"I, personally, think one's more than enough," Kier agreed. "By my way of thinking, where's the fun if you know nothing can hurt you? Oh, cruel world, never mind I've got another seven stashed away - or this is it, it's happening, death is closing in." His voice became frantic, terrified, like he was pleading with the universe itself, oh, don't take it from me; his eyes widened; and then he was back to normal. "It's more of a challenge, too, if you know you've only got one life to get everything done in. I like it especially when you see an old, doddery little cat and you just-" he let out a bubbly laugh, "you just know their life was a waste of time. It's so funny. Another year, another year gone - it's great fun. Will you make it, won't you? What an exciting question. Otherwise it's... cheating." He tipped his head, flashing an odd little smile; his teeth were pearly white in the dreary, diffused light. "I hope you won't end up like that, mousey."

Kier followed Eris' gaze up to the birds. When she sat down and gave him the little order, he turned his head back and narrowed his eyes, such lacklustre imitations of his mother's, at her. "Help you?" he replied snidely, though he didn't question why; instead, he walked over to the opposite wall beside the open window and spent a moment looking up at the stained, peeling wallpaper. Then, finally, he began to climb it, the sheer surface, like a lizard with setae on its feet. Maybe it was a skill he'd picked up when escaping from his brother, like a child using their sweaty palms to climb a doorframe; maybe he was just naturally a bit of a physical oddity, something a trapper with a camera would pick up on tape and surround a local mythos around. When he was near the ceiling, he reached out a paw and, with a few surprisingly gentle caresses of his claw, sent the mobile clattering to the floorboards below. "Or do it for you?" he finished, looking down at Eris. Shuffling back down, he dropped onto the windowsill and lounged upon it, mightily pleased with himself, with his forepaws dangling over the edge.

"Will you take me to your lab, Eris?" he asked, quiet voice floating eerily on the cold breeze drifting in through the window like mist. He looked more like a smudge of shadow with vague grey eyes than a true cat. He rested his chin on the back of his paw. "I'd so love to see it."

Do it for me, of course. Kier's brow twitched up slightly, but it looked more endeared than anything, like he was already fondly, amusedly resigned to being her lackey until he could be her equal; like he wasn't as adverse as he'd first thought to letting her order him around, a little pet psychopath for the other psychopath. He liked the way her breath rattled in her throat when she purred, too, like it was such a disused sound. 

"Well, I can help with that," he replied, still lounging lazily atop the windowsill. "I've never tried real estate hunting before but I suppose I'd be as naturally gifted at it as I am everything else." He smiled, eyes slitted with that sort of self-aware arrogance and chin still resting on his paw, like he was fully aware how narcissistic he sounded. "What do you want? A nice basement? Sound-proof to block out the screams, or do you like everyone to hear? I ask that for my own purposes, too." His smile grew into a lecherous little grin, eyes slitting even further as he looked down at her.

His eyes stuttered down to the mobile when she circled her paw at it. Kier's paw dropped with a dull thump against the wood. "Of course," he replied sneeringly, standing up and slipping off the windowsill; he landed soundlessly and slunk over to Eris, winding a quick circle around her before dropping into a mocking little bow and scooping up the mobile. "Your highness," he jeered, nose wrinkled in a poisonous little smile, and, still holding her gaze, pointedly severed all the strings from the frame with a few quick twang, twang, twangs. He sheathed the claws on that paw again and, with a final smile that felt like the finale to this little moment, snatched the strings up in his jaws and slunk away to the window. Really, he was much less bothered by her commanding him about than he was pretending to be. "Lead the way, mousey," he called from beneath the window, sitting and winding his tail around his paws to watch her pass. She'd be inordinately lucky if he didn't wolf-whistle at her; but as it was, the string in his jaws tamed him somewhat.

