December 4 ~ Russka
in
"The Silent Dacha"
Pleased to meet you! My name is Russia Cat. I am the biggest and fluffiest cat in the whole world. I like being so large because it means my paws make big prints when they squish in the snow, but it's not too fun when I try to snuggle up to the other cats and they whine about me squishing them!
My human and I are quite similar. In the winter, we wear heavy coats to keep us warm through the harsh snowy storms, and when spring comes, we shed our coats and smile up at the glowing sun as it streams through white wisps of mist slithering over the flowers. Instead of the same brown rats creeping over snowbanks, I get to chase squirrels and chipmunks and plump birdies when they fly back north. My favorite things to chase are the colorful butterflies, although they do not taste good, and they are too small to carry to my human's doorstep as gifts.
I wish I could see a butterfly right now. It's December, and snow has covered the ground for many weeks already. I never quite remember what a butterfly looks like until I see her in the spring, and now I'll have to count the days. I do not mind. It is perfectly well to be patient when the hearth is crackling and the silly human is making plans to knit my fur into a sweater. As long as he does not touch my belly, I will not bite him.
Others have made this mistake in the past. I cannot apologize. My flicking tail was enough of a warning, and they were not smart enough to see that.
This weekend, my human has decided we are going to visit our dacha. It is like a second home where we retreat in times of stress. In the summertime, it is a place to grow vegetables and pretty flowers for the butterflies. We do not often visit in the winter. The dacha is over a hundred years old and only recently gained any running water. Unlike the modern idea of a dacha in a community of others, our dacha is secluded — off in a bare patch of wilderness that rarely sees human visitors. Once upon a time, it saw many humans. Cats, too, all meowing and scratching at the baseboards and rubbing their scents on every little decoration, but now it is empty and silent. I am the only cat who visits.
It is morning now. I am being a kitty loaf on my sleeping human's stomach, too content to move anywhere. But the sun rising over the distant hills of snow is so pretty I have to arch my back and pad over to the windowsill just above the bed. Gracefully, all the yellow rays catch in the crystals and reflect up into the room, lighting the handmade quilt and the pale roundness of my human's face. I purr and rub my cheek against his nose. With a little groan, he opens his eyes and gives me a huge smile.
"Is it time to get up, little one?" He asks.
I would nod, but this is not natural to cats, and so I just bob my head a bit and lift my tail in the air. Soon my human is slipping out of his long nightgown and into a sensible sweater and puffy snow pants for the weather. I leap down from the bed and rub all over his legs as he combs his hair, (mine too,) and brushes his teeth.
"I do not need to shave, do I? No one will see me out here."
My human questions me with his big eyes and pursed lips. His chin and neck are all dotted with a layer of light-colored stubble.
"If you shave, you will be cold. Be like me instead. Nice and fluffy," I meow.
"Oh, I know you are hungry," he tells me. "Please just give me a minute. I think I will shave this. If I do not shave, my beard will be as thick as yours by sunset!"
After he's finished with this, we go downstairs. My human takes a cast-iron pan down from the hooks above the stove and makes himself a plate of eggs and little syrniki. I get a bowl full of cut-up sausages and porridge that makes my tail all shaky in excitement!
The little meals come out with us to the porch. My human has to crack open the ice all sealing the door shut so he can settle himself in his wicker chair and gaze out at the bleak landscape. My whiskers twitch, but we are so far from other people that even the faint whooshing does not exist. There is only the cold air. It is a little disturbing to be a quiet cat in a quieter world. My human just wants to drink his coffee for a while, but he does not make much noise doing this, and my sensitive ears pick up mostly nothingness as I stare out at the wide white world. No butterflies here. Only frost and icicles and the occasional cloud of mist.
Now the sun is shining down on my fur, and I find myself purring at such good warmth so early in the morning. My paws squeeze at the scratchy wood floor before I squat and leap off into the nearest snowbank. Fresh powder blows up all around me and I roll around in total delight! It is like the feeling when I lick an ice cube on the floor, except the coldness is not so shocking with my coat to protect me.
