Having observed Sagwa and Dongwa try to talk some sense into Fan, Hun-Hun was feeling positive about the results she had seen. For a few minutes it looked as though he could adapt to the lifestyle of a palace cat...
But the sight of the spots of ink, leading into the dowager's bedroom quickly destroyed the high hopes she had for him. The dowager's heavy presence distracted her, and she turned to see the human leading Wim-Bao inside. Hun-Hun circled the dowager and sat up on her haunches, diverting her attention from the hallway and meowing with a frequency that even annoyed her. The dowager looked on in amusement.
"What is the matter with you?" she asked.
Hun-Hun waited for the dowager to try and anticipate her motives, walking to the cupboard where she kept the food. Hun-Hun looked at Wim-Bao's equally inquiring face. "Fan's in her bedroom and he's dirty," she whispered hoarsely. He stood up and slunk off into the shadowed hall.
"This is what I get for trying to have thirteen cats," the dowager muttered. A yowl from her bedroom got her attention, and ignoring Hun-Hun's desperate cries for attention, the dowager moved swiftly from the kitchen. Sheegwa had just materialized when the dowager's anger resonated through the palace. "You horrid, nasty, vile little creature!"
Looking towards the bedroom, it was impossible for Sheegwa to overlook the trail of ink. She stood frozen as they listened to Fan being scolded. "Out! Out with you! This is not your room!"
Hun-Hun flinched as a particularly feline yowl and a particularly human shriek came from the bedroom. Then the dowager materialized, clutching a fresh scratch on her hand. In her absence, Sheegwa scampered down the hall and returned holding Fan by the neck. Feeling like the biggest hypocrite, she dropped him on the living room floor. "You can't do that here; this is... It's not..." She sighed, staring into his puzzled face as she reflected upon what her siblings had said to her; and the way she felt at his age. "In this place, she is the leader," she said simply.
"So we have to defeat her."
"No."
"I won't make her cry. I'll just do what you did. To escape Lord Vu's house."
"No," Sheegwa repeated. "You'll do what I tell you."
"Did Nai-Nai and Yeh-Yeh tell you to sneak out?"
"Clean yourself up, now," Sheegwa snapped, and Fan meekly complied. Alone with Hun-Hun, she paced; feeling the crushing absence of her mate. "How am I supposed to handle this?" she asked. "I need Siao-Po."
"No you don't. You're doing fine."
"It's been four days!"
Hun-Hun watched her pass on by. "Where are you going?"
Sheegwa sighed, turning back to face her. "I think I'm going to take them to the alley."
"And to Siao-Po," Hun-Hun deduced.
"They need their father. I need my mate. None of us need a big house."
Sheegwa trotted out of the living room.
Her family was talking in the calligrapher's study. Sheegwa heard their voices from the middle of the stairs. She ascended into the study and approached the cluster of cats. Maybe her lack of manners stemmed from the fact that she was no longer domesticated. Maybe it was because they were talking about nothing important. Either way, as soon as she found herself interrupting them; she had a feeling she may have been setting examples for Fan. "I need to say something."
"I told you the blue curtains look better," Yeh-Yeh began telling his son.
"I don't have an opinion about the curtains, Yeh-Yeh; and I don't care about them." Sheegwa sat alongside her parents. "This is important."
"What's going on?" Mama asked.
Sheegwa took a deep breath. "First of all, I'd like to thank you for looking for me. And for finding me. It means a lot. And I'm grateful, really. But I've decided...to take Song and Fan away from here."
"What are you talking about? We only just arrived," Baba said.
"They need Siao-Po. And I think it's pretty obvious that we don't fit in."
"Give him time to adjust. Please, it's only been four days," Mama began.
"And in those four days, he scratched three pieces of furniture, broke a Ming vase, tracked ink onto the dowager's bed and scratched her hand. He's feral."
"That can change. Just like you did," Dongwa said.
"I would rather take them to Siao-Po and live outside while they still know how." Sheegwa looked at Fan as he scampered past them and caught sight of a shape beneath the desk. He walked over to it and knelt, attempting to retrieve it.
"Living inside is better for them," Dongwa muttered.
"We never needed to live inside. And I don't need to go along with whatever you say anymore," she added to her parents. "This one is my call. And between the alleycats and Gunji, I guess I choose the alleycats."
Mama had to smile. "I have to say, that surprises me. I can accept your way of thinking, Sheegwa, but I don't understand it one bit."
"Really? Because Sagwa told me you were perfectly willing to accept an alleycat as your son-in-law. Is that only true if he's in the room?"
The cats hushed as the dowager's heavy footsteps came thundering up the stairs; her large shadow bobbing along the wall. She passed them by and approached Fan, scooping him up single-handedly. Unaccustomed to being so high off the ground and unaccustomed to looking at a human face from that angle, he dangled awkwardly between her fingers.
She plopped him into a box not much bigger than he was, and closed the flaps as a servant came up the stairs. She shoved the box at him. "This cat's a burden. Rid me of it."
He accepted the box and retraced his steps to Fan's muted yowls. Before Sheegwa could even tell herself to move, Sagwa had sprung to her feet, slipped beneath the rail and dropped to all fours in the middle of the stairwell. Finally goading herself into action, Sheegwa peered between the balusters and watched her sister chase the human. Trying not to panic, she started moving to the top of the stairs. "Make sure Song behaves herself."
"Sheegwa, stay," Yeh-Yeh pleaded.
"That's my son!"
"Sagwa is faster than any of us," Hun-Hun told her. "Including me. Do yourself a favor, and don't slow her down."
Trying to come to terms with that was like trying to eat sand for a meal. She stumbled back to her parents' empathetic embrace.
