Chapter Text
Keras sat, cross legged on the roof of one of the many buildings that made up Lorian Heights Academy. The Jaden Box was open in front of him, with most of its contents removed. Keeping part of his attention focused on the campus, he looked through the various items. He recognized many of them, but there were a few stranger-looking ones that he wanted to take a closer look at. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with the black aura dagger.
He reached for one of the more harmless looking items, a small cat pendant that had a strange multicolored aura. He had barely brushed his fingers against it, when he felt a shock of something travel up his arm.
Keras barely recognized it as alteration mana before it spread to the rest of his body, and an unfamiliar, slight pressure rose at the top of his skull. He stumbled, and caught himself on the ground with one hand. His vision was blurry, and he cursed to himself. Maybe choosing to go through the box by himself had been a bad idea. He just hadn’t wanted to get the kids involved.
Everything felt… smaller, for some reason. Except that the rooftop seemed to be getting larger. He could chalk that up to dizziness and the sudden intrusion of a foreign mana type into his body, but there was another explanation: he was getting smaller. He let out a hiss of frustration, then felt the surge of alteration mana fade. He was still a lot smaller than he should have been, but at least he wasn’t actively shrinking anymore.
Wait. That hiss had sounded… strangely like an actual hiss.
Cautiously, he looked down at his hands.
Or rather, where his hands should have been. Because in their place was a pair of small, silver and black paws.
A cat’s paws. Meaning…
Keras craned his neck around, trying to see the rest of his body. The silver-furred back and tail were not what he’d expected to see. He turned in a circle watching as the tail flicked as he moved. It cleared away the few remaining doubts he had. He had just turned himself into a cat. Wherever she was, Wrynn was laughing at him.
He walked a couple more slow circles, familiarizing himself with being a cat as quickly as he could. He couldn’t communicate like this, so he’d have to return to the house himself.
There was just one problem: the box. He couldn’t return the items back into it, and he definitely wouldn’t be able to carry them all himself. He glared at the cat pendant, swatting at it. He didn’t expect it to turn him back, but he might have to try.
Nothing happened. Of course it couldn’t be that simple.
His only option was to find one of the kids, then. They’d be able to help.
Keras stared down at the ground. Students were beginning to stream out of the doors. He looked for any familiar faces in the crowd but saw none. He let out an irritated noise, lowering his body to prepare for the jump down.
He leaped. The fall itself hit hard, but even as a cat, he had a large enough pool of stone mana that most of the impact was negligible. More frustrating were the people walking around him, so much bigger than him-as-a-cat that they nearly blocked out all his vision. He tried to weave through them, but he had no idea which way he was going.
“Cat!” Someone yelled, and the mass around him paused.
“You’re so cute,” one student aww’ed, leaning in to tentatively stroke his back. Keras leaped away, straight into someone else’s legs.
Resh. He was trapped.
“Oh, it’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you.” The student he’d just run into said, and they scooped him up. “Did you jump off the roof? That’s pretty dangerous.” They examined his fur, stroking it. “Where do you live?”
“Look at his eyes!” another student said suddenly. “They’re so blue! I bet if we asked if anyone has lost a blue-eyed, silver cat, we could find who he belongs to.”
“It’ll take a while to ask everyone,” the student carrying him said. “Maybe we could put up posters or—”
“What’s going on here?” a very, very familiar voice called. Keras’ head shot up. Meltlake was floating a head above the rest of the crowd, frowning.
“We found a cat, and we’re trying to figure out who it belongs to!”
Meltlake frowned and started to lower herself into the mass of students. He was saved!
She stared at him. He stared back, silently begging for aid.
“Well,” she said finally, “do it later. You’d all better get to class.”
As she turned away, he swore he saw her smirk.
Traitor.
He wasn’t sure how she knew it was him but he was positive she did. But at least that meant that there was hope one of the kids would be able to recognize him. Maybe it was his eyes, like one of the students had mentioned. But in order for that to happen, he needed to find one of the kids.
And in order to do that, he had to get away from these students.
“Alright,” said the student, still carrying him. “I’ll take you back to my dorm later, but I guess I don’t have time now, so… you’ll have to stay in my bag during my next class. Can you— resh!”
Keras flung himself out of their arms, and hit the ground running. He only had about a second’s head start, but it was enough. He had made it safely through a dozen or so pairs of legs before the students started moving again, trying to catch him.
Hands swiped at his tail, but he ran faster, scrambling down the sidewalks as quickly as he could. Running was much, much harder as a cat than as a regular person with two legs, but he kept going. Eventually, the crowd thinned, and he skidded to a halt, letting air back into his lungs.
There was a bush nearby that he lept into once he had caught his breath. Hopefully it would deter the students from trying to get to him.
