In the dull, fading light of day, a middle aged tom sat down, watching the sky fade into deep pinks and purples. He hardly seemed to notice as a queen roughly his age sat down next to him, silent for a moment. Finally, she turned to her head to him and spoke.

“Pascal? We need to talk.”

He didn’t move. “What about?”

“The kitten. The girl.”

His eyes shifted towards her, studying her face carefully. “What about her?”

The queen sighed, straightening her back slowly. “I… I don’t know if it is entirely wise that we keep her on with us. After all, we haven’t got a clue where she came from, or who her parents are.”

“Why should that matter to you?” he asked softly, his eyes narrowing. “She’s only a little girl, after all. She wouldn’t do anyone any harm.” He looked away from a moment, thinking. “Besides, it would be wrong for us to turn her out on her own.”

The queen sighed. “But, still, Cal, we haven’t any reason why we should keep her on besides your conscience. Think about it. It isn’t our duty to go around taking in kittens and giving them a safe place to stay. It’s not even like we promised somebody that we’d take care of her.” The queen’s face turned slightly fearful. “I’m just worried, is all.”

Pascal rubbed his paw against his face. “Gracie, nothing will happen, I assure you.” His face softened and he touched hers now. “It won’t be like before. It won’t be like the others. She’s grown enough and…” He trailed off, not wanting to add “and you didn’t carry her.” Instead, he leaned forward and licked her cheek. “Trust me.”

“I know…” she murmured, looking down and away from him. “I know. I’ll try.”

~*~

Gracie murmured softly in the darkness of the room, wrapping her arms around the strong, masculine tom standing over her. He returned her embrace and brought her mouth to his.

“Gracie, love, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he laughed softly, stroking the fur on her back. He traced a single finger up her spine, cupping his paw behind the base of her neck and kissed her again. She curled her tail around his leg.

“You’d probably live a rather boring life, I suppose,” she answered. “After all, as far as I know, you’re actually pretty dull when I’m not around. You never did anything before I came along.” She touched his lips with her finger, forestalling another kiss. “Am I correct?” she asked laughingly.

He smiled lightly, then nodded. “Of course you are. Because, darling, nothing ever happened to me before you came along.” Liar! his brain screamed. He decided to ignore it and touched her hips gently.

Her large eyes flashed up to meet his. She wasn’t exactly what you’d call a true beauty. She was solid, not slender like most of the other queens that the toms considered attractive, but carried her weight with the air of a queen. Her face wasn’t very special. Pretty, but hardly worth a second glace. Her coat was a dull shade of brown that seemed to ask to be ignored. Only her eyes stood out. Dazzling blue, they seemed to prove that eyes were truly the gateway to a person’s soul. He felt as though he could be lost in them forever. She drew in a small breath.

“Do you want to do that?” she asked quietly. “Are you sure? I mean, remember the last time…” She shivered, glancing away quickly, then back up at him. He frowned.

“Now, Gracie, just because one mating failed doesn’t mean we have to go and avoid it for the rest of our lives. Besides, the time is right. If we did, we could make kittens.” He kissed her gently. “I know you’ve always wanted kittens.”

She hesitated again. “Yes, but, Pascal, I shouldn’t want to have something that I can’t have. I mean, we’ve tried for months to get these kittens and… last time, when it happened…”

He seized her arm almost roughly and she cried out in surprise. “Listen to me, Gracie. That was an accident. You fell. It had nothing to do with you. Nothing at all, understand. It was a mistake and it doesn’t mean it’ll happen again.”

She shook her head. “But, still. I don’t want to lose these ones, too.” She started to pull away from him. “Maybe we should just wait. Maybe we’re not supposed to be parents, you know? Maybe it the Heavyside’s way of telling us that we should just stick to being… us.”

He shook his head, an almost violent look on his face that frightened her, but wasn’t directed at her. “Damn it! Aren’t you listening to me? We can have those kittens!” His face softened and he bent his head to hers to kiss her mouth tenderly. “Please, Gracie. I know you’ve wanted kittens for years and I have, too. Please, do this for me.”

She frowned, smacking him lightly on the arm. “Any other queen would take that as manipulating, but I think I’ll let it slide, coming from you.” She returned his kiss gently. “All right. I mean, we could try, right? And, maybe this time…”

“I know this time will work,” he insisted.

~*~

Laying limp and bloody, Gracie refused to look towards the far end of the bed. She could feel flairs of pain down there and just knew that something must be wrong by the look on the older queen’s face. The older queen looked up into her face for a moment, worried, then looked away.

