Disclaimer: Jane and the Dragon is (C) Martin Baynton, Weta, and Nelvana. I do not claim ownership, nor make a profit.
He didn't come here often, these days. As a new squire, he was too busy with training, and working for his father. But sometimes, on the days when Pepper and Rake went down into the village to see their parents, and Jester and Smithy sat by the forge and swapped stories about their families, and Jane went into her parents' apartments to eat and talk, he'd slip away.
Here, where the trees were too hard and twisted to chop, and the ground was too stony and hard to till, he'd kneel in front of an ordinary boulder, brush the long grasses away from the base, and run a finger over the uneven cross carved into the stone. He'd sit, and listen to the birdsong and the bubbling of the nearby creek, and he'd remember.
---
Seven year-old Gunther was often alone. All the other children's parents told them not to play with him, because he'd be just like his father one day. Gunther pretended not to care when he heard the other children whispering about him (whispers that were hissed quite loudly, because really they wanted him to hear,) but it was hard, and sometimes their words made him feel like crying.
For Gunther, the only thing worse than being whispered about was being laughed at, so when he wanted to cry he'd come here, where no one else came, and throw stones into the creek until he felt better. This was where he found his first friend.
At first he'd been too busy crying, and kicking at the dirt, and then crying more because he'd stubbed his toe on a stone and now his foot hurt, to notice the drenched pile of black fur lying on the bank of the creek. When he did see it, he gasped, sore foot forgotten. He approached it slowly, picking up a stick from the ground before tip-toeing closer and crouching a safe distance away. He raised the stick, and, preparing to run if it was anything bad, gingerly poked the little wet pile.
The little wet pile made a sad squeaking noise, and Gunther quickly dropped his stick, staring in startled horror. He held his breath and leaned so far backwards that he fell into the dirt as the pile moved, and then slowly turned to look at him.
It had two blue-gray eyes, a little triangle nose, and tiny white teeth. It was a kitten.
Gunther stared at the kitten, and the kitten stared back. People in the village hated cats, almost as much as they hated Gunther's family. His father said they were bad luck, even though his sailors kept them on the ships, to keep the rats and mice away. Gunther had even seen his father kick one once, when none of the sailors were watching.
The strange old lady whose son worked in the quarry, and who chewed on leaves that stained her teeth and turned her breath foul, talked about witches and cats as though they were the same thing, and told stories about them that made the littlest children scream. Gunther didn't like those stories much.
He watched the kitten struggle to stand under the weight of all the water in its fur. It didn't look like much of a witch to him. If it was a witch, he reasoned, it would have dried itself, and vanished in a puff of red smoke, like in the old woman's stories.
Instead it just flopped back against the dirt and made a noise like a sigh. Actually it looked quite pathetic, even for a kitten.
Gunther raised a tentative hand, and the kitten watched fearfully as he approached it, and even hissed a little. Gunther tried to be brave, and swallow his fear, but his hand still trembled as he gingerly stroked the cat.
It was very thin, he realised as he began to pet it more confidently. It felt as though it was made of nothing but bones wrapped in wet skin and fur. As he was thinking about how hungry it must be, the kitten began to make a rumbling noise deep in its chest, and pressed its head against his hand. Gunther blinked at it and rubbed its ears, smiling as the rumble grew louder. It was a happy sound.
Feeling braver, Gunther scooped the kitten up from the ground, and cradled it in his arms. The kitten just kept making its happy noise, so Gunther snuck a quick look between its legs before sighing in relief. It was a boy cat, so it couldn't be a witch. That would just be silly.
Completely reassured, Gunther sat back against the base of a tree and held the cat against him, wiping some of the water away with his sleeves. Eventually the kitten began to dry out, and look more like an animal and less like a sorry, soggy bundle of fur. His fur was a dark grey when dry, and stuck out in funny-looking clumps. He wasn't very pretty, as far as cats went, but Gunther supposed that was okay, because they were both boys. Boys didn't need to be pretty, and they didn't need pretty pets.
Startled, Gunther realised he'd been thinking of the kitten as his, and gazed down at it with a sinking feeling in his tummy. His father would never let him have a cat. In fact, he'd be furious if he knew Gunther had even touched one.
