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2024-12-27
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Magic's Shadow

Summary:

Chases-Dust-Motes doesn't want to be a brave cat of renown, and she definitely doesn't want the cat-bards to sing songs of her.

She just wants a nice calm cat-life, and to find a cosy place for her friend Sleeps-in-Sunbeams to spend the winter.

Of course, if she happens to find a very stressed Predator Two-Legs in the process, she's not going to just leave him to it...

Notes:

This will make most sense to fellow readers of Inexplicifics glorious fic series "The Accidental Warlord and his Pack"! If you've not read it then a) oh goodness, you have a treat in store!, and b) the crucial things to know here are that all of the Witchers and some sorceresses are now living in Kaer Morhen and have found themselves running an empire ruled by Geralt, that Eskel is functionally the prime minister, that various humans are living there too (including Jaskier, and Livi, who is Eskel's secretary), and that some of the cats brought in to keep the mice away have been brave enough to befriend a Witcher or two...

Work Text:

The Cold Stone Halls have seen many cats of prowess and courage.

There is Drinks-Mouse-Blood, and Rides-Goats-Up-Walls, and Jumps-on-Elks, and Mote’s own father Befriends-Predators and big brother Mighty-Hunter. Above all, there is her beloved big sister Fears-Nothing, who spends a great deal of time sat on the large comfortable lap of the great White Predator Two-Legs. The great yowls of the cat-bards sing of them, and Cold Stone Halls echo to the sound.

But Mote, or more formally Chases-Dust-Motes, knows herself well. She holds her braver relatives in honour, but she does not aspire so high, and the idea of being the subject of songs makes her want to hide in corners. She would rather spend her days in the common way of cats: hunting mice, and dozing, and coaxing milk and fish from the friendlier Two-Legs.

Above all, she likes spending time with her friend Sleeps-in-Sunbeams, a tabby of her own age who was born to Steals-Eggs-From-Geese in the warm cave that smells of dried grass surrounded by horses.

Sunbeam is very small and has legs that pain him, and he walks with a stumbling gait and is always tired, but his purr is bigger than the horses he loves, and he looks at the world passing around him with both wonder and wry humour, and Mote thinks there is no one wiser in all of Cold Stone Halls.

* * * * * * *

It is the darkest and coldest time of the year, Mote’s first winter, and Sunbeam’s legs are troubling him more than ever. He sleeps by the fires in caves, and on the laps of Two-Legs, and sometimes he snuggles up with horses, and every so often he does find a weak sunbeam to rest in, but still he smells of pain and moves more stiffly with each day that passes.

There is nothing for it. Every cat, however quiet and retiring, must go on one quest in her life, and Mote is going to find the best sunbeam in Cold Stone Halls for her best friend to sleep in.

It helps that as one of the third litter of Climbs-the-Rafters and Befriends-Predators, she does not find that the Predator Two-Legs smell as frightening to her as to some of the older cats. She was introduced to Quiet-Thunder when she was barely old enough to open her eyes, and she has sat in the big stone hall and watched the play-fighting there, and once Fears-Nothing took her to meet the White Predator Two-Legs, who does indeed have a surprisingly comfortable lap. They still smell dangerous, but they are gentle with cats, and Mote has started to notice that underneath the predator-smell there are other smells which are like those of any other Two-Legs. Happiness and pain and sadness and love and anger. And a rather endearing astonishment when they get to pet a cat.

Her search for the perfect sunbeam therefore takes her into small caves that smell very strongly of Predator Two-Legs and she is undaunted. Some are too large to be comfortable, and some face the wrong way to let the sun in when it is so feeble and so low.

At last, not long past noon on the second day of her search, she finds one small cave that is just right.

It smells a little of magic, which makes her sneeze, and a great deal of the strange, flat, white-ish leaves that Sings-a-Lot and some other Two-Legs spend time looking at or making marks upon. There are structures all around the edge of the cave piled high with more of the leaves, pressed together and covered with wood or skin. There is a wooden platform right in the centre of the cave, and on the wooden platform there is a box made of metal, and in the box are even more of the leaves, right in the path of a beautiful sunbeam that makes the dust motes spiral up towards the roof, and warms the leaves until they make a perfect nest.

Well, thinks Mote, I need to test this, don’t I. There’s no point helping Sunbeam come this far unless I’m sure it’s right for him.

She settles herself in the box, pressing and kneading at the leaves until they feel just-so beneath her feet, and then curls up for an experimental nap.

* * * * * * * *

She wakes once, a little later, to find that the sunbeam has moved, as sunbeams will, but that the box has also moved, somewhat further along the wooden platform, so that it continues to catch the warmth and light. There is a Two-Legs sitting on the chair beside her; the young female Two-Legs who seems to spend a lot of time with Smells-of-Magic and even more with Sharp-Claws, one of the clowder of Predator Two-Legs who smell very very slightly less wrong than the others.

