"Noooo..." Kaia moaned, her tail wrapping around Bubbles' middle. The neko squirmed and pushed her mistress away, again. The succubus opened her red eyes blearily, and groaned, "No sneaking out."
She rolled her pale yellow eyes, "She has work. Remember? We discussed it last night. Bubbles is working as a knocker, this morning. So go back to sleep."
"It isn't even fucking morning..." Kaia groaned, rolling over and drawing the sheet over her head, "Don't even know why you insist on working."
The neko shrugged, "'Cos it's fun."
The real answer had more to do with maintaining her own independence from Kaia, and the others that made her romantic life such a complex web of things. No matter what happened, she didn't like relying on anyone else, and that meant earning her own silver for her own fish.
Though, the unholy time of a day that a knocker went to work meant that she saw a lot of things that others didn't. The adventure of that was somewhat exciting and fun. And prowling the city before dawn made her feel free.
It was too bad she had to sacrifice sleep, for the job.
Bubbles tugged a basque of her head, sucking in her stomach as she dragged it into position. The blouse was tight enough to be just a little uncomfortable, and didn't quite fit her chest properly, but it was warm. The frost outside was going to brutal, and she refused to freeze.
She probably should have had Edric take a look at it, yesterday.
The neko held up a small bronze mirror, tilting it to look at herself. Her mouth twisted into a slightly unsure expression. She lifted one of her breasts experimentally, and narrowed her eyes. She still wasn't certain, but she was starting to think that they had started growing since she lost her virginity.
She put the mirror aside, kissed the groaning succubus, and stepped out into the hallway.
She instantly found arms around her waist, and a face nuzzling into her back. Bubbles sighed, "Nina, she's going to be late for work."
"Can she come with?"
She shook her head, "No. Bubbles is going to work, and then she's going back to sleep. She can see her Nina at dinner time. Remember, Bubbles hasn't agreed to be hers, yet. So behave. No stalking."
"But it's fun." Ninaein moaned, cuddling her tighter. "And why does Bubbles even need to work after the platinum we earned, last time?"
She bristled, "Is Nina into being spanked?"
"I'll put you down faster than you can blink, if you try it." The thief snarled angrily.
Bubbles shrugged out of her grip, "You're annoying me, too."
"Fine. Bitch." Ninaein muttered, letting go, but not before pressing something into the palm of Bubbles' hand.
She looked down at it, and found a piece of dried and salted fish, with a small love heart scratched into it. Inside the heart was a knife, with a series of circles rising up around it. Bubbles.
She smiled sadly at the romantic gesture, and turned to thank her, but Ninaein had silently disappeared. The neko shivered, and popped her breakfast into her mouth, chewing slowly as she tried to sneak the rest of the way outside the house.
Her tail dropped as she saw Edric waiting in the kitchen for her. He was sitting regally in an unbuttoned silk shirt, and loose but formal pants. Beside him there was a cup with lid and a vertical rocking handle, with a small trickle of steam coming from it.
He didn't say anything, just gestured to the drink, and went back to reading one of the yellow pieces of papyrus that got dropped around even earlier than the knockers got up.
She picked up her drink and kissed his cheek, "Um... Any interesting news?"
"Another Darkthorn attack. This time they got a succubus." He replied grimly, and then smiled at her, "Don't stay out too late today, will you? I'm afraid I will be staying at the shop tonight. I've got a fair bit of work to get through."
Bubbles kissed his cheek again, and headed for the door. She really should ask him to teach her to read, sometime. Though, she might get a bit distracted by how cute he would look, and how bored she would get putting in the effort. It would probably end in a different kind of lesson.
The cold hit her in the face the moment she opened the door.
Gentle snowflakes were starting to fall, and the roadways were frozen. Her knees were aching even before she got the door closed. Bubbles shivered, rubbing her arms, and started out at a fast walking pace.
Her route was a couple city blocks away, giving her time to look over the sleeping city. Most exotics and humans were safely indoors and asleep, warmed by their dying fires. However, a city never truly sleeps. It's a living thing, with so many pieces that were always moving, keeping everything alive.
She shuffled by a yard full of empty plague carts. Some poor saps were washing and scrubbing them, so that they would be ready for the morning collection. A tired looking mage was sipping at a drink as they kept some kind of healing spell hovering over the yard. Beside them, a neko lolled in the dirt, batting at some worms in the ground - they were the claker-well for the mage.
Ahead of her, she could see a sole traveller, extinguishing the street candles with a metal bell-shaped object on the end of a huge staff. He walked slowly, trying not to slip on the frozen ground, acting out a repetitive behaviour, not even really awake. Bubbles felt a little pity for him, noting the stranger on a roof, trailing the man. Some kind of thief, who had picked a poor, but easy quarry.
She lifted the cup Edric had prepared to her lips, surprised as she tasted the peppermint tea. Both warming and bracing her at the same time. She wondered just how much the tea had cost him. Bubbles was not really coming to terms with her transition from the lowest rung of society to somewhere midling.
