Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Traveler," he says, once the others are out of earshot. He isn’t too worried; it's difficult for them to be overheard, over the crashing of the waves on the sea. "There is something I would like to ask of you."

The traveler turns to look at him, curious. He has heard tales of their exploits across Tevyat, of course; slaying the dragon terrorizing Mondstadt, defeating one of the Fatui Harbringers. They are the only one he can trust to fulfil his request, by virtue of being the sole person who's crazy enough to want to actually enter Inazuma.

Whether their decision is fueled by insanity or recklessness, he does not know, but he will not judge, especially not when it's of use to him.

"What is it?" Paimon buzzes around his head. "We're not going there to do your chores, you know!"

Kazuha isn’t bothered. Paimon's flight capabilities will likely come in handy when it comes to wrangling the target of his request, if he remembers him correctly.

"When you reach Inazuma, the city," he starts, then pauses. He isn't exactly sure where he had ended up, caught up in the whirlwind of his friend's death and his own escape. "…in Tenshukaku, still, perhaps. There is someone I wish for you to find. If you can find the time on your own journey, of course."

"Why can't you do it on your own?" Paimon asks.

"I am a wanted criminal in Inazuma," he says.

The traveler takes pity on Paimon, who’s stunned into silence. "Who do you want me to find?"

He scours his mind for details. They hadn't been that close, even before the whole mess that ended up with him stowing away on a ship, never to return. Kazuha had been concerned with different things; appreciating nature, composing poems, finding them a place to sleep and food to eat. Not so much with what his friend had picked up off the side of the road and decided to raise on a whim.

"He is small." That is all he says for a while, until he finally brings a blurry image to the forefront of his mind. "And white. Long-haired. My friend never bothered to give him a collar nor a name. He does not bite or scratch unless aggravated."

The traveler and Paimon stare at him for a time.

Then, "What kind of person is that!?"

"Person?" He blinks. "When did I imply that? He is a cat."

The traveler climbs onto the deck, fresh from the long swim over and soaking wet. They shoot him a glare, shivering. “You could pick a place closer to land, you know.”

“It is the wind who decides where we sail,” he tells them. They don’t seem to appreciate it.

Paimon bursts into existence above their heads, taking a moment to dry herself off in the air despite not having been in the water at all. “Kazuha! We found your kitty!”

There is a quiet mewl from the bundle of cloth in the traveler’s arms. He hurriedly shushes Paimon and tugs them away from sight. The captain does not allow animals on board, not after a series of incidents he only hears of on nights when they have excess alcohol from their last docking.

A paw breaks out of the cotton prison when they are far enough away from the others, soft and tiny. His heart stops for a second.

“Where did you find him,” he says more than asks, leaning on the wall.

The wood is welcome support for him. There are emotions he doesn’t know how to process at the sight of the only thing his friend had left behind, aside from a cold Vision that he can barely stand to look at, even on the better nights.

The life of a wanderer is lonely and minimalist, he knows that, but he has never seen it as clearly as he does now.

Kazuha wonders what he will do with the cat. He does not know if he can provide the care that his friend would have wanted him to, not when he spends more time on sea than land and hardly knows anything about cat rearing. But he thinks of the alternative, leaving his friend’s most treasured companion (because he isn’t delusional, he could never win that battle) alone, and decides that he has to at least try.

“Where you said.” The traveler loosens their grip. A pair of fluffy white ears enter his view this time, then the softness of a small fuzzy head. “He was sitting in a corner in Tenshukaku, by the lake. You were right about that, but he does scratch, a little. Mostly at Paimon.”

Trying to catch fish, no doubt, but where can there be life so close to the mercilessness of the Shogun? There is a thinness to his features that he knew his friend would not have stood for, pampering as he was. He makes a mental note to feed him a portion of his dinner later. The cat was once partial to tuna sushi from Ryouko’s stand on Ritou, so perhaps he will be willing to enjoy fresher game.

Later. For now, he should focus on the basics.

“I see,” he says, unsure how to express the sheer gratefulness he holds in his chest, but there is an understanding glint in their eyes that tells him he doesn’t need to. Kazuha is reminded that they are, in fact, on their own journey to find what’s precious to them. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Paimon chirps, “we’re great at fetching things!”

