Chapter Text
Everybody wants to be a cat, because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at, everybody’s pickin’ up on that feline beat, ‘cause everything else is obsolete…
Royal Palace, Dai’chi, Chon’sin—October 17, 1017
Dai’chi rained in the spring.
It was a simple fact of life, just as Regna Ferox was cold in the winter. One was prepared for weeks on end of damp, overcast days only occasionally broken by a breath of sunlight, and one learned how to handle the months of sticky, slippery mud.
Dai’chi did not typically rain in the fall, yet Say’ri had found herself looking out the window at such a thing for the sixth day in a row.
She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. Rain this time of year could only lead to frets about the harvest, and such frets could potentially lead to a lean winter. Chon’sin had been blessed last year with an abundance, one less thing to worry about as they learned to settle into the stability of a new monarch, but at the moment Say’ri could only fear her second winter as queen would prove far more difficult.
As she pondered such a thing, the front door opened with a force she would have expected of Owain—had her husband’s cousin not taken his leave of the palace a few weeks ago, deciding that in the wake of Ophelia’s second birthday that it was high time to begin the pilgrimage across Valm he’d crossed the sea to undertake. The palace—and particularly the new royal apartments, just finished with enough room to hold a dozen people yet currently only occupied by two—had been achingly, ringingly quiet ever since.
Until this moment, it seemed.
Inigo stood in the opening, shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear the water from his eyes before wrestling the door closed against the wind and rain once more. Water had still blown into the immediate opening, but Say’ri was less concerned about that and more about her husband’s own appearance.
“What in Naga’s name did you get into?” she asked, papers forgotten as she rose to her feet.
Inigo shot her a cheeky grin that was not nearly as effective as he’d likely hoped it to be. His entire front was smeared with mud, to such an extent she almost wondered if his current attire would be ruined forever; his hair, as well, had gained its own collection of grime, sticking up at odd angles as if he’d been struck by an errant Thunder spell. “Want a hug, love?” he asked cheerily.
Say’ri didn’t dignify that with a response, instead quirking a brow and asking, “Did you decide to crawl across one of the gardens?”
“Under one of the gazebos, actually,” he said, still in that lilting tone that did nothing to actually explain his appearance.
“And, if I may be so bold to ask, prithee why?” she asked dryly.
Before Inigo himself could answer, his jacket did—with an odd, peeping noise.
Say’ri’s brow quirked even higher.
“Okay,” Inigo said. “So I can explain.” With that, he reached into his coat, his motions ginger as he produced a tiny ball of fluff from the inside pocket.
Automatically, Say’ri took a step back, her voice rising in an aghast note she couldn’t quite contain. “Is that a cat?”
“It’s a kitten,” he corrected, smoothing his other hand over the fur. The thing scarcely took up his entire palm, so dirty itself that the color of its coat was impossible to tell.
“And you brought it in the house?” she demanded.
He shot her an odd, almost offended look. “Well I wasn’t gonna leave him outside,” he told her. “Look at him, he’s a baby, his ears aren’t even up all the way—”
“It’s not staying in the house,” Say’ri said flatly. “If it’s such a baby, then go give it back to its mother.”
“I don’t think his mother’s around, love,” Inigo told her absently. “I told you I had to crawl under the gazebo to get him, ‘cause he was down there crying and there definitely weren’t any other cats answering—where can we put him? There’s got to be a box or something around here—”
“Inigo,” Say’ri said sharply. “For one, just—hold still before you drop an entire landmass on the floor, would you, and for another, we can’t just keep the cat.”
“Why not?”
An exasperated sound rose in her throat. “Why on earth would we? I’ve no need for such a furry little menace scratching up the brand new building, do you? They are perfectly suited to being outdoor creatures and I see no reason why this particular one would be any different.”
Inigo, meanwhile, only drew the kitten closer to his chest. “Because he’s a baby,” he protested again. “He can barely stand on his own, love, no less feed himself! He’ll die if I put him back outside, do you want that on your conscience?”
Say’ri blew out a sharp breath. “Fie, Inigo, of course I don’t wish it dead, I just…” She held her arms out to the sides. “How do you propose to even take care of it? Have you ever kept a cat before? No less one so young?”
“Well, no,” Inigo admitted. “But it can’t be that hard, can it?”
A long moment passed. “Fie,” Say’ri said again.
Inigo, meanwhile, merely shrugged. “Surely someone in the palace has got to know about cats, though. I’ll just have to put out some feelers.”
Finally, Say’ri sighed. “I’ll have Chi’hiro put out feelers,” she told him. “Whilst you bathe.”
Inigo shot her a remarkably dirty look, still with the kitten pulled to his chest.
“I’m not going to throw it out whilst you’re absent,” she promised with a shake of her head. “But the moment ‘tis old enough to be weaned, ‘tis going back outside.”
He grinned at her. “Wonderful! Go on then, get acquainted,” he said, holding the thing out to her.
She took another step backward. “Absolutely not. I am going with the box of your first suggestion. ‘Tis liable to have… fleas and things,” she finished disdainfully.
“Come on, now, love, but isn’t he cute?” Inigo coaxed.
Say’ri gave him a deadpan stare. Cute was not quite the word she would have used for the mudball. “So long as you keep in mind not to get attached,” she told him.
Naga help her, but he already had stars in his eyes, she thought with another sigh.