middaeg | [Open Catch-all][March]

[It had been enough to fool some people, but he should have known that Momo would not be so easily misled. It's part of the reason he enjoys this person's company as much as he does, which is much to say when he rarely enjoys the company of anyone enough to admit it.

Mogget nods, making himself comfortable with a small, feline wriggle of his shoulders.]

Small shifts were the first things I attempted. It's difficult to read books without thumbs. [Frequent visitors to the Coven and various libraries might note him turning pages with peculiarly extended paws. He makes a sound in his throat, almost the approximation of a purr from a far more human throat.]

Learning the magic here has been taxing, but I've learned to be appreciative of the freedom afforded to me.

[That's something Momo hadn't really considered himself, but being a cat would definitely present some difficulties studying. So he gives a sort of soft laugh and a thoughtful nod, like he's amused with himself for not picking up on something so obvious in this case.]

I don't know much about where you came from, but I remember you saying I shouldn't have been able to remove that collar you were wearing when you arrived, so I'm glad you get to decide what you do with your magic here. How often do you think you're going to be taking this kind of form, rather than being cat-shaped?

[A particular distinction, since Momo was never entirely convinced Mogget was simply a magical cat even if he doesn't know the actual details behind it all. He's pretty sure any sort of extended transfiguration would be difficult to maintain, but it's worth at least asking if the human form is preferable.]

As often as it's convenient.

[Mogget has never just been simply a magical cat, but he has also always been very close-lipped about his actual origins. Even the Abhorsen herself doesn't know them fully.]

I can hold this shape for around a day.

[But the mention of the collar has him toying with the ribbon around his neck. It's such a part of him that he didn't even give a second thought about incorporating it into his transformation, even though he didn't have to. He didn't need to, and he didn't need to make it red. When did he become so used to what he had become?]

But I haven't been permitted to take human form in front of people for some time. It's a refreshing change.

[That's at least an improvement on being a cat all the time, though Momo has to wonder what the cooldown time is like. And whether it can improve. He knows certain kinds of magic have pretty hard limits, like conjuring tending not to last more than a week.

The mention of being permitted to take that form gives him a few more implications he didn't have before, though, and his brows rise a bit.]

Were you in service to someone who forced you into that cat form, then? [It's his guess from the combination of needing to be allowed to take certain forms and the collar being the mark of it. While he's not particularly familiar with magic systems that do that sort of thing, he's learnt plenty since he got here.]

[Mastering the magic needed had been the easy part compared to improving on how long he could hold it, and how long he needed to rest for afterwards. Suffice it to say that his open cast for bonds not long ago hadn't been because he felt a little bit lonely.

Momo's question prompts a small headtilt, and he hums.]

In a way. I was in service to a family, and at one point some time ago one of them decided that she found my human shape to be unsettling. She commanded that I not take it again in front of them. [He presses his fingertips together, flexing his hands idly against one another.]

I never took it again in front of a member of that family. Not while they could see me.

[Considering the expression Momo's face creeps into over the course of Mogget saying that - disgust, but markedly not surprise that someone would stoop that low - he definitely finds Mogget's situation here to be preferable. Suddenly the collar makes all too unpleasant sense, and that remark way back when about how Momo shouldn't have been able to remove it.]

That's...god, I can't even say I'm surprised. You can't really indenture people like that in countries like mine, but a lot of people with the kind of power and influence you'd need for it back when it was a thing are still total assholes who think the world should bend for them.

[There's a bit of a snarl in his tone, though it's clearly directed at the family Mogget was in service to, and particularly the one who made that command.]

I'm glad you're free here, even if it's taken you a while to get free of the form.

[Mogget, in contrast to Momo's reaction to the implications of what he's saying, looks a little bit amused by the response he's eliciting from the man. He tilts his head, curious, and curls one slim hand beneath his chin.]

I wonder what makes you think that I didn't do something to deserve it?

[Which he had, of course, in retrospect... even if he still believes the punishment to be entirely unfair and his chaining to the Abhorsens an insult only to be rectified by ending their blasted bloodline once and for all.

But Momo... he doesn't know what Mogget is. Doesn't know what he's done, and what he refused to do. He watches him with that same dim amusement and a tiny curl at one corner of his mouth.]

Not that I resent my freedom here, such as it is.

[Momo shrugs slightly, because while he has definitely noticed Mogget is capricious and very self-oriented, he can't speak for whatever he might've done in his own world.]

Even then, you just imprison someone for that sort of thing in my world - or I guess if that collar was meant to withhold your magic or something, doing something like that without the extras would probably be an equivalent punishment too. I can't think of anything that'd justify enslaving someone to your family, and the thing about your form is just petty and stupid.

