The Cat and the Bird (Foxes and Hounds are for Disney!)

[Nyx]

Hmmm... Was this a wise decision?

Was anything really a wise decision?

Could a wise decision ever be made, so long as one lived on Earth, for that matter?

Eh, wise it was not, but Nyx really could care less. It had been about a week since that day, and she was looking for a way to well... Not think so much ABOUT that day. After that week, she'd still been upset, and no attempts to calm her had been met with success, in any kind, at all. In fact, when certain people attempted to calm her down, notably some low-ranking soldier who thought it was a good idea to give her the whole "life ain't fair" lesson, in the stylings of a fire-and-brimstone Presbyterian preacher, it usually ended WITH fire and brimstone, as well as bits of steel and severed fingers and toes. She wasn't quite in the mood for a life lesson, you see.

As it happened, Nyx had come to North City, venturing not only out of her comfort zone, Drachma, where she was almost completely safe from persecution for RIOTE's so called "crimes" (If only more people in the world were "criminals" like RIOTE.), but into the lion's den; North City, home of Fort Briggs, which took a full-scale invasion, from two directions, one of which was inside Briggs, to capture, and even then, not permanently; while RIOTE did willingly give it up for Reila Tsukino, they could have easily formed a rebellion and taken it back, as was the way of the Briggs soldiers. But to come here alone? Eh, not a bright idea. But again, Nyx didn't care. If anyone had a problem with her being there, they could take it up with her personally. For now, however, she really just wanted to get away from Drachma, to take a break, to go do something else. Chase chickens in the snow for some reason, or stuff.

And yet, as she contemplated what she wanted to do, she realized she wasn't quite alone out here, in the frosty field of white she'd been walking through, headed towards the main part of North City; had she not these eyes of an eagle, she would have never really picked out his long hair from the color of the snow, and she knew this, since she didn't always have these eyes. But now, ever since she was seven, she'd noticed some new colors, especially where white, red, and green used to be; his hair was white on the edges, but a bunch of it in the middle was totally octarine!

Why she called it octarine, she didn't know, but it's a tough color to describe. Then again, all colors are hard to describe. But to Nyx, it looked like some combination of hot pink, pale blue, gray, and bright brelarnge. Well... That was another tricky one to describe, but that's also besides the point! Either way, she saw him walking, in front of her, through the snow, a good ways off, maybe forty yards. He looked about her age, to boot! So, instead of finding something to do, or somewhere to go, she just HAD to dash forward, full speed, probably surprising the poor boy, or girl (she wasn't quite sure, he had SUCH LONG HAIR!!) half to death. "Hi!~ Whatcha dooooin'?~" Arms behind her back, smiling for the first time in a good while, eyes a little curious, she leaned slightly forward, with her wings folded back a bit, waiting for him to say something.

[Reila Tsukino]

BUMP

[Sal]

Exhale.

Sal always thought it was interesting how the cold air made one's breath turn into a mist once it hit such low temperatures. It almost looked like smoke, and reminded him of how he once thought it was almost magical. He now knew it was far from magical - there was science behind it. A lot of things seemed to have lost their magical qualities after being acquainted with libraries, and he was beginning to miss those mysteries. At least there were still things he didn't understand, and he hoped that those would remain as magical as they had been so far. Choosing not to think about them, however, he continued walking.

His boots crunched in the snow, and memories surfaced of the Ole Miss lodged into the snow and ice, the crew he'd once had, and the experiences he'd gained. It was during that time that he had the misfortune - and fortune - of experiencing life from the eyes of a creature that was far from human, further than any chimera. Every time he thought about it, he wondered why the homonculi existed and how many others there were. He knew about Gluttony and Pride, but beyond that, his knowledge was limited. There was hardly any reading material on the subject, and he guessed that what little there was, was kept away from the eyes of the public. Though he was an important figure to the Pirates, to the rest of the world he was still simply a child. 14 wasn't quite a child, though, nor was it truly at the level of adulthood. It was an awkward age, one that brought with it a lot of strange feelings.

