MC: Haven't written Legend of Zelda stuff in ages, but when I first read about kleptomaniac cats I knew there was a fic in that.

DISCLAIMER: Nintendo owns all the characters and I don't even have the most recent Legend of Zelda games.

Cat Burglar

"Meow," a white fluffy cat greeted Zelda as she entered the apartment.

"Why hello, Louise," Zelda replied, stooping down to pet the cat.

After she petted the cat a few times she stood and dragged her suitcases inside. Leaving them at the door she walked over to the kitchen counter and picked up the note the apartment's owner left for her. She scanned it twice then dropped it back on the counter with a sigh. Louise hopped onto to the counter beside her.

"Even if I'm just the catsitter I know you're not allowed on the counter," Zelda said. She picked the cat up and gently set her down on the floor, much to the feline's displeasure. "Thelma's left pretty clear instructions on what you are and aren't allowed to do, so don't think you can pull the wool over my eyes."

Louise twitched her tail and walked away. Whatever bravado Zelda was drawing on to talk to the cat faded away with a sigh. She ran a hand through her hair and then shook her head.

"If I'm already having conversations with the cat, what am I going to be like in three months when Thelma finally gets back?" she asked the empty room.

Things weren't as bad as she feared. She hadn't spent any significant time in Castle Town in years, so it was kind of cool getting to know the area again. After work every day she'd spend a few hours exploring the local sights before heading home to Louise. The cat was always happy to see her, but also seemed independent enough that Zelda didn't feel bad if she was late getting home or decided to go out with coworkers.

By the time the first two weeks had passed Zelda felt pretty comfortable in her routine. She not only knew how to get where she needed to go, but also how long the transit would take and she was no longer misplacing things in the apartment. Everything belonged in a particular place and Zelda knew where that was, which did wonders for her peace of mind.

At least, this was all true until she found the underwear. She first thought it was hers—something she bought and then promptly forgot about it. After all, she was a huge fan of Bremen Pals and totally would have bought Keaton boxers if she had come across them in a store. She assumed Louise found them in a suitcase pocket and pulled them out before abandoning them in the middle of the floor and so Zelda simply picked them up without a second thought. However, as soon as she held them up she realized they belonged to someone with a much larger waist.

That got them dropped in an instant. Zelda didn't have a clue who they belonged to, since they were much too big for her and too small for Thelma. She was also certain they weren't detritus from one of her exs and as far as she knew, Thelma's taste in men didn't run toward cartoon fans. So they were boxers of unknown origin.

They looked clean, but Zelda washed her hands as soon as she threw the pair into a grocery bag. Better safe than sorry if some guy's unwashed shorts somehow made it into her laundry. She hung the bag up in the hall closet and made a mental note to bring them downstairs to the laundry room the next time she needed to wash a load. Surely whoever missed the boxers could withstand missing them for a few more days.

Before Zelda could leave the underwear in the laundry room she found more. This time it was an entire batch of socks. Louise was nesting in a pile on the couch. Zelda didn't understand why the cat insisted on sleeping on the socks when she already had a dozen perfectly good lounging places, but when she finally shooed her away Zelda discovered eighteen socks of which she could make seven matching pairs. They were mostly black and wooly, but some were green or white, and a few even had geeky cultural icons on them. All were roughly twice the size of Zelda's socks.

This was an alarming development. Unlike a stray pair of underwear, eighteen socks didn't wander into her apartment by accident. Someone was intentionally leaving undergarments for her to find. That also meant someone was getting into the apartment without her knowledge to leave these things. The realization filled her with a sense of dread because it meant she wasn't really safe in Thelma's home. She wouldn't be again until she knew who was getting in and how they were doing it so that she could put a stop to it.

Zelda spent the night barely sleeping. Every noise, even if it was just Louise shifting on the pillow beside her, sent her into high already, afraid someone was breaking into the apartment. While she typically locked the doors before bed, now she also locked the windows and jammed kitchen chairs under the doorknobs of the bedroom and entryway doors. That way if someone did have a key to unlock things they still wouldn't be able to open the door.

Nothing turned up the next morning, or the next two nights. Then she found brand new boxers with Malo Mart tags still attached when she got home from work. That sent another jolt of fear through her. Enough was enough. Zelda wasn't stupid. If there had been three incidents of someone else's clothing turning up in her apartment—two of which couldn't be explained away by accident, and one time after she started taking precautions—it was time to get out. She wasn't going to end up like a girl in a horror film, so she was going to heed the warnings and leave as soon as she had a place to land.

