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Karan was prone to staying up at all hours of the night himself, but not because he couldn't sleep, and certainly not because he was prone to falling asleep during the day at odd hours. No, his sleeping schedule strayed from the normal because of his tendency to stay up and work, for he found that night (as quiet and peaceful as it was) was when he was most productive with his work. Now, more than ever, it was hard for him to actually concentrate and work on his music during the day, what with Kepi constantly following him around. He had grown more used to her, by now, of course, but it didn't mean it was possible to actually get anything done. He could have been happy with her being around him like that, ecstatic to see her when she jumped on him or attacked him with hugs, but it still didn't mean it was going to be conductive to a work atmosphere. Even then, she still found the time to burst in on him at night too - especially after she realized he was often awake.

As it was, laying there stretched out atop a mound of old, worn blankets, his pen in hand and a leather bound book of blank sheets held open in the other, it really wasn't a surprise to him as he heard that voice outside the door of his caravan. His ears twitched, perking slightly despite his damnedest to keep them from doing so, and he tore his eyes away from the page to look up. He expected her to come bursting through the door at any moment, as he hadn't really been able to understand what she had said (it could have been his name, or complete nonsense for all he knew). What he wasn't prepared for was the sound of something on top of the roof, making a lot of racket - a something that was very large. With a sigh, he closed his book and pushed himself to his feet. His only guess was that she had climbed up there after that stupid cat that had been hanging around lately, because he was always up there, and he remembered hearing the pitter patter of his paws earlier in the night.

He pushed open the door, dark eyes swiveling around him in the darkness, and took the few steps down to the ground before he turned to look at the roof. He was expecting her to be stuck up there, much like the tree incident, but as soon as he turned around, he was instead greeted with the sight of her falling - and his heart thudded in his chest immediately. He took a few quick steps forward, as if to catch her, but stopped short as she fell into the barrel and sent water splashing out everywhere - onto him, no doubt, as well. He grimaced slightly, his vest discarded earlier, but the white undershirt that had been unbuttoned partially now splattered well with rainwater. He frowned at his rolled up sleeves, then glanced down at his pants, which had also been wet nicely, before looking at her where she stood there so pathetically.

"Are you ok?" he asked with an irritable sigh, knowing that she had to be, for she'd have said it by now. Still, his manners were drilled into him, and he asked anyway. His eyes drifted down to the cat with a little frown, staring at it before he held his hand out to her. "Come on, you'd better get inside and dry off," he wasn't just going to let her run around soaked to the bone, that was for sure. Even if she had just managed to, yet again, perform a mini-disaster in his presence, he still felt obligated to make sure she was OK. This being friends thing, sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth.

He could tell by the look on her face that she was a little shaken, which wasn't surprising in the slightest - Koshka or not, no one would want to slip and fall from the top of a caravan. Just because they were more prone to climbing and less afraid of heights than Mensch (he still wasn't sure what to call himself) didn't mean that they couldn't be shaken up by a bad fall. He didn't push her, though, to try and get her to speak to him faster - he let her stand there until she was adjusted and ready to take his hand and step out of the barrel. He steadied her as she finally did, though, frowning as she turned her head away to sneeze.

"Well, that's good. At least you didn't hurt anything when you fell," he said calmly, though worry was slowly starting to crease his face. He had noticed, with the sneeze, that she was now wet and soaked thoroughly (he could feel the chill in the air from his own wet shirt) and if she didn't get changed out of that and into something drier and warm, she would likely catch a cold at the very lest. He might not have appreciated all the little things she did, but they were friends on some level, in some way he had yet to figure out, and his moral compass was quite correct - even if it didn't appear as though it would be functioning normally even in the slightest manner. As it was, he realized that if she was left outside too long, it could be a problem.

