Red Riding Orin and the Weirdos (Brine collab)

The house cat of the multicolored eyes padded around the cart of corpses suspiciously, sniffing as her tawny fur rippled.

It was filled up to the middle with dead bodies, although only a pale hand loosely hanging underneath the drawn sheet gave indication the cart was something spooky. There was no blood on it's white surface, and although the cat's nose wasn't fooled, a human would've just taken it as a rickshaw little wheelbarrow instead of the most industrious of it's kind.

A rusty garage door creaked open as Rin practically skipped out into the weeds with a dead body at her waist. The noose around it's neck slithered dryly in the dirt while she drew back the sheet and plopped the corpse on top of her pile, smiling down at it.

"-waste not, want not!... Oh, don't be so quarrelsome. You were just hanging around." She snickered. "What do you care about your body? You're already in Hell, only the scavengers are losing out!" So saying, she closed it's eyes and shooed the spirit away, adjusting the corpse to lay lower. Thusfar she'd found two murders, an overdose, and now this suicide. This was turning into a lucky night.

Her ears pricked up before she snapped down to the other cat and meowed at it, her tails lashing before they stood up. "Good evening. You weren't going to rob me, were you?"

"Oh, hardly, darling. It's the living I drink," the other licked her paw and half inclined her head back to peer up at the humanoid cat with a throaty mrrrr. "I was simply seeing what you were about and if anyone I knew might be in there."

Finishing, the creature with rather longer fangs than normal padded round. "My, but you are industrious, aren't you?"

"Ahh! A talking cat!" Rin exclaimed, jumping. She peered down at the other, covering her bounty back up and cracking her back. "Just kidding... I'm working on my vacation. The last time I was here, I only stalked in the city and a castle, so I thought it best to look around a little more. Besides, you never know who you'll find! People just leave their bodies laying wherever they drop, these days." She mock-sighed and shook her head.

"I'm the best at what I do! No one's carried more corpses then me." She purred. "Hell's fires have to burn, and the price of coal is murder. To tell the truth, this is a slow night. Normally I'd have a stack thiiiiiis high by now." She said, holding a flat hand up overhead. "But night air and company make up for it... Who are you? You sound too sophisticated to be an island bumpkin..."

Rin sat down on her wheelbarrow before patting a spot next to her and watching the cat circle.

"Dear me, I have been rude, haven't I? Salutations, my good madame. I am the Lady Gray, a... I suppose you could rightfully call me an alien to this world, but I would prefer foreign noblewoman. I rule some few vampires elsewhere, you see, but I am here at the moment searching out where my manservant disappeared to. The intent was to have him replace me should the Kobbers have need or want of our services again, but I simply cannot find him. Admittedly, I have been somewhat distracted, of course. What of you? What ought I call you?" the creature slipped into a more human skin with a twist and a shed and a wink.

"Vampires?" Rin thought about it for a second. "Oooh! With the fangs and the- I wonder, do you maybe know Lady Remil-" She paused and looked her up and down before amusedly swallowing the question. There was no way she could ask with a straight face.

"It's very nice to meet you! My name is Rin, but you can call me Orin, since we'll be fast friends." She smiled up at her. "I hope I haven't already met your servant... Oh, have you ran with the Kobbers before? This will be my first time very soon, I'm excited! I've heard so many things that I don't know what to believe. What does your servant look like? What's his name? I like to talk while I work, the dead tend to be chatty."

An arm flopped; Rin quickly shoved it back into the cart.

"On some few occasions, albeit more as an ally than as a member. You'll have more experience than I in that regard if you are joining, I expect," the blonde svelte woman noted, one eye drifting to look at the cart before returning to the redheaded cat before her. "There are many unbelievable feats and oddities to be found. I doubt you'll be disappointed with the surfeit of new experiences, but, between cats, there are some that could use a bit of polish. And a few handsy ones."

"The man I look for is what you might call a halfling, in that his fuzzy little head is about your navel, darling, and he's almost half again as thick. You would hardly take him for capable, but he's surprisingly adroit for being that rotund. Then again, I had heard of a Kobber nemesis named Melvin Underbelly, if memory serves, that was at least eight times his weight, so perhaps I shouldn't disparage poor Collin so. He's a fairly decent butler and record keeper as well. I had intended to send him with my regards to assist, but I might yet be darned in that regard, as it seems I've lost him with my luggage somewhere. Let's see, what else does Underfoot look like... Ah, he's eyes that are about as light a blue as yours are red, something of a muddy brown complexion and hair. Squat, affable fellow, one who will either have his sizable nose buried in books or breakfast."

