Faenix shouldered the door to his upstairs inn room shut and plopped down on his bed. The room was still fairly bare, the bottle of bourbon he'd been drinking with Eva the only new addition to his belongings. It had sat on the table in the tiny room since the night he had walked her home and left her sleeping peacefully.
And he hadn't seen her at the inn since.
Izira didn't seem to have seen her, either. Then again, Izira didn't seem to like him very much as of yet. Perhaps in time. Couldn't hurt to keep being nice to her.
It probably wouldn't do to go traipsing around Eva's place just yet....as himself.
Faenix leaned forward and slid a box out from under the bed. It contained one of the only possessions he'd kept with him and taken pains to retrieve on running from Earth.
He took the lid off the battered box, and inside was his inert first vessel. Slightly more than 9 pounds of slightly-frazzled, green-eyed, yellow tabby, with a simple black collar and a tag that read "Nicksy." Neither alive nor dead as long as he wasn't inhabiting it (never mind the box) the vessel was simply there until he decided to animate it.
The cat-body was gently lifted out of the box and placed on the bed. Faenix got up for a moment and made sure the window was open, the desk under it and the single chair in the room sideways before that. Then he returned to the bed, picked up his cat-self and lie down letting the feline form lie on his chest. Hopefully anyone that came in while he was gone would simply assume his human self was sleeping.
He closed his eyes....and his green cat eyes popped open. He stood and stretched on top of his human vessel and its rumpled suit. It was like putting on an old comfortable set of clothes.
He double-blinked. Speaking of old comfortable clothes, did he really look like that all the time with the rumpled suit' Maybe that Lucy lady had been right. He'd have to take care of that later...
When did I start caring about my clothes" People must be getting to me.
Faenix shook off that thought and bounded down to the floor and back up his preset path to out the window. A few well-timed leaps and he was down to the street in front of the inn. People and their social bafflements forgotten now that he was back in his element, Faenix trotted past the people on the porch and headed off to Eva's place.
...
For once, one of his plans was going off without any problems.
It was a short walk from the inn to the marketplace even for a cat. He just kept moving and no one seemed to even think him worth bothering.
Until he met that kind-of dog about a block away.
It tromped out of the alley into the street right in front of him. Faenix had operated as a cat for years, normal dogs he could handle. Usually just territorial or curious, they could sense he wasn't a normal cat pretty quickly anyway. Then they'd just leave him be.
This one either wasn't right, or didn't care. Or maybe it was a special Rhy'Din breed.
Faenix stopped dead in his tracks but the thing was on him before he could even think to run. It got his right front leg in its jaws with too many teeth and shook him back and forth like a toy.
He whipped back and forth, the dogthing anchored on its muscled haunches, until his leg slipped out and he flew across the road and rolled to a stop. The leg was punctured, cut and bleeding; he could barely stand. Shock seemed to keep the pain at bay.
Head back up, he looked to see if the dogthing was coming to finish him off...
A yelp and a meaty thud from across the street. A man in some sort of uniform had the dogthing in a pole-noose and was shock-prodding it...
Good grief. Rhy'Din actually had a dog catcher!
Faenix blink-blinked and looked at his injured leg. Could have shown up a few seconds sooner, but....I better not complain....I hope Eva knows some vet medicine...
He was already standing in a small pool of blood. He limped the remaining distance to Eva's door.
...
Now Faenix saw he had a problem. Eva's hopefully upstairs....but he knew already he'd never be able to jump up to a window or anything of the sort.
He felt woozy. How much blood did he have to lose in this vessel, anyway' How much had he lost' There was a trail of spatters behind him leading up to the door. It'd been a long time since he'd been hurt in this form; before he'd been able to expend essence and use his song of healing to patch up, anyway.
Dead in an alleyway like an unloved stray. What a stupid way to lose a vessel.
He did the only thing he knew he could do safely - he wailed as loud as he could - hopefully Eva would hear and come down to at least shut him up. So much for charming his way in.
She didn't show up. He kept at it, getting weaker he thought.
He got dizzy. His vision started to go black. Such a stupid way to die...
"Shaddup, you stupid cat!"
And a mighty thwump against the door...
Faenix fell over and looked at the thrown object that rolled to a stop beside him.
Is that a potato"
He could have sworn the door started to vibrate when everything went black.