Sal's sole purpose in visiting North City was to try and make sense of everything. He knew he had people that would gladly listen to him if he chose to talk about his concerns, but he just wasn't sure what to say to them. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even sure what his problems were, or where they came from. All he knew was that things were different somehow, and it wasn't just the way his voice had begun to change that made him notice. He'd gotten taller, and slightly bulkier through a gain in muscle. Sure, people grew, especially children, but he wasn't ready to accept the fact that he had to leave his childhood behind so soon. Looking back, it felt as though he didn't have much of a childhood at all. At age 8 or 9 he had already started living on his own, and if it hadn't been for Xanthus, he likely wouldn't have made it far at all. Most of his memories before that were fuzzy, the exceptions being images of Gilles and Jie Huan. The chimera still had a difficult time wrapping his mind around the fact that Jie Huan wasn't his biological mother, but she had truly been a mother to him for the short time he knew her.

Looking down at his hands, he eyed the box they held. It was a pre-packaged box of doughnuts he'd acquired at the local convenience store (likely 7-Eleven, but he wasn't paying enough attention to remember). There were two bottles of chocolate milk in his pockets as well, to accompany the doughnuts. A three-to-one ratio of doughnuts to bottles of milk wasn't too bad, in his opinion. He would have gotten another, possibly with strawberry milk instead, but he didn't have enough room in the pockets of his coat. That, and it was already uncomfortable enough carrying those two bottles in said pockets. Hopefully he'd find somewhere to sit soon enough, because he was really itching to dig his fangs into these pastries.

Glancing at his surroundings, he noted that it was strangely empty. Normally there would have been more people wandering about, but he wondered if, perhaps, they were all staying indoors due to what happened a week ago. Sal only heard about it through the grapevine, and even then, the facts were likely skewed. It made him glad, however, that he had decided to take the crew in a new, better direction, because instead of hearing about these types of things through eavesdropping, he would be in the middle of them, helping in whatever ways he could muster.

The sound of footsteps in the snow pulled him away from his thoughts and back onto the cold, snow-covered streets. As his ears flicked around wildly, his eyes focused on the path ahead, and the person running toward him. Had he been any normal person, she would have caught him by surprise, but he was no normal person at all. There was a smile on the girl's face - she looked about his age - and she seemed to be approaching him. Raising his eyebrows inquisitively, he stopped and looked her in the eyes as she asked what he was doing. With a polite smile, he tilted his head.

"Me? I'm just wandering, but I was thinking I should find myself a place to sit down for a little while to enjoy these doughnuts." He paused for a moment, remembering all he'd learned in the past year. "What's a lady like yourself doing alone out in these parts, especially with the streets as empty as they are?" Tucking the box under his left arm, he lifted his right elbow and swept it gracefully toward her, forearm almost perfectly parallel to the ground. "Care to join me?"

Though this wasn't his usual behavior, he'd picked up plenty of advice from various sources about dealing with situations like these. He had the food, the drinks, and it was just the two of them. In addition, he felt the need to share with this girl that he'd only just met a few seconds ago. He wasn't sure why, but something about her was interesting, and it wasn't just the wings folded behind her back, which he almost didn't notice. His white tail waved about curiously. It was the first time he'd ever seen a chimera with wings, and he hoped that, should she accept his offer, he would be able to learn a little more about her. He's recently found that he enjoyed learning things, and learning about other people was no exception.

"Oh! I'm Sal, by the way. Captain Salazar Masu, at your service, milady," he said with a playful wink. It was how he had started introducing himself, the wink always included. Of course, he would swap "milady" for "sir" if necessary, but the concept remained the same. If there was anything that his First Mate had taught him, it was that good manners would get a man far, and, for all intents and purposes, Sal truly did consider himself a man (albeit a rather small, young one, but a man nonetheless).

[Nyx]

Squeeeeeeee? Nyx had really begun to forget her previous mood already, interested less in trying to comprehend all that Aurel had done with his master plans, and figuring out how best to make people shut up while she was trying to think, and instead, was entirely focused on Sal. With bright and shiny eyes of pretty amaranth, she looked over the young boy, He was her age, that much was clear, but a few inches taller than her, and his skin was a bit darker than her own, which was porcelain pale, a reminder of the lack of sunshine for a few years, and then of the frigid cold she loved to call home, and the fact you can hardly tan in Drachma. But as the boy spoke, she could sorta see why he had dark skin; he sounded Ishvallan! Nyx didn't know much about Ishval, but she did know Ishvallans had white hair, red eyes, and dark skin. Which made sense, she supposed. More sense than her strangely colored teal-ish hair, anyways.

