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Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Thursday

Talking animals.

The whole damn island was full of talking animals. And you know, Fjord could probably accept that talking animals might be useful somehow, that being able to just walk up to something and say, 'Hello, bees!' might come in handy down the road.

But it also meant that every damn stray cat on the island had apparently singled him out to beg for scraps this week, and he had a small parade of them behind him by the time he made it to the Forge, gasping for breath and with watering eyes and thoroughly. Loathing. Being stuck. On this damn. Island.

Hell, Fandom. He'd take the radioactive wasteland again, just make the damn cats leave him the hell alone.

At least once he was at work, he could grab a broom and chase the damn things out again, being complained at the entire while.

[OOC: Open!]

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"I'll probably be needing you to take that broom and actually use it to clean up a little, too," said Amaya, who was trying very hard to not be too amused about Fjord's unfortunate little feline fanclub this week--

--okay, no, she was not hardly trying at all. That was a battle she knew she'd lose, so she wasn't even going to bother fighting it.

"All that filing, there's bound to be metal shavings everywhere around here. And, if it's all the same to you, Fjord, I'd really like to focus on trying to get out that new set of shuriken for Beau while I've still got the chance. I don't know if the island's finally gotten whatever got into its system out or not yet, but I'd rather not run the risk if I don't have to."

"Probably for the best," Fjord replied, sighing heavily and settling in to sweep. "Hell, I shouldn't be trusted with a fucking hammer right now anyway."

He looked maybe a little bit like he'd been punched in the face with those cats. Catfists. Right to the face.

"And I wouldn't want to slow down your progress on those, none. There ain't no guarantee Beau won't need those things next week anyway."

"Ain't no guarantee she won't need those later tonight," Amaya pointed out with a bit of a grin as she went to clear off one of the tables and set the box where she was keeping the stars-in-progress on to of it, "considering this place..."

And she considered the shuriken for a moment, too, frowning slightly, setting the one she'd lifted up to turn over and inspect right back into the box and then going to bring back half the stuff she'd moved off of the table in the first place.

Maybe it was just the class getting over, but they looked like maybe the could use a little more fine tuning on the edges.

"How's the heat on the forge?" she asked, going to set up a clamp. "Low enough, would you say, not to give me any trouble with the thinness of these points?"

"Should be fine," Fjord replied, "didn't get it very high up there before the cats started wandering in."

To his credit, he'd tried!

"I'll give 'er a double-check, though," he added, leaning the broom back against a wall. "Be more productive'n sweeping all day anyway."

Hated. This. Week.

Amaya sent a faintly apologetic, mostly sympathetic look his way, even though about suggesting maybe he take the day off, but it was Fjord she was talking to. That suggestion would likely be just a waste of breath.

"Much appreciated," she said, getting started on some of the filing in the little nook between the spokes. "Save me a bit of time if I don't have to be trying to tame down the forge."

But, even more important, it was good for him, to get a little more familiar with what heat worked best for different tasks and for her to see how closely he could get it right from just her asking.

"Makes sense," Fjord agreed, settling in to check on just how far he had managed to get before everything had been derailed by felines. "One of the perks of having an apprentice, huh?"

He didn't seem to mind. If nothing else, the cats weren't likely to get this close to the flames.

After leaving the radio station and grabbing some breakfast, Beau decided to head over to the ~~fjorge~~ forge and say hi to Fjord.

"Hey, Fjord," she said, and a few of those stray cats had decided to follow her in now, and you know what, she wasn't even going to complain about that. "You, uh -- dude, are you okay?"

"Juuust fine," Fjord said, in that way that suggested that he was absolutely not fine, and he'd demonstrate just how not fine he was by reaching again for the broom so that he could try to shoo the cats out again. "Never," that was a sneeze, right there, "better."

Hated. This. Week.

"Hey," Beau said, frowning a little bit, "what did those cats ever do to you?"

You mean besides the allergy attacks of doom, Beauregard?

She might have been trying to protectively cuddle them. Yes, her cranky ass. Shh.

Fjord leveled upon Bearegard a look.

It would have been a look, but he was far too pathetic at the moment to really pull that off. So it was just a look.