But . . . did he have to know? Gunther looked at the cat again. It had fallen asleep in his arms, tail curled against itself. Its ribs stuck out, even under the clumpy fur. It was scrawny and weak, and needed feeding.
He knew that if he left it here, the kitten would die. He knew that if he took it home and his father found out, he'd be in a lot of trouble.
Gunther took a deep breath and stood, wrapping the kitten under his clothes. He didn't have any friends, and neither did the kitten. They'd just have to stick together, and make sure his father didn't find out.
---
For three weeks, Gunther kept the kitten hidden from his father. The Merchant was rich, and wanted people to know it, so they had a big house. Gunther had his own room upstairs with a solid door and a small window. There weren't many toys in his room, but the kitten, which he had named Shade, didn't need toys. All he had to do was pick grass stems with seeds on them, and Shade would chase them all over his room. Sometimes, when his father was out and he'd finished studying, Gunther would sneak out of the house with Shade tucked under his clothes, and they'd go back to the spot by the creek and play, or climb up a tree and watch the birds, although Gunther had to hold on to Shade very tightly, otherwise he'd try to catch them.
For the first few days, Gunther had snuck some of the turnip from his lunch up to his room (he didn't like it much, anyway) for Shade to eat, but the kitten had only sniffed and picked at it. He liked the salted herring from dinner a little better, but mostly he batted it across the floor with his paw, and then chased after it.
On the third day, Gunther had left Shade curled up asleep on his bed in a patch of sunlight, and accompanied his father to the docks, where one of his trading vessels had come in.
While his father talked to the Captain and counted barrels, Gunther watched one of the ship's cats stalk across the deck as thought it owned the whole ship. One of the sailors was watching it with an amused expression, and Gunther sidled up to him, shyly.
"Um, pardon me?"
The sailor glanced down at him, and then back at the cat.
Gunther licked his lips. "I was wondering if you could tell me what the cats eat?"
This time when the sailor looked at him, his gaze stayed longer, and was harder. "You are his son, yes?" His grey head nodded towards Magnus, and his voice was thickly accented. "Him as what kicks cats?"
Gunther nodded, slowly. "He says they are bad luck," he said, uncertainly.
"What do you say, boy?" The sailor's gaze was very intense now.
Gunther fidgeted under the sailor's stare, and thought very hard. "I suppose . . ." he glanced over at his father, who was still busy inspecting goods. "If you are afraid of such a small animal, you are very unlucky indeed."
The sailor blinked, and then let out a short, sharp bark that made Gunther jump, and which he hoped was laughter.
"Then you are smarter than him. See that you do not grow stupid as you grow tall."
Gunther couldn't think of an answer for that, so he didn't say anything, although secretly he was pleased.
"Cat is smart, and knows it. He likes to catch his own food, such as rats and mice and things what think they are cleverer than he is." The Sailor watched as the cat stretched lazily on the sun-warmed deck. "But some days he works hard, and catches more mice than what he can eat. Those days he gets treat."
"Really?" asked Gunther, perhaps a little too eagerly. "What?"
The sailor's shrewd gaze was turned back towards Gunther. "Why does boy want to know?"
Startled, Gunther gazed to the side as he tried to come up with a good reason. "Well, I . . . I just wondered what they eat when they are out on the sea. That is all, I promise!"
The sailor smiled. "Smarter, but not so good at lies," he observed. "Cat likes many things. Fresh fish, warm galley, no rain. But he likes best those times when we are stopped at port, and can get some fresh milk on board."
Gunther's mouth fell open, and he was about to ask another question when his father's shout stopped him.
"Gunther! Make yourself useful, boy! How many of those small barrels are there?"
---
Gunther thought very hard on the way back home. Shade was too small and weak to catch mice yet, but perhaps some of the meat they had with dinner most nights would be okay. And the strange old lady with the silly witch stories had a cow in a stall behind her house, and no one watched it all day long . . . .
---
Now, when he walked through the town and heard the whispers, Gunther didn't mind. He held his head high and ignored the stupid things they said. Shade didn't care what his last name was, or how his grandfather had made his money. The kitten was doing well on smuggled meat and stolen milk, and was even starting to grow a belly. Gunther smiled a little and he scrambled up the outside staircase, which led upstairs, and pushed open the door. His smile froze when he saw the door to his room hanging open just a slither, and heard his father's heavy footsteps.