Luckily, her friend Ashei had a studio apartment across town. It was tiny and Ashei already shared it with her girlfriend, but she'd be happy to put Zelda and Louise up for a couple days if she really needed it. Considering the circumstance, Zelda decided to call her. As Zelda called her friend she opened the balcony door to allow Louise outside so she could finish her call in peace. Well, semi-outside—when Thelma moved in, she cat-proofed the balcony with extensive screening to allow her feline companion a way to go outside without ever leaving home.

"Of course you can stay!" Ashei said as soon as Zelda explained the situation. "Do you need me to come over and help pack?"

"No, I'll be okay. I should be out of here in half an hour and whoever this guy is, he hasn't yet tried to come in while I've been home. Just need to pack and grab Louise."

"Call me before you leave and, Zellie, if anything feels hinky, get out. We can come back for the cat and your things later."

"Promise," Zelda agreed before hanging up.

She went into the bedroom and threw all her clean clothes into her larger suitcase. Toiletries and a few sleep things went in next. She threw in a raincoat and sensible work heels before carrying the bag out to the front door. As soon as she had Louise in her carrier Zelda would grab the cat food and carry everything out. Ideally, the creep would never know she left.

Zelda opened the balcony door and stepped out. She assumed it would be a simple matter of picking the white cat up and stuffing her in her carrier so that they could leave. However, Louise was nowhere in sight. Zelda looked in every direction twice before starting to panic. Save for a flimsy plastic lawn chair and a few mesh shelves along one wall for Louise to climb, the balcony was devoid of things. There was literally no place for the cat to hide. She couldn't believe someone had snuck in and catnapped Louise without a sound while she was inside the apartment, but Zelda couldn't come up with another cause for her disappearance.

"Louise?" Zelda called, again feeling like a character in a horror flick. Likely the cat wouldn't appear and all she was doing was drawing attention to herself. "Louise!"

There was the distinct screeching groan of metal grinding against metal. Zelda looked up, trying to trace the sound to its source. The screen in one top corner twisted and fluctuated. She felt adrenaline surge in her bloodstream as she backed toward the door. She was a hair's breadth away from fleeing the apartment without stopping for any of her things and now that depended entirely on what was trying to get into the balcony.

There was a flash of white paw and suddenly Louise pushed her way through the narrow gap between the screen and the cement floor of the balcony above them. She hooked her claws into the mesh like a squirrel and flipped onto the highest shelf. In her mouth she held something white, which she proceeded to drop on Zelda's head. She immediately swiped it off, realizing only once it was in her hand that she held a thin tank top. Louise stared proudly at her the same way most cats would leave a dead rodent at their human's feet.

Zelda pulled out her phone and called her friend back. "Ashei, you'll never guess what the cat dragged in."

Now that she had determined the source of the clothing Zelda no longer felt the urge to flee. That was a huge relief, which was a good thing because she had a new headache. Louise was not only a thief, but a bonafide cat burglar and now that the cat was out of the bag on her hobby, the felonious feline brought home loot by the paw load. Every time Zelda came home she found a new present and sometimes Louise disappear while she was home only to reappear a while later with a new prize.

She'd threaded the original hole up with some cord and new sheets of mesh, but the cat kept getting out. Then Zelda only let Louise onto the balcony with supervision in hopes she could grab her if she tried to escape. That didn't help either. She must have raided a dozen men's wardrobes for this amount of gear, or else brought home most of man's closet. Zelda suspected the latter, as more and more items began to arrive with the price tag still attached.

The final straw came when Zelda watched Louise ascend to the top of her cat-climbing tower, push on a ceiling title, and escape into the space between the floors. Zelda climbed on the kitchen table and pushed on a few tiles only to find they all lifted as easily as the one Louise used. There was no place Zelda could put the tower in the apartment that would keep the cat out of the walls. That was when she admitted defeat, as there was no way for her to rehabilitate this cat. To celebrate, Louise brought home flip-flops, which also meant Zelda could now build an entire ill-gotten outfit.

After that she endured the rampant larceny with resignation and vague annoyance. It was too taxing to waste her energy butting her head against a brick wall and her priorities had shifted, since she knew the cat was continuing to victimize some poor guy. Still, she couldn't help admonishing Louise whenever she brought home a new woven trophy.

"Oh Louise," Zelda groaned. The white fluffy cat gently placed a pair of boxers at her feet. "You need to stop stealing people's underwear."

Louise deigned to answer, instead choosing to lick a paw. Zelda sighed and dumped a can of wet cat food into her bowl for breakfast. Then she scooped up the boxers and tossed them into the bag in the hall closet. Technically, she was up to three overflowing bags of stolen clothes, but she didn't know what to do with them.