He simply nodded, then, at her suggestion of changing clothes. That she did, indeed, need to do. As he shifted his eyes down at her however, they seemed to widen slightly, realizing that the white top she had been wearing was not quite transparent. He opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it quickly. "Yes, I have some extra clothes in the caravan," he muttered softly, glancing out at the darkness around them. There was no way he could send her back to her own looking like that - what if Kludd happened to be around? He had seen the way that fool flirted with her, in a manner that was entirely inappropriate for someone with her innocent mentality. Then there was a manner of all other horrible things that could happen to her and, well, thinking about it just made him decide that it would all be easier if he took her inside instead. He glanced back down at her just in time to see her leaning down to put the cat on the ground - the cat that happened to be the only thing managing to cover her up at that moment.

"Uhh," he started, reaching out to stop her motion, but drawing his hand back, "sort of. Why don't you just.. hold onto him? He's all wet, and I'd feel terrible if we left him out here to shiver in the cold. We can take him inside and dry him off." None of that was really true. He could have cared less if that silly cat had to go clean itself off and find somewhere else warm to curl up, but if she put it down, well, he'd get to see a little more of her than was really proper at this point in time. He supposed, too, that the cat sort of was his, if it's insistence on skulking around his caravan was any clue.

"I think he'll be just fine," he muttered as he stared down at the cat, narrowing his eyes on it with a little frown. It was just like the damn thing, finding some way to get inside so it could be babied. If he didn't know that it wasn't capable of human intelligence, he would have sworn he had planned all of this just to get inside where it was warm. Then, of course, he realized that by staring at the cat, he was staring at an area near her chest, where the shirt just happened to see-through, and he looked away quickly with a rather uncomfortable shift to his position. He didn't really care about the cat, his only interest in him right now was that he was a great cover over her white shirt.

He only let his attention shift back to her as she began to move back towards the caravan, pausing to wait as she passed, and then slowly walking behind her and up the steps as she went. He pulled the door shut behind him as he did so, his eyes drifting to her as she asked that question. "Yes, of course, my clothes are over there," he motioned with his hand to where he had them folded in the corner. He had actually unpacked his things here since, well, it seemed like it was actually going to be a permanent situation as far as he could tell right now. He turned his back on her then and went rummaging through another pile of folded clothing until he popped up with a towel (worn out and no doubt one he'd found after moving here, as he hadn't packed any with him when he left). He turned around to hand it to her, and stopped with widened eyes and a slightly slackened jaw.

"Here," he muttered, quietly, before he coughed and turned his eyes away, tossing the towel down at what he could only assume was her feet. He turned his back on her then and looked up at the ceiling of the caravan (actually not too far above his head, given how small a space it was) and cross his arms over his chest. She could have waited until he found the towel, at least, and he would have walked outside to wait for her until he changed. Why did it not surprise him that she had no worries about stripping down right in front of him? Probably because she had no problems doing anything else, embarrassing or not, in front of him or anyone else they knew. Shy didn't seem to be a word in her vocabulary. He didn't turn around again until she said something to him about changing himself, and even then, he peeked over his shoulder to make sure she was actually dressed before he let his attention come back fully.

"I just need to change my shirt," he said with a shrug, "but I might as well not do that until I dry off that cat there first." He stared down at the black furball where it sat, narrowing his eyes, before he turned back to the first pile and grabbed up another towel, in similar condition to the first. He swore that that cat always managed to get something out of him, the sly little b*****d. He sighed and scooped it up in his arms before he flopped down onto a wooden chair in the corner, wrapping him up and starting to rub him down. For what it was worth, the feline simply sat there as if he were enjoying all the attention, whether his fur was being tussled or not.

"It's over there," he began slowly, glancing up from where he was sitting, only just in time to spot her reaching over to grab the brush herself. He didn't understand why she even bothered to ask him where things were or if she could use them if she just helped herself to them anyway. It was habit to answer her, but he was going to just simply stop doing that since she was so damn prone to doing whatever it was she wanted without waiting for his compliance in the first place. It wasn't like it really mattered - she had invaded his space so much that he was sure everything in here probably had just as much of her smell as it did his. Anyone else he'd have been highly upset over just taking his brush to use that way, but he was probably surprised she hadn't done it before then.

