[network] @ADMIN; Arrival

[snowblindmods]

Welcome to Norfinbury. The time is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R and the date is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R. This network has been provided for your use. Please interact politely with everyone else on this network.

Comments

[spoileralert]

If it was physically possible to leave this town we all would have already. There’s a huge wall of snow and ice around it, and at least ten miles of stupidly deep snow until the next town. And like I said, if you’re outside overnight you will die.

There is a cat, but I don’t think he uses the network much.

[dousedflame]

[She doesn't know what a mile is, but from the sound of it, it's a very long distance... and if it's a long distance for a Twoleg, it must be impossible to fathom for a cat.]

Only one cat...? [Her whiskers droop a bit, and she huffs softly.] Okay, what exactly is a town? I don't understand that word.

[spoileralert]

Just the one, yeah.

A town is... a place where a lot of humans live, with lots of different buildings.

[dousedflame]

[She scrunches her nose. None of these are words she's familiar with.]

What are humans, and what are buildings?

[She feels like learning all of this is going to be a headache, but surely if one Twoleg is using the words like she expects others to know them, others will use them later. Bluestar would rather be prepared.]

[spoileralert]

I'm a human, and what you woke up in was a building. I'm in a building too.

[ She turns the camera around to show the interior. ]

You need to be in one before they lock for the night.

[dousedflame]

Oh.

[She usually refrains from saying 'oh'... it's not very leader-like. But that's really all she can think of for a moment. Then, after some thought, she remembers how culture-sharing works.]

We call your kind Twolegs. Buildings are... Twoleg nests, and a town would be a Twolegplace.

[These are much simpler terms, in her mind. The ones the Twoleg is using don't even relate to each other.]

[spoileralert]

Twolegs, huh? But plenty of things have two legs.

[dousedflame]

True. Birds have two legs, but their wings define them more. I'm not sure why we call you Twolegs. We just do.

[And this seems like a satisfactory answer for her.]

Do you have a name, Twoleg?

[spoileralert]

[ She shrugs. ]

Seems fair.

I'm Stephanie.

[dousedflame]

Stephanie. [What an odd name.] My name is Bluestar. I am the leader of ThunderClan.

...

Or... was. I suppose I can't serve them if I'm here.

[Oh, StarClan, she really hopes Redtail can handle things without her.]

[spoileralert]

Nice to meet you, Bluestar. Or, as nice as it can be, around here.

I hope your people are okay.

[dousedflame]

I trust my deputy with my life, but I can't say I'm comfortable with leaving him in control so suddenly.

[Redtail still seems so young to her; she can remember him waddling around the nursery like it was yesterday. It worries her to think what might happen to him, thrust into the role of leadership. It worries her that there's one less cat keeping an eye on Tigerclaw.

She moves to lick her shoulder, but her tongue just runs across the pressed felt on her coat and she makes a face of distaste.]

Could you tell me how to get this Twoleg pelt off of me?

[spoileralert]

The jacket?

[ She frowns at it, having only just now realized that no, the cat can't have put that on herself. ]

Uh... I'm not really sure. They're designed for a more flexible shoulder joint than you have. Try pushing it against a wall and backing out of it, with your front legs stretched out like this.

[ She demonstrates the proper positioning. ]

[dousedflame]

[She listens to the explanation, and tries to act it out... but aside from looking silly, she starts to worry about getting stuck when it catches for a moment on one of the worn price tags on the shelf she pushes it against. Another attempt,
and her fur ruffles with frustration.]

Are you nearby? Could you help me with this?

[She doesn't like to ask help from another species, but... desperate measures and all that. She counts being stuck in a cat coat as a desperate time.]

[spoileralert]

I'm not sure. Can you give me a better look at the building you're in?

[dousedflame]

[It takes some work, but Bluestar manages to angle the camera so that it shows a few worm's eye shots of the store she's in. She's relying mostly on poking the camera around with her paws, so the angles are shaky and odd, but Stephanie will be able to see a display for fish tanks, some plastic rocks on shelves and what might have been a cricket tank at some point.]

Everything here smells like stale prey. There's dog smell in some of the paths, but it's very old.

[Do Twolegs rely on smell for anything? Probably not, from what she's seen of them, but that's the information she can give.]

[spoileralert]

[ She stares closely at the video and replays it a few times. ]

A pet store, probably. That would be downtown... probably at least a week for me to get there. Sorry.

[dousedflame]

How long is a week?

[From the sounds of it, she's guessing it's probably a few days, but she wants to be sure.]

[spoileralert]

7 days. [ ... ] Do you know what days are?

[dousedflame]

I know what days are. [She doesn't seem offended.] What you call weeks, we call quarter-moons. They aren't always seven days, but they're the time it takes for the moon to shift a quarter of its size.

[spoileralert]

Right, that makes sense.

We averaged it out, so it would be easier to plan things out.

[dousedflame]

I can appreciate the ingenuity.

[Counting days is difficult, though, she wonders how Twolegs can manage to keep track of so many mundane details...]

So... you're ten days' travel away from me? [That's definitely too far for her, she's only ever traveled a day's walk away from camp.] Don't you have a monster to bring you here?

[spoileralert]

A monster? No, I don't have a monster to bring me. The fastest way is through the tunnels, or it'd take a month. [ ... ] That's four weeks.

[dousedflame]

Are there no monsters in this world?

[She hasn't caught on that Stephanie might not know what she's talking about.]

[spoileralert]

That depends on what you mean by 'monsters'.

[ After Frisk she's a little more sensitive about what constitutes a monster to different people. ]