Putting back the pieces [OPEN]

[on_errantry]

The fight on the planet had gone rather poorly for Rhiow - some well-meaning but wholly ignorant tourist had scooped her up to toss her with the rest of the planet's animals, thinking she was someone's pet. It had been the work of moments to work a short-transit out of there, but with the Ohm numbers so thick and with her separated from the crew, she had decided that retreat was the better part of valor and gotten on board the nearest shuttle back to Stacy.

Sometimes, it was better to live to fight another day.

Now she trotted through the perpetually empty streets of the City, with one destination in mind. Since she had been staying with Tycho and Wedge in their quarters, she had made frequent visits to Grand Central in a continuing attempt to repair the damage. She saw signs that others had been here to do the same - sometimes when she came back, whole walls that had been crumbled now stood restored. It always made her whiskers quiver with barely contained emotion, and she had to sit and groom to compose herself.

Now, the only thing that still lay in shambles was the facade on the front of the building - the statues lay on the ground in disarray and the giant, flawless panel of Tiffany glass that should have covered the great clock was shattered all around.

That would be first. She had avoided walking in this area for so long, but now she carefully moved around it, scraping the pieces of glass together with the backs of her paws until it lay arranged in a big circle. Then she sat down and looked at it closely.

"Wouldn't you rather be one piece again?" she asked, the Speech rolling off her tongue with a little bit of power behind it. "Have people look at you and admire you, feel the heartbeat of the ticking clock at your back and watch the coming and going of thousands - wouldn't you rather? Here's some energy to put yourself back together - a little heat, to fuse it -"

The atoms in the circle of glass began to vibrate, and as she watched, it began to fuse back into place, little by little, until the sparkling plate of glass was once again whole. Rhiow put her ears forward, pleased, and lay down with her head on her paws, looking very satisfied with herself.

Now to get someone with thumbs to put it back where it belonged.

Comments

[crysteel-future.livejournal.com]

"Hello?" A curious precog enters Grand Central, floating at least twelve inches above the ground. She remembers learning meditation here from a very wise cat during the Nightmare King's rampage. It had helped her keep a cool head during a crisis in which it would be very difficult to.

"Rhiow? Are you here?"

[on_errantry]

Rhiow heard the voice calling from inside the building - calling her, which surprised her a little. She'd been gone from this place for a while - most People would have assumed she had moved on to a new den, like she had. Did her ehhif friends honestly come looking for her here, even this long after she had left?

She twitched her ear, watching the last bits of glass squirming around to place themselves. In a moment she would superheat the glass to make sure everything set properly. She couldn't move, but she couldn't shout loud enough for Nura to hear her without straining her throat, so she reached out in the mental dialect of the Speech instead. I'm out front, Nura.

[foreseen-future.livejournal.com]

The presence of a voice not her own in her mind is not new to Nura. Saturn Girl had only been able to communicate with her fellow Legionnaires through her telepathy and the telepathic function in her flight ring.

She moves through the station, through the front doors, outside, and finds the front. There, she finds Rhiow. "Oh hey, ho. What are you doing?"

[on_errantry]

"Oh, fixing the glass," Rhiow said, perking her ears forward. "It's been broken for quite some time."

She cocked her head to the side and put a little more power behind her voice. "Why don't you speed up those atoms some? Get excited! Remember the furnaces where you were forged, how cherry-red you were-"

The glass heated to searing before Rhiow waved her tail and sent the silent ending command down the spell. Now it lay inert again, clear and flawless. "That's done it," she said, satisfied.

[foreseen-future.livejournal.com]

She floats over and lands on the ground beside Rhiow in a crouch - taking heed to hold her still-healing leg so that it doesn't move much when she touches down. "Really?"

She watches and listens in awe as Rhiow puts her power into the strange object. Nura thinks that recognizes the object from somewhere, but it isn't until Rhiow has the object returned to a repaired state, that she realizes what it is. "It's a beautiful clock, Rhiow."

