grumpy wet kitty

[Humphries]

Naturally with the coming season, everyone was feeling a little anxious. Prom, the upcoming summer, the promise of so much freedom after such a hectic school year, it was enough to make nearly everyone feel a little antsy. Humphries generally spent most of the ends of semesters enjoying causing yet more problems for students: stalking them through halls, peeping on them, recording their illegal activities. He'd actually been quite purposefully following a few terrified children for the past few hours.

his following had led him outside. Humphries didn't particularly enjoy the outside as much as other felines did. the distractions were distracting, and he hadn't even cared for the weather during his relatively brief tenure as an actual human being. Still, he'd been engaging in his "job" (i.e. stalking students and making them nervous) so that meant that keeping on.

it also meant being distracted by a bug.

Humphries followed the bug, much to the relief of his prey, and started skittering across the campus batting it. he watched the thing leap into just the right area and, with as much joy as possible, sprung.

Only to have a sprinkler turn on at just the wrong time. it hit him and sent him going into another bat of sprinklers. Confused, and with the feline taking over, Humphries began spinning and spitting, growls leaving his increasing soaking feline body.

[Nolan MacKenzie]

Sometimes Nolan liked to sit at his window and open his ears, just to listen to what happened around Bellefonte. He spent so much of his time these days blocking the sound out, it was such a relief to allow himself to listen again. He could hear the heartbeats of the people in the dorm above him, and someone was playing Nicki Minaj in a room fifty yards away or so. Overall, it was quite peaceful. It was also a much-needed peace, especially midway through finals as he was now.

Or it was until the yowling of an angry cat shot through his ears. It was relatively close by too, because he could clearly hear the kitty's distress. Nolan wasn't particularly a cat person, but he'd been enjoying himself. If he helped the poor thing out, they'd both get some peace and quiet out of it. He ran down two flights of stairs and out the door.

Oh, Humphries. That thing was silent as anything even to Nolan. He could hear it padding around sometimes, but sometimes it managed to evade even his hearing. He'd also heard several people complain that he was a total creep.

Nolan ran into the sprinklers toward the poor thing. "Aww, c'mere," he cooed, now sopping wet. "Let's get you somewhere warm."

[Humphries]

Humphries heard someone coming and turned toward them, already on alert. His fur would have fluffed had that been an option. instead he had to settle for letting loose another unhappy growl. He knew that the translator around his neck would have picked it up and made several four letter words out of it.

However, Humphries was nothing if not good at listening. He paused as the young man talked about going somewhere warm. Well, that was what Humphries wanted. He saw no reason not to let this young man carry him somewhere where the wet could be handled. So the cat just looked up and meowed, trying to communicate through his misery that he was, in fact, willing to be picked up and taken to wherever this "somewhere warm" happened to be.

[Nolan MacKenzie]

Nolan flinched, not because of the water or the cold, but because of the talking cat. After so many years at Bellefonte, you got used to a lot. People with visible mutations, people talking to snakes or making things catch fire on accident. But a talking cat was another level, especially considering the cat in question had the mouth of a sailor.

"You're welcome," he said, a bit curtly. Nolan had a relatively thick skin, but he wasn't used to getting cursed at by pets. It felt like an entirely new level of personal. At least it looked like the poor thing wasn't totally freaking out. Then again, this was a talking cat. It stood to reason that it might express emotions on an entirely different level. Nolan walked out of the sprinklers, trying to cradle Humphries away from the spray.

"Since when can you talk, anyway?"

[Humphries]

Talking? Humphries looked up at the young man, wondering at what point he thought "meowing" equated to speech. The device had been recently upgraded to the point where it could, but he hadn't exactly done so yet. Humphries merely let out another meow, half-curious, half-upbrading the young man for being a little bizarre. Cats certainly couldn't communicate without the aid of devices, and Humphries' happened to be needing a little time to dry off.

So the cat shifted into the arms a little more, and looked up at the young man. His eyes narrowed, and he was tempted to point out that the talking happened around the time it did for most people. However, he did like his mystique, and he still wanted the young man more focused on getting him somewhere they could be dry.

So instead he just let out another meow and rubbed a bit of his wet fur against the young man, trying to make that point perfectly clear: drying off first; questions later, and hopefully when he actually could communicate in a clearer manner.