"I realize I may sound as though I am insulting more than describing him, but it's meant with all due affection," the lady prince murmured self consciously. "I had hoped he would be of some use to you and the others as a mage and conversant."

"Hm. Hmm..." Rin hummed, tapping the side of her face with a finger and looking up. "No... No, I don't think I've run across anyone like that. I haven't seen all of even this island, though- I've only been around for a few days and nights. Only navel tall? Really?" She asked, standing up and looking down, amused. "You must be important, to rule far away and send representatives... Should I be using your title? Do you have one?" She asked, glancing at her.

"It's still early. Walk with me?" Rin suggested, wheeling her cart back to the sidewalk. It was mostly cheap hotels and cheaper housing around here, in a place the tourists never really came. It wasn't a bad area, just plain and mundane. The hellcat and vampire passed under street lights like weird bookends, Rin's cart not creaking or making much noise at all.

"He might be on another island without a boat, too far out to swim anywhere else. I'll keep my eyes open just in case." She said, stopping in front of a house and studying it before shaking her head and moving on.

"I have a collection, but you needn't," the other cat replied, and nodded her assent. "I will with a gladness. It is pleasant to have company. Have the corpses been particularly chatty?"

"Oh, they always are! Imagine being stuck, just stuck. Not moving, not changing, frozen in the same moment forever. The dead are what they are- if they weren't, they'd be anything else. Many of the corpses are silent, but the ones who can't move on want to feel alive again." She sighed contentedly. "Once we burn them they can't come back, but that's just how things are."

"I'd show you some of my little helpers, but I think you intimidate them." Rin said, stopping. A man turned a corner up ahead and kept going, and Rin started walking again. She was careful to never be caught while on the job. People could be weird about it.

"There's another body around here, but I can't quite smell out where yet... So, where do you come from? Much, much further away than Gensokyo and the former blazing hell?" She asked, her ears turning. She kept pushing her cart, but otherwise was in alert and hunting.

"If I should know my halfling sorts, and I would like to think I do, we're likelier to find little Underfoot in a place of rest and repast. Eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, something of those regards. But if I know him in particular, I should imagine there was some trouble involved, for as much as he does hold those in fond regard, he's far more afraid of my disappointment," contemplated the leggy blonde as she swished alongside Rin's clacking cart. "We are from a different planet, as I understand it.  Aliens from far across the ocean of stars. Not particularly unique in that regard, although we do have more tendency to magic than these strange technologies your home possesses."

"Ah, please forgive me for a moment, I may be adding a corpse to your cart in a moment."

Seizing upon a spindly man lingering in the alley with bloodshot eyes and a half full needle in his arm, she nonchalantly broke his neck at an awkward angle between her hands and bit in with the long, ever present fangs, tearing the throat nearly to the other side as the body convulsed and a mildly foul but likely familiar smell started to emit from it. It grew pale remarkably swiftly, then blue, then a shriveled sort of gray, the oxygen and life flowing claret within drained away. "It pains me to indulge in barbarism and murder on the street instead of paying in a more civil manner, but I've neither time today nor had any breakfast. I am due back to siege a castle in four hours, in fact, and I am likely to lose more than a few stocks in the blood-is-the-currency-of-the-soul business if they're ready."

"I do hope you don't mind too terribly?" the lethal thing tossed the dehydrated sack of bone and paper tissue in.

Rin watched, unblinking, hair standing on end. The savagery had lasted seconds, but it drove home the point that she knew less about Vampires than she'd even thought she did. Looking from the raisinesque corpse back to the Lady, she uneasily smiled. "Well, I prefer to scavenge instead of collect... But I won't look a gift in the mouth, horse or corpse. I didn't expect all of that... Is it only their blood, or are you drinking the soul too?" She asked, glancing warily at her mouth, her hair still up.

"I'm from here, but it's different too. Gensokyo isn't like anywhere else I've been yet. These humans have come up with some interesting things, haven't they? I think it's interesting, how their technology let them compensate for a lack of spirituality or magi- hold on." Rin muttered, sniffing down an alley before decisively wheeling her cart behind a dumpster and sifting through a pile of newspapers.

