by Renard, Loki
“The better part of a month,” he says. “I am sorry. They did a lot of damage before I got to you. You had many broken bones in more than one of your limbs, and I believe some organ damage too.” His brows draw down and his eyes become sorrowful. “I almost lost you. You almost died.”
“I know…”
There’s a warm breeze flitting across the ledge, and the sun is warm. The view from this place is spectacular, and so is the company. It doesn’t feel so bad to have almost died when this is what I have to look at. There’s a peace here I’ve never encountered anywhere else.
“I’m surprised you saved me. I thought I was just meat to you.”
“You’ve never been meat to me,” he says, crouching down next to me. He touches me so gently I feel his caress almost as a whisper on the wind. I used to wonder if he even liked me, now I know better. He adores me. It is in his touch, his eyes, his voice, and then in his kiss as he claims my mouth with more love than ever before.
Mew?
I break the kiss. Quick.
“I must be hearing things. That sounds like Mr Tiddles.”
Ma ma mow!
“That is him! That’s him!?” I turn around this way and that, trying to see him. Is he on this ledge? This isn’t safe for him. It is way too high up in the air. He could fall off. And where is he? I can’t see him.
“He’s over there, in the secret space,” Skoll says pointing to the hollow in the rock, where Mr Tiddles has taken up refuge. Tears fill my eyes as he rises to his feet and stretches, arching his back all the way as high as he can. He opens his little mouth in a wide yawn, entirely unconcerned, then pads toward me, his tail up and curled like a question mark.
“How did you find him?” There are tears in my eyes as I stare in disbelief.
“Actually, he came to me. He helped me find you. I was following you through all your wall walks, one after the other. He appeared in one and leaped through to the military installation before I could grab him. Then he followed us back once I had you. Hasn’t left your side, either.”
Mr Tiddles bumps his head against mine and curls up against me. I am so glad to feel his heat and his purr again I could cry.
“Do you still think he's your fugitive?”
Skoll tilts his head to the side. “If he is, he’s refusing to leave that body. He may actually be a cat.”
“He’s not a cat,” I say, rubbing Mr Tiddles under the chin. He stretches out, his eyes half-closed, and rubs his head against my fingers. His purr is loud. “Why don’t you purr?”
“Big cats don’t purr,” Skoll says. “And why do you say he’s not a cat?”
“Cats don’t lead rescuers to their owners. He’s a hero.”
“On that we can agree,” Skoll smiles.
I lie there with my two favorite boys in the universe, and a question pops into my head. “If big cats don’t purr, why is this planet called Purr?”
“Irony?”
“They don’t name planets after irony. This planet isn’t called Purr at all, is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. I guess not. We’re all fugitives here now. We’ll have to run away.”
“We will,” he smiles. “Run away forever and a day, just you and me together.”
“And Mr Tiddles.”
“And Mr Tiddles,” he concedes.
10 The Great Escape
Kitty
We spend a very long time in the cave away from everywhere. Alone on a remote ledge, living on limited supplies and trying to survive, we finally have time to do something I wish we’d done before: talk.
We talk about everything. I tell Skoll how I grew up on a farm, then moved to the city, hoping to make my fortune as an actress, only to discover that nobody actually wants somebody who only sings one Julie Andrews song.
“I enjoy your singing," he says, and again I know he loves me.
“One director told me I sounded like a strangled cat.”
“He didn’t know what he was talking about,” Skoll says. “Humans never do. All talk, no knowing anything.”
“You don’t like us, do you. Our people, I mean.”
“I like you.”
“That was almost a tactful response,” I smile.
“Wasn’t it,” he smiles back, all fangs and love.
“You know, you hid what a nice guy you are for a very long time. I had to almost die to realize you weren’t just a controlling asshole.”
“And that was almost a compliment,” he replies. “You’re mine, Kitty. From the moment I first saw you down on Earth, I wanted you.”
“Is that why you knocked me out and brought me back. You always intended to abduct me?”
“Not always. But you were aiding and abetting a criminal. With a spade,” he smirks. “We didn’t get off on the right foot, did we? What were you doing with that spade anyway?”
“I was burying a cat.”
His head jerks up and his eyes sharpen, if that is possible. “You were burying a cat? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“It never came up.”
“It didn’t occur to you that it should come up when I told you I was hunting a cat for being an intergalactic fugitive?”
“No, because you said it was Mr Tiddles you were looking for. You said you’d been tracking him for weeks. Remember?”
“Yes. I remember. Why were you burying a cat?”
“Because somebody hit it with a car. People do that. Or cats do that to people, sometimes. They have a habit of running into traffic. Makes people feel like real pieces of shit.”
He pauses and gives me one of those long interrogational looks.
“You hit the cat, didn’t you.”
I feel my stomach fill with that old, sick guilt. “Yes. And I deserve everything that’s happened since, probably. I love cats. I would never have hurt one on purpose.”
“It was an accident. You should forgive yourself. And we should get back and dig that cat up.”
“Gross.”
