“I don’t know how much help I’d be if he attacked us again…” said Bluebell.

“There’s a chance that Connell isn’t aware of Yuli and I being fledglings, but I’m not yet sure how we can use that to our advantage.” Cat’s jaw was tight, his small canines bared slightly.

“He might not know about your partnership with us, either,” Grant said. “But it won’t be long before he finds the paper trail.”

Cat nodded. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

Grant laughed. “Look, this is more important than livestock checks, right Isra?” Isra looked like she wished it wasn’t. “You’ll have our resources and our money. Use them to put a stop to this before he hurts more people. That man doesn’t deserve to even look at a binding hoop.”

“I’ll do everything I can. In the meantime, I think it would be safest if we moved Kirk and Phoebe to another location.”

“Julia and I already talked about it,” Grant said. “They can stay at my ranch. Llamrei and I will be able to protect them.”

“Would either of them agree to that? Kirk is, well...”

“I think he’s warming up to my husband, apparently they play the same video game.” Grant shrugged. “We’ll help him get back on his feet.”

Image: Kirk and Grant’s husband are in Kirk’s room. Grant’s husband is a heavyset black man with a sea lion aspect. He’s standing in front of the window by the desk and holding his phone up to excitedly show Kirk a video game character, a cute fox girl. Kirk is sitting at the desk with his laptop open. A video game featuring the same character is on the screen. Kirk’s hand is visible, along with the front half of his aspect which gradually fades into invisibility. End description.

The sound of water lessened abruptly. Cat hadn’t even noticed that someone was taking a shower upstairs. It had combined with the patter of rain, filling the air with white noise. It wasn’t long before his ears perked towards creaking stairs.

“Then there’s just the matter of Phoebe and Silver,” Asmeret said. But as they spoke, Phoebe appeared, wiping her ears off with a towel.

“Actually, I-” she took in the sight of the menagerie in front of her, “I want to join Quill.”

Image: Phoebe stands by the hallway, looking slightly nervous. She has a white towel around her neck and is holding part of it up to dry herself off. She’s wearing a gray tanktop along with her gray sweatpants. End description.



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7.29.2023
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Aaaand... That's a wrap! End of chapter III. Wow, I can’t believe this chapter is finished; it went on a bit longer than planned but I’ve really enjoyed working on it. The end of chapter III marks the end of “volume I” of Katabasis- that is, what I consider to be the first three introductory chapters and (as it stands) the first third of the story... chapter-wise at least. Word-count-wise? Who knows.

As per usual the series is going on hiatus while I work on chapter IV. Worry not, I have something planned to tide things over.