Continued from Unicorn in Thailand

Finally Sebastian reached the state of New York. He went through customs one last time as he crossed over from the land that doesn’t exist into the United States. The northern border patrols were pretty relaxed. Sebastian wore a Yankees baseball cap that hid the small horn on his forehead and encountered no trouble. His tail was likewise hidden; wrapped around his stomach under his clothes giving him a slightly pudgier than normal look. He looked like he belonged in the States, and the guards didn’t even bother to examine his Thai passport.

A few hours later he had checked into a hotel near central park. The traffic in New York hadn’t bothered him in the least. After all, he had driven in Beijing, where a few inches between cars seemed to be plenty of personal space for most drivers. His hotel room would be temporary lodging until he could find a suitable apartment building. For now though, he wanted to catch up on the news. He purchased that morning’s paper in the hotel lobby, and then walked out to the park to read it in the cold fresh air. He settled down on a bench, pulled his jacket tighter around himself, adjusted his baseball cap, and began to read.

Normally he preferred to read the paper as an older gentleman, because the wisdom that came with age made him better able to see the connections between past and present events. Given the current situation in New York, Sebastian figured it was probably better to be less obvious about his mutation. The horn that grew from his forehead got longer as he aged, so he chose an approximately twenty year old body for its one and half inch long horn, the ability to wear a baseball cap without attracting too much attention, and enough years to be able to drive and rent a hotel room without anyone attracting attention.

There were several articles of interest in the paper that morning. One was about the preliminaries leading up to the election of a new president for the US. The article explained where the different leaders stood on the issue of mutant and human relations. It looked like that single issue might be the one that decided who would be the next man or woman in the White House. A new president could bring relief from the mutant registration law, or they could crack down even more.

In the editorial section, someone had posed the question as to whether the mutants in the camps had the right to vote. Someone had responded saying that the camp inmates were no better than criminals. Another person had responded that they hadn’t been tried or convicted of any crimes so they shouldn’t be locked up anyway. A third writer mused that the mutant voting population was such a minority that they wouldn’t make a difference in the voting anyway. One line at the end of that article said, “The Church of Humanity has more members and more influence than the mutant population, so presidential candidates will probably be more worried about what the church thinks than the mutants anyway. At the moment it appears that which ever candidate can win the backing of the Church will have the support, the funding, and the votes needed to win.”

Each of the editorials was sent anonymously. Sebastian admired the editors of the newspaper for being willing to print every side of the issue and tucked away the information on the Church of Humanity. He hadn’t heard about this particular church before, but history had proven that churches and even small fanatical groups of believers could often times influence politics. There were times when small religious movements caused wars, when popes had more power than kings, and when martyrs spoke louder than living leaders. Religion could be a very dangerous thing, even in a country that supposedly separated church and state. It all came from people believing in powers higher than governments and ideals more important than laws.

Next Sebastian turned to the sports section. He skipped the article on the American football final match. American football was a silly sport with no grace to it at all. The rest of the world didn’t even recognize it as a sport. He was interested to see if these American newspapers had any information about the upcoming summer Olympics to be held in Beijing. The Olympics… now that was were you could see some real sports. It was unfortunate that the competitors in the Olympics no longer wore the traditional Olympic garb, but perhaps it was better that way. It was less distracting. Sebastian turned another page and wondered if the Greek soccer team would be in the running for the gold this year.

Calley had been doing something that he’d been meaning to do for weeks: he was catting. Catting in Central Park. If this wasn’t where it had all begun, he didn’t know where was. Not his house in Jersey; he didn’t even want to think about that. Not Hunter’s apartment; ditto with the not-thinking-about. The Boss Man was off on business and Calley was free to plot; that was all well and good and dandy and chipper and more than he needed to know. When the man came back, then he’d have to worry about killing him. For now... he was catting. It was wonderful.

He stalked across the recently cleared paths with the long, silent strides of a true tom cat and the constant half-head-turns and ear-swivels of one used to the streets. The polished silver tag on his collar might read Sinatra, but the way his skin clung tightly to his ribs left no doubt; the large ginger-and-cream stripped tom was no kept kitty. For once, he was proud of his emaciated look. Take that, Hunter. Months of captivity didn’t stop him from looking exactly like what he was: a self-owned individual. Calley wasn’t just catting through Central Park. He was stray catting. It felt every bit as good as he remembered. He had a thick winter coat and a warm stomach digesting a still-warm mouse. What more did a cat need? Nothing. No stupid humans. No stupid Boss Man. No stupid collars made half of explosives and half of persistent death-threats. Once Hunter was dead, Calley was going back underground, and he was going to stay there. Cats didn’t give a crap about employment, they didn’t give a crap about Registration Acts, and they were expected to not give a crap about anyone else. Once Hunter was dead. Right.

