2021-12-16 - Not A Good Boy Anymore

Surprise me is Ravn Abildgaard's usual request to the cook at the Black Bear, and surprises are what he gets. The cook seems to be of the conviction that the Dane eats me (it's not wrong), and the food he ends up with is inevitably solid; this time, fries and thin slices of steak slathered in a not at all bad whiskey sauce, and decorated with an ornamental leaf of lettuce because a man should eat his veggies, just, not too many of them. He still hasn't gotten around to learning to cook much. It doesn't hurt that he likes this place, kitschy as it is. And he likes having to make himself go somewhere for food, because a tendency to just stay in with a book is something the Dane is constantly fighting; introvert wants to extrovert.

And sometimes, it's best to leap into something rather than circle the hot plate like a hungry cat that doesn't want to burn its tongue. "I talked to de la Vega the other day," isn't quite the bomb Ravn's tone implies that it might be, though.

Itzhak always gets what Ravn's having, because it always winds up being kinda awesome. He's slouched back in the booth, biting into a crisp fry, tapping out some rhythm with his other hand, doing some kind of full-body groove to whatever weird-ass music is on the sound system.

"Oh yeah?" He raises his eyebrows at him. "What about?"

Why is Ravn's cheeks dusting pink a moment? Not only does it clash god-awfully with copper blond hair and pale skin, but it also implies half a dozen things he certainly has no desire or reason to imply. "Fucking Leontes and fucking Cameron," he mutters. "I talked to them about it and they made me feel like I'd been cheating on you with him, or however that works, telling me that mind linking is more intimate than sex. I'm pretty damned sure the Chief did not intend to seduce me, and I sure as hell don't intend to seduce him, and I'm almost more disturbed by that."

Deeeeep breath. Another fry. "I asked de la Vega about the mind calm thing that he can do. That he's done to me a few times. He made it clear to me that -- well, I'm not going to be able to do it to myself. Then he suggested that there might be something else in my mind holding me back, and offered to take a look around inside."

"Uh," Itzhak says, part amused and part confused. "I guess it is in a way? Are you sure you don't wanna seduce him, I hear it's all the rage." He would punch anybody else even suggesting it.

He listens to what Ravn has to say, crunching through fries, nodding in agreement that the mind calm thing is a thing. "Him and Roen done it to me. Huh," that's for not being able to do it to yourself. "Really? I guess it never occurred to me."

The news that de la Vega offered to take a look inside Ravn's mind gets first a frown, then his gray hazel eyes widen. "Oh boy. Okay, so, what happened."

That he's sitting in a booth in a diner and discussing this doesn't even slow him down.

"I'm all on board with the idea that having sex that way would be very, very intimate," Ravn agrees and stoically ignores his own discomfort. "However, you know the Chief and you know me. Not exactly about to hop into bed with each other, and I somewhat resent the implication -- also because I could tell there was an undertone of 'what did de la Vega do to you' that I loathe. He did exactly what I asked him to do. Which was, help me figure out if there is a way I can use this power to help my anxieties."

He toys with a fry. "You know what my mind is like. And you know what de la Vega's mind form is like. I didn't. Was a bit of a shocker. But, you know, it's still him, right? So when he told me to come down -- I did. And then he chased me around my own mindscape until I nearly passed out from exhaustion. Bloody well thought he was going to eat me. In the end I couldn't run anymore so I -- clawed his face. And that was what he wanted me to do -- fight back."

"What, that you somehow did somethin' weird with him because 'intimate'? Man, Roen and me are in each other's heads all the time, it ain't weird. Cavanaugh and me have done it, Alexander..." Itzhak pauses. Then he shrugs, making a face, and swigs from the local (nonalcoholic) cider he's got. "We used to do it too. Maybe it's intimate but it ain't weird. "

That's fine for the strongest mover in town to say.

He shakes his head, too, urgently swallowing cider so he can explain, waving, "He wouldn't do nothin' to you if--exactly, if you didn't ask for it. People think he's an animal, it ain't true, he's real, like, steady."