[He used a lighter term earlier, but this time he uses the heavier term to describe the situation Mogget was in, because he does figure that binding someone into service by force is more akin to slavery than anything else.]

Ah. The Abhorsens didn't enslave me.

[Though he would have happily destroyed their entire blasted line to be free of them. Misdirected anger on his part, perhaps... His expression stills while he considers that, and then he continues as if he hadn't just clearly drifted off into thought.]

I was tied to them by my own... 'family'. I suppose you might call us that.

[Mogget would not, but it's the easiest way to explain it without giving too much away. He's never spoken much about his origins and though such things don't matter here at all, it isn't a habit he has tried very hard to break.]

For a perceived betrayal on my part.

[That just makes Momo's brows raise further, because "perceived betrayal" makes it sound an awful lot like the punishment was just done by "family" decision and very little else.]

That sounds even less justifiable, but that might be because I've seen some petty as hell things perceived as betrayals in my line of work, so without context it just makes me think of overblown reactions by default. Though at least where my work is concerned, the "punishment" is usually just destroying someone's career.

[Or, in Momo's recent case with his old "friend", attempted murder, and then attempted murder on his partner instead. He may or may not have some underlying bitterness where the topic of perceived betrayals is concerned.]

[If Momo knew the full truth of it... he wonders if it would be something he thought Mogget should have been punished for. Mogget observes the man curiously, something unreadable in his eyes as he considers - just for a moment - actually giving him the full story.

Mogget's hints about himself, when he deigns to give them, are never plain and simple. He speaks in riddles and they only get more complicated as they get closer to the truth.

But Momo is angry at his family now, and so is he. So... he doesn't much mind it.]

They're all gone now, in their own different ways, so I don't suppose we shall ever get any resolution to the matter. [That is, he fully expects to be stuck as a cat forever.] I don't think I ever asked you about your work.

[The cat, showing interest in someone else's life? Stranger things have happened.]

[Momo's sense of morality can sometimes be surprisingly skewed, though usually it's in favour of beating people who try to menace his loved ones into a bloody pulp. He doesn't press on the topic for further answers, since he doesn't want to open himself to potentially having to answer prying questions as well, even if he does raise his brows slightly at Mogget's abrupt change in topic.]

I suppose outlasting them is something. [He leaves it at that for now, though, smiling slightly at the question of his work.] I'm an idol, which is basically a lot of different types of entertainer rolled into one. My partner Yuki and I are a duo, but he writes all our music and stuff, so he's really the backbone. But entertainers in my world can get really famous and influential, so the personal politics and business relations are pretty cutthroat. I'm usually the one who deals with all that for us, since I'm good with people, but sometimes we have to put both our heads in because there's just so many different people that need dealing with and they favour different approaches or personalities or whatever.

[He's not usually quite that candid about the unfortunate maze of personal politics his work entails, but given what he just said about perceived betrayals, he thinks the context helps.]

And you call yourselves 'idols'?

[Does he sound like he finds that funny?

A little bit.]

No room for modesty, then.

[While he's simply a cat, such things come out with little shift in expression to give away what he might really be thinking. Right now, though, the reaction is written all over his face. His eyes brighten slightly, his grin wide and sharp-toothed, but what is a friendship without some gentle barbing?]

[Momo gives a bit of a wry laugh at that, leaning back in his seat and curling his hands in his lap, considering how exactly to phrase his position. It's not entirely wrong, but it's also not that simple.]

There's an expectation that we're representing a perfect ideal of a person instead of anything realistic, so I think we earn the right for a little bit of ego in what we call ourselves. We have to give up a lot of things when we go in, hide away our private life...the work is fun, but not everyone is prepared for the toll it can take on you mentally, having to split into more than one self.

[Especially people who have wider divides between their stage persona and their actual personality. Some of his juniors have struggled with that, he knows, whereas Momo doesn't show much of his hand with anyone at all.]

Hmm.

[He curls a hand under his chin, propping his head there thoughtfully as he observes Momo for a few moments. Admittedly, through the course of their acquaintance he hasn't really taken the time to get to know the man that well at all - a side effect of his secrecy about his own life - but he has been able to make certain judgements based on what he knows about humans as a general rule.

Momo does tend to buck those expectations. An interesting person, to be sure.]

I suppose there must be people like that in Ancelstierre. Though I haven't heard of such things in the Old Kingdom. If someone is hiding their private life, it isn't to become seen in other ways.