Before the first bag filled up Zelda tried taking the clothes down to the laundry room in the basement. She initially assumed there was a lost and found where Louise's prizes could eventually make their way back to their owner. However, when she got there she found the caretaker, Borville, waving a towel about the room before hurling it into the trash bin.

"Something wrong with your towel?" Zelda had asked, as it looked almost new.

"It's not my towel," Borville sniffed, looking at her sideways. "It's clutter in my apartment complex's public space."

"Someone probably forgot it when they were folding their laundry. If you left it on that table over there, I bet they'd come back for it in a day or two," Zelda suggested, pointing at a bare table by the dryers.

"You some sort of Zora-loving hippie?" he demanded. "This is my building and my laundry room, which is a privilege for tenants to use only if they follow the rules. And the rules are they don't leave anything behind! If I find your junk in my space unattended I throw it out."

"Okay, I got it," Zelda grimaced. She left as quickly as she could, but not before Borville made a few unsavory comments about her Twili friend, which made her almost mad enough to set Midna on him.

In any case, she couldn't leave the clothes for him to find. Zelda considered putting up a sign about all the found clothing, but she didn't know where it could go that wouldn't result in Borville immediately ripping it down. Besides, what would she write on the side: found thirty pairs of socks, nineteen pairs of underwear, and assorted other clothing? So the clothes stayed in the hall closet.

One day near the end of the pet-sitting staycation, Louise wasn't in the apartment when Zelda got up. Figuring she was off committing petty larceny again, Zelda put out cat food and headed off to work. When she got home the cat was still missing and her food untouched. This was alarming because Louise never missed her meals, even when she stole a pair of jeans and it took her hours to get those blasted pants through the ceiling.

She spent the night pulling out ceiling tiles looking for the cat, but all she found was hair. In the morning Zelda took a vacation day, which she only got away with because her boss was a real animal lover. She hunted all around the apartment complex's grounds and even found a pair of binoculars so she could do a spot check of all the balconies in hopes of spotting Louise. No dice. So Zelda went back up to the apartment and made up missing cat fliers for Louise. Better to get out the notice now before calling Thelma with the bad news.

Zelda planned to put a missing cat sign on the building's main entrance, Borville be damned. She'd keep putting one up there and paper the rest of the neighborhood until Louise was found. However, when she got down to the entrance there was already a sign up about her. Zelda ripped it off the wall so that she could read it more carefully.

'Caught Cat Burglar' read the headline. There was a picture of Louise in a large wire crate that probably belonged to a dog. Under the photo there was more text, which read, 'After months of rampant theft I caught this conniving kitty in the act of purloining my belongings. She is safe and unharmed, but will not be returned until my belongings are.' He had also listed a phone number and email address.

Zelda felt her blind panic about the missing cat shift into focused anxiety. Louise was finally reaping what she had sown and now she was catnapped. She could get her back perfectly safe without Thelma ever knowing what happened and get rid of the clothes at the same time. Of course, something might still go wrong, but this was the best-case scenario under the circumstances.

She raced up to the apartment. While she could have immediately made the call, she wanted to do it from the privacy of her own apartment in case she freaked. Once there, Zelda took several deep calming breaths and then dialed the number. It rang repeatedly before a man answered with a grunt.

"Hello?" Zelda began. "Did you post that sign about the cat burglar?"

"Yeah, I did," the man said, sounding more awake. "Did it steal from you too or are you the cat owner?"

"The latter, more or less. I've been cat-sitting Louise for the last two months, but more importantly, I have your things. At least, I have everything she brought home," Zelda said. "I'm happy to meet you wherever for the trade, but I need her back."

"I would love to get this cat off my hands; especially if I can get my stuff back," he laughed. "Why don't you bring my clothes and her carrier? That'll be easier than trying to move her in Wolfy's crate. I'm in apartment 602."

Zelda readily agreed. Apparently Louise had been raiding the apartment directly above her own home. This suggested there might be some sort of cat-sized flaw in the design she had readily abused that would need to be corrected. However, that was a problem for another day. For now, it simply meant Louise would be easy to retrieve. With carrier in one hand and a bag of clothes in the other she practically flew up the stairs to the next floor.

She wrapped on the door before she could psych herself out of it. Getting Louise back was more important than worrying about first impressions or potential arguments. Besides, after the way Louise had behaved this guy probably thought the worst of Zelda. Whatever, she could handle a month of embarrassed glances in the corridors if she got the cat back and then she'd never have to see him again.

When he opened the door he seemed a bit startled by her presence. Zelda was also startled, but that had more to do with the fact all he was wearing was a pair of what were obviously swim trunks. A massive dog also stood at the door, but the guy kept the animal back by blocking with a leg.