When the powder settles and I lick my paws, the silence returns. The trees do not move when there is no wind to move them.
Surely I can find some kind of noise. I pounce out of the snowbank and make my big pawprints in the snow. Shadows fall across the wood-and-stone of the dacha on the backside. The stones are all chipping again, and the window on the top floor still has a broken frame from fifty years ago, so the dirty plastic covers it to keep out the chill.
"Is there anyone out here?" I meow. "Surely there is someone."
No one answers me. In a flash, I bound over and zip three meters up a tree trunk, but the scrabbling sound ends when I stop moving.
Around the snow-coated dacha I walk. Looping and looping. I do not want to go too far from my human. He'll take me for a walk in the harness later today. But there is nothing interesting to a cat when there is nothing about to see. I sniff at dead leaves, but they are long dead. I paw at a partly-buried spade, but it's frozen in the ground and will not fall over.
The silence is worsening! Even my meows are sounding harsh on my ears!
Not a breeze blows by.
Not a bird chirps in the trees.
Not a rat folds his little hands in his burrow.
Or a hedgehog, maybe? Would a hedgehog be out on a day like this? And whom might he be visiting? What would they share to eat? My tail flips back and forth as I ponder.
The thinnest, lightest thwump sounds behind me. My whiskers twitch…
And then something sharp, very sharp, is pulling my tail and scratching at my back! In the frozen pond I see a shadow even larger than I am! A silent hunter — the eagle-owl!
I whip around and slash with my claws, but the owl flaps his wings and rakes his claws forward to try and grip me around my spine. He taunts me as he goes, hooting and hissing and making funny faces with his big, round, orange eyes!
I hiss and snarl back. Finally some noise! With a flying leap, I bat the owl on the head and tear out some of his prized chest feathers. They float to the snow in a silent dance, and I'm left with another annoyance as the owl pecks my ears with his hook of a beak! His feathered ears fold up and down with all his spite!
I claw and slash, but he's much too big an opponent. Time to exhaust him! A chase in the snowy cold is the best for warding off further conflict! With a loud meow I tear off through the powder, and it flies up with a fwoosh, startling the owl. But he is still on my tail! I jump over the frozen spade and claw my way through the pile of still-exposed leaves. The plastic over the top-floor window rustles a bit.
I see chunks of my fur and loose brown quills all over the path behind me. The talons grab at my coat once more, but I fluff my tail and spin around, slapping the owl across the face with my huge paw one more time. His wings crumple, and he falls into the snow, dizzy.
I stop.
I go to sniff him. Is he…
He screeches and raises his enormous wings again! I'm off running! I have to get to the porch and the front door! I want to be inside next to the hearth and the knitting basket! At least the fire is crackly and the knitting needles are all clinky!
I see the eagle-owl's shadow gaining on me. It's as big as I am, and with the angle of the sun, it looks even bigger! There's the first snowbank I leapt into, there's the wood I gripped with my paws…
One shadow dwarfs both of us. It is my human, towering over me and the silent predator. With one gloved hand and some rather catlike speed, he seizes the owl around his belly. Then he winds back his arm and throws the owl like a bullet way up into the sky over the silent forest.
"I was inside getting your harness for a walk! Why did you have to get into trouble, my little cat?" He asks, kneeling down so he can see my back and tail. "What a shame. That owl stole your fur, and I won't have as much to use for a sweater."
"Please take me inside," I whimper, rubbing against his hands.
"Let's get you clean. We don't have to go for a walk today, anyway. I think it feels rather lonely here. We can keep each other company in where it's safe and warm."
Now he is sticking his cold, beardless face into my belly while I'm stretched out in front of the hearth, but I am not going to bite him.
~N~
Updated by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net December 4th, 2020. Don't get close to owls, don't get lost in the fog, and don't repost!