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When Iris first gets put in charge of the human boy, she doesn’t know what to think.
The angel came to her, glowing brightly and pulsing reassuringly, asking her if she would be willing to help the boy. There would be no penalty if she did not, he reassures her, and she could go back to living her life like normal. But she looks at the drafty, musty barn she has been living in, with rain aplenty and mice dwindling by the day, and thinks she is tired of this life.
She accepts the offer of the glowing angel, and she follows him over to the boy, who stares at her nervously and eventually agrees as well. The angel pats her head, and then she can understand the strange human words that he speaks to the boy, unlike the words he had communicated with her in her own language.
The boy is gentle and asks her permission, and she allows herself to be held in his arms, though she quickly finds a better vantage point. There is a werewolf on the floor of the barn, and she can smell its scent on the boy, and she already does not like it. She is glad that it is dead.
The angel leaves, and more humans appear, but they are not a threat to the boy. In fact, he seems relieved to see them, and they inquire about his well-being. The human words are still fuzzy in her brain, and she does not comprehend what they all mean, but she gets big pictures and the general idea, so she does not mind.
She understands enough to know that the thin, grumpy one threatens to separate her from the boy, and she hisses at him. She will not abandon this boy that the angel gave her so quickly after meeting him. Only with time, if she decides that she does not like him, will she leave, but she quickly understands that this will not be the case.
The boy and his group of humans—he calls them his team—board something they call an "airplane,” and she finds the journey to this new place rather exciting. They arrive somewhere else, somewhere far away, with less rain and more heat, and the boy calls it home. Yes, she thinks, this could be home.
The boy brings her to his home—his apartment—and proceeds to worry about how his home is not set up to be accommodating for her. This is silly, she thinks. Of course, it is not set up for her; he did not know she existed just hours before, but she lets him flit around like a trapped bird, tucking things away and putting objects on high shelves. She lets him do this until the sun has way past set and the moon has risen to the sky, and she decides that it is enough. She goes over to him and meows at his feet, rubbing against his leg. She lets some of the glow that the angel bestowed on her drift from her body to his, and he stops shaking so much, coming to a stuttering halt.
He yawns—she finds it curious that she knows what that is—and he is tired, and she follows him to where he sleeps. She hops up next to him, and he looks startled, maybe even nervous again, but the bed is big, and in the end, he does not mind. She watches him for a bit but eventually sleeps herself, until hours later, when the nightmares begin. She does not understand this concept, though the angel had explained it to her, but she understands that sometimes when humans sleep, they think of hurtful things, and this is bad. She goes to him, curls up beside him, and begins to purr, letting more of the glow release from her body and soothe his mind. He stills eventually, and he begins to breathe in the normal ways that humans do, and he seems at peace. When she falls asleep again, neither of them is disturbed until morning.
_____ _____ _____
She comes to find that the boy can be stupid.
This in and of itself is not very surprising to her; humans tend to be very stupid creatures, but the boy is very smart. Well, he is smart about all things except taking care of himself. She has trouble understanding this because most kittens learn to take care of themselves just months after they are born and would not be allowed to roam the world without it. After all, a kitten that cannot feed itself or find water is not a cat, because they would lose the chance to develop into one. The boy is young, obviously so, and the group of humans he surrounds himself with knows this too. But he is like the runt of the litter, quick to please and ready to show off, even at his own expense.
He spends his time drinking a foul liquid that he calls ‘coffee’ instead of providing himself with water. This is a stupid practice. She knows this because the other humans scold him for drinking too much. So, when he goes to drink what she counts as his fifth cup of the day, she knows she has to intervene.
He gets his gross, dark liquid from an infernal machine that provides the vile substance at will. She follows him to the room that holds the machine and sits on the counter next to it, and he pushes buttons on it to make it work. She wishes she could talk to the machine, to tell it to stop, to not hurt the boy by giving him more of that burning sludge of a drink, but the machine sits there dumbly and does as it’s told.
He puts his cup under the spout, and as the liquid falls into it, she knows she must take drastic measures. She barrels into the machine, knocking the mug out of the way and sitting in the spot where it goes, the coffee spilling out onto her. The boy panics immediately and scrambles to stop the machine, going as far as to kill it for her, unplugging it from the wall. He panics over her, taking her into his arms and speaking to her in a mix of concern and admonishment. The coffee does not harm her; the glow inside her chest makes sure of that, and she is not stupid enough to hurt herself in an attempt to help the boy, but he does not seem to understand this and frets over her the rest of the day. She delights at the attention, even if it is tainted with misplaced concern, and curls up in his lap with something like satisfaction. After all, he did not try to drink coffee again anytime soon.