“Oh, and rat is so much better,” Kier shot back harmlessly. Out in the dreary afternoon light, the sun hidden behind disconcerting grey clouds, his right pupil narrowed to a natural slit; it left the brokenness of his left one on full display, still fully rounded as it tried and failed to register the change in brightness. By the time they reached Eris’ lab it might have slowly shrunk to half that size, but it would never be what it was supposed to be. Unbothered by it, Kier leaned in towards her. “Insufferable little elf,” he offered with a slimy purr, eyes narrowing happily. “Pipsqueak imp. Bait.” He sounded utterly loving as he tried out each insulting nickname. Suddenly he raised his voice. “MISTRESS DARK-SOUL THE THIRD. Well, no, ‘first of her name’ would be more to your liking, wouldn’t it, my little mouse?” Still leaned in towards her, his question ended with a contented purr, eyes even more hooded. Finally, he leaned back. “Mousey is as fine a name as any, I think you’ll find. It could be so much worse.”

He looked around as they walked, at the black, dead trees and the grey bracken. Fine mist writhed between it. Stopping briefly, Kier dropped the string at his paws, opening and closing his mouth for a moment — it had pressed into his tongue and drawn blood, not that he minded — before picking it back up, now stained slightly with red, and continuing, his voice slightly more muffled as he carried it more carefully. Despite not knowing where they were going, he kept pace with Eris, in-tune with her enough that he could turn when she did without any of that awkward fumbling. “Don’t you get lonely out here? It’s terribly bleak.” He looked back at her, leaning in with a slit-eyed grin and the string slotted between his canines. “Aren’t you afraid you might meet a monster?”

There's no monsters, don't be stupid. Kier didn't reply, just purred and watched her with a lazy, slit-eyed smile as she looked around, the broken birds dangling from his jaws and swaying softly in the breeze. He was looking right at one; she was the loveliest monster of them all.

He slunk after her into the clearing, his eyes stuttering slowly from right to left as he took it in. Really, it was a little too much like the old ruins his father had taken him to to turn him 'into a man' and it wasn't to his tastes; all these great, gnarled trees and stones and grey skies - it was so monotonous. After travelling for so long over barren moors and through dreary woods with his sister nipping at his ears and his brother swatting him bloody, he was quite sick of nature. He liked bright colours, flashing casino lights, too-warm rooms that made you want to rip your own skin off just to get some relief - this was just more grey. But he liked Eris, and so, with that chameleon, twisted little mind of his, he briefly zoned out to tinker about behind his eyes and rearrange a couple of things, and when he came back to, he liked it very much as well. It was cozy! It was delightful, like camping every day in a horrible little cabin. He liked the spiderwebs, liked the oppressive smell of mouse in the hollowed out centre and the muggy warmth of it all when compared with the chill of the surrounding forest. He felt all of this genuinely, a bright, appreciative smile on his face.

But it was disorganised, half-realised, a vague ambition that had to be focused - he could help with that, he thought. Eris had built the foundations of her dream; now he could direct it taller.

She was already crouched over a little bundle - he couldn't see what it was - and so he wandered over. Oh! It was a corpse! What a fun and on-brand surprise. He made a mental note to most definitely go extra hard on his bath routine and face mask tonight to get rid of what was sure to be quite the smell, but for now he was enjoying himself. He lay himself down languidly at her side and offered a paw for some beetles to scuttle up; truly, he was petrified of creepy-crawlies, but he was happily deep into consciously forgetting all that, like voluntary amnesia, so he could appreciate Eris' interests and have fun. And she really was one of a kind; as she spoke so dreamily, with such childish excitement, about the bugs this corpse was attracting, all her attention on them, he looked over at her and watched with a silent smile as the beetles scuttled up to his elbow and then jumped back off to the rat body.

"It's superb," he agreed with a purr, flexing his toes a few times to get rid of the feeling of bugs scurrying over them. "And you do what with the mice, precisely? Gut them? See how much they can take? Stitch and restitch? I didn't think she-cats had the stomach for it." As soon as he said it, he touched his paw to his mouth in a vague wince, genuinely apologetic. "Sorry, mousey. It slips out."

Kier watched her as she spoke, one of his forepaws laid absently across the rat’s rotting tail and a faint little smile on his face. He’d never had any particular interest in experimentation with corpses before — he liked poisoning, but that was more the excitement of staring down at them as they choked and frothed and died — but Eris spoke of it with such reverence that he couldn’t not feel a tingle of thrill. And cutting open a skull to look at a wet little brain — he couldn’t not feel awed, reverent delight at that prospect. He felt a shiver run through him, making his spine quiver and his pelt twitch over his flanks. Goosebumps prickled over his skin.

