The Tale of Lucy and the Cat.
Lucy sighed in relief after her eight am class had finally ended. Why she decided to take an ancient civilizations history class at eight am? The world will never know. Lucy didn't mind so much now, since her first semester of college was coming to a close. Sad part is, is that Lucy still hadn't made any friends. But she didn't seem to mind so much. Throughout high school, Lucy grew into the intelligent introvert that she was today. Sometimes she just wanted to be alone. But most of the time she just found other college kids annoying. Nothing beats snuggling into her bed with a good book and some tea after classes. However, she always had the little voice in the back of her head telling her to 'go out and socialize!' and 'you're not going to stay young forever!'. But usually, she tucked that voice away into the back of her head.
Lucy had an odd feeling about today. The teacher held them for a couple of minutes but other than that everything seemed pretty normal. Still, she had this nagging feeling. As she neared the dorms, a high-pitched sound emanated from the bushes. She slowed down and crept towards the bush. Suddenly, a blackish-blue blur burst from the bush and makes its way to the middle of the courtyard, the college kids unfazed but what seemed to be a cat. "Well that's normal," Lucy thought, "this campus is full of stray cats." But she found this stray weird. The other cats she had seen around campus would scatter if you got within ten feet of the things. This blue-tinted, Lucy noted, cat sat in the courtyard and watched the young adults go about their morning. As if sensing her stare, the cat turned around to face her. They held eye contact for a couple of moments. Lucy broke first, remembering that she was in public and that young people were very judgy. Maybe they would start calling her a cat lady. Just the thought of it made Lucy turn on her heel and walk calmly back to the dorms.
However, the high-pitched sound jingled again and turned to find the uh, blue cat in the middle of its meow. It followed her slowly as if waiting to see what she would do next. Lucy never had a cat follow her. She checked her pockets to see if she had any food. Nope. So why is this stray following her? She paused and stared at the cat. This time, the cat kept walking toward her, sniffing at her shoes. Lucy took in a breath and bent over slowly, as if not to startle the stray. The cat sniffed her hand and, to her surprise, rubbed his face on it. "Does this mean we're friends?!" She thought excitedly to herself. "Wait, calm down. It's just a stray. Plus, I'm not even allowed to have pets in the dorm." With that in mind, Lucy patted the cats head and continued to her dorm hall. About halfway to the door, Lucy looked over her shoulder to find the blue cat still following her. She sighed and sat down on the stairs outside of her hall. The cat took this as an invitation and jogged to her position. It nudged her hand and circled her, asking to be pet. Lucy did as it wanted, feeling happy someone (albeit a cat) took an interest in her.
Glancing around to see if anyone was nearby, Lucy whispered to the cat, "So, does this mean you want to be my friend?" The cat stared at her. "I'll take your silence as a yes. Where did you come from? You're too friendly to be a stray and what's with this blue fur-"
Lucy shut her mouth as the door behind her opened, and a group of girls filed out. They didn't pay her any mind. The cat lazily sat off to the side as if it was waiting for the girls to pass so they could continue their conversation. Once out of earshot, Lucy stood.
"Well Kitty, it's time for me to go. Maybe you should head out too. If you're not a stray, your owner is probably looking for you." Lucy fumbled for her keys while trying to hold eye contact with the cat she now dubbed Kitty. As luck would have it, Lucy's foot gets caught on the top step, and she stumbles a bit, dropping her room key. Kitty made its move and snatched the key and bolted back down the stairs.
"Hey! Kitty wait! That's mine! That's very impolite to take someone's things, Kitty!" She yelled, which gained a few glances from the boys exiting from the other side of the hall. She didn't care at that moment. How could she escape the world if she didn't have her key!?
Kitty wasn't trying all that hard to lose her though. He'd glance back every once and a while to see if she was still following her. Lucy huffed in annoyance. This had to be a practical joke. About halfway back to her history class, Kitty took a sharp right and headed towards a dorm hall in the shape of a 'U.' Kitty, with key in mouth, led Lucy into the middle (or inside) of the U. There was a little opening at the bottom of the building that led out to the other side. Lucy got on her hands and knees to look through the opening. Kitty sat there with the key next to him, seeming smug about his hiding place.
"Alright Kitty, I followed you here. Now please give me back my key! I have another class in twenty minutes!" At that cat's silence, she slid down the wall and plumped herself onto the grass. She'll have to wait out the cat. Yeah, that seemed logical. After a couple of minutes of silence, the cat started to meow again. And it only got louder. Lucy began to get worried and was about to reach into the opening and yank the cat out to see what was the matter when a new voice stopped her actions.
"Happy! There you are ya stupid cat. I've been worried sick about ya! You already know I'm not suppose to have you in my room. Get out of there right now young man!" A male voice scolded. Lucy leaned down through the opening once more and met the half face of a boy with dark eyes. Pink hair fell into those eyes as he was looking into the opening. He noticed her instantly. "Oh, hey! Um, I don't normally talk to cats. Uh… wow sorry, I'm so awkward."
"No, no you're fine!" Lucy laughed, "I had a feeling this cat, sorry, Happy was it? I had a feeling Happy wasn't a stray."
"Oh yeah. I mean, he was a couple of months ago, but I found him and fixed him up. He likes to run out sometimes after I complain about a hard day. I think he does it to find someone to cheer me up. Or it's probably because the bastard's hungry. Sorry, sometimes I blurt things out." Happy purred as he nudged against the boy's hand.
"It's fine! And yeah, he seems to be the troublemaker type." Lucy giggled. She watched the boy (maybe a year or two older than her?) smirk through the opening. Seeing that Happy was distracted, she reached her hand through and grabbed her key. She smiled in success. As she was about to get up from her awkward kneeling position, a tan arm stuck its way through the opening.
"I'm Natsu by the way!" The boy said in greeting. Lucy smiled at the odd way he introduced himself but took his hand anyway.
"Lucy Heartfilia."
"Hey, so this might sound weird, but would you like to help me get Happy back to my dorm? He seems to like you." Lucy giggled and accepted. She started her task with Natsu drawing the cat out of his hiding place. Her creative writing class could wait. Lucy was beginning to hope that next semester wouldn't be so lonely.
So….hey. I know it's been a while, and it'll probably be another while again. I just sort of lost all motivation to continue writing these stories. (I mostly blame school. It's hard to come up with original sophisticated plots that won't confuse your audience but also won't be hard to write because you don't have time to write them.) And to be quite frank, I don't think I'm that good at writing stories. Maybe I'll find motivation again since I'm taking an english class next semester. Hey, I'm pretty good at writing essays.
So yeah. Sorry for any mistakes in this thing. I know it's not written the best, I wrote it in under an hour, and at 1:30 in the morning because I'm bored. So I know it's not my best. Just a little something to see if I still got it.
A big thank you to whoever is still reading my stories. You guys are the real MVPs for reading my crap. Most of which don't have an ending. Anywho, thanks to new people who are reading this too. I promise you I thought I was a lot better in middle school. Oh have times have changed. See ya guys later!
-P.