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To whom it may concern,
•───────── [Date Goes Here] ────────•
Most of the Cat Post's business took place within the city of Rømskog, or a few days thereabouts; longer-distance post could be sent down river, but it was a lot to ask of any cat that they try to guide a convoy through the woods for any longer distance. It had happened, once or twice, but every time Sphinx swore it would be the last.
Some requests, however, were too interesting to pass up. This one came courtesy of an older couple, who wanted to deliver a small chest to a town in the firelands; the first time the Rakshasa had ever heard of anyone attempting to actually live out in the waste. Interest thus piqued, Postmaster had agreed to take the package for a pittance, figuring that it would be little more than a short jaunt through Avernus and would give him an opportunity to poke around the place himself and see what had inspired them to build in such strange environs.
Unfortunately, one small chest had turned into a small pile. For an old spirit like post, adjusting his corporeal form and traveling the worlds was an easy task, but the more you tried to carry with you... well, it wasn't so different from a single man laden with bags staggering down a road, really. You could be as strong as an elephant, but trying to keep that much stuff on your back was more akin to a magician's trick than a comfortable walk.
The overburdened cat had dragged the incorporeal packages through Avernus for some time now, and would have been sweating and panting, had he glands or tongue with which to do either. He squeezed them--barely--betwixt the worlds, letting his essence rise into the air to scope out his surroundings.
The Firelands stretched out before him, the forest still visible in the distance, and Post did a little quick mental math, groaning inaudibly as he realized how long a journey truly remained. The land was open around him, and his ghostly eyes spotted no manner of predator or rampaging elemental. Well, it would have been no matter if there were. He was tired, damn all, and it was time to take a rest.
The packages materialized in a neat pile in the middle of the Firelands, hundreds of miles from any human road or settlement, and Postmaster took form atop them as a small black cat. He stretched, walking a little circuit atop the topmost chest (the only one he'd agreed to take on this beknighted delivery) before curling up, head atop his own tail. The Rakshasa recalibrated his frequency before he took to sleep, hardening himself to ensure that he didn't fall pray to some opportunistic predator while he napped, then gave one last yawn.
The spirit cat slept there atop his pile of deliveries for the better part of a day, totally uncaring about the general state of the world about him; thankfully, few of the beasts of the wastes had any interest in packages and, if anything, found the sight of a small cat napping atop a large pile of boxes to be a suspicious threat, best avoided.
Date (I noticed you didn't have one but I can change as needed): Fall 15 123
The fall had come and the leaves had started to change. But that hardly mattered in the firelands where everything seemed burnt to a crisp. It was a stupid idea to try to grow anything out this way, which is why the aelves chose not to… but it was because it was unwanted land that Caelum was able to claim a piece of it as his own.
Being a druid he had turned a small number of acres into a livable space, complete with buildings, people, and other things people might expect a growing town to have. One thing it didn't have, was a post office. Hardly anyone was willing to deliver to this location so they had to rely on portal mages more often than not. Other times Caelum had to take his full dragon form just to haul things around. It was a major pain in the ass.
As it so happened, the dragon (in human form) soared overhead, spotting the pile of packages and a cat nestled atop them. It was an odd sight and he was genuinely confused as to how they'd even gotten there. Had it been an aelf he would have continued flying, a human he might have stopped to help, but a cat?
He passed the cat overhead but circled back around an hour later when curiosity got the best of him. The cat was still there, sleeping. He lowered himself, eventually landing several dozen meters away before cautiously walking towards the feline.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" he called out as he got closer. The cat seemed to be the only living thing around. He figured that maybe it was an inari, pretending to be a cat. That, or this was some complicated illusion that was hoping to lure someone just like him into a trap.
If the cat didn't respond, he'd extend a thin rod of wood from his finger to poke at it. He'd think that surely it'd wake up if he did that.
