bens_writingjournal

I need a fucking break, is what Lara Croft currently thinks. Considering what was the impetus behind her latest (and the most eye-opening, one might add) adventure where she narrowly avoided death as usual, who can blame her?

Hearing her trusted butler Winston Smith whistle in the distance after arriving to the ashen ruins of Croft Manor, she already expects to hear the extent of the damage her red-haired clone has done to it, of how long will it take to rebuild it. After what she's gone through in the most personal adventure to stop Ragnarok from coming to fruition, defeat her arch-enemy Natla (and for good this time, Lara swears — seeing the goddess cheat death yet again will drive her insane) and provide at least some sort of closure to the conflict with her friendly rival-turned-enemy Amanda Evert, all Lara wants now is a break for a change. For some time to process her sidekick Alister Fletcher's death at the redhead's hands. To process the revelations brought upon by the now-dead Natla's gloating in regards to her parents Amelia and Richard's true fate.

At least she can get involved in rebuilding the manor her family's named after.

What she hasn't expected is Winston holding a curled, white-and-black bundle of fur in his arms, and saying, "My lady, it seems we found a kitten in the manor's ruins."

Her eyes widen at the words. "What?"

"You heard me," he says, walking closer to his employer, "While me and Zip were assessing the damage your own copy has done to the manor, I was looking through the basement to see whether or not the artifacts you've accumulated over the years were damaged."

"Are they fine, at the very least?" she asks, her voice tinged in concern. She really won't take well to years of hunting for and keeping the artifacts in pristine condition go to waste, after all.

Winston, thankfully, nods. "Fortunately, they've only maintained scratches here and there. But it was here that we've found this kitten."

From the moment he presents the aforementioned kitten to a confused Lara, it peeks its head out, revealing its head to have a tuft of crimson-red; when it opens its eyes, it's of sulfur-yellow with a soft shade of light-grey. In addition to that, Lara has noticed that the kitten has deep splotches of black that covers much of its torso and hind legs, with only its aforementioned head, front paws and tail being in pale-white fur. Upon seeing Lara for the first time, it meows excitedly, sounding like a bird's chirping, and perks its tail up.

Lara keeps her wide-eyed stare at this stray kitty. From the way its tail and ears are perked up and its wide smile, it's so… chirpy and eager to jump into her arms, and normally, she'd extend her arms and hold the kitty carefully. However, its appearance cannot be this… coincidental. It just reminds her so much of her—

She shakes her head with an annoyed grunt. No, she's done with her redhead clone. She's freed her from her maker's grip, made her defy that godforsaken order, and that's that.

Having a repeat of that adventure will, again, drive her to insanity.

"May I hold the kitty, please?" Lara asks, and the butler obliges, handing the kitten to her arms. She makes sure that her hold doesn't crush the newly-adopted pet, while lightly propping its head with her fingers. Still, about how much manpower does she need to have for the rebuilding of Croft Manor… "So, how long will it take for the manor to be rebuilt? You know, given the extent of its damage…"

"Probably months, if not several years, give or take, since your clone has damaged this place significantly," Winston explains, giving a long look-around the manor's ruins. "Even when we have a construction team this big, there will be concessions around some of the rooms' designs."

The kitten meows again, this time slightly narrowing its eyes, to which Lara carefully tightens her grip on the new pet. No matter how strange her new pet looks like, Lara's more than willing to make sure it won't be hurt by any potential ambushers, whether it be the new ones or those she'd dealt with before, like Amanda's goons. "I see… but still, it won't hurt for me to call for a construction team and—"

"Yes, help is very much important, though you do need to be involved in the rebuilding too, miss Croft," Winston reminds, just as he listens to Zip exclaiming in elation from a distance; the elder man understands that Zip's talking about the data being one of the several things to have survived the firebombing. "After all, you did create a plan with Zip to provide backup data and transfer to a secure location as a contingency should something happen to your home. So helping the construction team should be a cake-walk for you, right?"

At that, Lara sighs in relief, then smiles. "Yeah, you're right. We better begin the recovery, no matter how long it takes."

As much as Lara hates to admit, she's right: while it may take time, the manor will be rebuilt.

* * *

To say that the calico kitten doesn't take well to the rebuilding manor's structure is a massive understatement.