"Gunther, is that you?" Magnus asked, in the oily voice he used just in case it was someone important.
"Y-yes, Father." Gunther closed the door behind him and stepped hesitantly inside, stumbling a bit as Magnus loomed towards him from the hallway. Shade was balled in his fist, and mewled at Gunther when he saw him.
"Look what I found."
Gunther's gasp of horror didn't sound false at all.
"Do you know where it came from?" Magnus' face was all purple and red with rage, and veins bulged on his nose.
Gunther took a step backwards, and stared miserably at Shade.
"I—No, Father." He shifted his gaze to the floor as Shade mewled again.
He cringed as Magnus strode towards him, but his father simply walked past and opened the staircase door. The staircase platform creaked a little as he stepped onto it, and the hand holding Shade was raised. Gunther gasped in horror as Magnus threw Shade, hard, towards the ground two stories below, and then staggered back as Magnus stepped inside and slammed the door.
"Miserable vermin," he said, wiping his hand on his vest. "Come along, boy."
---
Gunther had never known an afternoon as long as that one. He didn't cry. His father did not approve of silly little sobbing boys. He worked very hard, even when his father wasn't supervising him, rolling all the drums he could move into neat rows in the storeroom, and then carefully stacking heavy bolts of expensive cloths until he thought his arms would fall off.
It was dusk when he finished, and he should have gone in for dinner, but instead he snuck around the side of the house, and found Shade. He knelt and scooped up the small, stiff, broken body, and carried it back to their spot by the creek one last time.
---
Dirt crusted under his nails, and mud streaked across his face each time he wiped away a tear. His father may not have approved of crying, but Shade wouldn't have minded. Gunther sobbed at the thought, and continued digging the small grave. For three whole weeks he'd had a friend, someone who'd needed him, and hadn't made fun of him. But now Shade was gone, and Gunther felt as though he'd never have that happiness again. He held the kitten tightly one last time before gently lowering him into the hole and filling it in with damp earth.
He sat by the fresh grave as the sky darkened, committing every detail and happy moment of those three weeks to memory. Then he stood, sighed, and began the walk home. It began raining as he walked, and by the time he arrived Magnus would only have been able to tell he'd been crying if he'd looked closely. Instead, he simply yelled at Gunther for missing dinner, and sent him off to his room.
---
Gunther sighed, stretched back on the stone he had been leaning against, and stood up to gaze down at it. He had buried Shade there, where no one else ever went, and had come back some time later with a blade to carve the cross. He knelt and briefly placed his hand over the earth, still warm from the sun, and then brushed the grass back over it.
His life had changed a lot since those few weeks five years ago, although he still had no friends. People still whispered angry things about him behind their hands, but Gunther had perfected the ability to look unconcerned, and simply stroll past. He never needed to run and cry, now, and returned to this quiet place less and less. But today had been a good day to visit his friend, and the quiet time had left him feeling well rested, if perhaps a little melancholy.
Turning to leave, Gunther froze when he heard dry grass crackle behind him, and turned back to see a large grey cat staring up at him. It was by far the ugliest cat he had ever seen, with a baleful one-eyed glare. Gunther and the cat stared at one another for a long time, as a grin gradually spread over the young squire's face.
"You can come, if you want," he told the cat, before turning once more and walking in the direction of the castle. His smile grew wider at the sound of small paws padding behind him.
---
A/N: Yes, yes, it's me again. With another oneshot. Yes, I know. Lone Wolf. Sorry. :P
Now I'll jump in with the answers to possible questions. Yes I did my research, no I didn't just make up that stuff about people disliking cats and thinking they were witches. It's true. According to the internets, anyway. And as for that ugly cat in the end? Well, if you ever read the questions page at qubodotcom, you'll know that once upon a time, Cuthbert had a one-eyed pet cat. Hmm.
Well, thanks once again to readers, reviewers, and those poor sods who get forced to read this stuff before I post it. Kris, Aria, OtakuChild and H this time, I think. No one's read this final version, though, so I hope you enjoy it. Sorry that, once again, this isn't my best. And sorry that it's not Lone Wolf. I do still think about where that story will go, though. One day we'll get there together.