She had had a hard life. Her first memories were of her beautiful but battered and tired mother. She had taken such good care of her brothers and sisters. Carefully cleaning them off after she had been in the dark moist quiet place for so long. Her mother provided good food when she couldn’t see and was very strong and protected them from the big mean others. She knew she wasn’t that large compared to her siblings and that meant that she just didn’t get enough food but mama always looked after her and made sure she got enough after her siblings were done. One day though mama didn’t come back regardless of how much she and her siblings mewled for her. Her brothers and sisters decided to wait for mama to come back after all what could possibly hurt their mama and make her not come back she was just delayed. But after a night and a half the only six week old kitten knew that even though her siblings were convinced that mama would return that she likely was not going to. To this end she knew that if she continued to get hungry she would never survive so she left her siblings to go get food for herself.
Things were hard going at first and she cursed her impatience thinking maybe she would return to their lair and tried to but found herself completely lost. She tried to get food from the big metal food shrines with hoods but couldn’t since other bigger animals had these well claimed and they were not going to share with a small kitten. All she received for her efforts were scratches on her flanks. Thankfully, none were mean enough to chase her after she fled so she survived but she was getting hungrier and hungrier.
Her stomach continued to rumble desperately but she could find nothing to fill it until she had gotten very lucky. She was small and that had been a huge problem for her getting food but now that very smallness would be a blessing. There was a hole in the wire that the big smelly tall monsters put up near a bunch of the large metal circles the tall monsters used as food shrines for some reason. She just managed to get inside through this hole and luckily the large circles that covered the food were easy to nudge off and she feasted. With a blessedly full belly for once she managed to sleep.
Time passed and she grew larger and stronger and did not dare move far from her newly discovered food shrine. One day though one of the big large smelly animals found her in their food shrine and picked her up and forced her to leave, her mewling and struggling to no effect against the large monster. Waiting for the tall thing to leave she attempted to get back in through the hole that had given her entry before but to no avail she had simply grown too much. Cursing her luck she made her way back out to the streets.
She was still small for her age but had grown large enough for the other cats to not easily chase her off. Nor was she too large that the toms demanded her removal from the best food shrines and hunting grounds. She was a smart one like her mama had been and watched what worked for the other cats. The dead squeaky things that smelled of the large smelly monsters bottles were not to be eaten as they made you sick. The people wearing boots and smelling of the bigger loud four legged beasts with larger teeth were to be avoided as they took you away and you never came back. So she grew and paid attention she found yet another place few of her kind would go to. It was on a roof where yet another food shrine was located and she managed to get in it every day before the tall smelly monsters came and emptied it into their huge metal monsters. She feasted well.
She was never really a fighter. Whenever one cat or animal threatened her for space she would leave after making the proper gestures. It wasn’t that she was cowardly it was just that she was so used to being small and did not realize her own size and strength. She had lived and had only managed to continue to live through running and guile. And unlike the others of her kind she was not missing an eye or large segments of her warming coat that made it so difficult to sleep when the large warm circle vanished. So she grew and grew a little too rapidly and before she knew it found herself attracting toms. She was forced into mating and her kitten-hood abruptly ended.
Her growing kittens inside of her were hard for her. She knew she would be a good mother though. She was like her mama strong, sleek, and smart. She would give them lots of food and they would grow up better and easier then she was forced to. She wouldn’t leave them until they were old enough to go out on their own. She would protect them and teach them where it was safe to find food shrines and what was safe to hunt. They would be smart like her not her silly siblings who refused to leave and get their own food when mama did not return. She continued to eat well as her kittens grew bigger but a few weeks into her pregnancy she grew tired easily and could no longer make big leaps to get to her favorite food shrines. She scrounged up what she could but she began to have to fight others for her food as she could no longer make the leaps she was used to. Some days she didn’t manage to get any food at all and this weakened her.