Even so, the story Ravn tells him really makes his eyes go wide. Then he's grinning around the mouth of the bottle. "Ahh, he's such an asshole," he murmurs in the same tone another man might express his lover's beauty. "Nu, what happened then?"

"Yes, he's an asshole," Ravn agrees, wincing at the memory because he remembers perfectly well how terrified he was. "But also, yes. Exactly what I asked him to do, even if I didn't think it through before asking."

The Dane sips the beer that goes with the not very healthy but very hearty meal. "He picked me up. By the scruff of the neck, like the cat I am. And carried me -- all over my own mindscape. Places I have been, travelled through. It was eerie as all hell because there was no one else there -- I don't need a degree in psychology to piece together that I feel I have spent most of my life alone. We ended in New York of all places -- maybe because it's the most crowded place I have been, and there was no one there. Then he bit my collar off and it fell into the Hudson."

Ravn makes a face. "So that's kind of where it ended. Except I then went to go have a tequila induced sort of breakdown on Cameron and Leontes and also, I woke up with the damn pet collar in my pocket."

Itzhak gets an increasingly stupid look on his face as Ravn talks. It's a look that speaks louder than words about how he feels about de la Vega. He's smiling by the time Ravn describes the collar falling into the Hudson, and snorts a laugh at the tequila-induced breakdown. "You ain't the first one to have one of those by a long shot. Okay, wait, you ended in New York, and you woke up with ya own collar in your pocket? You still got it?"

"... Yes, I do. I threw it in the trash at Isi's place, but I also fished it back out. I'm trying to work out what it means." Ravn rubs his temple with a gloved hand. "Still don't need a degree in applied psychology to figure out something was unleashed in me. But I can't tell what."

Draining the cider in a few swallows, Itzhak comes up for air and says, "Let's go back there. To New York in ya head. You can look at the collar there and maybe it'll tell you something. Maybe it won't, but what can it hurt?"

"... Here?" Ravn looks around. He's evidently not opposed to the idea, but wondering if Gina Castro's diner is the right kind of place. With a glance back to Itzhak he nods. "It's not a bad idea. And I figure, this time you might not fall back out on your dappled arse because you see a cat."

He's never going to let that go.

"I turned into the other cat when the collar came off," he muses. "The black one, the alley cat. Could be interesting to see which one I am now, you know?"

"Hey, that's not why I fell out, I fell out because I needed to yell at you." Duh! Itzhak smirks. "Nah, not here. It don't matter a hell of a lot, but we kinda got history with this place." He taps the bottle against the tabletop, in time with the song playing, then decides. "We'll go to the park. The weather ain't bad and it's pretty sheltered."

Ravn nods; conjuring Benedikte's angry ghost by mistake is the last thing he wants to see in the middle of steak and fries. Another fry goes down the hatch -- and if that means leaving half his dinner un-eaten, then it's a better track record than on average. He may not have a clinical eating disorder these days but to say that he's got healthy eating habits is still a far step.

A moment of pause before he finishes his beer though. "Thanks for -- you know. Not thinking I'm hitting on your boyfriend or he on me. Really didn't need someone telling me that mind linking is more intimate. I get that it is but -- I really didn't like the implication."

Itzhak has of course cleaned his plate. He needs a lot of calories, okay? What he does with them is a mystery, the beanpole, but he sure does need them.

He rolls his eyes. "Look, you already kissed him and you didn't even like it. No offense but you might just be tragically straight. Anyway what would he want you for when he's got me?" The funny part is, he's not even intending to insult Ravn. To him the math just doesn't work out. Why would de la Vega want to seduce a straight boy who can't tolerate being touched when he's got this hot New York Jew waiting for him?

Ravn laughs; he doesn't disagree at all, and he's certainly not insulted. "Think I'm just tragically not interested a whole lot in anyone at this time in my life," he says, chuckling. "But if I was looking? Not already in a relationship with someone else would be a good start. Interested in me for more than, present in the same room and not wearing someone else's ring, is the second step. Having time to spend with me is a solid three. I'll let you know if someone decides to meet all those qualifications."

