Mobian Daylife - The Cat and the Rabbit

 ♫ I assumed our time was forever
Naturally, seemed forever
Those happy days we spent together
'Cause you were always beside me ♫ 

Raiza the Cat sang quietly to herself, echoing the lyrics of an otherworldly song. Her little pink nose twitched, her eyes closed as she tilted her head up to the sky, while snowflakes drifted lazily from the heavens above.
She’d fled the scene of the Markhall Store that had grown increasingly uncomfortable the pushier the old mongoose behind the counter had become. He’d been so nice at first, offering her a warm place to hang out for a few minutes and a pretty assortment of Christmas trinkets to look at.
His attempts at keeping her in the store had annoyed it, and he likely knew it as it had surely shown on her face, or ears at the very least. Raiza expressed her feelings, more often than not, through her facial expressions and ears, landing her in more trouble depending on the person.
“Why did you roll your eyes? I’m calling your manager!” Had been the first real trouble it’d gotten her into.
“Flatten your ears all you want, kitty, I know you can still hear me.” Had been another occurrence, this one finally forcing her to leave her then low-paying grocery market job.
Neither of the events that got the young Raiza pulled into the manager’s office had involved her speaking a single word back to the problematic customer. She preferred to save her words for singing.

♫ Then suddenly, I realized
These happy days won't ever last
Out of all the souls we greet in fact
How we met was a miracle  ♫ 

She curled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around he shins and hugged herself. She pressed her back against the cold wall of the lean-to she’d found herself up under as the snow began to fall. Brick Hedge Zone was a relatively newly established zone, at least compared to a lot of older, more historic zones around the world. Tucked away in the mountains to the northeast of Capital City, far away from all the happenings during the war and even further away from Central City and the various messes involving the Restoration.
The sky was blanketed in a thick, deep grey cloud cover, ripe with moisture. The zone had been relatively warm the past few days, so the sight of the first few snowflakes drifting erratically toward the ground had almost given her pause. Almost

Raiza loves to sing. No matter how she feels, singing—and dancing, to a lesser extent—would always carry her through downer situations. She couldn’t say how or why, but if she was feeling sad, or angry, or any of the vast range of emotions that worked against the self, she’d simply start singing.
And she was exceptionally good at it.
The words to a song that she’d only ever heard tickling her ears from somewhere far off drifted from her lips as if she’d been the one who had written it. She wrote the lyrics down and memorized them. It hadn’t been the only song she’d heard this way, but it had been the most complete one.
Internet searches for the lyrics turned up nothing. Posting on forums like Tellit and LyricsFinder resulted in zero help from their respective communities. 
The dead ends all of her searches kept leading her down left the cat feeling bewildered, that maybe she was going crazy. She was no lyricist, couldn’t have come up with some of the songs she’d heard if she tried. Singing them, on the other hand…

♫ I see you peacefully
You're in your dreams
Everything seems calm and free, I know
If we want this warmth to last
Forever again, let's go back to that moment of day ♫

“Hey girl!” 
The sudden, loud, high-pitched voice ripped through the serenity like a swarm of Swatbots through a garden of lilies. A jolt of anxiety and fear shot through Raiza’s body, sending all of her wispy, feathered fur standing on end.
Standing at the opposite end of the rooftop, hand on her hip, hip cocked, was the same rabbit with the phone that had stormed the gift shop earlier. Her bright red fur almost glowed in the gloomy morning light.
“Heard you singing. You’ve got a pretty voice; Is that an original song? Wanna sing it for me live on stream?” The rabbit uttered in a single breath. 
Raiza sank into the cover of her knees, her fur smoothing down as her adrenaline returned to normal. “Oh, it’s you,” Don’t be mean, she had to tell herself. Had it not been for the rabbit’s intervention, she’d probably still be dealing with that pushy old man.
“How did you know I was up here?”
The rabbit grabbed both her ears and pulled gently, her thumbs sifting through the feather fur that lined them. “You think these ears are just for show?”
“Oh…” Raiza relaxed just a bit. “Thank you, for earlier.” 
Eclair walked up to the cat, seemingly unfazed by the falling snow that was melting into her hair and fur. She knelt down before the cat, hands on her knees, and looked Raiza in the eye. “Whaddya mean?”
Raiza’s eyes quickly shifted from the downblouse look she got at the rabbit’s impressively large boobs before meeting her equally impressive blue eyes. “That shopkeeper was being pushy. I hadn’t realized it was a corporate gift shop. Made me feel uncomfortable. Thank you… You’re not filming me right now, are you?”