He waited, peeking through the leaves, for a few minutes. Once the pathways had completely emptied, he ventured back out. He didn’t really know their class schedules, and after that, he did not want to risk the crowds again. His best bet would have to be the dorms. None of the kids spent a lot of time in their assigned rooms anymore, but he knew that they stopped there a few times a day to switch out which textbooks they had in their bags and sometimes to change uniforms, if the ones they had on got dirty.
Only, he didn’t really know where the dorms were.
Well, he’d have plenty of time to look. Students wouldn’t be bothering him, at the very least.
There were a lot of buildings, but after a while, he started to see buildings that looked a little more residential. Figuring out which building to go into would be a problem. But he didn’t have much to go off of anyway, and there was no reason not to try the first one in front of him.
Now, how did he get in? In theory he could leap up and grab the handle, but he didn’t think he’d be able to pull it open. At least not without attracting someone’s attention. He could just wait until someone left, but he had no idea how long that would take.
Keras looked up. On one side of the building, a window was open.
Aha.
He headed to the base of the wall and scrambled onto one of the windows. He jumped up to the next one.
He missed and fell back down, but managed to catch himself on the first window. He tried again and again, until on the fourth try he landed on the thin ledge of the window he’d been aiming for.
Carefully, Keras slipped into the room. It was empty, and simply furnished. On one side was a neatly made bed and a cabinet, and on the other a desk, bare except for a few books, pens, and what looked like a sketchbook, the cover partially open from repeated use.
He landed softly on the floor. Unless one of the kids had been hiding away some artistic interests, this wasn’t one of theirs. But it was a dorm room, and given how there were four kids, each in a different one of the school’s five divisions, the chances that he was at least in one of the right buildings was pretty good.
Keras looked around, trying to figure out if there was a way to determine whose dorm this was. Even if it probably wasn’t one of the kids’ dorms, it was better safe than sorry.
The sketchbook, maybe? It could have a name in it.
He crouched and leapt onto the desk. Then, carefully, he used a paw to flip open the sketchbook’s cover. It was harder than he had expected, and he ended up turning a few of the actual pages as well.
Keras moved to attempt to flip back to the cover, but as he did, his eyes caught on the drawing on the page. It was a drawing of a building of some kind, expertly shaded. The characters written above it looked Cas or Artinian.
Definitely not one of the kids, then.
He turned and leapt off the desk, intending to try to jiggle the door handle to let him out, when the door started to open.
Finally some good luck!
He was about to dart through the opening as fast as he possibly could, but then he hesitated. If the student coming in was as much a cat person as the others, maybe Keras could convince them to help him somehow? If nothing else, seeing the color of the uniform would tell him if he had one of the right dorms. He sat and stared up as the student, a boy from what he could tell, entered.
His coat had red accents, the same color he remembered on Corin’s. That meant Corin’s dorm was somewhere in here. Keras could work with that. He studied the boy, who had dark eyes and a sharp jaw. Something about him seemed familiar, but Keras couldn’t place why. His general appearance indicated he likely had some background in Dalenos or either part of Edria, but there were plenty of exchange students here, weren’t there?
The student didn’t seem to have noticed him yet, and Keras took the opportunity to examine him closer. He had dark hair that was cut just past his ears, a nice chin…
Keras let out a startled meow as the boy kept walking and nearly stepped on him. The boy stumbled and his hand went to his hip, likely to draw a sword. Thankfully he seemed to realize what had made the sound and let his hand drop. Then he frowned.
He glanced to the door, which he had just closed, then to the open window, and let out a sigh. “Of course,” he muttered, and bent down. “Hello. Do you have somewhere to go?”
Keras tried to meow in a way that signified “yes”. His attempt seemed to be somewhat successful, but communicating where was more of a challenge.
The boy raised an eyebrow. “Is someone going to be looking for you?” He knelt down and his frown deepened. “No collar. But you look pretty well taken care of. Hmmm. Well I have homework due first thing tomorrow, so I need to do that before I can try to help you. Is that okay?”
Keras eyed the door. It probably wouldn’t be worth it to wait for the kid to do his homework. It wouldn’t be too hard to find Corin’s dorm, right? He made his way to the door, pleased the boy didn’t try to stop him. He leapt at the door handle, slipped off and the boy let out a sigh. “Oh goddess. You’re going to be one of those cats, aren’t you.” He grumbled darkly, and Keras thought he heard, “…can’t I ever meet one of the sweet cats that everyone insists… ”
Turning his attention away from the boy, Keras made another leap for the door handle. For a split second, he might have grasped it, but he crashed fruitlessly back to the ground. He glanced back at the boy, who met his gaze and groaned.
“I’ll open it for you. Goddess, you’re just like my cat.”
Keras meowed triumphantly as the boy stood.
“But if you get caught, don’t come running back to me to get you out of trouble. I’m not sure we’re allowed to have animals on campus.” The boy pulled the door open and waited.
