-=[Stormy]=-
I thought myself the only survivor of Flying Death’s mayhem, was quite certain that I would reach my favourite warm step and perish, but it turns out that even a professional hunter of know-sense such as myself can encounter something entirely unexpected.
That something unexpected was my Myoan.
At first, I wasn't sure what to make of this odd, young, male cat-servant with the gaze of an old, weary hunter.
He decided to call me "Ss-tt-oo-rr-mew", which was fine with me, even if a bit too long for my feline sensibilities.
It was the intent behind the word noises that mattered, not the noises themselves that his mouth was making.
By munching on intent, know-sense revealed to me that Myoan’s title for me stood for the [Queen of Storms], [Empress of Tempests] or perhaps [Lady of Overcasts]. The meaning correlated to the lush darkness of my fur which was dark on the outside, but turned white when parted, the same way lightning parted broiling clouds.
As far as regal titles went, it was acceptable, far better than the title that the meat-bringer female dubbed me as. I recalled that the know-sense had unfolded the name she used when calling me into [a skin of an animal, covering paws of cat-servants during cold times]. She wasn’t very creative with cat-titles, I suppose. The name did remind me that cat-servants had inferior fur-deprived hands, so I had that going for me.
Honestly, the lack of imagination and obedience in some cat-servants sometimes astounded me. At least Myoan had the sense to give me a properly regal title!
The difference in creativity and cat-obedience potential was why the meat-bringer was eaten by Flying Death and why Myoan survived. After all, he was one of the other clever fetchlings that ran after me that day across the frozen river.
From my observations, Myoan seemed to be constantly moving, digging, and rearranging things in the only big home that survived the attack of Flying Death. That’s right - we were inhabiting the home, the step of which I had blessed most often with my presence.
I followed Myoan around, curious about what he was doing. He talked to me a lot, which was nice, even if I couldn't always catch most of what he chattered about. Alas, he didn’t always listen to me.
Many of the female cat-servants in “Ssh-wr-myaw-brrra-rrd” were generally talkative and while there was an occasional pitch of know-mites in their irrational, incomprehensible gibberish, Myoan’s chatter was often packed with know-mites.
My overall assessment was that somehow Myoan knew far more than he should. I hadn’t paid much attention to this cat-servant before, but his head was definitely somehow packed full of know-mites. Who put an entire colony of them into his head, I had no idea. Not knowing something so vital bothered me immensely.
After some serious hunting, my know-sense whispered that it was a joint effort between the do-er river Grr-een-ka and the think-er shiny blue hunt-stone Myoan carried on his neck. Sadly, he lost the shiny stone somewhere, so I could not interrogate the know-sense further about its mysterious origins.
I did not like Grr-een-ka one bit. Only an extra-dumb kitten would appreciate water or approach Grr-een-ka. Moving water and Grr-een-ka in particular was a dangerous enemy that could drown a cat before they could even blink, one that has taken the lives of many cats and cat-servants over far too many summers.
According to my know-sense, Grr-een-ka was an extra-dangerous, dumb dog, one that was sleeping now because of winter, but could wake up, if sufficiently bothered and bite almost anyone or anything in half with her watery jaw, carrying them to the big water in the North.
Myoan seemed to be particularly intent on bothering Grr-een-ka. He even stole one of her fish-rocks, even though I expressly told him not to. Thankfully, the rock theft did not raise the sleeping river-dog from her 9 months slumber.
Over the passing days and nights, I monitored Myoan as he explored the ruined village, to make sure that he would not wake the river-dog. Distant know-sense absolutely thrummed with him doing exactly that stupid thing, so I had to be extra-diligent.
I watched as Myoan roamed picking up odd bits and pieces, examining them closely before either discarding them or tucking them away in a bag he carried. Sometimes, he would stop and stare at nothing, his eyes unfocused, before suddenly snapping back to attention only to pull out a skin-covered sit-spot and scribble within.
Myoan was skinnier, quieter, more thoughtful than any of the other fetchlings that I’ve encountered and he spent far too much time scribbling inside a sit-spot, which was rather irregular because none of the other fetchling or adult males of his kind did anything of the sort.
He called the sit-spot he found in the rubble a “Mewo-drr-kss”.
As far as I’ve observed before, playing with the dark-liquid tipped sticks that resulted in a variety of scribbles was ordinarily the job of the female cat-servants. The job of male cat servants was hunting meat, not playing with wet-sticks. Myoan didn’t hunt fresh prey for us, which was concerning. He did far too much scribblery.
The question was, why was Myoan doing the job of a female servant and how would this result in him waking up Grr-een-ka?
As I watched Myoan day after day, I began to realize something truly fascinating. The sit-spot and the wet-stick scribblery weren't just idle pastimes!
At first, I thought it was just a strange, rather dull game, but then I noticed how his eyes would light up when he made certain squiggles, how he'd sometimes mutter to himself and nod as if he'd just caught a particularly juicy tidbit of something. Feeling curious, I peered at the invisible something, extending all of my senses forward.
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It was then that I was struck with a new, shiny understanding:
While I chased knowledge-mites by stretching myself out across sunbeams and shadows, Myoan somehow trapped a different kind of knowledge-mites with his stick, simply by leaving intricate black markings on the yellow sheets!
It turned out that Myoan was a know-sense hunter too, just like me!
Somehow Myoan used his sit-spot and wet-stick not only to capture but also to preserve and multiply know-mites!
The more he scribbled in the sit-spot’s insides, the more the colony of know-mites inside it grew!
I confirmed this by sitting atop the sit-spot.