He leaves a money and a good tip; service here might consist of 'fetch your own damn food' and 'you will listen to new wave punk whether you it or not' but the food is good and it's oddly liberating in a way . Then he pulls his torn-sleeve leather jacket on. "Shall we?"

"You better let me know or there's gonna be trouble." Itzhak holds the door for Ravn on the way out, like a gentleman.

It's not far to Addington Park, and the weather is not in fact too awful. Cool and drizzly, but not freezing, and not raining hard. Itzhak parks his truck (Heartbreaker is under cover for the season) under the low spreading branches of an enormous cedar.

"Now I feel like I'm supposed to make out with you," he remarks, putting the big glitter-orange truck in park but letting the engine run for heat.

"I've been upgraded to pity fuck?" Ravn can't help laugh. "Honestly though -- it is very intimate, yes, but not that way. I'm sure it can be but, these are things I may some day explore but shall leave untouched at the moment, even if your boyfriend finds it amusing that I'm a blushing virgin in some matters. Right time, place, and person, you know?"

He sticks a cigarette between his lips once they are outside, and lights it. "All I want to know is what it means, losing the collar. I've come to terms with not being able to teach myself to mind xanax myself. Fair enough. Probably for the better, too, I might end up just sitting in a corner with a very relaxed, very stupid grin on my face all day."

"No! Because we're parking. Don't kids in Denmark find quiet places to park and then make out?" Itzhak turns red, glares at Ravn very glaringly, and kills the engine.

He gets out, following suit with a cigarette and turning up the collar of his ancient woolen pea coat. Sometimes he looks like he could be from any time period within the last two hundred years, and now is one of those times: that coat, the cigarette, his black curls dewed with the drizzle, he could be from 2021 or 1821.

"I didn't know you can't do it on yourself, but shapers can't do anything to themselves neither." He exhales smoke. "And movers, well, we can't mess with none a that anyway. So I guess it makes sense. Consistent, yannow?" Then, snorting, he shakes his head. "You could do that with regular fuckin' Xanax anyway."

Is he stalling? Is he nervous? Is he just finishing his cigarette?

Ravn shoots Itzhak a questioning look -- and then laughs. "Oh, of course. I'm sure they do. Kids find ways to make out anywhere, don't they?"

Drizzling rain turns copper blond hair dark brown. What does the Dane look like, in his all-black ensemble, completed with the black leather jacket with the torn sleeve that he hasn't gotten around to replacing? (Because damnit, this is the second time, and Gray Harbor apparently just hates a good leather jacket). Probably just some late 90s art director with a crush on Steve Jobs.

"Regular medication hasn't worked very well for me," he observes. "I feel like I am walking in a glass bubble, or I get so stoned I stop seeing the point in interacting with anyone at all. But for what it's worth I feel like this town is -- how to put it -- there are so many real issues to worry about and deal with that I haven't got as much time as I used to, for just being plain neurotic."

That cut sleeve looks badass, though. Itzhak eyes it a little enviously.

He grunts in acknowledgement. "Aight. Well, listen, if there's anything in there you don't want me to see, just say so, okay? I'll drop out."

So he is nervous, about what else he might accidentally learn about Ravn, apparently.

"Yeah. Though by now I think anything you don't want to see -- I don't know it's there either. I don't know what's in the castle, for instance. I think it's just... empty." Like most of the man's inner mindscape; sets upon which stories are not being told.

The Dane looks back at Itzhak a moment; perhaps he does catch something in that in tone. "You know, we don't have to. I don't think I have any great secrets you don't already know. But, I know you worry about finding something else you don't like, and whether it might change things between us."

Itzhak's eyebrows go up. "Don't like?"

Scowl. He crushes out the cigarette like it did him wrong. "That's got nothing to do with it," he mutters, and does he sound ashamed? Maybe he does. Maybe that time he exploded at Ravn actually bothers him.