As she sat down, he shifted a little, but didn't bother dragging his leg away. He didn't want her to look up at him with that pouty face she had down to perfection, and even then, she was just likely to lean against it anyway and make it more awkward than it was if he had just complied to begin with. He learned right away with her that it was just much simpler if he went along with the things she did - they were all simple, innocent gestures anyway. At least now, after being with her for a while, he had realized that. Even her undressing moments before (the memory of which still left him a little uncomfortable) was probably perfectly innocent, as far as she was concerned at least, and thus he couldn't even find it in him to be angry with her. Frustrated, sure, but not angry. She was such a simple-minded, naive thing at times that it really made him feel over protective, something he had never felt about anyone else.

"A name?" he said slowly, glancing down at her, watching what she was doing for a moment. He saw how she was busying herself with her fur, and for the first time, he wondered how hard it was to take care of that. She had a whole body of it and he idly thought that it must have been a pain to groom. He shifted then and looked back down at the cat, frowning as the yellow eyes met his. He needed a name, certainly, and she would think it was odd if he had a cat without a name. He had only said that so she'd cover herself up, but he didn't want her to know he had lied. "His name is, uh.. Owen." It was a random name, but he remembered it from a book he had read once.

It was then that he felt that tug, looking down at her, and immediately seeing that pathetic look that he had been thinking about previously - thinking about not wanting to see. It always made him feel terribly guilty, even when he hadn't done anything to her, and he wondered if she had developed it with the sole purpose of dragging him into doing things. He had the damnedest time trying to tell her no when she did that to him. "Your hair?" he muttered, blinking, his eyes drifting to the dark, wet locks. He had never brushed anyone's hair other than his own and thinking about it seemed a little.. odd, almost too personal. Then he looked back at her face and simply sighed, realizing he had consented to it even before she asked. That damn face. "Fine, fine," he muttered as he reached out to take the brush from her hand, holding out the cat wrapped in his towel to her with the other, "take him and turn around."

The cat, through all of this, simply looked content. His eyes shifted from Karan, to Kepi, and back again with a happy little mewl - and that only made Karan frown more.

The simple joy she seemed to get from his agreeing to do what she asked did not go unseen, and he could hear the chiming of her little bell as easily as he could actually see her tail itself swishing behind her. He often dreaded the sound of that bell, for it meant she was coming to bother him more often than not, but right then it wasn't so bad to hear it. He had managed to make her happy with a simple gesture and even though she had interrupted his work, he decided this really wasn't so bad - despite all the awkward situations he was putting her in. It was nice to have companionship once in a while.

"I didn't really have a choice in the matter," he said with a small smirk as he stared down at the cat, watching her nuzzle is affectionately. Owen simply purred, as cats did, and pawed at her affectionately as she gave him the attention. He shook his head at the little thing, silently amused that he had managed to worm his way into his life despite Karan's best attempts to ignore him, for there was no way he could just throw him back out now - Kepi would be sorely upset with him if he did. He simply leaned back in the chair, adjusting himself so that she could sit down once he realized that that was where she was actually planning to flop herself. It was, yet again, a little awkward but it certainly made the most sense if he was going to brush her hair for her, he supposed.

He started visibly as he felt her tail slowly curl up around his leg, eyes shifting down to look at his leg. It was odd, being this close to her, and to have her touching him (even in what he at least assumed was an unconscious manner) was something he wasn't really prepared for in the slightest. He gritted his teeth, pushing back a sigh, and reached up to take the ribbons from her with more than a little bit of discomfort now gleaming in his eyes. As always, he simply allowed her to do what she wanted, and set the ribbons on the small table at his side without a second thought. He turned his attention away from what she was doing then (at least as best as he could with her tail now wrapped around his leg) and reached up to pull all of her long hair back over her shoulders. He hesitated for a moment, then reached up with the brush to began running it through the wet locks, detangling it as softly as he could. As long as her hair was, he was surprised at how easy it was to brush, and found that he was quickly falling into a silent state of concentration with his task.

