fandomtownies | Outside MCA, Saturday Evening

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Outside MCA, Saturday Evening

After her shift in the flower shop, Seivarden had come home to find Issa in a bad mood. There was no obvious reason, but to make the cat happy Seivarden took her outside to enjoy the nice weather. Or rather, to enjoy being outside without her paws getting cold. Issa immediately jumped up on a window sill, curled her tail around her legs and stared at anything that moved. Seivarden sat down on the steps. She looked down on the small flower she had attached to one of the pins on her shirt. The stem had broken off in the shop and she had decided not to let it go to waste. It felt like spring, after all.

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It felt like spring, after all, and so Sparkle was making his way outside to have a smoke on the front step of the building, instead of just opening the window a crack and smoking inside.

Or that was the plan, anyway. He was all of two steps outside before he noticed Seivarden on the stairs, and gave a thoughtful little frown.

"Hey," he greeted. "Mind if I smoke out here?"

He didn't figure she would, all things considered, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Seivarden looked up, then made a gesture with her hand. "Go ahead."

She paused. "What are you smoking?"

Issa turned her head to look at the new person.

"Just tobacco," Sparkle replied with a shrug, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket and opening the box. "Nothing fancy."

He noticed movement from the corner of his eye, glanced over at the cat, and gave her a little smile.

"Hey there, little girl. Nothing for you in here, I'm afraid."

If she understood Sparkle, she ignored what he was saying. Issa landed with a thud below the window sill and slowly approached Sparkle.

"This is Issa," Seivarden said, smiling as she ran her hand across the cat's back when she walked past.

"She's yours, huh?" Temporarily distracted by the cat, Sparkle tucked a cigarette behind one ear, kept his lighter out, and put the rest of his smokes back into his pocket. His free hand was reaching out so that the cat could sniff at his fingers, if she wanted. "She's a pretty girl."

"She is." Seivarden looked up, smiling at Sparkle. "I think she's happy that the snow is gone. Chasing snow angels wasn't worth it, I think."

Issa reached close to sniff Sparkle's fingers for a moment, then pulled back. She sat down, pretending to ignore both humans.

Sparkle gave a soft huff of a laugh, reaching up for his cigarette and sticking it into his mouth. He wasn't about to pester her if she was content to just sit, after all. He moved back a few steps, and then lit his smoke.

"Not worth getting all that fur wet, you mean? Yeah, I can see how she wouldn't enjoy that."

"It took a while for her to get that catching a snow angel meant getting snow on your fur," Seivarden said.

Issa continued to watch them while pretending not to.

"I usually take her to the park on Fridays, but yesterday wasn't good for that-"

"Between the snow and the angels, you mean?" Sparkle nodded, then took a deep drag from his cigarette. He was sure to exhale away from the cat, at least. "Yeah, seems like a lot of people can't handle the weather, here. Always kind of makes me laugh a little, honestly."

He should have marked down all the winter gear, but... eh. If people on the island didn't have cold-weather clothes by now, they probably weren't going to go looking for it anyway.

"She's a cat," Seivarden pointed out, sounding amused rather than annoyed. "Because you're from a cold climate? I spent a year stationed on a world mostly covered in ice. I never got used to it."

Issa rolled over on her back and stretched, while keeping out of reach. Then she rolled on to her feet and approached the humans again, making a little jump against Seivarden's legs. Seivarden scratched her head.

Sparkle smiled a little bit more at the cat, itching to reach down at pat her, but managing to behave himself. In her own time.

"People from warmer places never seem to," he allowed. "Back home we'd have winter for, like, about half the year, so it's just sort of normal. This week of winter thing is what's weird for me."

"Well," Seivarden said. "It is weird. Cold seasons usually don't come as a complete surprise, and they don't come with strange creatures throwing snowballs at you. Getting used to that is quite different from getting used to cold. I'm a lot more used to cold than... a week like this."

Issa sat down in front of Sparkle and looked up at him.

