Devil May Cry © Capcom

The Sound of a Cat's Footfall on Long Night

Jason M. Lee

Mary sniffled, hugging her arms close to her body because of how cold it was. She hadn't meant to get separated from Mama! She had seen a really cute kitten, white and fluffy as the snow sitting on a wall, and she had wanted to pet it because it had looked so lonely! And she was hoping that she could keep it for Yule, because Mama had said maybe! She had been a good girl all year, so she had been hoping Sinterklaas would answer. But the kitty had ran away because some mean boys had scared it with their snowballs! After yelling at the boys for being doo-doo heads, she had ran after the kitty. Now, she was lost in some alley in the big city. And it was already dark so fast.

Meowing had her perking up but when Mary looked towards the sound, she froze in her spot. The meowing were coming from cats that were coming out from the trash cans and boxes and other hiding spots, but...

They sounded wrong. All wrong.

Not like the nicer meowing from other kitties.

And their eyes were red, but not like her and Papa's left eye. It was a scary red!

Mary looked both ways of the alley and felt her stomach drop. There were more cats with the mean red eyes around her, and she didn't think she could leave.

One of the largest cats she had ever seen slowly walked towards her, teeth showing as if laughing at her. The shadows around it was looking all wrong too, as if it was too big. Some of the shadows on the other cats were also twisting around that wasn't right, that made her skin feel really yucky.

She couldn't help but try to back further into the wall, whimpering and shrinking into a ball. "Mama..."

Several of the cats looked ready to pounce. Mary used to like cats, but now she wasn't sure anymore...

She nearly screamed when a ball of white landed in front of her with tiny hissing, but she stared. "Kitty!"

It was the kitty she had been following! The one with the pretty blue eyes! It was so small, and... The kitty was showing its teeth at the mean cats, back and tail all up!

The large mean cat didn't seem to like the white kitty and leapt with a yowl that somehow turned into an ugly roar.

"Kitty, don-!"

Blood, blood, why why?! Yet Mary saw how every time the white kitten fell down and got back up, two of the mean cats would stay down and stop moving. Somehow, she saw a gap between the mean cats and ran for it, hoping to find an adult. Looking back to see if the kitty was still alive, she ran into something just as she turned a corner and fell on to her bottom.

"Oof!" Rubbing her bum, Mary looked up and saw a very tall man in really fancy purple clothes with white hair and a weird glass over one eye. An adult! Even if he also had cat ears! "Mister! You gotta help!" Ignoring Mama's warnings about talking with strangers, she grabbed the man's pants, breathing so hard she felt like her lungs were gonna burst. This was an eh-mah-gen-cy, Mama can understand on talking to strangers! "The kitty- The mean cats- He's gonna-!"

She didn't understand why the strange man gently smiled at her and put her on top of the metal stairs after picking her up. "I see, little one. Stay here and I will rescue your little friend." Then he was walking down the alley way like fast but not really fast.

Mary sat uneasily on the metal stairs, squirming about and trying not to flinch at the increased yowling that seemed to turn into screaming. She didn't even relax when the sounds of cars and other city noises took over, clutching tightly to the railings. When she saw the man come back with the small ball of fluff in his arms, she almost jumped off of the metal stairs. "Mister! Is he-?!"

He held up a finger to his lips, like how Mama would do to tell her to be a little more quiet. "He'll be fine. He just needs some rest."

Breathing out, Mary relaxed, letting the man pick her up with his other arm. Squirming a bit, she tried to look at the kitten, and couldn't help biting her lip on seeing his eyes shut tight and the bright red smeared on his fur where his left side was. And the pained mewling from the kitten was also not good. Still worried, she looked at the man with tears in her eyes. "Promise he'll get better?"

His chuckle felt like the rumbling of happy cats, which made sense from his own cat ears and swishing tail. He was probably one of those hai-brids Papa had been talking about lately - she had never met one before, only saw them on TV or from a distance. (She liked the cat ones more than the dog ones.) "I promise. Dante will be in very good hands. My wife is a very good doctor and she knows how to treat him."

"Dante... S'pretty name," she spoke softly, curling closer to the man and taking in the very warm and comforting heat he seemed to put out. "Mama says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers, but... I'm Mary."

"A very good name." He looked down the street as they left the alley, seeing someone running towards them. "And I believe that's your mother."

"Mary! There you are!"

"Mama!"

There was a lot of adult talking. Mama thanking him, the mister saying it was no problem, that he should be thanking her because Mary had found Dante, who had ran away from his home. Tired, Mary slumped in her mama's arms, sadly looking at the man's white tail swishing as he walked away.

"Get better soon, Dante," Mary whispered, eyes closing sleepily as Mama carried her away.

She wondered if she'll meet the strange mister in purple and the kitty again...

-3-1-2-4-5-

Lady groggily blinked her eyes open upon hearing the shower run, slowly realizing that it was just Dante back home. A glance at the clock showed how late it was and from the soft whistling from him, it was probably a successful hunt.

'Hopefully, he didn't bring back another "trophy" like last time...'

True to cat instincts, Dante would bring back some of his kills and present them to her proudly, so she had been trying to get him to switch to less bloody "trophies" as a compromise. Said last time was him returning partially covered in blood as well happily brandishing a still dripping lizard's tail, which had her literally kicking him into the downstairs shower and immediately looking up methods on getting bloodstains out of wood floors. The thought of him showering had her thinking another train, where while she had seen Dante partially clothed, she's never seen him half-naked from the waist up. Granted, they've only just started dating and living together, but he was rarely without a shirt or tank top on while at home.

