Bloody hell, Angela.” The groan couldn’t have come out any louder from Nemesis as he hacked away at a low hanging branch in the way. “Of all the things we could have done…” She wanted to be here…and the reason made him regret telling her that he would be up for anything she desired. It was the time of the year where people celebrated love and relationships and what not. Being one that was devoted to his loved ones, he figured that the Matron of Love should be able to enjoy this time as well. So he told her that he would be hers for the day, and accompany her on whatever her heart desired. Unfortunately for him, the Goddess had a strange idea and it didn’t hit him at first when she wanted to venture to this island. As far as he was concerned, she may have wanted to study some unknown flora or something. Nemesis didn’t question it at the time, but after a bit, she revealed the real reason for her desire. Needless to say, he wasn't happy about it.

It was hot, humid and there were bugs everywhere. Damn bastards kept flying around his face, making him swat them away constantly. His attire was simple; a loose shirt and short pants with boots. His hair was drawn into a short tail and his red eyes didn’t mask his frustration over this place. Death was far better accommodating this hell. “You wanted cats…”, he spoke, rolling his eyes.

The moment she revealed the reason was playing over and over in his mind. She wanted felines outside of the norm, but this was ridiculous. Did Celeste put her up with this? This certainly would have been a possibility, except for both his wives thought alike and constantly bounced ideas on each other. Another attempt at hacking the flora in their path, it wouldn’t be hard for her to see where Lucian would have those irate looks he constantly gives his sister when she was annoying.

“And I had to open my mouth.” His sword struck again and finally they made it out of that thicket. “Tell me, what’s your plan on locating them?”

Her Divine Mender was busy and her latest expedition needed someone else. Someone who wasn’t Raine. Color her surprised when Nemesis said those magical words to her. ‘I’ll be at your whims’ Or whatever he said it didn’t really matter to Angela how it was phrased… Just that he said it.

“Oh come on, where is your sense of adventure!” Angela exclaimed as she parted the flora to see what was around them. “You can’t just stay cooped up in your temple or on the island.” Her long red hair was in a braid. She wore an explorer’s outfit with perfectly good boots she was sure to get mud all over.

She dug around in her satchel and took out a spray she got the insects in front of Nemesis and smirked at him. “I developed this myself for expeditions you know. Works well. The bugs won’t even come near you.”

Now for the real reason, she was here as she pulled out a notebook. She had several drawings done of the creature they were looking for. “They nest on the eastern part of the island. We’re going directly to their nesting site. I believe we’ll find all sorts of eggs this time of year.”

Angela gave pause before a worried expression came over her, “Nemesis… RUN.” She ran ahead of him as the ground started to shake. A giant carnivore came through the tree line in their direction. “THIS WAY!” She waved with a grin on her face. This woman was absolutely mad. She could have easily taken care of the creature but this was all part of the adventure.

He gave her a side glare, "The last time I was 'adventurous', I was in Sularia seeing all those rugrats turn your home into a zoo, including our direct ones. That's plenty of adventure for me. Or maybe you'd like to be on Furtuna's ship and be whisked away into some battle of gods know what." Nemesis crossed his arms as he kept walking. "I have no problem going outside, trust me. But you picked a hell of an experiment to tackle. I still have my doubts about the whole…" He ceased as he nearly coughed up a lung with that spray of hers. But at least the bugs would leave him in peace now.

"Do you come here often then?" He whiffed away the lingering residue as it tickled his nose funny. Once that was over with, he peeked over Ang's shoulder and scanned over the contents of the notebook. "We are what!? I was fine getting cats or whatever, but you want to steal their eggs?", he groaned. "I'm out in the middle of nowhere with the Mother, the Mother that was to rob eggs from other mothers…" Ironic, was it not? Had someone wanted to steal her children from beneath her nose, then Angela would have raised all sorts of hell and torn the realm asunder. Nemesis didn't voice his thoughts on that matter out loud, he knew better than to prod her like that.

