Josidiah let the thought hang outside consciousness, put it aside for another day, a day of rain and fog, perhaps. He looked back to the panther and sighed even more sadly, feeling helpless indeed. “Treat the cat well, Anders Beltgar-den,” he said, and he knew that the old man, once a ranger, would indeed do so.
Josidiah left then, making his way more slowly as he returned to the elven city. He saw Felicity again on the balcony, wearing a slight silken shift and a mischievous, inviting smile, but he passed her by with a wave. The bladesinger suddenly did not feel so much in the mood for play.
Many times in the next few weeks, Josidiah returned to Anders’s tower and sat quietly before the cage, silently communing with the panther while the mage went about his work.
“She will be yours when I am done,” Anders announced unexpectedly, one day when spring had turned to summer.
Josidiah stared blankly at the old man.
“The cat, I mean,” said Anders. “Whiskers will be yours when my work is done.”
Josidiah’s blue eyes opened wide in horror, though Anders interpreted the look as one of supreme elation.
“She’ll do me little use,” explained the mage. “I rarely venture out of doors these days, and in truth, have little faith that I will live much more than a few winters longer. Who better to have my most prized creation, I say, than Josidiah Starym, my friend and he who should have been a ranger?”
“I shall not accept,” Josidiah said abruptly, sternly.
Anders’s eyes widened in surprise.
“I would be forever reminded of what the cat once was,” said the elf, “and what she should be. Whenever I called the slave body to my side, whenever this magnificent creature sat on her haunches, awaiting my command to bring life to her limbs, I would feel that I had overstepped my bounds as a mortal, that I had played as a god with one undeserving my foolish intervention.”
“It’s just an animal!” Anders protested.
Josidiah was glad to see that he had gotten through to the old mage, a man the elf knew to be too sensitive for this present undertaking.
“No,” said the elf, turning to stare deeply into the panther’s knowing eyes. “Not this one.” He fell silent, then, and Anders, with a huff of protest, went back to his work, leaving the elf to sit and stare, to silently share his thoughts with the panther.
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