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Three -year-old Aiden had been playing in the front yard, amusing himself with the red earth and rocks and his construction toys. Jack was inside, working on her homework vids, getting them done so when Nicola came home she could take off and go play on her own. Aiden let out a giggling shriek, which was unusual, since he was a quiet child. Never serious-quiet, like his sister had been, just brooding, took after his father. So the noise startled Jack, and when she looked out the window and didn't see him, she was up and to the door in a second.
They lived on the very edge of the settlement, next to the woods, Dad was still itchy around people. The house sat on the lower southeast corner of the property, half a klick down the road from Ziza and Basir's place. Not exactly shouting distance, but close enough that Nicola had no qualms about Jack walking her baby brother home from preschool in the afternoon. Basir had retired from his military cleric position and was trying his hand at farming. And Jack was almost 10. She could handle pretty much anything that happened.
Aiden squealed again. It was at the back of the house, by the fence separating the woods from the yard. Jack reflexively palmed her knife, her brother was babbling, and there should be neither people nor animals in the backyard. She stopped short in the shadows of the back porch, wary.
Aiden stood with his back to her, shrieking gleefully as he tossed something white and floppy as hard as his little arms could manage. Oh gods, was that a chicken? It was half his size, but mostly feathers, so it moved maybe five feet. Something big and black pounced on the white mess of feathers and sinew, and Jack choked.
It was a blue-devil cat. Pantherus rufus. One of the black panther-bobcat like predators native to the planet. They got the name from their glossy but tough black oiled coats, that shown like crow-feathers in the light. Sized like panthers, this one was tipping the high end of that 100 kg weight range. They had more compact bodies than most big cats, more like earth bobcats or lynx. They'd been spotted at night, usually near the woods or up in the hills, a few attacks on livestock, but they preferred smaller quarry. Large rodents or vermin... or in this case, the size of Basir's chickens...
Aiden clapped and dove at the cat, grabbing for the bird in the giant beast's teeth. Jack's adrenaline was pumping hard, but she tried to keep her voice even, low. "Aiden... come here."
The little blond boy looked up, still smiling, squinting in the sunlight. "Jack play too?" The cat was growling low, the yellow-red eyes flashed as it hunched over the mangled white mess, giant teeth worrying the feathers. Aiden brushed his dirty hands on his knees and trotted half the distance between the beast and his sister.
"No Aiden. You gotta come in now. Mom's gonna be home soon." She tried not to shake, but her palms were slippery on the knife. She held out one hand to her brother. "C'mere." Aiden glanced back at the cat. It stood suddenly, the chicken still in its mouth.
"No. Wanna play!" he whined.
"Mom wouldn't want you...playing... with that. It's dirty." She motioned him forward. He made a disappointed noise, and scuffed forward, kicking dust clouds. The cat followed him cautiously. Jack didn't know if it was stalking her brother or not. She grabbed him and opened the back door with her foot, moving very slowly.
The cat stopped at the edge of the cement porch, growling again. Jack shoved her brother in the house, still holding the knife up. Then the cat spit the chicken out, and just looked at her. When she didn't move it made that growl again, and nosed the bird, batting it with a huge paw. Aiden poked his head out under his sister's arm.
"See. He wants you play too. You throw chick'n, he fetch. Then we play tug." He pushed past his sister, who was too dumbfounded to stop him. He picked up the corpse and flung it, the cat half-leaped and caught it in the air. Then he leaned back down and let Aiden grasp the bird by the neck. "Give!" he yelled, wrestling with the animal. Jack gulped. But the big cat growled and after a moment let go. Aiden smiled and held the bird up to her. "See?"
Jack snatched the bird and flung it as hard as she could across the yard. Then she grabbed her brother and slammed the door, heading through the kitchen to com her Mom.
Nicola stared at her daughter sitting at the table playing with her knife. Aiden sat on the floor, stacking plastic containers he'd pulled out of the cabinets in the kitchen. She'd commed Riddick as soon as Jack told her the story, wild as it was, to come home immediately. Jack was not given to fanciful stories, and the paw prints in the dust out back were enough to corroborate what her daughter had said.