Keras didn’t move, thinking. If it was that hard to simply open a door handle, maybe it would be more difficult to locate Corin than he’d thought. Maybe he’d be better off waiting for the boy to do his homework.
Reluctantly, Keras backed up and sat by the wall.
“Are you serious?” The boy asked. When Keras just blinked he sighed and closed the door. “What did I do to deserve to end up with the Valian cat version of Jin?”
Keras startled. Jin?
With all of Corin’s rambling, the name was getting very familiar.
The boy apparently noticed his reaction. “My cat,” he clarified, smiling briefly. “My dad named her after me, for some reason. I guess they just like the name.”
The boy… was named Jin.
A boy named Jin, a student at Lorian Heights in the same dorms as Corin, who had East Edrian features, who wrote in Artinian.
It couldn’t be that Jin, could it?
Keras highly doubted there were other Jins at Lorian Heights, much less any East Edrian ones in Corin’s division, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d made plenty of assumptions before. Running into a friendly-enough student here was pretty convenient, and he didn’t want to waste an opportunity while he was a… cat.
He had to check. The sketchbook would have a name in it. Dalen Jin, Jin Dalen.
Keras stood and leaped onto the chair, then to the top of the table. Jin sighed and muttered something unintelligible. Turning the sketchbook’s pages was a challenge, just like before, but his paw managed to catch the pages and flip them almost immediately. On the back side of the sketchbook’s cover, a name was written in Artinian script.
Thank the gods he’d learned how to read it, it—
Dalen Jin.
Resh the gods. Of course it had to be that Jin.
“Hey, what are you— that’s mine!” Jin — the Jin who betrayed Corin in the spire, stalked him, possibly even manipulated his mind to an unknown degree — called. Keras turned to see him walking over, and wrenched back, glaring. A quiet cat noise came out of his mouth. It took him a moment to realize it was a hiss.
Jin slowed, face softening. “…Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, it’s okay.” He reached out a hand, not seeming surprised when Keras pulled away from it. “I was just surprised. Did you want to look at it?”
Keras regarded him silently.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I haven’t looked at some of this in a while anyway.”
Jin turned a page easily with his fingers. There was a drawing, clearly lower in quality than the page Keras had seen, of a sword. It was far from the real one that Keras remembered, but the features were clearly intended to evoke the image of Soulbrand, exaggerated crossguard, massive blade and all.
“Oh.” Jin winced. “I did that when I was… eight or nine. The reference was a toy, a replica of the Sword of Burning Life. Or Soulbrand, but I don’t think a Valian cat would make as much of a deal out of names as— most Valian humans, would it? I don’t remember it well, but apparently I ran around swinging it for weeks. Swords aren’t my preferred weapon, but I must have thought it was amazing.” He smiled briefly. “My great-grandfather supposedly wielded it a long time ago.”
He trailed off, staring at the drawing for a second, then shook his head and turned to the next page. Jin didn’t linger as long on it before he moved on to the next few pages, and Keras could only catch snatches of drawings— sometimes colored in, sometimes penciled, sometimes brushstrokes, one time an entire page filled with bright streaks of paint. After a few quiet moments, broken only by the rustling of the pages turning, Jin let out a short laugh. He turned the sketchbook to show Keras, a slight grin still on his face.
“I was twelve when I drew this, I believe.” It was a figure — shoulder-length hair, what looked like horns on their head, little circles drawn sporadically across the face. “This is Valmyrian.”
Wait, what? Keras knew that name.
Jin reached a hand around to the back of his neck and laughed almost self-consciously. The awkwardness felt doubled to Keras coming from him. “They’re a character. From this book I read, Dragon’s Damsel. I never read past the first book, because I was told there was adult content in it, and I took my Judgement soon after, so I barely had any time. Certainly not for, ah, this genre of book.”
Dragon’s Damsel. Dragon’s “Valmyrian should’ve had more time with Sir Vicious Malbad, I can’t believe they were separated after so little time together—” Damsel. Why did it have to be Dragon’s Damsel, of all the books it could’ve been?
No, wait— Keras thought suddenly of what else he’d mentioned, so offhandedly it had slipped under his radar. A Judgement at— a Judgement at twelve.
He couldn’t remember if that was the normal age in some places, but it didn’t matter. He’d seen the inside of those spires before, and he’d never noticed any safety nets. A twelve-year-old kid going in there? He must have been lucky to survive.
“That… aside.” Jin turned the page. “Here, look. I like doing realistic things, usually, so I was doing them here, and—” He winced a little. “—I wasn’t very good at first. My dad is an artist, though, so they helped me, and I had an art teacher as well. Only when I was younger, but I have fond memories of him.” He turned to the next page. It was good, objectively. Keras could easily admit that.
