FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Lukas found her when she was just a kitten.

A tiny thing, really, black and tan like a cinnamon-dusted ball of shadow that could fit into his cupped paws, even as a young pup himself. She'd spent the first year of her life as a stray, after which the shelter workers found her and brought her in. Looking back on it he couldn't remember just what he'd said to his mom to persuade her to get a pet cat, or how the whole thing had happened, but... that first night always stuck in his memory. He was just in first grade, and stayed up past midnight watching the kitten pounce back and forth across his bed, trying to catch the movement of his footpaws beneath the covers. Dad came in and told him to go to sleep, and he curled up and closed his eyes... for about five minutes. He wrote about her for his class's first big writing assignment, with the simple prompt _Tell about a thing that makes you happy._Lukas couldn't help but beam when he turned it in.

Over time she slowly grew bigger, slow enough that nobody really noticed unless they looked back at old pictures. Her fur thickened out, she lost the airy glow of kitten-fuzz, her ears and eyes became more proportionate to her little face. She started to become more vocal, too, especially when she got herself into trouble: one time Lukas and his dad spent twenty minutes in an impromptu game of hide-and-seek, only to find that she'd somehow wriggled her way into one of the box-spring mattresses. They never found the hole that she climbed into: Dad had had to slice open the bottom with a pair of scissors, holding her up through the fabric in one paw so that he wouldn't cut her on accident. Lukas squeezed her against his chest and buried his muzzle in the fur of her side, and that made her squirm and complain even more, but he just giggled and let her go.

Golden-green eyes, leafed copper just barely starting to tarnish. They looked so, so pretty when she sat by the windowsill, looking out at the cars passing by, and the red splash of a cardinal in the trees, and the swaying of Mom's rosemary bush in the pot out front. When she got big enough they started letting her outside, and her schedule lined up with Lukas's: he'd wake up in the morning, roll over in bed to greet her beside him, then grin widely at her sleepy-kitty yawn, and she'd follow him downstairs after he got dressed. She'd leave with him, the otter holding the door open and looking down to make sure the cat made it out, and every day, she'd brush against his legs as she went. And then she was gone under the bushes, and he headed off towards the bus stop down the street. She always, always came back, even if night fell and Lukas only noticed her from the shadow sitting on the outer windowsill, slightly more solid than the surrounding sky.

When she became less kitten and more cat, she slowed down a bit, often content to just lie beneath the bushes and do exactly what she did if she were inside and on that windowsill, which Mom always had to devote special attention to during her weekly house-cleaning due to the shed black fur. Lukas's bed started to show similar signs, too: beside the place where he threw back the covers every morning, a little cat-shaped indentation started to form, right in the spot where she always curled up each night.

That became a routine, too: he'd plug his night light in and brush his teeth, and when he went back into his room, she'd be standing there looking up at him with her golden-green gaze. Maybe she'd have a word for him when he sat down on the edge of the mattress to take his glasses off, and he'd reach over and talk right back in a poor imitation of the cat's meow. He liked the way that she stretched her head out to his scritching beneath her chin, and how she tilted her muzzle when he rubbed behind her ear... and he especially loved the way she sidled up against him when he slept on his side, and curled up into a tight ball right between his chest and his arm. Sometimes she'd adjust when he draped his other arm over her, but more often than not, she'd just nuzzle into his palm, let out a quiet huff, and fall right back asleep.

She was always there. When he got into middle school and discovered the internet, sometimes she'd sit outside the closed door of his bedroom and whine until he rolled his eyes, stood up, and opened the door... and even then she usually just looked up at him, licked her chops, and rubbed along his ankles, before turning back around and leaving. He never ignored her, though.

Mom didn't like that too much, especially when she discovered that she loved milk, and how Lukas didn't mind it when she'd drink from his glass. He'd just chuckle and push the glass closer so she could drink more easily, and then seeing the white against the black fur of her muzzle just made him chuckle more. She didn't like it when he'd grab her face and bump his forehead against hers, though that didn't stop her from rubbing against his legs whenever she'd had her fill. It got to the point where every time the otter sat down to eat, his cat would soon be circling around his ankles, looking up at him and twitching her whiskers to see if she liked the smell of whatever he was eating.

Being a cat, she would also eat birds, of course. That annoyed Mom, too, coming home to find half of a bird waiting for them by the cat door leading to the garage, or opening the backdoor to muffled meows and a limp mouse dropped at their footpaws. She always made Lukas get the shovel and toss them over the fence... and he always made sure to love on his cat and praise her for it, while making sure she didn't see him dispose of the evidence.

Then high school came, and so did his first relationship. She saw that, too, watching from the windowsill whenever the boy came over while Mom was away at work, or stoically clinging to her territory at the corner of the bed if he stayed the night. Sometimes their movements annoyed her enough to hop off and leave, but she always came back. Even if Lukas woke up with someone else's arm around his belly, he could almost always bet on nuzzling down just a little bit and breathing in the soft, dry scent of his cat, curled up and snoozing gently against his chest.

He was also the only one that she let pick her up. When his friends visited and his cat walked by, Lukas would hop up out of his chair and go to grab her, and he'd bring her back to all the little coos and praisings of his friends... and then he'd pass her off to one of them, and she'd squirm and complain and very quickly wiggle herself free. As she got older she also found the ability to give one hell of a stink-eye, but she'd never shy away from Lukas's slow, gentle stroking along her back, or rubbing behind her ears, or scritching beneath her chin. Sometimes it took a while, but she'd always stretch her head out for that one.

