the thought. It would be better for them to be siblings or room mates, as anything more intimate would make this relationship lean on the more abusive side. She never really had siblings, so she based her views of that type of familial bonds on media, and judged the two as rather typical siblings. A bit noisier, though.
"Awwight wittwe bawby kwitty," (alright little baby kitty) Lucy cooed, unlocking the cage, "awe you weady to cowme owt? Awwe yoo? Aww wes oo aww owaa ooo wai oo!" (Are you ready to come out? Are you? *Literal gibberish)
Her baby noises were already getting tiring to Leah.
Lucy gently unlocked the cage door and opened it as wide as she could. Leah poked her nose out of her cat food scented kennel to catch a sniff of the house. The sharp musk of cologne mingled with the warm scent of hot chocolate. Probably perfumes and shampoos used by the two.
Carefully, she took a step out of her cage. A sharp pain pricked at her hind leg, surprising her. If she were still human, it would be the exact thigh that was stabbed from her past life. How did it carry over to this host?
Her leg was bandaged and bloodied. Only then did she realize she had immense pains in her back and a scrape under her chin. The exact same wounds inflicted on her by the magenta was affecting her body now. No car accident would be so coincidental, it must be the doing of Sinistra.
'You horrible idiot!' Leah moaned in her head silently, 'You could have given me a host that wasn't on the verge of dying!'
The two strangers watched as the small kitten limped out of it's cage. It was a sad sight indeed. Any humane person seeing the sight would consider shedding a tear or two. "How dare Sinistra curse such a frail creature!" Or, "Thank Dextro this poor baby made it out alive!"
Leah looked up at Adam, who stood above the crouching Lucy. He pursed his lips and quickly looked away.
'I know you're probably feeling bit guilty, but it wasn't you,' Leah thought, 'It was that damn killer!'
She collapsed, already tired from exerting such force. Retiring back to the cage sounded heavenly, just to sleep away and recover.
"No!" Lucy lightly patted the kitten on the back with encouragement, "You have to keep trying!"
Little by little, Leah was starting to enjoy Adam's pessimistic nature more than Lucy's optimism.
"Let the thing rest already, let's go to sleep," Adam slicked back some loose hairs coming out from his hair band and sauntered towards the stairs. Lucy waved kindly at the small kitten before following after Adam. Surprisingly, they left her alone with the cage door open. It might have been due to the fact she was on death's door that they didn't quite worry about her making a mess of the house, or maybe they had just never owned a pet before. Leah had done many things in her previous life, like care for various animals. Though cats were one of the least destructive animals on the list, the claws of a kitten could tear furniture to shreds.
She was reminiscing too much. Argh, another downside to being a house pet. Too much time to herself, left only with her memories and thoughts. They weren't pleasant to think about. No good emotions came up from reminiscing.
She went back inside her kennel, curling up into a little ball. Right now, all she wanted to do was sleep.
But she couldn't.
She couldn't sleep comfortably at all.
No matter how many times Leah had tossed and turned, flipped and curled, she couldn't sleep in such a way that didn't hurt or feel weird. Her back was practically broken, and her hind leg would flare up in pain at the slightest touch. Not to mention the cut beneath her chin lessened the different positions she could rest her head. Nothing ever really went her way, but to rob her of such a precious necessity such as sleep? Cruelty.
If only she could use her aer, but it was known that animals couldn't engage or manipulate their own aer like humans could.
Or maybe she could use it.
She could certainly give it a shot. There would be no harm in trying, except for possibly blowing herself up. But even then, she was no longer a gray-occulos. She was now cyan-"occulos", if cats even did adhere to the occulos rule.
There was not much known to aer by humans, as it was a fragile science that could result in the injury of many if not handled correctly. People compared it to magic, as it was mystical and mysterious. But it's also regarded to as a science, as it's almost a way of life to everyone.
It's quite simple, but becomes far more complex the more you look into it.
In basic summations, Aer powers the duscor, duscor being one's special ability given by the Gods, Sinistra and Dextro. The power of one's duscor is reflected in one's occulos, or eye color.
Leah engaged her aer, as taught to her when she was a kid, and tried to heal the slight scratch beneath her chin. The flow, however, felt weird and uncomfortable, as she was manipulating it through a kitten's body, and not a human body. She flinched. To her surprise, she could feel the small reservoirs of aer flowing throughout her host. But not quickly enough to fully heal any kind of wound.
Checking the result of her hard efforts, she slightly placed her chin onto her pillow.
'It's not as painful!'
The scratch wasn't completely gone, which sucked. A lot. Healing a thing like this would be easy for even nursery students. Now, she had been reduced to being weaker than a four year old. It felt awful and humiliating.
But if she learned how to use aer in this cat's body, investigation would be child's play. Manipulating one's aer was the second most important skill to know. It boosts one's regular biological abilities, like healing, strength, speed, eyesight, whatever you could name. Some skills are easier to learn than others. Really, healing was the only aer-engaged skill people cared for, as other skills required more energy and training. But why put your all into something so draining, when you could focus on learning more about your duscor?
Leah placed a pitiful paw on her snout. She was incapable of using her duscor, so she had spent her entire lifetime sharpening her aer-engaged skills. Even people who could openly use their duscor feared her. She was as quick as lightning and her punches could shatter concrete.
'So how did he get the better of me?!' Leah lamented. How did he manage to take the brunt of all of her hits and cut twice before the big blow?
"Was I never really that strong…?"
The absolute poor excuse of a fight replayed in the back of her mind, spiraling her into an existential crisis. 23 years blood sweat and tears, all destroyed by some twig-limbed guy who seemed to be held together by his clothes.
And what was up with his stupid clothing, anyways? The magenta was wearing a suit and tie to a murder.
'I guess you could say he meant business-ack! No! None of that is funny! Argh.'
She continued to insult him in her head, fuming at the mere thought of him. 'He could've at least combed his nasty excuse of hair he had before stabbing me sixty three times.'
Though in this situation, her emotions were not appropriate at all. The way she reacted was much more lighthearted than how anyone would react to being stabbed to death in an alleyway for seemingly no reason. Fear and panic would be the key emotion for this certain circumstance, but mysteriously, she barely felt anything but mild annoyance. Almost as if she had been stabbed to death millions of times before, and her death was just an inconvenience to her everyday life.
There was a lot to uncover. Perhaps a little too much.
Leah just wanted to reach her sweaty little cat paws and wring them around Sinistra's not-quite-existent throat. A bad idea, truly, since she'd be going ham on a literal God. She barely cared for her past grisly crimes against humanity, or the fact that she ate the head of the Light God Dextro. No! None of that mattered right now. She was a raging cat, thirsty for any type of vengeance.
Right. The first thing, and most logical step of her plan, was let off some steam. She'd have to kill Adam in his sleep.
It was a rather... cynical thought. But pinning a murder on a poor little kitten would make no sense, so everyone would naturally just assume that there was an unfortunate mishap. She felt the need to just kill him right there and then.
A new mission unfolded in Leah's head. She must get to Adam's room and finish the job.