Cat girl Charity – the beginning.

Readers, welcome to the new series I hope will be enjoyable and interesting for you. This story takes place in a “dungeons dragons” type of world, where magic is a part of life among those called the plane-walkers, those who dwell in other realities and worlds.

Center to the series is the young cat-girl Charity (patterned after the anime favorites such as Dragon Pink), who is both a magician (the practice is called the arcane Art, or THE Art) and a practiticoner of psionics – the magic of the mind.

Please let me know how you think of it.

Also, as a twist the lead virgin of the story is not the girl — just a hint of what awaits.


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Among the roads of the plane-walkers, there is one community, Stars Rift, notorious almost above all the others; it is a place of commerce and of hedonism run rampant with almost no constraints on what can be done, bought, sold, traded or taken by force of arms. People of many species, worlds, trades and the like are to be found; with ten times as many deals being forged and ten more time the same of betrayals, plots, and revenge laid bare or to soon be.

The only thing keeping this powder keg under even a semblance of control is the Academy of the Arts, a school famed for its scholars, libraries, and teaching of mages. None better are to be found, and all know that their plans are only advanced as the sufferance of the school masters will permit; then comes one warning, at the most.

One young scholar, a cat-girl by the name of Charity is even now busy with her own plot; though not of a wicked nature, she has only three things on her agenda – dinner, studying her new books, and most of all getting home to her rented room before the thrice blasted rains commences YET AGAIN!!!

Even though her hood is pulled up, to keep the first sprinkles away, many of the folks about the shops and the street vendors mark her passing; murmurings follow, with curses, hostile looks and threats directed to her alone – as here the cat folks are barely tolerated, due to a band of them causing so much chaos in which by the time they were chased off, more than half the town was smoldering ruins.

As the rains increased to a drizzle and then towards a downpour, she added two more things to her list to do – a very long and hot soak, and some ‘self enlightenment’ in which her hands will do their walking; all over each and every sensuous and tender of spots. It is what she has planned, which for her, so, so often go wrong in the most exciting of ways.

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Three sets of red streaked eyes, filled with cold anger, bodies tense with the impending mayhem of their hunt watch the lone figure of an old man wander down the street. Deep in thought he is, or just out of his mind with age or madness. So oblivious to events, even the sheets of rain coming down hard and as cold as a waterfall; the winds howling like the death keen of a thousand banshees of the moors do not draw attention.

An all too easy hunt, one well paid for and about to be fulfilled; these three have never failed, nor shall they ever do so.

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The old man, cloak and long coat both shut tight, cane tapping steady in sync with the rhythm of his steps, is indeed deep both in thought and concern. For this very night another of the mysteries of the nine – a series of tests one must solve to win accord as a true scholar and master of the art – has been solved; and yet…

“Not by the traditional methodology of leaving their answers engraved in the stones next to where they are found. This has been done by one who added to the enchantments; having subtly wove their own path into my own art, something that should be all but impossible…”

He all but failed to see the figure rushing out in front of him until the inevitable impacting instant of body upon body. Untouched and unmoved in the least, he sees the other sent tumbling and skidding onto the slickened and muddy roadway; their harness bag landing in the mud with not a splash, yet more of a slight “splutting” sound. Always there seems to be more nonsense he has to deal with, while the real sets of troubles go around and around without being conquered.

Irritation turned to puzzled astonishment (raising his eyebrows slightly at that, for one who has walked the worlds for nearly a thousand years). Not only has the fallen figure gotten up so quickly, and now is in the process of daring to thump HIM in the chest with their finer, berating him, voice growing more and more in volume and rage; SHE is also a furiously frustrated feline female – a cat girl.

For the first time in nearly a century, the people of the town hear something happen, the old man simply laughs in delight. A quick gesture and a word of power spoken extends his ward against the rain unto her as well; something that takes a minute for her to notice, look about and finally break the tirade. Looking into his eyes, she just stands there waiting, sudden calm and iron willed compared to the lashing fury of a woman scorned moments before.

Practicing a form of etiquette not done by him in a lifetime or more, he does a formal quarter bow with one hand on the opposing shoulder, a sign of peace and apology. Yet as he stammers with the words so long not spoken, its all he can do to not try and stare at her figure, soaked though she is, and at her partial exposed bosom – partially exposed, glittering with the raindrops upon it, and heaving from the unleashed fury he just rightfully deserved.

Ladies of Luck and Love even covered in mud and soaked to the gills she is a beauty! Such a wonder that walked across my path this very night; those eyes, flickering across the spectrum, so focused and narrow when filled with anger or wrath, now suddenly softer than a gaze of a doe, gentle as a dove, and expectant as the gaze of a sailors woman watching for his ship to return her love home.

Brazen brain barnacles, get yourself together! He sees she has been saying a question to him, and he has to acknowledge his error of attention, she has extended her hand forward, and asked of him yet again what his name is for a proper introduction.

“My lady…?”

“Charity good sir, my common name is Charity, as the humans pronounce it.”

“Then with all due composure for a ‘muck brained, mule headed, and moronic misfit’ such as myself; I go by many names, most of them very insulting, very accurate, and few of them with the term ‘good’ used in a good way before them…” He bows again, a graceful court gesture, cane crossed in his arm and hand in motion as if removing a hat with flourish.

Such was the showmanship of his display it set her into giggles and clapping of hands rapidly. An impish smile, lips puckered just so under her petite little nose made her even yet more wondrous in his eyes. Old stirrings and longings long supposedly past arose again, and he desperately hoped she did not see it as well.

“I am the Grandfather of Mages of the Academy, Teacher and Scholar extraordinaire, Master of the Art (as magic is known) and so forth; also I am called the Chancellor known as Storm Dragon.”

Her sudden gasp, and rapid gulp as one in extreme danger drew his gaze to her face, where fallen ears and absolute shock interwoven with fear; eyes widen in terror of doom coming to the fore, body locked in the strain of fight-flight move soon to happen.

“Miss Charity, please,” assuming her terror was due to the reputation (reasonably deserved true) about the community; he wanted to do nothing that would cause even more panic in this most interesting of beings before him.

Her scream, one of keening terror ripped through the storm, leaving many to forge another story of the Storm Dragon at play.

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As the last echoes of thunder comingled with the storm, he just looked down at the smoldering sets of boots the hunters have left behind. Annoyance declared as a most minor huff of breath showed the utter contempt and lack of concern to any real danger he may have been in.



Three hundred feet down the roadway, residents of a small quartet of buildings run outside and stand in disbelief and shock at what their eyes behold. Shadowy outlines cast in a photo negative of the stone wall, sparks of electricity still dancing about, shows where the hunters went after Storm Dragon dealt with them. Once again they see the ample demonstration of his command of lightning and the storm.

“Hunters, they failed after all…now where did she go off to…”

No footprints or any other trace that either his Art or the naked eye could find; save for a very faint glow of golden sand. “Concealment dust, almost no way I can find her now…ah!”

On a mental summons, his familiar, a small field mouse comes to hand.