Work Text:
"Recent developments in catnip will have you spaced out for days!
Hortensia Bells, botanist witch superstar, has once again stunned felinekind. Her latest discovery has the potential to revolutionize catnip production, keeping it fresh, keeping it pure, keeping it...nippable."
Hortensia licked a paw and lifted it to her face, which was inappropriately warm.
"Shall I keep reading?" Melinda Maze, yet to be named in the article, smiled crookedly up at her witch. The newsprint stained her whole belly.
"Please don't."
"Hey, at least there are no puns this time."
Hortensia sighed, washing herself more furiously, before replying. "The misinformation is just as bad. The leadup makes it sound as if we're trying to produce some sort of...endless entertainment drug!"
"You," chirped Melinda. Her whiskers twitched. "You're making the drugs. Okay," she continued, not liking the flick of Hortensia's tail, "we've been through this. It's a magazine. They need an angle to justify the reader's interest. A fun one--"
"It doesn't have to be a fun one, at least not something so trivial--"
"A fun one," said Melinda, "to go with all the magic you're so good at explaining."
"Not good enough if they need all that," Hortensia grumbled, but she was smiling back now. This was important, damnit. Cats couldn't go on swooning or screeching or chasing their tails without any care as to what was causing it. They controlled themselves! They did things when they meant to do it! Except that wasn't true and Hortensia knew it. So did Melinda. Botany mattered. Understanding the effects of catnip on natural cat behavior meant studying the plant itself, how it worked and what made it thrive. Speaking to it mattered, and the magic was delicate; breaching the interspecies barrier had been hard enough between cat and mouse. Plants were a whole other branch on the evolutionary tree, and she was but one of the many attempting to climb onto it. It wasn't just cats who were trying.
"I just...hate to think people won't understand what we're doing." Hortensia slow-blinked. "And you! You're the fun one, and most of the time they don't even quote you."
"Eh, who needs the glossy covers. You'll make it up to me anyhow. Uh." Melinda shifted under Hortensia's gaze. "Ripe cheese cubes. Milk baths in your dishes. You know, the works." She'd rather Hortensia be irritated again.
Still, when Hortensia lowered her head, Melinda permitted the nuzzling.
It wasn't so bad listening to a cat purr when they weren't after you.