To whom it may concern,
•───────── [Date Goes Here] ────────•
When Postmaster slept, he generally dreamed of people- not merely in general, but of whosoever he held fixed in his mind's eye. This was often whichever mortal had captured his fascination that week, but not always. Now, he dreamed of the Cat Post office, of his staff running about, ferrying little leather totes full of missives. These were commonly just scraps of paper, folded over once or twice and sealed shut with wax (for any lighter adhesives would have been murder to source from an alchemist), or wrapped in on themselves like scrolls and bound with ribbon.
In this dream he saw Sphinx, his blue-eyed lieutenant, trying to wrangle three of the other cats who had gotten into a heated argument about whether one delivery was too far, should have been rejected. Though he knew Sphinx's sensibilities lay in conservative business decisions, she berated the lot of them, holding firm to her belief that once an assignment had been accepted--even mistakenly accepted--there was no better alternative than completion.
After chasing away the fighting staff, Sphinx sunk down on her hind legs to cradle her head in her paws. If he'd been at the office, Postmaster would have leapt at the chance to descend upon her there and then, to tease and annoy her with ludicrous questions and suggestions. But alas, he'd played himself a trick, agreeing to this stupid delivery. The very thought of it was like a hot wind rushing over his body, ruffling his fur and-
No, hang on, that wasn't the dream at all. There was something... prodding him?
The Rakshasa opened his red eyes, groggy."I'm up, Sphinx, I'm up. Leave me b-"
But of course, he was not in the office and it was not Sphinx prodding him awake. Instead, a somewhat bizarre-looking young man was standing at the bottom of the mound of deliveries, a wooden stick extending from his hand. Postmaster climbed to his feet, blinking to clear his eyes as he glanced about. Nobody else was visible, not for miles, nor did the boy seem to have a mount of any sort. Had he been walking through the-
No, hang on. Those were wings, weren't they? Well, that explained that, although it didn't answer the more pressing question:
"What? I've hardly slept a wink, what is it you want? You can't have any of the boxes, they aren't mine."
Having said that, the Rakshasa realized that he ought to check to make sure everything was still where he'd left it. He hopped down off the top box, counting under his breath as he took a quick inventory of the wares. To his great relief, everything was accounted for. It would have served those damn devious old folks right if something had been stolen from this ludicrous delivery, to be sure, but Postmaster's pride would not suffer to have packages pilfered literally out from under him.
"Far too much." he grumbled, "I'm not a kitten any longer, to be carrying so much through hell and back. See if I take a job like that again."
Caelum winced when the creature woke up. It was a cat, and not only a cat… a talking cat. He blinked at the cat, but retracted the wood back into his body all the same. He watched, bemused, as the cat started checking its packages. It was such an odd sight that he didn't even know what to say. He'd expected the cat to be a trap, or at worst just a creature that had chosen a very coincidental place to nap.
"I didn't touch any of them, I swear," Caelum said as he waved his hands defensively "I thought the sight of a cat on top of a bunch of packages seemed a little… off, so I came to investigate. If you were just napping then I apologize for waking you."
He had the urge to take off and be on his way, but his curiosity kept him rooted in place. "My name is Caelum, by the way, and I'll leave you alone if you don't want my company, but I just had to ask… what are you? You carried all this here? How?" Caelum was full of questions. His first guess was that someone had transfigured this person into a cat, or it was some kind of magical fauna that could talk. Sentient cats? He didn't think he'd ever heard of that. Also, neither of those guesses explained how the cat had gotten there.
He took a seat on a charred tree stump and watched the cat, feeling somewhat guilty for the feline's mood. He wracked his memory for anything that might clarify what he was seeing but he came up with nothing. He'd spent most of his life living alone as a dragon who was very grotesquely shaping into a human/aelf. Stories about spirit cats hadn't exactly been on his priority list of things to memorize.
To whom it may concern,
•───────── [Date Goes Here] ────────•
The cat grimaced at the pile of boxes. Everything was accounted for, but he wasn't eager to recalibrate frequencies again. Well, he wouldn't get very far on foot, but at least it would feel like progress. Postmaster hopped down from the boxes and sniffed, closing his eyes.
