=> Wes, Bump Into A Robot

(( naw man I have been rping for like a decade. I am master of in character/out of character separation))

 

Calcite changes into his currently-usual man-with-cat-ears shape to answer. Without fur, his bruises and scratches are a lot more obvious, but he's sort of not quite noticed that and thinks standing up straight might be enough.

"Your robot's sick and Wes thinks it needs you and something tried to eat it and I had to fight and you should watch out for something that looks like this" (he turns into Void and then changes back) "because it eats robots but this one's okay, except sick, but we didn't think it wanted to go to Holy Gate. But we had to touch it."

That's when Calcite runs out of air and has to pause for breath. He hopes Jesse thinks of his kids like cats think of their kittens and not like snakes think of their kids, otherwise he got beat up for nothing. But maybe he can watch the sick robot for a little longer before Jesse shoos him away, he hopes.

 

[Should we be waiting for Wes? Oh, well, I'm going away from the computer after this post anyway. But for future reference, should we?]

Calcite takes a moment to not panic at a stranger who wants to examine all his injuries. A stranger who wants to know exactly how much he's hurt. A stranger who wants to know exactly how much less than his best Calcite is right now.

No need to panic. This is Jesse, whose child Calcite just saved (even if only from an unwanted adventure). Jesse owes him (maybe less than he thought). And they have witnesses. There's no way Jesse would hurt him right now. In fact, as long as it's safe, Calcite kind of wants someone else to lick his wounds for him. He's been alone for too long. For some reason his human body wants to respond to that by flapping his hands (not like bird wings) and, oh, this is what a smile is supposed to be. It makes his cheeks ache.

 

Calcite is very confused! First of all, he isn't sure here to sit. He knows humans don't like it when cats sit on their tables. He sees one chair but it's probably Jesse's and humans like to sit down to work, when they can.

And second, did Jesse just imply that he wants to deal with Calcite first? Before his own sick child? Is the goal to get Calcite better and out of the way before the robot is even more vulnerable? Is this a test? Maybe it's a test of strength and he's supposed to refuse help? Maybe it's a test of trust and he's supposed to accept it? Maybe Jesse needs to see how Calcite reacts to this before he can decide whether to ask for help with his sick robot? Maybe it's a test to see if Calcite will accept help when there's somebody else who's hurt worse and needs it more?

And third, what's the box? Calcite recognizes the cross design. He studied human heraldry before coming here and that is the flag of Switzerland, an Earth country in a mountain range called the Alps. But that makes no sense. What's a flag from old Earth doing on a box in Jesse's workroom?

Calcite does the only thing that makes any sense: he starts singing Rufst du, mein Vaterland. He is so, so confused.

 

The shapeshifter starts singing, after Wes and him are in the shed with Jesse as he starts healing Calcite.
Wes is very confused, and so starts singing along, even though it has no idea what Calcite is singing.

 

Wes is singing along! Wes knows a lot more about humans than Calcite, so if Wes is singing, too, Calcite must have the right idea! He's not sure why they're getting all patriotic about Earth history, but they definitely are getting all patriotic about Earth history. He wonders if there will be more boxes with more flags.

 

Missing his cat nose and snake tongue and every other shape that wouldn't have to do this, Calcite leans in close to sniff the medical supplies. He jerks back, hissing. It smells like the humans that went after him and his family. Not the ones that threw a few rocks and forgot them, or the shrieking children whose own parents held them back, but the other ones. The ones that set up traps, the ones that came back day after day after day, the ones that moved slow and were always quiet until they caught someone. And then if you were lucky, you'd see that someone again, missing parts. But if you weren't, usually if it was a kitten, then...

Calcite still doesn't know where some of his brothers and sisters were taken. He still doesn't know what would have happened to him if he hadn't been able to turn into something small and slip out of the cage when they caught him.

It makes sense, sort of: the lucky ones were always missing pieces afterward, but they never died of it. This stuff is for keeping scratches from making people sick.

It makes sense and it's not like this is the first time Calcite's been both sides of something like this. He's been the same kinds of birds he's eaten. If he was going to feel weird about this, he'd've done it a long time ago.

"I don't know how to use this stuff," says Calcite. And he might as well ask what he's been wondering for most of his life. "What do you do with the kittens you take?"

 

Wes hovers worriedly by Jesse and Calcite. The whirry robot thing seems to be okay for now, or will be okay soon, but Calcite seems upset, which is confusing.
((Did i mention that Calcite is adorable in his confusion? well he is. and wes is just like- i have no idea what's going on OOO SINGING))

 

"No, the kittens!" Okay, okay, Jesse wasn't involved, maybe he doesn't know. "Some of my brothers and sisters got trapped by humans when they were little and I never saw them again." And abruptly changing topic, "Hey, Wes, do these things work for you?" he points at the things in Jesse's kit.

He holds his arm out where it should be convenient for Jesse.

 

"They don't work on me" Wes says, looking at itself. "I can't- I can't really hurt?" It flops its arms a bit. "That's really awful about your family, though I know sometimes saving people can be complicated and not only look right on the outside. I had to blow up a spaceship once to save the crew, that wasn't fun, it asked me to but they didn't like me for it."

It's nervously hovering next to all the human or human like thing fixing going on.

 

Calcite has enough self-control not to hiss at the sting as Jesse cleans him. It looks like humans are so hardcore it hurts when they lick their wounds.

"You blew up a spaceship?" Calcite's ears perk up.

He isn't sure how to talk about most of his past. He's been eavesdropping on humans for a long time, but talking is new and anyway humans don't talk about the same things as Calcite is used to. Talking is for human things. "They were patient," he says before Wes can say anything else about the spaceship. "They took as long as they had to. One of them lived in a house nearby and there was a cat living with him, but I never met the cat. He looked happy, but I never saw any of the kittens there with him. They took more than kittens but they let the older ones go after they..." Calcite doesn't know how to talk about it. "I don't know," he lies, he does know but he doesn't know the words.

"Forget it, I want to hear about the spaceship you blew up!"

 

There is a soft rap on the workshop door.
"Mew?"
Cody peers in. They are holding basket that smells like baking and a card in their free paw.
"Hey Jesse, I just wanted to aks if you´d- Oh hi new purrson!" They wave. "Do mew want to help dress some robot cats?" They wave the card. "Cat covering pawrty next wednesday!"

 

"Well I was helping control it, because humans are sometimes bad at space flight, though they've been good at it for a long time now, so I haven't had to help for a long time. And something bad happened and the ship asked me to... remove her, and then take all the humans back to a fix place. It was hard remembering oxygen for all those people."