The rabbit patted at the gadget latched to her hip, and the clear impression of the phone in her pocket. “No ma’am. I don’t often stream in public like that. I’m a video blogger. Name’s Eclair the Rabbit, but you can call me Clair for short,” She stuck out her gloved hand to the feline Mobian. “And you are…?”
Raiza’s ears flipped, and her eyelids closed slightly, revealing only the bottom half of her mother-of-pearl green eyes looking up at the rabbit, to her expansive track of cleavage, then back to her eyes.
“Oh yikes, girl! That expression says a lot, y’know that?” Eclair finally took a step back as Raiza took to her feet. “You always talk with your face like that?” The rabbit said, smiling.
“Name’s Raiza,” She said, finally taking the rabbit’s hand and shaking it. “And yeah, my face tends to say things far louder than my mouth ever could.”
“S’okay, girl! I feel you. I’m glad you stuck around so close to town. Mr. Duncan can be a pain, but I took care of him.” She said as she reached into her slingbag. “Here, catch!” 
Raiza snatched the object from the air with grace, “What is…?” The pair of Chao ornaments that the old mongoose was trying to push on her. “But why? They were so expensive.” 
“Kitty, if you had any idea how much money my morning stream pulled in, you wouldn’t worry yourself about it.” 
Not exactly the modest time is she, Raiza thought.
“And besides, I saw you looking at them with some sort of reverence, and I couldn’t help myself. So what’s the deal, huh? Got yourself a sweetheart you wanna give the other one to?”
“Hm? What, oh, no… I just really like Chao, is all… Thank you, Ms. Eclair.” Raiza mewed.

The bouncy bunny turned away from the cat, who was still hunkered down under the tin canopy. “Man, the news caster said this morning that we’d be getting snow showers, but this is looking like a blizzard. At this rate, we’ll have a foot of snow on the ground by noontime!”
“I don’t think so, it’s been too warm this past week. The ground is—“
“Oh, psh! Don’t be a downer. That was my segue to inviting you back to my place so you’ll have somewhere warm to stay!”
“That’s not necessary. I’m just passing through. I was kinda lured in by the Christmas lights on the town sign, then the whole Markhall thing happened—“
“No, no! I insist. C’mon, no friend of mine is going to spend the night outside in this sort of weather. Here, Eclair whipped out her phone, its NFC signal picking up Raiza’s own phone. “I’m sending you the directions to my pad; Head on in and enter this code. Wait for me there, I gotta do some shopping. Make yourself at home.”
Raiza’s ears fell flat. This sounded like a trap, but then, the rabbit in all her loud, pushy obnoxiousness, came off as genuine… “I couldn’t. We just met, and you’re already trusting me with access to your home?”
Eclair clicked her tongue, pondering the cat’s words. It was the truth, but so was the fact that everything in Eclair’s home—the house included—was ensured. “Let’s just say that I have a good feeling about our future prospects, ‘kay? Okay! See you later, kitty!” The rabbit yelled before jumping off the roof, curling into a ball and landing safely on the ground below.

The snowfall had begun to slow as Raiza came up on the surprisingly large building. She looked at the details on her phone, the electronic GPS voice declaring that she’d arrived at her destination. The building was a two-story townhouse, the outside done all up in red brick with grey trim. It sat in solitude in a spacious yard lined with a black iron fence.
“This… can’t be right.” The cat thought to herself as she stepped up to the mailbox on the sidewalk. The numbers matched the address given to her by the rabbit. “She lives here…?”
Pushing through the gate, stalking across the paved walkway leading up to the house, Raiza knocked first. Expecting the rabbit’s boyfriend or girlfriend to open the door, or maybe even her parents. But after a few minutes and several knocks, nothing came of it.
If it were her house, entering the code Eclair supplied her with was the only way to know for sure. 

Typing it in, the latch clicked and the door popped open! Raiza looked over her shoulder, making sure no one was giving her strange looks from the street. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The warmth of the corner fireplace to her right immediately washed over her, the warm air trickling through the thinning rag that was the remains of an old shirt long past its prime.
“Goodness…” She shut the door gently behind her, looking over the building’s ground floor. It was indeed an apartment complex of some sort, remodeled and turned into a single home with… “one, two, three…” She counted six bedrooms on the top floor, and what looked like one down the hall from the open-air kitchen on the first floor.
The entire ground floor had been revamped into one large open space. The kitchen with a bar instead of the standard dinner table at the center. The walls were lined with cooking utensils, stoves and other gadgets, along with a large double-door fridge at the very end. The floor was covered in a gaudy red and pink checkered tile.

