Chapter 12

Five days is a long time to spend cooped up in a cabin with a sulking catfolk.

Most of them, like Kaze, pass for human as best they can. Long hair let her pin her ears down and hide the fact that they were in the top of her head rather than the side. The pinning also helped cities and their noise be less overwhelming. Her tail was easy enough to keep tucked up the back of her tunic. Some catfolk clip the things off so they don’t have to bother. That’s a big taboo, both culturally and physiologically, but it happens.

Most of the really obvious differences are easy enough to hide. It’s cruel that they have to. Folk should be free to be themselves, be they human or not. Regardless, you’ve probably passed cat or dogfolk or even some birdfolk in the street and never even noticed. Takes more work for birdfolk, but they can do it.

What’s harder to hide is that they don’t feel in the same way humans do, and they don’t express their emotions the same, either.

You know what a dogfolk is feeling the instant they do. When they’re happy, they’re HAPPY. When they’re sad, they’re SAD. When they’re pissed off, you’ll know on account of the growling and bared fangs.

Catfolk are better at hiding their feelings, up to a point. They’re good at remaining aloof and distant, right up until they take a liking to someone.

They’re social creatures, far more so than humans. They like grooming and cuddling and physical touch on the whole. When they like a human well enough to let their guard down, it’s a lot of the same. That’s where their reputation for promiscuity comes from. It’s all platonic for them, even grooming some fairly intimate places. It doesn’t read like that to us. Humans are awful at seeing the world through anyone else’s eyes.

When a catfolk is agitated, either sad or upset or angry, they tend to alternate between demanding affection and turning actively hostile towards being touched at the flip of a coin. Think every house cat you’ve ever met, but bipedal and able to curse you out in three different languages.

Kaze had a better handle on her feline instincts than most. Ten years of training, then another twenty in the active service of a dogged racist like Lady Flir taught her to lock down those instincts, even when they were screaming at her that This Wasn’t Right.

Day one, she ignored me completely. Spent most of it curled up on a ball under the blanket. I had a little fun putting morsels of food by the little air hole she kept by her head and watching her snatch them up. She made these cute little growls of frustration before grabbing them, then hissed at me through the air hole. I wasn’t just teasing, mind. She needed to eat, and she needed to know she wasn’t alone. I drew a boundary. That didn’t mean I didn’t care.

Day two, she came out from under the blanket long enough to use the head. Not a stitch of clothes, mind. They don’t wear them naturally, only when they’re trying to fit in. Since Kaze was feeling her feline side for the first time in decades, she went sky clad.

Granted, a catfolk naked isn’t like a human naked. They have fur, soft and fluffy as any housecat’s. It doesn’t tend to grow on the face or the back of the hands, and it tends to be thinner in the belly. The fur is another thing you won’t see unless they like you. Kaze’s was mostly black, with a white patch on her chest shaped like a starburst.

You have to take a catfolk’s word as to their gender. They’re all pretty by human standards, and the women only have breasts when they’re pregnant. Like housecats, they keep all the sex-relevant bits betwixt their legs tucked away until it’s needed. Only a dominant tom, usually the head of a tribe, old and mean enough to have earned the right, lets it all hang out.

Kaze going to the head (see? I can learn boat words) in her fur let me know she wasn’t actively furious with me. They don’t show their fur around humans unless they’re comfortable. She was upset, and working through some things, but she wasn’t done with me just yet.

Given that we’d known each other for a whole week at that point, I’m sure the whole thing looked mildly ridiculous from a human perspective. Catfolk bond quickly, though. A week’s as good as a decade when they take a shine to someone. Their senses are a lot sharper than a human’s, and they learn a lot more about us in that time than we do them.

Day three, Kaze went to the head, came back, and growled something under her breath. I looked away as she bent over to fish something out of her bag, partly to be polite, and partly because I didn’t want to get whacked in the face by her tail. She found whatever it was she was looking for, then sat down on her bunk.

“I’m shedding. Brush me.”

She thrust a brush, silver with fine bristles, into my hand, and turned her back to me.

Absent a better idea, I obliged. She really was shedding. The Leur plains tend to be temperate and dry year round. We were heading to a region that was decidedly more tropical, and it was already getting warmer.

The first pass teased away a ball of fluff about the size of my fist, all soft, downy undercoat meant to trap heat. By the third pass, the brush came away clean.

“You’ve done this before.”

“A few times,” I said. “Spent a winter trapped in a gorge with a tribe of catfolk, some two or three centuries back. Wet snow triggered a landslide and boxed us in. Had to wait for the thaw to dig out.”

“Mates?”

It was a fair question. Catfolk women tend to go into heat in the early winter so they can have their litters in spring.

“Nah. The tribe’s tom let me stay since I could bring in game, but he made it clear the lady folk weren’t to venture into my tent.”

“Smart man.”

“And practical. Coulda been trouble if I had to fight for it.”

She curled up and presented a leg that needed to be brushed. I obliged.

“No. You wouldn’t fight for a mate.”

“Probably not, no,” I agreed. “Not by choice.”

There wasn’t as much to brush away on the leg. Kaze rolled over and gave me the other. Helpful hint: if you ever find yourself brushing a catfolk, stay away from the tummy or the insides of their legs. Dogfolk love belly rubs. Catfolk will gut you if they don’t ask for it.

The rest of the grooming session passed in silence. When we were finished, Kaze gathered up the balls of hair and brought them to the head. They wouldn’t clog the boat’s simple plumbing.

When she got back, she sat across from me again, golden eyes boring into mine.

“I’m upset because you lied.”

Well, there it was.

“Oh?”

“You may be a good liar by human standards, Sclopetarius Nock, but I am no human. I have your scent.”

Meaning, she could smell when I was full of shit, figuratively speaking.

“If you wish to push me away out of a genuine desire to protect yourself from emotional pain, that is your right,” she continued. “I will respect your wishes and keep my distance. If, on the other hand, you intend to spare me, I will claw your eyes out. I am not some mewling kitten who needs their food chewed for them. You are not my tom. You haven’t the right to decide what’s best for me. Do we have an understanding?”

I grimaced. She was right. She could make her own decisions, avoid or embrace pain at her discretion. There were things she couldn’t know without my perspective, though.

“Would you accept that it’s both?” I asked. “I am concerned for you. You’re a good person, and I like you. It’s also true that it hurts to watch people I care about grow old and die before my eyes, while I have to keep soldiering on. Imagine watching the mother of your children slowly forget who you are as age claims her mind. Could you bear that?”

She sat silent for a time, contemplating.

“No,” she decided. “I could not. Nor would I ask it of you. That said, so long as Lady Flir draws breath, we are bound together. I do not expect us to take quite so long to kill her.”

“Meaning?”

“I do not need you for the rest of my life, Sclopetarius Nock. I just need you for the rest of hers. Think on that before you commit to prolonging your exile.”