Keira's day had been terrible. She had stuttered in front of her class (one of the effects of death; she was learning. Tense situations tended to make her stutter, great). She had been so nervous she couldn't find her way around (though she had lived here nearly all her life now), and to make everything just a little worse, it had begun raining, and she had no umbrella.
When she got home, Nero was playing out in the rain, jumping and catching drops of water in his paws. He stopped and looked over at her as she came to the door, trying to fish her key from her purse.
"Bad day?" he purred, licking some of the water from his paw in that smug fashion he was so good at.
"It was fine, just a little difficult. It'll get better as I get used to it," Keira told him, glad she didn't have actually to speak right then. She was sure Kuro would want to know how her day had gone, though.
"Being a teacher is an impossible job," Nero said. "Little pay, a lot of work, and annoying children. Have you seen our new neighbor?"
It was an odd thing of Nero to ask her because he wasn't concerned with neighbors. She and Kuro had only recently gotten this house, finally able to upgrade from their dumpy little apartment. They were still in the process of moving in.
"I haven't. Are they nice?" she asked her cat.
Nero inspected a bug on the ground. "How would I know? I can't talk to them. It's some man if you can call him that. Too beautiful, I say. I don't like the look of him. He gives me the creeps."
"We should make him something," Keira said aloud as she unlocked the door and headed inside. After informing Kuro, she was putting some stew on and giving him a short rundown of her day; they ate, and Keira put some of the still warm stew in a container, inviting Kuro and Nero to go to their neighbor's house and introduce themselves.
"It's just polite," she told them. "Maybe he's lonely? Maybe he'd appreciate the gesture?"
Nero gave her a long, blank stare before looking and Kuro and chirping in the way only early generation Savannah's could. He didn't want to go, but he would. He was hoping Kuro would talk her out of it, because she wasn't listening to him.
Kuro was with Nero on this, but for much different reasons. Kuro leaned back in his seat, letting it balance on two legs. Unlike his sister, he didn't abuse their power, so stupid risks like this had the same old consequences they normally would. "After the day you've had, are you sure you want to meet them today?" He asked with a smirk. "Odds are with your 'luck', he's some weirdo or a tentacle monster or something." Not out of the realm of possibilities here.
"My day was just a bad day," Keira sighed, trying to quell her frustration with Nero and Kuro. Their pessimism was hard to live with sometimes. "I haven't been using the power lately, not with my new job at the school and being an Academy parent. It's just been stressful lately." She was talking slow, as not to stutter.
Nero sat, watching her with his tail flicking lazily. "Well, you're not going alone."
"Then come with me," she said to him, not bothering to speak through their link. Kuro knew she could talk to Nero, so it seemed rude to have a conversation he couldn't hear.
Nero licked his paw, something he had the tendency to do when frustrated or smug. Sometimes, like right now, it was both. "Fine. We'll meet the pretty boy."
With that Keira turned, container in hand. "I'm taking this over there before it gets cold." She strolled next door, Nero at her side. He sat at her foot when she knocked on the door.
Contrary to what some may think, the infamous Vincenzo Fontana didn't live downtown among the rats of the Underground, in dirty, dilapidated apartments that stunk of moss and heroin. Not at all. Vincenzo lived at a suburban neighborhood, with houses so pastel and classical they might as well have been shot out of an American fifties commercial. Vincenzo's own house, a gorgeous, rustic brick house with a garden full of flowers, stood a little ways from its closest neighbor. It was different in that sense. It kept its distance.
Contrary also to what those same people may think, Vincenzo Fontana didn't spend his every waking hour being a local menace. If he were going to be honest, villainy was more of a weekend activity. A little known fact about Vincenzo: He took his studies seriously.
That weekend, Vincenzo got his request to take his undergraduate thesis early approved by Professor Octain and the head of the Magic college, so Vincenzo was hard at work doing research for his proposal. After much deliberation, Vincenzo decided on, Swamp Leeches! They can fuck you over in more ways than one. It was a working title.
