Consider this one of 'patientalien's' and my various journeys into the 'winduwatchers' RPG timeline, and an homage to our terrible cat.
Summary: Pussy Magnifico lived, until she didn't.
Ferus Olin had a fluff-pittin named Pussy Magnifico. In full disclosure, it had once been Anakin Skywalker's fluff-pittin, but after an unfortunate incident involving Skywalker's genitalia and Pussy Magnifico's tongue, Ferus had taken the pittin as his own.
He'd grown attached to her, or as attached as a Jedi Padawan was allowed to be to anything, and when he left the Order (again, Skywalker's genitalia had been involved), the question of what to do with P-Mag, as she was affectionately known, was raised.
With his own future so uncertain, he didn't want to bring her with him. His Master, Siri Tachi, disavowed any association with the pittin, telling him that she had no more love to give. Skywalker was right out, for obvious reasons. Finally, he settled on the one person in the Temple who might appreciate her.
Jocasta Nu, the Archive Master, had no pets of her own, despite her running of the Jedi Temple Cat Lover and Book Club Sewing Circle. Since Ferus had been her favorite Padawan, as much as she could ever like a Padawan, she took pity on the mewling creature in his arms and agreed to take P-Mag in and train her in the ways of Archive guardianship.
Content that P-Mag would be well cared for (and well away from Skywalker's crotch, since the younger boy rarely ventured into the Archives), Ferus said his final goodbyes and left the Temple to make his own way in the galaxy, which he did, until he ended up on Alderaan and got fat. But that is a different story.
Le Morte de Pussy Magnifico
Madame Nu had made good on her promise to train Pussy Magnifico. Within months of Ferus' departure, the fluff-pittin had taken on the personality of her new carer, stalking the Archives, on the lookout for Padawans in the Master's Only section, or for Jedi having carnal relations in the stacks. Whenever she saw an instance of rule-breaking (and they were frequent, since there were many rules and many apathetic Jedi), a loud yowl would bring Jocasta Nu running.
At the beginning of her tenure as the official Archive Cat, Anakin tried to get her back. Sometimes, he attempted to bribe the fluff-pittin with candy he had stolen from Madame Nu herself. "C'mere, P-Mag," he would whisper from behind an overstuffed shelf of dusty tomes, holding out his hand. "I've got something for you. C'mere. Pretty pittin." However, P-Mag only ever licked her paw and stared at him boredly from the nook she'd tucked herself into, safe from what were assuredly his sticky Padawan hands.
Anakin was determined, however. Tru didn't talk to him anymore, Darra was dead, and Ferus had run away. Aside from Obi-Wan, who Anakin was pretty sure hated him every other day, Pussy Magnifico was his last chance at a steady friendship. He stalked the cat through the Archives, finally catching her off-guard while she watched a junior Padawan fumble with a stack of reading material that Anakin was sure was larger than the sum of everything he had read in his entire life.
He could tell P-Mag was fixated on the Padawan; normally, she would have swiveled her head and eyed him disdainfully at the slightest whiff of him in her presence. As it was, her beady eyes were completely focused on the younger boy as he unsuccessfully juggled Archive materials. "Oh, kriff," he mumbled. Below, staring up at him, P-Mag gnawed her back foot thoughtfully.
Anakin knew it would be a long time before he would have another opportunity like this. He took two large, exaggerated, silent steps forward and scooped the cat up with both hands. "Yrrrrrr," P-Mag protested.
"Ssshh, good pittin. Let's get you back home with Anakin. Good girl." He tried to pet her, but P-Mag's claws sinking into his tunic stopped his outpouring of affection. "Okay, calm down," he told her, tightening his grip as she wiggled. Instinct kicked in, and P-Mag's back feet were soon making pointed indents in Anakin's hands. "Ow!" he yelped quietly. "Okay, time for Plan B."
"Um, what are you doing?" the junior Padawan asked, still cradling his stack of library stuff.
But Anakin was preoccupied. "Look, you'll be fine once I get you home," he told the pittin as he tried to shove her down into his leggings. Her squirming continued; she let out another yowl. "P-Mag, c'mon, just ... work with me here -"
"Padawan Skywalker!" Uh oh. He knew that voice. Unfortunately, so did Pussy Magnifico. With another sharp mewling sound and some well-placed claws, the fluff-pittin scurried out of her captivity in Anakin's pants and landed deftly on her feet. She purred smugly at Madame Nu and immediately began grooming herself. Madame Nu, arms akimbo, squinted angrily at the scene, and particularly at Anakin.
The junior Padawan slunk away. Anakin looked down at the shallow scratches along his lower arms and the rip in his leggings and sighed.
If Anakin hadn't known any better, he would have sworn the pittin was spying on him. Whenever he went anywhere in the Temple, he would see her perched somewhere, orange eyes flashing judgmentally. He'd thought she would only haunt the Archives now, but apparently her jurisdiction had extended to the rest of the Temple - and possibly beyond.