The traveler laughs, then holds out the bundle to him. He stares for a second until his mind processes the movement, then reaches out to take the squirming cat. His arms adjust to cradle it gently to his chest as if made of glass.

“Hello.” His voice is softer than usual, as to not scare his new charge. Bright blue eyes peer up at him, blinking once, then twice, and he can’t help but be reminded of wide, listless eyes on a bloodstained face. He shakes the memory loose before it consumes him whole. “I was… a friend of your previous owner. I will do my best to care for you in his absence.”

The cat meows in return, reaching up to paw at his hair. Kazuha tries very hard not to cry; the traveler had swum over, after all, so he had probably had enough of water.

“So,” Paimon says, “what’s our reward?”

“Paimon,” the traveler hisses.

“What? They’re pirates, they have to have some treasure!”

It takes half a day for Captain Beidou to find out, not that he doesn’t try.

“Kid,” she says, as he struggles to keep the cat hidden under his the cloth of his haori. “What is a cat doing onboard?”

He pauses, and the cat takes the opportunity to leap away from him and curl up at Beidou’s feet, flicking his tail against her legs carefreely. At the very least, he is reminded that this is indeed his very foolish friend’s very foolish cat.

“What do you mean?” he tries.

“Kid.” His expression must shutter, then, because her face softens just a bit. “You know we have a rule for a reason. We barely got all the blood out of the deck the last time an animal was on here.”

He purses his lips. The cat is unbothered from where he spreads himself out on the floor, purring as if he isn’t close to being deported.

“Look, we can keep him here for a while,” Beidou says. “I’m not about to throw a cat overboard. Next time we dock, we can pass him off. There’s a guy I know who takes in every animal he can, so–”

“No,” Kazuha immediately blurts out.

It’s out of character for him, he knows. Enough so that it makes Beidou stop mid-sentence.

“He belonged to a friend of mine,” he says, and he can tell the second she realizes what he means. Her face falls into the expression he internally titles, ‘Oh, kid.’, a mixture of pity and concern. She usually has that look whenever he shares his past. “I can’t leave him on his own. Or with anyone else.”

She looks conflicted. He understands; if there were any other way, he would not take this course of action. Kazuha is still indebted to her for taking him in, but he is equally indebted to his friend, if only by his own inaction. It is a debt he carries closer to his heart than he does his own blood.

After a moment, she sighs, reaching down to scratch at the cat’s ears. He barely twitches, nearly asleep and basking in the sunlight.

“Welcome to the crew,” Beidou says. “Don’t cause too much trouble and I won’t make you walk the plank.”

“What,” Yinxing says from the side, reminding him that their conversation was very public. “I’ve been trying to convince you to let me keep pets onboard for ages!”

Beidou laughs. “I mean, I did, didn’t I? Not my fault Sea Drake drank your fish!”

“He what–”

“It was an accident, alright–”

Little Yue skips over, broom and dustpan abandoned. He kneels to stare at the cat with wide eyes as if he’s Haishan himself. “Can I pet him?”

“Yes,” Kazuha says. He recalls his friend joking that the cat would betray their location for two slices of tuna and pets. “He’s very friendly.”

The boy cautiously reaches a hand out, and one blue eye peeks open. He jolts back, but the cat is faster. With a raucous cacophony of meows, Little Yue is quickly tackled by an overeager ball of fluff that licks at his face relentlessly.

“He likes me!” His small chest almost shakes from the sheer volume of happy purring.

Kazuha can’t help his smile. “So he does.”

“Careful, Little Yue,” Huixing calls out from where she stands pointedly away from the scene. She’ll be enamoured with the cat soon enough, he knows. It was just a given, when it came to cats. “Cats have sharp claws and teeth. Just ask Furong!”

“Fuck you, I told you that was from the battle!”

His friend would have liked how they treated his cat, Kazuha thinks. His friend would have liked them, Kazuha also thinks, and wishes he doesn’t.

Because he’s still his owner’s cat, it doesn’t take long for him to cause trouble. He almost isn’t surprised, though he's still disappointed.

“Mew,” the cat says, licking the remnants of cloth off his claws.

“I thought you outgrew this,” Kazuha says, dismayed.

