The holidays are over and we are trying to start the year off with some good habits – specifically getting back in the swing of posting each week. Some of that is getting into the swing of writing consistently again now that all the holiday activities are done. Some of that is just getting back into a good sleep schedule so that I’m well rested and keeping track of what day it is again.
One good thing about the terrible winter weather we get is that I’ll have plenty of time where I won’t want to leave the house which means I can get to work on a host of different projects. One of which is a short story I’ve been workshopping for little while. It’s now to the point that I just need to put it out there before I nit pick it to death. It’s on the longer side compared to some of the other short stories I’ve put out recently but I’m hoping to getting back into writing some longer stories. Now, without further ado:
Kitten in the Round
The world is shaking and Phor does not like it. He presses further under his blanket but that makes the shaking worse. Ears twitching in annoyance, Phor finally pokes his head out of the blanket, glaring.
“Oh dear, did I wake you?” Alia smiles. She’s contrite, but still giggling so hard she is shaking, making it impossible to continue Phor’s nap.
Rather than accepting the apology Phor squirms out of Alia’s lap. The elf gently lifting her knitting out of his way. He stops to stare at the blanket when it moves, the bright intricate pattern of seven colors in shimmering circles and flowers and fish catching his eye. He had already spent a whole hour just this morning watching Alia pick out the design on her tiny needles while she chatted with the five other members of the knitting group. With a shake he makes himself keep moving. He’s mad and no amount of color is going to stop him from letting Alia know. With a final squirm and hop he lands on the moss coated floor inside of Kal’s and Flor’s trees.
He stops to gaze up the hollow inside of the two conjoined trees, made by the dryads for their monthly knitting meeting. The trees are so high that he can see birds flitting up in the branches from inside. When grandma had first brought him to one of the meetings he’d tried to climb up and catch one. He hadn’t gotten far up the bark when grandma had scruffed him and told him it was rude to climb walls in other people’s home.
“Phor?”
Phor jumps, distracted from the flitting birds and turns around to see Alia looking at him.
“Are you okay?”
Phor deliberately turns and stomps away from Alia. It isn’t easy to stomp on a mossy floor but he gives it his all. He makes a wide circuit around Nia because the nymph is always a little damp and cold, and he always needs his fur groomed whenever he spends too much time near her.
Grandma had already groomed him this morning. He didn’t want to be groomed again.
“Oh dear, I think I really offended him,” Alia is still giggling behind him.
Phor tries to stomp harder.
“Give him a minute,” says grandma, sounding far too happy. “He’ll forget all about it soon enough. I love the boy but he’s got the attention span of a guppy.”
A fluttering shadow catches Phor’s attention and he freezes, turning to watch a small yellow butterfly flying in lazy circles around the trees’s inner wall. He drops into a crouch, stalking slowly after the bug. He listens with half an ear as Grandma keeps talking.
“See? Give him five more minutes and he’ll have completely forgotten why he was mad. Honestly, he’s so bright but I worry about his memory. How will he pass his trials in the hunting grounds if he can’t focus on one task?”
“Don’t worry,” Nia burbles back. She always sounds like a bubbling pot whenever Phor hears her talk. “I’m sure he’ll make a fine hunter, he’s still just a baby right now. Give him time and he’ll be able to match with the best of them.”
Phor wrinkles his nose but doesn’t lose sight of the butterfly as he carefully makes his way into pouncing range, one quiet step at a time. He isn’t a baby. He’s already five.
Phor blocks out the rest of the adult’s conversation, all his focus on the butterfly. It is bright buttercup yellow and has settled on a thin fern frond, that slowly sways back and forth. There’s no real wind in the dryads’ hollow tree but there is air moving and the butterfly flutters to rebalance on the fern.
Closer. Closer. There.
Phor holds completely still, eyes focussing as the butterfly stops fluttering, the fern holding still.
Now!