She was there when his first relationship ended, too. She acted like she didn't want to be there when he grabbed her and held her tight, and she'd squirm and complain, but whenever he let go of her, she always stuck close by. Maybe she'd sit on the windowsill in his room instead of her usual spot by the stairs, or she'd lean her weight against his legs instead of just brushing by, but she always wanted to make sure he felt okay. It was their nights together that really helped: even with that stink-eye that had started to become a permanent feature of her feline face, at night she turned into a cuddle monster. When Lukas brushed his fur before school in the mornings, just as much black fur came off as did brown.

Even as she continued to get older and slower, though, her love of the outside never waned. One time she came back with a hideous gash along her hind leg, and Mom rushed her to the vet with Lukas nearly in tears in the backseat, but she got out of that perfectly fine. Then a few years later, she trotted home with part of her ear missing but no dent in her confidence; she must have won that fight, Lukas chuckled, leaning in close to make sure it wasn't bleeding. She's a warrior. She grew up on the streets.

That was how she always showed up after heavy storms completely untouched by the rain, too, even during the period of time when a tornado touched down in the school football field, and another wrecked seven houses three neighborhoods over, and a third destroyed the local grocery store. She would always disappear minutes before the sky opened up, and Lukas and Mom would go from the front door to the back to the front again calling out her name, and then they'd worry throughout the storm... and then, without fail, she showed up a few minutes after the last drop fell, looking as if she were annoyed they'd left her outside. Still, though, she always rubbed against his legs when he let her back in, and she'd let him pick her up and moosh his face into her tummy.

She stopped sleeping with him about when he first applied to college, and during those first few weeks of the new, unfamiliar routine, he missed the comfort and companionship of her small round body against his, enough that he'd go out of his way to search her out and bring her into his room. Whenever he did that, she'd always stay at least until he fell asleep. Maybe her advancing age made it harder for her to stay in one place for long, though, and he'd hardly ever wake up to find her in the same spot. She also wouldn't hang around if his new boyfriend was in the room, which might have turned out to be a spot of insight on her part: a few years later, a fiery breakup split the two apart. No matter what, though, Lukas could always find her. She was always there, watching from the windowsill or beneath the bed, or sprawled out across one of the stairs. That got her in trouble more than once when Lukas or his mom woke up late at night.

She'd yell at him, sometimes, and he'd talk back to her. Usually it happened when he picked her up and held her long enough so that she started squirming, and yet she'd always hang around by his legs to make sure that she got the last word in, instead of running off like any other cat might. She always stayed close by.

And then she got old. They knew it was coming, back in their heads and their hearts, though they never really thought about it. She slowed down and started to lose her energy; she still loved the outside, but started to prefer to peek out the door whenever Lukas opened it for her instead of zipping out; she'd wander around the house at night, and would hop up onto his bed, and he'd scoot over and throw the blankets back for her... and she'd step up close by his chest, would sniff his face, and then would wander back off, brushing against his body as she went.

One time she did go outside, and came back with a limp to her step. Lukas noticed it, and mentioned it to his mom, and they figured it was just a thorn and let it sit. When it hadn't gotten better by the next day, they started to worry; and then on the third when her paw started to swell up and she stopped walking on it, they brought her to the vet. They couldn't find anything.

She spent that night in his lap, while he sat at his computer desk playing a video game. It was keyboard-based, so he could keep one paw there and one slowly stroking her back, feeling her slow, soft breathing, and rubbing behind her ears. They'd always been really soft and supple, and it made him smile to feel how they flicked if he just barely touched one. During pauses he'd look down at her and just think, wow, what a beautiful creature. Shadow splashed with cinnamon, copper dusted with gold. She'd look up at him and gently lick her lips, and then she'd close her eyes and doze off. It wasn't a deep enough sleep so that she didn't still stretch her head out when he scritched under her chin, though.

She was always, always there. And then her head settled a little more limply in his paw, a kind of slow, gentle relaxation. And all of a sudden, she wasn't.

The vet gave him a little heart-shaped clay plaque, with her name scratched into it and a pressing of her pawprint. He put it on his desk by his computer monitor and never, never moved it.

Even when he went to bed with his face buried in his boyfriend's neck and his shoulder muffling his sobs, even with that warmth squeezing him close, his bed and his heart felt so, so empty. He could still remember her scent, soft and gentle and just the slightest bit dry, like sand on the air. I really loved that darn cat, Mom said, holding her paws to her face as she sat on the couch. I really, really did. I didn't know I loved her so much. I loved how you'd have conversations with her, and how you always ate with her, and-

_ _

I know, Lukas said. I know.

_ _

And, then, there was another. A smaller cat, a little greyish-tan striped tabby with considerably more energy and considerably less of a sense of self-preservation. She'd always stick her nose where it wouldn't belong, and sometimes she'd run around so fast she couldn't turn a corner and would skid across the hardwood floor, but she never really got herself into trouble. Between his classes Lukas would watch her, and play with her, and pick her up and moosh his face into her tummy just like he used to do, and she'd wrap around his muzzle but would never scratch him. Never once. Even when she bit him, she just... lightly set her teeth against his skin, enough so he could feel it. Sometimes she'd look up at him, too, and he'd pretend that she'd wounded and captured him, some giant formidable prey.

Sometimes Lukas's eyes would flick down from his monitor, and he would see the little clay heart, and he'd pick it up and feel it in his paws, and run his fingerpads over the pressed pawprint... and for a moment, an electric shock, a just-sharpened knife, socketing into his chest. His breath would catch in his throat, he'd have to take his glasses off, and he'd cover his mouth with a paw-

-and then a little, soft body would press up against his leg, and he'd look down to see those big mossy brown eyes glittering up at him. She'd meow at him, and then would hop up into his lap, knead for a bit, and fall right asleep.

And she'd stretch her head out whenever he scritched underneath her chin, always. That aching hole in his heart would never fully close. But with that small, surprisingly dense tabby, it was starting to get smaller and smaller.