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Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw was beginning to wish that she had picked a more auspicious name. Something along the lines of, for instance, Sits In The Sunlight And Gets Brought Fish Paste. The rain was bucketing down, and the horses clopped by in the darkness with feet almost as big as Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw, and if there had been anything good to eat in the rubbish heap, the rats had got there first. Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw shivered in the rain, fur soaked to her body, and for lack of a better plan, wailed in despair.
“MEEEEEERRR!!!”
She didn’t think she would be heard, though. There were no friendly ears to hear her. Which was why she was very surprised to see a dark figure with an umbrella pause and stalk towards the rubbish heap.
Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw was too tired and sodden to run, or else she would have. The being looked like a human, but it plainly wasn’t. It smelled like smoke—not so much the tobacco smoke that many humans carried around on their clothes, but a darker, stranger smoke, as if there were banked fires somewhere deep inside it. And beyond that, there was the smell of predator. Of something large, something sliding, something with fangs—
Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw did the only thing she could think of to do. She turned sideways, made a vain effort to puff up what hair hadn’t been plastered to her body by the rain, and said, “FFFFFFFFFFFTT!!!”
“Was that supposed to be a hiss?” The being sounded incredulous. “You’re just a little scrap of a thing, aren’t you? I don’t suppose you have anywhere to go, or you wouldn’t be out in this muck—” A pause, and a deep sigh, and then the being bent down and picked Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw up.
“MEEEEEEEEERRR!!!”
“Don’t panic, I’m not going to eat you. You’ve been recruited, Scrap. You’re part of the army of evil, now. You’ll find it pays off in fish and cream, if you do your job—and I do expect you to do your job—”
Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw found herself tucked into the man’s overcoat.
She stopped listening to his talk of Armies of Evil for a moment. Somewhere inside herself, she sensed that this was not the sort of predator who was supposed to radiate heat. But the pocket she had been slipped into was warm. Very warm. Hearthside with a roaring fire warm.
He was making it warm, for her.
Hesitantly, Lightningtooth Deathclaw Shadowpouncer Ghostpaw started to purr.