She is scratching marks on one of the flat leaves, and making soft mouth-noises to herself. Nothing about this seems dangerous, so Mote closes her eyes again and continues with her valiant sunbeam-test.

* * * * * * * *

When she wakes again the sun has gone away entirely, and the cave is lit by a warm fire and a few of the flame-sticks that the Two-Legs seem to need to see by, with their inferior eyesight in the dark.

The young Two-Legs Marks-Leaves is still sat on the chair, still scratching. Then she stops, huffs out a breath, and looks right at Mote. She stretches out her paw quite properly for Mote to sniff, provides a satisfactory head-scritch, and then tries to remove one of the flat leaves from Mote’s nest.

She has been extremely polite about it, so Mote only taps the offending paw lightly with her own before settling down very firmly on her pile. Marks-Leaves makes some mouth-noises, apparently to Mote herself, and she smells both amused and frustrated.

And the nest is no longer in a sunbeam, and Mote wants her dinner. Well. Since she’s getting up anyway she supposes Marks-Leaves can have her metal box back.

 

* * * * * * *

The Cave of Flat Leaves is further from Sunbeam’s usual haunts than is ideal for him, but he allows Mote to guide him slowly through Cold Stone Halls until they reach it, halfway through the morning and with a good long stretch of daylight still ahead of them.

The sunbeam is there, and so is Marks-Leaves, but the nest is… different.

It’s a wicker box, not a metal one, and the flat leaves that line it are crinkled as though they had been scrunched up and then straightened out again. It still looks comfortable, though, and as first Mote and then Sunbeam edge into the cave, Marks-Leaves sees them and moves the new nest even more firmly into the sunbeam. Well! That will do nicely.

Sunbeam jumps up first on to Marks-Leaves’ lap and then on to the platform and makes himself comfortable in the nest, leaving a perfect Mote-shaped space for her to curl up next to him. And with an invitation like that, it would be positively rude not to do so.

Mote was up most of the night after a particularly troublesome mouse, and Sunbeam seems to be so very tired all the time at the moment, so neither of them pay much attention to the gradual movement of the sun and – thanks to Marks-Leaves – of their nest. Mote does awaken very briefly mid-afternoon when the sun has mostly gone, and a stronger jolt accompanies the wicker box being carried over and laid in front of the fire. But she washes Sunbeam’s head for a while, kneads the crinkled leaves into better order, and then goes back to sleep again.

When she wakes next, it is full dark, and when she turns back towards the wooden platform, the person sitting at it with his back to them is not Marks-Leaves, but the Predator Two-Legs Smells-of-Magic.

 

* * * * * * * *

She freezes, uncertain. She’s met Predator Two-Legs before, of course, but it’s still a shock smelling him so close and so unexpectedly, with only a sleeping Sunbeam beside her.

Relax, Fears-Nothing would say. The Predator Two-Legs smell far, far worse than they are. They are more likely to irritate you with too-tentative stroking than harm you in any way. And she herself knows this. She has sat on the lap of the White Predator Two-Legs himself! She knows all the other smells they have other than predator, knows that they are not so different after all from the other Two-Legs, none of whom scare her.

She closes her eyes, and sniffs. There is predator, and there is, of course, magic, tickling her nose. And underneath that…

He smells worried. And weary, which is unusual for a Predator Two-Legs. He keeps rubbing the scars on his face with his paw, and squinting hard at one of the flat leaves. He makes a mouth-noise to himself, and hums a bit. And then makes another mouth-noise which from his tone Mote suspects would be a full-on, swearing hiss if it were translated into cat.

Mote doesn’t like this. Smells-of-Magic has never harmed any of her people, and he seems to get on well with Sings-a-Lot, and Likes-Geese, and Quiet-Thunder, and the White Predator Two-Legs. He always seems to be calm and patient, and rarely wrestles, and he moves around quietly, like a shadow. Like Mote herself. Her momentary fear of a few moments before has shifted into concern.

But as Sunbeam says, there is nothing that can ail a Two-Legs that is not eased by the presence of a cat. Of course, not all Two-Legs are worthy of having their problems eased, but Mote suspects that Smells-of-Magic probably is.

She gets up out of the nest, taking care not to disturb Sunbeam, and stalks over to Smells-of-Magic. He’s aware of her, of course – it’s hard to creep up on a Predator Two-Legs – but all he does is reach one paw down towards her for her to sniff. Someone has taught him appropriate manners. That will make this much easier.

His paw smells strongly of magic, and she sneezes. Besides that, however, it is a very acceptable paw, large and warm and calloused. She licks it tentatively, and hears him make an odd little gasp.

