Tranquility, Temple Room

"Ah, much better."
  "Mew."
  "Miau!"
  "Meow."
  "Miau-miau."
  "They always have so much to comment about things?"
  "I usually can't shut them up, I stopped trying ages ago."
  "Mew." Raven said, leaping out of her hammock, and landing on Linni's shoes, treating the floor like a feline game of 'the floor is lava', apparently, purring to herself as she just curled up atop the shiny leather, and basically dared Linni to move any further. Shibué decided to move into Linni's personal space and get some answers.
  "How well do you know Amarat?"
  "What kind of a question is that? He's my first cousin, and neither of us has any brothers, so we double as each other's brother and best friend, last I checked."
  "Oh?"
  "Really, I mean, Auntie Mikhala is pratically my mom as this point." That was something to ponder, Shibué added to herself. "What's this about?"
  "What do you mean?"
  "I don't normally have acquaintances, lovely, friendly acquaintances from the detail inviting themselves to my place."
  "Oh, sorry, my place is being renovated, I added myself as your detail just to avoid going home."
  "So you're my lifeguard now?"
  "For the moment, yes."
  "Aren't you going to protect me? This terrifying housepanther is attacking my shoes."
  How did he manage not to smile while saying that? Shibué asked herself. "Err, I suppose I could lift her off your shoes, seperate the two." As she bent down to do that, her fingers centimeters from the cat, she discovered those 'housepanthers' were quite a bit faster than she thought, as she'd already zoomed off across the cavernous room. We she was used to Robyn, who never seemed to run anywhere. Shibué, already overbalanced trying to account for the weight of the cat, tripped, ramming Linni's legs and bowling him over, they both fell just short of the marble side of the ritual octogonal pool.
  "Ooof."
  "Does this happen often?"
  "What?"
  "Your bodyguard helping, and turning out not helping." She was chuckling, the little kitty was grooming herself, enjoying her little joke, 8 meters away on the other side of the far pool.
  "More than you'd think. I normally try to do things myself, for that reason."
  "Did you practice this?" Shibué had risen and was trying to get her uniform back in order.
  "Err, no, I was wondering if you knew how to handle pets..."
  "Err, yes, kinda, I'm hardly the best catwrangler on Meihomei's detail, but to get on our squad you have to get along with Robyn."
  "Mew."
  "What?" She took a good look at the cat, that wasn't the one she had failed to catch.
  "Nameita Robyn Frobanasynnia Kagomei, you honour my house, I shall be your Sun'ga."
  "Miau." The bell-like crispness of the call made it sound like 'as expected', to Shibué.
  "Does she visit often?"
  "Weekly, at least, lately."
  "Any idea why she does that?"
  "Spending time with her granddaughters."
  "What?"
  "Raven, Corbo, Corvo and Kruk are her granddaughters." Miaus rang at each name.
  "Dang, they do answer when called? That's not common."
  "Well, they are cat royalty, get of Rembrandt, I kinda expect them to be smart and brave."
  "How close are they?"
  "Robyn's his granddaughter or great-granddaughter, I forget."
  "Oh, and you got all four of them?"
  "I have a knack, cats like me."
  "Why did you get all the sisters? I thought you had to get the mom too, when that happened."
  "I almost didn't, but when Ariellyn was moved out, her kits escaped, and weren't found for months, living on the streets for a bit."
  "How'd you end up their caretaker?"
  "The property, around this house?"
  "Yes?"
  "It's a protected savannah, there's voles and prairie dogs and hamsters and other wild creatures. Being gifted with royal amounts of intelligence, the royal cats kinda treat it like a hunting preserve. It's too big for a proper search though, so they were never found."
  "You mean to tell me, that this place, within easy walking distance of the palace, wasn't searched, when they were looking for them?"
  "Err, it helped that a certain teenaged Linni hadn't told them about finding Robyn here when he was younger..."
  "Oh, so you kept this place, and the fact that the cats love it, a secret?"
  "Yeah."
  "You must have been such a little delinquent, growing up." She said, her smile wicked.
  "Err, well not quite, but not as innocent as people think, ether. Me and Amarat usually trailed Luci for mischief though."
  "Oh, your sister was a harridan?"
  "A proper brat, that's what she was. And she had a reputation, once she got old enough to appreciate boys that weren't Amarat nor me."
  "She never tried for Amarat?"
  "No, besides being first cousins, which is already iffy..."
  "I know about Amarat Senior, everyone in the detail knows."
