Golden Boar Restaurant.

[Mall]

You are in the famous Golden Boar Restaurant, renowned across six worlds for its excellent cuisine. On the back wall, one spies an oak door, and a gentleman in some form of livery keeping an eye on it. Every now and then a patron approaches him whispers something to him quietly, and is let into the back room. It is dimly lit here.

[Catrina]

(OOc- This idea just came to me out of the blue. Run with it if you want, if not, I'll delete)

Catrina entered the restaurant and slumped into a chair at one of the available tables, an uncharacteristic frown on her face. She needed some peace and quiet to think about a problem....

She reached into a pocket of her jacket and pulled out a ring of fried dough, which she sniffed deeply, perhaps even longingly, then tossed on the table. She regarded it for a few moments, then buried her head in her hands.

'Oh Bright Goddess! Why must you tempt me so!'

[Pinky]

The occasional sound of crystal being ground and cut rose above the din of the restaurant. Pinky looked up from the Merchant section of the establishment (named for the corner that was out of the way and slightly shielded the noise of gem cutting from disturbing the diners) and caught sight of Catrina across the room. He put the gems he had been cutting back into a bag at his belt and walked over to his friend.

He gave Catrina a scratch behind the ears as he moved to her side, his head canting slightly as he gazed down at her.

"You are upset? Why?"

[Catrina]

Catrina Jumped, nearly clawig her friend out of instinct. She caught herself and settled back down, enjoying the ear-scitching. She then looked again at the donut and siged. He had baked the thing, especially for her, he did not know her secret. perhaps...

'Pinky, my friend. I have a confession...'

[Pinky]

Pinky stared down at Catrina with his mythril eyes, the small jet set right into the center of each orb twinking against the silver color. Metal eyelids slid down over his eyes, blinking as he stood there in wait for the confession.

[Catrina]

After saying that first bit to Pinky, Catrina lapsed into silence. She looked at nothing in particular, her eyes downcast, the frown deepening a bit. She was marshaling her thoughts for what she needed to tell her friend.

She picked up the donut and sniffed it again, half despising, half longing. 'Every morning when I come into the Guild you give me one of these, and Zharkhella before you used to do the same. Heck, ever since I became Gifted, people have been plying me with 'nip. Either friends who were joking with me or others who knew its effect on cats and wanted an 'easy ride' *snort*

She closed her eyes, trying to hold the tears back. 'And every day, I take these things *waves at the donut*, and go about my business. Thing is...thing is I can't. It eats at me all day until I get rid of it. I've never ate one of your donuts, Pinky, I-I can't...

Pinky...I'm an addict...

[Pinky]

Pinky blinked, staring down at Catrina for a few moments as he processed this new information. Something was obviously bothering her. He hadn't really known Zharkhella but he already knew that whatever donuts had been offered Catrina before couldn't have been as good a quality. He took great pride in making a superior product.

The matter of the 'easy ride' confused him more than anything. Did Catrina provide some kind of taxi service that he was unaware of? He filed that information away for a later time, when she was less upset and more in the mood to talk about dividends and profit.

As far as her being an addict...of course she was! She was a Sentinel! Everyone knew that Sentinel's were addicted to donuts...with the exception of him, of course. Not being able to eat was possibly the only thing that was allowing him to make a profit off his Pinky Donuts(tm). As far as ingredients...he had found that using catnip had increased his profits with the catfolk population (and one elf, for some reason) tremendously.

Given all of the information that he had compiled, he came to the only conclusion he possibly could have:

"You don't like them?"

[Catrina]

Catrina started at Pinky's remark. She was finding telling her friend the truth to be more painful than she anticipated.

'No, Pinky, it's not that I don't like your donuts, it's that I can't eat this donut! And it's not the donut! I'm sure it's a wonderful donut that most other Catfolk would love to eat and enjoy the catnip high! No, it's...it's the catnip. I can't, I won't use nip. Not anymore...'

She closed her eyes and began to cry again, stroking her belly, just showing with new pregnancy

'...not after what happened last time...'

