4. Rebirth
After a long day of cutting up and planting potatoes gleaned from a field five miles away, Nix woke in one of her least favorite ways. Nocta, her ancient and unchallenged queen cat was sitting on Nix's chest and shrieking directly into her face. Once a beauty of ink black fur, soft as a night breeze and silent as death, Nocta was no longer so plush nor soft but she was still in charge and her stabby little paws could always find the softest parts of your anatomy to stand on.
"What? Shit! What the hell, Nocta!" Blearily, Nix sat up in bed looking for the crisis. There were no cats in her bed. Nocta continued to scream but ran for the stairs to the upper floor. Nix ran after her, nearly on all fours up the steep and treacherous staircase. There, in the center of where the best morning sunbeam would fall later in the day, Nix could make out a number of cats sitting or laying in a circle around something.
Flipping the switch, Nix turned on the single LED bulb and saw that Splat!, a massive calico with a disturbing and fanatical love of sharp cheddar cheese was in the center of the fray. Splat!'s markings looked funny until Nix realized that her belly had been colonized by a litter of newborn kittens rather than a new calico pattern. It had been a long time since new kittens had been born and had a chance to survive.
Nix's Murder House and Cattery was paying off. It was nearly two years after Nocta had woken her with another heart-stopping scream session and then led her to the strange house in the middle of the night. The very next day, Nix and her parade of cats had quit the Meth Shack and trekked here. No roads approached the house. There were no tire tracks, no disturbed portions of the forest floor that showed entry or egress. No one lived in it or had already looted the place. It was weird. It had walls and was defensible. It wouldn't burn. With minor changes, it would be just about the safest place they could hope for. They were home, or as close as they felt they could be.
As the human cat approached, the clowder made space for her near the main attraction. Kneeling down, Nix crooned to Splat! and then joined the pride in their sprawl on the floor. Splat!'s head was kissed many times and she was told what a good girl she was. After a few moments, she rolled further onto her back, placed her paws on Nix's slightly teary cheeks and kneaded her skin in the way of biscuit making cats of all time. Splat! purred with all the rumble one cat could manage and her impossibly small spotty and ginger babies ate, slept or were groomed by their new pride.
Soon the content purring spread throughout all the cats, and that is how everyone slept. A pile of happiness, purring with six tiny reminders of life at the center. Marmalade, the green-eyed massive ginger tom who was pretty obviously a very proud papa, remained awake or lightly dozing while sleepily grooming Splat! and still keeping out an eye for danger. Before Nix truly sacked out, she crept to the switch and turned out the light. She considered returning to the wide open luxury of her bed, but instead returned to her place on the floor and snuggled back in, quickly dropping off to sleep amid the purrs and paws.
No matter the beauty and joy of the night, the walls were patrolled, rodents were murdered and the property remained under the weather eye of grizzled toms and coal dark felines who were prepared to cause hell for the dead should the need arise.
5. The Shopping
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