"You said you have to leave in four hours? We'd best to work looking, then. I won't let you down! We'll find your friend soon." Rin promised, before revealing a dead body and cheering. "Wow! What a nice suit... Oh, he was a criminal. Makes sense." She nodded sagely before hefting the body and plopping it into her cart, covering the growing mound up with her sheet.

"Oh, if it was merely fluids it would suffice nothing," the vampire blinked at her roundly. "Blood is the currency of the soul. With it comes the essence, memory, power. Life energy sustains the undead. I do prefer to imbibe in small doses, perhaps enough to flavor foods that the living eat so that it is not ash and dust in my mouth, if given the chance, but I am not particularly squeamish about having done with the whole at once either."

"You see these fangs, yes? They hurt fairly badly, I assure you. I would know, having been turned. There are aphrodesiacs you can pump into a victim like a snake in the moment, but it will still ache for many days afterward, a scar on the sin and the soul. I prefer to use mine solely when I am certain I am killing a meal. There are easier ways to get blood out otherwise for someone you intend to live, and ones that are rather less... unseemly."

"To say nothing of the chance you'll turn someone. Oh, that makes for a fine state of affairs, especially if you buttered them up or lied to them. There's little as vengeful as someone whose soul was seduced and siphoned finding out. Yes! Let us find my friend," the ruler contemplated. "This is quite a well developed place, isn't it?" she switched subjects. "The smells are not... wait, how did you know that man to be a criminal?"

"Oh, his spirit mentioned it in passing. He's right there." Rin lied, pointing over her shoulder. "I like your fangs. I wish mine looked like that all the time. Hmm... Un-dead. I haven't met an in-between person before! You weren't what I was expecting at all..."

Heading down the sidewalk, Rin kept to the side and was still watchful, avoiding cars and people beside windows with practiced ease. "Well, to each their own. My food comes out of a can, so I don't think I can say much. You and I should hunt sometime! As cats, I mean. I'll bet we'd have a lot of fun- you might even be able to keep up." She snickered, her tails twitching. Looking around, she put a hand on her waist and then glanced at the Vampire.

"I think this area is all farmed out. There might be buried ones, but I don't take them. Anyway, we should check some diners- the libraries are closed, and the bars around here are holes in walls. I wish your other friend didn't know magic, it makes this a lot harder." She scratched behind her ear and looked down the dark road.

Her lips moving upward of their own volition at already being adopted as a 'other friend' by the fellow feline, the vampire looked up and out into the night for a moment before nodding her assent. "That would be fairly entertaining, although I wouldn't want to make you feel inadequate~"

"I suppose I should inquire what you were expecting, but I can't say I've met a cat like you before, either. I do hope I don't scare you, Rin. I can be bad with little helpers, you guess correctly."

The ever present fangs glinted dully under the moon as a car rammed into-and-somewhat-through her, although the standing woman looked largely annoyed at the bisected vehicle and the drive spilling out the side. "That, on the other foot, is terribly annoying when it happens."

Removing her embedded feet from the ground was a process that involved a great deal more mess than the creature clearly cared for. If the camera had watched closely, it would have seen her body less receive force impact and more disassemble itself violently outward at a speed and multiple directions relative to the kinetic obstacle before reconstructing, producing a sort of mist or fog which tore as it flowed. Less akin to hitting a pillar and more akin to plowing through a bank of razor iron leaf scraps in a refinery disposal yard, but formed of magic and soul instead. "Please pardon me for a moment. I need to see if there's enough left of that person to take to a hospital. It wouldn't do to leave them in pain alone, and the schedule won't be too badly off, given we have no idea where Underfoot is."

Rin peered between her splayed fingers, relaxing by degrees when she realized there were two pieces of car instead of the remains of roadkill before her. It had happened so fast she'd barely had time to tense up. She padded around to watch the Lady pull an unconscious and bleeding man out after ripping a squeaking door cleanly off.

"...are you okay?" She asked a little dumbly, blinking at the scene. "The Un-dead I know, the zombies and the skeletons, there would be nothing left now. Those are what I was expecting, but you... Are not like them. At all, really." She scratched behind her ear and looking over the pieces of car uneasily. "Now that was scary..."

In another second her cart was already in front of her. "What do you think? Will he make it? I know my way to the hospital, I have another friend with a lot of experience heading there."