It was just… harder, reconciling it with Jin. The person who had metaphorically (at least) stabbed Corin in the back. Drawing the kind of art that he’d buy at a shop (or Reika would buy; Valmyrian was certainly not the only Dragon’s Damsel inspiration to make an appearance, however quickly Jin tried to flip past it) — that wasn’t in anything Keras would have anticipated, just knowing what happened between him and Corin.
But it didn’t matter, did it? Of course Jin had a life. That didn’t change that he had hurt Corin.
“I had to stop after my Judgement, but I’ve been wanting to do more recently.” Jin frowned down at the pages, then looked up. “Are you listening?”
Keras returned Jin’s gaze coldly, thoughtlessly. He wasn’t sure how much of his intended emotions got through, but Jin’s face fell.
“I guess you aren’t interested. It’s not the first time, don’t worry.” He turned through the pages mechanically. “Like people, like cats, I suppose,” he muttered with a stilted chuckle. “Well, I do have to do my homework…” Jin’s hand stilled, caught by something Keras didn’t see.
Then he followed Jin’s gaze to the page below. It didn’t have any discernible shape at first, just lines upon lines of pencil so thick the page looked torn in some places, spots of smudged charcoal, even a dash of red paint. But in between the lines were faces.
Some of them were hardly visible anymore beneath the pencil. But Corin’s face, that wasn’t nearly as obscured.
Jin stared down at it, like it had snagged onto his eyesight and tautened the line between them. He wouldn’t look away. Dark strands of hair fell past his eyes.
A slight growl rumbled in Keras’ fur. He stepped over to the sketchbook and pointed to Corin with his paw.
Jin’s shoulders shook. A quiet laugh, leaving a smile behind that looked somehow close to bursting. “Oh,” he breathed, “do you want to know about him?”
Keras tapped the drawing again, then drew back. It was surprisingly detailed compared to the rest of the page — clearly, care had gone into it. But here and there, a few pencil lines broke past his outline, and within it, there were eraser marks.
“I guess you do. That’s a coincidence; I was… just thinking about him.” Jin sighed and lifted his hand over his eyes, pushing his hair away as an afterthought. It sprung back quickly enough, like the swinging boulder pendulums they had in the Serpent Spire, but it didn’t conceal the brief glimmer behind his hair or the tightening of his lips.
Keras was too used to this kind of expression to not recognize someone trying to hide tears. He did it deftly, no more than a quick scrub of his knuckles, but not deftly enough.
“That’s Corin. He’s an Enchanter, smart, creative, funny. Brave. We were… acquainted; we collaborated on some things, and he was a good partner. I liked him. I even asked him to the winter ball, though we’re not going together now that he likely hates me.”
Jin swallowed. “As he should. I betrayed him.” His voice, which had been warmer as he spoke of Corin, hardened. “I hurt him. It was a complicated situation and I… I didn’t have a choice, there was no other way. But — and I know, it doesn’t matter, but — it couldn’t have been the right thing, I know that, not if that was how it had to go. Not if it had to end like that.”
He exhaled. It didn’t seem to relax the tension in his shoulders. “He hurt me, too,” he added, reaching a hand to his heart.
Keras almost hissed. To imply that Corin had been the one to fracture whatever friendship they’d had, that him defending himself was anywhere equivalent to Jin’s betrayal —
Jin was still talking. “…he did something to my shield sigil. The one he made — the phoenix, ironically enough, though I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of me when he made it. He caused it to explode and, well,” he smiled ruefully, “it was on my chest.”
…Resh.
“The Menders said I was lucky I didn’t have the sigil closer to my heart. It would have killed me.”
Corin had never told him any of that. A part of him wanted to call it a lie, but that would be unreasonable. It already explained the discomfort Corin seemed to feel whenever their fight on the Spire was mentioned — whenever Jin was mentioned at all, really — and people didn’t usually win a battle without fighting back. No, it made perfect sense that Corin had hurt Jin physically. He’d been right to do it.
But bursting an enchanted item placed on someone’s chest. Especially when that someone was unarmored, was… young. It must have been painful.
For the first time, Keras wondered how much Jin had already been hurting.
He loosened his jaw and tried to sigh. It came out as a thin meow.
Jin’s eyes flicked up, his hand dropping from his neck, and huffed. “Oh, so you won’t hate me when I’m hurt?”
His voice was more tired than anything, no edge to it, but his words still made Keras wince. It must have shown in his cat… features, because Jin sighed and offered his hands. “It’s okay. Maybe you’re even right, and I’m not, and it was all for nothing. The first — the only person in all of Valia who I ever felt like I could belong with, and it’s ruined. But what should I have expected? I knew when I transferred that they would hate me. Corin was never going to be any different. He — he could tell the school I’m a spy right now and I’d be taken away the next day; no one would say anything in my defense. Even he would’ve. Everything we did together — none of it mattered once he realized I was Edrian.”
The boy looked down at his hands, half held out limply. They clenched into fists and he pulled them away. “They were going to throw my people away as cannon fodder. How could I just let them—? I had no choice. I had… resh.”