Listening as he spoke to her, she smiled. "About the same as you, actually." Trying to sound more graceful and ladylike, as Ms. Val had seemed and in some ways, taught Nyx, she tried to speak a little more proper Amestrian than her usual distinct West City dialect. It was almost successful, but fell short slightly. No matter, she still thought it sounded sophisticated and proper! Speaking of sophisticated and proper, he extended an elbow for her, all gentlemanly and such, and in response, she did that little slight turn-away and giggling into her hand thing, which was apparently how a proper lady should laugh. She then smiled at him and nodded, accepting the elbow.

Walking with him now, in search of a place to enjoy the doughnuts, he introduced himself, and Nyx nodded, still smiling. "It's lovely meeting you, Captain Masu. Or would you prefer Salazar? My name is Nyx Schwartz." In way of imitating his introduction, she gave a little wink of her own. Hmmm... And while it didn't SEEM very lady-like to her mind, she kinda wanted to pet his ears, because they looked really fluffy and awesome... But she decided not to. But wanted to... SO BAD.

[Sal]

It seemed she was just as polite as he had hoped. Either that, or his own behavior had made her feel obligated to play the part. Nonetheless, he hoped things would go just as smoothly as they seemed to so far. After all, she had taken his arm, which was always a good sign. At least, that was what Sec had told him. "Most just call me Sal, or Captain Sal, but you may call me whatever you like, Miss," he responded, waiting for her to introduce herself. She did. Pause. "Nyx Schwartz?" The name Schwartz seemed familiar to Sal, but he preferred not to think about it for too hard, or for too long. Now wasn't the proper time for it. After all, there was a young lady he was destined to entertain, and she would not wait for him to make sense of such trivial things. With a playful chuckle, he dipped his head ever so slightly. "The pleasure is all mine, Nyx...or would you rather I call you Miss Schwartz?"

Sal was turning into quite the charmer, and though he wasn't aware, was developing those skills with every second. Luckily for him, this behavior was likely to take him far. Perhaps not everywhere he needed to go, but far enough. Even if it didn't, it was obviously getting him places with Nyx. He felt his cheeks warm slightly at her wink, despite the fact that he knew it was to mimic his own. Clearing his throat to avoid any awkward silences, he glanced at a nearby pathway. They had stopped at an intersection that he knew well - the path in question would lead to a nearby park. Not only was this a good place to accompany a lady, but it had benches fit for a midday snack such as this. "I know the perfect place to eat these, and it's not far from here, only a few minutes. Shall we?" he insisted, tilting his chin toward the path, a smile on his face.

For some reason, he felt that, for him, this had started to become more than simply escorting a damsel. If he remembered correctly, this situation qualified as...what was that word? A date. No matter the outcome, he was sure that he would have to relay his experience to the man that had taught him what he needed to know about situations like these. Then again, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to. Pushing the thought aside, he looked at Nyx, and began to walk. The young Captain would have plenty more time to consider his next course of action while they walked and consequently ate, and that was good enough for him.

[Nyx]

Well, he was certainly polite! In fact, as Nyx listened to him talk, it seemed kind of like how Aurel usually talked to people, all sophisticated and charming and such. "Sal..." She said his name thoughtfully for a second, and smiled. "Sal's a nice name." Soon after he noted his name, she introduced herself, and he asked how he should address her, to which she gave another little giggle, and shook her head. "Just Nyx is fine, Sal~ Though my daddy's workers usually call me Lady Nyx, though I'm not quite sure why. And then he's Mr. Schwartz to everyone." Ehh... She should probably speak a little less about Aurel... Not quite a good way to meet people and make friends. Buuuuut, he WAS Aurel, and as such, Nyx could talk about him to whoever, whenever, and be a total honeybadger about it.

Soon after, he noted that there was a good place to enjoy the tasty food, which he was going to share, much to her delight; not only did she have a new friend, but he was being all gentlemanly and stuff, and he even had doughnuts! In response to his totally posh "Shall we?," Nyx said with a smile and a nod, "We shall~" before laughing, and walking with him. As they walked, she figured a bit of small talk couldn't hurt, and she was really curious about him. Not one to bring up chimeric attributes, she rejected the thought to ask if she could pet his hair, or how he became a chimera, and instead, decided to ask about his job. "So, you're a Captain? What are you a Captain of?" Hmmm... She really didn't ponder it much, but as she spoke, she did find her words a little awkward sounding. She'd have to learn the standard way to speak Amestrian, at some point, since her dialect, while fairly understandable, just sounded kinda weird when he was speaking Amestrian way better than her... At least she didn't have to speak Cretan? If her West City Amestrian was bad... her Cretan was at least a gazillion times worse.

