13.
What followed was Change. Emily watched it and felt it and knew it. Change was the bane of a cat's life—it was the most unCat thing there was, but this Change, she thought, might be Something Different.
Something Different like waking up one morning and finding the man had closed all the windows and was busy moving hissing cat after hissing cat into carriers just like Emily's had used to be. She'd shared Spencer's, and soothed his panic. The Man wouldn't hurt them.
He wasn't the type.
Change like their new home, just as spacious as her old but with the windows never closed. The Inside was the Outside and everything was Home. Change like the shiny new collars they all wore; Spencer taught her to read them. Blackbird said hers proudly, right above the line of words that told them where Home was in human. Spencer's said Pipecleaner, but the Home was the same. Emily decided that she rather liked them and scolded Spencer when he tried to wiggle his off.
Change like finding herself in the sassy, over-confident kitten she'd used to be. Change like seeing Jack grow into a Good Dog alongside his dad and learning how to Guard their new Home together. Change like seeing Spencer's fur grow out properly with regular meals and him losing the ratty skinniness and becoming a Most Definitely Handsome cat.
Her Most Definitely Handsome cat.
"Oh yes, you're a Good Human," she purred to herself, padding through her home one countless day After and finding that Her Human—she shared with the others, but he was Hers for sure—had been wonderful and laid out exactly what she wanted right then. Warm and cosy and soft and lovely smelling, just like him and his scents, and a little bit of her, and she snuggled down deep in the dark and busily got to work.
Spencer found them first, of course he did. "Hello," she greeted him proudly. "I made us lots of ears to wash now."
"Oh, Emily," he breathed, peering into her nest and at their lovely little litter of black and brown lives. "Look what you've done! You've been wonderful."
"The most wonderful?" she asked, because maybe she was still a little bit the kitten she'd used to be.
"The Most," he reassured her, and tried to climb in. She hissed, because she had to, really, but relented and let him lay with his front end in and his rump on the floor outside. A tom's place was not in the nest.
The Man found her next. "My best shirts, Blackbird, noooo," he groaned, opening the closet and finding them purring there. "Why would you do this to me, they're Armani."
"Mew," said one of the kittens.
"Mewww," said another, who Emily suspected was going to be Trouble.
"Look what I made," Emily added proudly.
"We made," Spencer corrected. "Come on, Em, I explained the process to you—twice." He had. Emily thought the whole thing was unnecessarily complex—clearly they'd made kittens because they wanted to, not because of any strange nightly habits. But he was ignoring her eyeroll and speaking again to Their Man with a low churr: "Haven't we been Naughty?" He said it with a smile and a purr, and Emily joined in happily.
"This is what you get for not getting them fixed straight away, Dave," said Their Man to himself. Emily didn't really know what that meant, but she was sure she'd be able to wiggle out of it.
After all, she was undoubtedly the Most Naughty cat there had ever been, from Now until The End.