His mouth opened as if he wanted to scream, but he only took a deep breath in, his right hand trembling, and breathed out.
Keras had lost the will to glare at him. He settled for simply sitting, eyes trained on Jin, as he buried his head in his hands.
Jin lifted his face and looked at Keras. The moment they made eye contact, he deflated. “I’m sorry, it’s… a sore subject. Obviously. And I can’t just brush it off, even though I’ve tried. Every time I think one thing I think the opposite, and I can never do the easy thing and lay the fault on him, because he doesn’t deserve that, and…”
He trailed off. “Oh, like you can even understand what I’m saying. I’m talking to a cat. Do you want to lie down somewhere? Stop talking about all of… this.” He shrugged halfheartedly towards his open sketchbook.
Keras thought about it. A part of him wanted to press Jin for more, tear the wound open. But more and more, that didn’t seem right. Jin wasn’t a lying backstabber who’d hurt Corin and disappeared without a second thought for the pain he’d dealt, he was just… a kid. A kid who’d made the wrong choice in a situation he hadn’t wanted to be in. It was still wrong, but… all Jin looked like now was broken up inside. He didn’t deserve punishment.
What he’d described happening… gods. Keras had dealt with his fair share of drama — more than fair, if he was being honest — but they were just teenagers. They should be doing teenager things, like… what even were teenager things? Studying? Going on hot dates? He remembered something Jin had said and, tentatively, added going to the winter ball to his mental list.
He probably wasn’t the best suited to answer that question. Still, he was pretty sure that — whatever they were — they definitely didn’t involve being tossed around by demigods, or being sent into dangerous spires (ever, which included when they were twelve reshing years old), or hurting each other.
Keras realized for the first time he was thinking about both of them. Not just Corin. Neither of them should have been in that situation.
After a drawn-out pause, just as Jin’s face began to fall again, Keras meowed in assent and padded across the table. The sketchbook page caught his eye as he walked past and, having an afterthought, he reached out a paw and awkwardly flipped the pages over. The sketchbook now was blank.
He stopped by Jin’s elbows and glanced up at him questioningly. Jin picked him up like it was second nature and started to scratch the fur on his back. Eventually he started to hum quietly.
Keras settled down in a comfortable position and pondered what to do. Maybe all they needed was to talk. Could he get them to? Of equal importance, could he be reverted back to his regular form? While considering possibilities, he started to feel himself drifting off here, and he didn’t — he didn’t quite mind.
Keras yawned and lifted his head from where he’d been unconsciously nuzzling the boy, blinking. He immediately ducked back down, as the sun shined in his eyes. Through squinted eyes he glared at the window. The sun had shifted, low in the horizon. It might be another hour or two before it was dark. He’d been here far longer than he’d planned. He didn’t regret it. It had been very informational, but at the same time, the kids would have definitely noticed that he was missing.
It was even possible that they had found the Jaden Box on the roof and had gotten into a similar predicament as he had. Hopefully, if that had happened, they’d gone together and knew about the cat pendant. But whether they had or not, he needed to find them. He meowed up at the boy and hopped off the desk. He sat by the door and meowed again. Jin set down his pen on his paper and turned in his seat to watch him. “Ah. Yes. I did promise to help you, didn’t I?” He stood, stretching as he did so. “You’ve been quite patient with me. What changed?”
Keras meowed again. And he was getting very annoyed with not being able to say anything. Jin nodded though, as if the meow had made perfect sense. “I did just dump a large amount of my trauma onto you, I’m not surprised that you need a break. I need one too.” He opened the door and waited for Keras to walk through. “Out you get.”
“Thank you. But I’m not leaving without you. If I do, you’ll never talk to Corin. And neither of you deserves that.” Of course, the only thing to come out of his mouth were several long meows, but he liked to think Jin got the point.
“You’re chatty now,” Jin noted as he closed the door behind him. Keras purred his approval. He wasn’t sure how he would have convinced the boy to come with him if he tried to leave Keras by himself, but he had no doubt it would have been tedious. “Well, come on. Let’s try to find whoever you belong to.”
Keras led the way down the hall, tail high in the air. He paused when they got to the stairs as a thought occurred to him. Hadn’t Corin said his room was the one directly below Jin’s? So if Keras went down one floor, and found the room Jin might be able to guess who he was looking for. Then he would be able to find Corin, which would be so much more effective than just wandering around on the off chance of bumping into one of the kids. It would even be more effective than trying to get to Hartigan Manor in this form. He glanced back, doing a quick count of the rooms. Left side of the hall, fifth one down from the stairs. He nodded to himself and then started down the stairs with a new energy.
“Hey!” Jin called as he hurried to keep up, “Where are you going?”