Black lines of darkness drifted out from the cat like umbral tentacles, curling around each of the boxes in turn. Before Caelum's eyes, the entire stack of post lifted slowly into the air- and then began to lose the natural opacity of matter, becoming as transparent as shadows themselves. The cat let out a heavy breath as he finished fine-tuning the frequencies, the weight of the boxes which had been straining against his tendrils lightening even as the process consumed his aether.
"That's how." said Postmaster. His tone might have come across as snippy, except there was a bit too much strain coming through for that. This was... not heavy, but sort of deeply inconvenient to carry. "One chest, I agreed to carry, and they add on another six. Six! Unbelievable."
It was, perhaps, simply that it took that long for the rest of Caelum's words to register with the cat, or maybe once the adjustments were complete he was less distracted. Nevertheless, he turned back to the perplexed dragon on the stump, shaking his head.
"I am, for your erudition, a rakshasa, a noble spirit of the high aether. My moniker is Postmaster, for I am the proprietor of a delivery service out of the Fælnir capital. The owners of these chests wished them delivered to some Fælnir which, I gather, have chosen to build a town out here in the waste. A preposterous notion, of course, but that was all the more reason to come look."
Preposterous notions were the cat's favorite, for they revealed more interesting and intense drives than commonplace and sensible motives. Still, it was hard to think that when he found this town, the reason for building it out here would prove sensible.
"Caelum, you said? You wouldn't happen to know where this mirage town is, would you? I feel as though I've been wandering the planes in circles out here."
Caelum watched, wide-eyed, as the cat used some magic ability to wrap tentacles around each of the boxes before doing something to them. It was quite impressive. The dragon didn't know how much each of those containers weighed, but he was pretty sure the cat was lifting a lot more than he could.
When he heard this cat was actually some sort of spirit his head spun. When he heard that they were making a delivery to a human nearby, the feeling intensified. Surely the packages were for his town but he certainly hadn't ordered any packages, so it stood to reason that one of the humans had ordered something… Or perhaps one of their relatives had sent over some things.
"There's only one person stupid enough to try to establish a living space in this area, and you're looking at him. Although town is probably an overstatement. It's very much a work in progress, though we do have some people living there." He smiled apologetically, feeling even more responsible for the cat's mood.
"I don't know exactly who those packages are for, but if you are delivering to the town I'm thinking of, then you need only go that way" he said while pointing off into the distance. It was hard to miss even at this distance because this variety of sequoia could grow multiple hundred meters high; it was akin to a woodland skyscraper.
"There's an AElheim Sequoia that stands tall in the middle of a bunch of saplings. There are some buildings there and the town should be fairly easy to tell apart from its burnt surroundings."
He looked back at the cat and noted the strain he exhibited. "I don't suppose there's any way I can help you? It doesn't seem like the easiest thing to carry all of that. I'm not sure how your ability works, but if you're suspending all that with magic then perhaps I could carry you to town? We're headed to the same place, after all."
"It is the simplest of all magic." the cat responded. His load had faded away, nearly to invisibility, and he gave a great feline yawn, showing off tiny, needle-sharp teeth, "All things that are exist alongside many other things, but all only interact with and perceive those things which exist in similar manner. A spirit must learn to adjust the manner in which anything exists, or none will be able to see or converse with them at all."
But for all that smug boastfulness, it was terribly draining to do to other objects, especially something as bulky as this delivery. Though the boxes weren't as heavy as they might appear, no spirit enjoyed the effort of keeping the frequency of so much mass in harmony with their own.
Postmaster paused, mid-yawn, and opened one red eye to look at the man, then followed his pointing finger to the distant sequoia. He let out an involuntary groan, realizing that he still had many miles left to go before he could be rid of this infernal delivery. Still, what the man said piqued his interest.
"You're the one building out here, you say? But why would you want to do that?" Admittedly, there was something nice about the open space. It reminded the cat of his days in Arcanis, with endless blue skies and sunlit naps available on every rooftop. Still, he doubted any of the natives of Ælheim were wont to see it that way. They were creatures of shade and tree.
(Also there were the elementals, he supposed. Nobody liked having those about.)
