Uh, so where's that...?

Having checked in with Tivona as promised/ordered, Kitty was looking for anything that said something about Eala'Sionnach. Given no direction whatsoever, she was just wandering, not too concerned that she needed to be in time for anything in particular, so she'd take her own sweet time finding it. And if she got lost, it'd be Tivona's fault for not giving better directions (or any directions). Yeah, that's it.

She may not have been looking forward to this place, but bare feet on these carpets was rather pleasant, all in all. Her steps were slow and measured, allowing for toe-wiggling in lush carpet. At least this castle was suitably decorated... some of these alcoves looked perfect for a nap... oh. For just a second she'd forgotten she was human now. A heavy sigh echoed in the empty hall, and her face fell. Halting, she stared at her feet, willing them to become paws again... not that it did any good.

Kitty started to lash out at something, then realized it was stone and definitely not a good idea with bare feet. Oh. So here was the first reason she'd agreed with to actually wear shoes. Dang. Tivona 1, Kitty 0. Why is it always points for Tivona? She muttered something under her breath that's best not repeated, then wriggled her toes in the carpet for a quick distraction. For the heck of it, she squatted down and kneaded the carpet with her fingers, rather like a cat would do. Far less satisfying with fingers, however.

Ndale was strolling down the hall on near silent . Why, he wasn't sure yet, but when instincts told him to wander, what was there to do but wander? It usually ended up in something relatively interesting or mildly entertaining for a least a few moments. The cheetah's head was angled with his body, ears back casually, shoulder blades rolling beneath the skin. The lean frame moved fluidly as the large feline ghosted through the corridors at a long-strided pace.

Passing a branching hallway, the cheetah glanced to the side down it, preforming a double-take and pausing mid-step. There was a human... kneading the carpet...? He took air into his large lungs. She smelled...odd.

The feline looked decidedly unimpressed. What was she doing? Ndale shifted his weight back and sat on his haunches, tail flicking, as he watched. The tilt of his ears, the angle of his brow, they spoke of a question mixed with a skeptical feeling that this girl might be a tad loony.

Kitty sighed again and let herself fold down from squatting to end up cross-legged on the carpet, glaring at her hands. "Why did it have to be human?" she asked thin air, groaning ill-naturedly as she started rising in that clumsy way that humans have when they get up from the floor. Brushing off her jeans she looked up to continue her vaguely aimless walk around the castle... and saw a cheetah. A cheetah watching her, no less.

The glum expression on her face lifted instantly and she broke out into a wide smile, wide enough that her teeth glinted white at him from quite a distance. "Hello!" she called out, striding towards him at what could be considered a brisk trot... if not in the company of a cheetah, around whom speeds become rather insignificant. Her body language mirrors the change in expression, suddenly lighter, freer, whatever that might mean. Her scent as she approached began to smell more human, but there was a decided tang that's not in the least human. The closest thing to it might be the acrid smell after a lightning strike.

Her eyes, however, are far from human, and the feline slit-pupilled yellow-green irises resemble his own darker ones in all but proportions, hers having the normal human shape, rather than the longer eye of the cheetah. "Can you understand me, handsome?" Not knowing that she might be getting more than she bargained for, Kitty approaches the cheetah eagerly, glad for some feline contact after so long.

Ndale tilted an ear forward, curious as to why the girl was now talking to herself, when he was spotted. Both ears swung to face back as the distance was crossed between them rather eagerly. He was a bit confused, but was hardly opposed to meeting new people. He was able to peg her as a human, as she mostly appeared, but the after scent that stung his nostrils made his nose twitch and whiskers quiver. It wasn't pleasant, but bearable. He pegged it as being at the Academy as they were, she had to be something other than human. Very likely something he had not encountered before. The important part was that she didn't seem hostile.

That...annddd, well, the first introduction wasn't all that bad. His chin tilted up a bit in an arrogant way. How nice of her to notice how handsome he indeed was. The corner of his mouth pulled back in a slight smirk. As she came closer, he looked her over with brightly lit golden, amber eyes elaborately flecked with brown and purple. Her eyes caught his notice and he made an airy huff of greeting as one ear pinned back farther as to say 'of course'. Of course he could understand. As if to simply further this point, he made the effort of giving a bright cheetah-specific chirping meow.

The large cat stood, tail languidly trailing behind, to a shoulder height of 96 cm. His back left leg was wrapped in a black material securely, which when taken off, would be revealed as a pair of simple black pants of a smooth material. Emergency pants for emergency morphs.