One night, Anakin was making his way towards his favorite unguarded exit for a night of un-Jedi-like debauchery at the Outlander Club when he saw something glinting in the darkness. Getting closer, he saw that it was Pussy Magnifico, alternately glaring at him and chewing on her tail. "Oh, hey there," Anakin said softly. "Shoo, go on." He waved his hands at her to herd her away from the doorway. She stood up, arching her back, and glared at him. "Go on!" he insisted, a little louder. Finally, she turned and walked away, flicking her tail as if it had been her idea to leave the whole time.
Anakin had forgotten all about the encounter by the time he returned early the next morning. While the door he'd met Pussy Magnifico at was a good exit during the evening hours, it was not the best place to come in as the sun rose. For this, he used a window in an out-of-the-way alcove. As he tumbled into the makeshift entryway, the drinks he had consumed making the task more difficult than it should have been, he saw a flash of orange fur.
"Hey!" he exclaimed, tripping over his own feet in an attempt to follow the fluff-pittin. He tumbled to the floor, closing his eyes upon impact. When he opened them again, he saw a pair of familiar brown boots, attached to familiar beige leggings, which were attached to a familiar Jedi Master, who wore a familiar frown on his face, apparently none too pleased with his drunken Padawan. "Oh, hi, Master," Anakin said, trying to make it seem like they'd just run into each other on the way to the cafeteria.
Obi-Wan wasn't buying it. "Get up, Anakin," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and bestowing upon Anakin The Look.
"How - uh, how'd you know I was here?" Anakin ventured clumsily, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet.
Obi-Wan frowned. "I make it my business to know where my apprentice is," he said. "Now, I believe you have class in a half-hour."
"Yes, Master," Anakin sighed, but out of the corner of his eye he could see an orange fluff-pittin, licking her own crotch triumphantly.
Anakin thought he would escape the watchful eye of Pussy Magnifico once he'd been Knighted. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on being saddled with an apprentice after about two seconds of freedom. Ahsoka learned quickly enough and didn't cramp his style too much, but Anakin could still muster up petulance over it with but a bit of effort.
In the midst of war, Anakin fairly forgot about the small, orange cat that enjoyed prowling around the Temple, spying on him. It wasn't until Ahsoka was assigned Archive duty for disobeying Council orders on Felucia that his memory was jarred. "G'luck with Madame Nu," he chortled when Ahsoka grumpily told him about her assignment. "Oh man, and watch out for P-Mag."
"P-Mag?"
Anakin just smirked. "You'll see."
His bemusement earned him an earful a few days later when he caught up to his apprentice again. "And she kept leaping off of the shelves and jumping on my head. She broke my Padawan chain!" Ahsoka screeched. "And she kept following me to the 'fresher and sitting in the sink. She's like, obsessed with water."
"Yeah, she is," Anakin laughed. Ahsoka elbowed him in the ribs, hard. "Ow. Snippy snippy, Snips." Ahsoka pinched him. He pinched her back. She kicked him in the shin. "This is ... unproductive," Anakin told her as he retaliated.
"That cat is probably watching and reporting it back to Madame Nu," Ahsoka snorted, and then punched him in the stomach.
"Probably," Anakin gasped.
Having a secret wife was, Anakin had found, a pretty cool thing to have. Sure, it was difficult to balance being a Jedi and being married, but Anakin was pretty sure he was awesome at it, just like he was pretty sure he was awesome at everything else.
Whenever he was on Coruscant, he made a point of spending most of his time at Padme's penthouse apartment. For one thing, it wasn't boring there. For another, there was no small orange cat lurking around, trying to get him in trouble. Or so he thought, anyway.
During one such break, he and Padme were trying to set a new galactic record for amount of sex had in a single weekend. He was pretty sure they were winning, if Padme's complaints of a leg cramp were any indication, and he was about ready to cross the finish line yet again when his comm-link beeped.
Anakin cursed, and was sorely tempted to ignore the chime, but Padme was snapping at him to stop crushing her pelvis, so he sighed and rolled off of her. "Skywalker here," he snarled, hoping whoever was on the other end got heartburn from the strength of his annoyance at them.
"Hello there, Anakin," came Obi-Wan's jovial tone, which just made Anakin angrier. "It's come to my attention that you're visiting with Senator Amidala this evening."
Padme frowned and yanked a chunk of her hair out from under Anakin's shoulder. "How does he know that?" she mouthed at Anakin, who shook his head in wide-eyed horror.
"What makes you say that, Master?" Anakin stammered. "For all you know, I'm hammered at the Outlander right now."
A sigh came from the small device. "Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan replied. "I make it my business to know where my former Padawan is. In any case, the Council has requested your presence. Please do not be late, and please arrive fully-clothed."
Anakin scowled again. "No promises," he snapped, and as he searched the room for his pants, he also kept a close eye out for tell-tale orange fur.
As the Clone Wars dragged on, it became harder and harder for Anakin to keep up his subterfuge. Lying to Obi-Wan about Padme was one thing, but soon, his questioning of loyalty to the Council and, eventually, to the Jedi Order itself became impossible to ignore. When the dissonance culminated in Chancellor Palpatine fighting and killing Master Windu and declaring himself Emperor, Anakin had no choice but to align himself with the man who had always watched out for him.
