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Convo between Jonathan and Elias

[[photo of kitten laying on a statement in Jon’s office]]

Jon at 11:18 AM
I’ve found an Archivist for the Archive

Elias at 11:19 AM
Remove that creature at once.

Jon at 11:20 AM
No. Fuck off. 
I’m the Archive. I do what I want. 
Her name is Air Chief Marshal
And you will address her as such.

[[Photo of the Marshal in a kitten harness being adorable with the head of HR]]

Jon at 11:40 AM
Love the long text tone
Does it really last a full10 seconds to play out?
Say ‘Hi’ to Simon for me.
Not going to stop till you tell him hi
I 
Can 
And 
Will 
Interrupt
Your
Every
Word.
Thank you. Was that hard?

--

“The Marshal has been introduced to the HR team. They all agree she would be a lovely addition to our team as both keep us company, as well as offering support for statement givers. Chelsie thinks she will give me ‘evil villain vibes’ and she means it as a compliment?”  

Martin laughed and Tim nodded in agreement.

“She is very right. Except I don’t think you are capable of the kind of villainy that someone as adorable as this one would take part in.” Sasha was petting the little fuzzball. “You only do things like nibble on fear or go boo with your Eyes. The Air Chief Marshal has far higher goals than that. You would hold her back.” 

“No.” Jon gasps. “You’ve been keeping me out of your plans?” Almost on queue, the Marshal let out a little meow. “Oh, that is true villainy.” Jon responded to her like he was having a real conversation. “I see how I couldn’t be part of that plan. Carry on.”

The kitten started to purr.

“Jon...are you using your auto-translate function with a cat?” Sasha had a hungry look to her eyes. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jon grinned playfully and opened some Eyes unintentionally. It was far more common in the archives to not notice when he was Looking while just the 4 of them were alone. It took the crew a while to get used to, but if Jon was comfortable, they weren’t going to make it weird. At this point, they almost treated it like when a cat shows it’s belly. 

“I for one don’t want to know.” Tim stood from his desk, making his way to the break room. “You can keep your secrets. Talking to animals is where I cross the line to cursed knowledge.”

“You will be happy to know, I don’t think I can talk cat. If you aren’t hearing me meowing back at her that is.”

“Lalalala I don’t want to know.” Tim vanished while Jon looked very pleased. 

“Now that Tim's outa earshot. Can you understand her?” Sasha tried again while the Marshal started to play and nibble on her finger. Kitten play mode active. 

“No more than you can. Sometimes I get a little extra Knowing, but it’s no more detailed than just seeing what her eyes are focused on. It’s not thoughts. Just like colors or shadows. Never really anything more than like an impression at best.” 

The Marshal jumped from Sasha to start batting at Jon, but more specifically one of the eyes on his arm. He closed it before the kitten could get it, but opened up one a little higher up. When she went for the newly opened one, Jon closed it, and opened another where the Marshal could see. Sasha and Martin watched curiously, following the movement of the kitten nervously. 

“Isn’t that going to hurt if she gets one?” Martin seriously wondered if they should stock up the first aid kit with more than what was there.

“Oh it absolutely will.” Jon let out a nervous laugh, but his Eyes looked almost as excited as the kittens. “It’s worth it to see the look in her eyes before the pounce.” 

“This might as well be our life.” Tim emerged from the break room holding a sandwich, just looking at a kitten trying to hunt an eye on Jon’s neck. 

--

Throughout the week, there was only one time when they all knew exactly where the Marshal was, and that was when Jon was recording. After the first day in the archives, she would take naps on the recorders while they were recording Jon. She would purr contently with the whirling sounds. 

The other odd thing she would do, as Tim found out, was she would find any of the other tape recorders laying about, and when she found them, they were almost always on. Tim wasn’t too fond of the fact that there were more tape recorders going off than any of them even knew. Jon apologized cause apparently he Knew, but couldn’t control them in any way. So Jon would collect them about once a week and place them in a drawer to record over the following week. 

Jon tried to destroy them at first, but it took way too much energy to do and caused quite a bit of discomfort, that Jon tried to record over them rather than destroying. And it seemed to do the trick, since apparently to the Beholding, recording over didn’t quite count as destruction of knowledge. Either that or Jon was too into the statements to feel the pain of destroying it. So he’d been doing that for about 6 months now and it fell into the “not hiding, just kind of forgot you didn’t Know” list of Jon’s weird antics. 

The Marshal also didn’t like Elias. He’d come down to scold Jon for bringing a cat into the Archives, trying to keep some semblance of control as Jon’s boss, and the Marshal went straight for his face. Jon thoroughly enjoyed the thought that a kitten could dethrone Elias by scratching his eyes out, but unfortunately, it had been tried in the past any they healed to fast to sever any connection to the Beholding. 

Basira sent texts throughout the week reminding Jon the kitten was supposed to be a reminder to go home at night. Normally after he and Daisy had exchanged cat photos and Basira noticed the timestamps with Marshal in the archives. 

The week flew by rather quickly, and Martin was getting more nervous as the weekend approached. He had a poem ready, but he wasn’t sure how he had let Jon convince him to do a reading of it. He should have caved and agreed to go to the space center. But he was being stubborn. It was too late to change out the plans. Jon probably wouldn’t have any complaints if Martin backed out, but Martin wanted to go. He just didn’t want to read. 

He wiggled a loose string for the Marshal while he went over the poem in his head. She had it so easy. Not a worry in the world. Just cat things like chase string, eyeball whack-a-mole, and sleep. Martin really enjoyed that she liked the recorders. He did too. Some of the memories he’d gotten, he remembers them keeping him company. It was frustrating at times, but he knows future him was thankful for them. He wonders if he ever told Jon about that in the future. Maybe he would bring it up on their date.