Whether it be the large rooms, the seemingly endless corridors, or the foreign touch the kitten feels on the carpet, it keeps moving his head to carefully look around any potential danger, keeping its tail on the raised and poofed-up edge. Seeing the humans stepping into the building and cleaning up the rubble, the ash and the burnt wood from the floor makes it feel like an ant in these circumstances. To the kitten, it's safety and being alive above all else, after all. So it runs and runs, listening to the strange men (in the kitten's eyes, at least) talk about the design of each room given by Lara and the potential concessions they'll have.

Eventually, the kitten finds itself descending into the place Lara tends to spend a lot of time in — the basement. A spacious room with stone floor and walls, a long, crimson carpet with gold-yellow, wavy highlights, circular pillars, and row upon row of books she's collected over the years. It's mainly used to keep the artifacts, the treasures and various memorabilia related to her adventuring career, and as a relaxing space for someone like Lara, who'll take weeks in finding out the artifact's location, hunt after it (and potentially encounter hostile forces and put them down) and safely make it back home.

The only new additions to it are the brown, wooden desk with a modified lantern lamp, a tied pack of papers with an ink bottle and writing quill atop it and next to it is something that Lara suggested Winston to add: a small, circular red cat bed with a poofy pillow.

Even as Lara's been provided with an Acer computer from Zip — because of course a technology nerd like him would give just that — she can still be found lost in historical books, or ones involving mythology, and ancient manuscripts within her research of artifacts. A fact that the calico kitten seems to be interested in the most, as it also finds itself jumping to the desk and leaning into whatever page Lara's currently reading. Still, that doesn't stop her from catching up with the classic literature if Lara wants to kill some time, most of which have been gifted by Amanda in secret.

Such is the instance of now, where Lara spots the kitten leaning against the book, taking in the first pages of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey.

Though, like any new pet owner, Lara may have to contend with several things in regards to this role: one is giving the kitten a name, and second is her ability to tame it. For the first part, this may seem easy — just give it a catchy name and be done with that, right? Well…

As soon as Lara has written out the potential candidates of the kitten's name, she closes the book and looks at the kitten in expectation. "Okay, I don't want to call you just kitty or kitten; that'd get too redundant pretty quickly. So, a name for you is in order. If you agree to that, just come to me closer and I'll get to scritch that…" She glances at the tuft of red on the kitten's head, "…hair, as far as I know."

The kitten waggles its tail and leans closer to its new owner, taking interest in how she'd handle giving it a name. This should be fun, Lara thinks.

"Well then, I'm going to call you Doppie. Does that sound fine?"

As its fur rises in goosebumps, the kitten bares its teeth and arches its back as it hisses in rage, before it lies to the desk's surface, crossing its front legs, having narrowed its eyes. Alright, the name "Doppie" is out of the question, so Lara crosses it out.

"Maybe, Dora—"

Again, an enraged hiss, this time the kitten jumps off the desk and dashes to its cat bed, curling into it.

"All right, all right, maybe not." Lara crosses the second name on the list, before burying her face in her hands with an irritated groan. She now has two metaphorical strikes; one more and the potential trust between her and the new pet will be broken, to say the least. Now that she thinks about it… yeah, the first two names seem something like a child with no creativity could come up with. If there's something that'll convince the calico to take a bit of liking to Lara… if there's a name that'll sound both sophisticated and understandable at the same time…

It hits her. It just so happens that she finds herself staring at The Picture of Dorian Grey. So what if…

"So, kitty…" The kitten raises its head upon seeing Lara come closer to the bed and kneeling, its ears and tail perked in interest. "How about Dorian?"

It — Dorian — leans its head left. It's working.

Lara, showing off the book, flashes a small, kitten-like smile. "You know… after the book's protagonist?"

Dorian smiles back at her, slowly comes out of the bed, and begins to walk around her legs. From the way Lara reacts to its fur touching her ankles — laughing and standing up — it seems so… ticklish. But the way it purrs, by Gods — it reminds her of an engine revving up, though not as intense as its mechanical counterpart.

In a way, as Lara starts to scritch the crimson-red tuft, the purring grows louder and the kitten closes its eyes in contentment. She attempts to carefully scratch the crook between its neck and muzzle. Again, the purring goes louder.

The first part of gaining trust to Dorian is a success. The kitten can now be trusted by Lara.

