She shakes, then her shoulders lose what strength they had moments earlier, and she slumps.
I move closer but do nothing to betray my presence. I have long since mastered the art of moving unseen by the clumsy in Ghal.
“Cat!” A child’s voice carries through the otherwise quiet street.
I whirl to find someone no more than five, jabbing a pudgy finger my way. They repeat their declaration as if to inform anyone else who had thought me to be something other than what I am.
“Cat. Cat. Cat.”
Yes, very good. You’re twice as smart as you look, which isn’t that smart at all, doubly so when considering your limitations as a human. I tell him this but remember myself and let a touch of grace flood my voice. “Maoooow.”
He frowns, furrowing dark brows and losing what spark had taken his brown eyes moments earlier. Then, a madness seizes hi,m and he reaches for me with an open hand.
I hiss and move with a speed only rivaled by beings in stories. My paw darts and bats his hand several times. Away! Back! You’ve no right to touch me, little dullard. “Maow!”
The child reels, clearly overwhelmed by my ferocity, and falls into the snow. Their face twists and tears follow. His voice cracks and fills the air with a young boy’s cry.
Oh, Brahm’s breath.
I close the distance and reach out with a paw. He shies away from the touch at first, bawling twice as hard as before. I let him know that it is fine, and I am only trying to comfort him. “Mrr.”
My touch makes its way across the top of his head and, for a moment, he ceases his tantrum. Assured that he will no longer sound an alarm to my presence, I tear free from the place, searching for the young girl I’d seen moments earlier.
I catch a passing sight of her as she turns past one of Ghal’s rounded buildings. The cold hasn’t reached me deeply yet, but I feel its grip against my muscles. Still, I bound after her, keeping an eye on one of the city’s overlooked.
I have lived too long in the same way to let the same suffering befall another. Just as Ari once did for me, I’ll do for her. At least in some small manner.
My run brings me past the flatbread maker she had been eyeing, but there is no time for that now. She moves to another merchant. A man stacking cutlets of freshly cooked meat. The smell of it is touched with sharp spices and of charcoal. His hands move and several pieces of lamb are skewered and then folded within a sheaf of parchment.
The young girl fiddles in the folds of her robes, drawing out two bent pieces of tin. She motions at one of the pieces of meat and the man blinks. Then he laughs, head thrown back and a hand waving her off. She shrinks further into her clothes and the money vanishes back inside the tattered cloth. The child does not linger, knowing well enough to harsh truth of the orphan’s life.
There are few places where we are welcome for long. And fewer still where we are wanted at all.
So, she shuffles onward, and I walk her path, prowling just far enough behind to keep from being spotted.
I am the truest embodiment of stealth, and—
“Oi, what’s this?” The man’s voice holds as much smoke and coal grit as his cooking pit.
He is lean with features brought out even harder by the thinness in his face. His foot blurs and I recognize what it means. I move just as the tip of his boot sails by where I had been moments ago.
“Hsst, move-move. Gutiya. Stray. You’ll drive away customers.” Another motion of his foot, but this time it is only a deterrent—no lashing kick.
I bite back the urge to hiss or lunge at the man. Fool that he is, I have need of his goods. I require but just one piece of your offerings, cook, and I’ll be on my way. You can spare that much. “Mrowl.”
The man turns his eyes to focus on everywhere but me, now realizing I will not be brushed aside. “Hot skewers. Goat, lamb, and some sheep. Spiced and fresh and still hot-hot!” He cups his hands to his mouth, making his voice carry.
You have more than enough to give scraps to an orphan, fool! “Maaaow.”
Another movement of foot and a current of snow sails my way, but I am the pure shape of deftness itself. So I leap, the torrent of snow…still brushing my sides.
I hiss, leaping at his legs. My paws strike with a fury and speed unrivaled by anything short of the gods.
“Ackh!” He shakes one leg, trying to dislodge me.
But I will not be shaken.
His hands clamp to folds of skin at the back of my throat and he heaves me up.
Unhand me, you cussed, callow, heartless—“Mrrow!”
My world teeters as he shakes me. Old instinct takes hold and my paws move to take action. And I am free as quick as that.
The man reels, his hips brush against the flat metal surface atop the flame. It tilts, and charred meat falls to the snow.
“Brahm’s Blood!” The cook grabs the flesh of his hand, now welting fresh red from where my claws savaged him. He does not have the grace to thank me for my mercy, for I could have just as easily cleaved him to ribbons instead of just some scratches. Instead he spits curses.
I ignore him and take a rolled parchment of meat between my mouth.
“Thief!”
I am at that, and a marvelous one, just like my ward—Ari. My legs carry me far from his protests and a look over my side reveals the man retrieving what meat he can from the snow.
Serves him right. There are many forms of poverty in the world, but no few so bad as those poor in heart. The ones unable to give but even a piece of it to someone else in so desperate a need of its touch—its warmth. There is a special place in the bottom of the world for men like that, but it is not for me to judge. Well, mostly not for me. I happen to be a marvelous arbiter of character. So Brahm has shaped all my kind to be.
The girl comes into view ahead and vanishes just as quick. Her threadbare robes flutter at the edge of a corner I barely catch sight of. But it is enough.
I set chase again and keep from the throng of tangling legs and awkward shuffling steps only humans can take. Utterly without care, grace, or the eyes to see what moves before them. If I had the time, I would give them the sharp side of my tongue and point out all they do wrong. But they wouldn’t have the ears for it anyhow.
I reach the turn she’s taken and move along it, coming to a space between the many domed structures in the city of Ghal. There is a point where three buildings meet to form a nook of sorts. Attached to the roofs of others is a canted structure of wood. A hovel by all accounts, stretching far into the alley and supported by beams that look close to giving way. But it is what lies under it that catches my attention most.
A bed, fashioned much as the structure around it. Shoddy wood barely kept together. Blankets that are closer to rags than their namesake. And the elderly woman beneath them. By her side rests the child I have been following.
“It’s fine, mama.” She runs an affectionate hand over her mother’s brow, wiping away the beaded sweat.
It is near the full of winter’s cold and the woman is flush with sweat. That tells me enough.
I approach, making no effort to hide my coming.
The young girl notices and flicks a gaze towards her ill mother. “Tsst. Go away.” She motions with a hand, trying to shoo me.