“Mrrowr.”

“Don’t try to get out of this. The captain is going to– going to ban you from tuna for the rest of the week.”

Sharp ears prick up in alarm. “Mrr?”

“What happened to the spare sails!?”

Juza’s shout echoes across the deck. Kazuha picks up the cat before it can dart off into the crow’s nest and away from the consequences of his actions. Not that the obvious claw marks etched into the cloth point to anyone but him being the culprit, but it’s important to teach responsibility early on.

“The perpetrator has been apprehended,” he tells Juza, dropping the wriggling cat into his arms.

“You,” he says, lifting him to eye level. “are not having tuna for the next month.”

He has to commend Juza’s strength of will, to look into those eyes and still be able to dole out punishment. Kazuha doesn’t think he could do the same.

The resulting displeased yowls are loud enough to be heard over the roaring seas, but he isn’t too concerned. There’s no doubt that half of the crew will sneak him enough treats that he’ll never go hungry, at least not to the extent that he was before. He could benefit from losing some weight, anyways.

A while later, Beidou catches wind of the incident and asks Kazuha to let her bring the cat along the next time she goes to visit the Tianquan in the Jade Chamber. He allows it, of course, because he knows that she would never harm him, though he does not understand why. She brings him back on board with a beaming grin and deems him the most valuable member of the crew.

None of them argue, so a picture of him gets hung in the cafeteria below deck, and he gets a special bed put into the crow’s nest, though his favorite place to nap is still looped around Kazuha’s neck like a scarf.

Later, while he buys cat treats at a stall, he hears the shopkeeper mention that the edges of the so-called ‘paper snow’ he vaguely knows of are more jagged than usual, as if torn by something other than human hands. He pauses, then adds more treats to the order.

Whenever they dock in the harbor after that, there is a crate of cat supplies waiting for them, a great majority of them scratching posts that the cat quickly wears down into mere wooden stands. When he asks Beidou about it, she just laughs and tosses the cat another treat.

“Tuna,” Beidou calls out one day.

Kazuha raises a confused eyebrow, then his eyes widen when the cat pads his way over to lay at her feet, scratching idly at the wooden floor and purring. ‘Tuna’ eats a treat out of her hand happily.

“Did you,” he says haltingly, “name the cat? Without me?”

“I did it,” Little Yue says, puffing his chest out in pride. “Because he likes tuna a lot!”

“I mean, it’s not like you were gonna name him anytime soon,” Juza points out. “Took you, what, a week to tell us your name so we could stop calling you Inazuma boy, and calling the cat ‘Cat’ all the time was kind of a temporary solution.”

Little Yue droops. His sad eyes look remarkably like the cat’s– Tuna’s, he supposes– when he refuses to pet him. “Do you not like the name?”

He can’t bring himself to be angry at the child, so he sighs and lets it be. It’s as good a name as any, and it wasn’t like his friend would have come up with anything better. His ideas were barely thought-out, reckless, and mostly relied on Kazuha finding a way to get them out of whatever trouble they were in.

The thought comes, and it doesn’t go. He leans back against the wall, needing something to ground himself with.

Tuna rushes over, pawing at his boots until he picks him up, at which point he licks Kazuha’s face until he’s covered in saliva. Although he wrinkles his nose, he lets the cat continue his ministrations. It would be more comforting if his skin didn’t feel like it was being ripped off.

“Smart cat,” Beidou fondly remarks.

Kazuha manages to get a sentence out through the assault. “He takes after his owner.”

“Don’t pat yourself on the back too much,” Yinxing jokes.

He doesn’t get to reply, because Tuna is getting far more aggressive with the licking, as if he’s unaware that his tongue is rougher than sandpaper. Even if he could, Kazuha doesn’t think he wants to disagree. Sea Drake does, from where he’s scrubbing the deck.

“Tuna’s a communal cat, Yinxing,” he says. “The Crux family mascot. So technically, Kazuha just called us all geniuses.”

Something in him softens at the statement, but he stays silent, mostly to avoid getting cat spit in his mouth. Tuna is part of the family, he repeats internally. He is part of the family.

It rests, comfortable and tight in his chest. Family.

