Shadow
It was quiet… a little too quiet for a normal day, but about normal for the early hours of the AM.
Luckily, it was the latter… though not that the lone man meandering along the catwalks noticed. Whether this ignorance was on account of the time, a personal preference, or a result of the activities of hours' prior was not to be known, but a safe guess could have encompassed all three.
And even then, in the dead still of the morning-night transition, he couldn't hear past his pulse for the silence. Once he reached the landing, the change in pace and change in alloy altered his perception of sound, replacing the soft beat with the ting of his footsteps.
It was nothing new, and so ignored – forgotten in the mere instant of its inception.
It was the crying that stopped him.
The alley, ten paces from his destination, enticed him. The sound came from there, if it weren't a figment of his imagination; he stood by quietly, listening for it to return. Once it had, the pitiful mewling drew him, step by cautious step, into the shadows between the buildings.
He blinked. The change in light was medial, nothing to bother, and rather paused at the lapse in sound.
The sound couldn't have been far. Granted, it could have been moving, but it had to be on the platform, more likely in the alley, directly underfoot…
The man jumped; the cry emanated inches from his left foot.
A patch of blackness stood out against the dark gray of the grating; it inched towards him before screeching once more.
Which left only one question,
"What the heck…?"
---
It fit in the palm of his hand. With both hands, he could hide it completely, which was what he did, clutching it safe and close to him. Creeping though the communal room without being seen was easy enough at this hour, even with the squealing; the real trouble was bound to be waiting back in his room.
Our room, Neil reminded himself. Even with the relatively substantial time allotted to being used to the idea, he could never decide if it were a good thing, a bad thing, or if he'd simply broken even.
For tonight, he decided it was a bad thing, and that made the sixth floor all the more intimidating.
His find mewled, and despite the muffle his hands provided. He shushed it, half-mindedly, and sneaked towards his door.
The fact that all the sneaking wasn't necessary, as he could have made faster time less suspiciously, and that the crying made trying to hide an impractical attempt, at best. He could have argued that he was simply delaying the inevitable, but he had no one to argue to but himself. To which hisself replied that chances were he had nothing to worry about – judging by the time, Jane was likely to be asleep; and from experience he knew when she slept, she slept like a rock.
Yeah… that helped a bit.
He slipped into the room; the door muffled the wail. Jane was, as he assumed, asleep in her concave; the screen was pulled back, and he took it as a good sign that she rested curled towards the wall.
Neil allowed himself a relieved sigh, to which the creature in his hand yowled. It may not have been considered it a bad thing, except it caused Jane to stir, roll over and peer at him with more than a mere trace of suspicion.
"What was that?"
Though her voice was groggy, her words were perfectly clipped, leading to the insight that either she hadn't been sleeping, or he sorely misjudged her nature.
And it left him insecure, frozen against the far wall.
Jane rose slowly to kneel, having to stay low under the projection of wall above her bed. Squinting in the low light, she tried to determine what, exactly, Neil had enlisted to so invade her solitude. Which was difficult to do, seeing as he held it closely concealed within his hands.
But then, it gave itself away with that distinctive mewling.
And then there was Neil, who, as she staggered to her feet, smiled in that nervous, sheepish way and hesitantly let her in on the little secret.
If Jane hadn't been so tired, she might have fallen over. Somehow, she imagined should have been prepared for that, considering… well… considering. But, then, seeing made believers…
In his hands was a tiny thing, covered in short black fur and shivering fiercely; it appeared blind and, presumably was still somewhat deaf; as could be expected, it opened its mouth, revealing the pale pink tongue it used to voice its displeasure to the world.
"Oh no," Jane whimpered. He didn't; he couldn't have; this was all a bad dream; he so certainly did not bring a kitten back to the barracks. Her eyes focused out of that fantasy to behold: Neil… with a kitten, in their barracks tenement. Her demeanor hardened, "Where did you get it?"
"I found it."
Although Neil might have wished that to be enough, he would have been sorely disappointed.
"Where?"
"In the alley."
Jane narrowed her eyes. This was wonderful, if one believed in sardonics.
"All right, give it here," she demanded, reaching out passively and, yet, spurring a defensive reply.
"No!" Neil recoiled, and the kitten yowled in time, "You'll hurt it!"
"It'll hurt more if you don't hand it over," she growled, barely moving, "for the both of you."
Neil hesitated, but tentatively opened his hands. The languid attempt was ineffectual; Jane swiftly and confidently lifted the little ball of fluff from his care.
It yowled; the technician winced, insecure, despite the fact it had been crying all the while.
Jane took little notice. The kit was so small and so light, she sullenly doubted it would last the morning. Too bad, really, but so it went.
Then again, the only loss to try was a few hours.
"Go down below and see if you can get…" What would a military pantry have to offer an itty-bitty kitty? "I dunno, yogurt, or something."
"But… I just got back."
Lame excuse aside, he was tired, and felt obliged to complain as he saw fit. Unfortunately, his bunkmate did not share his views.
"If I were you, I'd get my ass in gear before I was reported."
Even if she didn't see the logic in his argument, he managed the logic in hers.
"Off I go," Neil agreed, "Need anything else? Amphetamine-laced chocolate, or something?"
At the dead silence in place of an answer – something he took as a 'no,' – he went, leaving Jane alone with the kitten.
