Chapter Fifty-One - Belladonna

  I was teetering on the edge of a deep slumber, currently in the position informally known as 'loafing' while resting at the foot of my own bed with a thinner blanket draped over my back. It was warm, especially when the kitties came and laid down next to me to share their heat.

  At the moment, though, they were off gallivanting through the house, doing their own kitty-cat things. Cats were famous nocturnal, but that wasn't quite true. It was more that hunting at night was more pleasant than hunting during the day. If you kept a cat busy all day, they'd sleep through the night, but with me out of the house for extended periods...

  Well, I'd been awakened by my cats having the zoomies at 4AM plenty of times before.

  At the moment, however, I had spent the day working with Sharp and was ready for a long bit of rest.

  Which was why I was annoyed when I was gently pulled out of my rest by the lingering feeling of someone nearby.

  I twitched my whiskers, then slowly opened my eyes to peek out and scan the area around me.

  Belladonna was sitting right in front of me. "Good," she said. "The mother-kitten wakes. Do not allow yourself to be unalert at all times. That way is how prey dies. You are not prey, are you?"

  "Belladonna?" I asked. I didn't see this kitty all that often. It was rare, but she had come out of her skulking a few times when I was human to come and sit on my lap. I always had the impression that she loved me just like the other kitties, but in her own way. She didn't like lavish shows of affection and cuddles.

  "Get up, mother-kitten. It is time to hunt."

  I blinked my eyes open properly and scanned the room. Squinting at the digital clock on my nightstand revealed that it was... 2AM. Sharp was sleeping soundly, her breath rattling away with faint snores every so often.

  "Are you that hungry?" I asked. "There's food in the dispenser, unless Arscenic pigged out."

  "The lazy one should serve as no example to you, mother-kitten. Come." With that, Belladonna hopped off the side of the bed, landing without so much as a thump.

  I shook myself out of the covers then padded over to the edge of the bed. My beautiful abyssian baby was waiting for me by the door, the tip of her tail twitching faintly with obvious impatience.

  Well, whatever. This was a good chance to bond with my most mysterious kitty and I wasn't that tired. I could always catch up on any sleep the next day.

  I didn't land with nearly as much grace as Belladonna, but I managed all the same. It was hard, still, to wrap my head around long falls and the like. "So, what are we hunting?" I asked.

  More than once, Belladonna had awakened me in the morning with a gift. Usually that gift was a dead mouse or an injured bird. But I still fondly remembered a teenaged Belladonna, all gangly and long, bringing me a crunchy leaf she had captured overnight.

  I ran up to her, but as I came close, Belladonna slipped away, her tail the last thing I saw around the door before I had to catch up again.

  She disappeared.

  I blinked for only a moment before bouncing upwards and doing my level-best to twist around in mid-air.

  Belladonna was sitting next to the doorway, a step back and in the deeper shadows, casually licking a forepaw. "Good. Too slow. But good."

  "Are you trying to scare me?" I asked.

  "No. I want to see if you have the instinct to hunt. The others do not."

  "They're not so bad," I said.

  She scoffed, then started walking again. I followed, and this time there weren't any tricks. She led me towards the stairs, then walked right past and to the upstairs bathroom. The door was closed, but Belladonna tensed, then leapt up and struck the handle.

  The door squeaked open.

  My baby was so clever! I was quite proud as I followed her into the little bathroom, at least until Belladonna hopped up onto the counter, then the bathtub-shower, and finally up onto the small windowsill above the bath. It was a small window, with thick warped glass that didn't let you actually see out or anyone see in.

  She leaned a paw down onto the latch, then pressed her weight into it, pushing the window open a smidge.

  Well... that was a security gap if I ever saw one.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Come," Belladonna repeated before she slipped out of the narrow gap left in the window.

  I jumped up, following her as best I could. When I finally stuck my face out, it was to find that the outside was chilly and cold, and the exterior part of the window sill was only a half-dozen centimetres wide.

  "Belladonna?" I asked.

  "Here," she replied.

  She was a level below, some half metre down on the top of a small awning. She leapt down from there and onto the top of a fence, then down onto the ground, all done with casual ease, as if she'd made such risky jumps a million times.

  I didn't want to appear the coward, but it was a long way down.

  Still...

  I aimed as best I could, then jumped down. The landing was a bit iffy, but I managed it, then the next leap down was easier. The last was a little far, but other than a bit of a sting when I landed, it wasn't so bad.

  "So, this is why I find you meowing outside so often in the morning," I said.

  Belladonna shifted to look over the backyard. There was a small community garden here, but it was rather scraggly and not very impressive. "There are small blind rodents making their home here. They invade our space. Find them and hunt them."

  Blind rodents? Moles? They had been a problem in the past.

  I scanned the backyard. It was an enclosed space, with relatively tall, thick fences all around, made from locally-sourced brick and covered in a few vines here and there. Moles... weren't a threat, I didn't think. Even to a juvenile cat, hunting a mole caught in the open wouldn't be dangerous.

  This was, essentially, the best arena a cat could find to teach a younger cat how to hunt. "Thank you, Bella," I said.

  "You cannot eat thanks," she replied.

  Fair enough.

  I wasn't sure how to start a hunt for a mole, but for a human? That I knew, and it always involved gathering intel.

  In this case, that meant figuring out the lay of the land.

  I started a slow creep around the edge of the backyard. Belladonna was sitting by the entrance gate, where a small gap below would be no obstacle to an escaping mole but her presence would.

  I couldn't see any molehills as I went around, but there were signs that the grass had been disturbed. I tried out my other senses as well, sniffing at the air for any telltale signs that there was something amiss.

  I caught it on the far end of the garden, a faint... wet-fur like smell.

  I sniffed around but continued my circle of the backyard, just in case. Then, when I found no other hints, I returned to where the smell was strongest and drew a large circle around the area, searching outwards for the source.

  It didn't take too long to find it. A bush by the back, looking rather pitiful, had its base ripped up a little, and it looked like something had been digging around there recently. My culprit, then?

  I snuck closer to the bush, taking into account the weak breeze and trying to keep out of the bit of moonlight pouring in over the fence until, finally, I saw them.

  That was not a mole.

  Moles weren't bigger than a teenaged cat and covered in stubbly brown fur. That was a rat.

  A sleeping rat. I laid down and just stared at it for a moment until something caught my eye. Its face had several scars, big ugly things that hadn't healed fully yet.

  Something... or rather, somekitty had clawed this rat's eyes out.

  I could just jump on the rat, but that wasn't smart. Instead, I moved towards it at a careful, slow pace. Three feet's distance covered in a blistering inch per minute. I carefully lowered each paw, slowing down until the landing was whisper-soft, and making sure that my weight was evenly distributed up until, finally, I was right up next to the rat.

  Then I pounced.

  The rat awoke to teeth biting into its neck and my claws raking it across the flank and sides.

  It squealed, but I just bit down harder and sliced at it all the faster.

  It went down without much fuss after that, almost anti-climaticly so.

  Combat Has Levelled Up!

  Combat 3 > 4

  "Well done, mother-kitten," Belladonna said. She'd gotten close at some point.

  "Thanks," I said.

  Then I had to start figuring out a way to wash my mouth out.

  ***

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