Unsurprisingly, her words shocked him a little, as much by their content as by the fact that he clearly hadn't been paying attention to her. He paused what he was doing as he considered what she had said, then ran his fingers through her long, wet locks in his moment of silence. He brought the brush up to continue what he was doing, his fingers aiding him in stroking through her hair as he did so, though he still pondered over what she had asked. There were so many ways to interpret the question, so many ways to answer it. "I'm content," he said finally, softly, pausing to stare at his hands where they were somewhat entwined in her hair, "but this is the closest thing to happy that I've been since I left home." In a way, living outside of home was almost a relief, because he didn't have to hide - even if it hurt, being away from his family and those he loved. He glanced up at her eyes, meeting her golden ones with his darker ones, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking just from those eyes. They were troubled, yes, but that wasn't surprising with him. He really did seem content, as if arriving here had.. helped him somehow.

The confusion in her voice did not go unheard, but what could he say to her to make her understand what he had meant? As her attention refocused upon the cat in question instead, he let a small shrug cross his shoulders. "He kind of decided he wanted to be my cat more than anything." That was all he could say to her, to be frank, and he drew his eyes away from what she was doing and let himself concentrate upon her hair once more. He couldn't explain it any better than that, and knew from experience that if she didn't understand that, delving into a more in-depth explanation probably wouldn't help a thing to begin with. He simply resigned himself to the fact that the cat was here, it was staying because of some twisted game fate was playing with him at the moment, and his name was Owen. Damn it all if cats didn't have it lucky sometimes.

He felt her body relaxing as he ran the brush through her hair, realizing quickly that the simple gesture was one that was apparently easily used to calm her down - in this instance, so much so that she was finding it hard to fight off the clutch of sleep. He would have to remember this for a later time when he needed her to calm down, if not go to sleep entirely. It would certainly come in handy when she was being particularly abrasive or hyper, when he needed to work or simply needed a little peace. He could hear Owen purring contentedly from where he was, and shifting slightly to look around her, he could see the cat curled up in her arms, like a living teddy bear. He shook his head with a small sigh of disbelief, his fingers reaching up to stroke against her hair as he ran the brush through her locks once more. They were untangled now, to the point that brushing them was really doing nothing but lulling her into sleep, but he knew how little she slept at night and he felt that if she could get to sleep now, well, it'd be nice - for both of them.

"Yes, really," he said softly, pausing in what he was doing as she found his eyes with hers, hands poised in the air, but dropping slowly as he saw that hesitation. She only hesitated like that before she did something, usually something bold that she wasn't quite sure if she should do, but he found that more often than not she did it anyway. He was right, of course, because as soon as he had dropped his arms, she turned to look at him and said words that he was surprised to hear from her mouth. He opened his own to reply to her, but shut it as he felt her hand against his cheek, his eyes dropping from hers to stare at his lap. His cheeks warmed, would have tinged pink with embarrassment if he had been anyone else. He didn't know what to say to her, so surprised by what she had said. He wasn't ready to open up to anyone about this, but he simply nodded, forcing his dark brown eyes to gaze up at hers - because she was right. He was worried, about his mother, but unlike her, he knew he'd never see her again. He wasn't only worried, but he was hurt, and he knew that while he would keep on living, he would never see her. Things didn't always turn out as fine as someone wanted.