"They know damn fuckin' well they stay on that side of the door," he said, scowling at one of the more brazen tabbies as he wandered in and started rubbing up against the furniture. "We've been through this."

A long-haired calico leaped up from the floor straight onto Beau's shoulder, and she started a bit in surprise but relaxed after a moment and started scratching it around the ears. Two more cats managed to twine themselves around her ankles, purring up a storm.

"You know, this is kind of really relaxing," she told him, then narrowed her eyes and actually got a good look at him. "I guess if you're not sneezing yourself to death. Don't do that, man, I don't want to be the one to explain that to Amaya."

In reply to that, Fjord sneezed again. And then sniffled, and gave up on keeping the place cat free.

"They're fuckin' tryin' to kill me," he muttered darkly, leaning the broom up against a wall. "They think it's funny."

A skinny little seal-point number with a torn ear looked up at him, almost scandalized.

"We would never!"

Fjord did not look convinced.

"... But we promise we would not let your meat go to waste if you did."

And now Fjord looked both not convinced and mildly disturbed.

". . . yeah, that was both metal as fuck and super unsettling," Beau told the scrawny seal-point cat. "Can you, like, maybe not kill my friends though? I don't have that many of them."

A ginger tabby stopped grooming its face long enough to give her a supremely pitying, quintessentially feline look. "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."

Beau glared at it. "Yeah, you don't have to rub it in. Wanna chase that one out, Fjord?"

"Yeeeeup," Fjord drawled, reaching for the broom again and this time using it to pretty much shove the cat out, headfirst, brush against its little hairy ass. Didn't even feel bad doing it. "Any of the rest of you little fuckers wanna make any comments about my friend's social life? Because I'm lookin' for an excuse now."

As if 'miserably dying of allergies' was not excuse enough.

"Do you really need one, though?" asked Beau, who was really pretty touched by that reaction but catch her actually letting on that she was.

She was still petting the calico on her shoulder, but she yelled after the tabby, "That's what you get for offering your unsolicited opinions, you asshole!"

"Next time, it'll be the fuckin' falchion again," Fjord added, earning a chorus of hissing from the cats still outside.

Not because it was sharp.

Because it was wet.

He glanced at the calico on Beau's shoulder. Keepin' her distance from him? Seemed to make Beau happy?

"You can stay," he muttered.

He'd just... stand over here.

"Kinda too bad you're missing out on this," Beau told him, and scratched the calico under its chin. It headbutted her between the eyes in appreciation. "It kinda makes me feel better about, you know, life in general. Allergies are assholes."

"Allergies are assholes," Fjord muttered, hiking up a shoulder in a dismissive sort of shrug. "I'll fuckin' live, though."

A beat.

"Just as long as your friend stays over there with you."

He wasn't terribly fond of animals in general anyway.

It was fine, Jester would more than make up for that lack of fondness. By a lot.

Beau shot him a brief grin. "How come they like you so much, anyway? Just that kind of dumb fucking luck?"

"Because cats are spiteful fuckin' creatures who take pleasure in the suffering of others," Fjord decided.

... It was possible he was on to something, there. The little seal-point just licked herself in defiance.

"I knew there was a reason I liked them," Beau said, deadpan. "Or maybe it's just the purring. Probably that, let's go with that."

Just for that, the seal-point started purring, too.

Fjord just sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"I ain't gettin' a hell of a lotta work done today, I see."

"Yeah, sorry," said Beau, who didn't actually sound sorry at all. "They just followed me in. "

The calico stopped purring long enough to look at her and note, "You looked like you could use the attention."

"Shut up," Beau said automatically. "I did not."

She totally had, but she didn't come here to get called out on her shit by talking cats.

"... I'll allow it," said Fjord, who couldn't stop it if he tried, and wouldn't try now that the cats were more or less keeping their distance from him. "That one looks right at home there, anyway."

"Aw, fuck," Beau said slowly, looking at the cat on her shoulder. "You're not gonna, like, try and come home with me, are you?"

The cat just gave her an inscrutable look.

"Sure. Now you don't wanna talk."

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