by Renard, Loki
I feel soft, paw-like fingers underneath my chin, which is raised so my eyes meet her face. Shanti looks a lot like Falkri. She has the same dark pelt, though her whiskers are longer and she has an air of age about her, graying at the tips of her hair, which falls in a thick cascade down around her shoulders. She exudes warmth, sort of like Kate Mulgrew mixed with Pam Grier mixed with, well, a cat. There is wisdom in her golden eyes, and a kindness which makes me feel immediately at home. At her touch, a sense of relief rushes through me, all the way from the tense core of me to my toes and fingers.
“Hello,” I say.
She looks at me for an uncomfortable length of time. I feel myself examined, every part of me, including the bits nobody has ever seen. Maybe even especially those bits.
“Hello,” she says. Her voice is warm and deep with a natural purring tone which I’ve heard in other grimalkin, but not as pronounced in them. With her, it seems to throb through the air and even my own flesh.
“I’m Kitty,” I say.
“Are you.”
“Yes.”
This is not what I’d call a sophisticated conversation, but I find myself somewhat tongue-tied and awed by her. This woman has an aura of serene power about her which is as unsettling as it is calming.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
“MAROW!” Mr Tiddles agrees. He has been following at my heels, keeping almost as close an eye on me as Skoll.
“Come and eat,” she invites me. “Meet the others.”
I look up at Skoll.
“Do you feel safe to stay here?” Skoll asks me the question. I nod. I know that the simple fact he asked the question means it is okay. He wouldn’t leave me anywhere he didn’t think was going to be okay.
Mr Tiddles is already up by the fire, eating and rubbing on the ladies there, and I don’t want to be far behind him. To eat. Not to rub on the ladies.
They make room for me beside the fire, present me with food, and I watch Skoll walk away in Falkri’s company. We are strangers here. They could have anything in mind for us. They could be planning to murder Skoll and keep me… No sooner does the thought hit me, than I try to get up.
Shanti reaches for me and presses me gently back down. “No harm will come to you, or your mate.”
She would say that though, wouldn’t she.
“You are safe here. We have no interest in harming you. You are to bear a child. It would take a monster to harm you or your mate.”
“I… uh… huh?”
“You are to bear a child,” she repeats.
“I, er, I don’t think so.”
I know that’s what Skoll and I were doing through all his rough mating and claiming. He told me himself that he intended to fill me with his young. I am just surprised it worked. And I’m even more surprised that Shanti seems to sense that just by looking at me when I didn’t even know.
“You do not need to think to bear young. You need to feel.”
That sounds like something that should be embroidered on a pillow. I do not share that with Shanti.
“She’s very quiet,” a fiery red grimalkin female says.
“You could learn from her, Aster,” Shanti says with the mild disapproval of a mother correcting a slightly rude comment. “And her name is Kitty, so you should address her directly.”
“I’m not really that quiet,” I say, joining the conversation about how quiet I am, or rather, am not.
They all stare at me and I wish I hadn’t spoken at all. I wish I was like Mr Tiddles. He’s washing his butthole and doesn’t care who is watching. That kind of confidence would make situations like these so much easier. Instead, I pick at my food and let the conversation sort of wash over me, as the women return to their previous topics of discussion, which seem to center around the males of the tribe and who is copulating with who. Dwight may have been right. The art of gossip is alive and well in this wild tribe, but I don’t think it is petty or pointless. I think it serves an important social bonding process. Shanti does not partake in it, but she listens, and gently guides the conversation.
I have nothing to say, because I have a lot to think about. I am pregnant. With an alien’s baby. I knew it was possible, but it still doesn’t feel real to me at all. Is it true? Do they have alien baby tests out here? They don’t even have running water, so no.
I am now officially silently freaking out.
“I uh… I...” I stammer something as I get up and practically run out of the hovel. It is too hot in there, the others are too close. They are too strange. I run to the woods and find myself being sick into an innocent bush which probably did not need my shit today.
Someone is touching me.
Who the hell is touching me? I turn my head slightly and see that Shanti is there, watching over me, her clawed hands running through my hair to pull it back from my face.
“Sorry,” I say, embarrassed. “I don’t usually do stuff like that.”
“No need to apologize,” she replies. “It is common to have stomach upsets when pregnant… or afraid.”
How does she know that I am afraid? She’s right. I’m afraid of her, of this place, of the life which is allegedly inside me.
“How could you know, and I not?”
“Sometimes we do not see what we are afraid to see,” she says. “You are safe here, Kitty. You do not need to hide your pregnancy from us, or from yourself any longer.”
“You think I’ve just been in some kind of reproductive denial?”
“I think you have braved many strange things to arrive here, with us. I think you have scars across your body which speak to pain and the facing of your own death. I think you are a small warrior who has not had the chance to be soft. But here you will find a gentle place to be.”