“It may have been my fugitive. It is possible that I mistook Mr Tiddles for the fugitive. I may have gotten a false signal from multiple cats patrolling the area. It was spotty at the best of times.”
“It would have been good if you’d made extra-double-triple-sure before you tried to catch my cat and dragged me into all of this, right off my planet.”
“It would have been good, yes,” Skoll admits. “Hopefully I will be a better fugitive than I was bounty hunter. We have to leave this place, and I don’t know where we should go. Perhaps another planet.”
“What about Earth?”
“Earth is a tedious place…”
“But it’s where I belong,” I say. “In my shitty rental, with my cat and the one that’s going underneath the rose bush. And it’s where you can live too, as long as you wear a mask and shave.”
“Pretend to be human again?”
“Sure. Why not?”
He doesn’t look convinced. And to tell the truth, I am not convinced either. Can I ever go back to my old life? Do I even want to? There is something about being out here in what passes for the wild which makes me feel alive in a way I never felt when I had a bathroom with running water. The words of the grimalkin named Garbage come back to me. Home is gone.
“I think you know why not,” he says. “You’ll know something no other humans will know. You’ll know the truth about some facets of your world, and existence outside it. You’ll be asked to fill out an online survey for a chance at winning an e-reader and you’ll think about walking through walls which lead from one side of the world to the other. Nothing will ever compare to this…”
“Earth can be complex too, you know. And we have some impressive technology ourselves. We can’t step through walls, but we can cook popcorn in under three minutes.”
“And that’s what you want? Mediocre popcorn?”
“I don’t want to be shot up by your military.”
“Neither do I. But getting off this planet won't be
easy, or without danger. I think we should move into the wilds, away from the walking walls. Out where the truly feral tribes remain.”
“Feral tribes?”
“You don’t think our species originated in the cities, do you? There are still plenty of grimalkin living wild. Their laws are, if anything, even more brutal than the magistrate’s. You will remain my chain-kept, or you will be regarded as fair game. Though…” His eyes dip to my stomach. “Bearing my young will mark you just as well.”
“I’m not bearing your young,” I tell him. “Not yet, anyway. And what about Mr Tiddles?”
“We’ll fashion a sling for him and I’ll wear him.”
“I don’t know how he’ll feel about that…”
Before I can say anything else, Skoll grabs Mr Tiddles and wraps him up in soft fabric until he’s thoroughly captured him in a purrito. He then proceeds to take the ends of the aforementioned kitty burrito and wrap them around his neck and back.
“Oh…” I clap my hands to my face. “My god. You just hit peak adorable.
Seeing my cat strapped to Skoll like he is Skoll's baby is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I may actively be ovulating at the sight.
“Oh my god… Oh my god!”
“Come on,” he says. “There’s no way they don’t trace our wall walks soon and come and catch us. We should go.”
“Right now?”
“Sure. You’re well enough to argue, you’re well enough for us to get going.”
I can’t argue with logic like that.
And so, we run.
Or technically, we climb, very slowly, down a very high rock face, triggering every fear of heights me and all of my ancestors have ever had.
Now that I am strong enough to cling to his fur and wrap my arms and legs around his lithe, powerful body, Skoll puts me on his back and adds straps to keep me in place. On the other side of Skoll’s body, Mr Tiddles is pissed off. I can hear him vibrating with a sort of perpetual feline yowl which emits steadily from his little purrito burrito.
I don't much like this either. As soon as Skoll slips over the edge, I feel us slide down several feet before his claws dig into the rock face and his massive body hangs in mid-air, nothing between us but oxygen and probably a bit of hydrogen and literally nothing which will break our fall.
“I’m getting dizzy,” I whimper, hiding my face in his fur.
“Don’t look down,” he says. “Just talk to me. Feel me. I’m here."
“But if you fall, then we both fall.”
“I’m not going to fall,” he promises. “And if I do, I’ll catch us before we hit the ground. Promise. I’ve done this a thousand times.”
I feel myself relax, because I believe him. I have always been safe with Skoll. The only time I got hurt was when I ran off on my own. I don’t intend to repeat that mistake.
* * *
After what seems like an interminable descent, we reach the bottom and Skoll releases me from his back. It takes a second or two for my body to start to work properly again. I didn’t realize how tense I was, or how cramped my muscles had gotten from clinging to him. When it’s a matter of life and death, the body seems to take very little notice of minor aches and complaints.
“Wow! That was fun! Let’s do it again!” It’s the adrenaline talking, but it is also me talking. Every time I survive something dangerous that should really kill me, I feel an intense rush of confidence which makes me want to do something else that might kill me. This is probably how adrenaline junkies get started. I will have to be careful, or before I know it, I’ll be awash in adrenaline daily.
“We need to go,” Skoll says. “We’ll head north.”
“Why north?”
“Because it is away from Scratch City and civilization, and that is the safest place for us right now. We’re going to go deep into the forests of the wild. We’re going to build our lives from scratch…”
“We’re going to build our lives from Scratch City?”