...Something cats did give a crap about: men sitting on their favorite benches. Benches that they’d just crossed a multi-block park to curl up for a nap on.

The big orange tom sat down on the ground directly in front of the trespassing man—and several feet out of his kicking range. It put its ears back. It held its tail perfectly still, though it couldn’t stop the occasionally irate twitch from running through the base to the tip. Its baby blue eyes stared up at the man, drilling through his newspaper and condemning him and all those he loved, sired, and casually met to conquest, war, pestilence, and death.

Seeing nothing about the upcoming Olympics in the sports page, Sebastian turned to the next page in mild disgust. It seemed that this particular newspaper didn’t care for speculating about Olympic football teams. They cared only for large photographs and blow-by-blow accounts of the final cup match for American football, the game played mostly with the hands.

The next section of the newspaper was the entertainment section. Sebastian didn’t particularly care to follow the mixed up lives of film and television actors. Their relationships were more outrageously mixed up than Zeus and Hera’s had been. They had more mistresses than Louis XIV.

Sebastian skipped ahead to the classifieds and began looking through them to see if there were any apartments for sale near by.

He did not have enhanced senses or x-ray vision, nor was he psychic. Therefore he did not notice the glaring tomcat that was trying to burn a hole through his newspaper with his glare.

(( Yay Andy's first post! Note that, even when he's trying to sit still, the fact that he is running on hyperspeed is pretty obvious to any vaguely attentive observer. Fortunately for him, New York doesn't have many of those.))

Andy had arrived in the city at 5:45 AM, according to the clock in the lobby.

He’d cooked and eaten breakfast, unpacked, decorated his apartment, set up his computer, bought some emergency stuff he’d forgotten for his apartment (well, strictly speaking he’d stolen it at super-speed, but he’d left money behind… dealing with retail purchases at high speed was just too frustrating, and he was too excited to ramp down to any slower), gone for a long walk through the city (also at super-speed, after the first time someone tried to arrest him… technically he had immunity, but his dad had warned him not to rely on it), cooked and eaten dinner, dealt with email, closed all the shades and slept for a while.

When he woke up and went out, the clock read 9:35 AM… which probably meant he hadn’t actually gotten very much sleep. (Checking his clock hadn’t helped, as he’d forgotten to note what time it read when he went to sleep. The whole experience of moving had blown his routine, which he really could not afford. He’d written his subjective time – 4:22 PM – down in his notepad when he woke up, and sworn not to let the habit lapse again.)

He’d spent the day trying to find the X-Men. He had a whole bunch of hints he’d meticulously downloaded over the last year or so, but no actual address… they weren’t exactly a public institution, after all. But he’d heard things, read things. And he had time. But no luck. The school he’d thought was his best bet actually turned out to have been demolished weeks ago… dead end. But he wasn’t discouraged.

Well, not too much, anyway.

His watch alarm beeped at 4:22 AM, and he decided that was enough time to spend searching for one day. He bought (well, again, stolen and paid for) a huge wall-sized map of the city and a collection of pins to keep track of where he’d visited and a sandwich, then returned to his apartment under the noonday sun to get another night’s sleep – the hallway clock read 12:42 PM – and woke up four hours later at 1:42, not really tired enough to sleep any further.

Another big breakfast later, he went out for another wander.

Which brings him, on his third day in New York since he’d arrived a few hours earlier, to Central Park. Where his attention is captured by a young man reading a newspaper.

He can’t really say what it is about the man that captures his attention, at first, but he’s learned to trust his instincts about such things. And it’s a good opportunity to practice sitting still… not that he’s especially good at it. He sits there for about an hour, by his watch – he’s guessing it’s a little over ten minutes, real-world time – and tries to pay attention.

((ooc: Don't forget to give us a sig link to Speed's profile, darlin'. ))

Thus there was a tomcat glaring seven unholy kinds of death upon the man. Some punk watching the same man with trial-sized curiosity. And only a newspaper guarding the guy from noticing them. Calley decided to cut that snidely silent interloper out of the equation. He pounced lightly up onto the man's right knee, giving the newspaper a sound head butt in the process. From the other side, it probably looked like that scene from Alien when the critter burst out of the crewman's stomach. Hard to ignore. Calley wasn't in the mood to be ignored. He diliberately regathered his paws under himself and set his ears to the appropriate backwards slant. His tail hung loosely over the man's leg, like an enraged fishing line. When that newspaper came down, the man would find a rather large tomcat glaring at him in a way that could not be misinterpreted.

He wanted his bench.

