a costume party, you spoiled little rich boy! (c)

Rashoumon did not often venture out into the Furless Area very often. The beasts that lived there were huge, lacked hair everywhere except atop their head, and had oddly long appendages that reached out and grabbed him every time he got too close. Yet, despite all of the trouble, there was often food around here. Not good food, it was tasteless and dry, and the rare bowls that had wet food were guarded by irritable cats that belonged to the Furless Ones. But when he got desperate enough, and oh was he desperate to eat now, he ventured carefully into the area.

He had been cautiously sniffing around for close to an hour by this point when he caught a whiff of something. He didn’t recognize the sharp tangy scent. It smelled like no prey or Furless Food he’d come across, but it didn’t smell like rotting prey or dirt either. He approached carefully and found some shiny bins pressed up against a bush. The smell was coming from beyond it. His body tensed as he heard some quiet shuffling inside. His body froze until he was so tense his muscles were going to burst right out from under his fur, and then he threw his body inside. He ended up barreling against Daytrader and making a bit of a mess of a scuffle in the hidey-hole. He hadn’t expected another cat to be within, instead thinking it was perhaps a rat or raccoon as they enjoyed hanging around the shiny bins. His fur stood on end and he pressed up against the corner of the hidey-hole—unluckily away from the exit, where this bright orange cat stood—and a hiss left his maw.

“What manner of place is this?” he hissed, not knowing what else he could ask. His claws tore against the packed dirt underfoot.

A wail, high-pitched and borderlining on a screech left Daytraders maw as a scroungy black shape hurled itself into her little homestead. Her fur stood on end, Canard landing by her paw and she tucked the flimsy lump of.. stuff.. underneath her. Her chest heaved, utter shock riddling her face and she took much longer than she would like to answer. This tom cat seemed in the same place, floundering paws and panicked whirls of his head on a swivel.

"My home," She spat finally, tail lashing as she leaned in to the interloper. "Have you no manners at all, you impudent little whelp? No announcement? No offer as thanks for hospitality? Why, I could rend your too-big ears from your head as thanks for your intrusion. And ancestors above, there will be no hospitality offered to you unless you can give me a very good reason for you flinging yourself into my own space with no regard of who, or what, may be inside. Rude. And downright dangerous!"

Her maw clamped shut, set in a taut frown, and she let out a shuddering, furious breath. Her eyes darted to her Not-Leaf, barely a hairs length away from the skittish cats paws. "Are you here to steal from me, rodent? Is that it?"

Home? Rashoumon glanced around. The place was dark and there was a multitude of things scattered about; things that Rashoumon did not really know or understand. They must have been this cat’s things. And now he was cornered in this home, and being talked down to rather rudely. Rashoumon felt a flash of heat through his pelt and his claws dug into the dirt, but he was not confident enough to lunge at this cat. This cat was bigger and older than him, and if he could find a way out of this, he would.

“Steal? Hardly. I was curious. I did not realize that this abode would be so cramped,” Rashoumon hissed. He sniffed again and there was that odd smell, the very thing that had sparked his curiosity. He looked around for the source and spotted the stick lying near the entrance that he had flung himself through. Rashoumon pointed with his nose. “What is that? Is it food?”