Emotions may be his realm, but talking about emotions certainly is not. "We're gonna do this," he informs Ravn briskly. "You ready?" He offers his flat open hand, as if Ravn is a horse.

Ravn's cigarette goes the same way; maybe he figures it's not a great idea to lose focus on the physical world with a burning cigarette still in one hand. He swallows something because fear

pounding along endless steel walls, a very big wolf breathing fire at his heels

is going to be staying with him for a while.

This, however, is Itzhak. Loud, flamboyant, and sometimes randomly lashing out, but always there. Rock solid, in a very ethereal way. He takes the hand and braces for impact.

Long fingers, callused smooth at the tips, close over Ravn's hand--

Violin music, nothing recognizable but rich with meaning, with presence. It feels, sounds, tastes like Itzhak. Only sound at first, it swirls and coaxes, and then it becomes visual in two dimensions. It draws streets and blocks and neighborhoods like a psychic Etch-a-sketch, an enormous grid. Then those flat shapes rocket upwards, learning the third dimension, and then New York exists.

And a black unicorn stands on the empty street, looking around, looking at itself. <<Abildgaard?>> the violin music says.

"Meow," says the black alley cat who still hasn't figured out how the whole speaking in minds works. Maybe he's just not comfortable with the idea.

Ravn finds himself sitting between the front legs of the unicorn, almost as if it is his shield and protection against what horrors his own might contain. No longer a pampered, perfectly groomed Siamese; this is a torn-eared, ragged, too-skinny tom cat of the kind that lives behind dumpsters, as feral as the rats that sustain it.

It doesn't feel quite right, either. Though less humiliating, at least.

He reaches up with a paw to touch at his neck. No collar. Though there are specks of silver, like white hairs growing where once a collar was on too tight.

And all around them, nothing happens. No cars, no people, no life. Neon lights flash on bill boards and the rumble of a subway train far below, and somehow, the disassociated sound of cars and traffic where there is none. There's no one here. No one ever lived here long enough to leave marks.

The unicorn bows his elegant neck to get a good look at the cat. "You're different," he says, although it's still violin music in some way. It's also Itzhak, his voice twined with the instrument. "That's way more like you, but it ain't exactly you, is it?"

The cat inspects himself in the meticulous way that only a cat can do; it involves walking in circles around himself and a unicorn leg several times and some pretty impressive pretzeling.

"I don't think so," Ravn says at length. "It feels better. This is me after I threw it all away and just left, maybe? But it's also -- it's not living, it's just staying alive. Cat like this, it ends up dead behind a dumpster some day and no one has anything to say about it besides maybe, ugh, what's that smell."

He cants his feline head, blue eyes shining. "We were here, and the collar flew -- into the Hudson. I don't even know how, not like we can even see the river from here, but I just knew, it was gone. And then it was there with me when I woke up, as if it was trying to tell me, you don't get away from me that easy."

The cat looks back up. "You know that's not how it works. You of all people know very well about taking things back. It shouldn't have been there. And now I'm wondering if something is fucking with me, or it's myself that doesn't really want to lose it."

The unicorn watches all the pretzeling, his ears forward and his long tasseled tail swishing in amusement. "Yeah. Neither of them kitties are the whole story."

He lifts his head. Sound rushes by, the sound of life, voices and footsteps, but there's nobody to create it, and it goes by and dissipates.

"...I know how it works," the unicorn says, pawing the asphalt, perhaps a little anxious about how very empty his home town is. "Or, hell, do I? I know how it works sometimes. Not all the time. Things change. C'mon, we'll go look."

He sets off along the street.

The cat pads along, though it has to break into a trot to keep pace with the unicorn and its substantially longer legs. It doesn't seem bothered; tail high, this is not a terrified kitty. More of a I got more claws than you, mate kitty.

"Do you think it's possible for someone to just be empty inside?"

It's not an invalid question, considering their surroundings; a kind of movie set New York with the sounds and noise on playback from unseen speakers. Posters and billboards advertise goods and shows, but even the models are faceless.

