Eyes peeled half open as her head lazily turned towards the speaker, claws digging deeper into the branch reflexively before releasing so she could push herself up in to a sitting position to better peer down at the tuxedo tom below her. "Oh, if it isn't my favorite kitty-pet." She hummed, smile a little mocking holding an edge as she wondered at seeing him once more.

Often Strayspirit spent most of her interactions positive she would not run into another more than a few times. Things had changed with her joining Fallclan, now leaving her surrounded by faces she might be getting more familiar with each passing day. Still, being confronted with a cat of her past; especially one she had been sure she had left behind for good left her blood thrumming.

"I would have thought your two-legs had gotten tired of your haughty arrogance and tossed you to the curb." She observed "Or even that someone in your neighborhood would have held a successful assassination plot against you by now. Considering the circumstances in which we left each other." Their temporary alliance had been wrought with quick paced decisions and a situation that had left her slinking off into the night with clumps of her fur missing. Not having a 'castle', as he referred to his two-legs nest, to return to as he did. Despite all that she couldn't say she was upset to see him again, even if, as always, he left her feeling like she had been picked up by her nape and dragged through a bush next to him.

"Though I suppose I should pose a better question; why are you here?"

He didn't take offence to the title he was given, only grinning larger at it. Surely, they had met once in passing, but Edom never forgot a face. There were plenty who had once desired either gifts or secrets from him; he was an entrepreneur after all, the kind to take everything and give what benefited him. There were only a few things notable about this one; she had been younger surely. She had been with that other cat, the one he couldn't remember the name of, but he did remember her mentioning kittens.

"You know, I always thought you'd be one of the cats to join us," he hummed, "weren't you practically living with the humans for a while? They fed you, if I remember, little stray. Where's that little girlfriend of yours? Did she finally dump you, or did you get bored of her? Oh, I love a little bit of gossip, you know. Keeps me feeling young." He wasn't an old cat at all, but his tall stature and bulky shoulders meant he was fully grown. "Do tell me everything, don't leave a single detail out."

When the other cat interrupted, his ear flicked in annoyance. Did these cats around here have any manners? Edom was a smooth talker but he had little tolerance for cats who spoke out of turn. "I was speaking to the lady," he snapped, eyes narrowing at Subaru as if he was nothing but a flea under his foot, "it's rather rude to interrupt, and even more rude when you've yet to introduce yourself, cat. Manners maketh a man, no?"

Sure, he was outnumbered, but it wasn't in his nature to feel fear. Arrogance was his middle name, after all.

Instead of reacting to the kittypet's snide remarks, Subaru sat down with a rather bored expression and wrapped his thin tail around his paws. It was almost as if to say, "I don't really care about what you think," without truly letting the words leave his mouth. Subi couldn't help but feel a bit of relief when the realization hit Strayspirit. It had been a long time since they had seen each other, back before he was taken to be someone's dog. He fought the familiar shudder at those memories, not wanting to show his discomfort in front of this other cat. Another part of him had wished she never figured out. There were many parts of his past, and he was sure of hers, that probably did not need to be revisited for mental sake.

At Strayspirit's words, he gave a humorous, stubborn snort and didn't budge from his spot. Curiosity kept his paws rooted right there. "It doesn't matter who I am." He responded plainly and narrowed his eyes. "Either way, Fallclan cats don't just let rude, plump kittypets like yourself stride into our territory all willy nilly you know."

Strayspirit felt a thrill of excitement at the kitty-pets daring, to call into question her own place in Fallclan so blatantly. "If you won't be here for long, then why are you here? Just passing through?" Her thoughts wandered towards her brothers seemingly fierce loyalty to Fallclan, or at-least a good play at it. He must have been here for much longer than her; it spoke towards her own self-absorption that she hadn't noticed him before. But then again she hadn't been going out of her way to try and get to know any of her new clanmates for the brief time she had been here.

And still, even referring to him as her brother in her mind felt out of place, odd. Like she was trying to replace the tom she did remember with this newer older version who might as well be a stranger for all she knew about him. Edom was more familiar to her in a sense, even if she knew him in passing moons and moons ago. "Also to address your question, I live in Fallclan now. So I'm allowed to wander around, even encouraged." She smiled. "In fact without my wandering perhaps no one would have spotted your foray into this territory."

