Nathan and Catseye- Backdated to January 29

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Catseye arrives at Elpis for her first day on the job and gets her very own desk and introductions to the filing system and the photocopier.

Catseye thought she needed papers to get a job, but she didn't know
what to bring so instead, she settled on wearing clothes to go visit
Nathan at the Elpis office. Real not-collar clothes. A skimpy sundress
might not have been traditional office attire, especially in February,
but Catseye hated the feeling of fabric against her human skin. She
did want Nathan to know she was serious about getting and keeping a
job, however, so the attempt to dress like a normal human office
worker had been made. "MisterSoftHands?" she called out tentatively,
stepping into the boathouse. "Catseye is here to work!"

Nathan looked up from the desk, tilting his head slightly at Catseye's
choice of wardrobe. "Aren't you a little cold?" he asked, almost
gently.

Catseye tilted her head back at Nathan. "No, Catseye is not cold." She
studied what he was wearing. "Should Catseye dress like SoftHands at
work? Catseye did not know what to wear but Catseye wanted to look
nice but Catseye did not know what humans wear to work but sometimes
Catseye's teachers wear coverings like this in the summertime so
Catseye thought it would be okay but does SoftHands want Catseye to
wear something else?"

Nathan shook his head. "No, you're fine," he said, rising slowly from
his chair. "But when you're just in the office, you can wear whatever
you like. No need to dress up."

"Really?" Blowing out a nervous breath, Catseye leapt at Nathan and
hugged him. "Thank you, MisterSoftHands!" She pulled back and had her
hands on the hem of her sundress before she remembered that what she
was wearing underneath it might not be what he meant by 'wear whatever
you like'. Better to leave it on for today. "Catseye wants to do work,
MisterSoftHands," she said enthusiastically. "What should Catseye do?
Oh! Catseye did not know what papers to bring for MisterSoftHands to
give Catseye a job, MisterSoftHands. Can Catseye still work?"

It was hard not to smile again. Nathan patted her gently on the
shoulder. "Quite all right," he said, not quite gravely. "We're very
good at paperwork here. Got it all taken care of." It was going to be
quite something, having her around the office. He steered her in the
direction of one of the smaller desks. "This is yours," he said
lightly. "We got it all cleared off for you." They had a few spares,
what with Kevin and Rahne gone.

Catseye sat at the desk eagerly and sniffed at it. "ShinyRoomBoy's
desk? Catseye can have? Thank you, MisterSoftHands! Catseye will do
work just like ShinyRoomBoy but not making shinythings because Catseye
does not know how to make shinythings like ShinyRoomBoy. Catseye will
do other works though! What does MisterSoftHands want Catseye to do?"

"I need to introduce you to the photocopier, I think," Nathan said.
"And possibly our very complex yet completely coherent filing system."
He definitely didn't want her answering phones. Not right now, in any
case - although there might be some strategic benefit to it, down the
line. Do not laugh.

She didn't understand some of the words he was saying, and cocked her
head in confusion, but she didn't want to appear as if she was
incapable of working for Nathan so the catgirl nodded after a moment.
Better to pretend she knew what he was talking about. "Where is
Photocopier? And ComplexYetCompletely..." she'd forgotten the other
two words... "SomethingSomethingSystem? Catseye would like to meet."

"We'll maybe tackle the photocopier later. The filing system-" Nathan
waved a hand at the row of filing cabinets. "We get a lot of documents
through the office. We try to keep as much as we can in electronic
form, but a lot of the time that's just not possible. So we have to
keep it in order."

Bounding over to the bank of cabinets, Catseye nodded emphatically.
"Catseye is good at keeping things in order!" She pulled one of the
drawers open and frowned at the paper files. She didn't know what
she'd been expecting, but paper hadn't been it. Not that paper was a
bad thing. "Catseye can keep paper in order," she assured Nathan.
"Catseye is reading lots with MisterPointyEarsBeaubier and learning
new words every day!" She knew about the term 'order' from her
classes, that numbers and letters and lots of things had orders. She
read the continent name on the front of the filing cabinet and scanned
the labels of the files in the drawer, then turned to Nathan. "Catseye
understands. Catseye knows about geography!" She didn't know all the
countries in all the continents but she knew enough to figure out that
the system was arranged by countries in cabinets that represented
continents.


Nathan raised an eyebrow. "You'd be surprised how many of your fellow
employees that baffled, their first day in the office," he said with a
hint of a smile. "There's color-coding on the files themselves, too."



Catseye preened a little at being referred to as an employee and took a file out to examine. "Catseye knows colours when she is a girl," she said with a nod. The cat couldn't see all the colours a human could, but when she was a girl Catseye could see a fully human colour spectrum, "but Catseye does not understand what the colours mean. Can SoftHands explain to Catseye so she understands? And then meet Photocopier?"