At Caelum's offer, however, both eyes opened. That was the proper way to treat a Rakshasa, there, to give them humble aid without question. Whatever sort of flighted thing Caelum was, he was admirably well-mannered. And that would, indeed, make this whole ordeal much less torturous for the poor cat.
"Your aid is acceptable- if you pick me up, you shall find that I weigh no more than any other feline." It was not in the nature of the cat-spirits to accept aid gracefully, but that was about as close to a simple thank-you that Postmaster was liable to give. "Mmph. How come you to fly, Caelum? It is an unusual practice among the people of these lands."
Thought the Postmaster did a good job of explaining the magic, it was still hard for the dragon to wrap his head around it. But he thought it made sense – spirits could adjust themselves and apparently things around them to be visible, or not.
"Why here? Because it was cheap. The aelves are letting me use the land for free, basically, since nobody even wants to live out this way. I'm trying to start a large-scale human-breeding operation, see, and I need quite a bit of space to pull it off. It's been… difficult, but it's come a long way in the past couple seasons."
Caelum hesitated for a moment, never having picked up a cat before, but he extended his hands and tried to gently scoop him up. If allowed, he'd try to cradle the cat like a human baby like he'd been taught to do. Though, if the cat wanted to reposition himself or even climb on Caelum's back, he wouldn't mind.
As he lifted into the air, Caelum would say, "I come to fly through Grist. Believe it or not, I'm actually a dragon who embodies the people of AElheim. I don't particularly need these wings, but they certainly make it easier to maneuver in the air."
Once he got several dozen meters into the sky, he would take off at a comfortable pace towards the sequoia. He knew from having carried passengers before that it was much more comfortable for them when he didn't go at breakneck speeds. Plus, at lower speeds he'd at least be able to hold a conversation without having to scream through the wind.
"What's your story Postmaster? How long have you been in the business of delivering packages? Is this a normal profession for rakshasa to take?" Caelum hoped he was not being annoying. He was sure many people probably asked the feline a similar line of questions and the dragon knew all too well what it was like to have to explain one's strange origins ad nauseum. He was curious as to why a feline even needed to work in the first place. Surely spirits had no need for money, which made him think that maybe delivering mail was just this one's hobby.
Postmaster was true as his word, weighing only as much as a domestic cat might. It was relatively easy to hold the spirit's relaxed body against Caelum's own; Rakshasa generally enjoyed being carried about. More than one unlucky Jin'Norai had found their lives upended because a cat took a liking to how well they cradled them, though Postmaster couldn't think of any examples of that specific fate befalling a dragon.
"You know, when I started studying the creatures and fae of Ælheim, I thought I'd find more of your kind. Maybe it's just harder to spot things with all these trees in the way..."
Now freed from the immense burdens of actually moving around, the cat peered down at the wildlands below.
"Human... breeding? They do that themselves, if you let them." But it wasn't that dissimilar an idea from some of the notions his colleagues had tinkered with, really. "Well, suit yourself. I can understand not wanting to be under the thumb of the aelves, anyway. That's one of the reasons I thought to settle down in the Faelnir port. It's too confining, to always be trying to think about who lives nearby and whether some game or another will come to annoy them."
The cat preferred humans to the aelves, really. Neither quite got to the level of the Jin'Norai, but the former were more honest creatures. Something about immortality and their covenant with the great tree made the latter unbearably prideful.
"Most of my kith spend their days lazing about palaces they didn't build, breaking their toys and pouting. Don't let my humble bearing and gentle manner fool you, Caelum; I merely happen to appreciate the value of hard work and charity in a way those smug devils never did. Still, though I myself have little use for commerce, I happen to be responsible for a great number of cats who need to be kept fed and entertained. It was for them--and all the lucky people of Græntún who use our services--that I thought to begin this enterprise."
Postmaster yawned again, closing his eyes with pleasure as he felt the wind ruffling his whiskers.
"Still, it goes too far that I must do the hard work of dragging this stuff so far afield. I shall have to connive a way for my lazy, ungrateful employees to do it." The thought of how apoplectic such a thing would make Sphinx filled Postmaster with a quiet joy. Then again, it wasn't very realistic. He couldn't teach the cats to disappear as he did, even if he wanted to.
