by Loki Renard
“Welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
I am going to go back to Pixie, but there’s somebody else I need to see first. I have to make amends to someone. Someone I should have spoken to the moment I woke up in this grimalkin body. Someone I've been avoiding for too long. My next door neighbor. Kitty.
I knock on the door of their home. She comes to the door with her baby on her hip. She looks very different than she used to back on Earth. She looks happier. Fuller. She looks settled and at one with this place. I hope that one day Pixie will share her happiness.
“Hi,” she says. She’s very calm about it. Not a flicker of concern, surprise, or recognition. I thought she might know me when she saw me, but to be fair to her, she's used to seeing me licking my butt in another body. What do I say to her? I’ve been putting this off because I can’t answer that question. I guess words have to come now.
“You don’t know me,” I say. “But we lived together for three years.”
“Skoll told me,” she says. “I thought Mr Tiddles was different after that accident at the portal, but I put it down to the baby being born. I’ve had to apologize to Skoll a lot, you know, for not believing him about the whole grimalkin-hiding-inside-my-cat thing.”
“It’s true. I was hiding inside him, until I was pulled from his consciousness and into this body. I’ve been trying to decide what to do, but it seems like Pixie and I are staying, so I guess there’s no point avoiding it anymore.”
“That’s a funny way to apologize,” she says.
“It is. Let me try another way. You offered me sanctuary when I needed it. You were kind. You fed me. You housed me. You gave me all I needed. So thank you, and I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by you being hunted down by a grimalkin bounty hunter and being made his chain-kept.”
“It has been an inconvenience,” she smirks, wincing as her baby beast tugs at her hair.
“I owe you much, Kitty. And I am at your service, when Pixie does not need me.”
Kitty shifts Tvei on her hip. “She’s going to need you a lot, Scratch. That’s one unhappy girl.”
“I know. I am glad you have found happiness, Kitty. And I am sorry for the deception.”
She gives a forgiving shrug. “You didn’t mean to deceive me. Life is weird. We do the best with what we can in the circumstances we have.”
“Life is weird,” I agree. “I better get back to my mate. But I have not forgotten your kindness, Kitty. I owe you a debt I may one day make good on.”
“Just stay out of trouble,” she says. “Or at least, don’t get me into any more of it.”
“That, I promise,” I say. “We’ve all seen enough trouble to last us a lifetime.”
“A-fucking-men,” she smiles. “Ouch, Tvei!”
Pixie
I’m waiting in the dark, cozy little place Scratch and I will call home. It’s taking longer than I thought for him to come here. I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder if Shanti and Skoll and Falkri are all piling on to him, beating him. He would deserve it if they were.
My butt is still aching from the application of his palm, and my pride is bruised by the application of his… well.. everything else.
The moment he walks in, all tall and broad and triumphant, I forgive him everything.
“So that was your plan? To publicly beat me? Put on a public sex show?”
“Sure,” he smirks. “The tribe needed some assurance you were going to be under control.”
“I guess it worked,” I grin. “They didn’t even question us coming back.”
“It did,” he smiles, taking me in his arms and kissing me deeply.
When we break the kiss, my head is full of ideas. Maybe we do have to live here to be happy together, but nobody says we can’t have a few things our way. Shanti isn't in charge of me anymore. Scratch is. And Scratch is far more permissive than the matriarch.
“So… you spank me, they think you have me under control… there’s no more questions. And now we can do whatever we want. You can make some nip, or I can brew some booze and…”
He’s shaking his head. Why the fuck is he shaking his head?
“We’re going to live their way, Pixie. As best we can. They’ve been good to us. The least we can do is be good to them. And that means respecting their rules. Following them to the letter. It means becoming wild, just as they are.”
“Wow. Okay.”
I don’t know what to say. I know even less what to do. I’m not ready to settle down and become a good little wild human like Kitty.
“Just kidding,” he laughs, breaking into a smile.
“Oh my god!” I let out the breath I was holding while trying to work out if it was even worth breathing anymore if I had to live the way he’s suggesting. “Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”
“We won’t drive them too crazy. But we’ll still be ourselves. And maybe we’ll get into trouble once or twice along the way,” he says, drawing me down on the furs at the center of the hovel.
So this is how it is going to be. Me and my man, trying to eke out a little fun in the wild, giving up our cities and our worlds to be with each other in this backwards village where fun is a distant memory.
I can’t fucking wait.
14 Playing House
Pixie
“We are going to get to know our neighbors.”
It has been a few days of settling into our new home, fucking like rabbits, and generally attempting to get our heads around our new reality. I liked all of that, but I don’t like this at all.
“Oh god, no.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, Skoll almost killed you, and they have an infant. You pick which one of those two things is worse.”
“You really don’t want a litter of cubs of your own?”
“I do not,” I tell him. “I have gone out of my way to not have to deal with anything under the age of eighteen.”
“Well, this is the wild. They don't have the luxury of fancy birth control. They have sex, and they have offspring.”
“Yes, I know. I’m familiar with the process. I’m even quite familiar with the mechanics of it. Maybe we should practice the mechanics instead of playing potluck with the neighbors.” I reach into his lap suggestively, hoping sex will distract him.