“Oh, so now you like animals, huh? Didn’t seem like it when you ate my fish straight from the glass–”

“Again, accident!”

“Sit,” Yinxing says. Tuna obeys, likely due to the treat in her hands. “Good boy.”

Suling rolls his eyes. “It’s not a dog, Yinxing. You’re going to make him too fat to walk.”

“Like you’re one to talk. I saw you recently forging things that looked more like cat toys than weapons. When are we going to use wooden fish on sticks in battle?”

Kazuha barely glances down from his perch, eyes closing as he enjoys the breeze. There’s a series of loud meows and scratches on wood, then a soft weight settles over his neck, a rough tongue licking at his hair as if trying to groom him. His mouth curls upwards; he’s still the favourite.

“Come back down, kitty,” Yinxing calls out. “I won’t make you listen to poetry!”

“Sorry,” he says, not bothering to hide his smugness. “He just likes me better.”

He braces for the retort, but there is none. Only the blaring of Liushi’s horn.

His eyes snap wide open. That’s the sound of a spotted enemy.

The next few minutes are a blur of cannons firing and swords clashing. Although it isn’t the time for it, he revels in the chance to test his blade against new enemies. It’s been a few days since they last docked, and even longer since he’s gotten to go all-out on his foe.

Kazuha is still careful, though. Tuna clings to his neck in a vice grip, claws digging into the fabric of his haori, a reminder that he has someone to protect.

Twisting to block another blade, his eyes catch a glint of steel in the corner of his vision. Too late for him to dodge or parry, and the others are caught up in their own battles. At the very least, the blow doesn’t seem to be fatal. He resigns himself to a scolding from Beidou and a thorough check-up from Yinxing.

Until he hears a hiss, loud in his ear and then a scream as Tuna launches himself off his shoulders and at his assailant’s face.

Tuna is vicious in his mauling, he notes somewhat detachedly, claws bared as he attacks the man. Then he remembers that they’re in the middle of a battle and pulls the cat off, who immediately speeds off below deck like he was originally supposed to. His victim doesn’t seem to be able to move, so Kazuha picks a new opponent.

He tells Beidou about it later, and she both lambasts him for his carelessness and gives Tuna extra fish for his bravery. The story gets exaggerated over time, until Tuna is toppling over tens of opponents to bite out the throat of the man attacking him.

It gets told almost every drinking night, which is in part responsible for the inflation of Tuna’s heroics. He doesn’t mind, even if it’s at his expense, because the cat seems to glow with pride every time.

“Traveler,” he greets, waving at them from where he’s sat on the deck.

They’re gliding towards the ship this time, but they drop into the ocean inches away from the edge. He absentmindedly tosses a rope down for them to climb onto, in the midst of composing another haiku. Perhaps this time it’ll be about something other than cats.

“Again, you couldn’t have come a little closer to shore?” they grumble, dripping seawater onto the wood. "Just so that I don't have to waste a whole thirty minutes just getting here?"

“Nature bends only to its own will,” he says. They look even more unappreciative of his insight than last time.

Paimon, as usual, comes into sight when they're safe onboard, zipping around their heads. “Hey, Kazuha! How’s the kitty?”

“Getting fat,” Juza comments as he feeds said fat cat yet another treat.

“He really is a lot bigger than when we brought him.” The traveler peers closer at the cat, who purrs at the attention from where he’s laid on his back, sunning.

“He was malnourished before,” Yinxing says, looking ready to get into another diatribe about cat nutrition, before Tuna paws at her shirt and she gets distracted playing with him. It’s the easiest way to make sure that nothing productive gets done on the ship, which seems to be the cat’s main goal.

Kazuha turns to look at the traveler, having just finished sorting out the rope into a neat coil. “Tuna’s doing well.”

“Tuna?”

“I didn’t pick the name.”

The traveler laughs. “It’s a good name.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a good name,” Kazuha says, “but I think he would have liked it.”

(“He looks happy,” the traveler tells Paimon later, when they think Kazuha is out of earshot.

Paimon tilts her head, spinning in mid-air. “The cat or the person?”

“Both.”)

(“…are we really not getting a reward for this?”

“Paimon.”)

Chapter Text

A woman brings him food, sometimes.

