#catcanon

[noamuth]

ESA - Emotional Support Alantha

Dalamus is Alantha's person. Why she chose Dalamus out of everyone in camp is anyone's guess--as he is not yet particularly physically affectionate nor does he really know how to have a pet--but she clearly favors him, even if she is friendly to all others as well.

While some might think Dalamus is Alantha's caretaker, Alantha sees this differently. She takes care of herself pretty well, considering she has survived up until this point without major injuries.

But Dalamus, oh, she can tell Dalamus is hurt. She can tell he is uncomfortable sometimes when he sits or stands for long periods, or after walking, and especially after battles, but he never complains. It is important for cats and kittens to hide injuries, of course. No need to complain aloud, though--she knows! Nothing some soothing purring cannot fix.

Purring has been shown to have therapeutic effects for people, though whether it can help with physical healing is at the moment purely anecdotal and theoretical. That said, Dalamus enjoys both the sounds of her trill-filled purring, as well as the vibrations of the purring against his hands or chest.

Sometimes he is just so nervous, and Alantha is not sure why. Sometimes his anxiety rises around the others. She can tell his breathing is different, and when she is close enough, she can tell his heart is beating faster. Perhaps he was not socialized enough as a baby kitten. Time for a rub or head bonk to remind him that she is here and all is well. If he is seated, she jumps in his lap so his hands have something to do to distract him (petting her).

Having Alantha bonk or rub against him offers external stimulation that can help ground him and pull him from spiraling thoughts.

Alantha makes sure to meet with new animals who come to camp and introduce herself, and also introduce her person, Dalamus. She makes sure to tell them that he was not well-socialized before she got to him and seems to have been hurt by his previous family, so this makes him nervous around new people and animals, and to approach him calmly.

Dalamus would hate every single second of her introduction of him, the fact that she airs his insecurities so easily. But it keeps both the animals and Dalamus, himself, safe, by establishing boundaries at the beginning. With Dalamus not knowing which animals on the Surface are dangerous or hostile, mistakes or assumptions could quickly lead to tragedy otherwise.

She takes good care of her person. Well worth it for the occasional piece of jerky or stew meat, or cheek scritches.

[noamuth]

Cat-Given Gifts

The unnamed kitten has attempted to give Dalamus gifts. These range from sticks to leaves to live lizards and frogs dropped onto his work table or, sometimes, his face while in Trance at night. The latter has resulted in undignified shouts from the drow's tent, and the kitten quickly realized that these gifts were not appreciated.

So she started bringing rocks. Small stones, covered in kitten spit, are dropped onto his work table in a little pile. Most are unremarkable--after all, she is only a kitten--but the occasional interesting stone prevents him from dissuading her.

[noamuth]

Cat Naps

The as-of-yet unnamed kitten is not strictly confined to camp. She may enter and leave as she pleases, although attempts have been made by some members to keep her close in order to keep her safe. To the confusion of everyone, including Dalamus, she has chosen Dalamus as her person, and returns to him frequently despite his general neutrality towards her.

Dalamus allows her to sleep at his work desk as long as she does not take up too much room, or upon his lap. At night, she can often be found sleeping in Dalamus' tent beside him while he Trances.

[dalamusrex]

My cute headcanon for Dal is when Topaz or Ragnar are sleeping on something he needs he will wait for them to wake up because he doesn't want to disturb them

Ahh, cute!! Assuming it’s something that he needs but not immediately, I can definitely see him just shrugging and accepting that he’ll have to get to it later.

Definitely for Ragnar, because he’s an ornery little kitten and no one likes getting scratched :P 

I also like to think that, with Topaz, if what she’s laying on IS important, he’ll very gently wake her up and pick her up like a fluffy child, which she’s 100% happy with and will purr up a storm.

[felis-silvestris-sapiens]

Con: We would worry about hurting each other. Pro: you would be touching me. He he hm hm mm.

“Bring it on, Magic Man.”

[felis-silvestris-sapiens]

Catcanon: Dustfinger

Cat loves Dustfinger like the big brother she never had, even if she often ends up taking the protective role. She would go to the ends of the earth for him, fight to the her last breath for him, stand in front of him like a shield even though he’s about nine inches taller than her and that would look silly. Ultimately this is because what he sees as cowardice, she perceives a gentleness, and she would do anything to preserve that.

@firejugglinghobo

[felis-silvestris-sapiens]

Headcanon: Nodus Tollens

Nodus Tollens. The realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you any more — that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre — which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

Everything had supposed to come together when she moved to the city. She was supposed to make friends, get a job, have a life. But it seemed that instead everything had fallen apart. Or, not exactly fallen apart. It was like a sheaf of papers that had gotten out of order and never put back together. First, there had been Xavier’s Mansion, and she had been happy there…and then she had left. Then the starts, stowing away, hitch-hiking, finally landing in Knowhere for a while. She was happy there, too…and then she left. She came back, wasn’t quite ready to jump into the swim of humanity again, so she had found her cabin in the woods. Just her and the trees and the squirrels and dear. And she had been happy again…and she had left. And now, here she was, in a city full of people, alone, working online because it was too hard to hide her mutation at a day job, dancing and flirting and starting fights all weekend, and…was she happy?

[felis-silvestris-sapiens]

Headcanon: Ambedo

A melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details — raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee — Briefly soaking in the experience of being alive, an act that is done purely for it's own sake.

 Cat sat at the bar on Knowhere, looking out into the stars. Different stars. Not even a different sky. No sky at all; looking out at the universe from the eye of some long-dead titan. The noises—some of them were surprising familiar. Glasses being filled and emptied, laughter, anger. And then there was the unfamiliar. The languages, too many to ever learn. The smells she would never place, a passing traveler from a faraway world, the only one of their race to set foot in the bar in a human lifetime. It had a beautiful placeness, Knowhere, this bar, even if it wasn’t exactly the high society center of the universe. Everything simple and smelling of ancient old bone.

[Note: I stole a bunch of rare words from an astrology meme and now I’m writing headcanons based on them.]