A Painted Cityscape

## Chapter 01 - Enstranged Abandonment

In a decrepit, abandoned city, rain noisily pattered onto the concrete and brick buildings, where their inability to absorb moisture was expressed in the form of deep, wading puddles of cold. Piles of crumbling brick lay haphazardly along old, rusty alley ways that were thick with wet mould. The day was gray and dark, despite the time. Somewhere, a large, thick-furred blue cat carefully scouted around the surrounding brick walls that outlined the city, the height deteriorating and decreasing with age and hard chunks of chipped mortar.

Meanwhile, a black fox patrolled the alleys and streets of the rotting remains of the formerly notorious capital. Sporting a flowy red shawl held together with ruby and gold, the fox possessed two T-shaped metallic hilts on the ready. Making his way towards the stinking, long-neglected heaps of trash, he rooted through them with one white stocking'd paw, attempting to find something of value or use. After a brief bout of searching, he abandoned his efforts, stepping away from the stench and filth in favour of the potential prospects of more investigation.

The blue cat, still skulking around the bordering walls, finally made his decision to scale the tumbled-down walls and onto the sidewalk. Immediately, they bound through the streets, swiftly dashing over cracked potholes and seemingly searching for something. Briefly, in their haste, they glimpse the black fox. However, they simply disregard their sighting for a time, choosing to continue their pursuit in nothing in particular. Though, this continuation was short-lived--the blue feline back-tracks almost immediately, stepping into the darkening alley shadows in order to conceal themselves as they watch the fox's activities. As the fox headed down the street, the stalking feline followed, watching as their potential prey turned a street corner and headed up the high stairs of City Hall, and entered the shadowy, faded building.

The dark felid mumbles, before changing their form,  favouring an appearance that was more human-like, but not quite. Still sporting the trademark, cat-like ears and tail, as well as their odd, curled hairstyle, they were now a medium-height, light-skinned humanoid with cerulean eyes, blue teardrop-shaped spots serving as eyebrows--as well as markings on his cheeks--and simple attire that consisted of black, gray, and navy-blue cloth. They fidgeted with their blue handkerchief, before heading into City Hall, continuing to stay within the darkened shadows that cloaked the unlit halls. Meanwhile, the black fox walked about, picking up innocuous papers and overflowing folders as he went.

Boldly, the blue-sporting humanoid partially revealed himself from the shadows, and then proceeded to knock firmly on a cracking column. "Knock, knock!" He said, in a slightly sing-song voice.

The fox slowly turned around, expression faintly that of surprise, skepticism, and wariness. The humanoid took in their appearance--black fur, with white fur on his face, chest, belly, ears, eyebrows, and tail tip, as well as sporting white stockings on his front and hind legs. A white fringe adorned their face, which had two small scars on his right cheek. On their left ear, they had two gold ring piercings, as well as a small nick in the thin leather. Red eyes stared at a potential fight on their hands.

"Identify yourself," they said, voice commanding.

"Identify myself?" The humanoid snorted. "I could say the same for you--the one stealing government documents." They stepped out of their place from the partial concealment of the long, looming shadows. "Besides," he continued. "Mind telling me what you even need those for? This city is dead."

"I just want to find out what happened here." The fox intoned warily. "I'm not here to steal anything--I'm just looking for logs."

Their listener smirked, their left eye beginning to glow with licks of fiery cyan.

"Don't tell me that you actually trust governments." The black fox sighed.

The former felid let out a groan. "Fine, I agree with you there--screw the government. But, what makes you think that you can trust those logs? You know how much governments tend to hide and convolute things."

 "I'm not holding my breath for inaccurate guesses." The fox said. "I need to see what I can gather, and make use of what I find."

 The humanoid frowned. Their gaze perused the excessive black bars that striped across the documents, censoring their contents. They watched as the canid swapped through each document, a frown deepening in their face as they only encountered more black-barred papers.

 "So, why are you here?" The fox mumbled. "And what are you? You're not a full human, nor are you an anthro."

 "Because. I'm a wandering explorer currently suffering from chronic boredom." The pseudo-human purred, examining their nails, which were pointed and navy-blue. They watched as rain began pattering down onto the gray city rather thickly. "Though, abandoned cities are excellent places to be in."

 "Mhm." The black-furred canid agreed. "They are nice--that is, without corporate fools trying to run everything."

 The humanoid nodded, then proceeded to morph back into their felid form. They leapt around and fled from the building in a haste, as the fox casually went back to sorting through the neglected, censored government documents. The light was dissipating rapidly as the stormy skies began to take residence. It reached a point where, even with natural night vision, the fox couldn't see a thing. So, they messily shoveled together as many folders and papers into their arms as possible, and left the City Hall building, running in a vaguely bipedal stance. Crouching to protect the excessively black-marred papers from bleeding, they swiftly headed into an abandoned shop, their paws causing the creaky floorboards under them to groan. A light bulb, surprisingly still lit, flickered discordantly as the fox spread all of the documents onto the registers' counter.