He didn’t acknowledge her dismissal of him — well he did inwardly, and this was his passionate attempt to induce her to let him stay. Who knew when he would see her again; he’d never seen her around the Mansion, and if he came looking for her here she might have turned off him again and all these efforts would be wasted. “Well, if it’s healing you’re looking to do, I could be useful. My uncle is friends with the mage and I’ve been taking,” looting, “from her stores undetected for moons. I was poisoning a SummerClan apprentice to see how close I could get him to death and still bring him back — without him noticing, of course.” It was so nice to be able to talk about this aloud with someone! He shuffled a tiny bit closer to Eris, his eyes never leaving her’s. “Anything you need, I can get. And I can ask questions — how to do specific things. No one will suspect a thing,” he let out a laugh, “they all just forget I’m there at all — who would think to doubt why I’m asking?”

He leaned in slightly closer, the tiniest smile on is face. “I won’t be a bother. I can just—“ He gestured to the gloom of the hollowed out den with a flick of his paw, eyes leaving Eris for only a split second before all his attention was back on her. “Sit quietly in a corner. You won’t even know I’m there.” His voice softened, growing slightly teasingly lower, like he was daring her to agree to a challenge that would make her popular with the in-crowd. His eyes were an odd mix of earnest and amused; his paw twitched to lay it across hers but he resisted, and instead just leaned in even closer, voice rumbling between them. “Come on, mousey.”

A grin spread across Kier’s face at Eris’ agreement, less gleeful than her own and more wonderstruck. Relieved. “Excellent!” he exclaimed. His grin only grew as she continued. He nodded in his head, but it didn’t translate into real life; when he was too happy, sometimes there arose a discrepancy between his body and his mind — he always lived too much in the latter, and so the former, no more than a puppet, became cast aside and left upon the stage. “I’ll begin in the morning,” he promised her merrily, pleased as cherry pie.

He rose and, after a step towards her lab, stopped to wait for her to lead the way in. He was eager to see her work on something. “Back to the subject of the poisoning,” he chatted carelessly as he waited, like it was a normal anecdote you’d bond over with a new friend over tea, “he’s a sickly little thing. Has...” His eyes found her, almost uneasily, and he circled a paw at her, thinking how to word this delicately without making her afraid before giving up, “asthma. So I used some herbs to worsen it, to make his windpipe close up — and of course he thought it was just all the flowers. Then when I cured him from that I started giving him bigger and bigger doses of foxglove, and then nightshade — it’s so interesting to see how the body tries to get it out, and then of course it was even more fun because he didn’t understand anything that was happening and kept trying to pretend everything was fine.” He was getting carried away now, speaking faster. “And I’d be all worried like,” he put on the soft, shy, breathy voice he’d used during those outings, “are you okay?” He switched back; it became very clear that Kier could carry a one-man show. “And he would tell me he was fine, he was fine — he just had a stomachache.” He tittered a little laugh, almost a giggle. “I don’t know which was better, the poisoning or playing the witless companion.”

His happily wandering eyes suddenly spotted the discarded mobile string, dark with his own dried blood. “Oh,” he added quickly, and hurried back to pick it up before returning to the spot he’d been in. The ground there was all torn up from where he’d been clawing at it excitedly as he spoke, kneading with frantic, joyful pleasure. His right pupil was still dilated from it, his eyes lidded and his body languid and relaxed. “Can I feed the mice?” he asked in a lazy purr around the string, turning his hooded eyes to Eris.

At Eris’ permission, Kier dropped the mobile string and stitch-burst birds in a chaotic heap just inside the hollow, like he was trying to be careful with it but he was too eager not to rush, and rushed excitedly over to the mice. “Hi, micies!” he cooed, sticking one claw into their cage and wiggling it at them. He laughed when the poor, starving creatures nipped at him desperately. “We’re going to perform lobotomies on you!”