Caelum inclined his head to look down at the cat as he spoke. "I suppose a forest isn't a great place for grown dragons. Makes it hard to be sneaky when hunting and if your prey gets into a tight space you might as well give up. There are some about though, there's a whole flight of AEvergreen dragons but I've never bothered to meet them. I decided to live in the forest because I preferred the company of aelves and humans over dragons."
He chuckled at the observation that humans bred on their own. "Yes, though when a dragon breeds with other races, the child has a chance at inheriting the powers of a dragon. I don't know if it'll all be worth the effort but… I suppose it will take some years to see."
"Hmm," he continued, "I suppose I prefer the company of humans, though I respect aelves more and their way of life. I've enjoyed my time living apart from them, now that I think about it. I've also little use for money aside from supporting the humans I'm caring for. It seems we are alike in that sense."
It was nice to find common ground with a stranger, though Caelum didn't know whether he should be happy to be similar to a cat spirit. Postmaster spoke as if he had many years under his belt, probably more than Caelum. He supposed it was the fate of every long lived being to accumulate responsibilities and ultimately feel underappreciated.
At the feline's final comment, Caelum asked, "so the cats under your care, are they spirits like you? Or the kind that don't talk? I suppose if they are capable of carrying packages like you then their problems would be strictly motivational… unless you have some way of training more ordinary felines?"
They were making good time on their way to the town. The tree was getting larger on the horizon and if they could keep up the pace the time would surely fly by. When the dragon wasn't focused on talking to the cat, he was scanning the ground for dangerous creatures and elementals. As it so happened, there were some Luxium elementals roaming about. Every so often Caelum would open his mouth to fire out shards of hardlight which would rain down on them. It wasn't the cleanest job, but injuring them was the least he could do.
The cat offered no comment on whom the dragon might respect- the notion of respecting another race at all did not come naturally to the Rakshasa. There were individuals who had to be respected, to some extent, but human or aelf, they were mostly just wandering life in a doze. The thought filled the cat with a brief melancholy, but he shook it off to watch as Caelum began peppering the elementals below with blasts of light.
Grist was perhaps the type of glamour which Postmaster had least bothered to study. The process of transplanting the glands into a cambion's flesh was tedious and difficult- it had been hard enough to obtain Seeming back among the Jin'Norai, and that was when the procedure was a fad amongst his kind and Maltricians readily available. Beyond that, though, Grist was one of those things which bound the user even as the user mastered it, and no Rakshasa was comfortable with that idea.
Still, it was undoubtedly efficacious. Dragons were fixtures of legend for a reason, though it was surprising to find one who seemed less invested in simply cultivating his own personal power and more... raising some kind of army, perhaps? Well, he could hardly fault that.
"No, no. My sort don't get along that well, I'm afraid, and we don't breed so there's not much attraction to communal living. These are my employees, who have agreed to work for me- I tend to think that leaving them in human shapes holds them back, bogs down the mind. Best to make a clean cut when you're moving from one part of your life to another, eh? I fancy they come to realize I've done them a favor, in time." Not that he bothered to check on that.
"Of course there are challenges. A cat delivers letters well enough, but parcels are a different matter. I brought some tigers with me from the north to help with that, but there's always so much to do and only so many tigers to do it. I do keep ordinary cats, as well. I've spent a few lifetimes studying the creatures of this world, you know. Something of an expert on the matter of life, and living things."
Postmaster turned his head around, to glance at Caelum's face. "I don't suppose there's anyone you want transfigured, mmm? Least I could do, for the ride."
"Ohhhh," Caelum said as the realization of what the spirit was suggesting finally hit him. The dragon's opinion about the cat in his arms shifted as he realized at the kind of creature he was holding. His employees were all people who had been transfigured into cats. It was no wonder that they didn't want to work. He imagined that the only motivation the cats had to stick around was to hope that someday the spirit might eventually change them back… though Postmaster had said they'd agreed to work for him. Whether or not that was believable… well, Caelum had no intention of pressing the matter.