"Sorry," the feline-oriented girl offered, her mildly apologetic tone flavored with something bordering on animal magnetism (or whatever the recipient of such might call it). Her smile of greeting has altered just slightly, her head tilting towards him just a bit more, and her eyes have lit up with far more interest now that she knows they can communicate. "I don't really know what to expect here, you know? For all I knew, you could've been just a cheetah." Kitty's tone alters at the last few words, the slightest drawl dragging them out as if she knows just how far above that her companion is.

A stray thought brings her back to the reason she's wandering the halls, but that can wait. She wanted as much of this gorgeous feline as she could get. That much at least is obvious in her entire petite body's alignment towards him. "You are something new," she cooed at him quietly, approaching unthreateningly to kneel in front of him, more on level with his eyes. "Not many cheetahs in the US. So I guess this school is worth something after all." Her quiet tone is half to herself, half in admiration of the cheetah, and the line between the two isn't something she would be able to find even if she wanted to.

"You aren't... busy... or anything, are you?" Kitty's expression falls, eyes still hungry for feline contact while her mouth says she'd be extremely disappointed to see him go but she'd suffer in silence... or as much silence as there was before he arrived.

He was slightly taken aback at the sheer admiration that this girl seemed to have for him, not to say he believed he didn't deserve it. Rather, he was enjoying the attention. Though he did huff airily in exasperated amusement at her comment. Since when was anything here just what it seemed at first glance?

As the girl kneeled in front of him, the cheetah watched her carefully. He did think it strange how she seemed to understand him, he wasn't speaking... Well not in the normal sense. Then again, he was communicating as he might with a fellow cheetah. Was that what she was understanding? Strange...

To her last question, Ndale looked around as if looking for something else that may occupy his time. He really had nothing else to be doing, so why not? The feline looked to the other girl and gave a small shake of his head in the negative before stepping forward to brush his furry cheek against her's affectionately, accepting her current companionship.

Kitty reddened just a bit, a purely human expression that most cats wouldn't have a comparable one for even if they thought they might use it. "Hey, I'm new! I don't know what to expect. If everything is magical, or if... I don't know, some people are just regular." A glance downward soured her cheery disposition and her tone as well. "Like me. Not quite as regular as they come, I've proper eyes... but just about." An audible exhale through slightly flared nostrils is not even something she's aware of as being carried over from previous body language, but the annoyance is just as obvious now as it would have been then.

Watching him consider his options, Kitty chewed on the inside of her lip and allowed herself to hope. It wasn't an immediate yes-must-go response, so that was a good sign. The elated response to his negative was then completely overshadowed by her surprise and joy that he'd showed affection within such a short period of time. Her response is to nuzzle him back, rotating her head against his to rub her cheek and briefly her nose in his fur. It was such an automatic reaction that she didn't even consider until afterwards that she was nuzzling someone whom she knew absolutely nothing about, save that he was handsome. She didn't even know if he were a student or teacher, or some other role if there were such things.

Flustered in the part of her mind that demanded rational thought, Kitty's pleased smile doesn't show a hint of it. "School's looking brighter already," she murmured. "I'm Kitty..." The smile briefly widened to a grin as she hinted at her strange history. "I thought it was the only human name I'd actually reply to. My real name's Chaos, but I'm not supposed to admit that. You won't tell anyone, will you?" This had to be somewhat rhetorical as she was unaware he could speak, whether he wanted to tell someone or not, but in that moment she first saw him she'd felt a certain kinship towards him--simply because he was in the proper place at the proper lonely human-loathing moment--and the gesture of affection had by now firmly cemented that impression. Though it wasn't quite a debt to be repaid, she felt that not being honest with her new friend about something as powerful as her name was just bad grace.

"I realize I don't know if you're a teacher or not... but I'm glad you're not busy. It's nice to talk to someone for a change, rather than some human." The rational part of her mind started yelling 'or how old or creepy he is' at about this point, but she hadn't been paying attention to begin with, she certainly wouldn't start now. "You don't by any chance know where, uh..." For a fraction of a second her eyes actually left the magnificent creature in front of her, sliding around as she reached for the strange name her guardian had rattled off. "Ayya shinuck... is?" The heightened pinched position of her eyebrows clearly stated that she knew she'd butchered the name of the dormitory (she didn't know Eala'Sionnach House meant House in more than just physical character) but didn't really want to want to bring attention to it by correcting herself. A clarification she could stomach, though. "I wanted to find my room, I've been walking most of yesterday and today in order to get here." She was about to add that she wouldn't mind a nap, but realized just barely in time that she didn't want to insult her companion's amiable company by suggesting she might rather sleep. "I don't know my way around yet."

