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Owen was tired but at that cranky stage big kids get to, sniping at everyone as he and Rhys sullenly moved cat trees around the hub for 'ambiance' reasons.
Ianto knew he was overly tired as well, sleep not a companion tonight as they all settled for their night of lockdown… night two. Last night had been full of excitement and snoozing in strange places, Ianto knew that if they are going to do this for a week to piss off Unit up there then really… he would have to be the parental right?
The main floor where the sofa and coffee table usually sat was now a fort, complete with autopsy bay sheets and a strange tent poles that consisted of IV poles and the coat rack from the doorway. Ianto was on the verge of a scold but saw that at least it was keeping them busy. God, it was like having kittens again.
Wow.
That had been … a surprise memory.
"OK story time" Ianto called out and everyone came from their various tasks to settle in the 'tent' with Ianto perched on the arm of the chair Jack had dragged in as his 'captain's seat' and placed in the corner of the tent.
"So … what do you want to hear?" Ianto asked watching Moses snuggle into Owen's arms as Owen shushed him quietly, excited to hear Ianto out.
"Earliest memory" Owen finally asked, curious and not being a tool so Ianto considered it.
"So … I remember little of my home world bar a flash that comes to me in my dreams sometimes" Ianto finally replied "I remember … there were three suns. We like warmth and I remember my mother opening her hands to let me feel the warmth on my fur. I was a little kit, fitted in her hands neatly and I recall unfurling and opening my eyes to see the bright light of the outdoors, different to the inner sanctum I was born to."
"So .. it was your birth planet?" Owen asked.
"Yes… yes. It was pretty. The sky had a orangey reddish tinge to it like it was almost sunset or sunrise.. of course with three suns nothing like that ever happened, night did not fall on that planet. There was sometimes the hint though, if two of the suns were placed just right so the third would drop away… you got a threat of it. You had to come inside for the half hour or so of dim. I remember my mother telling me of the great eclipse coming. The one time all three suns would come together at the same time and move behind our single moon. This event happened once millennia and each time it happened we had to hide as something for the gloom would take advantage of the darkness to come to our planet… in the scant few minutes of darkness we would be under attack from these… things that dwelled there. She whispered to me that I must burrow, hide and wait for her to yowl the all clear. She let me see the light so I might crave it, know the fear of not finding it… seek it every time for only in the light was I safe."
"Sounds like Pitch Black… the Vin Diesel movie" Owen shuddered and Ianto nodded.
"Sort of but... these came from the surface of the moon. Bing a little kit I did not believe her.. how would something get here within a moment to massacre then flee before the light touched them? I saw it as a folktale, designed to make a kit be seen all the time, no hiding from your peers kinda thing."
"Could have been" Owen nodded as he considered "Still … they could have thought up a simpler story than that. IT sounds too… strange not to be real."
"Was it?" Moses asked, this a story he had never heard, not even as a kit. His Grandy was giving something important to them.
"Yes. It was real. It happened when I was about … ahhh… fifteen of these years? I was stile a kit but able to take humanoid form and moving freely to classes the morning of the event, my mother trying desperately to corral my younger siblings. Messy little trolls… some in humanoid, my older sister trying to help carry the littles not yet able to transform. Other families were walking as eell, the pathway through the village to the classroom that was warm and soft full of pillows and intelligence." Ianto stopped for a moment as the image of his mother came to him, her face so recognisable as she smiled and leaned in to touch noses in her goodbye, in human form she was a goddess.
He knew they were looking at him to continue so he shook it off and glanced at Moses who had caught the image, his whiskers drooping as he also caught the love long since gone. "So. Here we were, a large group of Kats walking along in the sunshine when it started to darken. At first I looked around thinking it was a storm blowing in but then we saw the strange colours starting in the sky and my mother called out with fear."
The eclipse?" Owen asked with wide eyes "the moon moved?"
"Yes. Only … I now know it ws no moon. Being simply Kats we knew nothing of these things I know now … the world we knew was only a construct." Ianto sighed "For it was not a moon."
Jack frowned as he stared at Ianto, then he got it.
"It was a vessel!"