  "I thought that was closely held?"
  "It is, but Firrson is my third in command, you think he'd not know?"
  "My brother from another mother." Linni said, with diffidence.
  "So Amarat's only related to her through his mother being Luci's aunt-in-law, and Firrson was never adopted, although I hear the papers were drawn up..."
  "I'm sorry, what was the question."
  "How come Luci never went after either."
  "Too pedestrian, too domestic, for Luci."
  "Oh? Amarat's all sorts of exciting, usually."
  "No, not if you spend time with him, listen, he's my brother, and I love him, but he's, and it's quite noticeable, enough to be deliberate, less exciting than paint drying when he talks to girls. What's this about?"
  "Just keeping you talking..." Her voice dropped half an octave, into smoky territory. "You have a nice voice."
  "Aw, shucks, thanks. Yours is nice too, especially when you do that..."
  "Thanks." Her smile was dazzling. "Listen, I don't normally ask this from someone inside their house..." She'd been spending so much time with him lately, preparing for the summit, trying to keep things from boiling over before Meihomei's inevitable trip to Lai Dang. "But, would you consider going out with me some time?"
  The effect was akin to a deer being hit with a truck. Linni just sat back down on the marble flagstones of his temple room.
  "I'm sorry, you going to be ok."
  "No, I'm fine, just stunned." Robyn decided to climb over him, he was after all, one of her favourite jungle gyms. The 'cat empress' of Kagomei actually stopped, mid-stretch, loafed up on his belly and purring to her little heart's content. "I'd love to go out with you, you like Opera?"
  "That's lovely, but formal, and expensive..."
  "Oh. Well, since you're already at my place, it's not like I can really make a first impression. How about we meet again here..."
  "That's a bit too much on the other end of the formal and expensive spectrum."
  He coloured. "Oh, yeah, sorry, I guess I was getting carried away, I do love to cook."
  "Hmm, do keep that thought, if you do get a second date, you'll get to flex that particular muscle for me."
  "I assume you go to Kannie's all the time?"
  "I do, and you don't?"
  "No, one of the perks of my job is access to State's cafeteria."
  "A cafeteria?"
  "Well, top floor at number 3 is... a bit more upscale."
  "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that place. Pity we can't go there, it'd be lovely."
  "We can't?"
  "Taking someone who's been your lifeguard to your workplace is almost like taking them to your parents, all those entanglements."
  "We met there though."
  "Yeah, and, to be honest, I expect I'll have to explain myself to Meihomei if this works out... I'm not supposed to flirt with principals."
  "Why are you doing this then?" His tone was light, but his eyes were just caring, like he expected her to do this because she was broken, or hurting, or otherwise needing something.
  "I'm lonely, with dad passing, I'm all out of sorts, I guess." She'd been trying to go out 'with the usual suspects' and found the dates more vacant experiences than ever before.
  "How much of that is Linni's a wet blanket, no chance of him hurting you?"
  "Hmm, not as much as you think, I'm a big girl, and if you got half stripes for romance, I'd have made flag by now."
  "I'll have to keep that in mind."
  "And you, I've been seeing you around for four months, never seen you bring a date, what's with that."
  "Not over the last one."
  "My, she must have been quite something."
  "Can we not talk about this right now? I promise I'll tell you about her, but I gotta talk myself up to it."
  "Oh, she had you around her little finger, hadn't she?"
  "Err, that wasn't the problem, but yes."
  "Did she visit here?"
  "Yeah, she spent maybe a year and a half in Kagomei, most as my guest."
  "Oh, she's a foreigner?"
  "Bresciani."
  "Oooh, exotic, those hooked noses... Do you have a picture?"
  "Here."
  "She doesn't look bresciani, she looks Nisan."
  "She's half-gogur, half-nisan, by birth, adopted by a bresciani man and a benevent woman. Legally, she's Brescian, and a part of their government."
  "Half-gogur, half-nisan? Looking like that I can believe it, look at that snub nose."
  "Can we talk about something else?"
  "Oh, sorry, sure. Any favourite ideas?"
  "Well, we've been talking about me a lot, enough that you asked me on a date, I've said yes, but I can't say I know a lot about you..."
  "Oh, yeah, that's fair. Hmm, so I was born to Marhamat Dandelion and Sooray Dodegal, I've lived in Megamisama all my life, my parents met while on the detail, I lived in Hotel "Le Dawn Standard" aka Casa Meritas a bit, dad had a suite he kept switching around.