_____ _____ _____
She does not know when ‘the boy’ became ‘her boy’, though it's probably around the time that she learned she loathes to see him hurt. She knows the boy does dangerous things, finds himself often in dangerous situations, and fights against dangerous people. The angel had told her this when extending his initial offer. He warned her that his night terrors were caused by terrors he faced during the day and that her life would be irrevocably different as she likely would not be able to escape these terrors herself.
But this, this, she could not stand.
Someone had stolen her boy away.
She knows where, of course. She is familiar with his scent and doesn’t allow him to go anywhere without her. She hid in his messenger bag, as is typical when she goes into a place where she is not allowed to go, and quickly followed after him when it was thrown to the side.
So, she knows that her boy is being kept somewhere dark and damp, somewhere terrible that he will most definitely have terrors about in the future. It pains her to leave him there, but she cannot help him by herself, as much as she hates to admit it. She makes the journey back to where the boy’s group of humans reside and thanks the glow in her chest for sustaining her at this time. It would not do to get tired in a situation like this. She goes up to a man who is not her boy, for his hair is too short and his skin is too dark, but a man she knows cares for her boy, and she meows at him. She meows at him, and he speaks to her with their funny human words, and she just hopes that he understands the yes-or-no communication system that her boy has established.
“Hey, Iris.” The dark-skinned man says. “Where’s Spencer?"
She goes to his left side and taps his foot. No, this means. Bad, she hopes to convey.
“No?” He seems confused. “No Spencer?"
Yes, she tells him. Spencer has gone, she means.
He crouches down to be more on her level. She appreciates that he does this and normally would reward a human for such good behavior, but now is not the time.
“No Spencer.” He says again, confirming that he understood what she had told him. “He’s not here? Where is he? Is he okay?”
No, she tells him again. He is nowhere good. Bad, bad, bad.
“Iris,” the man is serious; any trace of his usually playful personality is gone. “What’s wrong? Where’s Spencer?”
She walks away, looking back and waiting for him to follow. The man stands to his feet, pulling out his phone. He just stands there, typing into it.
No! she insists, bumping against his left leg persistently. No, no, no! No time!
“Alright.” He says, seeming to understand. “Lead the way. I’ll call them on the way.” He promises, and she darts off, the man chasing after her.
She leads him through this strange, dry desert town, dust kicking up into the air and gathering in her fur, until they come to a stop at the house that holds her boy, down in the basement.
“Here?” He asks, and she meows. He draws his weapon and says something to the other humans on the phone before tucking it away. He follows her into the house, careful and stealthy with his approach.
They wander through the halls of this house—she dares not to call it a home, because a home is where love and comfort ooze from the walls, and there is none of that here. She takes the man to the stairs of the basement and lets him lead the rest of the way. There is nowhere for him to get lost, and she, unfortunately, cannot do much more to help.
“This is the FBI," the man says when he comes down the stairs, pointing his gun at the evil human who has taken her boy away. “Put your hands up."
The evil human, who oozes hatred and resentment, the darkness falling off him in smothering waves, has a gun of his own and points it at her boy.
“If you shoot me,” he threatens wickedly, “I may die, but not without killing your agent first.”
She stares at the evil human and is suddenly filled with seething disgust. It rolls in her stomach, claws at her heart, and fills her lungs. She feels like she is choking on the darkness that spews from him and cannot focus on anything except for the fierce flame of passion that is stirring inside her. For a moment, all she can think about is the terrible things that his evil human has done to her boy in her absence and how this will certainly be a terror her boy will remember often. She thinks of the long nights that she will have, of burning the glow in her chest until it is almost dry, and of how she will have to watch her boy suffer so the glow does not get used up entirely.
And for a moment, looking at that evil human, she hates him.
The man says something to the evil human with their silly human words; his gun still pointed at him, but Iris does not process what it is. Instead, between one blink and the next, she launches herself at the evil man, who does not appear to have realized that she was there.
You fool, she thinks as she yowls in his face, clawing at his eyes. This is what you get for underestimating me. This is what you get for harming my boy.
The evil human drops his weapon and manages to throw her off of him, but by then the man has lept into action and easily gets the evil one restrained. The evil human screams and the man yells into his phone for medical attention, but she does not care. She goes over to her boy, climbs into his lap, and lets her glow flow into him. He is injured beyond what she can do to fix him, but she can help.
Later, she sits in the same position on top of him, letting her glow replenish while the human doctors heal her boy their way. Her boy, instead, takes comfort by running his fingers through her fur, and she purrs contentedly.
“Where did you say you found her?” The same man asks from where he sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair to the side of the boy’s bed.
“She was a stray."
The man looks at her as if trying to pair the peaceful cat in front of him with the cat that he watched lick blood off her paws. “That’s one hell of a loyal stray.” He comments.
Yes, she agrees with him, curling up into a ball contentedly and tucking her tail over her nose. Yes, I am.