"The only place he dragged me through that had any people in it at all was Gray Harbor. And even there, everyone were shadows, like they were not fully formed people yet."

"No, I don't," the unicorn says, tail swishing turning to lashing for a few beats. "This ain't you you. It's symbolism and shit. I mean, Roen don't really got a volcano in his brain. Then again," he adds in a mutter, violin strings pensive, "maybe he does. What the hell do I know. But you're not empty inside. That's not a thing."

He has declared it Not A Thing, so take that.

"Figure a volcano might show on a PET scan." Ravn ponders. "Though for some people I can think of, it might explain a lot of the hot air that comes out of their mouths."

He rubs against the unicorn's leg because that's what cats do. Then pauses to think about it. And then pointedly shuffles a few steps away because cats may do that but people do not do that, and this just got awkward. "How do I find out what it means? If we go for -- symbolism and shit. A collar, restraining you. A little bell on, to make sure you can't do anything unnoticed. And now it's gone -- so what can I do that I couldn't before, that I might not want anyone to know about?"

The cat looks up. "If you say 'get on Tinder' I will claw you."

The unicorn snorts, half-heartedly pinning his ears. "I dunno who you're talking about. Wiseass."

He doesn't think anything of Ravn the cat rubbing against his leg, then Ravn makes it obvious that it's awkward and now it's awkward, thanks Abildgaard. He sidesteps too, less to move away and more because apparently that's how his unicorn mind form is awkward. Even his violin music gets weird about it. He shakes his head vigorously.

"I wasn't gonna say that," he says airily like it did not even occur to him. (Spoilers: it occurred to him.) "Okay, but, you're allowed to do stuff you don't want anybody to know about, that's what privacy is. When I got out of prison, you know what the best thing was? My own damn door I could close."

Ravn!Cat agrees. "When I ran away from home? As a kid, over and over? That's what I wanted, just being allowed to be alone. Go get dirty and eat crap and do nothing. Instead of having to look right, dress right, and say the right things, as to not embarrass Mama." He even says that with a French affectation, mamá -- because obviously, Mum is too plebeian for some.

"If I had had the kind of power you do back then." The cat looks up. "Engelsholm might have more than a crack in one wall to worry about. I'd have ripped the whole damn thing apart, just to get out. Why didn't you? In prison? Why not step into the Veil here, step out over there, and fuck you all, guys?"

Unicorn-Itzhak repeats, "Ma*ma*," in a disbelieving mumble.

He looks down at the cat, then stops and heaves a sigh. In the middle of the street, but it's not like there's any traffic. "Well, for one, I didn't know I could do that. But I coulda broken out, yeah, and just left. I didn't because what was I gonna do then? They woulda noticed. Then an APB goes out and what am I gonna do then? Leave the city, leave the state? How far do I have to go? And while I'm doing that, how am I ever gonna come back and take care of my family? Am I just gonna be on the run forever or hide out in Mexico or something?"

He looks back at Ravn-kitty. "I thought about it. Real hard."

"Yeah. That's how the system keeps you where you're supposed to be -- not through chaining you, but through how your getting up and going will affect everyone else." Ravn nods. "Why I had to be an adult before I finally did. Needed to be old enough to sort out how to dump all those responsibilities on other people, keep the gears running no matter whether I happen to be there or not. Why I couldn't go until my parents were dead -- wherever they are now, they won't care anymore. And why I will have to go back some day, I figure."

He looks up again, meeting the hazel unicorn gaze. "So we think about it. Real hard. And then we don't, unless something happens. When you think about it like that, Gray Harbor is not a curse, it's a blessing. It pulled both of us out of a life we didn't want to be in. Do you ever think about it like that? Like, the thing that most annoy the dolorphages the most is that I am fucking grateful to them, for dragging me here?"

The unicorn whuffles, softly. "Yeah. Sometimes I do think about it like that. I met Javier here. Roen, and you. It took me away from my family but it gave me more family. That's how it keeps us, yannow? If we didn't have anybody we loved here, why the hell would we stay?"