Keras stopped for a brief moment to ensure the Mesmer was still following him before he lept down the last several stairs and onto the landing that held the doorway to dorms on the lower floor. He started counting the doors until he reached the fifth one on the left side. He paused. Would it still be the left side? He was facing a new direction, so maybe Corin’s was actually on the right side. He paced back and forth across the hallways while he waited for Jin to catch up. Several seconds later a rather frazzled-looking Jin entered the hallway and Keras froze, watching him intently..
“I don’t know where you think you're going, but we’re not going to find your owner here.” He knelt to pick up Keras and the cat let him, staring at his eyes.
There.
The slightest flicker of his eyes to one of the doors. Corin’s door if Keras had to bet. He wiggled his way out of the hold and flung himself at the doorknob.
“Resh.” Jin swore as he attempted to grab Keras. “Resh. Why are you doing this to me? Is it because I spent the last who knows how long talking about him?” He paused. “What am I talking about? You're a cat. You can’t understand me. Not well enough to figure out which room is Corin’s.” He paused again. “I didn’t even tell you where his room was, did I?”
Keras avoided Jin’s hands once more, turning to give him an offended look. He was sure that even if he'd been a normal cat, he'd have been able to understand him perfectly. Then he leapt back as Jin reached forward. He hit the door with a muffled thud and winced. That had hurt a lot more than he had thought it would. Jin took advantage of his moment of distraction and wrapped his hands around him.
"Gotcha."
Keras meowed pitifully as he squirmed but Jin's hold was firm. He gave up instead tilting his head back, trying to look at the door. Surely Corin would have heard the commotion if he'd been inside. But he should have been out of classes for the day, and if he wasn't here, then he must have gone home already. Keras let out a sad sigh.
"You really wanted to see Corin didn't you?" Jin noted, shifting his grip to cradle Keras, but keeping one hand on the scuff of his neck to keep him from escaping. "I suppose I can't blame you for that. He's wonderful." A small smile crossed his face, but it was quickly replaced "Though, I'm nearly certain he doesn't have a cat. And he doesn’t stay in the dorms. Not anymore." He let go of Keras' neck and moved to stroke between his ears. "Do the dorms look like wherever you live? Is that why you're determined to get in? Because it looks the same? I haven’t seen much of Valian housing, but there are probably some apartments that look like this."
Keras was about to let out a huff when he heard footsteps. His ears twitched and he turned his head to see Corin come up from the stairs. He was focused on something in his hands that was humming very very faintly. Something told Keras that the only reason he would hear it was because he was a cat. That didn’t matter though, he let out a joyful meow and Corin's head snapped up.
"Ker— Jin?"
Jin's face flushed slightly. "Corin. Hello."
"Hi." Corin's eyes fell back to the cat who couldn't resist the urge to purr. He looked back at his hands, then at the cat. He pocketed whatever it was, and walked towards him. He bent down and caught Keras’ eyes. Blue and grey held contact for several seconds before the enchanter pulled back. "And hello to you too." He said, folding his arms. "How did you end up here?"
Keras meowed, which made Corin grin a little.
"I wasn't aware you had a cat," Jin spoke up, and when Keras tilted his head back to watch the boy. His cheeks were still flushed.
"Wow. You're not nearly as composed as Corin said." He meowed out. He was almost convinced that the boy understood him, because Jin thrust him forward to Corin. He let out a startled cry, but Jin just spoke over him
"Here. He found his way to my room."
"Thanks." Corin awkwardly reached out to take Keras.
Keras hissed and sunk his claws into the fabric of Jin's sleeve. He wanted to go back to the Hartigan house, and wanted to not be a cat, but he also wanted Jin to come with them. It was for the good of both boys. He didn't bother trying to say anything or meowing. He could get his point across without it. Besides, he was dealing with stubborn teenagers. He had some doubts that talking to them would be effective even if they could understand him. Actions, gentle actions, were needed here.
"Uhhh. What’s wrong?" Corin asked the cat, looking unsure. He reached out a hand, and Keras affectionately bumped his head into it. "Do…. Do you need Jin to come with us?"
Keras bobbed his head, pleased by how quickly the boy had picked that up.
Corin's brow furrowed. "Why?" He asked looking up from Keras to Jin. "Did you—" he pursed his lips, thinking. "—see anything odd when you found him?"
"No. I found him in my room when I got back from class." Jin shifted his weight awkwardly, then pulled the cat back towards him. Corin's frown deepened. "Sorry, his claws are starting to hurt me."
Keras let out a soft meow and retracted them, feeling guilty.
"Okay. Well…" he paused, taking a deep breath, "Do you think you could come with us? Just back to the house, it won't take long; I promise."
Jin nodded, looking confused. Keras didn't blame him. From an outside perspective, this must look very weird. But Jin liked Corin and Corin kind of was weird. In a good way of course, but still. Keras nodded to himself, which earned him two confused looks; that he elected to ignore as he slipped out of Jin's arms and headed to the staircase. He waited.
