Leverage

Ashleen dove across the ground rolling as the dog slipped out of her reach, she actually enjoyed the sting of flesh tearing across ground as her bare legs hit the hard surface.

Her eyes glinted and she was up, moving after the dog again, feeling the adrenline push through her legs and ignoring everythign else, her eyes on the prize.

The dog let out a bark, she let out a grunt and dove again. But Heaven was fast.

She continued at this game of run and jump until her body was battered, brusied and to tired to think of anything. Taking a deep breath she allowed herself to sprawl on the ground, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, as Heaven let out another little yipp and came paddling over to the girl, nudginer her nose into Ash's side before pulling herself across her stomach, and promptly laying there.

Ash let out a laugh, and reached up to scratch her beloved pet, "Glad to see some people are still intersted in sticking around me."

So maybe she could still think a little.

But, this had been the closest she'd come to forgetting in a while.

Nightmare came first, but then again, the kitten always seemed to.

Padding across the ground at an unconcerned pace, the black cat came to a stop directly behind the girl, sniffing her hair and meowing curiously, ignoring the dog completely. With a slight leap Nightmare moved over the girls head to sit in on her chest, sniffing at her face. She meowed again, before rubbing against her chin and curling up there, completely content - ignoring the fact that she'd never seen the girl before in her life - and closing her eyes.

A few seconds later, Karma appeared at the entrance, glancing around before wandering toward the girl.

"Nightmare." She chided, looking down at the kitten. "You know you aren't supposed to be sleeping on people without their permission." With a crooked grin, Karma turned her attention to the girl herself. "Hey." She greeted cheerily. "Sorry about her. She's incorrigible."

Ashleen had almost been dozing off where she was, when she heard the soft sound of padded feet running across the ground. She tensed herself for arrival, unable to move and look around as she wished to for Heaven continued to snooze across her as if there was nothing wrong.

She supposed this fact soothed her nerves a bit. It didn't stop her from flinching in surprise as a kitten hoped onto her chest as if she had as much a right to be using her as a bed as Heaven did.

Still...

The creature was rather cute. She felt a slight smile pull at her lips - a rare occurance these days - as she reached out to rub the fur on the small animals head slightly.

"Aren't you cute," she cooed softly, before tensing again as she heard the distincly human footsteps following the animal.

She looked up at the girl who appeared with guarded blue eyes.

"Incouragable," she responded slowly, "Big word."

She paused for a moment, looking the girl over, before nodding to Heaven.

"Don't worry about it. I think all furry compainions are."

Karma sat beside the girl on the ground, looking out over the horizon. "Yeah." She hummed a small tune, catchy, a themesong from some cartoon she and Ty had visited in his quest to reawaken their inner children. Barely glancing at the girl beside her, Karma drew her knife, tossing it up and down as boredom set in.

"I'm Karma, by the way." She added, as her mind started looking for ways to end the boredom.

Ashleen glanced over at the girl, her eyes still guarded, following the knife as it was tossed up and down. The girl didn't look like she was going to become a threat, but what did Ash know.

Still...

"Ashleen," she responded simply, before nodding her head towards her stomach, "The lazy ball of fur is Heaven."

She paused for a long moment, breathing in slowly and looking up at the sky, watching clouds as they floated by.

"So, what brings you here? Boredum? Grand design? Destiny? Random fluke? Some actual reason I'm not going to bother to try and think of?"

"My lazy ball of fur is Nightmare." Karma grinned, glancing upward, then around the arena her dark brown eyes calculating, but not suspicious - or not more suspicious then they ever were. She yawned, before shrugging off her knapsack and reaching inside. Her arm disappeared into it up to her shoulder, even though the bag was nowhere near as big as that, and tugged out two chocolate frogs. She was halfway through one - head bit off and everything - when she realized that the other girl might want one too, and tossed one at her.

"Boredom, I guess. I follow the lazy ball of fur around when I've got nothing better to do." Nightmare perked up and bared her teeth at the girl, but Karma only stuck out her tongue. The kitten seemed to decide that it wasn't worth the effort to attack right that moment, and curled back decidely under Ashleen's chin.

"Is it okay if I call you Leen? Or do you prefer Ash?" She smirked slightly. "Or I could be odd and pull it from the middle of your name. Call ya' Shlee. Or Sheen. Like Charlie Sheen."

Ash smiled ever so slightly again and reached out a finger to stroke the small creatures head ones more, her quiet little greating. She was still watching the girl in her peripheral, and tensed ever so slightly as she went for her bag.

She relaxed as she pulled out chocolate, only to start a bit again as it was chucked at her, barely managing to grab the treat... which she then just held in her hand, fiddling with the packaging.

"Boredum's better than somethings I suppose," she quipped softly, slowly picking her way through the packaging, "Though I bet your real glad you found fascinating old me, laying here pouting at the sky like it can solve my problems."

She flashed the girl a quick, bitter looking grin before going back to alternating petting the two animals ontop of her.

"The only person who ever really called me Leen was..." she trailed off, bitting her lip as a childish voice called that name out from her memories. "Call me what you wish, I suppose. Most people use Ash... a few in teh know pick up other names..."

"Like Wings?" Karma murmured around the chocolate that used to be the frog's head. "Or were you Angel?" Nightmare's tail twitched, brushing against the underside of Ash's chin before coming to a stop curled around her tiny kitten nose.

"I think I will call you Ash." She decided, finishing up her frog and going into her bag for another one. "Or maybe I'll be a dork and call you Catchem. You never know with me." She flopped onto her back, fiddling with the packaging on the chocolate for a bit before ripping it open and capturing the frog.

Ash swallowed slightly at that name, not so much her's but his. So the girl new a thing or two. Trying to gain her composure again, Ashleen looked at the girl.

"Wings," she mumbled softly. "I was Wings. Angel was.... someone else."

She didn't really know why she was using the past tense, since neither of them were dead, and still got the names but...

She supposed it wasn't the same when they weren't... together.

Ashleen finally pulled through the packaged, and her hands almost missed the frog, catching it mid leap by a back leg. She held it in front of her, looking at it with disinterest and not making a move to eat it yet.

"You knew those names pretty quick," she spoke softly, still looking at the frog as a cat would look at its prey. Her glance back at the girl, if it showed any emotion at all could be called slightly suspicious.