There were a few homeless nests that she walked by, however not many. This part of the year, most would take up residence in the temple, or find an attic or something to squat in, like she used to. The heart of winter was only a couple weeks away, and it was looking like a brutal one, this year.
Most of the truly homeless showed signs of the plague. Blackened toes, white crusting around their faces. It wasn't that the plague was incurable. It was a quick visit to the temple if you got it. The healing was free, paid for by the palace.
However, two things made the damn thing persistent. It didn't matter if you'd had it before, reinfection was always a possibility. Secondly, the most vulnerable, were the least likely to trust the temple to heal them.
The result was the plague running like wildfire through the streets, with no clear signs of burning out, yet. Despite the best efforts of the empress to stamp it out. So long as there were idiots who couldn't trust the palace, then the palace was threatened by the existence of the plague.
Toofy had been dealing with that since Bubbles was a kitten, one of the consequences of the Traitor Emperor having deployed the disease against his own people.
Bubbles had been lucky, so far. She hadn't caught it, though the intermittent famine it could cause had made her stomach grumble on occasion. This winter felt like that might happen again, even with her new collection of lovers surrounding her.
She blushed furiously at the thought. Imagining Kaia and Ninaein competing, both of them insisting on going without to ensure that Bubbles wasn't just not hungry, but stuffed. If her virgin self could see her current living arrangement, she'd call herself a slutcat. Or worse.
Bubbles reached the end of the first city block, and found a street vendor just beginning to set up. Lighting the fire beneath a metal tray, and trying to pry apart frozen skewers of some meat that she couldn't identify by sight. A sniff, however, informed her that it was probably rat.
She avoided the vendor, jumping up to walk along the fence as she sipped at her sweet tea. It was hard not to slip, atop the snow capped surface. Yet, from here the city looked so different. She could see the lights going out simultaneously as the snuffers made their rounds.
See the city fading into the early morning fog as the snow tumbled down out of the grey sky. Little crystals lighting in her hair before dissolving. The mood of it all had Bubbles humming to herself, and her tail swishing back and forth.
Coming up to her street, she could see the shutters battered down against the winter weather. The catgirl rolled her shoulders and dropped onto all fours, scampering along the fence to build some speed, before she launched upwards. Kicking as she moved past each designated window.
She put the handle of her tea cup in her mouth, to try and make sure she didn't embarrass herself and sprawl outwards in a fall. Most of the houses didn't have any ledge beneath the window, making her have to bound from the fence and back up towards the next.
It was inevitable.
She missed the fence. Not entirely, the edge of her palm caught it, violently twisting her wrist and meaning that when she hit the ground she was falling to her side and holding her jarred arm with the pain lancing through the nerves in her elbow.
The catgirl skidded through the snow, scraping her shoulder, as she moaned in pain. She hit something buried in the white powder, jerking to a stop. Bubbles lifted her arm, staring at her wrist as her bottom lip trembled as she tried not to burst into tears.
It felt like the time she'd been dumb enough to punch a tauran in the face.
She sat up awkwardly, dropping her tea into her good hand and putting it aside, before fishing a handkerchief out of her blouse. She packed snow into a ball on top of it, as tightly as she could, and then closed it up and placed the icepack against her wrist.
The neko gingerly bent down to grab her cup in her teeth again, when she finally noticed what she'd run up against in the snow that had stopped her slide.
She took a surprised step backwards as the black pupil stared out from the cold at her. The figure stood up slowly, shaking snow from their hackles as the blue salamander came into view. He snorted angrily at her, a tiny puff of frost spilling from his mouth.
Bubbles' ears went flat and she whined, tail dropping. "She... She didn't mean it! She fell. She's sorry! She's going!"
"Stop." He ordered her, with a voice like a landslide. The man reached out for her with his claws, and she fell backwards in terror, losing the icepack. He sighed and knelt, one knee between her legs.
Bubbles lashed out, kicking him firmly in the crotch. Her cold and wet leather boot slamming directly into his exposed dick. She saw the man's eyes widen, and then he groaned and fell over sidewards.
The salamander curled into a protective ball, scales hiding him, and he coughed weakly, speaking in a higher pitched voice, "Wanted... Help..."
Her pale eyes blinked, and she winced, "Oops."
"Ow." He grunted, still curled in tightly.
She winced, taking a look at the sky, "Um... Bubbles has to run. She's knocker, today. But... Here. Have her peppermint tea. Um... She come back and say sorry after?"
She left the cup with the brutalised man, steaming in front of his protective ball, and took off sprinting. She bounded up, loosely holding her sore arm to her chest, as she jumped and used her fist.
Her eyes watered as she touched down, and the force of the landing jerked her arm. She stumbled, shook her head and jumped for the next window. Pain or not, she had a job to do.