When it comes to taming it, on the other hand…

* * *

…yeah, Dorian is indeed the manor's biggest delinquient when it comes to texture.

No matter the texture the rebuilding team has used in recreating the curtains, whether it's satin or silk, Dorian sees them as the perfect location to sharpen up its claws; it jumps to it and clings on to it for dear life, as if it were a catnip for a kitten. And if either Lara or someone on her support team — primarily poor Winston — dares to remove the kitten from the curtains, the meowing goes from short, albeit endearing squeak of a bird to a long, enraged screech and plenty of scratches to whoever's holding it is sure to follow. And, also, tears on the curtains — meaning money is spent on restoring it.

It's felt like forever chasing down the eager kitty and getting to spend the money on restoring the tears on the curtains. And eventually, patience will break first — and who's the best candidate for that than Lara?

"Damn it, Dorian!" she exclaims, snatching the kitty to her arms and, ignoring the enraged shrieking from it and its attempts at clawing her wrists, begins to walk her way to her own room. "This place is not your whole playground! This is my manor, and—" Yelping from a surge of pain, she looks at her arms, and realizes that in addition to scratching her left palm, Dorian's run off. "Dorian!"

She runs off and chases the kitten through the rebuilding manor. All the while Zip and Winston watch on.

"Sometimes I wish for the popcorn to be handed," Zip says, to which the butler nods.

"Indeed."

Unfortunately for the two, they see her panting, having caught Dorian in her arms once more. "Does anyone have something to calm Dorian down?"

While Winston tries to think of something, Zip pulls out a miniature plush of a white snake of his jacket and shows it to the kitten. "Maybe this will cheer the kitten up?"

At that, Dorian, with an eager yell, leaps out of Lara's hands and chomps down at the plush by the neck. Shaking its head to make sure that said plush is sturdy enough for its bite, the kitten spits it out and straddles it, then takes another bite at it, this time aimed at the head. And so the calico rolls around, exposing its belly to the team, teeth still holding the plush snake.

"Huh… it seems to be working," Lara murmurs in fascination.

"What did you name it again?" Winston asks.

"Dorian," she replies.

"I see."

While they see the calico playing around the snake plush, such as lightly patting its scratched head with its paws, carefully nibbling its threads and shaking it with the head, Winston gets an idea. "Ah, milady — you do know that a kitten like… Dorian, right?"

Lara nods.

"Right. A kitten like Dorian needs to be fed too, right? In that like us, it cannot last this long without the food."

"There's plenty of canned food for it to eat—"

"No, it has to be specialized," the butler says, "One that's for the kitten and one when it grows up over the months. It's our responsibility, you know?"

Now that Lara thinks about it… she adds that to the mental list of responsibilities of being a pet owner. "Yeah, you're right, sir. But we do need to make sure that we don't overspend it."

"Good point."

* * *

As the manor's slowly being rebuilt room by room, month by month, Dorian, while still a mischievious brat of a kitten with a knack of running around its halls, has mostly been calmed down. It now eats meat and stew every evening and morning (gaining a bit of weight as a result of such), it enjoys playing around the plushes given by Zip, loves being scritched by Lara, being intrigued by the amount of artifacts she's found and protected over the years of her adventuring career and reading along whatever classic literature she's currently into in the basement.

As Dorian has found out as months went by, it especially loves being around Lara. While she's still spooked by the kitten's coincidental appearance to a certain redhead clone, she's gradually found herself being more comfortable in being around Dorian. From its reaction to having the tuft gently scritched, to feeling relaxed around her arms, Lara has never felt this happy and lucky. She's especially grateful around the odd calico's presence in the bedroom area of her room; oh, the nightmares about her parents' true fate haunt her like an omni-present phantom, and she's found herself tossing and turning with an occasional groan of her parents' name over and over like a prayer. The kitten, possibly aware of her new owner's distress, tends to leap into her bed and nuzzle its muzzle to her, giving a calming meow to her. Although she may be startled by the sudden noise and the glow in its eyes, Lara will eventually relax, pet Dorian as thanks for being there and even allowing to huddle close to her.

So long as Dorian's here, she thinks, the nightmares won't be as intense. As the nights drag on, the nightmares indeed grow less intense. They still make an appearance, though.