So, now, his living room table was covered in medical and magic books, and next to it, a thank of leeches in water. There was a surgical tray with a leech on the table cut open, a little crystal on its organs, pulsing and studying the magical radioactivity in its stomach. It glowed a faint green to indicate the radioactivity was of a magical nature.
Fascinating. They really were irradiated. Vincenzo removed his gloves and placed several of the experimental leeches around his arm. Their little magic resistant suckers cut through the eldritch magic and happily munched on it.
Knock knock.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Vincenzo pulled his goggles down to his neck as he sighed. He could that be, he wondered? So very few people would have the gall to knock on his door these days, especially after the stories. Deciding that it was none other than his beloved, he got up, step decidedly perky as he opened the door.
His good mood drained from his face. He looked the two over, smirk condescending. "Oh. Locals. Didn't your grandmother warn you of the big bad wolf?" It seemed terribly irresponsible, not informing them that the resident of this house was a monster. They might just get eaten.
"I'm going to assume you're new? I'm Vincenzo." Despite his arrogant behavior, Vincenzo pushed the door open to let them in. "Come in, come in. I did tell my fiance I was going to be nicer. Come, sit, I'll boil some tea in the stove. Don't mind the leeches. They're for my thesis."
Contrary also to what those same people may think, Vincenzo Fontana didn't spend his every waking hour being a local menace. If he were going to be honest, villainy was more of a weekend activity. A little known fact about Vincenzo: He took his studies seriously.
That weekend, Vincenzo got his request to take his undergraduate thesis early approved by Professor Octain and the head of the Magic college, so Vincenzo was hard at work doing research for his proposal. After much deliberation, Vincenzo decided on, Swamp Leeches! They can fuck you over in more ways than one. It was a working title.
So, now, his living room table was covered in medical and magic books, and next to it, a thank of leeches in water. There was a surgical tray with a leech on the table cut open, a little crystal on its organs, pulsing and studying the magical radioactivity in its stomach. It glowed a faint green to indicate the radioactivity was of a magical nature.
Fascinating. They really were irradiated. Vincenzo removed his gloves and placed several of the experimental leeches around his arm. Their little magic resistant suckers cut through the eldritch magic and happily munched on it.
Knock knock.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Vincenzo pulled his goggles down to his neck as he sighed. He could that be, he wondered? So very few people would have the gall to knock on his door these days, especially after the stories. Deciding that it was none other than his beloved, he got up, step decidedly perky as he opened the door.
His good mood drained from his face. He looked the two over, smirk condescending. "Oh. Locals. Didn't your grandmother warn you of the big bad wolf?" It seemed terribly irresponsible, not informing them that the resident of this house was a monster. They might just get eaten.
"I'm going to assume you're new? I'm Vincenzo." Despite his arrogant behavior, Vincenzo pushed the door open to let them in. "Come in, come in. I did tell my fiance I was going to be nicer. Come, sit, I'll boil some tea in the stove. Don't mind the leeches. They're for my thesis."
"I don't listen to rumors," Keira said with a grin as Nero eyed Vince over critically. He sniffed the air and tilted his head to the left to get a better grip on the scent.
"I don't like that," Nero began, voice soft in Keira's head. "It's an odd smell. I can't place it. Water. It smells like a water creature. We've smelled this before." Then Nero's voice drifted off into nothing.
"No," Keira told Vince when he asked whether they were new or not. She didn't go into detail. Simply put, Keira just had no desire to do so.
"Ah, leeches. That's where it was. The forbidden forest, right? They're the kind that sucked magic right up, weren't they?" Nero didn't join Keira as she stepped inside the house, happy as ever.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Vincenzo, I'm Keira, and this is my brother Kuro." She tried hard not to stare at his arm or his eye, but somehow her gaze kept drifting toward them.
"Yes. From the swamp. He really should be careful with them." Keira responded once she was sat inside, looking over the leeches from a distance.