She was truly curious what had brought him into clan territory, though she wasn't sure she put must stock in him truly not knowing where he had been. He just didn't strike her the type to wander into a groups territory without first knowing that it belonged to someone.

Subaru rolled his eyes at the exchange, becoming a spectator in the conversation just to appease his curiosity. As soon as the other tom got up, though, he was quick on his paws and moved to block his way. "Hold on." His eyes flicked to Strayspirit with exasperation before they returned to Edom. "We can help you find whoever you're looking for. If they are even here, that is, but this isn't going to be a leisurely tour of the land. Unless you're planning on staying here as a prisoner, I would probably consider where you place your paws."

His bright yellow gaze turned back to Strayspirit for a moment. "I can see you have much to talk about, and that is fine, but I hope you know I intend on being close by. Clan-born cats may not take so kindly to him wandering about." He could only imagine the consequences if one of the Aurulents found them. Not just Edom's, but his and Strayspirit's too if they let this cat prance freely around the territory.

Edom was surprised to hear that, at least. Lemon seemed like such a spry young cat when they had met, full of life and excitement with that sort of zest for the world that few held onto for their whole lives. He was almost saddened by it, his ears drooping a little at her words. "I'm sorry," he frowned, a look of sympathy on his face, "I didn't know. She seemed so healthy...what happened?" He knew that Strayspirit would probably want to direct that conversation elsewhere, but Edom was more curious than frightened, after all.

Still, their help made his expression brighten. Of course, he didn't want them to truly know who he was looking for, and frankly, she had stayed hidden for so long, Edom wasn't under any impression that she wanted to see him. As big as his network was and as much as he understood about this place, Chelsea had always known where to hide if she wanted to escape his field of vision.

"That would be lovely," he purred, his eyes turned to Subaru, clever and half-lidded in pleasant amusement, "to be honest I'm not even sure she stays in your territory, but it's worth looking. She's a silver cat, long fur, golden eyes...she said her family was from the forest, had a big family around here once. That's all I know."

He continued to trot on, his focus now on the tom who spoke too many words and so many questions. "So tell me, all of you cats live in a group around here, no? A...what did they call it, a clan? Or was it a league or something? A gang? I don't know what the word was, but how does that work? Do you stay within family groups? Do you have a leader? Or do you have to...fight each other for the top position? One of the cats I met mentioned that once, said it was kind of barbaric how forest cats killed each other. Is that true?"

Strayspirit let the conversation continue on without her input, the mention of Lemon painful and the thoughts of her passing souring her desire for the conversation. It was a blessing when Edom continued asking his questions and the topic continued on. His words made her chuckle a little as she could remember how she had heard similar things in her travels. When she had first come to Fallclan she had been rather sure she would be killed by the patrol that found her.

Instead they had asked her business and be cordial if not a little standoffish. Looking back it was perhaps rather lucky she had not wandered into another clan and that Hystericstar seemed to care very little who joined his ranks as long as they did their jobs and didn't cause trouble. "Have you truly never met any other cats from groups before? I find that difficult to believe." She finally spoke, casting a look towards him and raising her brow.

"I wish they were all like me." Subaru responded with a wink, growing a bit more comfortable around Edom, which also kind of irritated him... "I would say they are a mixed group of cats depending on where you go. You're fortunate that Fallclan is your first experience with a clan. I had a much different one..." He let out a sigh, remembering his time in Moonclan. That was right when they started placing social classes on the members and outsiders were hated. "There are some clans that only accept purebloods, or cats born in the clan. Some might actually kill you on the spot for trespassing and others have complicated relationships with their leaders and the other clans around them. I only know of eight or ten clans, but there are definitely more." Looking at Strayspirit, he felt the sudden relief that she came to Fallclan and not one of the others. 

Edom hesitated, as if mulling over their words. "Perhaps," he spoke, "but she didn't have the names...you know what I mean, right? Things like Hysteric...star? She had a normal name, not one of those forest ones, but I know she used to live in a forest. I don't know whether she's returned to it but..."

He gave Strayspirit and Subaru a smile, sickeningly sweet. "She means a lot to me," he admitted, "and it'd be a shame to never get to see her again."