[on_errantry]

"It's a beautiful piece of a clock," Rhiow corrected, tilting her head to look up and up some more at the actual clock, in the peak of the facade where most of the statues should be resting as well. The Tiffany glass would sit right in its frame, if it hadn't been damaged. "Once this is replaced, it will be a beautiful clock again."

She scratched a little self-consciously for a moment, and amended, "Thank you."

[robots-omgh8u.livejournal.com]

John jogged back to Grand Central after exploring some of the ship. There was still so much that he wasn't familiar with yet. It was going to be a long war, and he needed to know everything about this ship he could if he was going to win it.

Reaching the entrance he noticed Rhiow. Having missed her display of magic he thought she was nothing more than an ordinary cat. It was a strange thing to see for him. Cats had either gone completely feral or been eaten by survivors. It was hard to blame them. Dogs had value, they could sniff out Terminators. Cats could catch rats, but it was often hard to then get it away from them.

Kneeling down several feet from her he reached out with his hand, and gestured for her to come. It had to belong to someone on the ship, and if he could find out who then he could return the animal. Hopefully whoever owned the cat could tell him where they had gotten it, and maybe they'd have dogs as well. He needed a dog damn it.

[on_errantry]

Rhiow had been busy pacing around the statue of Hermes, wondering if it was within her bounds of power to fix this as well today. The man who approached gained only a cursory glance, as most of her attention was occupied by the composition of the marble.

That meant that when he knelt down and gestured for her to come over, she didn't even think before she spoke. "Yes, in a moment we'll go in and I'll ask you why there's a cache of weapons being stored in one corner of the main concourse. Right now I'm busy."

She tilted her head at the marble and pulled her whiskers back in a frown. It was very good quality, incredibly dense, and outside of the realm of allowable energy.

[robots-omgh8u.livejournal.com]

A talking cat? A talking cat that was being quite flippant with him no less. This was new, and more than a little strange even for him. Standing up he continued to frown at the animal. "Because I live here, and it would be bit foolish to store them on the other side of the city."

No he wasn't going to ask how she could talk. That was a pointless question right now.

[on_errantry]

She shook herself, pausing for a moment to scratch at the collar around her neck made of plantsuit material - the only concession she'd made to Stacy about it. He lived here?

For a moment, a purely feline instinct to bristle and drive him out surfaced. This was her place. But then she shook it off - she'd been sharing this place with ehhif so long that it seemed only natural to allow him to stay here now.

Still, misunderstandings and all. "It would be - if you were the only one who lived here," she said coolly. "I've been here for quite a while now and this is the first time I've run into you."

[robots-omgh8u.livejournal.com]

"I'm surprised you hadn't noticed me. I haven't exactly been quiet with the renovations." Not to mention the stand off a few weeks ago, but there was no need to bring that up if the creature didn't know about it. "I'm also new. I only 'popped' a few weeks ago."

[riseupnchargem.livejournal.com]

Jamie made frequent forays into the city in search of areas to clean and repair, of which there seemed to be no shortage, even this long after the fight with the Nightmare King - he liked to make himself useful, and the work was good for keeping his mind off things. His wanderings this time brought him to the station, where he approached Rhiow, curious but deferential, where she was hunkered down in front of the building near a huge pane of colored glass.

"Um - hey," he ventured, unsure what to make of her posture. "Everything okay?"

[on_errantry]

"Going smoothly," Rhiow said, stretching. She sat up and began to groom, putting her fur in order. It was only polite to look one's best while having a civil conversation. "Good to see you're well - how was your shore leave? Before the attack, of course."

[riseupnchargem.livejournal.com]

"It was all right," Jamie conceded, with a slight nod. "Quiet. Aside from invading space bugs." The less said about that, the better.

"What're you doing?" he asked, crouching to settle on his heels, elbows propped on knees; this was both so he wasn't towering over her quite so much and to get a better look at the details of the clock face. "Anything you need help with?"

