Sigil: City of Doors

The fire had died away, red ambers underlining the tall, moving shadows casted in the small office by four candles on the corner of the large desk. The wax had melted, covering remains of discarded parchments in elaborate carvings. Stained notes, diagrams, open books were spread over the polished oak.

The room was almost silent... Disturbed only by the faint, discontinuous scratching of a quill flowing over the vellum and by a low purr coming, after a better look, from a tortoiseshell coloured cat, curled in a nest of crumpled drafts of charts and sketches.

Liriel was watching the quill with half-closed yellow eyes. Her gaze wandered to the window and she yawned in slow laziness. The snow storm had cloaked the city in a white mantle. The streets were asleep in the embrace of the winter's night. Not a time to run after the rats. They were too lean in this days anyway.

Everything was so still... everything but the quill. Liriel's ears twitched forward briefly. She flicked her tail, sending a piece of paper off the desk. It was tempting. The almond shaped eyes followed the dance of the quill's end. It looked so much like a bird, trapped in her human's claws. "Hands", she corrected herself.

Slowly, the cat stood up, arching her back in a slow, lazy stretch, pretending not to watch the progress of the feather as its tip darkened the page, another flick of her tail betraying her a bit. She sat, watching the woman who was sitting, cross-legged, in an armchair seeming almost too large for such a frail body.

The feline hesitated.

Her human seemed to value the books and yellowish parchments a lot. And she seemed dedicated to make her owns, filling blank ones with curved lines of black ink. And she was so focused... Liriel barely got a glance when she had begged for a caress earlier on.

This was unusual.

And now that she thought about it... Improper. She was due some attention. And the human had had her fun with this quill almost a full night. The dancing of the feather was tantalizing.

"My turn", she thought.

The blur of a paw caught the tip of the quill. There was an ink stain on the careful handwriting now.

"Liriel..."

A sigh.

The voice had sounded tired, a little hoarse from such a long silence... Though amused despite a try to sound reproachful. The feline tried to look innocent. The feather's dance had stopped and the woman leaned against the back of her seat. She rested the quill back into the silver inkstand.

"Ah... A caress, finally", she thought as the rather sharp fingernails scratched that pleasant spot behind her ears.

Yellow and purple eyes met.

"Sorry dear, I want to finish this..."

The cat looked down at the complex charts and symbols. "Humans..." she thought. She purred. The scratching was nice. She lied down across the notes of her human's friend and looked at her, blinking slowly. The woman yawned with a smirk and stretched.

"Alright, alright... Point taken, chuckled the the human. But you know we can't stay."

Their mind touched.

It wasn't exactly a dialogue... But maybe an even deeper form of communication, beyond what words... or meows, could carry. Yes. They had to go. Some-place where the human's hunger could be fed. Though the details where a little beyond the feline's understanding, something linked to the human's brother and father prevented her to fulfil her goals. And something about this new visitor too. The one who had brought the dress. The cat hissed as a flash of shared memories crossed both minds.

"I know" The human nodded in agreement, holding a golden ring in front of her eyes, looking at the emerald set on it. "I've always preferred silver to gold. And I never liked green anyway," She smirked. "deliciously ironic, hmm ? This was meant to bind me, and it will be the key to unlock my cage"

The finally crafted jewel gleamed in the palm of her hand.

"Tomorrow, Liriel. Tomorrow, we'll be gone"

It was going to be a long, long day.

The human seemed nervous as a rather young girl, tall and blonde, helped her into the dress. Green... again. The maid skilfully pulled on the corset's laces. The woman took a small breath. A shame the colour was wrong. The cut was elegant.

Liriel watched the two human females. The girl kept talking. A continuous flow of mostly meaningless words. On and on... And on... She flicked her tail, sending a reproachful look to the servant. It was this babbling that had awoken her from a well-deserved post-breakfast nap.

