I swallowed dryly and stood up. Her mouth kind of hung open for a minute before she shut it again. She kept opening and closing it like she wanted to say something but couldn't summon the words. I turned away from her and focused my attention on anything other than her.

"I, uh…" I faltered. "I'm not who you think I am…"

"Well I figured as much," she muttered. A little louder, she added: "Well then, who are you?"

"I… I'm-"

A grunt from the cat interrupted me and made her turn around. Tail flicking back and forth, the cat held a piece of glass in one of its giant maws. Its ears folded back and another quiet grunt echoed off the cave walls. It had its paws in a puddle of the green river water. The girl sighed walked over to the cat.

"Don't worry about it, Pounce." She hissed. "I can get more later."

Another grunt and a long hiss echoed. Ears flicked up at me before flattening again. The cat gave me the evil eyes. I glared back.

"I don't know! Just try to be civil."

The glass clattered to the ground as Pounce used both of her mouths to meow.

"It means don't kill him!"

I shifted uncomfortably. Some trolls could learn to communicate with their caretaker at a young age, and only they could understand each other. It wouldn't really make any sense for one to learn to communicate with a lusus that wasn't theirs. It just made me nervous that the word 'kill' was being tossed around. With a final growl, the great cat stalked off to a pile of sugar cubes in the corner of the room.

The olive blood turned back to me and gave a smile that I guess was supposed to be reassuring. "Sorry about that…" she chuckled nervously. "Pounce has always been a little overprotective. Even here."

I cleared my throat and scratched my arm, a nervous habit I always had. "That's… okay. I mean, my lusus was, uh, the same way." I faltered. I was mentally pounding my face into a wall. What a stupid thing to say. Of course my lusus was like that! All lusii were like that! Things liked to kill and eat young trolls. I sounded like an idiot.

Her smile broadened slightly. "You… Just scared her. We nefur really get any visitors."

There was another silence. Pounce must have fallen asleep, because contented purrs resonated through the cave. The blood from my previous injuries had finally soaked all the way through my long sleeve and dripped onto the floor of the cave. The girl noticed it for the first time.

"Y-you're hurt!" she exclaimed, sounding slightly flustered. If our eyes were not empty, she would have seen me roll them. "Well, yeah, that wasn't gum berry jam on her claws!" I retorted, glaring at the dark corner where Pounce had disappeared.

A low hiss was input from the corner. Pounce sounded quite proud. The girl didn't answer; she just hurried off and came back with a lot of makeshift bandages. They were mostly animal skins, I noted. She threw them over her shoulder and grabbed my wrist. "C'mon mister…" she stopped and trailed off. "Gee, I nefur asked your name! That was horribly rude of me!" She stuck out her tongue and squeezed her eyes shut, completing her comical look when she placed the palm of her hand over one of her eyes. I couldn't help but snicker at the sight. She giggled and rubbed her eye. "I'm such a scatter purrain, I'm so sorry!"

She kept rambling for a while, while she walked me over to a little cave branching off the main one, hidden by a large orange and white pelt. The little cave had a steady flow of that green water filling up a rather large pool. The entire room steamed and smelled like life. Like grass and rain and something else I couldn't identify. Putting down the skins, she reached for my jacket to take it off. I shrugged away from her. She tilted her head to the side. "What's wrong?"

I pressed my lips into a flat line. "What are you trying to do?

"I'm trying to clean out the horrible wound that Pounce gave you!"

"Do I have to take off my jacket?"

Her brow furrowed and she spoke in a slow, confused manner. "Yes…?" she said, narrowing her eyes. "I can't clean it purroperly if I can't see it correctly."

I pulled my jacket around me tighter. "I don't want to take it off."

She sighed through her nose but didn't say anything. Grabbing up one of the skins, she soaked it in the liquid. Crouching down beside me, she rolled back the collar of my jacket and pressed the skin to one of the punctures. I hissed through tightly clenched teeth. She jumped a little but kept the rag there. After a moment, she re-soaked the rag and blotted the edges of the wound. I eventually got used to the sting, only grunting every so often when the girl was a little too rough. The girl, I mused. I can't call her that forever. I needed to know her name.

"So…" I said, breaking the silence. "Thank you for this, Miss…?"

"Leijon," she muttered as she fished out a piece of gravel from my shoulder. She tossed it into the pool. "You can call me Nepeta."

I nodded. She started placing bandages over the cuts. "Well?" she said expectantly. I blinked. "Hm?"

"Your name?"

Oh. My name. Hm. What was my name? Had I really gone on so long without thinking or hearing it that I might forget it? Not even absent-think panned little wrigglers forget their name. Was I really that far gone?

Yes. I came to the conclusion that yes, I was.

"Who is Karkitty?" I said, trying to change the subject. Her hands stilled for a moment before she answered. "He was just a friend of mine. Just a friend," she sighed. The second part of her answer was a whisper, as if she was talking to herself. Finishing her task, she stood up and headed for the exit. I followed her out.

"So, thanks for everything, but I guess I'll just be going now…"

Nepeta turned around and looked at me. Her eyebrows arched up in shock. "Y- you're leaving so soon?"

I started scratching my arm again. "Well, yeah. Did you expect me to stay?"

She looked down at the floor and bit into her lip. "I guess not, but where will you go?"

Oh. Good one, Leijon. Where will I go? The same place I always had been going I suppose: forward. Through more dream bubbles, to different places. Just keep wandering, totally lost…

As if she could read my thoughts, she continued. "W-whenever I would get lost, Equius always told me to stay in one place…" she sniffled some. Oh god no. No, not tears. No, wait- yep, she was crying. Olive tears pricked the corners of her eyes. "…So maybe I secretly hoped you were l-lost too. So that you could stay here for a while." Tears evacuated her eyes as if someone had opened a floodgate. She shut her eyes and wiped the tears away on the back of her wrist. "I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "You really don't have to stay. It's just that I've been by m-myself for such a long time now, I don't think I can h-handle being left and for-forgotten about again!"

She knelt down and wrapped her arms around her legs in a little ball, hiding her face in her knees. I could hear her breathing hitch as she cried. In the back of my head I heard someone telling me to stay. I had nowhere to go. I didn't even know if I was getting anywhere closer to who I was looking for. Hell, she could have even found someone else and stayed with them like a practical troll being. Yet a louder voice said to leave. I didn't know this girl. She didn't know me. How much good could my presence do to help a life-sick ghost? I had no reason to give her anything else besides a curt thank you and a pat on the head, maybe. I listened to the more reasonable voice.

I turned on my heel and walked out of the cave.