"Oh my, you've certainly been busy! How are we speaking right now?"
"You have entered my domain. I can… communicate with the… welcome."
Tess sensed the feelings of unfamiliarity with the language, the words tasting new and unexplored.
"It is… limited." Her tail swished in frustration.
Tess nodded in understanding. Cats spoke with their bodies, so using only words must have felt like using only a small portion of her vocabulary.
"While here, we speak. Beyond, maybe some. But less."
"I understand. This is amazing, Maisy!"
"Maisy?"
"Isn't that your name?"
"Say name in human. With… words."
"Maisy," Tess said eliciting a purr from the feline.
"Understand. Maisy is how you know me."
"How should I know you?"
Maisy's tail flipped and her head dipped in an expression that communicated incompleteness. Then Tess got a series of feelings that were more urges and states of being than true words. Huntress. Queen. Victor. Teacher. Mother.
"I understand, but I'm not sure I'll be able to call you that."
"Maisy is… good. Warm. Continue."
Tess understood instinctually that she wasn't being asked to continue speaking, only to continue using her name. Maisy communicated again.
"Where is Dumb Kitten?"
"Dumb Kitten?"
Impressions and images of Zavier flashed across her mind and Tess laughed. It was quickly choked off by sadness. Tess settled onto the ground, resting her back against a tree. Maisy padded softly to her, resting her head on Tess's lap for ear scratches while she explained.
Tess related the journey across the grounds of the power station, their battles within, and Zavier's choice to leave them. She attempted to explain Fara, a concept foreign to Maisy at first but with an end result that she understood.
"She is a tick."
Tess barked out a laugh. "Yes, she's a tick," she said out loud.
"Are you speaking of me, mother? Am I the tick?"
"Yes, Fara, you are. You're a tick on my soul."
Fara had started exhibiting emotions and they rose within Tess now. Indignation, objections, and hurt. Tess headed off the tantrum that she knew was coming. "It's okay, it's just a word. You don't have to be offended by it."
"It's not just a word, it's a hurtful word. Besides, I am more akin to a parasite than a tick."
Tess stifled another laugh. "Fair enough. You are, indeed, a parasite."
Tess shook her head in wry amusement at Fara's smug satisfaction.
"So, your mate is not here." Maisy broke into their conversation with studious patience.
Tess sighed, her throat closing tightly. Hot tears welled behind her eyes and her shoulders began to shudder, then heave, and then she was wracked with sobs, her entire body shaking. For long minutes she lost control, her mind moving in dark spirals that threatened to carry her down with them. She felt herself slipping and knew she was at the precipice of a dark time that she didn't know if she'd be able to pull herself out of. Definitely not alone.
Her spiral crashed and broke apart when white hot pain lanced into her leg. She slapped at it, her hand striking uselessly against a huge, furry paw that had a single claw piercing just past her skin. She fixed Maisy with a glare that was returned with equal parts indifference and challenge. Tess squinted her eyes tightly, the last of the tears spilling out, then opened them to look Maisy in the eyes again.
"I'm good. Thank you."
The claw pulled away slowly. Maisy stood up and stretched, long tongue stretching languidly as her body flexed and cracked. When she was done she ran her eyes up and down Tess appraisingly.
"What is the…" Tess could feel her searching for unfamiliar words, "... concern?" The word came out like a foreign term that she had little to no experience expressing.
Tess considered this for a long moment. What was the concern? But she knew. She always knew. "I need him, Maisy. I need Zavier."
"Why?"
"He… is my mate."
"A mate is not a need."
"It is for me."
"Why?"
"He… makes me strong when I'm weak. He helps me when I can't help myself. He is the other half of me and I don't know how I'm going to do this without him. It's just all too much!"
Maisy's tail thumped heavy on the ground, startling Tess from her thoughts.
"Come. We hunt."
Tess suspected that was coming and every part of her was ready for it. She stood, lifting Goliath onto her shoulder with one hand and pulling out an Arc-Talon for the other.
A tail whipped her in the face. "No."
"No? What do you mean no?"
"You don't need… that." She nodded her head to the large sword.
"But it's my sword."
"It is not you."
"Swords are as much a part of me as anything else. They're my claws."
"NO!"
Tess stepped backwards at the force in that statement.
"NOT you. Yours, but not you. No."
Tess considered the cat, ready to argue, when Maisy simply turned and began to strode away.
"Wait!" She called out, her voice sounding strange after the mental communication. "Fine, I'll leave it here." She set it down tip-first in the loam, resting the handle against a tree. She pulled a dagger out of her storage. "See? Smaller claws."
Maisy had stopped, now looking back over her shoulder. "No. Nothing that is not you."
Jesus Christ, Tess thought - not to Maisy, fortunately, and dropped the knives. "What about this?" She waved the pistol in the air.
Tess heard a distinctly un-catlike sigh. "Nothing. That. Is. Not. You."
With a sigh of her own Tess dropped all her weapons. She pulled everything out of her dimensional storage, adding them to the pile of weapons at the base of a tree that had never considered itself to be a weapons rack before this moment.
"There, that's everything."
"Not all. Not everything." Maisy eyed her again and Tess realized she was staring at her kevlar vest.
"Come on, this protects me. I need this."
Maisy's scoff could be felt more than heard. "Protect? Need? What does a hunter need with protection? What does a hunter need with need?"
Tess understood the words - the intent. Did she really need these? Of course she did - she didn't have armor, she didn't have chitin, she didn't have tough skin. One swipe from some magically-imbued claws and her intestines would be falling in loops at her feet. She communicated all of this in bursts of images and emotions.
It fell on deaf, pointed ears. "Are you hunter or are you prey?"
Emotions welled inside Tess, self doubt warring with the intrinsic power that coursed through her. She knew she needed Zavier, but did she need him? Could she do this on her own? Was she strong enough?
Determination and pride won out, her dark passenger being forced violently into the basement of her soul. Tonight was not its night.
Tess dropped her vest then, after another look from Maisy, dropped everything else. She stood in the dappled moonlight without a weapon, without clothing. Her toes curled into the soft ground, feeling every blade of grass. The wind danced across her naked body and she took a deep breath, eyes closed, reveling in the freedom of having given up everything she thought was keeping her safe.
"I don't know what's happening right now but I like it!"
"Shut up, Fara. We'll talk when this is over."
"You always say that."
The two women took off into the night, predators ready to show every single thing here that they were all prey.