Cat hisses at her, drawing back from her as she places a fresh plate of tuna in front of him. He recognizes the blade at her hip, the black gloves on her hands, the Vision in her belt; remembers them from when they were used to hurt his Human until he could not move or give him any more pets.

He lashes out with drawn claws when she lingers too close to him, scratching at every part of her he can reach until he’s picked up by the scruff of his neck.

“Loyal to your master,”‌ she says, unbothered, and lifts him to eye-level, golden eyes meeting his own.‌ There is a conviction there, one that he’d found in his Human’s before she’d taken him away. “It is a shame for that dedication to be wasted on a traitor to the Shogun.”

“Mrowr.”

Cat lets out a low growl. He is no kitten anymore, not like how he was when his Human had first found him huddled under a tree, cold from the rain, and brought him to the warmth of a fire and gave him food and love. He is no kitten, and he will not bear with being scruffed like one, especially not by the one who took his Human away–

He lunges at her face, howling with all the rage he can muster in his body, but a hand catches him in mid-air, inches away from her.

“Ma’am,” a voice says, loud and grating in his ear, “would you like for us to dispose of this troublemaker?‌” A harsh laugh that resonates through his whole body as he’s shaken around like chimes in the wind. “I hear that Yukio is in search of new, fresh ingredients.”

There’s a cold, sharp blade against the fur of his neck, then. He hisses, trying to squirm away.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” The woman glares at the person behind him coldly, and in a flurry of quick motion, the sword falls to the grass with a clang. “What concerns exactly do you think the Tenryou Commission have with mere cats?‌ Perhaps you should worry more about being disposed of if you have such impressions of our goals, that we would treat animals in such a manner.”

“Y-yes, ma’am, understood!”

Cat is dropped to the ground. He looks up at the woman, tilting his head in appraisal.

“Mreow,” he says, and means, ‘I‌ still hate you for hurting my Human, but as a show of gratitude I will henceforth accept your peace offerings of food.’

Whether or not she understands what he means, she nods as if he’s imparted great knowledge upon her, and kneels, nudging the platter of fish closer to him. She’s still scowling, but there’s something about it that’s more hesitant than intimidating.

Slowly, he leans forward and eats the fish. It’s the first meal he’s had in days, but he somehow knows that even without the hunger adding to the flavor, the tuna is still of higher quality than anything else he’s ever had. A hand rubs behind his ears, slow and careful.

He grudgingly thanks her by licking at her hand in a show of favor, and before she leaves, he thinks he sees a hint of a smile curl at her mouth, no doubt due to the time spent in his presence.

Cat internally praises himself for acquiring another human to serve his needs. He would still prefer his Human of course, if only because training another one would be troublesome.

But his Human isn’t here, so he’ll just have to make do.

Although the woman provides a reliable food source, her visits are sporadic and he cannot just let himself go hungry in between.

Cat mostly occupies his time by trying to catch the fish swimming around in the shallow lake nearby. There aren’t many of them, though, and the ones he does get are thin and full of bones, barely enough for a single meal. He makes do on the scraps people leave on the ground and what he can find in his vicinity, but it isn’t nearly enough for a growing cat like him.

He licks at his paws, making sure not to miss even a sliver of meat, when his ears perk up at voices approaching where he’s sat.

“Where are we supposed to find a single cat?” he hears, whiny and piercing, cutting through the near silence. The source is a large floating fish with arms and legs that hovers in the air by the water. “He could have been more specific, we’ve seen a thousand of them already! White cats, black cats, brown cats, heck, I even saw a few orange cats on the way here!”

Cat crouches low to the ground, lowering his head and sweeping his tail above him in slow, smooth arcs.

“Those were foxes, Paimon,” a human beside the fish says placatingly. “Come on, we’ve only been looking for what, two days? The cat’ll turn up eventually. He said it’d probably be around this area, anyways.”

This will give him enough food to last for days, he thinks, chattering excitedly as his vision homes into his target.

“It’d better–”

He pounces at the fish. It is unprepared for the attack, and he quickly rides the momentum to tackle it into the lake, where he can easily pin it down.

“Paimon!”