"Hey," he said. "I thought I'd have more time to stick Wolfy in the bedroom."

"We're directly below you," Zelda said. "It was really quick getting up here."

"That probably has something to do with the cat getting into my place," he agreed. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment until the dog whined. As if coming alive he grabbed the dog by the collar and steered him back into the apartment. "I'll be back in a sec. You can come in if you want. I'm Link, by the way."

"Zelda," Zelda said, accepting the offer.

She slowly followed him inside, stopping in the living room, while he dragged the dog down the hall toward the bedroom. The apartment had the same design as Thelma's home. She looked around, hoping to find Louise, and eventually spotted the cat in a massive wire crate next to the far end of the couch. Louise started meowing when she noticed Zelda.

"Hey Louise," Zelda grinned. She knelt by the cage and stuck her fingers through for the cat to lick. "I can see you don't like being a jail bird."

"No she doesn't," Link said, walking over to Zelda's side. "After I caught and stuffed her in there, she spent the entire night caterwauling. I'd been asleep for only an hour when you called."

"I'm sorry. How did you catch her? I've been trying to cat proof the apartment, but she's able to literally slip through the ceiling."

"I baited a trap," Link explained. At Zelda's expression he added, "I used a live trap since it doesn't hurt the animal; rescue agencies use them all the time. When she got into the cage far enough the pressure trigger went off to safely enclose her in the trap without touching a whisker."

"I see." Apart from her dignity, Louise looked unharmed, so Zelda decided to believe him. She passed him the bag of clothes. "Here."

"Thanks!" Link's face lit up. He pulled on the first shirt he found and then dug through the bag a bit. After a moment his expression fell. "I thought the cat took more than this."

"Oh gosh, yes," Zelda laughed. "I've got at least another two bags downstairs. The hall closet's swimming in your things. I just couldn't carry any more while fetching Louise and I wanted to make certain she was really okay. Thelma didn't tell me Louise was a kleptomaniac when she asked me to watch her."

"I think Louise is a catomaniac," Link grinned. Zelda laughed at the corny joke, more because she was relieved at how much of a good sport he was being about the entire situation than out of any actual amusement. "Shall we transfer Louise into her carrier and go get my stuff?"

"Okey dokey."

Opening Wolfy's crate was entirely too complicated for Zelda's taste, but Link did it with practiced ease. Louise immediately darted out of the cage. However, Zelda was expecting this sort of behavior and she caught the cat around the middle and stuffed the feline into her travel carrier before she could protest. After that Link followed Zelda downstairs to her apartment. Once the front door was shut Zelda released Louise and the cat fled under the couch.

"Oh, so my clothes are good enough to steal, but you don't want to hang around me?" Link called after the retreating cat. "I see how it is."

"What sort of bait did you use on her?" Zelda asked. Louise could be very finicky and she was curious what actually worked.

"I… used silk boxers," Link admitted, blushing. "I mean, by this point I had seen that cat steal clothing off my line on the balcony and out of my basket in the bedroom, so I figured it might work. She definitely stole my nicer stuff first."

"She does like the softer things in life," Zelda agreed.

She opened the hall closet and passed Link two bags of clothing. There was a lot more that had fallen off the top of the bags, so Zelda scooped it into some plastic shopping bags and followed Link back up to his place. He haphazardly tossed his things on the counter before turning back to Zelda and offering her a smile.

"So if any of my other clothes go missing I should stop by?" he asked.

"Sure. I mean, I would have returned this a lot sooner if I knew who it all belonged to. Borville has a real bug up his butt about allowing the laundry room a lost and found, so I hung onto it. Didn't want this much stuff getting tossed out."

"And I appreciate it."

They stood there for another minute or two before Zelda headed back downstairs. Link was incredibly understanding—especially considering the situation—and he was easy enough on the eyes Zelda wouldn't mind if she had to return a few more things to him. She saved his number in her phone, since it was likely only a matter of time before Louise struck again. She seemed to have a real obsession with Link's clothes. In fact, by the time Zelda returned to her apartment she found the cat chewing on another one of Link's patterned socks. With a groan she started a new bag of Link clothes.

At least Louise's larceny seemed to slow after her overnight sentence. However, Link still had to regularly retrieve his things. What started as him dropping by every few days to pick up a favorite article of clothing—thankfully, it turned out Louise specialized in clean clothing—turned into him coming over after work every day. They'd talk as Zelda returned the day's catch and often the conversation lasted far longer than that simple action required. Zelda knew a lot of Link's likes due to his novelty underwear, and after admitting she thought Louise's first theft was a forgotten purchase, they had a lot to talk about. Bremen Pals was a favorite for both of them and they frequently returned to that topic when didn't have any other TV shows or animal antics to discuss.

