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All day.  ALL DAY.   Basically forever.

There had been a smell.  It was not a familiar smell, and Crow was familiar with a wide variety of smells.

It was definitely furry,   And it wasn’t cat, or dog, or rodent.  It didn’t quite smell wild either.  It was very... clean.

It was infuriating.  And tempting.  And Feral was paying far too much attention to him for him to go investigate it.  She was doing something with ink and paper, boring human things, and frustrated enough by it that she kept looking directly at him but not even giving him anything to do!  Except for the odd crumple-up ball of ink stained paper to bat around.  Boring.  Lifeless.  Plus it tasted bad.

No, he wanted to go find out what that smell was.

Was this it?  Was this the moment?  She was getting up.  She was out of the chair.  She was crossing the room to the box full of cold.  She took out something that wasn’t cat food and he didn’t care about.  She went over to the closed balcony door, and stood next to it while she opened the thing he didn’t care about.  She drank, slowly, looking out at the world he wasn’t currently allowed to claim.  And then...

Would she do it?  Would she?!

She did!  She opened the balcony door, sliding it open more than enough for him to hop out into the lowering sun!   So he did, completely casually and not at all like he had been pretending to not want this exact opportunity forever and ever.  She looked down at him, eyebrows raised in undeserved suspicion, so he stretched out every single muscle and joint he could, including every curve of his spine, taking as much time as he could.  Feral eventually shook her head, muttered something about him staying on the balcony for once, and went back inside.  Crow remained where he was, sprawled in the warm light, until a bird in a nearby tree returned to taunting him with its twittering.  He chattered at it, reaching his front paws for the top of the railing but not bothering to jump.  Birds were delicious but not the smell that he wanted to track down.  No, the smell was stronger from out here, but it was wafting... from that side!

Now Crow leapt onto the railing, taking a moment to balance and then casually sharpen his claws against the edge in case Feral was looking.  She didn’t tell him off, at any rate.  From there, it was an easy enough hop to the next balcony over.  Here, the scent was much richer.  Rich and curious and foreign and exciting.  The balcony was empty, the open door a welcoming portal of billowing curtain.  He eased down from the railing, sauntering over to the door on quiet paws.  His head popped around the corner, almost pressed against the bottom sill.  A room much like Feral’s and his and the pack’s, or like that fish-person he’d discovered.  Stuff he didn’t care about, all coated with the scent of a stranger.  This stranger was.... not quite the curious smell that had drawn him soaring between the narrow planks above the distant ground.  Where....

There!  A wire contraption, absolutely redolent with the incredible smell.  He stole up to it, stealthy as a shadow in a midnight storm, and tapped the contraption with a paw.  It did not react, but what was that inside?  He couldn’t see properly, but there was an easy fix to that.  He hopped on top of the strange smell-shielding thing at the same time that Feral’s extremely annoyed shout echoed through both his collar and the open balcony door.

Swinging her legs under the chair, she felt more like a child than she ever had here.  Even when she first crept in, following the shadowed back of a person she had not yet then learned to trust, she had simply felt more wild.  And afraid.  Afraid of everything.  Also numb.  There had been a lot of that for a while.

And the chairs in the front waiting room had been even worse back then!  At some point, someone had changed them.  They no longer had solid backs, chairs designed solely for the use of people who did not have tails.  Now she could perch in a squishy fake-leather thing big enough that she had to tilt her feet for her toes to touch the old barely-carpet floor, still the same worn greenish-grey with skinny brownish stripes, and her tail hung out the back with only an irritating level of discomfort, rather than an intolerable level.

Not that she needed to be in a dumb chair here much anyway.  Not only was she spending less time here, but she basically never spent time in this part of the agency anyway.  She always got to go to the back, or at least stay in Blue Weaver’s office.  She didn’t have to stay in a chair in either area.  She could stand without drawing attention from strangers, or sprawl on the ground comfortably and it was okay.  As long as she wasn’t in the way, at least, but that was fair enough.  Today, though, nooooo.  Today she had to wait in the front, in a chair.  By herself.

That didn’t make it any easier.  Kai and Quick were both lounging around - comfortably on the ground - back in her room on campus.  Crow was being Crow, after dashing out through the open balcony doors that morning, but according to her phone and his tracker he wasn’t going anywhere he shouldn’t.  Sleeping and hunting.  Those were good things to be doing.  Waiting was not a good thing.  Waiting in a chair was worse.  And what was she even waiting for?  Someone.  There was some someone who was supposed to talk to her, and it had to be here at the agency.

So the scrawny blond student swung her legs like a child, her oversized ears flattened against her skull in petulant display of her less-than-stellar mood, and her slender hands jammed into the pockets of a plain black hoodie Blue Weaver had given her just last month.  The name of the pro hero agency she now waited (uncomfortably) in was embroidered across the back and left breast in white thread, and both it and her black leggings were generously dusted with black and white hairs.  She even had shoes on, despite the mild, dry weather.  Blue Weaver had specified, so she wore them, but the black rubber boots didn’t really help her look any older.

Feral’s ears flew back at the other student’s sudden surge in interest, but she otherwise mastered the instinct to flinch. Was this good interest or bad interest? The faintly-fish girl had seemed both joking and rule-focused. That made it hard to figure out what was going on here. People were so complicated!

