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Grub was a Cat.
Grub was also hungry, and cold, and afraid. Throughout his many lives, he’d often been all three at once, but never so intensely, and never for so long. Hardened earth made the dark, damp room around him. Never did it warm, not really, even if he stayed curled in the smallest corner– and he knew that because he did stay curled in the smallest corner, as it was all he could reach and all he could do, hungry and cold and afraid as he was.
Because of all that, Grub thought he, perhaps, just possibly, maybe, without his knowing how, entered his last life.
Rats bothered him, nibbling at his toes and ears and mocking his polite requests for them to stop. As he still had claws, he warded them and their unkind cackling away… But only just.
Why - if only he were a stronger Cat, and not on his last life! Then he wouldn’t be as afraid, because he’d show the rats what was what.
Actually– actually- not only would he not be as afraid, and he’d solve his hunger issue, too. Yes… If only he were a stronger Cat…
“P-please,” he once again asked the rat-shaped shadow that unsubtly loitered across the room, “leave me be, wouldn’t you? I haven’t done anything.”
The rat chuckled at him. It was mean. It was so, so, unnecessarily mean.
“P-p-please,” he repeated, with what dignity he could muster.
The rat toddled from its rat-shaped shadow to a closer rat-shaped shadow. Grub swallowed his fear, and took stock of his claws, all one-two-three-four-five-six-seve–
The room’s door opened for the first time in an eternity. Fire-bright light spilled in. It burned atop a torch-stick, held aloft in a black-clothed, long-clawed paw. The light shooed away the shadows, which left behind many empty shelves, broken boxes, and a singular rat.
At the light-holder’s abrupt entrance, Grub curled deeper into his chilly corner. The rat skittered away and shoved itself through a mouse-sized hole. He wished he could follow the rat, mean though it had been. He wished he could scamper to the open door, and run free into the dark, but– there was the pinch at his paw and, well, even if that hadn’t been an issue, the big light-holder also blocked the escape. The rat had been mean; but the newcomer looked mean.
While Grub cowered, it spoke.
It said, “Now. Do you see how simple that was? How quiet?” in the tongue common to the tall not-Cats, which Grub understood by virtue of not spending enough time with his own species.
It said, “Aw, come off it. You can’t say you don’t enjoy the crash and crunch of a well-broken barrier! There isn’t even anyone else around to alert.”
It said, “That you know about. Why chance inspiring a merry chase across the hills when we could just get in and get out? Honestly.”
“You’ve got to get used to breathing again, fangs. It’s been years.”
“Breathing is not the problem, my dear. It’s the needless overexertion I take umbrage with.”
“We could stand to run more often,” it said, its voice dropping lower than before. “Not from guards or barkeeps, but actual, intentional running.”
“Why ever would we do that?”
“It’s good for the lungs.”
“Who told you that? That sounds like the inane ramblings of a bored parent.”
It took a breath– and paused– and then, voice rasping, it asked, “Enough prattle. Are we where we need to be?”
Another moment of silence.
Another new pitch to the voice. “Let’s see. If we are, they certainly went a long way to make the place unremarkable.”
“That’s more clever than I gave them credit for,” murmured another.
One body, many voices. Odd. Even for a not-Cat, that was odd.
The figure walked into the room, its steps light but sure. It wore dark clothing over its entire body, shapeless to Grub’s eyes beyond big and broad and tall. The only break in the dark expanse was from the cloth wrapped around its head, where a white snout stuck out. By the gleam from the light, it looked scaled like a lizard. White-and-red, with– too many teeth!
Grub discovered its many teeth when it made its way toward an empty shelf and crouched to look over every bare inch, continually mumbling to itself in its many strange voices.
Certain of its oddity, Grub quivered in his corner. Who knew what this thing would do if it spotted him? The pinch in his paw would likely become his least concern. He did not want to lose his last life to this any more than he’d wanted to forfeit it to a bunch of mean rats. He’d rather have lost it peacefully in his sleep, as was most appropriate for a Cat.
He’d always been bad at being a Cat. Always too nervous, too cautious, too undignified…
“What’s that, I wonder?” it asked itself.
“We all see the loose rock, right?” it also asked itself.
“Now we do,” it muttered, and shuffled itself to the right. It placed its fire stick gently against the wall, the light it casf dancing across the bumps and dips all around. It then pushed away a mushy pile of fabric and wiggled its front paws under the floor. A large rock came loose, which it set to the side. It then pulled out a dusty fabric bag, shook it to send the dust everywhere else, and opened its top.
Silence. Stillness.
Its shoulders shook. Its head twitched left, then right. Its elbows spasmed out, then in, tight, to its sides.
Grub raised his head, ears flicking about to try to pick up its strange mumblings.
After too long, it gasped out, “Finally! This is, amazingly, exactly the extract that we needed.”
It was happy. It also sounded breathless, its words thin and airy. It took a big gulp of air, then continued, voice for once the same pitch as before, “Just give me a moment, and I’ll explain.”
