Zodiaks has a minion!

Anti-Gravity the Tumble Cat

Ch. 1 - Welcome to the mortal plane, Zodiaks.
Zodiak grumbled and stared up at the brand new shop sign, hanging from coiled copper chains and swinging gently in the afternoon breeze. It was a beautiful sign, no doubt; the letters were both carved into the wood face and painted a bright seagreen colour, the ends curling into embellished swirls. The carver had done a fine job, sure. Except that it was obvious no one had enough wit to use proper grammar.

Rubbing her temples, Zodiak stared at the words “Zodiaks Mercenary Detective Agency”. The missing apostrophe in ‘Zodiaks’ would drive her mental. On top of that, she had hired the same imbecile to fashion all the wooden plaques inside, all of which lacked the necessary apostrophe.

“As if I didn’t get enough scrutiny from my peers,” she mumbled, kicking dust off the threadbare ‘welcome’ rug.

A flitter of sparks erupted in front of the sign, and Zodiak shielded her eyes, a small utterance of curse words beginning to stream from her mouth. A small lavender-coated body hovered weightlessly in front of her, almost laughably; his small body spun as if he were underwater, caught in the ebb of an invisible sea. The look on his usually smug face was slightly diminished, small lines of scrutiny running along his furry brows, and though he seemed serious, he did not even try to contain the small smile that crept on the corner of his lips as he further inspected the sign. It was irritating, that look. She thought she would've grown used to her Familiar's attitude by now, but no.

“Zodiaks, huh…? Well, can’t say it sets a good reputation for us.” The small cat-fox rolled onto it’s back, still floating effortlessly amid a wave of tiny sparks. Anti, or Anti-gravity, was Zodiak’s (she nearly removed the apostrophe in her mind's eye, but held it back—at least inside her head she could be intelligent) constant companion and deputy-mercenary.

Though small, the little critter was soaked through with magick, and had saved Zodiak a fair-few times. Beyond that, Anti tended to have one, resounding, extremely irritating flaw in their nearly seamless relationship; his mouth was bigger than his brain, and he often talked himself into precarious situations, if not just pissing a large amount of people off all at once.

Exasperated, and too tired to counter his observation that had nearly driven she herself mad since this morning, Zodiak swung the wooden door open, and began reaching for one of the numerous boxes waiting to be unpacked.

Welcome to the mortal plane, she thought. Zodiaks incorporated.

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It had been nearly a week since her shop opened, somewhat close to the darkest, dirtiest alleyways in all of Nightmare's walls. She had sat, bored stiff, inside the dusty old stone building, counting spiders on the wall. Anti, his usual energy somewhat (thankfully) sapped by the lack of things to do, lay sleeping inside a china bowl that was displayed behind the counter.

Zodiak had decorated the place with trinkets of all her adventures. She wasn't sure how mortals would respond to them, of course; some of the more 'odd' bits of her collection included, but weren't limited to, decapitated, magically preserved heads that blinked and moved their mouths, a lantern that was illuminated by a miniature contained lightning bolt, the fin of a mermaid's tail, a caged skeletal songbird that was bound together by necromancy, a ring that held several trapped souls, and a broom that swept the stone floor of it's own accord. That was by far her favourite.

-- to be continued --