Aleph watched, completely and entirely mystified by these two strangers. They seemed so bouncy and energetic but dang did their entire bodies send a wildly different message. Apparently, the big one was called "Max". And the little one...? Did not seem to do anything but parrot specific words. Okay, okay, super weird, super duper weird, but okay!

"I-I'm Aleph?" the Pallas' kitten said, voice accidentally turning up the pitch at the end to make it sound like a question. If anything was a question, if anything was an unknown, it was Max and his kid.

Aleph definitely felt intruding now but they were also kind of scared to find out what might happen if they ran tried to... to get away somehow. So they just stayed and stared and pressed themself against the nearest surface.

@Max

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"Helllooo!" Max laughed again, and was so excited he couldn't help but to release his energy, the voices laughing and calling with him, as he transported a nearby rock to them - a gift! A gift for a son well born! "A name! A name, yes, what you are called! What you call yourself? I am Max and I call myself that and others call me that!"

His grin spread - he drooled onto the ground - "Hello Aleph you are my son's friend? If you are my son's friend then you are mine too so hello my friend!"

@Doug

Okay now Aleph wanted to go really really REALLY badly. Every moment they had to stare into those... oozy black eyes was another moment Aleph had to stifle, I dunno, something trying to rise from their throat. One of the two nasty golden things tried talking to Aleph and all the Pallas cat could think was 'Please stop talking to me please stop looking at me please stop talking to me please--' So they played along, barely registering each question.

"I-I-I am? Okay then M-Max. H-H-Hello? Good-- uh, um, goodbye now. I, uh, have to, uhhh go-- I have to go. Really bad. I, um, heard my o-other-- I heard a call. For me. I have to go. BYE!"

And with that, the little Pallas kitten would scramble out of the dark, stinky abyss with all the determined fear of a thoroughly spooked trick-or-treater.

- exit -

@Doug (sorry ;~;)