Fall the 37th, 520 AV
Today, the sun was lazy, as was the wind, as were the clouds. Morning rains had come and gone as they always had this season, but the clouds that had brought them still lingered. Petrichor was different in the jungle than it was elsewhere. Constantly wet with humidity, it didn’t bring the marked change in the way the air smelled, not like it did in places that saw far less rain and dew. What it did bring though was a lessening of the sweltering heat that could sap one’s will to do anything. The breeze was enough to bring some relief but not enough to move the clouds, at least not quickly, and they drifted at a pace to match the lackadaisical attitude that Syka seemed to bring for the tourists, covering a sun that didn’t care whether or not it showed itself. Perhaps with the relief it was a good day to be working, but most just took the opportunity to relax, unassailed by the usual burn of the sun.
But these were all worries for those who could sense and feel such things. For those who could not, it was a perfect day for stalking. The hidden sun left little light to cast shadows, and for some, shadows weren’t a concern.
This was the way things were for the cat. It was incorporeal, its limited materialized form not enough to block the light that reached it. To call it a cat was a misnomer. It was still a kitten, perhaps had been for all its existence, its coat still sticking out in only the way a kitten’s can. Whether it was out of some memory of its past life or for the benefit of its little girl, one couldn’t tell, but it occasionally tripped over its paws though it had no physical paws to trip over. Still, it plodded across the sand, stalking something as it did. It took anyone watching a long while to determine what it was the kitten was hunting, but eventually, they could see the miniscule creatures scurrying along the beach ahead of the tiny predator. Sand crabs. They were incredibly fast creatures, scurrying along the sand with a nimbleness no other animal could match on the shifting surface.
No other creature except the cat. In a fashion belied by its clumsy kitten antics, it kept several steps ahead of its quarry. Sand crabs, speedy beasts they were, skittered from hole to hole, always keeping an escape route open, but for the past half a bell, the cat had pounced about, cutting the crab off from each hole as it tried to escape. After a few attempts of trying to catch other crabs had failed, the ghostly cat had learned the strategy and was now employing it flawlessly against its prey. Every time the creature darted near a hole, the cat leapt in its way, and it was forced to scurry another direction. Occasionally, the cat’s pounce would carry it close enough that it could bat at the crab, and bat it did, sending the little shelled creature spinning in confused circles at the sudden icy shock of contact with another soul. In a few brilliant attempts, the crab made its way for one hole only to change direction at the last moment, but the kitten just blinked between the crab and its new sanctuary. Once the predator revealed this power, the prey lost all sense of reason and just ran as fast as it could but to no avail. Eventually, it just gave up, sitting still while the kitten batted at it until it grew bored and went off in search of another.
Stalking the cat, a good couple dozen paces behind, was a little girl, its little girl. She wasn’t particularly sneaky about what she did, but she stayed far enough back and the cat was so entranced by its prey that she remained unnoticed by her pet. If it wasn’t for the way she seemed unnaturally well for not looking it, people might not have noticed she was dead, such was the skill of her materialization. That, and the way the sea breeze shifted nothing on her and her feet made no prints in the sand.
For several bells, the girl followed the kitten who wandered on its way down the beach sometimes chasing crabs and sometimes just frolicking. Every so often, the cat would burst into a storm of blinks that carried it every which direction. On a couple instances, one of the blinks would drop it into the shallows of the sea, and it would erupt back out of the gentle surf, shaking its paws in disgust though it hadn’t got wet. When it was satisfied it was dry, it turned toward the waves, arched its bac with its fur standing on end and its tail bottlebrushed, and hissed at the offending water. Whenever it did this, the girl erupted into laughter, and the cat, doubly offended at being caught, sulked, then began to groom its paws and ears excessively as if it could rid itself of the stench of embarrassment. Once it was sure it had, the cat started on its way again, and the girl picked back up where she had left off following the cat.
She was oddly content with nothing more than the stalking and the watching of the kitten. She took no notice of the things about her, not the sea, not the clouds, not the sand, not the jungle, not even the other ghost who tailed the two of them, an unseen shadow that matched them step for step, break for break, silent smile for their every laugh.