"... and your father is so proud, Miss. And the Duke's son will attend of course, giggled the girl.
- I know, Annie, smiled the human.
- And my friend Helena, who works for His Grace's wife, told me he'll be dressed in matching dark green silk and that th..
-That'll be all, thank you, Annie."

The girl curtsied and stepped out of the room.

The human sighed.

It was going to be a long, long day.

A crowd.

Many faces, smiling around.

Yellow eyes glow from under a chest of drawers, a paw reaching out from time to time to catch a fallen canapé.

Music. Voices. Noise...

A picture flashes in the cat's mind, in shades of greyish purple.

Her human is turning in elaborate circles in the middle of the room. A male of the same species holds her waist, and one of her hands. He talks a lot too, not unlike the maid, by the way. It's uncanny how a cat can seem to be smirking.

The woman smiles, but the feline knows.

She isn't listening. She is calculating again.

The green dress turns, following in the rapid waltz' rythm.

Many other dresses are gathered around in frilled patches of bright colours. Most have stopped turning, watching the couple.

Birds of prey.

Preys themselves.

End of music.

Applause and laughter.

Purple and yellow eyes meet.

Liriel licks her chops.

It'll be dinner time soon.

Liriel was hidden under a cabinet. The party was over. All the birds had flown away. All but one. They had retired to the parlour, for a last drink of this foul-smelling liquid called "brandy".

The silk rustled softly as the dress fell on the parquet.

Night had fallen again.

A faint splashing noise.

The human stepped out of the huddled fabric, removing her shoes and welcoming the silence back. She took a deep breath, savouring the mildly acrid scent spread by a candle that had just died away. And underneath, a second one, a bit sweet, subtly metallic. She stood a moment there, motionless in the simple white camisole of taffeta worn underneath the dress. She breathed in slowly to evacuate the rush of adrenaline.

The parchment...

With her left hand, she retrieved it from the pouch, decorated with white pearls at the dress' belt. It had costed her almost all of her savings and a golden ring adorned with an emerald. It'd better be worth it.

Another drop ran along the index finger of her right hand... A faint splash again.

Liriel slithered from under the cabinet, cautious. The human knelt by the side of the figure lying on the floor, careful not to step in the slowly expanding pool of blood. The feline sat at her feet curling her tail around her paws.

"What was father thinking, trying to... to trade me to this..." whispered the woman, not voicing the crude qualifier she had in mind.

She dipped her already stained index into the blood and started to draw a complex chart upon the polished oak of the parquet, around her and the cat. She had an hour, maybe two before her father and brother would return. They had left. To "give them a chance to know each other better"...

The man was young, rather handsome. Waving brown hair, his skin, unusually tanned for a noble son, betraying his habits of hunts and visits to the surrounding farmlands. His hazel eyes were open, widened in a expression of surprise, already starting to cloud with the veil of this unexpected ending.

The chart was done. Another candle had died away.

The woman's lips started to move, soundlessly and a small ray of fire escaped from her right hand fingers to set the bottom of the curtains aflame. She repeated the spell, a few times around the room, not forgetting its door. Small fires started to dance along the wall's tapestries.

The human knelt and rested her hand on Liriel's head, meeting the yellow gaze and smiling. The cat flicked her tail, the fire was making her nervous.

There was a shout outside. One of the city's guard, maybe.

The human closed her mind and focused, feeling the soothing presence of the cat, the fur soft, a little electric under her fingers. She started to read the parchment, her voice mixing with the crackling sound of the spreading fire. Each spoken word fading from the scroll as she read the incantation. The air looked tighter in front for the two figures... A blur, starting to glow in faint hues of pale blue.

Rushed sound coming from downstairs. Shouts. Her father's voice, muffled.

"... muto et rego vim." The human spoke the last words and let the blank scroll fall on the floor. She picked up the cat, holding Liriel a little tight against her pounding heart and looked at the portal in front of her.

"No turning back."

Someone was running up the stairs.

She stepped forward.