The cat had a long a noble history. Cats first decided to live with humans over 10 thousand years ago, in Egypt. Some would say that the cat had been domesticated by humans, but it has been obvious to the humans who have lived with cats throughout history that no one can ever truly own a cat. It soon became apparent to humans that cats were incredibly useful to have around. If humans gave cats the respect and devotion then the cats might decide to do the rodent hunting that they were already planning on doing in places that just so happened to be convenient for the humans as well. Soon an entire cult had grown up around cats and they were worshiped as gods.

Sebastian put down his newspaper. The cat that had just pounced onto his knee had obviously not forgotten his heritage. Sebastian had known many cats in his lifetimes and the look in this tom’s eyes was unmistakably filled with malice and you’re-encroaching-on-my-turf.

“Hello, your majesty,” Sebastian addressed the new inhabitant of his lap. He reached out in an attempt to placate the furious feline. If the cat allowed him to, he would scratch his chin, if not, it was highly likely that his fingers were about be bitten. Sometimes fingers were easier to heal than a cat’s pride.

Then he noticed the youth sitting on the ground in front of him. Since it was quite clear that no one owned the cat sitting on his knee despite the collar the cat deigned to wear, perhaps the youth belonged to the cat. He was already speaking to the cat, so he continued to do so, “Does this young man belong to you, highness?”

Andy stifles a chuckle as a stray – no, strike that, he’s wearing a collar – tomcat takes a slow, graceful dive at the man’s newspaper. It takes several subjective minutes for the leap to complete, during which time he has an opportunity to study the cat at some length; he decides tentatively that the newspaper-reader is not at risk of being seriously damaged… at least not right away. And since he still hasn’t made any progress in identifying what it is about the guy that’s nagging him, he decides to slow himself down and watch the rest of the show at real-time… or as close to it as he can get.

>“Does this young man belong to you, highness?”

That question, directed to the cat but clearly referring to him, earns a grin. Andy is tempted to interject that he’s never met the cat before, but isn’t quite ready to start the tedious process of having a normal-speed conversation. And zipping over next to them might spook the cat. So he settles for running his arm very slowly through the air, a gesture he hopes will read as a friendly acknowledging wave, and an equally slow shake of the head.

“Hello, your majesty.”

Well. The man seemed to know who he was dealing with, at least. In reward for his adequate display of reverence, the ginger-stripped tom allowed the man the privilege of petting him. Calley reserved the right to either purr or bite him, though, for a later moment. For now, he stayed precisely as he was. Ears back, tail twitching, eyes locked-on-target.

“Does this young man belong to you, highness?”

Calley murred, and rubbed the side of his cheek against the fellow’s hand. Just because he wasn’t purring didn’t mean he’d given the man permission to stop scritching under his chin. As for the guy on the ground: the large tomcat didn’t so much as glance his way. It simply gave a he’s-none-of-mine ear flick, and lightly extended the claws on its forepaws as a further reminder to the man on the bench: let your attention stray from petting me, peon, and I’ll have my pound of flesh. He wasn’t forgiven yet. Even if these fingers of his were clearly experienced in the fine art of chin-scritching.

Calley let the barest rumble of a purr slip out.

There was something a little odd about the young man sitting on the ground. At Sebastian’s query the young man grinned, waved excitedly, then rapidly shook his head all in the time it took Sebastian to inhale. With all that movement, it seemed very improbable that a moment ago he had been sitting so still. He looked like he was about twenty, but the way he waved reminded Sebastian of a hyperactive eight year old.

Meanwhile the tom’s claws were making his message clear, though not painfully so, yet. He could tell that the cat was enjoying his petting, but Sebastian didn’t kid himself that the cat was completely won over just yet. Sebastian let his scritching fingers travel up the edge of the ginger feline’s chin to the base of his left ear. Since his fingers had not been horribly mangled, Sebastian used his other hand to check the name tag hanging from the cat’s before starting to rub the purring prince’s other ear as well.

“Sinatra. That’s a fine name, though I’m sure the original Sinatra’s eyes weren’t as blue and handsome as yours,” Sebastian had never seen them himself, but they were legendary. “I’m Sebastian, and you are…” he raised his eyebrows at the youth, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

After the friendly-wave-in-lieu-of-real-introduction, the guy goes back to paying attention to the cat, and Andy goes back to paying attention to him, and the companionable silence stretches on for what seems like quite a while before the guy looks back over at him.

That’s when he finally notices the odd thing that’s been nagging him for… well, for however long it’s been. The horn is mostly concealed by the baseball cap, but it’s unquestionably a horn.

Neat.