"You should, too. Do you see him? His eye? His arm? He's not safe. I smell his magic. It's disgusting. And those leeches. No, I don't trust a man who looks like that and lives in a place like this." Nero, rather than going inside, decided to amble around outside Vince's home, inspecting things.
Being a cat made the entire thing easier, even if he was a very large cat. Nero hated Manta Carlos for all their mythical creatures. He was, for the most part, an average animal, but in Manta Carlos he could have just as easily been a shapeshifter, and everyone was aware of that.
Kuro was just as suspicious of the man as Nero was, though one couldn't tell from his calm, yet ever creepy smile. He followed his sister in and stood behind her seat, rather than sitting down himself. His eyes followed Vince around the room as subtly as a paintings would. Kuro gave a simple silent wave when his sister introduced him, not quite ready to chit chat with the weirdo... He laughed internally at this whole thing. He was right, the guy was quite the weirdo, even by this islands standards. He wondered for a moment, if they had come on a more lucky day, if they'd have visited someone normal instead? Could their luck be so bad that the other neighbors were this odd as well? It is always possible...
Vincenzo met Kuro's eyes with a small smile on his face, and he kept his gaze until he had to break eye contact to enter the kitchen. He pulled his kettle from underneath the counter and began boiling water on the stove, setting up his novelty tea set on a tray. As soon as he was done, he plucked the leeches from his arm one by one, placing them in a glass half full. They glowed a faint purple as they swam in the now murky water. Interesting.
"Now, I hope my experiments haven't soured either of your appetites. I'll be serving gyokuro tea imported all the way from Japan and homemade scones," he said from the other room. He washed his hands and arranged the scones on the tray. After which, he prepared the tea, putting the leaves first inside the teapot and boiling water.
Vincenzo's claw thrummed the linoleum counter. After, admittedly, not much deliberation, he crushed a leech with a pestle and scraped its juices into the mixture. According to his research, eldritch magic was paralyzing, and possibly hallucinogenic. Anyone that didn't possess eldritch magic would be affected by the juices after consuming a decent amount. Vincenzo returned to the living room with the tray and placed it in front of his leech tank.
"Don't look so awkward. You didn't just come here to gawk at the weirdo, yes? Bon appetit."
"Now, I hope my experiments haven't soured either of your appetites. I'll be serving gyokuro tea imported all the way from Japan and homemade scones," he said from the other room. He washed his hands and arranged the scones on the tray. After which, he prepared the tea, putting the leaves first inside the teapot and boiling water.
Vincenzo's claw thrummed the linoleum counter. After, admittedly, not much deliberation, he crushed a leech with a pestle and scraped its juices into the mixture. According to his research, eldritch magic was paralyzing, and possibly hallucinogenic. Anyone that didn't possess eldritch magic would be affected by the juices after consuming a decent amount. Vincenzo returned to the living room with the tray and placed it in front of his leech tank.
"Don't look so awkward. You didn't just come here to gawk at the weirdo, yes? Bon appetit."
Keira wasn't a huge fan of tea, and she hadn't tasted a lot of it, but she didn't want to be impolite. Keira had been staring warily at the leeches when Vince came back into the room and set the tray in front of the tank. She snapped out of her thoughts, Nero having been silent since the end of their conversation.
"I'd hardly call you weird in a place like this," Keira laughed, making herself some of the tea offered to them. She looked into the cup, wondering if she'd like the beverage. She was a picky drinker, but all the same, she didn't want to hurt BVince's feelings, so she knew she'd drink all of it.
Keira took a sip and tried to suppress her grimace. Was it supposed to taste like that? She really didn't like it (no surprise, she didn't like many teas) but she drank it anyway. It made her feel a little weird, somewhat slow.
Kuro took a cup himself, taking a skeptic sniff of the tea. Unlike his sister, he neither trusted easily or cared about being rude. "This stuff... smells off, Vince." He pointed out. To be honest, he had no idea what this tea should smell like, he preferred coffee. He, however was good at bluffing, and didn't trust this guy as far as he could throw him.