The feline adopted a rather flat, unimpressed look. She wasn't regular, she said? Hm...well, sorry there cuite, but no one here was regular. He wondered if she would be relieved or disappointed to be suddenly just like and yet completely different from everyone on this island. Her annoyance shown there would skyrocket, he guessed. It wasn't easy to get on here sometimes.

When the girl returned the friendly gesture, nuzzling into his fur, Ndale only chuckled airily. When he pulled back and glanced at her, his amusement was quite clear. Really, was she starting to have a thing for him already? Or was it just that he wasn't human? She seemed a bit adverse to the whole species. He thought they were fun and sufficiently amusing. Why hate?

The cheetah let this girl finish, only giving a snicker as she completely botched the name of their house, and waited a moment even after. Ndale wondered briefly if speaking was a poor choice, but it's not like it mattered. He might be a cheetah first, but he had been embracing his ability to adopt a human shape as of nearly 4 and half years ago. Why hide it? He inclined his head in a gentlemanly fashion.

"S'a pleasure, Kitty." The words drawled out from the feline's vocal cords were upon an odd tone of rough smoothness. The voice was very obviously male and seemed to purr out on a rolling note. "Your secret's safe with me." The suave voice was feigned to be sincere, but the fact was that the secret was actually safe, as long as no one offered a higher sum to him for the information. His loyalty only went to Od first and then to whomever he had the fancy for at the time. "Name's Ndale, and the house is Eala'Sionnach." He smirked. "The castle's huge, it takes a bit to learn the layout, but the dorm house isn't attached, it's out the side door and across the lawn, which might be why you haven't found it yet."

Looking around, amber eyes took in where exactly they were in the castle. The halls looked the same roughly, but certain portraits or decorations gave away which part of the labyrinth you were in.

"I can show you the way, if you'd like. Give you a tour. I've been here quite awhile."

The feline's gaze once again found the girl. He had offered because he wasn't busy and Kitty seemed sufficiently entertaining an option for now. He didn't care if she declined however. He could lead her where she needed to go if that was all she wanted.

Busy talking about herself and her objectives, Ndale's lack of enthusiasm over her choice to group herself with the 'regular' people went unnoticed by the eager hum-eline... feline-oid... cat-anoid? Yes, this human mockery of the immortal cat is full of herself, but she's also eager to get to know the cat in front of her. His amusement received a blush, but she didn't comment. She had her own reasons for her perhaps-extreme views. The extremity was mostly because she was in a bad mood, but rain often did that to her.

The nod was returned, but the cheetah's words make her fall ungracefully from her squatting position onto her rump in surprise. "Oh!" It takes her a moment to formulate a reply to the unexpected words from the cheetah. This embarrasses her further, since if the cheetah could understand her, why couldn't he talk? This was a school for magical types, after all. She had the disconcerting feeling equivalent to a row of dominoes falling over, except instead of dominoes, her assumptions were taken out one by one.

She eventually resorted to a simple pleasantry. "Nice to meet you, Ndale." Kitty carefully pronounced the foreign-sounding name to avoid insulting him further. She came from a place where cats were named Fluffy, K.C. (Kitty Cat), or other such foolish names, so her brain tried to reject the new name, but she firmly forced the retention of new information. "Sorry if I offended you by assuming you weren't more than the average cheetah... can't help some of the assumptions I've made, even if they don't seem to apply here. At all." She considered the rest of his words slowly, debating between the dull sport of poking into whatever random corners she came across versus taking the cheetah's offer... it wasn't a long debate. "Thanks for the directions, but a tour sounds like it might be more interesting. Could you do me a favor and show me back to the front entry, or the kitchens, first? I've wandered long enough I'm not sure where I am in relation to anything fixed. And Tiv might've broken out the cheese by now..." This last comment was spoken in a wistful sort of dreamy state, earning a glance back over her shoulder in the general direction from which she came, though at this point it may or may not be the direction towards the kitchen.

Ndale scoffed in amusement as the girl fell back on her rear. Was something speaking really so surprising...? Well, he guessed he'd be surprised if something he didn't expect, like a turnup, started speaking, but still, really. Considering where they were, maybe he wouldn't be all that surprised anymore. The good thing about this school was that it showed you all the awesome things hidden and possible in the world, the bad thing was that it made normal things somewhat dull. Now that he had thought of the possibility of a talking turnup, what fun would a regular, silent turnup be? It would scream when you diced it.