When Sebastian finally gets to the end of his question, Andy responds as slowly and carefully as he can… which doesn’t prevent his response from sounding like "HiS’basch’n m’Andy Nicet’meetchoo ‘sth’hornachrl, or s’rgicly’tachd? "

Truth be told, Calley hadn't been paying any attention at all to the random guy on the ground. What was there to pay attention to? He was a random guy. On the ground. Compared to a trespasser on a park bench, a random guy on the ground simply did not merit attention. Especially when the trespasser on the bench was--purr--attempting to persuade Calley that he was worthy to stay. Oh, both ears... purr That was nice. That was very, very nice. The ginger tom had its eyes half-closed. Its claws were regularly flexing, just the slightest bit. This... this might be acceptable. He wasn't quite sure yet. He'd give it a few minutes.

"HiS’basch’n m’Andy Nicet’meetchoo ‘sth’hornachrl, or s’rgicly’tachd? "

One ear flicked the random guy's way, and his head slowly followed. purr, purr, purr. He stared at the man through his half-lidded eyes with his tail twitching judgmentally. Hmm. He wasn't making sense, and he wasn't making himself of any use to Calley. Therefore, in the mind of the ginger-stripped tom... the guy on the ground was about as useful as a lump of freezer-burned fruitcake. Without even bothering to make a dismissive motion, Calley dismissed him, and turned his full attentions back upon the trespasser. He was not redeemed yet. purr But Calley was considering it.

He didn’t have to wait long for the man to fill in the blank, but what he filled it in with, Sebastian was not entirely sure. The response caught him off guard and his hands paused in their petting for just a moment. He knew a lot of languages, but he didn’t immediately recognize the very fast stream of words that came out of the young man’s mouth. All the words were strung together, and spoken at a very fast pace. Sebastian had expected English in the US, but this didn’t sound like any English Sebastian knew. Then again, he had learned English in England quite awhile ago now, so it was possible that the language was changing over time and distance. Languages tended to do that. Perhaps this young man couldn’t understand Sebastian’s old fashioned English accent any more than Sebastian could understand his new fangled American one. He decided to try English again, this time more slowly to make sure the youth understood him.

“I apologize, but I don’t understand you. Could you speak slower?”

He would have added hand motions, but his hands were busy at the moment. Cats, at least, hadn’t changed their language. Sinatra’s rumbling purrs clearly communicated his pleasure at the ear rubbing. Sebastian continued.

> "I apologize, but I don’t understand you. Could you speak slower?"

Andy sighs once the guy gets through his tediously long question. That wasn't unexpected, but it was frustrating.

His family had gotten pretty good at making sense of Andy's speech over the last calendar year, at least towards the last few months when he'd learned to slow down to only three or four times normal speed. But strangers, however well intentioned and polite, just didn't have the experience, or the focus, and annoying as that is Andy doesn't blame them in the least.

Of course, he could go the notepad route, like he had with Fade. But it doesn't seem worth it for a casual conversation with a stranger, even a stranger who appears to have a horn coming out of his forehead.

Then again, the guy seems nice enough, and willing to work at conversation, and Andy isn't quite prepared to give that up... it's rare.

So he gets up and sits down next to the man on the bench, and takes a deep breath, and rests his hands lightly on his knees and crosses his ankles together, and tries to focus on speeding the world up. And when Sinatra's twitching ears finally accelerate to a languid pace, he tries again.

"Aaaaaandyyy," he says slowly, with his finger pointed at his own chest. He's learned to keep it simple when talking like this... the fewer words he uses, the fewer ways people can misunderstand him. "Quuuuestionnn. Horrrrrrrnnnnn." He puts his hand up to his forehead with his pinky pointing out to provide an additional clue as he stretches the word out. "Naaaatuuuraaaallll?"

ooc: LOL. I'm sorry guys, this is too rediculous a thread to pass up. I'm going to have Naveed jump in if that's ok hehe. Andy, you're hilarious.

ic:

Naveed was taking another jog to clear his head. These past few weeks staying in the hotel was becoming bothersom to him. Between his adventures with Sapphire and dodging stalkers with Vibe he was starting to get a hang on the New York cityline... but truth be told he always felt at home in the park jogging through the snow. It was something natural in a city full of guns and machines.

He's also heard that some of the mutants stuck in the camps were being assigned to volunteer work in the park and he had to admit that the idea of figuring out where his sister was - was a huge motivator in the jogging.

He was jogging along through the snow swiftly as usual when he paused to drink from the fountain. He hated the city water. It tasted nothing like natural water- but he was learning to put up with it. It was as he was bent over to take a slurp when he notices a curious pair by a park bench.

They weren't too curious except for the fact that one of them seemed to be constantly moving. Naveed stood up strait to get a better look and noticed a cat. Naveed... *hated* cats. He had no use of cats. They never earned their keep. He was a dog man himself. Dogs were reliable, friendly, hardowrking... not fickle like cats,

He hesitated knowing he had no good reason to approach the group... but contemplated 'introducing' himself as a long lost mutual friend...