Her kittens came earlier then she knew they should but this was a good thing. Maybe they would stop slowing her down and she could get them all enough food again. Having them was hard but she remembered her own birth and knew what they were going through. She cleaned her very small kittens well as they were born right after another. Unlike her mother she had only three to care for which was lucky as it would mean fewer mouths to feed. Two of her kittens were pretty small though and sneezing and shivering a lot. One did not make it up the next day. She cleaned and cleaned the little kitten but he did not get up or make a noise. Saddened at her failure and poor example compared to her mother she picked up her kitten and carried it to her favorite sunning spot she had hoped to show it when it got older.
She did her best to provide for her other two remaining kittens and she did well. They were growing stronger. They could finally see her and the sickly future tom finally stopped sneezing and shivering. Many nights she tucked him close to her and purred to comfort him and finally with the healthy food and milk she was providing him made him grow healthy. One day upon returning to her lair though she noticed that her nest was disturbed, she smelt around and realized that one of the big smelly animals had been nearby. Growling softly she began to meow plaintively and thankfully she heard the desperate mewling of her daughter. Her son though was nowhere to be found. Cursing herself she carefully inspected her last remaining kitten. She had been smart enough to hide from the bigger tall monster and was still with her. She knew from experience she would not see her son again the tall smelly monsters never brought back what they took.
Her kitten continued to grow but she grew desperate when all of a sudden the large circle barriers around the food shrines grew impossible to open. Where would she find food now? For some reason though many of the other toms and queens had been disappearing so she claimed other easier to reach food shrines, thanking fate she began to forage at these easier shrines instead. There was a lot more food in these places and she thankfully had more than enough to satisfy her and her kitten. A few days after she began this new behavior she came upon an even better smell then the food shrines very nice smelling raw meat. Making her way towards the smell she came upon the meat placed curiously on the ground. Cautiously she approached it and managed to get a glimpse of a tall smelly monster nearby carefully observing the meat.
Obviously the monster meant to lure her in but the meat just smelt so good. She took another careful whiff of the meat and knew it didn’t smell like the stuff the dead squeaky things had in their mouths so she thought it was probably safe and much better than the smelly meat scraps from the food shrines. She decided to capture this food for her and her kitten. She was faster than the tall ungainly smelly monsters something she knew well. And the tall monster was obviously angry as it did their variation of hissing at her as she escaped with its food. This continued for quite a few days as she constantly would grab the silly monsters food and feast on it with her daughter. Both were growing stronger and very soon her kitten would be able to begin to learn how to hunt itself and forage at the food shrines. Happily cleaning herself and her kitten off she never detected the large monster as it caught her. Before she knew what was happening she had been grabbed and placed into a dark soft place.
She mewled plaintively desperately trashing around in the small place trying to escape. She could not be forced to leave her daughter like her mama had been forced to do with her! Her plaintive mewling and struggling encouraged her daughter to mewl back and the ‘tall smelly monster’ heard the soft cautious response.
Genma’s hand darted forward and managed to snag his nemesis the small white cat which had been such a problem and quickly slipped it into his large burlap bag before it could even respond. Right after being placed in the bag the damn thing began to hiss and cry out but he sighed in relief, success! “Struggle all you want with you the boys training is assured to be a success.” he proclaimed proudly to the mewling bag. Finally he could begin the boys training he was about to leave the area when he heard a pathetic mewling noise coming out of the crate from which he had snagged his prize. Looking into the crate he saw a young calico kitten desperately mewling before catching site of him and staring at him with widened frightened eyes. His nemesis had been providing for it’s young all along? Genma…
…sighs seeing the parallels to his own situation with Ranma and reluctantly lets the cat…
“The next words out of your mouth better not be lets the cat go! You know how hard and how much I sacrificed for this damn animal?!” Genma screeched.
Sighing the writer simply says fine, is something else OK here then?
“Yes, that’s fine.”
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(Posted Fri, 17 Sep 2010 20:49)
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