Sharon and Callie: Woodland Creatures

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The afternoon's stillness is interrupted when a certain feline metamorph pounces on a lone, pink chloropath.



When the seasons changed, as summer moved to autumn and the air began to cool and fill with the crisp scent of fallen leaves, that was Callie's favorite season. Autumn may have been the season of death, where plants died and decomposed into the dirt, which should have made her sad: all of those beautiful flowers shriveling up, bare trees beginning to fill the landscape looking empty and forlorn. But in truth, she was not sad, but filled with a sense of peace and contentment as the world around her settled down for a long nap. And after the frenzy of summer, the shift was calming enough that as Callie sat at the base of a tree in the woods outside the mansion, doing nothing but listening and thinking, she almost felt like she once did before Genosha happened.

The fierce predator was making her way back through the tree branches towards the mansion after an inspection of her domain when she came upon her unsuspecting prey. Quietly getting into position, the small purple cat waited patiently, not making a sound until she was certain that her prey was lost in thought. And then she struck, her war cry of Flying Cat Death From Above! ringing out in a wail of cat sound as she landed on Callie's shoulder.

All sense of tranquility quickly disappeared as soon as the beast let out its wail. Before Callie could react, however, the creature had landed on her shoulder, disrupting her balance, and causing the young woman to bend from the built up momentum, completing the fall's arc as her body met the ground. There was only one animal she knew of who could wail thusly and who's mass could cause such a face planting.

"Hi Cats," Callie said with a hint of a smile. Even though half of her now lay in the dirt, it was impossible to be anything but amused at being pounced on by her former classmate, especially since, having been the object of a number of such attacks in her former life as a student, she knew it was all in good fun. "It's good to see you too."

Catseye jumped off so that Callie could straighten and climbed into her lap, headbutting an elbow before rubbing against Callie's cheek, purring all the while. After a few moments, however, she leaped out of Callie's lap and shifted into girlform. "Hello Callie! I haven't seen you around in aaaaaaaages! How are you? Are you enjoying the woods today? Lookit all the colours of the leaves! Aren't they sosososo pretty?"

"I've been around," replied her prey as she brushed the dirt off her hands and jeans. "I moved in a few months back, and have just sort of been relaxing." Callie sighed in contentment, looking up at the ceiling of warmly hued leaves. "I'm just glad the summer is over."

The catgirl knew Callie had moved back in, having smelled her scent around the mansion, but she'd rarely actually seen her friend around. And after her comment about being glad the summer was over, and a little assumption, Catseye thought maybe she understood why. "Because of Genosha?" she questioned, figuring it worked as a question for both why Callie had moved back in and why she was glad the summer was over.

"Yeah." There was no sense in lying about it. While her time in Genosha itself hadn't been particularly long, the additional weeks spent obsessing over what she could not remember had stretched the battle (Callie considered that word the closest description to what had happened) into a summer-long ordeal. Accepting that was behind her, that she deserved to move past it and she would work on not obsessing over what had happened had been the most difficult step, and although she knew this was completely cliche, Callie swore she could feel some of these obsessive thoughts being collected by the autumn breezes and carried away. And it was freeing.

"I shut down after. Fred had to come over and practically carry me back here." Callie chuckled as she remembered that day and how stubborn he had been. "It was not my finest hour."

"Sometimes friends have to manhandle each other because it's what's best," Catseye answered sagely, nodding. She poked Callie with a nail to make her point. "Besides, friends never seem to mind seeing each other in what's not their finest hour. Is that maybe because friends sometimes do get to see each other in their finest hour, so it's like a 'take the good with the bad' thing?" she pondered aloud, then drove right through the question to another. "So you're not shut down anymore? You're doing better? Can I help?"

"When did you get so smart, Catgirl?" It may have been an attempt to deflect the attention away from her, but the question would also give Callie a chance to think things over some. Catseye was right, Callie could admit that, which made it more difficult to really accept the things her purple-haired was saying as pertaining to her situation. Callie had always been the one who was there to help out everybody else, to take care of them when they were down, not the other way around.

"I'm doing better," Callie finally replied with a sigh of exhaustion. "I'm just trying to be more social. Which, sitting alone in the middle of the woods isn't quite conducive to, but you found me. So I get to count that as doing what I'm supposed to? Right?"

"Of course that counts!" Catseye answered with an enthusiastic nod. "And I've always been this smart, I was just never this human before," she commented with a proud smirk. "But I think sitting alone in the middle of the woods is social, in its own way. I don't think a lot of people understand that the woods are alive and that they do say things to you. Lots of things. If you understand them. And you do. I also figured out, because I'm so smart," she preened, "that food can say things to you, too. Have you been doing much cooking lately?"

A small smile played on the younger woman's lips- Catseye's good mood was infectious. "You're right once again," replied Callie. She wasn't quite sure that her therapist would agree with the idea of sitting in the forest alone being a social activity, but perhaps the chloropath could consider it as a powers exercise of sorts. But that was neither here nor there at the moment, and the important part was that she was engaging with people now- she would deal with her therapist later.

"The only talking foodstuffs I know are Veggietales," Callie continued. "Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato... you're probably have no idea what I'm talking about, sorry. But I've been cooking. You know, so that I have things to eat. Soup, pasta, stir-fries, you know."

Catseye cocked her head at the mention of Veggietales; indeed, she had no idea what that was. "Is that a book?" she inquired, taking a wild guess based on the names Callie was putting out there.

"Oh no." Her attempt at suppressing a giggle of mirth failed. "They're cartoons. For kids. One of those that helps teach kids lessons about sharing and acceptance of others and Bible stories and other important topics through really fun songs. I have a few DVDs. Just because they're made for kids, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy them too."

"Why did you ask about my cooking?"

"Bible stories like the one about the fishes? I like that one. Because I'd like to create a lot of fishes out of only two fishes! I like lots of things that are supposed to be for kids so I think I would like to see your singing vegetables Callie! And I asked about cooking to see if you wanted to cook with me of course! Because we used to cook together! We made food together and that was when I started liking to make food!"

"We did, didn't we?" Callie smiled as a wave of nostalgia washed over her. She had certainly spent her fair time in the mansion's kitchen when she had been in school there, both with Catseye and with others, baking. Pies, cookies, cakes, brownies, pancakes.... The more she thought about it, actually, the better some fresh from the oven baked goods sounded.

"You know what," the chloropath continued, pushing herself off the ground and wiping off the specks of dirt and leaves that clung to her. "I am suddenly really in the mood for some pumpkin cheesecake brownies. How about you?"

Catseye pretended she'd been physically struck by Callie's suggestion and fell over. "Pumpkin? Cheesecake? Brownies? I love all those things separately but I have never had them together before! Yesyesyesyesyes we have to make these Callie!"

Callie laughed and offered her hand to her fallen fellow; all her anxiety and worries she had been carrying around had dissipated without her noticing. And without thinking too hard about it, she decided it felt good. "So what do you say we head inside and whip up some goodies and while we wait for them to bake you can tell me what you've been up to since we both left school, CatGirl?"

Catseye let Callie pull her up, squeezing her hand. "I want to hear what you've been up to, too! So I think that sounds perfect! Yesyesyes!"

"All right then!" The younger girl swung their clasped hands in the direction of the mansion. "Let's go!"