As for how the kitten tends to behave around the team, it's more of a mixed bag. As said earlier, Dorian hates Winston with a passion — whether it's due to his appearance or the approach to pet rearing, the calico tends to either ignore his orders or give him a scratch to the face. In its defense, Winston has dealt with dogs in his service with the Croft family, namely with corgi (something that has irritated Lara to no end — no wonder she's taken a liking for a cat like Dorian), so he's tried to apply the same techniques to Dorian. To say it doesn't gel well is like saying that a whale prefers being on land: illogical and revealing how out-of-depth someone in that field is.

In regards to Zip, Dorian has also tended to ignore his commands, except for ones that involve feeding it. But at least he can find some solace in that the calico doesn't scratch him as hard as to Winston or occasionally Lara.

One thing unites them, though: the way the kitten performs tricks.

When given the command to perform a trick, like rolling around or sitting down, Dorian does it without hesitation. In the first wave of trick learning, Zip provided the cat with a simple obstacle course built by one dedicated worker — one with a small gap, three rings and a running course of about 100 meters. With the first few attempts, the kitten has either been stuck in the ring or two, fallen to the gap — and, to the suprise of the support team, has taken comfort in — or just fell down for a nap just for the timer to run out. As the kitten managed to win the course, the worker decided to integrate the obstacle course into the basement, while making sure it'd be a bit more difficult than the original one (at the behest of Lara, naturally), while also being fun.

The kitten has never felt so in Heaven like this.

In the end, Dorian, even with the occasional itch to chase around Lara and her support team, has become something of a new chapter in their life.

Simply speaking, all is well.

Though at some point, the disguise will break.

* * *

"Everyone, settle down!" Lara exclaims, setting the PDA for a group photo to celebrate the manor being successfully rebuilt. Yes, it's taken months, taking into account terrible weather, the workers needing a break, the design concessions (the gym, for example) and Dorian's odd behavior. Yes, it may take a while for her, the team and Dorian to get used to the subtle changes to the manor's structure. But nonetheless, it's pretty much been risen up like a pheonix, down to the last detail.

So what better way to do so than to take the aforementioned group photo?

"Everyone ready?" Winston asks, seeing her employer.

"Indeed!" Lara replies cheerfully.

"Yes, lady!" Zip exclaims, giving a thumbs up.

A snap of a photograph.

An explosion of white with tinges of pink on the edges smoke surrounds Lara and Winston. The medalion flies off the former kitty's neck thanks to the string being torn off and it lands to the floor with a series of knocks. From the moment the butler runs off upon seeing it, he's immediately understood of who's been hiding in the kitty form when he shouts to Zip, "It's her — the Doppelganger's back! She's here to finish us off!"
Lara, on the other hand, feels a sudden shift in weight on her hands, and coughs from the smoke. Well, what an unexpected experience — but then again, while she's used to them, there are some moments that can still catch her off guard. When she carefully opens her eyes and glances at the new figure—

What… the…

Oh.

Instead of feeling Dorian's soft fur, Lara's hands now feel the soft texture of… human skin?

That can't be right.

She's also noticed that said skin now has the ivory paleness with visible veins dotting her body, the red tuft she's loved to scritch at is now a loosened, long, blood-crimson hair. The eyes, once a soft shade of sulfur-yellow and light-grey, are now purely sulfur-yellow with tiny white dots on its now-normal pupils. And the fact that she's outright nude — besides the black fingerless gloves — when she formed back into its human form…

Oh, fuck.

That tricolored calico, the one that gave Lara the comfort and a sense of safety whenever her nightmares about her parents' fate showed up, the biggest source of entertainment for her support team through perfoming tricks not typical to normal cats… is a form. A form taken by the one who'd relentlessly firebombed Croft Manor, killed Alister in cold blood, and had tried to kill her template more than once. Whenever she dared to make her usual enigmatic smile, that meant one thing to Lara: she's here to hunt her down under the late Natla's order, her own life be damned.
Instead, her slightly agape mouth and the wide-eyed look of surprise just scream, "Where the hell did I end up in?"

The redhead first looks at the equally shocked support team, who have just arrived to see her in her human form, then at the scowling, enraged template, complete with an occasional twitch in the left eye — as if knowing that she'll face the wrath of both Lara and her team for her past actions.

She nervously laughs. "Uh… I can explain."

Oh, Dorian— wait, no, the Doppelganger has a lot to explain, indeed.

* * *