To the right of the staircase was what looked like the living area. A huge, expansive computer setup at the corner to the left of the large bay window, complete with multiple monitors and multi-colored gadgets and cameras, alarmingly, adorned the expansive corner desk. A huge, seventy-inch television was mounted to the wall to the right of the fireplace, with a huge box-shaped plush couch sitting in front.
“I refuse to believe she lives here all alone,” Raiza said to herself as she stepped into the living space, dwarfed by the massive television set and couch big enough to sleep four Mobians comfortably. Various photos of the rabbit and a pair of older bats were hung atop the fireplace. Some had the rabbit as an infant. “Must be her parents, she figured.
Various plaques and awards hung proudly above the rabbit’s computer system. Awarded to TubeView and Vidtch members who’d reached milestones within the platform’s respective goals. Each one illuminated by a pale light.
“Awarded to 3Cl4irDessert for reaching 5 million subscribers,”  read one of the framed awards. 
Raiza’s ear twitched as she felt her face distort slightly on the right side. “How on Mobius have I never heard of this girl?” 

The temperature inside was just right. The air was dry, but not in the way that had her eyes and nose itching, but still a sharp contrast to the moisture content in the air outside in the streets, where the snow had once again increased in intensity.
“I guess a little catnap wouldn’t hurt while I wait for her to get back…” It was the last thing the feline Mobian had thought of as she lay down on the impressively large couch, feeling the cushions cradle her in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a kitten, cuddling in her mother or father’s arms. Sleep quickly took her.

***

The sound of the heavy latch unlocking itself as Eclair returned home went unnoticed by the feline Mobian as she slept, curled into a ball in the corner of the huge sectional couch. One of the many velvet throw blankets draping her sleeping form.
Outside, the snow had fallen far harder and longer than the weatherman had forecast this morning.
The rabbit stood in the entryway, several reusable bags dangling from her hands. She noticed the cat had found a place to sleep and, to her surprise, was snoring loudly.
“Sheesh,” Eclair thought to herself, “If her choice of clothing wasn’t the reason this cat was single, then that snoring definitely was.” Eclair stepped into the living room and turned on a few lights, not trying to be super quiet but at the same time wanting to be loud enough to stir the slumbering feline from her rest.
She bit the side of her mouth. The cat’s clothes were old and ragged. A thin long-sleeve shirt, the arm pits on both long-since degraded for some reason. The grey jogging pants she had on looked clean enough, but were just so tacky-looking that the rabbit couldn’t help but feel a tinge of disgust.
The only shred of any sort of fashion sense the cat had came from the shoes that Raiza had been wearing, which were now sitting by the side of the door. While obviously newer, the look and style were reminiscent of the time period when the whole Station Square flood happened.
Eclair tapped her chin as she gazed upon the slumbering girl. “I can work with this. Don’t worry, girl, I’ll get you cleaned up.”

***

“But I’m fine with these clothes,” Raiza said as she stood in the rabbit’s, quite frankly, gaudy and eye-gougingly pink bedroom. Fresh from the shower and donning a new, fresh set of underwear. Gothic in appearance, with swirling burgundy and black patterns. She liked it for sure, but the fact that the rabbit had somehow guessed her measurements was a little… creepy..
The cat looked herself up and down in the mirror as Eclair looked on. “You like?”
Raiza took a deep breath, did a little turn to look herself up and down, “I like. But this brand… It’s so expen—“
“Nah-uh, don’t even say it.”
Raiza shrugged. “I really appreciate it, Eclair, but you didn’t have to do this. I was perfectly fine with—“ She looked at the old bra and underwear sitting in the waist basket. It HAD been time for a refresher, she’d just not had the time, was all. She caught sight of the rabbit swiping her shirts and pants from the toilet, rolling them up into a ball.
Eclair held the ball of tattered clothes up. “These are going into the trash. It was one thing you entering my house dressed like you were, I could say a crazed fan had somehow broken in. But I can’t explain you leaving that way, so” the rabbit dropped the ball of clothing into the same trash bin as the cat’s underwear.
“You let me do a video log about your makeover, about how I took in a stray and gave you a complete refresh, and I’ll give you a whole new wardrobe.” Eclair pointed to another bag sitting near the door. 
“Excuse me?!” The normally timid-sounding cat’s tone had changed. “I’m not a stray, and I definitely didn’t NEED a makeover! I saw the stuff downstairs; You just want to use me for internet clout, is all. I’ve seen your kind all over the cities. Ever hear of Sir. Monster? His stupid smile just makes me want to claw his eyes out.” She didn’t need her ears or facial expressions to convey her feelings this time.
“MY kind? Sweetie, I can assure you that you can go as far as other worlds, and you’ll never find another influencer like me. And to prove it, lemme’ change the narrative.”