That's not too surprising. My world is big on technology - pretty much everyone has something that's like a far more advanced version of the Watches we get when we come here, that also connect to a big network of information and images and basically almost anything you could ever want to know. [How does one explain the internet in a world that doesn't have anything comparable to it, besides the relatively basic functionalities of the Watches that aren't really internet anyway.]

So hiding your private life is easier said than done. If you do something not for the public eye in the wrong place, someone might film or photograph it and plaster it all over that information network for everyone to see, and it only gets worse if you're famous. But that also means that getting massively famous on a country-wide or worldwide scale is possible, because communications happen so quickly that distance isn't much of a problem in terms of how far you can reach.

Do you enjoy it?

[He wonders, and he doesn't really know why he's so curious about it. Maybe it's just part of being shaped like a human - before he knows it he'll start thinking like one too. That's something to keep an eye on.]

It doesn't seem the kind of thing one does by accident.

[And yet, strangely, Momo hasn't seemed the kind of person who would want people to be constantly peering into his personal life. Of cours, he could have that wrong. Momo is one of the humans here who manages to surprise him more often than most. Not least with his growing fondness for the man.]

Of course! I get to make a lot of people happy, and doing that makes me happy as well, so it's the perfect kind of job for someone like me.

[He makes a cutesy little hand motion under his face as he says that, as if to emphasise his point. He's the kind of person who gets energy from other people, so hyping up and encouraging others feeds back into his own enjoyment of things.]

It wasn't what I was originally planning to do as a job, but I think everyone knows life sometimes doesn't go the way you expect. [And getting that famous is a difficult thing to plan out in advance.]

Hm. When you put it that way.

[Maybe it's more like Momo than he thought. And besides, if he didn't want to be doing it, Mogget can't imagine that he would be.

His expression flickers briefly into a wry expression at that last comment. If anyone would know that... But he shakes that thought off with a tiny shake of his head.]

You had plans, then.

I wanted to go into sport, since I grew up doing competitive sport. My parents got me into it pretty young.

[And while it had been his parents' choice to do that, Momo had always appreciated it, considering how much he ended up loving soccer after getting to start playing around when he started school.]

But that's another career that can take a lot of luck to get into as well as the skill you need, so things just fell in a different way.

[He skims over the fact that a badly-timed injury squashed his original chances of getting into that particular career.]

It does seem you made the best of it.

[And Momo doesn't seem to be unhappy with his choice, so there's that. Humans can be such interesting creatures, when Mogget takes the time to think about it (which he doesn't do very often).]

The Old Kingdom has more... determinism about in than anything beyond the Wall. The people in Ancelstierre are different, though I haven't spent time there in... [Hmm.]

A very long time.

[Momo hasn't heard a whole lot about Mogget's world before, so he laces his hands under his chin thoughtfully as he listens. It's not the first time he's heard of someone's home being surrounded by a wall, though he imagines this is different to Mikasa's situation.]

Was that where you came from or something? I'd prefer the one that values personal choice more, the idea of thinking everything's decided by stuff outside you always feels kinda...defeatist, almost.

[Like you're giving up your ability to choose and just going with what the world dictates for you.]

Where I come from is... more complicated.

[He shrugs one slender shoulder.

While Mogget is a cat, his facial expressions are easy to school. Cats don't really have the muscle range needed to make them and he conveys most things through his voice. Like this, though, things are a little more difficult.

He almost looks wistful as he speaks.]

But I have resided in the Old Kingdom for as long as anyone can remember, so that will suffice.

[That's a bit of a non-answer, though Momo notes the wistfulness in Mogget's expression, and his own shifts into something along the lines of sympathetic.]

Are you immortal, then? You've never really mentioned what exactly you are, but even in stories in my world, things that are meant to be immortal tend to rise and fall with belief. I was surprised how many actual immortals I ended up meeting here.

[Angels, demons, spirits, and so on. It's a curious thing for someone from a world as mundane as Momo's, but at the same time, he met so many so early that he's far more adjusted to the idea now than he was when he arrived.]

Immortal? Hm. I suppose so.

[He looks down at his hands, lightly twisting his fingers together and then looking at his palms. Lines cross from one side to the other, the same as one might see on any human, though such a little detail isn't something he had put any conscious thought into. He runs the pad of one thumb across the lines on the opposite palm, then shakes his head.]

I'm not accustomed to talking about myself. [Mogget says then, and he lets out a soft huff through his nose.] I am immortal, effectively, because I am not really 'alive'. But neither am I dead. I simply am.

[Open Catch-all][March]

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