"We'll decide what to do when your father gets back," she said, rinsing off vegetables for supper.
"But Mom... I don't think he meant any harm..."
"If it's killing Basir's chickens, it's a menace. And probably sick besides. Those things are supposed to be nocturnal." Jack's sudden change to defending the beast was unnerving.
"Crepuscular," Jack muttered, laying her head on her elbows.
"What?"
"Crepuscular - active at dawn and dusk. That's how most cats are."
"Well, good to see you're learning your biology." Nicola began pulling dishes down and motioned for Jack to set the table.
"Mom, I've seen dead chickens on the road to school all the time. Those things are dumb, they wander off and get hit by transports every day." Nicola looked at her daughter and sighed.
"An hour ago you were screaming at me about a killer cat stalking your brother, now you sound like you want to keep it. It's a wild animal, and it's obviously desensitized to humans. It's not safe."
"It follows Dad around at night," Jack muttered under her breath as she thunked plates on the table.
"What?"
"Nothing." Mom did not need to know she'd been slipping out to track her father. Speaking of...
"DADDY!" Aiden jumped from the floor, running for the front door. Nicola sighed again. Furyan genetics gave her children a 15 second advantage in the hearing department. Not just Riddick with the voodoo now, she had a whole house full of them. Jack made a face.
"Why is he always running off like that. It's just Dad." Nicola laughed.
"Honey, you were the same way when you were younger." Jack rolled her eyes. They could hear Aiden shriek with glee outside. Jack raised an eyebrow. Not his usual greeting for their father, loud annoyed Dad.
"Puppy!" Nicola and Jack exchanged a look and headed for the door at the same moment.
Riddick was leaning in the door frame, arms crossed, looking pleased. Nicola and Jack pushed past him, and stopped short. Aiden was standing in the yard, arms wrapped around the giant blue-cat from earlier. Nicola recognized it vaguely as the same cat that she had seen up at the springs with Riddick. In the light she could see the scar across its muzzle, and the notch where it had lost part of its ear.
"Daddy brought me Puppy!" Aiden insisted, burying his face in the beast's neck. He knew Jack was going to try to drag him inside again. But Daddy overruled Jack.
"This was what all the fuss was over?" Riddick sounded amused. "Scarface wanted to play with the kids?" Nicola stared at him, agape. "What?"
"That is a wild animal your son is... playing with." Riddick shrugged.
"Probably my fault for feedin' him all this time." He dropped to his knees, made a clucking sound, and the big cat padded over, bumping his head against the man's outstretched hand. Aiden squealed again and ran headlong into the beast's rear end, hugging his hindquarters.
"My Puppy!" Riddick chuckled, scratching the cat under the chin. It actually purred. Nicola couldn't think of anything to say. She watched her daughter move around her to join her father in the dirt, slowly reaching out to pet the beast.
"He won't bite?" Jack asked, running a tentative hand down its back.
"Might," he cuffed the beast on the side of the face, earning a nip and a growl. "But he knows you're family. You smell like me, he knows you're my kits. That's why he wants to play." He stuck his fist in the cat's mouth, gripping its jaw as it gnawed on his knuckles. "Just don't pull his tail, you should be fine." He looked at his son, still clutching the cat around the middle. "You play nice Aiden."
"Yes Daddy. Nice Puppy." Jack snorted.
"It's a kitty, Aiden."
"No! My Puppy! We play fetch!" He stared furiously at his sister.
"Richard..." Nicola was exasperated. "You can't condone this..."
"What? Every kid needs a pet." He grinned at her.
"A pet is a guinea rat, a gold fish! Not a feral jungle beast the size of a calf!"
"Oh, he's just an old worn out tom cat." He thumped the beast's shoulder and stood. "It's not like I'm sayin' he can sleep in their rooms. He's strictly an outdoor pet, got that?"
"Yes, Daddy," came the chorus.
Nicola knew when she was defeated. Three stubborn Furyans in the house, she couldn't win.
And that's how Puppy became the family pet.
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Tribute to the hellhounds on Crematoria, and my cat. :P