Raiza crossed her arms, an ear twitching. “All right then, prove it to me.”
“I’m not interested in the clout. Not really; I get enough of that using my own devices,” Eclair said, gesturing to her chest, “Let me refresh you and make you look less like a drifter and more like the pre-Perfect Chaos era feline that you are!”
The cat’s body language relaxed. As snooty as the rabbit was coming, she had a good read on her fashion sense. “…It was my shoes, wasn’t it?”
Eclair nodded.
“Fine, but I don’t want to be framed in a way that makes me seem lost or homeless. There’s a good chance my family would see this, especially my younger sister, and I don’t want them worrying or thinking I’m out here being a charity case.”
The rabbit smiled as she picked up the other bag, tossing it to the feline. “Deal. But I do have to ask you to do something gross, unfortunately.” 
Eclair stood in silence, wearing only her underwear, glaring at the grinning rabbit standing across from her. Her long, orange hair fell in loose strands around her tail, meshing with it and looking like the tail of a long, elaborate dress.
“What do you mean by ‘gross’?”

Several photos of Raiza were taken at different angles, all of the cat wearing her dirty old clothes. Eclair claimed it was necessary for the ‘Before and After’ part of the video. For fun, Raiza struck a timid pose during the last set of photos.
“Oh my, what was that for?”
“For the before and after,” Raiza smiled.
Eclair gathered up the bag and handed Raiza her shoes. “Now go put these all on and toss those old things in the trash for good, please! I’m gonna ask you a few questions while you change, okay?”
Raiza nodded. “Wait, does that mean I gotta leave the door open? You won’t record me in my underwear, will you?” 
Eclair made a tsking sound and pushed the cat into the bathroom, “As if! I can’t have my viewers pining over someone else’s body, can I?!”

“Okay, first question: What’s your name and where do you come from?” Eclair asked, positioning the camera on the bathroom doorway, which had been left slightly ajar.
“My name is Raiza the Cat; I’m a Norwegian Forest Cat specifically, and I come from the Acorn Kingdom. Knothole Village specifically.”
Eclair hit the pause button. “Hold up. THE Knothole Village? As in the same one that Sally Acorn and her own band of resistance fighters held up in?!”
Raiza poked her head around the corner, her claws gripping the door. “Yeah, the same. Why?”
“No particular reason. You just don’t hear about Knothole much these days. Sorry, can we continue?”
The Q&A continued for several minutes, with Raiza having spent the majority of the time doing her hair, which she had kept in a simple ponytail at the top of her head for the last several months. Braiding such long, thick hair was time-consuming, she said during the interview. She tied the end off in a split, dolphin-tail look.
The cat snapped her new collar in place, then flicked the bell. “This is a bit much,” She said, looking at herself in the mirror. “Oh, but the bra band is even worse…”
“All right, I think I’m ready.”

Eclair held her DSLR camera up. The first set of photos was taken with the camera on her phone, but these glamour shots would have been taken with fancier tech.
The bathroom door opened as Raiza exited. Looking completely different, the feline was her true self once again; The cat she’d left back in Knothole Village in favor of a more… rugged look. 
The shirt she wore was black and had long sleeves that ended in fingerless gloves. The center was cut out in a keyhole fashion, revealing the sides of her boobs and the milky white fur that covered her chest.
“Hold up, girl, where’s your bra?” Eclair asked.
Raiza shrugged. “It’s in my bag. The band across the front kinda ruined the aesthetic of the keyhole, you know?” She smiled, blushing a bit. “You don’t think it shows too much, do you? I mean, I’m not that big, so I don’t—“
Eclair smiled. “You’re fine, kitty cat. You look amazing.”
Raiza spun around, the short pleated skirt spinning with her, revealing the dark underwear hidden beneath. “Don’t use that photo, please,” She said quickly, coming to a halt and striking the same timid pose she had earlier.
Gone were the ankle-high white socks ain in their place, black knee-highs.
Eclair was clapping now. The cat had added her own touches that brought the ensemble the rabbit had bought for her to pure perfection, even if the style was very outdated.
“All right, I’m recording now, so tell me how you feel?” Eclair pointed the camera at the cat’s face, which turned and faced it head-on.
Raiza smiled and said, “I feel like myself again.”
“Great! Then let’s get a selfie real quick to commemorate the occasion!” Raiza declared, quickly wrapping her arm around the feline’s neck and pulling her downward. She raised her arm and snapped a quick photo. A new friendship forged.

