Mockingbird Lane: The Secrets of Cats

Started by Modern Fairy Tale, July 23, 2015, 10:26:38 AM

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Modern Fairy Tale

     "Welcome to Silver Ford, Maine's Secret Treasure!"  This town was named after a silver boon in the late 1800's which the locals economically drove into the ground.  Now it survives on tourism and acts as the setting for our 'The Secrets of Cats' story.

     This is very ancient hill country.  Almost anything penned by Stephen King or H. P. Lovecraft could happen against this backdrop so the Parliament is kept quite busy.  Our story will center on the neighborhood of Mockingbird Lane along the Northeast edge of town.  The namesake street is the second to the last West-East road of town bordering from just short of the burned out Silver Mining Museum in the heart of town and then East to the border of Silver Ford itself.  This area is almost exactly between Lake Murkitt a few miles West and the Blue Moon Woods East and past the highway.

     Cats are territorial, but sometimes their wanderings will lead them far from home.  In any such situation outside of the Mockingbird neighborhood please post up in the first sentence of your entry the location your scene is occuring in.  Perferrably this should be in italics.  Here is an example.

     Deeper into the Blue Moon Woods, the yellow tabby Happy stalked the curious wisps of azure light...

     This story will start by establishing all the facts in the main Fate Core world book 'The Secrets of Cats' is true.  This will be spun and focused based on the stories of our three main characters Bergins, Felicia, and Wild Heart.  They will describe their settings, burdens, and features of thier environment and then we will spiral the story out from there.

     Please enjoy and thank you for your parcipitation in this wonderfully magical little world within our own.

OOC
https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=232163.0
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God. 
Hans Christian Anderson in The Little Match Girl

Sain

Bergins yawned in the darkness of an old bedroom. The chubby striped house cat had made a habit of sleeping underneath the bed of the two little humans, or sometimes on top of the well scratched black leather sofa by the window; it got nice and warm in the morning. Bergins was glad that it was still dark. Aside from the sofa the rest of the room looked like vomit. Walls covered in damask wallpaper from the nineties and furniture painted with strange bright colors that were probably supposed to imitate fruits. Bergins clawed the floor as he threw his enormous rear backwards and up to stretch - mmmngh, still as agile as ever.

The humans were still asleep. They usually liked to waste the best hours of the morning and after a few years of trying to illuminate them Bergins had given up on the quest. He gave one glance at the blanket covered ball of hair by the edge of the bed; it was huffing and puffing in a peaceful rhythm. Bergins pointed his tail up and pushed the already ajar door open wider. The hinges creaked. Sometimes he wondered if the humans liked to build their homes difficult to sneak through on purpose. Bergins continued his patrol. Next to the little ones' room was a small dark hallway with doors opening to the rooms of the two big ones, the toilet, the smelly color room and the wide big windowed room which led to the kitchen and rest of the house. Bergins was grateful for the darkness as it gave the whole world a single color and allowed him to blend in even into all these eerily bright and flashy decorations.

Bergins hopped on a table from which to push down the door handle to the girl's room. He peeked in with just a head. The girl was still asleep. She had the most natural way of living out of all Bergins' burdens with her floor covered in a layer of clothes and various strange items. She was Bergins' favorite. Ever since becoming big enough to leave the house herself she had made the house a lot quieter and whenever she came back it was with treats for him. However, sometimes the girl did bring home friends which would assault Bergins and try to snatch him up to be smothered. Those days were dreadful. It took a long while to clean the human stench off. Padding on, Bergins found the big male with glasses also comfortably wrapped up in his own dreams. He was the original food giver, but not the best one anymore. He did know how to respect a cat's privacy the best out of all Bergins' burdens. The big man never petted him unless asked to do so and mainly let Bergins go about as he pleased without interrupting his business. On the other hand though he did smell awful. The stench of those sticky colors with which the man played all day would not completely come off even in the shower. Bergins wrinkled his nose and turned away.

Entering the living room, he bounced onto a chair and on top of a wide TV bookshelf combination. It was close to the ceiling and had near the wall a small crevice which for the humans was somewhat tricky to access to. Bergins had made it his stash. There was the piece of red wool string he had gotten from Felicia's female burden and the tuft of the little kid's knit cap that had detached last winter. This was also a good place to store sacrifices so long as they didn't bleed too much and leave stains on the shelf. Such carelessness might compromise the stash and a master hunter like Bergins knew better than to make a mistake like that. Well, nothing had happened to his treasures overnight today, but you never knew...

On the kitchen floor was some old stale water and yesterday's food. Only the icky pieces were left, but Bergins could not wait till morning or until he hunted something. Swallowing his dignity, he munched a few brown cubes. His tongue was getting dry. Bergins left the bowl and exited the house through a cat door.

Outside was the fresh chirpy morning hour before the sun climbs up above horizon. The gentle wind felt good on Bergins's fur. His realm was limited on the right by a blackcurrant hedge that the humans had erected between his and Felicia's territories, on the left was a catless household over whose lands he reigned, in front a road and behind both his home and the other house extended an ancient forest thick with tress and undergrowth. Bergins controlled the forest all the way up till Hiernonymous' territory, although recently an old strong fox had been stalking around Bergins' woods as if they were its own. Worse yet, the fox had somehow gotten in Hieronymous' favor so the owl would not aid him to shoo away the invader.

Bergins' ears twitched as he glared at the forest border and listened to the quiet chittering of bugs and singing of birds. The fox wasn't there now, but who knows when it might grew bold enough to approach the house.

The big cat pushed those worries out of his mind as he approached the small iron pump well next to the sad little plot of soil in which the humans tried to grow vegetables. It was a relatively simple task for someone as burly as him to hug the lever and give it a few pumps. Ice cold water splashed onto the concrete pedestal forming as mall pool. Bergins lapped it up eagerly and couldn't help but meow at the deliciousness. He turned his gaze towards the deep green blackcurrant bushes and wondered if Felicia was up to some boring investigation again. Pity the poor cats that didn't share Bergins' keen insight and sharp wits to solve problems without having to spend sleeps or days to think on matters which could be solved in a nap.
PM box is open. So is my discord: Sain#5301

Modern Fairy Tale

#2
     As Bergins lapped up the well water, an odd rustle would have drawn his attention to the pathetic garden his burdens were trying to establish.  After a moment or two of sniffing the wind, he would see a couple of the immature stalks bend slightly as something seemingly almost as big as a cat began stealthily working its way through part of the garden.  Whatever it was, it smelled horribly of dank vermin and it was surprisingly brazen to venture so far into such a proud cat's territory.  With his senses so sharp, he could even hear the unseen intruder muttering to itself over and over obsessively about "the Shinies."
She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God. 
Hans Christian Anderson in The Little Match Girl