Ndale shook his head, his thoughts were wandering. His grin stretched as his name was taken with great care and shrugged.

"Eh, no offense taken. I spent most of my life as an average cheetah, simple pet to a family in South Africa. I am, for the most part, your average cheetah." He winked, canines flashing. Really he was, he was just your average clan King Cheetah with that pesky recessive gene. "You'll get used to it here slowly if you don't go insane first. Hey, actually if you do go insane, you'll probably fit in better." The feline chuckled lowly and hummed in thought. He looked at Kitty and glanced around the hallway again before rising from his seated position. Without a word of really where he had decided to lead her, or really showing any care that she was going to follow, he brushed past Kitty and started down the hall at a leisurely pace, joints rolling almost fluidly beneath the skin.

He didn't know who Tiv was, but the kitchens weren't all that far from here.

"Simple pet, hmm? Sounds familiar." Kitty rose as gracefully as she could manage, pride injured somewhat more than her rear end. "Not in Africa, but same idea. Though none of the pets near me spoke. Verbally, I mean." Most of the animals she'd known had just as many insults as humans did, only without the noise of words. Squirrels especially. Damned peanut gallery never shut up, in fact. "Average my ass," the girl muttered, but audibly.

Going insane wasn't all that far from her mind already, but his mention wasn't entirely helpful. "Very ha," she snapped back at him without any real malice. "I'm already going insane, stuck in this body. So many ridiculous things humans require. Won't take much to pitch me over the edge." Forehead creased with a small frown, her bad mood hasn't cleared much, even with the new feline to get to know.

His movements far more smooth than her own, Kitty followed Ndale down the hall, hoping cheese might be in her near future. Finding her room was all well and good, but cheese was something she'd appreciated for some time before her inconvenient switchover... though she had easier access to it now.

Ndale glanced back at the girl with a smirk. There were a few things she had said that caught his attention and peaked his curiosity. Kitty was speaking as if she had been a pet, however, as far as Ndale knew, owning humans wasn't allowed any longer. Well, he guessed it didn't mean that it didn't happen. Also, there were probably strange circumstances involved. He hummed.

"Kitty, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you? You say you are stuck in that body? You are speaking as if human is not your species, but honestly, you seem perfectly human to my senses..."

The cheetah's tail flicked as he kept up his pace. He turned a corner down another hallway that, while looking remarkably like the first and others, had a long table with a vase on it rather than paintings. Hm, he checked the map in his head.

Kitty snorts in a very un-feminine fashion. "That's because I am human, now. I had a bit of an accident courtesy of Tivona, the new cook here. She says it wasn't her fault, it was something beyond her, but it's not like I was doing anything to earn this. The Lords of the Elements hated me enough as it was." She falls silent for a few moments, but it's a thoughtful lapse, not a sullen sulk. There seems to be more to this 'accident' that bothers her, but if she's willing to share it, she's not opening up now.

When she misses Ndale's turn of a corner and keeps going straight a few paces, she finally wakes back up to her surroundings. Kitty turns around and finds the cheetah, running a couple paces to catch up before speaking in a dull monotone. "I was a house cat. Kitten. There was more to it, but even after a year of discussion with Tiv, I'm still not sure I understand it. Magical tendencies towards the elements, and apparently I was immortal. I may be still, I've no idea. I wouldn't know how to check, other than the obvious... and I'd rather not, just in case." Her tone gains sarcasm at the last phrase, but at least it beats monotone.

Ndale cast a glance back over his shoulder, watched the girl walk the wrong way, then catch up. All the while, for everything she said, he only hummed in a sign that he was listening at all.

So...human now, but was once a house cat? Cause that made so much sense...

He made a mental note that he wasn't acquainted with the new chef and that he'd need to check on that. Ah the grapevine...

For the most part though, Ndale had no idea what she was talking about. Lords of Elements? He huffed in a bitter amusement. Well, everyone here seemed to have an interesting story. He pushed back his own embitterment over his own unfortunate short span of life and put on a smirk instead.

"Ah, a domestic, then. Well, being human isn't so bad I'm sure. I have it on good authority that it's a great deal of fun." He purred with a cocky air, though he did not elaborate on how a cheetah would have any experience on which to base that opinion. "And perhaps you could just...maim yourself?" The cat rolled his shoulders in a lazy, rather uncaring shrug.