[Pinky]

Pinky was still confused as to what was wrong with his catnip donuts. He had never had a complaint before. Perhaps Catrina was simply allergic to catnip. The prospect was boggling to his mechanical mind. A feline who couldn't consume catnip? How odd.

Not even Catrina's rubbing of her belly clued him in as to why she couldn't consume catnip. Not being a biological being and not seeing pregnant women but once before, very little data of pregnancy had never been entered into his memory. All he knew is that it was a time of celebration and that an appropriate response was to offer a gift.

Reaching into a small box in his backpack, he drew forth another doughy hoop that obviously had bits of fish in it and held it out to Catrina.

"Congratulations!"

[Catrina]

Catrina took the donut out of habit, then looked at Pinky questioningly. Didn't he understand what she was telling him?

Then she remembered her mate Tangent. Before he had asked the Gods to become a Catfolk for her, Tangent had been a construct like Pinky, and she remembered long talks with him, discussing matters of flesh species, including the subject of love and mating. Perhaps....

'Pinky, I'm sorry. I forgot that you don't understand what I'm talking about. I want you to understand, but it will take some telling, and I don't know if I will be able to hold my emotions while I do it.

Do you want to hear my story?'

[Pinky]

Pinky had been told many stories by his wife, Nyen. Ironically enough, he knew well what marriage was and meant. He understood love well enough, but since he was a construct, the discussion of children had never really been put forth. He slipped into "story-listening" mode and immediately took a seat beside Catrina. Leaning closer with widened eyes, he waited intently for Catrina to continue.

[Catrina]

Catrina took Pinky's actions to mean he indeed wanted to hear what she had to say. She took a bite of the new donut, set it down next to the other one, took a deep breath, and began:

'First of all, to most of the 'Folk 'nip is a take it or leave it thing. We take 'nip on occasion to relax, and it also removes our inhibitions a bit. Sort of like alcohol to many people around here.

Unfortunately, there are some Catfolk that become addicted to 'nip. to the point that they have to have it to function normally. Sort of like an alcoholic. I'm one of these.

The problem is that 'nip is readily obtainable. Heck, it grows wild most everyplace, especially near our village. So, once hooked, there's no limit placed upon how much you can take, other than disaster. That’s what happened to me.…

I had my first taste of ‘nip when I was just out of my kitten years, and I was hooked. Soon I was using it almost constantly, almost to the exception of all else. I swear, I would almost have forgone hunting for ‘nip!’

Catrina stopped a moment, a lump in her throat. Here was the part she dreaded, the part she had kept deep in her heart for so long. She was sure she would not make it through, but needed to try, to let her friend know why she acted so strangely….

[Pinky]

Pinky waited a few moments after Catrina finished, to make sure she had nothing else to say. When it became apparent that she was indeed done, he disengaged "story-listening" mode and resumed normal function to process what she had said.

He had come to understand "addiction" from his time in the pubs. He had seen how some members of the fleshy races came in to consume copious amounts of alcoholic beverage. Indeed, it was why he had opened The Mechanical Pixie. He had also seen how often the patrons drank themselves into a stupor. On one occasion, a drunken bard had impaled himself on his own sword by accident while recounting a proud battle against a rival.

He had not been aware of the addictive nature of catnip, but it certainly did explain why felines reacted to his donuts in the way they did. Reaching up, Pinky took the catnip donut off the table and threw it into a trash bin by the bar without a blink.

[Catrina]

Catrina looked at her friend and smiled weakly. He had understood!

'Thank you, Pinky, I'm glad you see what I'm saying. I want to tell you, you don't have to worry about me now, or tell Seij or Foil or any of the others to watch me. I was saved from myself before I came here, after making one of the biggest mistakes in my life and...and...'

Catrina stroked her belly and started to cry again, bitter tears from deep within her soul. What she said next was a whisper, almost drowned out by the noises of the restraint.

'...causing the death of two innocent kittens....'

[Pinky]

Pinky blinked at that confession, staring down at his friend for a few moments as he processed that information. He knew she was in pain, made obvious by the fluidic leakage that he knew to be "crying". He stood up and went into the gem cutting section of the pub and secreted himself in a corner. He pulled out a pair of gems and deployed his cutting tools, the sound of grinding resuming from the corner.