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6:43 PM
II
I keep running for what seems too long. Eventually, a fear creeps over me that maybe I'm chasing a hunger pang. The mistake, I think, has lost me my camp. Just as I turn back, the insistent trill echoes some ways ahead in the direction I'd been heading. Despite thinking better of it, I charge again toward my feline friend.
Finally, I come to a clearing. The cat, for his part, sits atop a rock breaking like the Rockies out of the snow-covered landscape, his foot held high at a diagonal angle above his head as his tongue works furiously.
"Well...this was worth it!" I say dryly after a few minutes of staring blankly at the strange little beast. The cat being a cat goes right on licking, changing legs when he's satisfied the other is clean. Tired of standing in my growing disenchantment, I walk over to the cat's mountainous perch, letting myself sink down to the ground, my back feeling every chilled contour of the rock. As I quickly fall asleep, warm steps make their way down my shoulder, then down my chest, until they finally reach my lap where a toasty, purring ball of fluff takes his place.
--
The next thing I know, a furred gauntlet is toying with my earlobe.
"Wha...what?" I demand groggily, craning my neck around to where the little devil is perched.
Naturally, the creep responds with a rough vulgarity, swiping me again with unnaturally powerful little paws.
"What do you.." I start, when I finally see what the little fellow wanted all along.
Breaking from the treeline across the arctic clearing, a second cat, this one clad in patches of orange and white, a black, velvetine belt wrapped around its midsection, is sprinting toward us with, of all things, a miniature Santa cap atop its little head.
As the new cat arrives, my gray keeper leaps down to meet her. Stepping forward until their noses almost touch, the two exchange pleasantries, seemingly holding an entire conversation silently between themselves. The conversation apparently comes to the topic of me as the two turn their heads to stare, the new one issuing her own challenge; the gray fellow follows suit with his typical rumble.
I think to ask again what they want, but the best I can muster is, "Fine! Whatever!" and defeated I go quiet.
They continue to stare until, finally, as if on queue, the calico takes off, followed by my friend. For some reason, my legs begin churning in hot pursuit. Running through the chill, back the way the tricolor had come, the night seems to grow darker around us.
Crossing into the thicket, the wood remains dark, deadened until, when we're some twenty feet in, the forest bursts into life. Garland, lights strung like captured blue and white fireflies break the midnight silence as they illuminate the world endlessly around them.
My feline friends must have expected the change for they take the explosion of color in stride. For my part, the surprise knocks me from my feet, eyes going wide with a mix of confusion and fear. Just when I think I've recovered, the wind is again taken forcefully from my chest.
The little graymane and my tricolored acquaintance approach on either side of a beautiful arctic fox. The air audibly leaves my mouth as the creature's opaline eyes meet my own.
"Relax, human. You are among friends here," she assures me.
Taken over by disbelief, the world swims and leaves me.
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