Later, when he’s been appeased with a large serving of fish procured from a nearly endless bag, the human stares at him with a discerning gaze. The fish, who is not a fish, apparently, not that he particularly cares, crosses its arms and scowls down at him. Cat merely focuses on scarfing down all he can.

“Do you think this is the cat Kazuha mentioned?” the human asks the fish, picking him up.

Any annoyance he has at being carried evaporates at the sound of the Talker’s name. The Talker had tagged along with him and his Human on their adventures, before, and although he did talk a lot, and often in ways that Cat could barely understand, he always knew the best places to scratch.

“Mreowl,” he says loudly.

“I think he recognizes the name!” Light brown eyes scan him up and down, lit up in recognition. “White fur, long-haired, and we’re in Tenshukaku right now… I think we’ve found the cat!”

He lets out a long series of confirmatory meows that make the human even happier, but the fish still looks displeased from where it floats above their heads, dripping water onto the ground. It dives closer to him and he bats at one of its legs.

“Do you think Kazuha’ll mind if we toss him around a bit before bringing him back?”

“…”

“Hey, what’s with that look?‌ You’re not the one who got attacked!”

Cat decides, halfway through their impromptu journey, that he does not like this human at all.

“Stop struggling,” the human tells him, but it’s muffled through the cloth that they’ve bundled him in. He can only barely hear anything through waterlogged ears. “You are not making this easy.”

“Mrreowl.”

He digs his claws into the fabric as he kicks at his captor, hoping that they’re sharp enough to pierce through the cotton and draw blood. The water is everywhere. What gave the human the idea to bring him along when they decided to swim across the ocean, he didn’t know.

What he did know was that he was very, very unhappy about it.

Once they’re out of the water, Cat redoubles his efforts to escape from his prison. His ears and whiskers are wet, he is sticky, he can’t feel his legs, and if the human won’t acknowledge him, then he’ll make it their problem.

“Mrew,” he says, furious. They just absentmindedly pat him on the head, further fueling his anger.

He finally breaks a paw free, then his head. Freedom.

Cat licks at his arms, sniffing at the heavy taste of salt that lingers on his damp fur. This human knows nothing about hygiene, it seems, because they don’t even try to help him clean himself up. The fish sticks its tongue out at him from where it floats above them.

He’s jolted to attention when he’s handed to someone else. It’s the Talker, he realizes.

Familiar crimson eyes stare down at him, glossy, wide, and more emotional than he’s ever seen him. The Talker has always been calm and composed, even when he was running away from the arena where his Human had fallen, so Cat doesn’t know what could have happened to change him so much.

Things have changed, he supposes.

“Hello,” the Talker says, soft and gentle. It’s nothing like the dramatic haiku recitals he’d been forced to listen to on the quieter nights. Droplets of cold wetness drip onto the top of his head, making his nose scrunch up.“I was… a friend of your previous owner. I will do my best to care for you in his absence.”

He flicks his ears, head tilted in mild confusion, and the motion only serves to make the human sadder. Cat doesn’t understand.

“Mew,” he says. ‘Don’t cry, why are you crying? I’m the one who was forced into swimming here. You never cried this much with my Human around, and you should have no reason to be sad when I’m here.’

He reaches up to try to groom the mess of hair on the Talker’s head with his tongue. Maybe that will calm him down like it used to.

For once, his proven tactic to make humans happy fails, and more water leaks onto his head. There’s something very wrong with the Talker, Cat thinks. He’ll have to remedy that.

There’s a mess, later on, with a tall loud woman, but Cat mostly ignores it in favor of taking a nap. The sun is warm here in a way that he’s never felt before, and the rocking of the wood below him is soothing, so it’s easy for him to fall asleep in the chaos around him.

When evening comes, he stalks through the labyrinth of hallways underground, not looking for anything in particular, except fish, perhaps. Or scratches, although the many humans above ground had mostly satiated his need for that.

What he ends up finding is the Talker in a locked room that he’d easily snuck into, sitting on a bed and staring into space. There’s something clutched tight in his clenched fists, and he doesn’t respond to anything Cat does or says, which is already a grave offence, in his eyes.

“Mrowr?” He pads closer to him, insistently brushing against his legs. ‘Talker? Are you unable to give pets and scratches? Why are you sad again? I’m already here.’

