Immortal

It Talks

In which dark alleyways continue to be sketchy, and cats continue to be sarcastic fluffballs

Freya shifted uncomfortably. Beside her, Alex was tying their coats to block the street's view of the secluded alleyway they were in. Freya had heard something about human's well-earned mistrust in dark alleyways, but despite her protests about 'blending in'- here they were.

"Ready," Alex said, panting slightly. She ran a hand through her short black hair. "Are- are you ready?" she turned to Freya.

"Yeah," Freya promised, doing her best to rearrange her facial expression. She had been imagining something much more... scratch glamorous, she'd settle for sanitary- than a dark alley, a dirty metal dish, and freezing winds that their clothing did nothing to block.

"Are you cold?" Alex frowned. "Oh, right- human pain settings," she began taking off her jacket and handed it to Freya. "Although it's getting towards the warmer months by human standards."

"Er- thanks," Freya said, grateful for the warmth. She glanced down at the jingling silver badges, not forgetting she was with someone of celebrity status. 

"No problem. Ready when you are," Alex said to the cat, who meowed distastefully and sniffed the metal dish where Alex had poured the...Shiva Lax-something. The silver, sparkling liquid looked most odd in the dirty dish Freya had found outside yet another bad coffee shop, like a king in a peasants' car.

The cat rolled its eyes- Freya was about 96% sure that normal cats didn't do that- and slurped the silvery mixture up. Freya was pretty sure normal cats didn't have such poor manners, either.

At first, nothing happened.

And then....nothing happened.

"Well....did it...work?" Freya said cautiously, remembering the man in the shop's warnings about the liquid.

"Uh..." for once, Alex looked lost for words, and for a moment Freya felt a flash of pity for the Dopomolian who just wanted to go home. Then the flash was gone, and she tried to shake such silly thoughts out of her head.

"We could go to a coffee shop?" Alex said, but it sounded more like a question- languages were wonderful that way.

"Oh good GRIEF what is it with you and coffee shops?" Freya, startled, looked down at the ground. "We have gone to THREE and it's only been five hours in this wretched place."

"You- you can talk," Freya stuttered.

The cat rolled its eyes. "Well, clearly. What else would I be doing, meowing like the common house cat? It's about time!" the cat stretched.

Freya turned to Alex, who looked just as dumbfounded as she felt.

"Hello," Alex seemed to have finally found her voice. "I'm special field agent Alex T'Nadea, and I need your help."

"Wonderful," the tabby curled its tail over its paws. "Just what I wanted to do today. Tell me allll about it."

"Er-" Alex glanced nervously at Freya, who nodded. "Maybe in a coffee shop?"

~*~*~*~

"Okay, so here's the thing, Mister- uh-"

"Tibbs. Tibbs the too-cute tabby." The cat in front of her looked perfectly serious. It was hard to look serious surrounded by the frilly pink lettering of 'Callie's Cookies' (courtesy of the forth coffee shop they had broken into), but the being managed.

"Tibbs." Freya verified. "Okay. So here's the thing- there's this new virus spreading around towards humans-"

"I'm a cat, not dumb," Tibbs looked up from his milk.

"Well, then you know that humans are afraid! That we can and should help!" Freya felt the stress of the morning rising in her like a wave. She was finally on Earth, her lifelong dream, and all anyone could think of was illegal this, illegal that. A tiny voice in Freya's head reminded her that she was being illogical, and Freya reminded it she had a strong moral compass, okay?!

"Hmm," Tibbs closed his golden cat eyes. "Tricky, very tricky..."

"What's tricky about it?" Alex burst. "She's disobeying our law. Plus, humans can easily recover from this."

"Of course they can recover," Freya argued. "It's not the death toll I'm worried about. It's that humans are scared, and it's literally our job to help them when they are scared. And we're failing it. As the humans would say, you had one job."

"Technically, there are many different parts of our operation, one of which is not having humans know we're here," Alex said.

Freya frowned at her and took a huge bit of the cookie on her plate.

"You shouldn't eat that. It's expired," Tibbs said suddenly.

"Wado you know, yura cat," Freya said through a mouthful of cookie, spewing crumbs across the table.

"Cookies can expire?" Alex looked horrified.

"First off, I know literally everything in the universe. Second- do you want to know the answer to your oh-so-noble normal conundrum or not?"

"Yes!" Freya and Alex shouted in unison.

The tabby started at them blinklingy, and Freya had the most uncomfortable feeling that those golden eyes were staring deep into her soul. In human writings, they spoke of this all the time, but Freya always thought that was because they wanted their true self to be seen so badly. This was different.

"There is none."