The God's brows came together when she fell speechless; something else that was rather shocking was that he, again, didn't voice out loud. "Run?" The hell was she… That was when the earth quaked and Nemesis fell quiet and watched his wife scatter for the hills. A moment later, he was running as well, away from the large thing with teeth. While he was certain that they could have taken the beast down even at half strength, he didn't want to put it into practice. And his wife looked like…she was enjoying this.

What the actual hell?

Nemesis caught up with her and took her by the waist and darted away from the creature. He could hear it roar behind them, speeding up to close the distance. His eyes lifted around, looking for an escape when he noticed the vines. Aided by a little magic, Nemesis leaped up and took hold of the hanging vines and swung on one of them. At the apex of the height, he released it and they found themselves on a high branch before he leaped onto another one. And then another one. He kept going as the distance was growing between them and the beast until it eventually gave up and continued its hunt elsewhere. He leaped onto a few more branches before he stopped, panting heavily as he placed Angela down onto her feet. "I've been called all sorts of lunacy in my time, but clearly none of my accusers ever met you before." He looked down to see that they were safe.

“Emry and Wis are not getting ‘kitties’ from here, that’s for sure.”

[Gmod permission was granted]

“Whatever have I done to deserve being put on an airship and assaulted like that? Think of this like a fancy walk Dearest… A great adventure into the unknown.” Well unknown to him she had done this plenty of times before.

She let him get all his coughing out of the way as she thought about how best to answer his question. “The unique fauna and flora that are on this island are quite beneficial. You would be shocked at just how useful Archaeopteris macilenta is.” She snapped her fingers a bit as she thought more about it. “This is all about research. You can’t train adult cat bakulaws. I tried and got bit for it. The younger ones were more open to it.”

Once they were on the run Angela found herself surprised when her husband picked her up by her waist. The look on her face must have been hysterical but considering the situation she was glad that he couldn’t react to it. Once she was put down she put her hands on him and gave a smirk. “No one ever expects my lunacy except my darling apprentice.”

Taking a look down at the forest floor she let out a low whistle from how high up they are. She took out a knife and began to cut some leaves. “I’ve wanted to get a sample of this tree for my research into regeneration potions. I have this working theory that it will help speed up the process and a normal human might be able to recover as fast as a vaewolf might. Think of how handy that would be Love.” She made space in her bag and took out her notebook and quill. She was quick to sketch the tree and its leaves onto the pages.

“Now…” She spoke as soon as she was done and pulled out a compass. “We are headed in the right direction all things considered. We should be at their nesting location fairly soon. I should warn you they are predators of the elite variety. I’m not entirely certain if they would think of us as food. My goal is to train them to help in the lab. I’m in need of more assistants to do mundane things like carrying my vials about.”

“Poor bastard’s too worried over what you’d do next. Not that I envy his position.” He shook his head and petted at her fiery locks.

By the time Nemesis finally could breath right again, he glanced over to see Ang at work. At least here, she couldn’t get too absorbed in being lost for days buried to her head in books and parchments like at her realm. They literally had to worry about their heads staying attached to their bodies here. “Peachy. Though I can’t fault you at that.” He supposed that there were plenty, especially within his flock, that this research of hers could be beneficial towards. He stood on guard, his head shifting every which way in case their little friend came back.

“I still think this is a ludicrous idea”, he sighed before her actual reason why she was so caught up in getting these creatures before they were born came out and he just looked at her dumbfounded. For a time, he was speechless, perhaps the most he had ever been in his long life. “Angela…we have people for those things. What you speak of sounds like some sort of twisted circus.” He had issues with Ivan, but even that oaf had some sense about him and he hated to agree with the beta over how nonsensical she was. That and a tad psychotic. She wanted to turn feral and murderous carnivores into lab assistants. He would have laughed if it wasn’t so true.

She was serious about this.

“Darling, run that by me again…what makes them the perfect candidates for your lab work?”