It does not. He takes my hand and puts it in my lap. “We should prepare ourselves for dinner.”
“Because they’re going to eat us?”
He raises a brow at me. God. When sex and puns both fail, I know I’m in real trouble.
“Why do we have to do this?”
“Because we are trying to fit in.”
“And you’re trying to prove to Skoll that you’re not afraid of him.”
“That too.”
“I just want it on record that this is a bad idea," I tell him as we’re leaving our hovel and walking the ten or so steps it takes to get to Kitty and Skoll's identical residence. Little hovels made of ticky tacky all lined up in a row, I think to myself. It’s not a useful thought.
“Objection noted,” Scratch says. “Now be nice.”
I really don’t know why he is so intent on this. It feels like a bad idea, in my very soul.
He knocks on the door. It opens, and the horror begins.
“You have to try this cheese,” Kitty says. “It tastes just like the cheese we had back home.”
Back home. She means on Earth, a whole other planet away. I don't know what it is about Kitty, but seeing her makes me yearn for fast food, bright lights, and obnoxious internet debates. It’s too quiet here. Too small. I know I chose this, but sometimes having chosen something doesn’t mean you love it all the time.
Thankfully, their baby is asleep, which means I’m not forced to pretend I know how to interact with small beasts.
“What milk is the cheese made with?” I’m suspicious because I’ve not seen any cows or goats here, and I know Kitty is lactating. I wouldn’t put it past her to try to make chee
se that way.
“It’s made from tree sap," she beams.
Is that better? Or worse? I don't know. Either way, I don’t eat the faintly green-colored congealed offering she is presenting as cheese.
“Why don’t you have some, Scratch,” I encourage my mate. “You love cheese, don't you?”
He gives me a sharp look, but it has to fade into a polite smile as he thanks Kitty and tries her cheese.
There’s definitely a vibe between the two of them. I guess that’s what comes of having been roommates for three years.
“I heard Kitty had your balls cut off,” Skoll says, out of nowhere, like the huge dick he is.
“She had Mr Tiddles neutered, sure. But I wasn’t in his balls. I was in his brain,” Scratch replies, really calmly, I think.
I want to tell Skoll what I think of him, but that wouldn't be polite. Apparently, it doesn’t matter if he’s not being polite.
“Skoll, be nice,” Kitty says reprovingly. “We’re trying to put all that unpleasantness behind us. Pixie and I are the only two human women on this planet…”
“That we know of,” I interject.
“That we know of,” Kitty nods. “Anyway. We are trying to be friends, so you should try to be friends too.”
“I guess the difference is you never eviscerated me,” I say, popping one of her salted crackers into my mouth. “Kind of hard to get past that.”
Kitty is sweet. She really is. She’s the sort to look after everybody, which explains why she looked after the stray cat Skoll hid inside all those years. That cat is now curled up on Scratch’s lap, almost as if they share a deep connection.
“So we come from the same city," she says to me all brightly, changing the conversation with supreme tact. “I wonder if we knew some of the same people.”
“I really doubt that,” I smirk. “I don’t think we travelled in the same circles.”
“What did you do?”
“I fucked men for money.”
Kitty spits her soup out all over the furs. That reaction was worth it. I can’t help but grin while the others try to work out how to react. Scratch already knew and doesn’t care. Everything that happened to me before him is an irrelevance.
Skoll, on the other hand, looks utterly alarmed.
“Oh, well, sex work is work,” Kitty says, regaining her composure. “I was a landscaper, so I guess I was a dirty girl too.”
I stare at her, tempted to laugh, but not for the reasons she thinks. Kitty has no idea what it is like to be dirty. Though maybe Skoll is teaching her. He has the look of a male who knows how to bring out the base instincts in a human woman.
“How did you end up here, Pixie?” Skoll asks me the question all casually, like it is no big deal.
“I don’t know. Am I supposed to know?”
That’s usually enough to put anybody off asking questions. It’s a generally accepted rule among the grimalkin that humans don’t know jack shit about anything ever. I’ve been skating by on that assumption for weeks now.
“As far as I am aware, there was only one walking wall open to Earth. The city doesn’t authorize them often. I had to get top level clearance to open that one," Skoll says. “It was well hidden in my apartment, and should have been closed upon my return.”
“You’re wondering how I found it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s easy,” I tell Skoll. “I think I was robbing your apartment.”
I’ve put two and two together having heard all the tribe’s gossip for the last little while. I know Skoll was on Earth. I know he had to have a base of operations, and I know it was close to Kitty. It’s a bit of a guess, but judging by his face, it's the right guess.
There's a brief moment of something not quite like shock, and then my mate leans over to me. I steel myself for some kind of disciplinary threat, but it doesn’t come.
“Oh, I love you,” Scratch purrs against my neck.
“You were robbing me? You do have a lot in common with your mate,” Skoll growls.
“You’re right,” I turn to Scratch. “This dinner thing is fun. We should do it more often. Next time, we will host, and you can tell Skoll all the stuff you stole from him if he doesn’t know it already.”
