Diana Dueyn - The Big Meow

There was a pause before the answer came back from the heart of Creation. Rhiow, she said, you’ve picked up a touch of roughness of manner from My Eldest daughter.

Rhiow declined to allow any embarrassment to show.

Yet that said, said the Queen, if I feel accommodating today, or have a notion to indulge an unusually productive member of My pride… then surely that’s My business. So, as I said: for a little while, when you think of something else — within reason… speak My name.

The sense of quiet approval was overwhelming. Rhiow bowed her head, doing her best to bear it: and silence fell.

Then she turned and ran down the air toward the terrace. “Hwaith!”

He looked up and saw her, and ran up the air to meet her. “Rhiow!!”

They were both sidled, which was just as well. The sight of two black cats leaping on each other in midair, and madly bumping heads and washing each other’s ears, and rolling and tumbling over and over one another as if they were on some kind of invisible floor twelve stories up, would have caused the local ehhif some concern.

“How did you – “

“I told you – “

“You were in my litterbox!”

“Well, I had to go, you wouldn’t want me to just do it there on the concrete – “

“No, I mean you were in it before!”

“Yes. I missed the time. I wanted to see you so very much, and I screwed it up by a few days, I miscalculated, and when I got there you didn’t know me yet – “

“And – wait, I saw you at the Opera! You were looking at me! And I didn’t know you then yet either – Oh, Hwaith, I’m so sorry – “

“What for, it wasn’t your fault!”

More ear-washing ensued. After a while, when the first frenzy of it had calmed a little, Rhiow said, almost nervous to hear the answer, “Hwaith. How many lives did you have to use – “

“Only one,” he said. “It’s hard to remember things from in between, you know how that is… but it seemed to me that when I felt I might have to cross over, something …interfered.”

“And you’ve been here a while – “

“Some years,” he said.

“Such a long time to wait…”

“It was all right,” Hwaith said. “I knew you were coming. I saw you sometimes, from a distance. That always made me feel better. And anyway, after today, it doesn’t feel like a long time at all.” He put his whiskers forward at her. “So can you use a spare gate technician? I’m told that though I’m out of practice, my proficiency rating’s still satisfactory.”

She bumped her head so hard into his that the sound echoed. “Idiot,” she said. “What I can use right now is a tom. My tom. We’ll discuss your other proficiencies later. Meantime, let’s go home!”

They headed down to the terrace and unsidled. Rhiow went through the cat flap in the sliding door first, to show Hwaith the way. Iaehh was home, as Rhiow had half thought he might be, and in the kitchen. He looked over at her without surprise and said, “Well, there you are! Hungry, plumptious one?”

But then the surprise jumped out all over his face as Hwaith came in through the door and paused there, looking around him uncertainly.

Rhiow looked from the ehhif to her new mate, and back to Iaehh again.

My Queen, she said. You did say if there was anything else —

Yes?

Then one last thing.

Yes?

Here, at the very last moment, for fear of being refused when it was so important, Rhiow found herself actually afraid to speak. But the Queen hears hearts as well as minds.

Seeing as how you’re on sabbatical, said Queen Iau, …just this once.

Rhiow’s whiskers went so far forward that her face felt pulled out of shape. Standing there beside Hwaith, her tail twined with his, Rhiow looked up at Iaehh.

“Iaehh,” she said aloud in the Speech, which even an ehhif could understand — and his eyes went very wide — “He followed me home. Can I keep him?”