Stuck between the decision of whether to laugh or look concerned, Caelum ultimately let out a chuckle. "You're certainly the most interesting that I've met in years. I've never considered using transfiguration as a means of enhancing a workforce. I didn't think to bring it up earlier, but I am also capable of seeming… I only got the organ transplant last month so I'm not particularly good at it. But… I'm sure I could find someone for you to transfigure. I've never seen it actually done before, so it would be highly educational."
It wasn't long before they came up to the AElheim Squioia, after which Caelum descended and offered to put Postmaster on the ground. It took all of about ten seconds for his assistant, Flora, to come running out to greet him.
"Master you're back! And you've brought a… cat?"
Caelum held out a hand in a cautioning motion and said, "Yes, this is Postmaster. He's a Rakshasa and he's brought us a delivery of packages. Do you have any idea who asked for these to be delivered?"
"N…no" Flora said with a perplexed look on her face.
"Did someone say packages? Are they finally here? I sent word to my parents that I needed some things, you see." Asked a woman who'd heard the commotion.
"Yes," Caelum said, "and it seems you've given Postmaster here quite a lot of work. I found him in the firelands all by himself with your order."
"T'was a near thing," the cat grumbled, hopping down from Caelum's grasp and padding over towards the young woman who'd spoken up, "No-one else would have made the trip, I assure you of that. Still, a deal is a deal, and what's done is done. Your parcels, madam."
The shadows deepened around the Rakshasa as he adjusted frequencies anew. It was as if umbral shapes were rising from the depths of the air around the cat, slowly shifting into the shape of the parcels which Caelum had found Postmaster slumbering upon. The cat deposited them neatly on the ground in the same way he'd picked them up; though a lesser postman might have scattered them to the earth as a petty gesture, he took some pride in impeccable results.
"Well, Mr. Dragon, it was excellent luck that you happened upon me, or I wouldn't have made it into town for another day yet. I suppose I may as well make a circuit and ask those who you've cooped up here whether they've messages they want delivered before I return back- letters are a much different thing than so many parcels."
The cat stretched once again and cast his ruby eyes over the small crowd of faelnir gathered around the open square. The dragon's settlement... well, it was certainly larger than a village. Perhaps a town, though not yet a city, in the estimation of the feline spirit. It seemed the dragon had gathered quite a lot of faelnir women, which the Rakshasa found baffling. It would be impossible to come to know so many people, to learn if they were interesting enough to bother keeping about and playing games with. Postmaster could hardly keep up with a few dozen employees.
"Given the dangers of the badlands, I suppose you keep rather isolated, hmm? Little trouble for one who can fly, but I can't imagine you get many trade caravans this far east. It was long enough even coming through the roads of memory, and without worry of the marauding elementals. I assume you've no plan to expand, then?"
"Thank you so much!" said the woman who bowed graciously to him before she started hauling the packages one by one into a nearby building. The sounds that came from inside the packages made Caelum feel like she'd ordered a ton of snacks and clothes. Not the worst idea, given how little they currently had available. After some time, fruits and veggies had to get boring.
"Hmm, not a bad idea," he said to the feline. A good number of the women there had abruptly left their homes. He was sure that many of them would love to send an update to their loved ones. "Flora! Go fetch some parchment and distribute it. Have the letters back here within the hour… Fetch some money as well."
He looked back to Postmaster and said, "I was thinking it'd be easier to bring the mail here than to have you going all over town. And yes, you're the first delivery that's made it here. Usually I have to assume my full dragon form and carry goods back and forth. It's the worst part about living out here by far. But… you're right. I don't expect any roads to ever be developed. Though, I expect that if we get popular enough then exodii would be willing to open portals here now and then. I'm willing to pay the money, but I've yet to get one to come out here yet."
He sighed. In some ways their seclusion was a blessing though. Being so far from everyone meant that he could do basically whatever he wanted here and kept away criminals of opportunity. He continued, "It's hard enough keeping this small town defended as is, so it will probably not get much bigger but if we get more people then we will build vertically. Just the sequoia large enough to hold a small town's population in it if used efficiently. We could even tack on a building onto the side to use as a post office, if you find yourself coming here repeatedly."