When Eris didn’t find anything to feed them with, he slipped his claw out and looked around — before landing on his own tail. “Ah!” Like it was nothing at all, he picked it up with one paw like it was a bony little snake and bit off the tip. A happy smile on his face, Kier dropped the tip of his own tail onto his paw and fitted it through the gaps in the bird cage. Immediately the mice scrabbled over it, squealing in desperate terror as they all tried to get at least a small mouthful of the still-hot meat. That same, wide smile on his face, Kier dropped into an odd crouch, his cheeks held up by his forepaws, and watched them. He hardly seemed to notice his tail-tip soaking blood into his short black fur and the dust of the hollow; it was now shorter by roughly an inch, stopping at the final vertebra, but that didn’t stop him from still waving it back and forth merrily as he watched the mice. “Look,” he laughed, not taking his eyes off them. “Those little ones at the end hardly got any at all. What a sad day they’re having.”

He looked over his shoulder at Eris. “You know, a little while ago I quite ruined a poor little fawn’s evening.” He held the memory like it was holy, despite the clear failure of it as a ritual: the raw, desolate moorland; storming black skies, pouring rain; a newborn deer separated from its mother; the way the wind whipped and lashed the downpour against his legs, blurred his vision so he kept having to wipe his eyes with his paw, dripped down his chin; the way the poor creature cried and wailed; the feel of its hot heart in his mouth, all that blood filling his throat so quickly that his eyes bulged and he almost choked. Of course, it didn’t work — though he had loch blood in his veins, neither his mother nor uncle had given him any more than veiled, ominous stories to go on; he was like someone trying to perform rituals by ducking down to read the instruction book laid out in the heather every other minute, instead of just feeling the magic in his bloodstream. But it had been a life-changing experience all the same. “If you ever want to move onto bigger subjects, I could introduce you. Show you the moors. I’d imagine they’re much easier to keep alive — these little hearts must give out so easily.” He turned back to the mice, smiling at them and sticking his claw through the thin metal bars again; his smile grew into a genuine grin when they started to tear at it again and he wiggled it at them, purring, like he’d forgotten Eris was there at all. They were so cute, the way they kept coming back no matter how many times his movements dislodged them.

is there a PROBLEM? if your tinder date doesn’t mutilate themselves to impress you are they even the one <3

It’s true! Kier turned his head slightly to grin at her, but it was a gentler grin than he’d ever worn before, one that was silent and appreciative as he watched her. One that was smitten. He was delighted, too, by her reaction to his casual savagery, a smile appearing on his face that made him seem both very young and innocent, and extraordinarily twisted. He loved to perform; his whole life was an act, but with Eris he could drop everything and finally be appreciated just for himself. He let out a purr at her enthusiasm about the fawn, settling onto his side in front of the bird cage so he could look back at her properly.

A bright grin spread across his face. “So, you’re not from here, either? How exciting. I knew there must be some reason you’re not boring — you’re the only interesting person I’ve met since I arrived.” At her question, he dragged the bird cage around slightly so he could continue to play with the mice while he spoke. “Well, moorland is vastly more wild,” he replied conversationally. “You can’t call it lovely, like your meadow, but you could call it… brutal. Magical. Like being lost at sea, but the sea is roaring with stags. Very savage. I can’t stand forests so it’s the perfect antidote to being stuck for so long in this hellscape.” His eyes wandered away as he said the last part, head turning slowly; he meant the League’s territory. “My grandparents’ were Nemeses, you know, but all I can think is — oh, well, bully for you. If I were in charge, I’d burn it all to the ground and start over.” It felt strange to be talking about the League with Eris, despite the fact they were both part of it; it was like when he was out here with her, where everything was real, that place felt so utterly insignificant, so silly — Nemeses, who cared? At first, when he’d arrived with his father and siblings and been around other cats for the first time in his life, he’d thrown himself head first into this new world. Now, two moons later, he was disillusioned. Their ambitions were small, or too large — power, eternal life, revenge. Where were the petty clowns, the ones who built their card towers and then pulled out the foundations to watch how it all fell and just laugh. The ones who didn’t do it for a reason, who just woke up and thought I wonder what it looks like to drop a kitten from the rooftop and then went and did it to satisfy a random curiosity. Chaos for chaos’ sake, because it was fun, because it wouldn’t get you a crown, because if you ended up a tyrant it would be so delightful to shout and make them all dance because they were too terrified not to. They were so serious about their little things, their vendettas and life tasks.

