Cat on the Fly
Cagney dashed around the clocktower, stopping briefly here and there to look upwards and meow in frustration. She would stand at the wall, balancing on her hind legs, with one paw holding her upright, as she gazed hungrily into the air. Then, after a pause, she would run again, occasionally using whichever gargoyle was handy to give herself a boost into the sky. It was dusk, and if she didn't catch it soon, her prey would be scared off by their waking.
The beaked one awoke as she hurtled from him, spoiling her aim and sending her off into a dizzying fall.
"I'm not sure cats land on their feet from this high up," he remarked, fully awake and plummeting after the shrieking huntress.
"I've got you," he said with just a twinge of pain as she sunk her claws into him, her eyes wide with terror and her tail fluffed up like a bottle brush.
Cagney shrank against the slim gargoyle with the purr-sound name as he, with claws much harder than she could ever hope to have, climbed back up to his perch.
"What on Earth was she doing?" the short one asked.
"Elisa imitations, I suppose. Lucky I caught her before she went splat."
Cagney's ears perked up at the hiss-sound of her mama's name, but caught no sign of her familiar footfalls, nor a whiff of her scent.
"Now lad, that's an awful joke," the old one reprimanded, taking Cagney's still-quivering form and patting her.
"I know, Hudson, but it was kind of funny."
The old one favored him with a withering glance from his one good eye.
"Now, lass, I hope ye're still hungry after yiur little fall, because we'll be going on patrol soon."
He set her down and reached for a can from the box by the wall, but her attention was already elsewhere. There was that delicious buzzing again...
"I swear, you take better care of that cat than you ever did Bronx," the round one with the purr-sound name said as he fished into another box. The buzzing box...
"She's Elisa's, and I don't want to have to answer to her if anything happened to the wee bit while she and Goliath were away."
Cagney again registered her mama's hiss-sound name, but there was still no sign of her. And the buzz had been disturbed. She saw it, hovering behind the big one's fan-ear.
It wasn't getting away this time.
The big one was eating something that smelled greasy, which she knew he'd brought in this morning just before they'd frozen outside. It had been attracting the delicious little buzzes all day. She was too full to even think about the canned meat the old one was scraping into her bowl, but the thrill of the hunt was too intoxicating to let her stop. this much game was better than catnip. At her old home, she'd been lucky if she saw one buzzer a moon cycle, though that had increased once her mama's friends had started coming in by the window.
Now, if he'd just stand still...
She lashed her tail and leapt, landing at the base of his tail and clawing her way up between his bat-wings to swat at it. Missed again!
"Yowch!" She was grabbed in midair.. again.
"What's gotten into you?", the large purr-name admonished, dangling her between his claws.
The short one supplied the answer. "Your pizza."
"My pizza? But she could have been at it all day!"
"Or, specifically, the flies ON your pizza," he noted. "Most cats are lactose-intolerant."
"There you go with the big words again, Lex." Her dusk rescuer shook his head.
"Cheese and milk make them throw up."
"Better."
The big gargoyle put her down, while eating the last bit of his meal. "Why didn't you say so, cat?"
He then snagged a buzzer out of the air with each hand, squashing them in the process. The little one turned his head, "That's gross."
He presented the dead flies to her proudly. "Eat up, Cagney, there are plenty more where these came from."
Cagney miffed and turned up her nose. Some beings never understood. Things always taste better when you catch them yourself.
The End