This was what Angela did with her time besides the obvious. Research, invent, brew. Research, invent, brew. It was a cycle that kept her up late into the night sometimes all through the night. There would be days she would nap at her desk only to wake up and pick right back up what she had been doing the night before. She was a scientist over everything else… She knew that. She loved all aspects of it. It was some of her greatest life’s work.

She took the leaf and put it in her mouth making a face, “It’s sour.” More notes as she held her tongue out of her mouth trying to get the taste off.

Once the reason for getting the cats was out in the open she just blinked. “Yes, but people talk and you know I can’t think… These will work for a lavish lifestyle with belly rubs and treats.”

Angela took a big breath in and waved her hands lightly, “So, these creatures actually have paws that work as our hands do. Making them capable of passing things along from side saddle bags. I’ve ever designed the bags to fit them… I just need to make sure they fit and get a final fitting today. We’ll do that before we steal the eggs.”

She clapped her hands lightly before they continued on their way. Of course, on their way with Angela was more like stopping ever so often to let her get a sketch in or two. She would taste flowers and other plants often making faces. There were a few times she stopped to look at odd rocks and put her tongue to them. “Porous.” She was sure he must have thought she was mad but this was the way of the world for her. “Anyways…” She threw the rock over her shoulder and continued.

Finally, she got to the nesting grounds and she opened some leaves. “My research has led me to believe that these cats like fish much like their smaller counterparts.” The bakulaws were running around from nest to nest. They were ever alert.

Angela took a breath and looked at Nemesis one final time before she exited the bush they were behind. She conjured some fish and began her assessment. These were wild animals and she was ever careful of reading how they were with her. Once she had gotten a group of them to accept her she took out the saddle bag and tried it out on one. It promptly fell over and just looked at her. “Too heavy? Or are you just overdramatic?” She began to pet its belly and a purr started to roar loudly up. “See? They are pleasant when not hunting.”

“To each their own…” The lord had to admit, she was right about how much of a nuisance people can be at times. Although, much of the interactions were dealt with by Reaver and to a lesser extent Maalik. Only the most vital of meetings demanded his attention if any. Nemesis just guessed that with her clergy dealing with their own duties, she required more help. “Now that I think about it, you hardly let anyone in your lab; much less help you there.”


This isn’t some impulsive idea you’ve concocted…you’ve been thinking about this for some time, haven’t you?” Thinking deeper, he narrowed his eyes a bit more. “Just how long have you known about these cats then?” And this was the part where he sometimes feared how long she would be cooped up in her lab. But wasn’t all geniuses just a bit mad as well? If truly the case, then Angela was the smartest of them all.

He hadn’t said much about her tasting various plants, rocks and other inanimate objects on their merry way to catnap, but it was starting to make him wonder the point behind them. “Is this your way of testing out some sort of properties they carry?” If it was, then he’d just assume that there would have to be more research done aside from merely putting one’s tongue against them. Then again, she was the field researcher, not him.

He followed her lead until they were close to the nest. “Think they would have noticed us earlier?”, Nemesis spoke calmly as he peeked through the leaves. Chances were good, but considering they hadn’t reacted yet spoke volumes of his wife’s studies being true.

Nemesis looked dumbfounded when the felines didn’t flee or attack; no the bastards acted like house cats. His eyes gave away how in awe he was that these creatures hadn't decided to attack them. They seemed more curious than anything. Nay, these huge predators acted like kittens to her. “Seriously, the girls can’t have one”, he repeated from earlier. Especially Emry who’d likely use one to terrorize anyone in her way. He studied the satchel she placed onto one of them before cautiously coming over and placed his hand onto its stomach feeling it rise and fall with each breath. He was neutral when it came to cats; really his only experience was Celeste’s habit of turning into one and swatting at things on his desk. More so to garner attention and be mischievous. “So…how do you plan to take them?”, he spoke, referring to the you-know-whats. “We can't simply can walk over and take them while they are here. Big or small, cats…hell, most living things don’t take kindly to their young abducted. You of all things in this realm know that.” That went without saying, but he didn't doubt that she can here with a plan for this precise and delicate part.