It yowled. The woman winced. At least it had healthy lungs… that had to mean something good.
And it did seem lively, for an infant…. Which begged the question, if it was hearty and hale, then what was it doing on its own?
Suddenly, Jane felt very ill at ease, indeed. Her skin crawled, and she focused on the kitten in her hand rather than the shadows cast by poor lighting, or the bright reflections on the alloy-coated walls. The cat pressed downward against her palm, sullenly quiet and still; she drew it close in a halfhearted attempt to dispel the feeling that, somehow, someway, and through utter impossibility, the baby sensed it too.
The woman pretended that the shadow in the corner hadn't just shifted without cue, and instead deemed it necessary to tell the kitten that Neil was taking his damn time, followed up with a don't you think?
The kit mewled a weak reply.
Minutes slipped by. Jane barely moved until Neil's return, at which the ominous shadows vanished as though they had never been.
"Took you long enough."
"Yeah, I know – and there're about a nonillion of stairs between this deck and the basement."
"Sure there are," Jane mumbled, trading the kitten for the tin of – surprise – yogurt. She wasn't sure which to take as worse – the lack of ingenuity, or the fact that she had just been blatantly lied to about the stairs.
She pushed the fancy away, and retrieved her lighter. It was easy enough to heat up the food,
"Try feeding it that,"
Yet far more difficult to get Neil educated in the mentality of mothering kittens. But, then, after the brief demonstration, and reprimand, over the basics of feeding baby animals, Jane left the responsibility on him and began readying to leave.
This forced the technician into considering the time. Clearly, he wasn't the only one with places to be, late in the evening… wait, no… morning. Well, thereabouts, anyway.
"Where you off to?"
"I'm going to see if I can't find its mother." It could have been considered his business, to a degree, and that was the only reason she answered. Regardless, it did leave her irked that he even asked.
"Oh." What he meant was, of course… well, nowhere near as witless, but she was gone before he could amend, and it wasn't quite important, so he busied himself with the welfare of their little guest.
After a while of attempted feedings, and little success, Neil had retreated to his bunk to doze, with the kitten pressed against his arm. It stopped meowing so frequently, though he barely registered the change. He failed to notice when Jane returned hours later with a nondescript white bag and a fold of electronic paper.
"What is…?"
"Supplies," Jane clipped, presenting him with the bag, followed by the pamphlet, "Instructions. If it doesn't survive the week, I will report you."
No mention of the mother, and so he assumed she never found it. The kitten, newly awoken, chose that moment to complain about his moving about.
---
Welcome to the monkey house.
The cryptic salutation met him under the slightly fixed circumstance. Ryan couldn't reply, with good reason; he was clueless as to what it referred to, yet the tone and flavor of it still served to amuse and provoke a light grin. This was partially on account of the stealth of it all, but as he had to admit, it was the little things that could make working feel more like a social call.
Oblivious, Neil went about trying to pique his sergeant's curiosity, to which his senior gave a fleeting proposal,
"If you can explain it in ten words or less, I'll listen."
Liberal. You should have requested it on paper, or like a question, or… something, like… that.
Ryan bit back a chuckle and obliged, "And have it submitted in the form of a question."
"Uh, uh," Neil insisted, "You have to guess."
It's a cat.
Not sure whether Jane meant it seriously, Ryan considered that; he decided if it were true, he'd act surprised. Although it did bring up the oft sudden difficulty of following two conversations at once, "Oh… Really?"
"Come on, it's not that difficult."
…Yeah, If you can selectively read minds.
"Just tell me."
Instead of doing so, Neil took the extra measure to pull back the shutter over his bunk. The kitten blinked its pretty blue eyes, upright and listening with interest; with some effort, it toddled forth to the edge of its stage, and appeared quite willing and readied to jump. It might have done just that, had Neil not picked it up for some dire cuddling. To which it meowed.
"Cute, isn't he?"
It's a she, actually.
It struck the sergeant as strange that, for playing the ignorant bystander, Jane had as much input she was willing to share. Even if it was disguised as an offhand comment to the aether, and not directed entirely at him, it was odd. Still, he acted surprised.
"Alright, now go ahead and tell me where you got…" once again, he was struck by the difficulty of knowing and perceiving, "it."
"I found him in the alley; he was abandoned, or something."
The mother was dead.
"Oh; poor thing," to hell with work, this was a social call… "I'm surprised Jane let you keep it."
Yeah, well… Jane decided it would be better that he had someone else to cling to for a while.
"What's its name?"
At the blank stare, and the sudden mental pause, Ryan fully expected the answer to be somewhere along the lines of, 'Kittens have names?'
The half-stuttered reply was not that far off, "I… ah… never thought about it."
The sergeant took one long look at the kitty in his 'brother's arms, and dubbed her Shadow.
The End
Working Title: Shadow
Inspiration: The Pressing Need to Explain Why(tm), in Penumbra, Neil has a cat.
Noteworthy: First appearance: Shadow.
Disambiguation: Kittens shouldn't be fed cowmilk products.
Series: Shadow; Penumbra; Umbra; Aurora
Derivative work of material © Square Pictures, Squaresoft. Reformatted to abide by 'site standards. None of the original text has been modified, 'cept in case of typo.