As he regailed her with some answer of sorts, and the like, she listened, with interest, partly because of his neat life, and partly because dat accent. Erm, I mean, *because she was intrigued by the Ishvallan accent he spoke with. Yeah, that. And soon enough, they reached their destination and sat on a bench. After a moment, Nyx decided to scoot over, closer to Sal, on grounds that it was cold. But of course, she really just thought he was cute or some other thing girls think about their future whipping-slave-money-machines/submissive-man-servants-with-nice-abs husbands. And of course, doughnuts smelled better up close; this also played a factor in her moving closer!

[Sal]

The fact that the girl allowed him to address her just by her first name was certainly pleasant. After all, it was a bit awkward addressing people so formally all the time. He was used to it, though, as the only situation he would allow himself to act casually was if he was at the Pirate's current headquarters. Interestingly, the repetition of the surname Schwartz tugged at Sal's curiosity once again. He had decided that, once the day was over and he had a chance, he would sit down and figure out why the name seemed so important. Surely it was a fairly common Amestrian surname, but there was a certain weight it carried in his mind that convinced him it was more than that.

Nyx's question pulled him back to the present. It seemed that he would have many of these lapses in conscious thought processes. Not too many more, he hoped. Regardless, it became time for him to describe the Pirates to her, which took some thought. After all, it wasn't proper, nor appealing to blatantly state that one is the leader of an organization that is essentially a group of criminals. Despite the fact that he didn't know Nyx well enough to gauge whether she would care or not, he chose not to risk it and decided on a watered-down explanation. Or rather, the short, shineless, simply truthful explanation. It lacked all the bells and whistles of the job description he gave to new crewmates and to most of the world, but it would have to do for the time being.

"Well, Nyx," he began, carefully choosing his words, "I'm a Pirate Captain. We've been having a bit of trouble getting ourselves to the open waters, though, so I guess we're land-locked pirates for now." Sal held in a sigh of relief at the sight of the park benches, where he directed his lovely companion, and as they sat, she scooted a bit closer. On most occasions, he would have considered the distance to be much too short, even for a casual meeting, but it seemed strangely appropriate with Nyx. Then, it dawned on him. If she was closer, it meant more body heat. Even though he considered she might be closer to smell the doughnuts better, there was still the possibility of her being cold. After all, North City could be rather brutal to those unaccustomed to the climate, and it was getting to be winter, which made things even worse. He knew he was rather warm-blooded himself, and didn't get cold easily. As a matter of fact, he was often described as being a portable heater.

As he held the opened box of treats toward the girl, he glanced at her rather curiosly. "If you're cold, just say so. I don't mind sharing my coat for now, I've got enough layers underneath." If necessary, he would let her wear it. It was his prized possession, his red, white, and black uniform coat. Not that the crew really had a standard uniform (which he considered changing on multiple occasions), but it was easily recognizable, not just by the colors, and not just by the coat-tails, but because he was the only person that wore it. It had been custom made just for him, just like his weaponry, and every time he put it on, he felt like a completely different person. As he readied himself to take it off, he grabbed the chocolate milk bottles from the pockets and placed one next to him on the bench. The other remained in his hand and he offered it to Nyx.

"Nesquik?"

[Csilla Angelis]

{BUMP}

[Nyx]

Nyx listened intently, with curiosity at the max, as he went in-depth on exactly what he did, occupation-wise. Nyx would have found it strange he was the Captain of anything, to be honest, at such a young age, really. Well, would have, that is, had she not, herself, done some things few would really ever expect a fourteen-year-old to be capable of. And apparently, so had he! Pirate captain wasn't a title one just picked out of thin air, you know? Her eyes brightened a little, with curiosity and some surprise. "Really? You, a pirate captain? Wow, that's so cool!~ I remember when I was little, I went around playing pretend and tried to make my friends walk the plank. It didn't end so well, most of the time... Mostly because there wasn't a plank." Ah, she missed some of those kids from the orphanage... Well, she had Aurel now, and she wouldn't trade him for any of her former friends, long since gone into the dust, most likely either adopted or of age to leave, at eighteen. Not to mention none of them would recognize her if they saw her again; even with her rather unique hair color, she'd changed far too much since then.

