Obligatory Random Thread Involving Cats

[Beau LaRoux]

So Beau was finding himself cat wrangling, again. He wasn't even sure where this particular feline had come from, though he took some solace in knowing that he'd never seen the cat before. He'd apparently been one of the few who felt determined to actually track the cat down, which Beau couldn't really blame people for. The critters had a tendency to be experts at avoiding people, especially when they didn't want to be caught. The cat Beau chased now definitely didn't want to be caught. In fact, the Southern boy was beginning to suspect that he was being played with.

It had started in the common area, the first floor, when Beau had seen the cat sort of poking around. It was probably someone's contraband animal, a feline that someone wanted to take care of and thought he or she could keep hidden. That happened from time to time, as these things did. Though for all Beau knew, it could have been a wild feline from the rough streets of Pilot Ridge. That might explain why it had taken off the moment Beau had hesitantly gone after it. Beau had charged after it, not quite realizing which dorm section it had gone off into.

Even now, he wasn't completely certain which dorm area he was in. He knew it wasn't the boys' dorm; he would've recognized that. That left either the coed or the girls, and Beau really felt like he should know which was which by now. He pushed the thought out of his mind as he saw the cat ducking around a corner. Beau instead opted to chase after him. He just wanted to get the critter where it belonged.

instead he wound up slipping on a carpet and laying on his back. As if that weren't enough: he could hear the meowing from just a few feet away.

[Calliope Gallo]

It was a usual day for Calliope. Or rather, she just assumed it would be. Things were incredibly muddled in her life and she couldn't do much to fix that, so Callie resided to the fact that for now, she could ignore her mistakes and head out to the auditorium. She needed to clear her mind, and the only thing she could really think of was to dance.

However, when she walked out of her dorm, she heard an incredibly loud thump and immediately glanced down the hallway. Sure enough, there was a boy. Flat on his back. Her eyes went a little wide at the sight, confusion evident in her features. She hadn't even noticed the small, animal sound that might have come from nearby. Her attention was solely focused on the boy.

Taking quick steps towards him, the half-Greek leaned over head and stared down, her blonde hair falling to either side of her face. "Are you okay?"

[Beau LaRoux]

Beau looked up into the face of a pretty blonde girl. "Gah, I hope so, 'cuz it's either that or I done died an' wound up in heaven," he groaned, kicking a little. He could feel a little tingling sensation, strangely located in his... joints? Beau figured he'd picked up some odd ability from the blonde girl, and he really wasn't going to think too much about it. All it meant was that, despite Beau's hopes, he hadn't wound up in Heaven just yet.

Really, he wasn't that hurt anyway. He kicked a foot out a little, working to move himself at least to a sitting position. Once he hit it, Beau could see the cat a short distance away. More importantly, this put him within a short distance of the pretty blonde. Beau gave her a quick once-over before nodding. "Name's Beau," he offered. Maybe a little rude to not give the full name, but he wasn't sure that he wanted too much information, just in case the answer to his next question didn't turn out to his benefit: "An' I ain't rightly sure which dorm I wound up in. Don't suppose I'm in the girls' dorm, 'cuz that would be..." Beau hesitated. Awesome came to mind, but that didn't feel quite right. He shook his head and looked at the cat.

Beau could've sworn that the animal looked smug.

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie couldn't help but smile at the way he spoke to her, an involuntary chuckle falling from her lips. However, she glanced down at the way he started shifting in such a strange way. She couldn't explain it, so she shrugged it off. "Just the dorm floor, unfortunately." She replied lightly, an amused shade colouring her smile.

She took a small step back when he sat up, looking to follow his captured gaze until he called his name out towards her. It promptly made her turn her head back to face him again.

"Co-ed." She replied, knowing it wasn't the answer he seemed to want, "And I'm Callie. I live right there." With a tilt of her head she motioned towards room 2-0-8, just was only a few steps away. She decided to extend a hand out towards him - any kind of momentum would help him back to his feet, girl or no. "Here."

Because yes, she was still oblivious to the creature nearby.

[Beau LaRoux]

Dorm floor, well, at least Beau knew he was in the right place. The taunting cat and the strange sensation in his joints pretty well told him as much, but it was nice to get conformation from an actual human being too. Soon enough he got an answer too, and it was definitely one that relieved him. Beau actually sighed with relief, then chuckled. "You'd think I'd recognize 'em by now. Been in both of them afore," which was true, usually accompanied by a girl. Beau didn't sleep around, but he'd still sneaked in for a little kissing here and there.

"Pleasure ta meet you, Callie," the Southerner finally said, taking her hand. He didn't need much in the way of momentum in order to help get upright, but Beau knew how to behave when the situation called for it. He did feel that all too familiar tingle letting him know that he had, in fact, just gotten the full version of whatever it was that Callie did involving her joints. Considering that Beau didn't burst out with spikes and he didn't feel any limbs going awry, he figured at least one of them had pretty decent control, probably her, since he couldn't rightly recall messing around with joint powers that much.