"Oh, I'd forgotten. You'd offered to transfigure someone… and I think I know just the one." He lifted a finger and pointed to a woman who was tied to a tree not too far away. She had caettle wreath vines/flowers wrapped all around her body which kept her in a somewhat sedated state. Perhaps forced contentedness was more accurate.
"That one hasn't really been a good fit for us here. She doesn't really play well with others, doesn't want to go home, doesn't want to do any work, you probably know the type. I didn't want to kill her, but I don't really consider this living either. Perhaps you could transfigure her into a more suitable form? Or if you wanted to make her one of your employees, I wouldn't mind in the least."
Postmaster looked absolutely baffled by the dragon's offer, and equally perplexed by the bound woman.
The cat walked around the tree, examining the somnolent faelnir, red eyes narrowing to slits. Shadows detached themselves from the cat, umbral tendrils of translucent smoke which gently prodded the woman. She made a semiconscious noise, but neither protested nor wakened.
"I confess confusion, dragon. If you do not find her interesting, why bring her here? You don't mean to say that you bring them to you first, and only then learn their habits?"
Perhaps it was necessary to do it like that, if you were trying to surround yourself with thousands, as it seemed was Caelum's aim. The thought of managing so many employees caused the hair on Postmaster's back to rise. He'd have no end of it, no time for himself! Well, unless he made Sphinx take care of it. She'd like that, maybe.
"Really, I do not transfigure my employees simply because cats are fairer than men- though that much is obviously true. I do it in the hopes of expanding their horizons, getting them to think of themselves as something other than 'a faelnir postman'. It is only once they have come to understand that they could be--and therefore, do--anything that they are in the proper frame of mind to introduce me to new and interesting diversions."
The cat scrambled up the tree and onto the bound woman's shoulder, a much more comical climb than you might have imagined. He was perfectly capable of simply drifting up, yet what fun was that? A cat's body was meant to scamper and cavort, surely.
"To be indolent is natural, but disappointing, for it marks a plateau of growth. But that is a fragile vice- she is chained by herself to herself, but the chains are of the comfort around her. She merely needs to be challenged. Observe."
As Postmaster spoke, he began to glow, as did the woman he was perched atop. In a matter of seconds, she woke, the sudden feeling of the Seeming and the Saol surging within her overwhelming even the drowsy effect of the fauna. She opened her mouth, as if to scream... but then the transfiguration finished. In the blink of an eye, the woman tethered to a tree had become a bound tiger, an enormous orange and black cat.
"There, you see? Now she must learn to hunt, and your problem is resolved."
"Well, I do find her interesting. Definitely fit for breeding… The only traits I've been looking for are decent looks and fertility. I've never considered trying to vet their personalities, and perhaps I should have my assistant start doing that from now on." He was getting all kinds of ideas from talking to Postmaster.
Caelum repressed a chuckle at the way the feline made his way up to the woman. The way his guest acted made him wonder if it were his instincts to do so and consequently wonder how similar they were to normal house cats.
Then, the transfiguration happened. Caelum tried to play close attention but there was hardly anything for him to observe about the process. It was a lot more sudden than he'd hoped and there was no gradual change. One moment the woman had looked horrified and the next… she was a tiger.
The dragon's jaw dropped as the tiger looked down at its hands and let out a small sound of sadness. Its mouth moved like it wanted to talk but nothing came out except tiger sounds. It probably felt like a dream, given the flora that bound her forced her to feel somewhat content with what had happened.
"That's… incredible. Thank you, Postmaster. I look forward to keeping an eye on her to see how she adapts to her new life." He cocked his head to the side, wondering how he would accomplish such a thing, but then shook his head. He could think about that later.
"So, would you like to rest or eat before your return trip?" He glanced back to see that women were starting to congregate and slip pieces of paper to his assistant who was organizing them into a small pile.