Later…

Raiza and Eclair were closing out the day and their new, budding friendship with a girl’s night on the couch, complete with a horror movie—or the news, as Raiza had suggested—and a crap ton of sweets following dinner.
“Have you seriously met Sir. Monster before? Is he as creepy as he comes off in all of those pictures of him?
“Of course I’ve met him, kitty! You don’t get to be as big on the internet as I  have and not meet at least of few of your peers. And yes, he’s a bit of a scumbag. You know, he actually paid to have a busy springboard set quarantined off once, just to film the reactions of people wanting to use it?”
The girls laughed, enjoying each other’s company as the clear night sky gave way to the silvery new moon outside. The snow long passed and turned to rain further south.

“Breaking news here on MNN tonight,” The news anchor cut in, images of a familiar town at sunset in the little window beside his head.
“Mm, isn’t the news anchor a hunk?” Eclair declared, “I love me some silver foxes.”
“Lanolin the Sheep, leader of the Diamond Cutters and prolific face within the Restoration, held a press conference in her hometown of Sunset Heights after an incident involving another member of the Restoration got out of hand, resulting in a fight involving a Mobian-piloted Death Egg Robot breaking out in the streets.”
Raiza took a sip of her hot chocolate as the B-roll footage rolled, Lanolin’s apology speech overlaying amateur footage of a giant antlered wolf-like monster fighting one of Dr. Robotnik’s creations.
“Oh wow, a Mobian willingly piloting one of those weirdos machines?”
Raiza looked on in fascination as the giant wolf-monster moved with elegance and speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a creature so large. 
The screen showed Lanolin now, standing behind a podium with the rest of the Diamond Cutters behind her, along with a wolf with red eyes. Raiza perked up at the sight of the wolf, her pink nose and ears twitching. 
The sight had not been lost on the rabbit. “Ehh,” she nudged the cat, “Did the doggy catch the kitty’s attention?” She popped a piece of candy in her mouth.

“We’d come here to apologize for the inconveniences my partners at the Restoration had caused the town of Riverside, but ended up making matters worse in the end. What happened last night happened because I personally failed as a leader, and I’ll make it up to the town of Riverside by serving a community service sentence while my… while Laik the Wolf here, seeks training of his newfound abilities back in Central City, under the watchful eyes of the other Diamond Cutters.” Lanolin spoke with a monotone voice as the news ticker underneath relayed further happenings across Mobius.

“Laik the Wolf, eh?” Elcair said, whipping out her phone. She rested her head on Raiza’s leg, who sat cross-legged and leaned against the back of the couch. “Hey, Rize, check this out,” Using her nickname for her newfound friend.
Raiza took the rabbit’s phone and scrolled through the article. It was dated by a few months, but it was all about Laik the Wolf and the Mobians’ heroic exploits during the war, his disappearance and where he’d gone during that time. Following the attack on Central City and the world learning of the Kuthul, his ability to travel to other worlds had also been made public as well.
Other worlds…
“Clair,” Raiza handed the phone back to the rabbit. “I gotta go find this wolf. I have to meet Laik and ask him some questions.”
The rabbit’s fluffy ear twitched. “Love at first sight, huh? Been there before. Well, let’s get ready then!”
“Excuse me?”
“A road trip sounds fun, honestly. A break from my everyday life would give my audience something new to talk about as well, and since we’re hunting down a wartime hero, I can frame it as a special series or something, I dunno.”

Raiza unlocked her own phone, bringing up the same article about Laik and paused on the mugshot-like photo they used of him. “I dunno about love, but…” She thought to herself. The wolf was cute for sure, but the concept of otherworldly travel felt important to her; Specifically, her ability to hear music that was not of Mobian origins.