Its head twitched again, to the left. Up. Down. Then it shook, left-right, again, and again, and–
“Everyone! Please, contain yourselves. I, as much as anyone, am glad to be one step closer to having our own bodies again, but we must remember to act civilized with one another while we are in this state. – Ha-ha, yes, very funny. As I believe I’ve said before, I much prefer cooperation in any given situation, thank you. That I happen to also have something to say is hardly– I– sorry? There’s a… what?”
Odd noises. Odd creature.
Odd movement. Head and shoulders twisting around, too-fast. Glowing red eyes, meaner than any rat or Cat-kicker or paw-pincher.
Under that gaze, Grub froze.
Despite his wishes for a peaceful passing, its body twisted entirely to face him. It cocked its head to the right. Stared, silent. Frozen, too, except it had the freeze of a predator about to strike, while Grub wished for a mouse-sized hole to hide in and never come out.
Slowly, it stuck its scavenged bag into a hole in its clothing and stood.
The second voice it had spoken with returned. It cooed, “Hey there, little buddy. No need to be afraid. What are you doing here?” and it sounded like it wanted Grub to trust it.
Grub did not trust it. Grub cowered, fur bristling, and again took stock of his claws. Ten claws would do little against a beast so tall, but he would try.
It murmured, voice shifting and lilting, “Lady of Sorrow, look at its legs. Seems it got ambushed by a handaxe.”
“And then had one of its remaining legs hogtied to a shelf by twisting twine?” It tsked, voice dripping with what Grub had once associated with free food and head-scratches, when such things were possible from the not-Cats. “It was clearly intentionally abandoned here. Just when I begin to forget what horrors we people are capable of. We must help it.”
Rasping. “It won’t recover from its wounds. Better to put it out of its misery quickly.”
“We’re helping it,” said one-two-three tones at once, each word a different inflection.
The odd creature froze again. Its face contorted in a rapid array of expressions, its teeth flashing and eyes squinting and nostrils flaring and then the opposite on all. After one-two breaths, its limbs trembled. It seemed… confused.
It was beyond odd. It was terrifying.
Eventually, it again shook its head, left-right; and again moved, taking three light steps toward Grub, whereupon it crouched and reached out and—
Not like this!
“Ouch!”
Served it right! Momentary victory coursed through Grub as his five best claws found their mark in the creature’s elongated paw.
Hand. They called them hands. He had to remember, lest he lose any advantage he had on this creature.
Half of the creature’s mouth twisted upward while the other went down. It shook out its hand, and then opened its mouth to show all of its teeth, and– chuckled. Laughed, maybe. Grub couldn’t really hear past the blood rushing in his ears.
He did hear it say:
“It’s scared! Of course it lashed out.”
“You say that now, Wyll? Very helpful.”
“I wanted to give Gale a chance to speak up first, since he’s the cat expert.”
“-- I had a cat. That hardly makes me an expert.”
“Hmm, that’s true. Tara wasn’t even properly a cat. She had wings.”
“Don’t let the wings fool you. She was clever and curious as anything, and just as prone to knocking my mugs off my desk as any other feline.”
“Uh-huh. She could also talk, which seems like cheating, insofar as learning about how to handle a cat goes.”
“Speaking with animals is a novice level spell, not to mention the druids–”
“Are we sure this isn’t a druid in disguise? … Actually, doesn’t it look a little familiar?”
It interrupted itself by smacking a hand atop its snout. When the noises petered out, it flicked the side of its nose with two of its fingers and growled, “Can we not heal it and be done with this discussion? We have what we came for. Since you insist on aiding the creature, let us fix the cat and then swiftly depart.”
“She’s right,” said the lilting voice. “Gale, would you kindly put it to sleep? I’d rather not let any of us try to untie it while it wants to scratch our collective nose off.”
Grub didn’t understand what put it to sleep meant, as it surely referred to him and he was not going to sleep any time soon. He was wide awake! He was on the defensive! He had no business sleeping.
“Whole face is the nose,” it muttered under breath, and then it did something with its hands and said some other words, and Grub bristled again, found a hiss waiting in his throat and his ten claws at the ready, no matter the ache in his gut and nothing-numbness in his back, imagining himself as big! even without his tail so that this strange thing would not mess with him and he would live his last life in peace—
And then, he woke up.
He was warm, comfortable, and hungry. He opened his eyes to sunlight through tree-leaves, sweet-smelling grass, and a silent rat. It sounded dead, but it smelled fresh.
He looked around. Not-Cats walked to and fro, a very safe distance away. A lopsided shed with a large tree growing out of its side stood between him and them. Beyond that rose the city in all of its rebuilt glory.
The odd creature was nowhere to be seen. Though he strained his ears, he caught no shifting voices or rustling cloth.
He was warm, comfortable, and hungry. The solution to the last laid before him.
He reached for it with both paws, and felt no pinch or pull or pain. He still had no tail, but he found his back legs supported him as he dug into his meal. It was as if he’d regained his old life. It was as if his last had been a nightmare.
Dream or otherwise, the confusing not-Cat had proven itself kind. He wouldn’t forget. One day, he’d maybe even be able to repay them with a dead rat of their own.
Until then, he was warm, comfortable, and not as hungry as he had been. That was satisfying enough.