There’s no response. Cat meows even louder, then even that doesn’t get a reaction, he decides drastic measures have to be taken. He arches his back then leaps, using the bed as a platform to throw himself into the air and wrap his torso around the Talker’s neck, trilling happily. See him ignore him now.

He comes up with the best ideas, he thinks, as the Talker lets out a loud screech.

“Wha– Cat?”

“Mrr,” he says proudly.

“How did you get in here?” the Talker asks, trying to pull him off. He doesn’t go, of course. “I thought I locked the door.”

Cat doesn’t reply, instead purring and licking at his hair in an effort to groom it into some semblance of order. It’s messier than even his Human’s was, but he tries anyway. How humans could go around looking like this, he had no idea, but he just can't in good conscience let this human live like that.

Eventually, the Talker sighs, letting him rest over his shoulders. “Were you looking for me?”

“Mrow.”

“I see,” he says. Cat busies himself with pawing at the strands of hair that fall in his face. “…I apologize, I might have neglected you when we were on deck. I thought it best that you first get acquainted with the rest of the crew. I am not the most… qualified to take care of you, after all.”

He lets out a soft mew in response, batting at his nose.

“I’m sorry that it took me this long to get you here.” Liquid again seeps from the Talker’s eyes. “I shouldn’t have left you alone– not after–”

Cat licks at his face. It’s salty on his tongue, but the Talker smiles after a while, petting him with hesitant, gentle strokes that he purrs at. Soon, when he thinks he feels better, Cat drops onto the pillow at the foot of the bed and curls into a ball.

A resounding success, he affirms, as he settles down to nap.

“Wait,” the Talker says, “that’s my pillow.”

He is the greatest companion of all time, he thinks as he drifts off to sleep. He’ll raid the kitchen for his reward later.

The ship they’re on smells like rusted metal and salt.

Cat spends the first few days trying to scent every surface he can get on, but all that gets him is scolding for ‘peeing all over my clothes, what the hell, Cat.’ Naturally, the humans around him cannot comprehend the complexity of his goals, so he doesn’t let that stop him.

Now, though, he’d found an entirely new thing to mark.

“What are you doing,” he hears the Talker say.

He ignores him, continuing to scratch at the white fabric with happy meows. His claws had been getting restless recently, too, but this had perfectly satisfied the itch.

“I thought you outgrew this.”

“Mrrowr,” Cat lets out, laying out on the wood, pleased. Once the humans understand that he’s just making sure everyone knows that this ship belongs to him, he’s sure that he’ll receive countless thanks. And lots of tuna.

“Don’t try to get out of this. The captain is going to– going to ban you from tuna for the rest of the week.”

His ears jump at the sound of ‘tuna.’ Will the Tall Loud Woman let him have the stash of fish he’d found the other day? “Mrr?”

“What happened to the spare sails!?”

Cat recognizes the voice as belonging to another human who gives him treats, but also keeps treats from him sometimes. He tries to hide before he can be found, but the Talker quickly scoops him up from the ground and passes him to the Treat Taker, where he’s summarily scolded.

“Mrew,” he says. ‘You traitor. I cannot believe you’ve betrayed me, who has done nothing to hurt you.’

The Treat Taker lectures him about something, but all Cat hears are the words ‘no’ and ‘tuna’ and then he realizes that the Talker’s betrayal ran deeper than he’d originally thought. No tuna?

Tuna drops to the ground, yowling into the air. How could he allow such an injustice to occur?

"Please stop being so dramatic," the Talker says.

He makes sure to scent his entire room, after that.

At least the Tall Loud Woman seems to appreciate him. She brings him to a room above the clouds with lots of stacks of lots of paper and lets him go wild, then piles the shredded remains into a basket and helps him topple it over a ledge. There’s another woman there, too, who doesn’t seem to appreciate his help, but Cat is too busy enjoying his rewards to care.

“We should really name him,” the Boy says, on a day where all of them are gathered except the Talker.

Cat meows from where he’s sat on the Treat Taker’s lap, then opens his mouth for another bite of fish.

“Yeah,‌ I agree,” the Toymaker says, “we can’t just keep calling him ‘Cat’. What are we gonna do if he gets lost in Liyue someday? They’ll think we’ve gone into the deep end if we start calling out for ‘Cat’ in the streets.”