'Hm, opportunity?'

Water turning off had her shutting her eyes again, peeking through her lashes upon hearing him close the door and softly pad over the floor and rustle through their drawers. Unabashed, she drank in the sight of what few muscle lines she could catch in the dim light, enhanced by leftover water droplets. Lady knew that he wasn't body shy, what with him sometimes strutting about like the literal cat that got the cream and canary, but it was rare for her to catch him freshly out of the shower. Just as he turned around while fumbling to put on a shirt, Lady caught sight of several white lines reflected by moonlight just above and below his left ribs.

-seeing his eyes shut tight and the bright red smeared on his fur where his left side was-

Her breath froze in her lungs.

Not long after meeting his parents, Eva as a general practice doctor (with a degree in veterinary medicine) had taken Lady aside for crash course lessons on hybrids when the younger woman admitted to having very bare bones knowledge of them. Although it was less of a crash course and more of several seminars plus gaining hands-on experience, which meant helping take care of a variety of normal pets, much to Lady's surprise. The older woman had explained that hybrids rarely scarred, and if they did, it was due to various factors. Sometimes, the wound was grievous enough, even with enhanced healing and medical techniques. Sometimes, it was due to one's regeneration being weakened enough, be it through power dampening wards and artifacts, or via poisons and venom.

The third one was if the injuries were received when a hybrid was young, before their demon side was awoken.

She remembered asking herself why there seemed to be a sense of déjà vu when she met Sparda, as well that seemingly mysterious laughing glint in his eyes as they shook hands.

Lady kept still as Dante crawled into bed with her under the blankets, his large and ridiculously fluffy tail promptly curling around a leg while his arms slowly wrapped around her. Lady was still getting used to sleeping with another body in bed, and Dante had understood that she was still getting accustomed to certain types of physical contact - having a power-hungry father tended to leave scars that weren't physically visible.

Deliberately, she turned around to face him, prompting a questioning sound from him and his tail shifting as well. Her fingers tracing where she had seen his scars had his tail almost freezing in place before he twitched it, as if pretending to not had reacted at all. Except having read up cat-related social cues, she knew that it was a sign of him being worried.

For several moments, neither of them said anything, just her moving his tank top up to feel the actual lines. He shivered slightly in response under her light touch, tail twitching again.

"You were that little white kitten from all those years ago, weren't you?" Lady whispered, focusing her sight on his collarbone. "The alleyway with all those demonic cats?"

He let out a soft sigh, tugging her closer as his ears flattened against his skull. "I wasn't sure if you'd remember. I mean, Dad told you my name after he saved my ass..."

She huffed, still not meeting his eyes before gazing up. "There's at least three other Dantes living here according to city hall records, we've met people who have named their kids and pets after other famous dead writers and characters from their fictional works, and I was right about your parents being freaking nerds. Why didn't you tell me?"

Dante let out a chuckle, ears relaxing again. He had wondered whether this conversation would come up, having assumed that she had forgotten about their first meeting from back then. While he had recognized Lady by her eyes and scent (something that had been practically imprinted into his mind), a part of him had been disappointed when she hadn't shown any signs of recognition, yet he knew the chances of her remembering him since their childhood would've been extremely low. "Would you had believed me if I told you the second time we met after you took down that pack of Assaults? Memories can get fuzzy and distorted over time. No person's memory is infallible, even hybrids."

"Touche." What little she recalled of that incident had her mother commenting that it was a miracle she didn't become afflicted with a fear of cats. "Was that why you always wore something, even here at home?"

"What, you wanted to see my hot bod that badly?" Gray eyebrows waggled suggestively, chuckling when she lightly smacked him on his chest with a pout. "It was a dumb kid thing holdover, really. You know about those stories on how hybrids have that advanced healing factor? After I had regained consciousness, Mom and Dad gave me an earful that young hybrids - nestlings, younglings, take your pick - can still scar just as easily as humans can when hurt real badly because our healing wouldn't had fully kicked in yet. Vergil still hasn't let me live it down, and... I guess I wasn't sure of your reaction either. I used to wonder if you would've been put off from cats after that, even though Dad said that you were shaken up but not too badly. So, my bad?"

"Dumbass." She buried her nose into his chest, feeling him purr in response. "Well, at least I got one of my Yuletide presents this year."

"Oh, and what's that?" he teasingly asked, a knowing smile on his face.

Lady smiled back, closing her eyes and snuggling further into his arms. "I finally got my white kitty."

His purring was mixed with his soft laughter, and Dante simply buried his nose into her hair as well tangled their legs together.

Unbidden, his tail moved to curl around her waist as they drifted off to sleep.

A/N: Just a late Christmas/Boxing Day AU that came out of nowhere. Partly inspired by half of the fanart of characters from various fandoms with cat or dog ears and tails (kemonomimi 獣耳, literally "animal ears"). Dante's kitten form, and ears and tail as an adult are based off of the Maine Coon's.

Sinterklaas of the Netherlands, who is based on St. Nicholas of Myra, was one of several figures that gave formation to the modern day Santa Claus.

"The sound of a cat's footfall" was one of the components used to create Gleipner, the ribbon that bound Fenrir until Ragnarök, while "long night" refers to the winter solstice.