"I'm a monster, dear," Gray answered with some degree of serene, introspective amusement. "I'm not entirely certain I can be 'okay', but I am not particularly harmed or bothered, and thank you for asking. I can keep going. I shan't grieve about my states for forever and a half any more than I intend to lose all civilized behavior.

"It's partly why my handlers haven't simply put me down yet. With any luck, this year will show you many things more wondrous than scary, with your Kobber allies! Perchance even meet more Undead of even more different stripes.

"As for this fellow," she measured the somewhat chubby fellow in Hawaii patterned summer clothing, "I expect he'll make it if brought to medical assistance. Would you have anything to tie off his sternum for the moment on you? I'm afraid I'm fresh out of sterile bandages.""

Rin looked around the ground and under her cart before popping back up and extending a claw, messily cutting the hem off around her dress before handing it over. She eyed the torn edge line regretfully, but it was what it was.

"Monsters are as monsters do, I think. I've seen a few and had tea with others, but I'm glad you aren't hurt. I can't believe they'll let almost anyone drive these things... I've seen too many other cats come out the loser against them, every tim- did you say handlers?" Rin asked, with sudden focus. Lady Grey was very very probably not a pet like she was, but hope sprang eternal.

"I do wonder about how it will be, at their bar." She said, watching her tie off the wounds. "I don't put down roots anywhere but home, and I'm always ready for fun, but I've heard too many stories for all of them to be true."

"Go ahead, lay him in. There's plenty of padding!" Rin said, poking the covered corpses.

"Yes, my Handlers. Where I come from, criminals and dangerous people to society are sometimes ... made useful instead of imprisoned or executed. A few magical bonds, some reinforcement training, and the implantation of your will to shut down entirely if you defy orders later, and you're an official servant of the state, a service person of the people, pet of duty. We call them Dutifuls for the mass of conscripts and Masques for the ones that actually wind up being of any real importance. I've been the House Cat for our Senate for... goodness, decades now, but Masque is usually suicide duty."

She hummed as she laid him in, eyebrows slowly dancing. "Then again, as you can attest now, it takes just a little bit more to kill me, personally. There are steps, most of the time."

"Royals have duties all their own, as do most of the landed gentry, even before the Masque affairs, ... so it's always nice when I get the chance to relax and just be a cat," she did so once more on the cart, whiskers twitching. "Sometimes to  see if the younger village children will chase you not knowing better, or how long you can rest on a wardrobe and stare before your wife notices."

"Whatever is your home of Genyosoko like, Orin? You've mentioned different technology. Might I dare assume there are fewer of these... car... contraptions hitting cats minding their-or-others' business there?"

"Well... Gensokyo itself is a nice place. Mountainous and hilly, with a lot of forests and such. A long, long time ago, the Yokai who lived there preyed on humans in the surrounding areas. There were wars and hunts and- Humans, surprise surprise, don't like to be eaten. It went in this way for many years, until Yukari created a barrier between our worlds. I've heard it was for our benefit, yet I've heard the opposite too. Either way, it's a territory cut off from the rest of this Earth as completely as possible." Rin said, looking up at an owl in a palm tree before making a face at it.

"There are cities, of course, and temples and houses and restaurants, but very little technology. Humans aren't creatures of spirit, so our worlds diverged along those routes." Rin continued. "It's the sort of place where everything lost can be found. Now me, I'm from a former Hell. We became unnecessary, and so the fires were allowed to gutter and die. Or they were, but..." She trailed off, the thoughtful look leaving to be replaced by sudden unhappy quiet before she hesitantly started talking again.

"The fires came back, let's us leave it at that. Since then, the Blazing Hell has run mostly like it once did. Before anything, I was a cat... Just a normal cat. My master, Satori, she could hear my thoughts, and over time we grew close. I became a Yokai after a long, long, long while of eating the meat and salt of their dead, and ever since then I've done my best to keep our furnaces running! They don't call me Hell's Traffic Accident for nothing." She smiled contentedly.

"With my job, I've at least seeeeen the outside world before, so while I'm sure there are surprises waiting, I've liked what I've found!" She said cheerfully, before tilting her head. "...You're really bound by magic? They must have been brave to try it with you. I'm sorry..." Her ears dropped. "Talk about different worlds!"

The tawny tabby patted her with a paw in sympathy before watching the buildings go by. "Very different. Perhaps someday we will get to see one another's, but it has been nice to at least meet here, Orin."