Another human scoffs. “Alright, but no one ask Kazuha, alright? I asked him to help name my new sword, and the kid tried to name it after a haiku, like I’m going to stop being attacked to recite poetry mid-battle. He’s creative, I’ll give him that, but not the person I’d ask to name any living being.”

“Fine, but I’m not going to be the one who has to tell him we named the cat.” Tall Loud Woman leans forward, scratching him behind the ears. “What do we name him, then? Any suggestions?”

“How about he picks?” another human suggests.

“Don’t be silly, Huixing, how’s a cat gonna pick his own name–”

“We should name him Tuna!” the Boy exclaims, clapping his hands together. “That’s his favorite food, I think!”

Cat perks up at ‘tuna’, meowing insistently. Sitting in one place for too long has made him hungry, regardless of the bag full of treats that he’s already finished.

The humans all stare at him, then a bout of raucous laughter ensues.

“I guess that’s how,” Tall Loud Woman says, amused. “Tuna it is then.”

He mews again, which renews their excitement.

“Good boy, Tuna,” the Boy says.

It takes Cat a second to realize that there is no tuna, then another to realize that he is the Tuna.

“Mrrew,” he says in acknowledgement, after a short period of deliberation.

His Human had only ever called him Cat, and that was all he’d known for a long while, but he supposed he could learn a new name, now that his Human was gone. These humans are here, and perhaps it was time for Tuna to properly acknowledge their service.

When Tuna gets tired of indulging the other humans in their strange playtime, he clambers up to where the Talker sits and loops himself around his neck, ready to take a long, long nap. He’s found that he gets the best sleep when he can feel the deep breaths, in and out, of this human.

He pauses, then tries to straighten out the Talker’s hair. What kind of cat could sleep with such a mess nearby?

Then there’s a cacophony of noises erupting around him.

The Talker tries to push him to go back underground, where he’s safe, but Tuna digs his claws in and refuses to leave. The last time he’d listened to one of his humans, he hadn’t come back. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

He sighs, wrapping one hand around him, then jumps into the fray.

Tuna’s ears press against the back of his head, tail wound tight as he hears the relentless clanging of steel on steel. It brings back memories of a cheering crowd and hands holding him back and his Human lying motionless on the ground, red pooling under him. But he cannot leave this human alone, no matter how scared he is.

Sharp eyes catch the glint of sunlight on metal a second before anyone else. And because Tuna prided himself on his natural reflexes, he’s also the first to react.

He hisses, lunging at the person who dared to try and hurt his Talker.

His claws scratch furiously at skin, drawing blood until all he can see of the man’s face is red. Tuna does not spare any mercy for the kind of idiocy that would lead someone to try and hurt one of his humans again, and he thinks to himself that if he had been there the first time, he could have had both of his humans with him.

Unfortunately, it is beyond even his capabilities to turn back time, and all he can do is let out his anger on the man underneath him.

“Enough, Tuna,” he hears his Talker say, then he’s being hoisted into the air.

For a moment, Tuna stares up into his Talker’s eyes, telling him to be safe without him there to watch over him in battle, then he dashes madly back underground. The kitchen should be empty, with all the humans busy fighting, so he should be able to get all the good fish before dinner.

After that, he does indeed get all the good fish for several meals, everyone stopping to praise him for something. Tuna doesn’t understand, but he isn’t going to complain.

Once the human who’d dragged him into the water and the flying fish are gone, Tuna pads up to his Talker, pawing at the hem of his pants. He kneels to look at him, concerned.

“What is it, Tuna?” he asks. “Is there anything wrong?”

“Mew,” is all he says, before standing on his hind legs to lick at his face.

The Tall Loud Woman laughs loudly, patting him on the back. “Tuna missed you, I think.”

“Is that so,” he says, then smiles, warm and happy like how Tuna remembers he used to when he was around his Human. He reaches out to rub behind his ears.

Purring loudly, Tuna does not tell them that he doesn’t want the bad human and the fish’s stench lingering around one of his humans. He’ll take care of the clothes later, once no one is paying attention to him, but for now, he needs to take care of his Talker.