Data Dragon Danika 339 Cat Politics

SaltySiamese shrugged. "He said it's up to you, so there's no problem."

Danika eyed her friend doubtfully. She was sure that he'd said more than that, but she couldn't exactly demand that Salty give up some of her play time to let her consult the younger of the siblings. "What do you want us to do? I wouldn't think that there's much that a new guild like Endless Song could do that one of the oldest guilds in the game can't do better?"

SaltySiamese pouted at her, and then complained, "Justin says that it's not guild business."

Danika grew even warier. Justin the Grey had put a lot of time into hunting cat transformations with SaltySiamese, so whatever it was that she wanted to do was almost guaranteed to be odd. "Oh?" she questioned.

A little hedgehog approached with a message, and Danika took it, and then blinked in surprise. It was from MatchlessMinion, who had probably not used his usual cat messenger so that his sister wouldn't realize. It read: "I told her no a dozen times, but we can do it as long as she agrees to pay! Don't tell her it's Kit and that we just came down from there! And don't do it for free!"

Danika looked up from the message and SaltySiamese said, "I think Justin might regret it later, and might wish that he'd made it guild business. It's pretty epic, even though I got the request from a kitten! It says it's going to use it to challenge the king of cats!"

"Use what?" Danika asked blankly. "And why do you want to help a kitten challenge the King of Cats? I thought you liked him?"

"Well, it's not going to win," SaltySiamese replied matter of factly, "but it wants a strand of hair from the Jade Empress! It told me how to find the Jade Path, but I went and looked at it and it's not really a path, it's just markers in the sky. Even if I borrow equipment from Justin I don't think it's something that I can climb! But you can already fly, and you've got my brother for a thief!"

Danika frowned. "But aren't you asking me because he refused? Was it because the kitten won't be paying anything for the hair?"

SaltySiamese rolled her eyes and protested, "He already told me about how you guys just got rich, he doesn't have to make coin off of every quest!"

A default bird messenger arrived, giving Danika a reprieve from answering right away. She read the two words: "I'm here." It took a moment for the words to make sense, because she'd been expecting them to be from MatchlessMinion again, but they were from s.h.i.+nZing.

A moment later she told SaltySiamese, "Sorry, I'll be back in a little bit!"

--

Danika quickly logged out and opened the VR-medi pod.

s.h.i.+nichi was waiting for her to exit, and he greeted her appearance with a grin and said, "Hi!"

She struggled to disconnect everything and pulled herself over the edge while asking, "Why are you here?"

s.h.i.+nichi flinched, even while still reaching for her. Danika slid into his embrace and gazed up at him worriedly. "Should I have asked first?" he questioned neutrally.

"What? No?" she replied quickly. He didn't reply right away so she added, "Did something happen? Will you be okay for time?"

"Danika," he said plaintively.

He hugged her so tightly that it was difficult to breath for a second. She didn't complain, she just hugged him in return, and when he loosened his grip, she raised a hand to touch his cheek. She didn't know what was wrong, or what she should be doing.

He leaned his cheek into her palm, closed his eyes, and heaved a long sigh. After a long minute his lips quivered and he opened his eyes again and met her worried gaze.

"Everything's fine. I just wanted to see you," he explained wryly. "The timing is a little tight, but I'll manage, don't worry."

"Oh," she replied with relief.

His kiss was a little tentative at first, but quickly became more demanding when she responded.

He could only laugh, when she stopped a few minutes later to ask seriously, "Want to log in and help me decide how to answer SaltySiamese?"

She told him about MatchlessMinion's message and Salty's strange request for one of Kit's hairs first.

--

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"I don't know if we want to get involved in a quest to help overthrow the King of Cats," s.h.i.+nZing told SaltySiamese seriously.

"It's not like a hair is going to let a kitten defeat him, he's practically a G.o.d!" SaltySiamese protested.

"But what's it going to do with the hair? What if that's how G.o.d slaying weapons are created?" Danika asked worriedly. "Plus, there's already a cat after us, or at least it's after the philosopher's stone. The crane that died thought that any cat that appeared might be reporting back to someone. Did this kitten suggest our guild to you?"

SaltySiamese hesitated, but then shook her head. "No, it didn't mention Endless Song specifically, it just suggested that I could get help from friends if the climb looked too difficult."

They argued it back and forth for awhile. Danika was reluctant to refuse her a.s.sistance, but also reluctant to ask Kit to give a hair that contained her essence to an unknown NPC.

They didn't get anywhere until Shrubbery finally logged on. Danika wasn't sure if the Dryad had left the Jade Palace previously, but either way, she located ZipZing's stone s.p.a.ce within her garden and joined them within a few minutes.

Shrubbery had obviously spoken to MatchlessMinion, because she listened to SaltySiamese for a minute with an amused expression, and then said, "I'm supposed to inform you that we can't let ZipZing help you for free."

SaltySiamese threw up her hands and complained, "My brother should convince her to help me at all then!"

Shrubbery raised an eyebrow at that, and looked at ZipZing. Danika explained quickly, "I don't like that it seems to be a plot against the King of Cats at the same time as another cat is hunting us, but I don't want to refuse to help. I don't know what to do."

"Let's just go ask the traveling merchant how much a hair from the Jade Empress would cost, and whether or not it could be used to harm her or the King of Cats," Shrubbery suggested.

When the dryad said that, Danika realized how much she didn't say, and how much neither she nor MatchlessMinion must have told SaltySiamese. Of course, it had only been a couple of days, but it still sounded like they weren't talking as often since the siblings had moved away.

"ZipZing stays here, since we're pretty sure that the grey cat she saw has her marked with an a.s.sa.s.sin's mark," s.h.i.+nZing insisted.

"The way you put that makes it sound like I'm the only one who saw the cat," Danika complained.

"I didn't see it," he replied with a shrug.

--

Danika wrote a message asking if MatchlessMinion had seen it, while everyone else went to ask the traveling merchant about the hair.

He didn't reply right away, but when he did it said: "No, but I don't doubt you."