"Nuts. We just passed him. I am the architect of my own travails."

"What what what?" Rin asked, spinning on her foot to stare at the back of Underfoot's head and hen measure with her eyes. He really was around half her height. Realizing her appearance, while not terrifying, was kind of weird, Rin left the cart to pad over and tap him on the shoulder.

"Hello- you wouldn't happen to be Underfoot, would you?" She paused and then looked embarrassed. "Name-wise, not, er, I didn't mean the, the literal sense."

Mildly tossed about the corpses by the sudden stop, the cat eyed her with the look of a manhandled but affectionate feline, one who, while angry and considering maiming, would never give a full on death wish. Outside the cart, the hairy small fellow startled and looked up at her, a broad, friendly face framed by ringlets of hair largely everywhere displaying his surprise without restraint and huge eyes growing more so. The brown little fellow adjusted his suit in a nervous tic. "Hello! Hello! Yes, that's mel Have we met? I don't believe we've had the chance, but you know my name. We should do breakfast sometime. Maybe without the crowds? Arguably without the corpses, gulp, although if that's your aesthetic, I suppose I can repress a shudder! Hello!"

"How, that is why, that is-?"

"Underfoot," Gray mrred.

"Ah-! M'lady! I'm so sorry, m'lady! I was distracted by a lovely book illustrating the adventures of a necromancer and her paramour in creating artful undeath, and I wandered too far away. I- I- I'm sorry, I just- I had thought it would make a good farewell present and wanted to be sure, since you're leaving and I'm to stay with... is this one of the Kobber sorts you wished?" he stammered in return. From within his frock slowly a paperback with Nylora, Ingrid, and several colorful skeletons emerged.

"Well, a soon-to-be Kobber, at any rate. Hello! I'm Rin, but you can call me Orin." She smiled. "Breakfast would be fine, but I can't promise complete corpselessness. Eh?" Rin looked closer at the book before her eyes slowly widened. "Now there's one that would be a prize..."

She stood and put her hands on her hips. "It's nice to meet you, anyway. The night is full of creepy things, especially in the Hotel's shadow. That's part of the fun, buuuut... Well, at least we creeped into you first!"

"And there we are. One man in need of a transition to the hospital aside, I rather think most of the night has been productive enough," the Lady licked her paw contemplatively before batting at Orin's tail on impulse. "As you are soon to be of that heroic lineage, I will trust him and Underfoot to your care, unless you mind, Orin. I really must be returning home to slaughter now."

"Oh, I agree- hey!" Rin's tails lashed like snakes before her smile faded. "I don't mind, but I do wish you could stick around for a little while longer. I guess castle sieges wait for no one... I'm glad you bothered to sniff out my cart. I meant it about hunting together sometime! Don't think I'll forget!"

"...Bye, Lady Gray. I'll tell you all about the year soon." Rin smiled, before shuffling the passenger more securely into her cart.

"I look forward to it, darling," the other purred, before taking a stone from Underfoot and crushing it, thereafter vanishing entirely. The halfling cleared his throat and climbed aboard gingerly, starting to dust one of the corpses on instinct and pouring antiseptic on the injured man before looking to Orin. "What, ah... what should I do to serve you and the Kobbers then, m'am?"

"For them? Be there when they need you, like any service. No two will want the same thing, and you won't be able to help them all, but otherwise just do your best and be of good cheer! If you have a lot of books and a good mind, that'll come in handy." She said, tilting up the cart and setting off toward the hospital again. "Someone has to keep the records straight."

"Now, for me, I don't know. I don't want to just boss you around...  What do you like to do?" She asked, swerving behind a parked car and creeping alongside it while another one slowly cruised by. Once it was gone she resumed her path down the center of the sidewalk.

"Oh, a nice book, a cup of tea, fishing at the beach, a pleasant conversation. I practice the tranquil enjoyments mostly. The Lady has said there is a vid-he-o gaming thing that I might learn to do to entertain others and myself, but I have not yet found it. It sounds a little strange to boot. Manipulating controllers of some poor thing caught in glass and all...?"

He cleared his throat and shook his head. "Well, I must see it anyway. I'm to take notes as well, you see. Not spying or anything, I'm hardly made for that, but general observation alone. Your worlds are so different than ours."