"Imagine if it could be like that. A symbiosis. If we could find a reality on the other side where the things feed on happiness?" Ravn hitches a kitty-shoulder. "Whole damn human race would sign up in thirty minutes. Even the ones who need to swim against the stream and wear tinfoil hats, because they'd be happy conspiracy theorists."

He bats at an empty bottle; it goes skittering, rolling and ending in a gutter with a plonking noise of cheap glass. "So I ask de la Vega for help and I end up here, without my collar -- whatever the hell that collar represents. And then I end up at Isi Cameron's with her and Leontes, so drunk on tequila I don't have the first idea what I'm saying. I remember trying to not cry while I am telling them that all I want is to be normal."

The bottle gets another swat, and a swish of an annoyed kitty tail. "I'm not sure what normal even is. Not sure I ever met anyone who felt they are perfectly balanced and normal. But it is funny how a lot of people seem to think not being able to get laid without it being a bother is the big issue. It's not, it's always feeling like I am two hairs short of a nervous breakdown that's the big issue."

"Some animals eat really common stuff like grass, some eat rare stuff like one kind of bamboo. Some eat tough to get stuff like antelopes. Unhappiness is real common. It must be like grass. Maybe happiness is like bringing down a bison like on that National Geographic. Yannow, takes twenty wolves to do, even for a calf. Unhappiness maybe's like being a sheep or a horse or whatevah, there's tons of it, you just gotta put your face in it."

Itzhak has theories. He's a naturalist in his own weird way.

His dainty cloven hooves click along as unicorn and cat come to the end of the block. Presumably they could just arrive at the Hudson, but Itzhak has very clear memories of what it's like to walk in Manhattan, going somewhere.

He turns his head to watch Ravn bat around the bottle, and makes a sympathetic little grunt in his chest. Tequila hangover after trying to keep pace with de la Vega. Yeah he knows that one. Along with the occasional accompanying existential crisis.

"Fuck normal, normal ain't a thing. You think I ever been normal?" Snort. "So you wanted to use the Song on yourself to kinda short out anxiety? I guess he told you it don't work like that. Hey. We're here."

So they are, the river glassy green between its concrete banks.

"Yeah. That was my bright idea. If he and Hyacinth and the Magpie can do it, if it's a thing people who do the mind thing can do -- then maybe I could learn to do it. But if it doesn't work on ourselves, then it's off the table as fast as it got on there in the first place." The black cat sidles in between unicorn legs again and peeks around corners; Ravn's idea of what's where in New York is based in a week or so of wandering the streets of Manhattan aimlessly, going nowhere in particular, and doing some busking near Grand Central Station. The more elaborate, precise memories here are obviously Itzhak's and not his.

Kitty wants a smoke, too. Kitty is pretty put out to not have a cigarette, nor fingers with which to hold one.

"Normal's just conforming to the behaviour society finds most convenient." Ask your local folklorist slash social dynamics expert. "It would have been useful for me to be able to ditch the anxiety. And it would have been nice to be able to ditch the neuropathy, even for a bit. But we can't always have what we want, and I think what I need to work out is what the lost collar means. What got unleashed? The metaphor's so obvious it might as well just walk up in a T-shirt reading Captain Obvious in Da House."

The unicorn, looking at the river, mutters, "This ain't the Hudson. It's the East River." Whatevah.

He lowers his slim muzzle to bump Ravn kitty. "So. You wanna get it back out? Take a look?"

As the thought of how Ravn lost it rises to mind, there's a great crackling of fire. A giant wolf made of flames races through the reflections in hundreds of windows, then it's gone. Itzhak knows his lover's mind creature well, too.

"I don't know. What if it kept something back in me that I want to be rid of? That's what troubles me, I can't tell. What if losing the collar means I'm not afraid of a thing anymore, or that I am suddenly able to do a thing? Then getting it back would be -- not a very good idea." Ravn looks at the river with sullen, blue cat eyes.