She turned her face to look up at Pascal. The tom seemed worried and concerned, grasping her paw as though it were the only thing keeping him from fleeing from the room. His eyes searched hers for a moment.

“What’s happening?” he asked weakly, looking to the older queen, the midwife. “Please, tell me. Will she be all right? The kittens?”

The midwife looked up, seemingly startled that the only male in the room had enough gall to talk to her directly. “There’ll be no way ‘o knowin’ now, sir. We’ll just have tah wait it out, like the other parents always do.” She eyed him with something nearing suspicion. Pascal dropped his gaze back to Gracie, squeezing her paw harder.

“Come on, Gracie. You’ll be all right, OK?” he asked, looking very lost and confused. She squeezed back, then gave him a bitter, little smile.

“Of course I’ll be all right. I don’t know about you, though. You’re the one who got me into this mess, after all.”

The tom managed a grin, rubbing his head against hers. He suddenly drew back with a look of horrified confusion as she cried out again, biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. His tail twitched nervously as she screamed full out a moment later and arched her back in pain.

“Oh, God, get it out of me!” she howled, squeezing her eyes shut. “It hurts!”

“Ah know, ah know,” the midwife said, giving her an almost exasperated look. “It hurts for everyone, darling, you’re no exception.”

“Please, make it stop,” the tom muttered, looking from his suffering mate to the midwife. The older queen paused a moment to examine his face, then nodded.

“Aye. Soon. Soon, the kits will come out and you’ll not have tah worry yourselves about a little bit of birthin’ pain.”

Panting, Gracie slumped back down and watched her mate through slitted, pained eyes. “I certainly hope so. You’re not coming near me again, do you hear me?”

He laughed weakly, looking back to stare in anxious silence at the midwife.

Gracie’s slight, joking smile slid off her face suddenly, catching the bewildered and horrified expression on the midwife’s face. She whimpered, clutching her mate’s paw tighter.

“What is it?”

“Oh, no…” the older queen muttered softly, shaking her head. “Oh, no, Everlasting Cat, please say that this hasn’t happened.”

“What?” Pascal managed, his face paling further.

The midwife shook her head and Gracie let out another scream as the midwife reached down between her legs and pulled out a small, bloody form of a kitten. Gracie feel back limply, closing her eyes. Pascal let out a faint whimper himself as the concerned midwife rubbed at the kitten, cleaning it off with a rag. She rubbed harshly for a few minutes, then sighed. Her eyes looked up to the tom staring at her in muted horror.

“Ah’m sorry.” She dropped her eyes. “It’s a stillborn. I tried to save it, but it was too late…”

Gracie let out a wail of a lost soul, struggling to embrace her mate. Pascal stared, as though stunned, at the midwife a moment more before hugging the sobbing queen close to his chest. Gracie shivered.

“Oh, God, no!” she moaned. “Not again! You said never again!”

“I know I did,” Pascal murmured, closing his eyes in defeat. He stroked her gently, holding her until she sobbed herself to sleep.

Still holding her close, Pascal watched as the midwife stood and carried the infant from the room. He diverted his eyes and bowed his head in misery.

~*~

Now, standing over the small, gray striped kitten, Pascal knew he had made the right decision. He and Gracie would never be able to create a kitten by their own means. He had several notions as to why this could be, but didn’t dare speak of them, or even let them pass through his mind, except as a passing glance. Wasn’t it bad enough without thinking of the reasons behind their failure to become parents?

But, now, it was as though they- he- had been offered a redemption. This frightened, tiny creature had wandered onto them almost by mistake, it seemed, and it seemed to be idiocy to deny the kitten protection. True, Pascal knew that they should do what they could to find her parents, but it hardly seemed worthwhile. After all, it was as though Bast himself had taken mercy on them and blessed them with a kitten of their own. It did not matter if the child had been created by them.

He stroked the downy fur on the kitten’s forehead, wondering, almost morbidly, why they had been denied the pleasures of parenthood before this. Gracie has always been kind, pleasant, and caring, the perfect mother, in most senses. He himself was gentle, perhaps a bit too gentle, and hated to see any violence, so it wasn’t thought they had been denied because he was a fool and would’ve gotten himself killed. They fought, like any other couple, but always made up afterwards.

Pascal pulled back a little as the kitten murmured in her sleep and rolled over on her stomach. He watched in fascination as she breathed slowly and deeply. He had seen other kittens before, yes, a good number of times, but it seemed different with the kitten that had been made theirs.