Withdrawing a pipe, he poured a pinch of something into it before offering it over. "Not without sharing as well of course. Would you care for a smoke, madam?"

"I like the beach too, except when I sleep too long. Or kids come along. They always want to pull my tails." Rin remarked, taking the pipe and alighting the tip of her finger like a match. She inhaled and then coughed harshly, stopping and taking a few seconds to cover her mouth before taking another puff.

"Oh, video games? I've seen those! They're built into wooden stands, with knobs and buttons and such. Have you used a scrying mirror? Like that, but with a smaller picture." She nodded, picking up a quarter and pocketing it furtively. "You know, I'll bet the Witchers will love you."

He chewed a little of the weed himself as he listened and nodded amiably. "I hear there are some very interesting witches, yes, and from even more different worlds at that. Er, does one address them with an 'r' here? Do the comet war sort have anything to do with the scrying mirror games?"

"Oh, no, the Witchers aren't witches. They're something else entirely... Let me put it this way; as long as you're a stalwart sort, you'll get along great! If, er, you happen to meet one named Ian, don't mention me. I have a game going." She snickered.

The hospital was lit up and easy to find in the night for obvious reasons, currently quiet. An ambulance was parked out front, but it's lights weren't on. Zipping behind a pillar, Rin craned out before snapping back behind it and looking down.

"Will you stay with my cart? I'll just drag him over and we can leave, quickly." She said, her tails swinging nervously.

"If you want, of course, but it might be easier for two to carry a grown man, surely? U-unless I would only get in your way?"

"Easier for one. You wouldn't be in the way, but I'd rather you guard my haul. I can't afford to lose a whole night's work." She muttered, looking back out behind the edge and then seizing the groaning, bleeding man. She picked him up like a sack of potatoes and crept out behind the ambulance, ears poised and alert, but she didn't have any trouble until she reached the entrance.

An EMT coming out a side door almost saw her, but she wriggled under the ambulance a second before he found the body in the bay. His radio calls masked the sound of paws making their way back. Rin meowed at Underhill and licked her paw when he jumped, the red-sheened black cat eventually purring and turning back into a girl.

"Nobody sneaks like me!"

"I don't believe they do, no," the halfling agreed amiably when his heart stopped threatening to leap out through his ears. "They say my folk are good at it, but they have nothing on magical cats, I think. We're just quiet."

"Your, ahum, your dead bodies didn't attempt to crawl off or anything. There weren't any scavengers either, fortunately. I don't believe- well, I mean, a fight might have helped pad out my visible resume skills, I suppose, but it's better not to start wildly sllinging magic where people are sleeping. That's impolite."

"Quiet and good company, from what I've seen." She smiled at him as she hoisted her cart and then hurried away from the lights and off toward an alley, posting behind the corner of wall and watching the man being loaded into a stretcher.

"Don't worry, fights aren't all they're cracked up to be. Most every Kobber can fight, but there are things maybe one out of six can take care of too. You'll help out a lot there. For me, I wonder who cleans Kobber battlefields of dead... There might be a place for me there." She said, whipping around and then meowing at an alley cat. He meowed back and then sat down. Rin made a face and turned back to the halfling.

"What sort of magic can you work?"

"Mm. Where I come from, you see, it's generally better to work magics in silence. Gestures, ingredients, what have you. There are chants and invocations, but generally the less an enemy potentially knows what you're going to do, the better. With the potential exception of yelling about friendly fire with an overly large and delayed spell, of course, always exceptions. Words of Power come to mind when those rare old things pop by. That... isn't what I do. My magic isn't quiet.

"I lie. I lie, and I lie very loudly," the softspoken little man confessed. "For instance, I might make the gesture for invoking a demon while screaming a fireball spell, and really be casting a pit of ice with my feet. It's something of a specialty of mine. I lie in multidirectional magical patterns and I'm very good at distracting opponents. Thirty Seven Razor Fireballs of Heaven is a very good healing spell."

"It's something I did as a contrarian youth of fifty at University and became proficient at enough for the royalty to take up as a service, alongside my, er, more standard ones. Alas, I envy you your shapeshifting, though. That I can't do without a lot of components, and I can't shift back without someone else helping."

"Wait, wait! You motion and make mention and then something else entirely happens?!" Rin asked, her eyes widening before she covered her mouth with her hand to hold in her laughter. "That's amazing! I love it! You really are going to have a great year. Thank you- I only have the two forms, but it's nothing for me to switch between them. I can't wait to see you in action...!"