Stretching atop the sit-spot instantly filled me with a variety of juicy know-sense and made me feel extra warm, warmer than 20 sunbeams! It was wonderful, I didn’t even have to move much. I could just nap on the sit-spot to absorb the know-sense that occasionally sparkled up from it.
Hunting know-sense while napping on Myoan’s sit-spot was incredibly effective.
Noticing what I was doing, Myoan shooed me off his sit-spot, which was a bother. He repeatedly offered me other, lesser sit-spots, which I declined. I knew well that those sit-spots were inferior to the “Myow-drrex”, not filled with myriads upon myriads of know-sense colonies pinned to its pages!
Eventually, after some paw-smacking and a serious conversation, we settled on a compromise of me occupying the sit-spot whenever it was put down and inhabiting his shoulder or lap to catch the occasional juicy know-sense mite fleeing from the sit-spot’s pages while he scribbled in it.
. . .
In this manner, Myoan and I had settled into a comfortable routine with him scribbling in his sit-spot and me perched nearby, absorbing the know-sense that emanated from his hunt. It was a good arrangement, one that satisfied both our needs and made both of us happy, making sure that we’d survive longer.
Eventually, I even convinced him to hunt down an elk and helped him defend our home from three dumb cat-servants that came from elsewhere.
But then, she arrived from a distant elsewhere.
The big half-cat, Cah-me, her name like a hairball cough entwined with selfish wants, sauntered into our lives like she owned the place!
From the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she was trouble. She was all flash and no substance, lush white fur gleaming in the sunlight.
I saw that her blue eyes were utterly devoid of any know-sense hunting skills, but she behaved as if she was the best hunter around.
I would have to show her the error of her ways.
What bothered me most was how Cah-me looked at Myoan.
It was clear, even without any know-sense, that she wanted to take him away, to make him her own cat-servant. The very thought made my fur stand on end.
Myoan was mine! I saved him, found him, nurtured, trained and fed him. I had chosen him as my companion in this post-Flying Death world! All of my work would not go astray just because some fat blonde half-cat showed up!
Cah-me, the big dumb she was, tried to bind Ioan with her blue spider companion, but I was quick and relentless, saving the poor, confused servant.
Having pawed off the nasty blue spider’s feelers, I directed Myoan to bind Cah-me into a web of her own making.
With Cah-me entwined, I once again reigned supreme as the number one feline of the house, helping Myoan scribble out a truly juicy trap for know-sense-mites using three of my portraits as bait.
Using the me-portrait trap Myoan and I made, we were able to accelerate our mutual hunt for know-sense and show Cah-me her true place on the warm steps (below me).
No matter how much Cah-me struggled to take my warm step away, I remained vigilant, not permitting it, guiding Myoan’s every waking moment.
Cah-me was a know-senseless klutz and as such, she somehow managed to entangle herself in the silver webs left by the black-swamp-spider during the night of Flying Death.
Again, as events escalated out of control, it was my quick thinking and Myoan's excellent order-following that saved us.
I was quite scared of Grr-een-ka at first, yes, but with our combined know-sense hunting, I figured out that she was just a dumb river dog, one with no know-sense to her whatsoever. In this manner Grr-een-ka was no wiser than Cah-me!
A wise cat does not jump into a fight herself, she smacks a dog and watches as the dog mauls her enemy.
Thus, I led Myoan to wake the river-dog to set her against Cah-me’s dumb dog-house, which was fun and scary to watch, because Grr-een-ka and Cah-me's dog-house barked and barked at each other, until Grr-een-ka bit Cah-me's dog-house so hard the entire world shook!
With her dog-house defeated, Cah-me became twice as polite.
. . .
Myoan wanted to visit his Myaw-ga, so I guided him there.
On the way to Myaw-ga’s home, we encountered a very scary red-dog of the Myaw-ga’s bog sister.
Myaw-ga home was full of warm sit-spots. I picked the best one, but then Myaw-ga told us that we could not leave her wood.
One does not tell a cat what to do. The cat decides what to do and when!
In the ensuing argument, we defeated the Myaw-ga and her black crow.
Only I knew what Myoan had to do for us to be happy! The Myaw-ga might have been clever but her companion was a crow and not a cat, thus we trumped her and she let us go as we desired.
. . .
We visited a few other curious places since, where I hunted even more tasty know-sense, getting even more skilled at bossing Myoan and Cah-me. Soon, my ultimate plan would reach fruition and Cah-me would not be able to stop me!
The day had come when Myaw-ga’s bog sister sent two of her red-dogs to bite us. I was ready. Bravely following my advice, Myoan woke up the river-dog with a bit of Cah-me’s blood.
Grr-een-ka was quite bothered when she woke up. She slammed the red dogs against each other and then dragged them off to the distant big, cold water with her jaws.
That’ll teach them to mess with me!
This morning, due to the dog-eat-dog incident, Cah-me, finally realizing how incredible I was, began to praise me, calling me a [Divine-Star-Beast], [All-Mother], [Moon-Devourer Wyrm] and other appreciative titles.
I accepted her worship with grace, of course.
After all, it was only right that she finally recognized my feline superiority. It only took some roundabout dog smacking to do it!
Myoan, for his part, seemed amused by the whole affair, but I could tell he was proud of me too.
A multitude of my unseen observers, across the distant boundary of know-sense, watched all of my excellent efforts.
They, unlike Myoan and Cah-me, knew exactly who constantly pawed at the strings of fate making sure that the cat-servant and the big dumb half-cat got to enjoy the pleasure of more sunbeam-filled days even when winter closed her claws all around us.