Maybe she doesn’t call us Mother and Father yet, but she will with time, he reflected. In fact, she was starting to follow them both around with such attention that he didn’t doubt that it would be soon before she did.

He jumped, spinning around as he felt a soft paw on his shoulder. He turned to see Gracie smiling softly at him.

“I see your watching our ‘daughter’,” she said softly, but it held no contempt. He took her paw in his.

“Gracie, I promise, she will be.” He looked down at the slumbering creature. “Just look at her. She’s lost and frightened and alone in the world. Whoever her parents are, or were, they are either terribly poor at the position they had been blessed to have, or they have died. Why else would anyone sacrifice such a beautiful kitten?”

The brown queen nodded, squeezing his paw gently. “Oh, Pascal. I suppose you’re right. After all, it did seem to be a miracle that she would find us, of all people.”

He leaned down and kissed her gently. “It is. It is, Gracie.” He touched the sleeping kitten. “She’ll be our child.” His eyes turned back to hers. “To make up for the others we’ve lost before.”

She almost laughed, but managed to contain herself.

“And, we’ll live happily ever after, right?”

“That’s the idea.”

~*~

The new parents were dozing lazily in the sun, Pascal curled around Gracie protectively, and Gracie with her head on his flank, every so often opening her eyes to watch the little, gray kitten playing wildly a distance off. She seemed to be involved in a very exciting game involving chasing her tail.

After a few minutes, the kitten suddenly sat down and peered down the steep hill, cocking her head in curiosity. Gracie opened her eyes when the child’s cries stopped, sitting up lazily. Pascal turned to look as well.

“Anaakii, what are you doing?”

The kitten turned her head ever so slightly to look back at her parents.

“What’s down there?” she asked, pointing her paw in the general area below the hill. Pascal stood slowly, peering down. He didn’t answer for a moment, then looked back at her.

“The junkyard.”

“What’s in there?” the kitten inquired.

“The Jellicles.”

Anaakii tilted her head. “Are we friends with them?”

Pascal froze, not sure how to answer that question. Carefully, he replied, “Well, we’re not really friends or enemies of them. We just stay up here and mind our business. You know. We’ve always done that, love.”

“Yes, yes, but why?” she asked in return, looking almost impatient.

“There are many reasons, which a kitten your age wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh.” Anaakii looked back down the hill towards the junkyard in the distance. “I’m not allowed to go down, am I?”

Pascal looked at Gracie who shrugged. He finally shook his head. “Anaakii, there are many reasons why we have to stay separate from everybody else. Trust me, you’ll learn in time. But, you mustn’t go there, or anywhere else without your mother or I to accompany you. It’s not safe.”

Shrugging, the little gray kitten showed no interest to put herself into any danger. Instead, she turned back to Pascal and Gracie, trotting over with a smile on her face.

“But, you will take me someplace today or tomorrow, right, Papa?” She took another step closer and put her elbows in her mother’s lap, resting her head on her chin and smiling. “Right, Mama? He promised, remember?”

Gracie ruffled the kitten’s fur. “Yes, he did. I’m sure that he’ll take you into the village later on. Maybe the two of you can nick a fish or something interesting for supper.”

Anaakii laughed. “Cool!” She turned to Pascal. “Can we do that, Papa?”

“Well, since your mother put the idea in your head, I’m sure we’re going to have to, huh?” He shrugged, then sat back down on the ground, leaning back flat. Anaakii pounced on his stomach, drawing a yelp from him that immediately drew a concerned look from Gracie. However, he smiled up at the kitten after giving a quick look of assurance. “How does after supper sound, darling? And a nice, long nap beforehand. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but we’re cats and cats like sleep.” He eyed the child on his belly a moment. “You, my dear, have far too much energy.”

Anaakii frowned, then curled into a ball on his stomach, nestling her head up near his neck. “All right, all right,” she grumbled playfully, closing her eyes.

Gracie watched a moment, expecting the kitten to leap off him, suddenly shrieking like the mad, little banshee she was, but breathed a sigh of relief as the kitten drifted in a light doze. She smiled at her mate, touched her paw against his, and curled back up against his side again.

~*~

Overall, life seemed to be very pleasant and uneventful for the next couple of years as Anaakii grew into a young queen. The trio found little reason to vary their everyday life style and hardly ever did. Everyday and night was the same routine, which suited the older two cats just fine, but soon began to become more and more unbearable to the maturing Anaakii. True to her name, which meant anarchy in Japanese, the young queen began to stretch her limbs and grew restless with the monotonous, never changing routine.


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