“No. From scratching our way into the soil.”
“Really?”
“No. I was using a human idiom.”
“I thought you didn’t like human things. I thought you thought they were all stupid, remember?”
“I like some of them. Like you, for instance.”
“There was a time you wouldn’t admit that, remember?”
“There was a time I pinned you over my thighs and spanked you hard for being a smart-mouthed brat, remember that?”
I giggle, a sound which reaches a higher pitch when he takes hold of me by the arm, swings me around and lays a firm slap to my ass. He must have real faith in my recovery to be spanking me again.
“Hey! I’m injured, remember?”
“You’re healed enough to be disciplined lightly,” he tells me.
Skoll
I have missed spanking her. I have missed the feeling of her disobedient rear squirming beneath my palm. I have missed the little squeals she makes, half-outrage, half-arousal. She’s beautiful and intoxicating in every way. She arouses my lust, my love, my dominance in a way none before her ever have, and nobody else ever will.
“We’re running from the law! Remember? We’re desperate fugitives who have to escape! We don’t have time for this!” She’s trying to argue her way out of what she senses is coming. I have nursed her back to health, but she is due a thorough punishment for running away from me in the first place.
“There’s always time to make your skin turn red and sheath myself inside you,” I reply. “But you are right, naughty human. We do need to make better time than this.”
“That’s right. I am right," she says, her smile more nervous than triumphant. She can feel what is coming, both in its intensity and its inevitability.
“Careful, Kitty,” I remind her. “When we find a safe place, you and I will have our reckoning.”
“But that’s not faiiirr…” she whines the word in a long, drawn out, nasally kind of way which tempts me to grab a branch from the nearest tree and whip her deserving rear with it. But I have to be patient — and she deserves to wait for her reckoning. It will not do her disobedient little human mind any damage to think about what she has done and what will come as a result.
Kitty
“Later,” he says. “When we make camp, you will feel my lash.”
I hope we don’t make camp for quite a while.
Together we plunge into a jungle forest deeper and more wild than any I have encountered before, including in my dreams. I have to stay directly behind him, lest he be swallowed up by generously oversized leaves and foliage which threatens to hide him from me.
“Wait!” I hiss. “I can’t keep up.”
“You do have very short legs,” he says in a tone which I find insulting.
He crouches down and gestures to his back. “Climb aboard,” he says. “It will be easier to carry you both than have you wandering off and getting lost.”
It’s easier for him, and it is much easier for me to be carried than having to walk. I am tired. I guess it’s the exhaustion of being nearly beaten to death which does it. There are still wounds yet to heal, and bruises yet to resolve. I don’t think I will ever forget what it feels like to be at the predatory mercy of one of these creatures.
“Why didn’t Richardkimble just escape into the jungle if it is so much easier and better than taking a shuttle to Earth?”
“Who knows what went on in his deviant mind,” Skoll says. “He was a master criminal. I wish I had captured him and brought him to justice. Though I suppose you did that, in a manner of speaking…”
“No. That was a freak accident,” I say, feeling immediately sad again. I would never hurt any animal on purpose. That’s why I reacted so aggressively when I saw ‘Tim’ chasing Mr Tiddles. I was absolutely miserable and ridden with guilt.
“The universe has a way of balancing itself through freak incidents,” Skoll says. Sometimes he is surprisingly wise. Other times he’s a big, feral beast without a thought in
his head.
11 Welcome to the Wild
Skoll
We have been walking for several weeks, making camp and breaking it the next morning, heading ever deeper into the overgrown wilds. Technically, I have been walking and Kitty has been more or less riding me. I have become her beast of burden, which I quite like. Carrying her means I know where she is, and it means I get to feel her against me, grinding in what is probably an unintentionally desire-provoking way.
Everything she does makes me want her. I have not mentioned it to her because I am sure it would provoke an outburst of one kind or another, but I believe she may already be carrying my offspring. Inside her body grow the seeds for a strange and incredible future.
But our journey is not yet at its end. Far from it. What awaits us in the wilds is unpredictable and dangerous. I have not made her aware of all the frightening things which might befall her, and us, if I am not careful.
So it does not help when she begins to sing that song she used to sing when I would watch her from afar. The same song which makes it impossible for me to hear the wilds around us, taking one of my essential senses. I don’t have the heart to tell her to be quiet, besides, her warbling may very well drive sensitive predators away.
I love her singing. I love it the first time she sings the song, and the second time she sings the song, and the other dozen times she sings it, sometimes loud and sometimes quiet, and sometimes mumbling along to herself when I think she is close to going to sleep.
I travel as fast as I can, running at a steady pace. I need to put as much distance between my old home and us. Sooner or later the military will make the trek to my home with their weapons and intent to murder, and when they find us not there, they will look around the area. But they won’t look forever, I’d wager. At some point, they’ll lose interest and we will be free to live our lives in the great wilds.
The sun is beginning to descend toward the horizon when my plan goes wrong.
I suddenly feel eyes on us. Intelligent, stalking, hunting eyes.