"Go to the Jedi Temple. Kill everyone you find there," said man ordered. Even though Palpatine was hideously scarred now, his voice raspy, Anakin bowed his head obediently and left to do his Master's bidding.
The 501st still acted much the same for him in the wake of Palpatine declaring Order 66 to be active as it did prior. Once they were told that Anakin was no longer a Jedi, they shrugged and followed him through the hallowed halls of the Temple, destroying their once-allies with the same quiet efficiency they had once used on Separatist droids. Anakin trained himself to do the same. He hesitated only slightly before slaughtering the Temple younglings, ignoring their cries and fearful expressions. He decided he was merciful - at least their deaths were quick.
The blur of orange out of the corner of his battle-scarred eye made him growl softly. "P-Mag," he muttered, and began tiptoeing in the vicinity where she'd last scurried and disappeared. Unless he was seeing things, she looked a little fat. It was high time to take care of this furry ball of unfinished business, he decided. "Here, kitty, kitty," he coaxed, a dangerous undercurrent to his voice. P-Mag remained well-hidden. He began to consider tearing the wall apart with his lightsaber when his comm-link beeped: It was Palpatine. "Lord Vader, have you finished your business in the Temple yet?"
Anakin grunted. "Just about, Master."
"Well, hurry up!" Palpatine fairly shrieked. "You still need to go to Mustafar and dispose of the Banking Clan."
Anakin knew better than to argue. "Yes, my Master," he said deferentially, and then called for Rex. "Burn it all down," he commanded. "I have business elsewhere."
"Yes, Sir." If Rex felt any emotion about the task, his face and voice managed to remain impassive.
Anakin, nee Darth Vader, stalked out of the room in a dignified swish of robes and circumstance, Pussy Magnifico forgotten.
Something was wrong with Anakin. Padme had been seeing the signs for some time now: his nightmares, his paranoia, and a certain reluctance to bathe regularly all culminated in the portrait of someone reaching the very end of his rope.
When her husband said he was going to Mustafar because Palpatine had told him to, and that she should stay and wait for him, well ... She had never let him tell her what to do before, and she certainly wasn't going to start now, regardless of how much eyeliner he was wearing.
In her haste to depart, she noticed neither Jedi Master nor orange cat as they both snuck up the boarding ramp of her ship.
Mustafar destroyed everything. Furious and deranged and exhausted, Anakin choked his pregnant wife, and then lost a tragic battle with his former best friend. Lying in a crumpled, charred heap on the banks of a lava river, Anakin wondered if he would die here. When Palpatine's wrinkled visage stared down at him with a mixture of awe and disgust before summoning med droids, he couldn't decide whether this was better or worse than death.
As he lay on a cold, unforgiving slab in a dank room while similarly lifeless droids fitted him for mechanical parts, he screamed in agony as Anakin died, forever. Little did he know, in an eerily similar room on Polis Massa, the woman he had destroyed everything for drew her last breaths while giving birth to their children. And in a pile of his own discarded, charred clothing, Pussy Magnifico yowled as she popped out a litter of tiny, slimy fluff-pittins, all of whom promised to be as nosy and irritating as she was.
And though Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala were dead, Pussy Magnifico still lived.
Pussy Magnifico soon found favor at the Imperial Court. Much to the newly-minted Darth Vader's chagrin, Emperor Palpatine had taken a liking to the ornery cat, even going so far as to dedicate an entire wing of the Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstructive Center to her and her kittens.
Cleaning said wing fell to his new apprentice, despite the med droids' insistence that inhaling the fetid stink of dozens of fluff-pittins' leavings would only aggravate Vader's already dubious lung functioning. Palpatine flatly informed them that Vader needed to stop moping and being useless and really begin to hone his anger - having a variety of pittins climbing his cape and batting at his helmet should do the job nicely. And, after a while, it worked.
Lord Vader was not the kind of man who minded getting his hands dirty. Not like Grand Moff Tarkin, who had only grown more arrogant in the time since Vader had known him during the Clone Wars. So when a bunch of kriffing teenagers were threatening to blow up Vader's babysitting project (known in Imperial circles as the "Death Star"), Vader decided he would rather be in his fighter than anywhere else. At least that way, he didn't have to listen to the admirals bickering about whose mustache was fanciest.
The lead Rebel pilot was certainly skilled, but he was no match for Vader. Or, you know, maybe he was, since he seemed to have a smuggler-ship-out-of-nowhere style of flying, which Vader had never had an opportunity to try out. In any case, said smuggler ship had thrown Vader off course, and as his fighter spun in the ether and the Death Star exploded into as many pieces as Alderaan had (which seemed fitting), Vader felt the usual flashes of rage to which he was well-accustomed, and then, strangely, a sense of peace. For while he knew that the Emperor would not view this as a victory, he remembered that Pussy Magnifico - and all of her kittens - had been on-board, chasing mouse droids and spraying elderly cat gunk in every corner of Vader's personal chambers.
Behind his helmet, Vader's deformed face arranged itself into what was still irrevocably a smile. "That'll do, cat," he rumbled. "That'll do."