My eyes are welling with tears as Shanti speaks to a yearning I would have denied ever having before I felt this emotional resonance. It is like it was the first time I truly connected with Skoll, but instead of being sexual, it is something broader, deeper, and extended to the group as a whole.
“Why are you being so nice to me? I’m a stranger.”
“You’re not a stranger. You’re a stray,” she says, extending her arms around me in an embrace. “We welcome strays. Our hearth is yours.”
“But I’m not even…”
Her hand whips against my ass lightly, not as hard as Skoll would spank me, but hard enough to get my attention.
“Stop telling me what you are not. Stop telling yourself what you are not. Let yourself be, here, with us. And find out what you will become.”
“A mother,” I whisper the word.
“A mother,” she agrees.
14 Mother
Kitty
Many hours later, Skoll returns. I have my back to the door when he comes in, so I don’t see him until he sweeps me up from my place in the circle and licks my neck with an effusive expression of affection.
He looks tired, but happy. Today I have learned how to help the others spin fiber from the pelts of fallen wild beasts. I wonder what he has learned.
“Where have you been?”
“Proving myself in the hunt. There’s enough meat on the beast I brought down to feed the village for a week.” He beams. He really does look so proud of himself I can’t help but feel proud of him too.
“Skoll will be a worthy addition to our tribe,” Falkri agrees.
“Yesterday you wanted to leave,” I remind him. “This morning you were saying we had to go on our way. And now that’s all changed?”
“That was yesterday. And this morning,” he says, holding me close. “Falkri has been chewing my ear off all day. This tribe does not have many mature hunters. They suffered a disease which killed many several years ago. They need our help.”
“They need your help,” I say. “And so do I. Shanti says I’m pregnant.”
Skoll does not react with surprise as I thought he would. “Of course you are. I inseminated you enough times to be pregnant a tho
usand times over.”
“Of course? That’s what you have to say. A baby, Skoll! A fucking baby! In the fucking woods!”
“Shhhh,” he says, pulling me close as my panic, which I have been holding back all day, bursts free all over him. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. We’ll stay here. You’ll have help with the baby, and I will provide for you and all these wild ones.”
“Falkri must have really talked you around,” I say, burying my face in his chest.
“He didn’t say much at all. He showed me how it could be here. What a life we could have. A life I could never give you on your own. You were right. This is our home.”
“Okay, then I have another question.”
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t you have a tail?”
“Civilized grimalkin are docked at birth. It’s cruel, some say, because it’s part of our spine, but it makes our pants fit better.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, it really does make pants fit a whole lot better.”
“That’s…” I splutter. “No. I mean that’s barbaric and cruel to dock a tail just to fit pants.”
“Ah well.”
“Ah well. I hope you're not planning on docking our infant’s tail, because I will find a really big spade to hit you with.”
“How sweet, you’re starting to think about our family.”
“I am, and there will be no snippy snippy.”
“Very well,” he smiles, looking very satisfied with himself.
The great hovel is starting to get quite full as the warriors return, some of them finding their places among the females, others loitering on the far side away from them, like young men at their first dance, a little too nervous to approach.
There is an order here. An order they all understand, and which I think I am beginning to comprehend as well.
Held in Skoll’s embrace, I am somewhat pulled into the round of males, all of whom seem to want to get to know him better. He must have made quite the impression on the hunt. Their expressions are full of admiration.
“Skoll brought down the beast we will feast upon tonight. He is a full-blooded warrior,” Falkri declares. “Those who feed our bellies have a place in our hearts always.”
These grimalkin are so easily welcoming. I worry for them that they could be exploited if the city cats were to become aware of just how easily they can be infiltrated.
“This is Fenrir. He is Falkri’s younger brother,” Skoll says, interrupting my worrying with an introduction.
Fenrir has a dark pelt with wild white markings trammeling his physique. His eyes are also golden, like his brother’s and mother’s, but he has a less serious air about him. If I had to categorize him in human terms, I’d describe him as a jock. Young, brash, and about to say something completely fucking stupid.
“You've impregnated the human. Are you not concerned about the abomination which will likely ensue?”
“If you refer to my future infant as an abomination again, I will gut you.” Skoll's reply is swift and effective.
Fenrir throws back his head and laughs. “A bold and good answer, friend. But you have to be concerned. Your offspring will be weaker for their humanity. What if they have no fur pelt to keep the elements from their skin? What if they have no claws with which to climb and fight? How could they possibly survive in the wild?”
“Humans live on their wiles,” Dwight chimes in. “They do not need the physical attributes we have. They fashion their own pelts and they make their own claws, weapons many times more ferocious than our own.”
“I think I know about humans, maybe more than you do. Being as I am one, and all,” I say.
“You may do, but do you know what will emerge from you? Some…” He pauses and chooses his words slightly more carefully. “Some mixture of our species. It could be deformed.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not? Does not saying it make it less likely? Do you not understand how probabilities work?” He looks over my head at Skoll. “In addition to having mated with a human, you appear to have mated with a stupid one.”