And now Sparkle was crouching down to say hello to the cat, holding his cigarette out of her reach as he scratched behind her ear.

"I used to hate this place for things like last week," he allowed. "All the weird kind of messes with what you come to see as normal. You don't get to, like, interact with anywhere else the same way again, after here. Last week was mostly harmless, though."

"You don't hate it anymore?" Seivarden asked.

Issa leaned a little closer, because that was nice, and she purred quietly.

"I don't hate it. I don't have to like it, either." Sparkle settled in, moving from a crouch so that he could take a seat beside Seivarden. It was hard to not devote more attention to a purring cat, after all. "I'm used to it, more like."

"I hope I'll never have to get used to it," Seivarden said with a frown. "I still can't go back though."

She looked at Issa, who was still purring, still leaning against Sparkle's hand.

"They do let you take pets with you, don't them?"

Sparkle could have offered his sympathies. He couldn't go back either, after all. But... well...

He shrugged.

"Depends, I guess," he replied, giving Issa the best behind-the-ear scratching one hand could possibly muster. "People don't care if you want to, like, take your pet home when you leave the island. It's more a matter of whether or not they'll let you keep pets wherever you end up."

It was a good behind-the-ear scratching. Issa approved.

Seivarden fell silent. Oh, she knew that would be an issue in some places, but if she could only get to a civilized place she should be fine, and Issa too. She would have to ask for a portal to one of the old palaces, and if that worked...

"I'll find a civilized place."

That just slipped out, and since she knew it might make Sparkle upset, she added: "Where cats are welcome."

Sparkle didn't say anything in reply to that. Not immediately, anyway. He moved his cigarette back to his mouth and took another deep pull from it. And then he left it in his mouth as he leaned in to use both hands on the cat; one behind the ear and one under the chin. Partly for the distraction. Partly because he was a goddamn cat person.

"You do that," he said, finally.

That silence until he had spoken had been almost as cold as the past week had been, though.

Issa approved and leaned closer, purring louder.

Seivarden sighed. Why did Sparkle have to be so sensitive? She chose to just ignore the cold silence, and said:

"Of course, I don't know what most places are like anymore. The older worlds and palaces should be a safe choice, though. Maybe Inais, where I'm from, or maybe not..."

Why did Sparkle have to be so sensitive? Why did Seivarden have to be so insensitive?

"Might not be the same as the home you remember," Sparkle noted, attention still on the cat. He pulled in a deep breath and exhaled smoke before speaking again. "You figure you'll be able to handle somewhere that's just familiar enough to feel completely wrong?"

He'd danced that dance.

"Anywhere I go in the Radch will be familiar enough to feel completely wrong," she said, looking down. "I'dd be content if things were just... making sense. Enough sense."

Issa pushed her head against Sparkle's hand. He had duties now.

Clearly he did. His entire cigarette was going to burn away before he was finished petting the cat. Still, Sparkle obediently started to run his hand down the length of her back, smoothing her fur down gently. She was soft.

It was nice.

"Shitty thing about life," he sighed. "Once it stops making sense, that's probably a good sign it's never going to go back to what you were used to."

He glanced at her.

"Have you ever, like, had to get used to things being totally different before? Like, that feeling where the world dropped out from under your feet and it's like you forgot how to breathe? Or were you just thrown into it and you're still there now?"

Seivarden shrugged. "Going from training to serve on a ship was... Although that's just what any teenager feels I suppose, and you get used to it quickly. It's not like I ever considered waking up after a thousand years. I knew when we evacuated the ship that we might not be found, but I never thought..."

She glanced at Sparkle. "It sounds like you have a lot of experience with that." And Seivarden had experience with Sparkle lying about his life.

Issa, meanwhile, yawned, pleased about the situation.

Damn it, Issa. You were getting comfortable, which meant Sparkle was trapped, now.

"Sounds like I have experience with lots of stuff," he said, vaguely. "Complete overhauls and having to learn how to live again are just, like, something to add to the list."

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