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Sissel walks a tight circle in the man’s lap until he finds a comfortable angle to curl up in, Yomiel’s arms coming up to cradle him once he’s finally settled. Sissel waits a moment… and then another moment longer before he starts butting his head against the man’s hands until he gets the picture, and begins stroking along the cat’s back.
“Alright, alright, I get it,” he says with a soft chuckle, making sure to add a few scratches under the chin that gets Sissel purring.
The two are sitting high above, perched atop something Yomiel had once called a ‘crane’. Sissel has yet to identify its true purpose, but the two would often use tall structures like these to get far enough away from the rest of the world— but not so far that they couldn’t still observe it. The height isn’t anything Sissel can’t handle, being a cat and all, but he has noticed that it’s unusual for a human like Yomiel to traipse along unprotected at such heights.
But then, his human has always been unusual, from the very moment the two of them met.
At first Sissel thought the man was just terrible at hunting, as he had never once spotted Yomiel eating. Sissel tried hunting enough food for the both of them to make up for Yomiel’s lack of skill, but– while his efforts seemed appreciated– it became clear after some time that the man didn’t need to eat. Nor did he need to sleep, or shield himself from the rain, or tend to any wounds when Sissel’s claws scratch a little too deep.
Sissel has always found it odd, but it never really bothered him. In fact, it made him appreciate his friendship with the man a lot more. There was a lot his human didn’t seem to need, but even so, he never once neglected any of Sissel’s. And in turn, Sissel made it a point to soften the edges of loneliness he so often found the man wrapped up in.
It’s a little chilly this high up and this late in the evening, even during the warmer months, but Sissel is protected from the worst of it by Yomiel’s body. The man didn’t seem to produce any heat himself, which Sissel has always found odd, so he does his best to be a source of warmth for Yomiel by climbing in his lap as often as he can. The man never seemed to get any warmer, but Sissel did notice that it would help clear his sour moods, which had only been increasing in frequency the few years they’ve been together.
“Look at that, Sissel,” Yomiel says, pointing up into the sky.
The evening sky is clear, decorated only with the light of the full moon and twinkling stars. Sissel stares up into it for a moment, not sure what he should be looking for until he sees it: a dot of light streaking across the sky, disappearing almost as quickly as it came.
“Ya gotta make a wish, quick,” Yomiel says, though there’s an underlying tone to his voice that makes the words sound insincere.
Sissel blinks up at the man, trill in his throat. Yomiel smiles down at him, recognizing Sissel’s confusion with only that small noise. Of course, the two have never needed to speak the same language to understand each other.
“Those quick moving lights up there? They’re called shooting stars,” he says pointing up at another smear of light. “They’re not actually stars, just hot rocks falling from the sky, but some people believe they can grant wishes. Like they’re actually magic.”
Sissel’s tail flicks in interest.
Granting wishes, eh? The concept is a little difficult to wrap his head around. He doesn’t really want for much in his life since Yomiel usually provides everything for him. Anything his human couldn’t give is often just a passing fancy; nothing he’d care enough for to bother watching the sky, and hoping a passing rock could give it to him. …Now that he thought about it, how did the rock give anyone their wish, anyway?
Almost as if reading his mind, Yomiel speaks again.
“She used to say that shooting stars would carry the wishes back to the Gods, and if they heard your wish, they would send the meteorite back down to the Earth, and your wish would come true.”
She.
Sissel knows immediately who Yomiel is talking about, of course. His namesake— Yomiel’s fianceé.
Yomiel rarely speaks of her. So rarely that, were he speaking of anyone else, Sissel surely would’ve forgotten them by now. But when he spoke of Her, there was always an undercurrent of misery in his words, even when spoken with a smile. Sissel could never forget Her, not when it brought his human so much pain.
Yomiel is quiet for a while, head tilted up towards the sky, though Sissel can’t tell if he’s even seeing much behind his darkened glasses. He had stopped petting Sissel at some point and the cat knocks his head against his hands again, trying to get him to restart, hoping to distract him.
Yomiel acquiesces, absentminded as his eyes never leave the sky. Another star goes by, chased quickly by its friend.
“Do ya think that meteorite back then was the Gods granting someone’s wish?” He says it so quietly that Sissel’s not even sure if he’s meant to hear it.
‘Back then’ is another one of those rarely spoken of topics that was loaded with a history Sissel isn’t sure he’d ever fully understand. From what little Yomiel has told him over the years, Sissel’s been able to gather that ‘Back then’ was during that time when Sissel and Yomiel had first met, and that it had something to do with why his human was so much unlike others. And that, despite that time being one of Sissel’s happiest moments, it seemed to be the main source of Yomiel’s despair.
“Why the hell am I even thinking about any of that? It’s all bullshit anyway,” Yomiel murmurs.
There’s a bitterness to the softly spoken words that Sissel tries to soothe by kneading on the man’s thighs.
He still isn’t sure he understands the concept of a shooting star, but he realizes– with a striking bit of clarity– that there is one thing that he wants. And when another speck of light streaks across the darkened sky, Sissel makes his wish.
He wishes he could help Yomiel. He wishes he could give the man the same happiness he’s given Sissel.
Yomiel says the shooting stars are just hot rocks falling from the sky, and maybe that’s true. But if there’s even the smallest chance they can give him the power to change Yomiel’s life around, he’ll take it in a heartbeat.