Choosing only to ponder such thoughts briefly, she sat down when Sal had, and after she scooted closer, she blinked briefly, which she seemed to do a lot, and smiled, as he started to take his coat off for her. It was a really nice coat, actually, and was probably really warm. As such, she didn't really want to steal away all the warmth! She was so accustomed to the cold climates of Drachma, it wasn't really even that cold where they were sitting, she just wanted to smell the doughnuts better. AndSal'shair. Erm... No, no, just the doughnuts. Evenifhediduseniceshampoo. Hmm... Where were we? Oh yeah, the coat! Not wanting to steal away all of the warmth, especially if she didn't even need all of it, she wrapped half of it around her (it was a really big coat!), and turned to Sal with a smile. "It's really nice of you to offer your coat, thank you!~ But I don't want you to be cold too; we could share it, right?"

The coat-based coldness-caused ordeal over, or at least as over as it could get, for the now-time, Nyx saw the box of doughnuts offered to her, and reached in to grab one, a fluffy looking sugar-glazed doughnut, not much special about it, but it was still her favorite type of doughnut. Offering her always cheerful "Dank u~" which totally didn't sound like an awkward mispronunciation of the Standard Amestrian "danke," she bit into the tasty pastry and chewed for a few second, enjoying the sweetness, and finally swallowing the little bite of heaven before Sal pulled from the pockets of the coat some milk. Chocolate milk, no less! Hearing him offer one to her, she nodded with a bright smile, and accepted the Nesquik, again thanking her new-found friend. "So, Sal~ How did you become a pirate, if you don't mind my asking?" That sounded about right, as Nyx considered the properness of her choice of words. From all Miss Val had told her about etiquette, it was totally a good thing to add the if-you-don't-mind bit, as it sounded fancier, for one, and also seemed to impose less. Sounded less nosy too, and Nyx supposed that was a good thing. At the moment, however, she could care a bit less; she had doughnuts and Nesquik, and was totally not practically cuddling the cat-like boy under his jacket, mostly due to the closeness the coat imposed. Though it did feel comfier...

[Csilla Angelis]

{BUMP}

[Sal]

To Sal's surprise, Nyx slid up close and wrapped half of the coat around her before he had a chance to take it off completely. The situation made his cheeks feel a bit warm, the way the girl was so close to him and sharing his coat. It was weird, but... it was a good weird. Especially since she explained her reasoning so well. He couldn't really deny sharing it in cold weather, since they'd both be warm as a result. "Y-yeah, we can share...that's fine, I suppose..." Admittedly, it did feel warmer now that they were both under the coat. Besides, he had still technically offered her the coat, and she did accept... sort of. Mentally scolding himself for stuttering, he simply smiled at Nyx as her gazed drifted to the box in his lap.

At that moment he felt relieved that the focus shifted from the sharing of the coat back to the doughnuts. Not only that, but it seemed that Nyx's favorite just happened to be the original glazed. Ahh, a woman after his own heart. While he personally enjoyed all flavors, there was nothing quite like an original glazed doughnut with a glass of milk - or in this case, a bottle of chocolate milk - and it appeared that she thought so as well. Nodding as she took the Nesquik, he opened his own, and after taking a rather large bite out of his doughnut, took a swig of the drink to wash it down. It seemed they would be able to get along just wonderfully. "You're very welcome," he responded, almost purringly. It wasn't often he met someone his age with the same level of manners. Consequently he was really starting to wonder if he could convince her to go back to the Pirate HQ with him so that he might introduce her to the others - especially Sec.

The conversation continued with an interesting question. How did he become a pirate? "Well, it really started with someone I met a couple of years ago," he began, thinking back to the time when he'd first met Jack. He had been the original pirate captain, but disappeared rather soon, leaving Sal to take his place, as was the custom (he'd been the First Mate at the time). "We were in similar situations. We were on our own in the streets without anybody there to help us out. I don't like to think about it, but back then I had to steal to survive. I mostly just took a few food items here and there, and usually slept wherever I could keep out of the rain." Sal stopped for a moment to take another bite of his doughnut. "He was the first captain of the crew, and I figured we'd be pretty close...but he disappeared, and since I was his second-in-command, I ended up being captain. Though there were only three of us left then, people have come and gone. I don't really mind, though. Someday we'll be a well-known crew around the world. I can feel it."

He took a moment to finish the doughnut, then looked at Nyx. "So...what about you? I know you mentioned your father... Mr. Schwarz? So, what does he do? Or, what do you do?"

[Csilla Angelis]

{BUMP}

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