For all of Postmaster's affectations, Caelum's unabashed praise and awe did pander to the Rakshasa's primal nature. He preened a bit atop the confused new tiger, bathing in the dragon's adulation and the awe of the crowd. Yes, it was rather a clever bit of Seeming, wasn't it? The sort of solution which none of the other sages of the desert could have conceived.
"Well, if you happen to to have some eggs and cheese about..."
Now that the women of the town were gathering with their notes, Postmaster could see that there were more people here than he'd first assumed. It wasn't a city, certainly, but certainly there could be a population of thousands in Paradise.
The cat had no interest in Caelum's breeding project; he hadn't lied about that. On the other hand, the conditions of the town might well produce the sorts of unusual personal situations which he liked to watch- to study, that is. To study.
"A branch office, hmm?"
At first blush, the notion was insane. Sphinx had relented on deliveries down river, to the Aelf settlements and Hesperia especially, but that was entirely because the couriers could ride the boats. Even trekking through the underworld, Postmaster had found the travel here exhausting. He'd be totally unable send any mail caravans unless he was there to guard them in person- and there was no way he was going to commit to a route like that himself. Unless...
"It might be possible. It might just be possible, but not easy." it would require a strenuous effort on Postmaster's part, but he felt his interest in the prospect kindled, for it was the kind of effort he enjoyed. "Tell me, Caelum, are you prepared to keep a courier fed? Fed very well?"
"Umm… eggs, I'm sure we have some. We don't have any cheese, however. Milk, sure, but we haven't put the time into making cheese yet." Caelum thought it was a decent idea but didn't have a clue how it was actually made. Something to do with milk, that's all he knew. "I'll have my assistant look into it. If it makes a good snack for felines then we will make sure to have some in stock should you return."
"Oh? I'm glad my offer interests you," he'd say with regards to the branch office. He spoke as Flora jogged over with a pile of letters that she set neatly onto the ground. She then ran off to go have some eggs made, and milk if Postmaster desired it.
"I don't think I'd have problem feeding a courier," he'd continue, "having one would make women much more likely to move here, so it would be worth the investment. And if this place becomes a success then I hope to have an exodii provide us services, so instead of trekking here as you did one could simply take a portal."
He nodded to himself as he went over that line of thought again in his head. Yes, a post office would do them more good than harm even if he had to go personally hunting for food every once in a while. Postmaster also seemed like a useful feline to have a means of contacting. "What did you have in mind, exactly?"
"Oh, it's a simple enough proposition." the cat replied, lying down on the ground as he watched the letters pile up. He licked at one of his paws, idly.
"You're out here in the middle of nowhere, beset on all sides by danger. I couldn't possibly send a mailwagon through without a certain amount of... reassurance."
The cat had a very specific plan, actually, but no Rakshasa volunteered more information than they needed to play their games. The dragon would have more fun if it was something of a surprise.
Still, you couldn't conduct a business operation on quite so little information, so Postmaster felt obligated to add: "I have in mind a delivery cat of... superior stature, for the route. A courier who can transport a sufficient volume of goods quickly across the wastes, and who will have little difficulty deterring beasts or marauders. You'll see. I'm certain you'll find the notion positively delightful."
The Rakshasa waited while the people of Paradise wrote down their letters, organizing them into neat stacks until he was certain that he had them all, and waited for his snack. If Caelum had wondered if Postmaster would eat more than a domestic cat, the answer was... no. He finished only two eggs before declaring himself sated, and then made his preparations for departure. The letters rose into the air with no sign of strain; apparently, weight was a factor in the cat's mystical activity.
"I sense that yon tree will serve as a sufficient gateway between realms, so I think I will take my leave now, Caelum. Expect my proposal for a mail convoy within the next two months; it will take me some time to prepare the subjects necessary. Fear not, for my designs never disappoint."
The red-eyed cat grinned widely at the dragon and grew increasingly translucent, fading away into mists, and then into nothing at all.
Thread Summary: Postmaster delivers some mail to Paradise and meets Caelum along the way. Postmaster considers establishing an office there and he transfigures an undesirable into a tiger.