[on_errantry]

"Not unless you can get this up there," she said, nodding to the peak of the facade above their heads. "I'm still working on putting this place back together. This should be the last bit."

It would be nice when the station was whole again. She wasn't sure why she clung to a place that she had in her darker moments wished would fall off the face of the earth.

[riseupnchargem.livejournal.com]

Jamie shook his head a little. "Dunno how much use I'd be with that," he conceded, with a self-deprecating half-grin. "Could try to rig a pulley or something to lift it, but getting something this big and fragile back in place...'s not a one-person job."

He glanced over at Rhiow, arching an eyebrow. "You were cleaning all this up yourself?" That would've been a lot of work for anyone, let alone a cat.

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Tycho was one of the people who had been slowly working on rebuilding Grand Central, whenever he had a spare moment, which was not as often as he would have liked. Now, fresh from being released from medbay, he was full of the feeling of frustration for not having been able to be a part of the battle against the Ohm. He needed something productive to lose himself in, if only for a little bit. He needed to feel like he was helping. So, he stopped by Grand Central once more. There, he was surprised to find his visit had clearly coincided with one of Rhiow's.

"Hello Rhiow," he called out softly in greeting, not wanting to disturb his friend if she was in the middle of something.

[on_errantry]

Rhiow sat up straight, then trotted right over to Tycho, twining around his legs in a show of possessive affection. "Hh'ysho," she said brightly. "Glad to see you well, where have you been?"

She had taken up her customary wandering around the ship lately, with Tycho's mate now on board, and didn't see the man as often as she would have liked. They were in a strange in-between now, it seemed.

[sonofalderaan.livejournal.com]

Tycho bent to scoop her up in his arms, scratching affectionately behind her ears. "I was in the medbay," he admitted wryly. "I got caught in a collapsing building at the beginning of the Ohm's attack, so unfortunately I missed the rest of the battle. And you, you are well?"

[on_errantry]

"I'm fine," Rhiow said. "I didn't even get hurt, I got corralled with the rest of the small animals and herded off in a supposedly safe direction - Everyone seemed to think that the speech was coming from someone not me."

She made an interesting face that was part snarl, part whiskers laid back in disgust. "I will confess a selfish relief that you weren't out there being shot at."

[angel-ofthe.livejournal.com]

Castiel cocked his head, observing Rihow's actions curiously.


"Hello, Rhiow," he finally said, his voice quiet and grave.

[on_errantry]

"Hh'as-tiel," Rhiow said warmly. She padded around the circle of glass on the ground to come a little closer to him. She wasn't sure what had happened that Castiel's name bore the marker of a Power, but as far as she was concerned he was better than most of the Powers she knew.

Seemed like that was par for the course on the ship. "How are you? You don't seem injured."

[angel-ofthe.livejournal.com]

"No," Cas said, crouching down so that he was closer to her level. He had superficial injuries, but to him they didn't count. "I was knocked unconscious at the begging of the battle, and missed the fighting."

A pause. "How are you?"

[on_errantry]

"I'm well... most of the fighting happened at some distance from me, and I was scooped up and tossed with the rest of the pets so I couldn't really join in." She shook herself, scratching at the plant-collar to cover up her disgust at that chain of events.

"And Ssam and Dh'ean? Are they well?" She knew how much the brothers cared for looking out for each other, and she had discovered on their little road trip that Castiel was part of the pride.

[angel-ofthe.livejournal.com]

Castiel nodded. He could not read cat body-language, so he had no idea of her frustration, but he would share it, if he did.

"Dean was injured," Cas said flatly. "He is recovering. Sam ... Sam is missing. I am told he might have been kidnapped, by a computer." Cas didn't understand how that would work, but Dean believed it to be true, so Cas would trust Dean.

There was a pause. "Your magic," Cas said. "Would you ... mind explaining to me, how it works?"