Scratch smirks, but keeps his composure.
“So you were robbing my apartment and you found the walking wall?”
“If that’s what the glowing door to Narnia at the back of your closet was, then yeah.”
“You walked through?”
“Yeah.”
“You've never mentioned that before.”
“It took me ages to remember. I still only sort of half-remember. And nobody ever asked me before,” I shrug. “You cat people spend more time telling me what to do than asking me questions.”
“We assumed you had been pulled through the wall from Earth in the explosion. We assumed it was an accident. A freak occurrence.”
“You assumed a lot,” I say.
Scratch and Skoll are both giving me what I can only describe as suspicious looks.
Skoll reaches for me. I flinch away, but he grabs me by the hair and pulls me toward him.
“Hey, what the fuck!” I curse.
Scratch doesn’t say a word. He just lets out a furious, low growl.
“Skoll, let her go!” Kitty joins in the fray, but Skoll is not letting me go. He’s pulling me face down on the furs, and for a split second I think there’s going to be a small, but intense war between Skoll and Scratch.
“Look!” Skoll growls.
I can’t see what they’re looking at, but I can feel it. It’s a little piece of hard plastic which has been making my neck feel just that little bit weird every time I turn my neck for weeks now.
“Someone’s put a chip in her,” Skoll says. He’s holding the back of my neck with his big hands. “See? I had to put one of these into Kitty while she was sedated. Someone put this in her.”
“How did she get a language chip in her?” Scratch is talking about me as if I’m not there. It’s amazing how quickly I become just a thing to these creatures, an object of discussion.
“I don’t think that’s just a language chip,” Skoll says. “I put one in Kitty, and it was much smaller. I think this is a transmitter. She’s been a human spy device this entire time. They didn’t send soldiers to attack us. They sent soldiers to plant her here.”
“Pixie?” Scratch says my name. “What’s going on?”
I haven’t thought about this in a long time. Not since I first woke up in this backwoods village. But now my memories are starting to come back. All at once in a big rush, as if somebody pulled a plug, but instead of liquid swirling out, memories come rushing in.
Months ago…
The car has been in the driveway for several days. The lights have been on the whole time too, day and night. The junk mail is piling up in the mailbox. This place has all the signs of someone away on vacation.
I happen to be walking past, checking houses out. Some people call it casing, but those people wear uniforms, and I don’t like them.
This is a nice place. Well hidden from the street, so I can take my time walking around. I don’t see any of those wireless cameras that are all the rage now, but they can be hidden pretty well, so I keep my mask up and over my face as I break in.
This place doesn’t feel like one that’s been lived in long, but it has been lived in well. There’s food everywhere. All over the counters, but the fridge is empty. That’s kinda weird.
I’m used to weird, though. When you break into people’s houses, you get to see the most intimate sides of them. The socks discarded on the floor, the hair clogging the shower drain.
This bathroom is sparkling, and unused. The shower is bone dry, and there’s not so much as a toothbrush.
“This dude has to stink like an animal,” I murmur to myself.
People know I fuck dudes for money. What they don’t know is that I don’t just fuck dudes for money. I steal things from people�
�s houses, which is worse. I’m an asshole, and I deserve a whole bunch of bad things to happen to me. I’m sure they will soon enough, but for the moment, I’m hoping for a laptop or a wad of cash, or something I can use to pay the rent on my own shit box apartment. Over here on the good side of town, I’m stealing from the rich to give to the poor. I am the poor.
There’s no clothing in the drawers.
I open the wardrobe, and see there’s a single fur coat there. Really big. Like, pimping big.
It’s being lit from behind in a way that’s either really weird, or really fancy. I pull the coat off the hanger and put it on. It’s warm and soft and fancy. Real fucking nice. I can get a few hundred for this easy.
I turn, expecting to see some kind of plastic backlit feature, but it’s made out of a material I've never seen before. It’s like light dancing and melting into itself. It’s pretty cool. I wonder why it is hiding away here in this otherwise kinda pedestrian house. This is the sort of feature I’d expect to see in a mansion, not a duplex.
I walk toward it as though I am being pulled. It’s really attractive and shiny. I wonder what it feels like. I want to touch it. It’s like a stunning electronic glacier.
Maybe it’s dangerous…
That’s the last thought to go through my mind, as I touch it and am sucked right fucking through.
The light is blinding. All I can see is white everywhere. With the fur coat wrapped around my shoulders, I have a very strong memory of something that never happened to me before.
“Is this Narnia?”
“It is not. But it could be.”
I am looking at a very tall, very strange-looking man-type creature. He has big golden eyes which are sort of animal, but also sort of human. His face isn’t human. His nose is broad and flat, and his mouth is wide to accommodate a fearsome set of fangs.
“Okay, I’m feeling like this is Narnia. Talking animals and all. I found this fur coat, I didn’t skin one of your kind for it.”
“I don’t need your apologies and excuses, human. This is not what you imagine it to be.”
“I imagine it to be I mixed up my pills again, and am tripping balls on the floor of some dude’s closet. Hopefully, he doesn’t come back and find me. That didn’t go so well the last time this happened.”