Rin cut through a backyard and past a pool, alongside a long fence with holes in the respective backyards. It would take her quickly to the other side of the block. Only passing by a sleeping dog did she look nervous.

"If you happen to see a dead body, let me know, okay?... Where do you want to go, speaking of? I'm a very cheap taxi, my fare might just be dinner."

"Where do touring visitors usually stay before the Kobber hotel opens? If you would be so kind, that would work. Do, ah... do you want birds and sundry included in that, or- hold a moment, there seems to be some manner of storm over there in the ocean."

And several dead bodies post it, in ever the most curious sorts of armor.

Rin's recommendations for short-term lodging were halted in her throat by the sight of the dead, and she watched the storm curiously before her fur stood on end. It didn't feel like an average, run of the mill thunderstorm... And as far as she knew, only out of town weirdos like her and other sundry wore armor around.

"Well, that's rather weird." The corpse-gathering cat said to the halfling Mage. "It's a little early in the year for any funny business to really start, but I don't like the looks of all that. I think we ought to get under cover before it touches down on land..." She said, dreading the incoming rain.

"Agreed," Underfoot agreed, not wanting to get as his name was in such a confused situation. "Very wet besides. You have a delivery to make too."

Averting his eyes from the vampire incursion from another other world entirely, he tidied the corpses as best he could manage and rummaged through his butler's satchel until he found the tarp he was looking for to put over them all.

Once the stack of newly loaded bodies was sheeted and tarped securely, she let him ride on top of the unmoving pile and once again set off on her way. Rin pushed the cart at a good quiet stalk, not quite running but racing at a solid pace. Her barrow was quiet, although it creaked when she turned. Every now and then she checked the moon when she could see it, her eyes shined red.

"There's all kinds of spooks and spirits afloat tonight. Something has disturbed them... Oh well. At least it looks like it's staying put." She said, waiting for a car to pass by before going out onto the sidewalk and looking around. "There's a nice little motel down the road, free of pests and thieves. I'll take you there, unless you'd rather just stay the THE resort. It's still open, just, there are very few of Us around." She shrugged modestly.

"Sieh hin, sieh her! der Mond-scheint hell. Wir und die Todten reiten schnell," recited her compatriot, eyeing the wheels and the flicks of blue flame and water alike alongside the wagon. "The dead ride fast indeed with you, just like the poem of your German Burger. Er, the man, not the meal. Or the Burgher rank.

"Denn die Toten of the same bent was a favorite of my lady's when she was visiting. Stoker's version. For the dead travel fast. The original poem is good, though. As is the original hotel... although, er, what does the resort take, per se?"

"I've never heard it! I'll have to look it up, that sounds interesting." Rin said, speed walking through the night. "Most any currency, I think. As long as it's legal tender, they'll take it. But then, it IS the offseason... They might only take earth money. I wonder what they do while no Kobbers are in residence? Clean up the pieces from the previous year?"

"Those are excellent questions and ones I share. If they do only take Earth currency I may find myself in need of a banking suggestion or a brief employment... do you have banks in- Genyosoko, you said? Ones that process bullion?"

"Oh, yes, we have banks. They're not like the ones around here, with the machines and the tellers and At 'ems, they're slower paced and smaller scale. They might be able to process gold, depending on how much you have. You could end up clearing their stocks out." Rin admitted. "I don't know if they'd serve you, Yokai don't like outsiders, and I don't think you could cross the barrier inside, either..."

"Hmm- But I don't know. I've just been sneaking into the King of Beasts trash cans, not the hotel itself. I think the thing that runs the resort works every day, you could ask her about it." Rin suggested, steering around a shoe on the sidewalk.

"Trash cans, m'lady? You'd hardly know it, from looking at or smelling you. You really must tell me your secret- you would think corpses would rub off a little, let alone regular refuse dives."

He looked at his own cologne in some betrayal, shaking it.

"Well, I'm sure you know cats. We don't go around unkempt unless we're frazzled." Rin said frankly, turning a corner and then darting back. She craned over to peer at the metal girl standing under a streetlight, before realizing the giant was staring towards the King of Beasts with an anxious sort of hope. She crept across the street, but the ogre didn't look her way, and once she was out of sight she sped up.