And then adds, "Look, for all I know it's Vejle River. It's wet and polluted, and I'm a cat -- I hate fucking rivers."

Itzhak considers, flipping the very end of his tail back and forth as if he was a cat himself. "Yeah. Okay, good point. I'll get it and I'll hold it for you."

He breaks into a gallop, springs over the concrete barrier and plunges into the bottle-green water.

Ravn opens his little kitty mouth and then shuts it. What the hell, Rosencrantz? The Hudson River is infamous for its pollution levels and Jimmy Hoffa's body probably dissolved in there and -- wait, did he say it's the East River?

New York has an East River?

Well, it's probably just as polluted, then, and what the hell, Rosencrantz. There is no way Kitty Abildgaard is getting his paws into that toxic sludge, and if the unicorn thinks its sparkle and skittles is going to save its dappled ass, then he can only hope it's right about it.

He sits down on his rump and curls his tail around his paws. Because that's what cats do when they don't know what else they ought to be doing.

K-sploosh!! In a surge of water that smells like algae and chemistry, the black dappled unicorn explodes back onto the concrete. He stands with legs stiff and head lowered, mane clinging wetly to his neck, heaving great breaths. But he's not dissolved at least.

"Fuck's sake, it is weird down there." He braces himself and shakes off. Uh, sorry, Ravn, hope you weren't standing too close.

However he's got his prize: a tattered collar, with a corroded bell, hung around his horn.

Look over there. All the way over there. That's a black cat who is abso-fucking-lutely not within a range of a large equine shaking itself off and spraying filthy river sludge everywhere. He has instincts. Teleport away now, those instincts said.

Ravn licks a paw and looks at the collar with undisguised disgust. "I am not putting it back on. I don't know what it means, but I do know that I do not want it back on. I hate it. I hate that little bell so much."

He's probably not a fan of the embroidered GOOD BOY either.

It's strange. The water dripping from Itzhak and shaken off from him stops smelling like that. Behind him, in the river, there's an eddy of perfect clarity.

He hasn't noticed, he's saying, "So don't put it on, what am I, your mother?" while dipping his head to paw the collar off. Poor choice of words maybe there Itz, but he doesn't notice that either.

Because the collar has wriggled to life and it's skittering towards Ravn, bell a-ring-ding-dinging. Snorting in alarm, Itzhak tries to stamp a hoof down on it.

Stomp!

HiSsSsSssssSsSSSSS!

Jingle jingle jing-crunch!

Onomatopoeia is having a good day. The little brass bell isn't. And for that, at least Ravn looks relieved. Whatever the bell may have represented, is firmly, soundly, irretrievably destroyed.

He looks at it. Then he swats at it with a paw. Licks the paw. And then sniffs at the broken metal.

Then the cat looks up at the unicorn. "I still don't know what it means. But it sure as fuck feels good."

Itzhak stands there with one delicate little cloven hoof that's not as delicate as it seems atop the flattened bell. He looks at Ravn, eyes big, whites flashing. "I broke it."

Did he fuck up? Will Ravn never be able to solve the mystery now?

Maybe but he looks so relieved Itzhak relaxes, too. He cautiously drops his head to whuffle the crushed thing. Mistake; he tosses his head up, snorting. "Smells like chemical fertilizer and antifreeze."

Looking at Ravn, he cups his ears towards him. "That better? I dunno what the hell we just did."

"I hated that collar so much. I feel like I've been a cat all my life, and I have hated that collar all my life." Ravn licks his little nose. "It's obviously not the case. The first time we did, I was as surprised as you were, to see me like a cat with a collar and bell on. But it felt like I always had been back then and it still does. Like I've spent my entire life looking for ways to tangle myself into bushes, shrubberies, anything that the collar might snag on and break -- and it never bloody did."

Well, that's one way to describe a decade spent studying by day, running with petty criminals at night, he supposes. And also, the whole, hitch-hike around the planet in unsafe and probably stupid risk-taking ways.

He sniffs it again. "I'm not a good boy anymore, I guess. I'm okay with that."