The boys shared a look. They walked over and Keras wound his way around their legs once before starting down the stairs. He checked frequently to make sure they were both still there.
They were, which was good. They were also sneaking glances at each other, then snapping their eyes back to Keras before the other could catch them. Well, that probably wouldn't last long. One of them would have to break and say something before they got to the house.
It would probably be Corin.
They reached the bottom stair, and Keras waited for the boys to open the door for him. Neither of them had tried to break the painfully awkward silence. Keras let out a soft sigh, head bumping Corin's leg. The boy glanced down and Keras bumped him again then stared at Jin. Corin glanced at him and caught the other boy watching him. They both looked away and Keras was almost a little impressed by how they kept making things more awkward.
Almost.
Mostly, however, he was annoyed. He let out a frustrated "meooooow" then turned his back to them with a whoosh of his tail.
"How'd you find him?" Corin asked as he stepped into the sunlight. "You said he found his way into your room, but do you know how?"
"I left my window open. I'm not sure how he managed to get up to it, but that's how he got in."
"Hmmm." Corin tilted his head, watching his guardian-turned-cat. "He probably jumped. There are some smaller ledges he could have used to grab onto. Or maybe he was on the roof to start with. and he leaped down."
"Why would he have been on the roof? How would he have even gotten up there?" Jin frowned. "Can we even get onto the roof?"
"Uhh, he's an unusual cat. He gets into all kinds of trouble." Corin said, turning his gaze back to the ground.
"I believe it." Jin said. After a pause, he asked, "How long have you had a cat?"
"Oh! Uh, not long. And he's not really mine. I mean, he is but not. Uhh, you know the stories about cats just choosing people, yeah. That's what happened."
Keras turned around, staring at the enchanter. He was a horrible liar, but that story didn't have most of the telltale signs of it. He meowed and rubbed up to Corin's leg. "Anyone who doesn't choose you is a fool," he meowed, and Corin slowly leaned down to pet him. Keras closed his eyes and purred. There was a slight rusting of clothes and he cracked an eye open to see the boy had knelt down to pet him easier.
"I'm glad you chose me," Corin told him, and that simple sentence was laced with so much honesty it was nearly painful. Keras bumped the boy's hand with his head, making a mental note to have a conversation with Corin once he was back to his regular form. Gods, the list of things he needed to do once he was human-shaped again was getting a little long. Get the boys to talk, talk to Corin, get the Jaden box and everything else from the roof, figure out what that blasted pendant was — it was a good thing he had a decent memory.
"He's a smart cat," Jin said softly, drawing Keras out of his list-making. The other boy had squatted down, extending a hand slowly, and Keras head-bumped it. "Choosing you. He could tell you're good."
Maybe getting the boys to talk would happen before he was back to normal, Keras thought. He was rather pleased with that idea, that he was so good at being a mediator that he could do it without words.
"We should get going." Corin's voice was a slightly higher pitch than normal, his cheeks a little pinker and his gaze resolutely set in the distance.
Or not. Keras sighed and turned to continue leading the way back to Hartigan Manor. The rest of the walk was silent, and how on earth did they stand the awkwardness? Weren't they on a test team together? Surely they didn't just do them in complete silence.
"Here we are!" Corin said as they approached the drive. "Uhh, I'm not really sure what to do now. I mean, I know what to do, I'm just not sure what you need to do." He waved a hand toward the cat, then swung it to Jin.
"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do either," Jin admitted. "But it was nice walking with you." He took a step back, and Keras yowled. "Okay, not allowed to leave yet. Got it." Jin said, taking a step forward.
Corin looked at Keras, then back at Jin. He hummed. "I have a feeling I know what he wants, but I have no idea why he'd want it."
"Oh?" Jin said, tilting his head. "And what is that?"
"It’d be easier to show you," Corin said. "Let's hope I don't mess this up."
"I have complete confidence in you. But also please be careful, I don't want to be stuck as a cat forever," Keras meowed as the older boy made his way up the drive with a renewed sense of purpose in his steps. Jin trailed along after him, brow knitted together. Keras followed, tail high.
"Are the others here?" Jin asked as Corin waved a hand toward a coffee table, indicating that they should take a seat.
"Not sure. They were out looking last time I checked." Corin glanced towards the stairs, “I need to grab some stuff, I’ll be right back.” He slipped around the couch and darted up to his room. Keras didn’t bother to watch. He’d be back. Jin, on the other hand, might take the chance to escape. He had to make sure that didn’t happen. He leapt onto the small table and sat, staring at the other boy. Jin didn’t bother trying to leave, too busy looking around the room to even consider it. Dark eyes bounced around the room, taking note of everything.