"...You get some real weirdos around here." Said the catgirl. "Anyway, grooming, grooming, grooming, and dark clothes don't show stains! I don't know about some of the things people wear around here, though. I'll have to pack a few hats." She continued. "Where's all your luggage?"

"My luggage? I- oh, bother. I'll have to call on it sometime, I suppose. It's probably gotten itself lost again somewhere. Hopefully not in any overeager hands, there are some less than healthy materials in there. At least I kept the adjustment pills on my person, hm? So many sicknesses for the little things to keep out."

The halfling fished his pockets. "Hats for the sun here is a good plan. Do, er, you have to adjust them? For your ears?"

"You know, no one's really asked me that before, but yes! Otherwise they get crammed in the center or smashed down and it's very uncomfortable. Cats have sensitive ears, although less people pull those than a tail." Rin said frankly, both of her's briefly standing up straight. "Adjustment pills? Oh! Because the diseases are different..." She nodded sagely.

"Have you done this sort of thing before?" She asked, hopping a curb.

"This is actually my first foray out. You've got quite a lot more experience than I do in hopping worlds, by the sounds of it. You've mentioned three domains at least since we started talking," he noted. "Mine is somewhat lacking for illness, and this one is, er, not, so in some ways this is also a test to see how well someone who isn't a... er, living corpse or magical servant will, ah, manage."

"I think the pills are working so far! Someone sneezed and I didn't break out in, what was the word, those purple-ish ugly lumps that leak the yellow and white fluids? Boils, like what you do with water in a pot for pasta? I think it was boils."

"They did say that dead bodies carried a lot of sickness, so this is . . . a very solid test, I expect."

"Well, the barrier between Gensokyo and the rest of the world is foolproof. Lucky for me I'm not a fool." She purred. "There are corpses everywhere, and plenty of interesting things to see along the way! But... To be fair, I'm still not very seasoned. You only see and do so much as a cat, and other people usually can't get past-" she waved a hand at her ears and rolled them good-naturedly.

"Anyway, some do, and most aren't safe to roll around on, but the dead leave you alone if you leave them alone. Oh, don't worry, that's a clean sheet." She smiled up at him before pausing and staring at a cat twenty feet away, who stared back before slinking into an alley. Rin stuck out her tongue and then moved on.

He sat patiently on the fuel for hell and watched the island night. "There are a good few more cats than I was expecting for a place surrounded by ocean. Are you all happy here?"

Rin tilted her head and looked down the road, considering the question. She slowly nodded and smiled again. "When things are good and quiet, the cats are content. The nights are warm and there's prey all around, and plenty of secret corners on every island to poke around. Some of them are malcontents and sourpusses, but they are, I think."

"...I think I will be, too! This is a good place, just like the people. I've already made friends, you included, and things haven't even really started. I almost wish I'd come a long time ago... Well, better late than never. Right?" She meowed.

Rin turned into the hotel's parking lot and kept to the dark parts, passing Jack's dusty truck and turning deeper in.

"Right," he agreed, and tried not to double-take at what seemed to be a squid with a sword in a tree as he pulled away from the heap of folded limp arms. "I'm glad to have met you, even without the help. You've certainly made the night somewhat less of a confusion than it might have been otherwise. Thank you so much again for it, though, noble Rin. You are a, I believe the phrase was, 'cool cat'?"

"I had probably ought check about lodging, but is there a way to repay you, first?"

"Aw, you're welcome! You and the Lady both seem like good people, so there was no reason not to walk together. I'm the very coolest! And the hottest burning, too!" She said cheerfully, grinning like a dope. "You made my night better too- none of these ones are very chatty-" she glanced at the pile. "-and sometimes it's lonely work."

"Hmm." She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes before shaking her head. "Nope! I don't think you have anything I want, so I guess don't worry about it. Just remember me and know we'll meet again. Maybe next time I can read some of your books! That would be fun." Rin said, stopping and waiting for a car to go past her before turning right, toward the entrance.

"Did you see a two tailed woman with red hair and a cat's eyes?" an odd man lurking against a gate in deep, dark blue armor asked him, his own cat's eyes narrowing. He smelled of wounds, mutation, and odd magic. He didn't know what to make of the individual, but the halfling's response didn't take long.

"No," Underfoot told the stranger agreeably with the best of his lying ability, thinking on her request earlier, and moving on to go start trying to check in..

Ian made a noise under his breath and went back off into the night.