Once Beau managed to get back upright, he looked over at the cat, who he could've sworn was waiting for him. He nodded toward the creature. "Followed that there animal in here," he said. "I think he's gotten loose, mebbe belongs to somebody, you know, keepin' pets on the sly," Beau shrugged. Wasn't his call what people did, and he really didn't care about that rule. Let people do what they wanted. Wasn't like a cat could do that much damage.

Right?

[Calliope Gallo]

"Nice to meet you, too." Callie replied, smiling towards him as she helped him up. It wasn't exactly difficult, regardless of her strength levels.

Beau would be thankful she had the capacity to control her powers relatively well. A dislocated joint could be abhorrently painful, especially since ligaments stretched in such a way that the bone was forced to almost hang in strange suspension. Once accidentally disjointed, it was even more difficult to forcibly set. She frequently had to just wait it out, which was incredibly draining and painful within itself.

Finally Callie caught sight of the animal he was talking about. Surprise coloured her features almost instantly as she listened to him speak. Was this really happening? "Maybe it's a shapeshifter?" She asked idly, rolling her shoulders at the fact. It wasn't a bad assumption, right?

[Beau LaRoux]

At least she saw the animal, which meant that Beau was not suffering from feline based hallucinations, which he'd honestly half expected to be the reason he saw the cat in the dorm. The explanation just had Beau chuckling. Wasn't that just everyone's first answer around here? Not "loose cat" or "stray that got inside" but "probably a shape-shifter." What would the folks back home say to that?

"I don't think so," offered Beau, nodding to the cat in question. "'cuz, uh, I'd of picked up on it by now," this was the part where Beau usually imitated the ability he'd just copied, but he honestly had no idea what it was that Callie did. So instead he just looked at her and smiled what he hoped was a slightly abashed smile. "My trick is ta pick up people's abilities," he said, adding a shrug and looking back at the animal, "so I woulda turned into a cat too, or, somethin'. It's one-a those tricky ones."

Meaning his ability, which, even after three years, Beau only sort of kind of understood in a loose fashion. He licked his lips, staring at the cat, wondering if it was even worth it. He'd have to catch the thing and take it all the way to the shelter, which just seemed like all kinds of a bad idea. "Don't suppose you know anyone that's been lookin' for a lost cat?" he asked, looking over at Callie. It was a longshot, but he definitely preferred that to attempting to lug a cat all the way to the animal shelter. Again.

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie couldn't help but look confused when he answered her. She didn't know how he'd pick up on that already. She would have been a little more caught up in wanting to ask, but her attention was flagged by the way he was smiling at her. She only now had the opportunity to really look at him. She dropped her jaw when he spoke again, recognition in her bright blue eyes. "Ohhh." She offered the singular sound with conviction. Now she got it.

"No wonder you fell." She added swiftly, though she wasn't even sure if that was really her fault. Her hand ran along her arm idly; the joint thing was a pain to get used to.

Glancing at the animal in question, Callie shook her head after a short amount of time. "I don't think you're even allowed to bring them on campus, much less keep one in your dorm." She explained lightly, turning her head to take in the sight of him again. Her teeth sunk into her lower lip, "Sorry." She offered genuinely. She wished she could be a little more helpful.

[Beau LaRoux]

No wonder he fell? Beau looked at Callie for a few moments after she said that, trying to figure out what she could mean by something like that. She was rubbing her arm, so he guessed it had something to do with her ability and that strange feeling he kept getting in his joints and such. Well, it if was making her uncomfortable, then Beau definitely wasn't going to bring it up. Not that it had been all that likely that he would have anyway.

Back to the animal in question. Beau looked even as Callie spoke, and he wondered if he should really be messing with it, with him or whatever. Callie had a point, one that Beau had to agree with, since he knew the rules just as well as she did. Didn't mean that people weren't going to break said rules, but if she hadn't heard of anything in this section of the dorms, then maybe the cat just simply didn't belong here.

"Ain't like it's your fault that there's rules an' such," said Beau, shrugging. He took a few steps closer to the animal, who then looked up at him. Beau paused, staring down the cat. He made a mental note to get, like, cat treats or something to make stuff like this easier in the future. He pursed his lips while he tried to think of a way of getting the animal. "Maybe we should jus' tell somebody about 'im then?" he asked, looking back over at Callie. "Or should we keep goin' for it. I don't want anyone to hurt the critter..."

[Calliope Gallo]

Callie wouldn't say she followed the rules because she was afraid of getting in trouble. It simply never crossed the half-Greek dancer's mind to break any of them. It wasn't her style. Once there were limits, there they were. She simply naturally complied with them. Had she not been like that, she might've considered such a concept. Rule breaking. It would have seemed so simple out loud.

Nevertheless, she watched the strange exchange between the boy and the animal. Despite how strange it really was, she had to suppose that stranger things had happened in these halls before. Random occurrences like these were probably everyday situations for the dorm monitors.

"If you want to go after it, why don't you?" She asked honestly. Most people would coat such a question with sarcasm or malice. Callie so rarely ever wore either of those things. Her simple question was genuine. "It's sweet of you to worry about something like this. Might as well see it through, right?"