The night before Thelma flew in Link invited her over to watch the season premier of Bremen Pals. Zelda gladly accepted, since it would be nice to watch it with a friend. She hadn't spent a lot of time around Wolfy, but the big dog was friendly and crawled into his crate when Link told him to. Zelda was secretly relieved about this because the dog had been trying to sit on her and she was fairly certain she weighed more than she did.

"He's just a big cuddlier," Link explained, smiling at his pet. "Doesn't really get he weighs ten stone more than he did when he first came home. If having him around upsets you, he can go in my room, no problem."

"He's fine in there," Zelda said, referring to the crate. "I'm just not used to dogs his size. I can almost ride him."

"Some of the kids in my old neighborhood used to. They'd pretend he was Clifford the Big Red Dog," Link laughed. "My favorite Halloween costume was the year I dressed Wolfy up as Ringleader and I was Keaton. Buddy of mine agreed to be Don Gero, so we had almost all of the Bremen Pals together."

"No one was willing to be Bunny?" Zelda asked. Link just shook his head. "Shame. He's always been my favorite."

"If you're around for Halloween, I could pull out our old costumes. They're around here somewhere." Link scratched his head. "Couple months should be enough time to figure out where… Shad's probably willing to be the Don again."

"Cool."

The premier was better than Zelda had hoped. The episode ended with surprise twist that introduced a new character and added a dramatic dimension to the Bremen Pals universe. Link and Zelda talked through two other programs about the ramifications of the new episode and where they thought the show was going from there. Before Zelda knew it, her preset bedtime alarm was going off and she had to go home.

"You're leaving already?" Link asked, as Zelda gathered her things. "I was about to stick some wings in the oven. Thought we could watch something, maybe The Lone Sheikah or something else more to your preference."

"I would love to, but I have to get up in six hours and pick Thelma up from the airport, then move into my new apartment," Zelda said. "Rain check?"

"Totally. Do you need help moving?" Link offered. "This is exactly the sort of thing my muscles are good for and I can at least help you load up."

"All I've got at Thelma's are my laptop and clothes, but I can certainly use your help getting stuff out of my storage unit. Plus, you can meet my friends, Midna and Ashei. They'd be delighted to have someone else haul my couch."

"Then it's a date."

"Ah, no. It's not."

"Oh, sorry," Link said, expression faltering. "It's just a phrase."

"If you wanted to go on a real date, let's try something that doesn't have a high chance of injuring one of us," Zelda said, "like a movie."

"I know a great Gerudo restaurant, the Desert Ship, just off West Street near the theater," Link said. "We could get something to eat before the flick. You interested in seeing anything in particular?"

"Ghostbusters?" Zelda suggested, but it wasn't really a suggestion. She could learn a lot about a man by his reaction to the remake.

"That's still in theaters?" Link asked.

"Umm. Yeah."

"Then I'd love to see it, but not in 3D. I hate watching 3D movies."

"Deal."

With a date in place and additional moving help secured, Zelda smugly went home. After lying down for little more than a nap, she woke to find Louise shoving yet another shirt in her face. However, this time it didn't bother Zelda that much because it was the last time the cat could do that to her. She got up, showered, and drove to the airport. Luckily, Thelma's flight was on time and Zelda didn't have to wait long for her to get in the car.

On the way home Thelma asked what sort of mischief Louise had been up to, which allowed Zelda to launch into an epic account of Louise's descent into a life of crime. She didn't finish until after they were sitting in Thelma's kitchen brewing coffee. Once Zelda was done Thelma sat in silence thinking.

"Strange," Thelma finally said. "Louise hasn't stolen clothes like this in years."

"She did this before?" Zelda asked. She didn't know if she was more surprised by the fact the cat used to purloin clothes as a kitten or that she had stopped and only to resume the behavior years later."

"Yes, when we were living above my bar she used to sneak out and steal socks from an apartment across the street from me. Louise would tiptoe across a wire to get in and out," Thelma explained. She mimed Louise's movements with a couple fingers across the table. "That's how I met my boyfriend, Renado. He lives in Kakariko Village now to be closer to his daughter, but we're still together after six years. I haven't thought about any of this in years."

"Seriously?" Zelda asked, turning to look at Louise. She had a growing suspicion that the cat's thefts were a lot more intentional that she had previously assumed. Louise ignored her, instead portraying perfect innocence as she licked a paw clean.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like, leave a review, since I'd love to hear what you think about my work.