And he supposed Eris was too, this reversing death experimentation, but she was also the first one he’d met who did things just to see whether she could. It was so refreshing. And even better, he could tag along without it becoming some blood-oath cult like it was with his mother. He could tag along just for fun. Well, that and his obvious crush. Kier was exceedingly honest with himself - there was nothing he kept from himself or denied - and he acknowledged and accepted the crush with surprised delight and open arms. What a turn of events!

He suddenly remembered his tail when it began to sting. Looking down, he saw it for the first time; his eyes brightened, like he was laughing. “I suppose I’d better deal with this,” he said cheerfully, like the threat of infection was some race against the clock and not a ghastly imposition. He looked up at Eris. “You don’t happen to have any herbs lying around? Whatever you use to treat the micies with? Otherwise I’ll have to go back to the Mansion and my sister has been in such a mood lately. Hormones, I suppose. She’s become a monster.” Plus, he wanted an excuse to stay. He wouldn’t mind her playing nurse to him; even if he ended up with a horrible stump for a tail because she couldn’t heal as well as she could slice up and dream, he’d love his stump tail and hold it close to his heart. Reaching out a paw, he picked absently at the dried blood that was already starting to crust over his tail tip, getting used to the new look of it.

Kier's brow quirked as she pushed the withered horsetail towards him, but it was all amusement and no true disdain. "My dear, I think I'm beginning to understand why your micies haven't been doing so well," he told her with a crooked little grin as he took the herbs from her. He personally wouldn't mind being locked in a birdcage and starved by her - or, better yet, cut open and then provided with the most deplorably outdated, the most Georgian, medical care; a hacksaw instead of a scalpel, deathberry seeds instead of poppy because the two do look so similar; he didn't know what the mice were getting themselves into such a tizzy over. Oh, so your guts were going to be spread over the ground - yes, but isn't the doctor something? He'd like to be ruined by her.

Ignoring her suggestion of looking around for something else - because this was quite enough, and if he got an infection then what a happy fever-scape that would be - Kier, without any hesitation, put the horsetail in his mouth and chewed it into some semblance of a poultice. Then, leaning over his tail - "excuse me," he apologised, because spit was so primal - he smeared the poultice over the bloodied tip, a tingle racing up his spine at the painful sensation. He leaned back and tilted his head at his work, smiling and narrow-eyed. "Well, now we wait and see how much else I lose," he laughed. The sun was going down by now, spilling thick shadows and gloomy light over the little clearing the oak stood in; the air, usually humid and heavy in the day, was fresh and cold. The first of the mosquitoes were beginning to lurk.

And then, suddenly, Kier sat bolt upright - sat being a deceptive word, since he was still lying on his side. "Do you have lights in here?" he suddenly burst out, eyes wide with an excitement that was so raw it almost looked like terror. Without waiting to hear whether or not she did, he scrabbled up and sprinted out into the darkness. He was gone for a long while - long enough that Eris might begin to think he wasn't coming back. But then, finally, when night had truly fallen, he came sprinting back, his pelt so black that he was barely visible until he suddenly popped into the hollow - or, he would have been, if he hadn't been lit up golden by the trailing fairy lights he was dragging behind him and the lantern bumping against his chest, so tall he had to tip his head far back to even carry it. Without greeting her beyond a buzzing grin, he plopped the dim-glowing lantern in a corner of the shadowy hollow and began to hang the lights from the gnarled bark. "Now you can operate in the dark!" he told her, genuinely delighted. At last, he finished and sat back close beside her, smiling up at his work with his eyes squinting happily and his little vampire teeth peeking out from his top lip. He was a terrible patient; his tail was forgotten and, still wet when he left, now covered in clinging dust and debris.