And now things were getting even more strange, though Feral wouldn’t have thought it possible a heartbeat before (and honestly, her heart wasn’t at its slowest at the moment). Crow was no more than mildly annoyed, but it was because he was no longer being patted rather than trying to cause such a state. And yet the other student looked more likely to panic and bolt than Feral!

She waited. The bolting hadn’t happened, so she might get an explanation if she just -

Phew. There was enough un-animal sense to the other student’s incomprehensible alarm for her to speak rather than immediately physically deal with the situation, whatever she thought it was.

Which....

Was...

Confusing. Very confusing. Feral stared down at the crouched girl (an odd enough angle when Feral wasn’t the only human involved). A physical extension? Where did she even get such a weird idea? Feral gave it a few more long seconds after the desperate attempt to clarify, her only outward movement the flick of one ear as the conversation finally caught a dog’s attention from on the balcony, and then released a tiny, bemused snort. ”Crow and the others are their own, not part of me.” How much information should she let out? She didn’t know anything about this girl. She didn’t even know who she was, although she did seem like a student... and she apparently lived in the same hallway. ”I’ll tell you more if you tell me about you?” It was just a little trade. It was the sort of thing that was normal among people, right?

Good. Crow was generally the most troublesome of the lot, if his disregard for rules seemed to be more likely to go unnoticed than, say, if she behaved the way he did. Sure, there were plenty of dumb rules she didn’t want to follow, but, unlike Crow, she understood consequences. Like losing her place in this school. And her source of long-term income. And food. And shelter. She’d be back on the streets, only this time she would be the one in charge of protecting herself, as well as her pack. She wouldn’t be alone, but she would be on her own.

So to hear that the bratty cat had somehow saved someone with his brattiness, with the guts to meow his agreement, threw Feral for a bit of a loop. That it was from boredom escaped her, and she stared at the overly pleased feline. ”Crow saved you?” The cat in question sniffed at the blatant disbelief in Feral’s tone, ”How’d he do that? He hasn’t even been catching mice lately, much less anything dangerous. If there’s even anything dangerous here.”/

Besides the people with the power to take things away...

Or the people who made the food. Sources of food were very powerful, after all, and deserved at least momentary respect. Even if she pocketed food when she was sure enough that no one was watching or would notice. Her fingers were still light and quick, and loose overclothes could hide many things.

Oh good, freely offered names. Now it didn’t matter if she hadn’t remembered, and it probably didn’t even look like she had forgotten. Jetstream. That was easier to remember than names with multiple parts. Hero names were so much easier. And they fit more than longer things given by parents who might never meet the person as anything more than a squishy useless ball of scream and poop.

Feral was not nearly so useless. Or smelly. And this person, Jetstream, recognized that. Feral relaxed slightly, though it was still hard for her tail to be any thing but stiff. Quick just yawned. ”Thank you, Jetstream.” That was the right amount of formality, right? Hopefully. ”They also have radios, so I can call them if they aren’t nearby. Or find out what’s going on. It is much easier like this.” Unlike the change in conversation. It was much more personal now, but this was probably just Small Talk, not actually asking. Right? She didn’t want to answer seriously and then find out that only a one word answer was expected, not again. But what if she gave a one word answer, which wasn’t very true, and Jetstream actually wanted a real answer? And she only had one chance, and there was a time limit. If she took too long then it would look weird regardless.

She would have to guess and just be ready to backtrack. ”It is very different,” she said to cover the little pause, ”but it is good. No trouble.” Especially from them. Hopefully.

If asked, by someone he would even bother hearing, Crow would not be able to explain why he had immediately bolted after pouncing. The first complication was that he was a cat.

At any rate, this cat now found himself in a cool, slippery place. Now that he was here, though, it really didn’t provide much cover. He barely fit, was entirely exposed from above to anything in the same room, and the surface was the complete opposite of his fur, other than both being respectably shiny. Still, it was smooth and comfy and smelled more like water than anything else. He crouched in the shallow hole and peered over the porcelain edge and out to the room he had just left. The fish-smell mingled with human-smell and clearly came from the large, fleshy, clothing-wearing creature flailing around on the ground. Obviously not a predator. Too big to bother with as prey. Hm. Food. It had been ages since he’d eaten. He should tell Feral that. Make her feed him. That was a good plan.

Flop.

Crow stared at the bit of fabric. It was moving again. The fish-person-whoever-didn’t-matter was moving it. The movement was... mesmerizing. Tempting. So tempting. He could already feel his claws sinking into the material, his teeth meeting through its thread-flesh, the thorough dead-ness that would result from his inevitable capture of the thing. He stretched forward, head sliding entirely out of the sink basin. If it kept moving so enticingly, it wouldn’t be long before he could no longer resist.

Unfortunately for Crow, the sink provided much less traction than the floor, and his leap was further complicated by the fluff between his toe beans. His feet slid out from beneath him as he jumped, turning it into a flop that barely cleared the counter. But he was a fast cat, and had most excellent reflexes! So he landed properly, on all four feet, and immediately sprinted past the tie, swiping at it with an agile clawed paw, and on toward the dark space under the bed.