His eyes lingered on places where there was evidence of the kids. A couple of shoes — Sera’s, Keras knew — near the end of the couch. A stack of books on monsters on the mantle — Patrick had lent them to Mara and then just left them there for anyone to read. Footsteps drew both of their eyes. Corin had his bag over one shoulder and was staring at a notebook. Keras let out a concerned meow, because the last thing he needed was for Corin to miss a step on the stairs and hurt himself. The enchanter merely hummed and flipped the book closed as he reached the ground.
He said nothing as he sat on the catch and pulled his enchanting supplies out of the bag, surprising Keras. Corin preferred to do all of his enchanting in his room. He’d never done it outside of it. Was it because he didn’t want Jin to be alone in the house, or was he nervous about the boy trying to leave? “Okay. I can do this. I can do this,” the grey-eyed boy muttered to himself as he slipped the notebook into the bag before picking up his etching pen. Or he was nervous about trying to undo it, Keras thought slightly ruefully. That would make sense. Having to turn your guardian/bodyguard back into a human from an unknown spell was a fair bit more important than having a boy in your house.
The swordsman-turned-cat wasn't sure what the boy was doing, as he hunched over the metal he was engraving the runes on, and pushed Keras away whenever he tried to get close, muttering something about him blocking the light. Jin glanced at him and shrugged whenever Keras bumped into his leg after having been waved off again. It was the only time that his eyes left the rigid form on the couch.
"Okay, I have no idea if this is going to work because I don't know what happened, but this might undo it?" Corin said as he pushed the plaque towards Keras. "I am fairly confident that it won’t make it worse though, so that’s a plus. Touch it and charge it with mana."
"The cat has mana?" Jin asked, sounding a little alarmed.
Keras ignored the question as he pressed a paw to it, hoping it would turn him back to a human. Or humanoid, at least because he really wasn't- wait. He had had the Sae'kes with him when he had been transformed. It would still be with him when he changed back right? Would his clothes? He should because they hadn't been left on the roof when he had first transformed. They had better, both for modesty's sake and because if he lost his sword because he had gotten turned into a cat he was going to be pissed. With a deep breath, he pushed a flood of mana into the runes.
"What the—" Jin screeched, leaping backward.
Keras groaned, rubbing his temple. He could feel all his clothes on, at least. "Good job, kid," he told Corin, staring up at the ceiling as he fought off the vertigo that had accompanied the change. "No idea how you did it, but good job."
"Thanks." Corin smiled, looking pleased. It faded slightly as he caught sight of Jin, who was staring open-mouthed. "Uhh is there a reason you felt you needed Jin to know you were a cat? Also, how did you get turned into a cat?"
"I was sorting through the Jaden Box. Side note, new rule, no touching anything in the Jaden Box that we don't know what it does. And I didn't think that he needed to know that I was a cat." Keras said, sliding off the table and grabbing the Mesmer's arm. "He's going to have dinner with us, and you two are going to talk."
"There's a thing in the Jaden box that turns people into cats?" Corin looked far too excited at that, completely missing the second part of what he had said. "Can I see it?"
"First off, no. Just no. I don't know what you're planning but the answer is no. Secondly, I don't have it with me, it's on the roof of the building I was in when I touched the pendant. Thirdly, you're not leaving until you talk to Jin. Jin, you're not leaving until you talk to Corin."
Jin didn't seem to be listening at all, instead muttering under his breath, horror on his face. "Selys please kill me. Strike me down now, it would be a mercy, I can't believe I told Keras Selyrian…" he trailed off and Corin frowned.
"Jin?" His eyes were concerned, and he looked back at Keras. "What happened? What did he say? Is everything okay?"
"Nothing important!" Jin's voice shot up an octave, and Keras had to admit he was a little amused by the lack of composure that the boy usually showed.
"He just vented some things to me while I was a cat," Keras said, dragging Jin closer. "Some things that I think he should tell you. And while you're at it, I know that you have vented somethings to me and Derek that you should tell him."
"Uhhhh—" Corin chuckled awkwardly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do." Keras said dryly, rolling his eyes fondly, shoving the boys so that they were side by side. They stumbled, caught off guard. Settling his hands on their shoulders, he herded them around the table with small pushes that distracted them from where he was directing them.
“What is happening?” Jin asked, looking around as if someone would appear out of nowhere to explain. Corin let out a small grunt of pain as he ran into a doorknob. Jin glanced at him, concern filling his eyes in an instant. Keras loped his arm around Corin, trapping him between it and Jin.
“Wait,” Corin said, as he realized that the door opening behind him was not the one to the entry hall. “Keras wh—”
With a small shove with his other hand, Keras pushed the two boys into the coat closet. He had a brief moment to see Corin catching Jin from falling on top of him before he closed the door. A single thought later, the knob had shifted into a makeshift lock.
“Talk,” the swordsman ordered through the door, before turning on his heel and making his way towards the exit. He needed to get the Jaden Box and that cursed pendant before any of the other kids did. That would, hopefully, be plenty of time for the boys to talk.