Then she jumps up on to the wooden platform in front of him and makes the firm miaow that all educated Two Legs know means, “if you do not stroke me immediately, there will be Trouble”.

It takes a few nudges, and a deliberate flicking of the flat leaf in front of him with her tail, but eventually Smells-of-Magic gets the idea. His paw is indeed lovely and warm, and she is sure that if he can be trained to pet Sunbeam too, it will help her friend immensely.

Right now, however, Sunbeam is happily asleep, and Smells-of-Magic needs a cat. She enjoys several minutes of increasingly competent stroking, and then hears distantly the strange metal clanging sound that summons the Predator Two-Legs and their closest friends into the big stone hall to eat and wrestle and listen to Sings-a-Lot. Smells-of-Magic hesitates, clearly uncertain.

So she summons all of her courage, and leaps on to his shoulder. Like his paws, his shoulders are large and warm and extremely pleasant. She takes one more look at Sunbeam to check that he is still resting, and then settles herself on this new comfortable surface, to shadow her new friend Smells-of-Magic wherever he goes.

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

“Well,” says Triss, still trying not to grin too broadly at the cat who having accompanied Eskel to supper on his right shoulder like a dark grey parrot, now seems determined to cling to his lap at all costs, “you’re right, your new cat’s little tabby friend is definitely having a rough time of it. I suppose he must be what they used to call the runt of his litter, and his joints must be in near-constant pain.”

“Can you do anything for him?”

Triss sighs. “I can’t cure him, and I certainly can’t make him grow any bigger. He’ll probably always be slower and weaker than his friends. But I can give him enough healing to ease the aches and stiffness, and strengthen his resistance to the usual cat diseases.” She looks around Eskel and Livi’s office. “This isn’t a bad place for the two of them to spend the winter, you know. You’re south-facing and all that paper keeps the heat in. Have a word with Jan and make sure it’s getting cleaned even more regularly; they don’t need paper dust in their lungs. Other than that… well, get some milk in a saucer to tempt them to stay here and a few bits of unsauced meat, and fetch me if the tabby starts to smell of pain again.”

She settles down by the fire next to the fake in-tray that Livi mocked up for the cats to sleep in, and touches the tabby gently on his head, on his legs, on his chest. There is the green glow around her hands as she heals him. The grey cat watches her intently, but lets Eskel carry on stroking her, relaxing as nothing bad continues to happen to her friend.

And Eskel does indeed appear to have a cat now. He lets some of the joy of that drive out some of the strain of dealing with the ambassadors from Nilfgaard and the latest nonsense in Hagge and planning Geralt’s Progress and all of the other bits of administration that even Livi can’t entirely save him from. And perhaps his happiness communicates itself to the cat, or perhaps it’s the way the tabby yawns cheerfully and settles into a deeper sleep in the aftermath of healing. Either way, she stretches, eases out of the loaf-shape she’s been sitting in, lies on her side and starts a huge, rumbling purr.

 

* * * * * * * *

“One song, Mote, just one!”

Fears-Nothing is brave and kind and the best big sister a cat could possibly have. She is also an absolute pain in the bum, and Mote is about three seconds away from hissing at her.

“No songs! I don’t want a big fuss! I just… I just found a good place for Sunbeam to be warmer in and hurt less, and then Smells-of-Magic was all worried and needed some affection, and…”

“You braved the cave of a powerful Predator Two-Legs to heal your dearest friend, and befriended the great Predator who lives there, and now you follow him around like his shadow. If I tell Yowls-Sweetly about this he’ll be singing songs that will last five generations.”

“Then don’t tell him,” growls Mote, fluffing up her fur.

“All right, all right, little sister,” says Fears-Nothing, though she smells amused. “I will leave you to your cosy cave and your very sweet friends. All three of them.”

Mote growls again, though only on principle.

“You are rather like him, you know,” says Fears-Nothing.

“Like who?”

“Smells-of-Magic. He’s like the White Predator Two-Legs’ shadow, have you noticed? Well, you must have done, you’ve sat on one lap often enough now while I’ve been sat on the other!” She chirrups. “He likes to be quiet and calm and unnoticed, and makes sure that everyone around him is fine. Just like you.”

It’s not a compliment Fears-Nothing herself would welcome, Mote suspects, but she’s given it knowing that Mote really does. She rubs her cheek against Fear’s-Nothing’s, purring.

“Magic’s-Shadow,” says Fears-Nothing.

“What?”

“I know it’s up to our parents really, but I know they’ll agree with me. No songs, no fuss, just as you chose. But I name you Magic’s-Shadow. Shadow for short.”

Mote… Magic’s-Shadow’s purr gets louder. No songs, no fuss. But she is indeed Smells-of-Magic’s shadow, Sunbeam’s friend and perhaps future mate, helper and taunter of Marks-Leaves. That’s a good life for a cat.

That will do very well indeed.