And that’s when I hit him with a spade.
It’s actually more a rock than a spade, because I have to make do with what is at hand. It is a metaphorical spade, and a physical rock, and it hits him right between the eyes when I throw it.
The wild grimalkin warriors burst out laughing, very much amused at my violent outburst.
“NO!” Skoll grabs me and lectures me, but it is too late. I’ve already rocked Dwight right in the face. He’s bleeding in the way he very much deserves to. Nobody mocks me and gets away with it while I have access to something heavy in my hand, or near it.
“Who is stupid now?”
Dwight holds his head, from which he is bleeding, and shrugs. “Wily does not mean not stupid.”
“Enough," Falkri interjects. “Enough of the insults and the rocks. The human and the city cat are staying, and they will be treated with respect.”
I can see why he is their alpha. He is powerful, but he is also fair. And we are fucking lucky we ran into him, and not someone else. Fate has protected us. And also my spade hand.
I can already tell I’m not in trouble with him, or Skoll for beaning Dwight between the eyes, but when I look over my shoulder, I see Shanti’s arms folded over her chest, the claws of her right hand extended in a way which seems to indicate I should be more careful.
Maybe I will be.
Maybe I won’t.
15 City Retreat
Skoll
We settle in well, Kitty and me. She has been welcomed by the wild cats just as I have even though she shares little in common with them. I believe her delicate condition, as she refers to it, has endeared her to the other women, especially Shanti, who has taken a maternal interest in my human mate. She has also taken some of the job of teaching Kitty how to integrate into grimalkin society in a way which is usually much more gentle than the methods I have used.
Every day Kitty grows greater with our child. Every day she gets a little slower on her feet and a little shorter in her temper. We are both filled with great anticipation to meet our cub, to see our love made innocent flesh. I have never been so proud of anybody as I am of Kitty. She has truly become one of us, an honorary grimalkin in human form.
Being pregnant has not made her any less of a handful, however. If anything, it has intensified all her natural Kitty-ness. Hormones are powerful in our species, but I think they may be even more powerful in hers. Her skin is glowing, and her hair is even more silky and shiny than before. She's beautiful.
"You're beautiful,” I tell her as we wait for Shanti to finish checking her over. She has had regular meetings with the matriarch since she began to grow fully of belly.
“I AM AS BIG AS A HOUSE,” she complains loudly.
“Hush,” Shanti says. “I cannot hear the baby when you yell.”
Shanti has taken a very sweet interest in Kitty and our baby, which I appreciate greatly, even if Kitty doesn’t always seem to. She settles when Shanti tells her to, however.
“This is your fault,” she tells me. “Your sperm got me into this.”
“Couldn't have done it without your egg.”
“You hijacked my egg.”
“You’ve both done this together," Shanti says.
“But I’m the one who is going to have it burst out of me.”
“You are the one who will experience the connection of motherhood,” Shanti tells her. “You will be forever changed when this little one arrives. You have much to look forward to.”
Kitty makes a growling sound. I think she’s starting to take on a lot of grimalkin traits. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Maybe it is a Kitty thing. I don’t know. But I do know she’s being disrespectful.
“Are you frightened?” Shanti asks. She casts a look over at me, quelling my natural impulse to chastise Kitty.
“Psshhh,” Kitty snorts. “Afraid of a cat b
aby coming out of me, why would I be afraid of that? Afraid that I don't know what it will even look like? Or if it will be okay? Or if I will be? Afraid of giving birth in a hovel on a distant planet?”
She’s terrified. And I can’t stop her from being afraid of those things, because they are frightening.
“I have seen many births,” Shanti says. “And I promise, no matter what, I will be here for yours. You will not be alone.”
Kitty breathes out a deep sigh. “Thanks,” she says, glancing quickly at Shanti, then at me.
She still doesn't know how much she is cared for. I think she still feels like a strange alien on a distant world. I don’t know what I can do to change that. Making love to her won’t change it. I've done that more times than either of us can count.
I look at Shanti, and I think the matriarch senses my helplessness. There is so much I can do for Kitty. I can defend her from enemies. I can break her will and turn her into my willing sex toy. But I can’t fix whatever is at the core of her that makes her so prickly.
“It’s going to be gross, isn't it,” Kitty says.
“Gross is relative. Go and relax with your mate. Enjoy the last few weeks you have as just the two of you.”
“God, could you be any more cliche?” Kitty mutters the words under her breath as we leave. She is many things, but she is not normally needlessly rude. I know Shanti’s keen ears pick up Kitty’s snarky whining quite clearly, but she does not show any outward sign of having heard. I owe the matriarch a great debt for her patience.
* * *
I hold Kitty's hand and lead her through the village. This is a place of peace like I never thought I would find with others. My den on the mountainside used to be my private sanctuary, a place I was able to escape the city. I have always been wild at heart, and so has Kitty, I think.
