vatheon | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who:Nepeta Leijon and Equius Zahhak
Where: Casa de Highbloods
When: During the unable to lie curse
Status: Closed
Style: Third person

The effects of the current curse are well-known by now, and have led to some very interesting happenings over the network for Nepeta to follow and giggle over. As for herself, she doesn't exactly make a habit of hiding anything, so it's hardly been the calamity some other people were treating it as. If anything, Tavros was getting complimented and fussed over and told how cute he is even more than usual, but after a day or two of this she realizes she shouldn't leave her other quadrant out of all of the fun.

She needed to go visit Equius!

She was pretty sure she'd find him in his hive, possibly still working on fixing the damage done by the flood, or else buried in one of his projects. Either way, he was sure to be fully focused on it and ripe for a good old pouncegreet! Now where could her meowrail be...

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She'll find Equius in the backyard, mending a repair in the fence. Darkleer the chocobo is prancing around him, being very helpful, and Pounce has settled down near the garden with Milo to supervise. The birds see her, but are well versed in pouncegreetings, and don't alert Equius.

They are the best and most considerate of birds. It probably also helps that Nepeta regularly feeds them plenty of treats after each successful pouncing. Whoops...

Her moirail seems well and truly absorbed in his work - unsurprising, as he's always been one to focus completely on whatever it is he's doing. Unsurprising and convenient, as it means he'll have no idea there's a kitty troll sneaking up on him, wriggling back and forth as she aims and leaps into the air right at his back.

Some inner moirail sense alerts Equius a second before impact, and he goes completely limp. The force of Nepeta's leap pushes him face down on the ground and skids him right into the fence. He doesn't break... but the fence does as they shoot right through it.

Uh oh. Looks like once again she'd underestimated the force of her pounce and chaos was about to ensue!

Oh well. Better enjoy it while she can.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" she cries out as she slides along the ground on top of her moirail, barely noticing the bits of the fence that go flying. "I caught you really well that time!!"

Fortunately, Equius' face is too STRONG to get hurt by this, and with the fence broken again, he'll have the fun of fixing it. Really, this is a win-win situation.

"Yeah," he answers when they stop moving, his voice muffled by the dirt. "You sure did."

Nepeta laughs, happy and carefree as she pets her moirail's head affectionately before trying her best to get him up out of the dirt. "Mama has been teaching me a little! Like Darkleer has been teaching you things too. I think we're both getting really really good, aren't we?!"

Equius sits up, brushing dirt off his shirt and getting out a towel to wipe off his face. "You're getting much better at pouncing. I'm not nearly as good as I'd like to be at archery, though."

Whoops, lousy curse. He buries his face in the towel and aggressively wipes the dirt away.

"That's only because you're a purrfectionist," she tells him, patting insistently at his arm. "You've made lots of progress, you know you have! And you'll get even better really soon. Just like one day I'll manage to pounce Disciple without her catching me!"

"I'm sure you'll get her someday." Equius appreciates her kind words, he really does! He puts the towel aside and smiles at her. "So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"The curse is making me compliment Tavros even more than usual so I thought that you deserved some of that too!" ...except she really didn't mean to say it that way. "Because you're my moirail and I pity you so very much!"

It's cool, Equius understands. He may have had a few soliloquies this week about the beauty of Gamzee's ass. "I pity you too, Nepeta. Very deeply." He stands, offering her a hand to help her up. "Would you like some tea? We still have a little musclebeast milk left, and I wouldn't share that with anyone else except you, even though I know you don't like it so I don't have to worry about offering you any."

Whoops...

Nepeta takes his hand and swings off it happily for a moment before standing back on her own two feet, laughing out loud at the unintended confession. "I suppawsed as much! But it's okay, I know you'd share it if I did like it. Well, purrobably you would..." She grins and snuggles up against his side. "That tea would be very nice though!"

"I would! Probably..." Equius thinks about it for a minute. "No, definitely. If you liked it, you could use as much as you wanted." Pleased by that little truth bomb, he very carefully lays an arm over her shoulders and heads towards the house.

"Awww!" Nepeta says, rather overcome by this show of extreme generosity on Equius' part. "You are the very best of meowrails!" She snuggles down beneath his arm, glad that he seems to be somewhat reconciled to his STRENGTH after that one curse where he didn't need to deal with it for a while.

"How are Gamzee and Darkleer doing?" she asks once they step inside.

"I try to be," he tells her. Once they're in the kitchen, he starts carefully making them tea, using the silicone cups that he can handle easily.

"They're fine. Nothing too exciting has been happening here recently. How is Tavros?"

And Nepeta, unsurprisingly, hovers around him instead of taking a seat and sitting quietly like a proper guest should. She looks into the teapot and all the cups, sniffs the milk and the sugar and the tea, and finally goes hunting for the likelihood of baked goods squirreled away around the kitchen.

"He's okay! He's been pretty happy since the last curse - having loads of real confidence of his own was good for him! I think some of it rubbed off and he has more now than he used to!"

She won't have to look too hard; given Gamzee's love for baking, there's certain to be some delectable treats hidden away somewhere. Equius lets her search, knowing better than to try and interrupt the mighty huntress during a stalk.

"Really? That's good to hear. I've often thought that troll needs to think more highly of himself, so he can be a better matesprit to you."

Ah hah! A delicious, crumbly-crust looking pie. A careful sniff assures her that it's sopor-free, and she hunts up a pair of plates to serve some out for the two of them.

"I don't think he can be a better matesprit than he already is! He cares about me and loves me and plays with me all the time! He lets me cuddle up on him in our pile every night, especially when I'm feeling cold! He's a lovely, lovely matesprit!"

"I didn't mean it like that!" Stupid curse, making his filter even less sensitive than it is normally! "I simply meant that you are a brave, confident troll who should only have the very best, and that you deserve a matesprit who can be brave and confident with you."

"He is, though! He was brave enough to ask me to be his matesprit even when he was really afraid I'd say no, and he's confident in his own way too! People just can't always see it," she insists. "Last curse he might have been full of the normal kind of confidence, so that he wasn't too worried to talk about things like the time we pailed, but even without that he still has his own kind of confidence!"

Give it a second until she realizes what she just said. Yep, there it is. The look of horror.

And here is the corresponding look of shock. "You did what?!"

It's probably good Tavros isn't here right now, or he'd be in danger of being punched.

What no, no punching her matesprit, Equius, she likes him in his normal shape and not as a smear embedded in the wall!

"Uhmmmmm..." If ever a kitty troll looked like an antlerbeast caught in the headlights...

"Well, it's not like you and Gamzee haven't either!!" Probably not the best way to deal with this, but it's not like he'll be able to lie about it.

"We only did it once, and that was when I was actually able to touch him!" Well, look at that, suddenly there are TWO trolls who look like antlerbeasts caught in the headlights in this kitchen. "I mean... oh, fiddlesticks."

"Oh my paws! I knew it!" Nepeta is more or less hopping from one foot back to the other, looking like a near-crazed meowbeast now. "You can't get mad at me for it if you did it too!"

"That would be hypocritical of me, but I'm going to do it anyway and ignore the hypocrisy!" Yeah that's right, he said it! "When did this happen? Tell me at once, and do not, I repeat, DO NOT, give me any details."