He couldn't bring himself to say those things to her though, not yet, and he was glad when she finally turned back around. He was surprised that she had even noticed, that she had been capable of noticing these things. He hadn't given her enough credit, he supposed, but with her all-over-the-place mind it really wasn't that hard of a mistake to make. He simply reached up to continue brushing her hair, aware of the squeeze her tail gave his leg, for it shifted lightly - not away, just a shift in general. He heard her words, and only nodded again, his mouth worked into a frown as he let thoughts overtake his mind. Once she lowered herself with her back against him, he simply sighed and set aside the brush, the position too awkward to even attempt continuing. With a little shift, he brought his arms up to curl around her, his head tilted back on the back of the chair, eyes locked onto the ceiling as he held her comfortably against his chest. "We'll see," he muttered softly, taking a deep breath, "we'll see."

His eyes had remained on the ceiling, staring at the patterns there in silence as she shifted, so he truly had no idea what she was doing as she shifted. He assumed that she would simply fall asleep there, and he'd have to pick her up later and lay her down on his make-shift bed of padding and blankets. He had no idea that she was beginning to put two-and-two together, even if not the whole story. He never really gave her credit for being able to think and figure things out on her own, and had she actually said something to him about it, he probably would have been quite baffled. He wasn't ready for her to know what happened, not yet, though he was sure by now that she was the first person that he would ever tell. He couldn't say why, but he knew there was some kind of bond between them even if he had never asked for it himself.

He was vaguely aware of her fur against his skin, brushing against his neck and his face, the feel of it over his arms. He had never been this close to a Koshka before, not even her when she chose to hug him. It was an odd feeling, fur, but he found that he didn't find it as wrong as he had always imagined it. It was almost nice, if he really wanted to think about it, though he never would have admitted it. It was warm, if still a bit damp here and there, and it was almost.. comforting in his troubled state of mind. He found himself having to resist the urge to lean his head against hers, to brush against the feel of her fur, and that thought troubled him almost as deeply as the rest of them. He was sure it was simply because she was warm - warm and comforting. He couldn't deny that it was nice, but the exact reasons were troubling and not something he wanted to think about at the moment.

Her words surprised him out of his thoughts, the ears hidden in his hair twitching a little before they perked forward as much as their small size let them. He heard the humming first, easily recognized as one of his songs, and for a moment his brows furrowed. It was odd to hear his own music coming back to him from someone else's lips, for it was such a private thing, and he had never really felt comfortable with anyone else touching it. However, he knew that he was meant to work with her, that was why they had wanted him, as part of an act to play with her as well as the background musician for some plays. He let his uneasiness calm, settling back into his chair and forced himself to listen to the words as they rolled past her lips. He was, actually, surprised to find that they were actually quite.. pretty. He knew she had a beautiful voice, but she often chose such ridiculous lyrics to sing and rather inappropriate times and in terribly loud volumes. To hear something so heart-wrenching was beautiful, though a lot of the emotion swarming him likely had a lot to do with how he already felt.

"I liked that," he said softly, his frown edging away slightly as he looked down at her with a considering gleam in his eye. He could tell just from that small portion of the song that it was a story of sorts, or had the feel of one, and though he had no reason why she had chosen a lighthouse for the setting he trusted that once he completed the music it would become clear. In fact, his eyes drifted off towards another direction, no doubt the one in which the particular music sheets for that song lie, his mind toiling out a few notes. Her words had sparked his own creative juices, pushed out the music that simply seemed to come next. He nodded, finally, looking back at her, as if he had decided for the first time that he actually no longer minded the situation. He could work with her, this proved it, because he had really found no one else in the world that inspired him so quickly to write. "That was good," he added, relaxing in the chair beneath her.

He felt her tail curling back around his leg, and this time he simply let it lay still, listening to what she was saying. He was content, for the moment. Even when she asked him if she could stay, he simply glanced at her with a small raising of both brows. He nodded then, glancing to the area he used as a bed, relaxing his arms from around her. "Yes, you can say," he said softly. It wasn't like she hadn't crawled in and stayed of her own accord before, though at least she had asked this once. It was a perfectly innocent gesture, like everything else she did, and he saw no reason why not.