Phor pounces, claws out. He misses, the butterfly fluttering out of reach, but he hasn’t lost it yet. He’s so close! He scrambles, claws catching in the tree’s bark as he follows the butterfly up the tree. Just a little more and he’ll have it!
“PHOR!”
Phor stops at Grandma’s yowl, turning wide eyes to see Grandma frowning at him as she moves aside her knitting.
“Come down from there right now young man, how many times have I told you not to go scaling other people’s walls without permission?” She carefully folds her knitting up before dropping it in her bag, then turns to the two dryads. “I am sorry about this Karl, Flor, I know my daughter taught him better than this.”
Phor glances down, only now realizing how far up he’s climbed in pursuit of the butterfly. He’s nearly head high to his grandma and she’s one of the tallest hunters in their clan. His ear’s droop and he flexes his claws, uncertain how to get down. Climbing up always felt so natural. Climbing down… is not.
Grandma makes her way over to him, gently prying his claws out of the wall and settles him on her hip. She carries him over to where the two dryads sit knitting together a purple grass blanket. “Come now, apologize to Karl and Flor.”
Phor tucks his head into Grandma’s coat, not looking at the dryads. Their funny purple grass always makes him sneeze.
“It’s alright,” Karl wheezes out, creaking as he shifts forward, running long brown fingers over his half of the blanket. “Youth does tend to get bored easily. He’s hardly the first whose excitement outpaces his manners. He was probably getting bored of listening to us old folks chatter.”
“Don’t call yourselves old, you’re still only three hundred and seventy!” Alia gives an exaggerated sigh. “Think of how that makes me feel!”
Everyone laughs. Everyone always laughs when Alia says things like that and Phor isn’t sure why. Alia isn’t old at all. She looks like she’s the same age as the bakers daughter and everyone calls her a “silly young thing”.
Phor pouts, annoyed that no one ever tells him what’s so funny, just that “he’d get it soon”. When is soon?
“Phor.”
Phor glances up at his Grandma
“You still need to apologize.”
Phor reluctantly turns to Karl and Flor, ears pressed back and tail curled up tight and gives them a regretful “Mrow”.
“He still hasn’t gotten the hang of speaking basic, but he did say sorry.” Grandma hitches Phor a little higher up on her hip and Phor yawns.
“Well, that’s good enough for me, no harm no foul and all that. How about you Flor?” Karl turns to Flor and pokes at her part of the blanket “you’re side of the pattern is off here.”
“It is not off,” Flor sniffs back, pausing in her knitting and squinting at Karl. “your part of the pattern is off. You missed a line two rows back.”
“What? No.” Karl lifts the blanket up close to this face. “Drat, you’re right. Your pattern is still off by three lines.”
“It’s called artistic license,” Flor answers placidly. “And I agree, no harms done.”
“Well, if you’re all done,” Phor peaks over Grandma’s shoulder as Lillia ruffles her feathers, mouth pinched into a thin line as she studies the massive cable sweater she is knitting. “Can we have a little bit of peace around here? I cannot focus with this racket.”
“Oh, we’re causing the racket?” Grandma trades glances with Alia. “What was it you spent all last month’s meeting talking about?”
“That’s hardly the same.” Lillia adjusts the sleeves of the turtle neck she is wearing and resumes her knitting. “I hardly wanted to talk at all, but you were all insistent on knowing why I missed our meeting the month before last. As if I wanted to spend all that time talking about that good for nothing daugher of mine! Honestly, the nerve she has, showing up at my eyrie.”
Phor blinks slowly as Grandma carries him over to her seat, gently setting him on his feet. After a moments thought he drops down and crawls under Grandma’s chair. A moment later Grandma has pulled her blanket out and spread it over her lap, the edges falling all around him until he has his own little tent.
The blanket is warm and smells like family, muffling the sound of voices outside. Phor sighs, curling up in the moss below him, eyes falling closed and tail flicking back and forth slowly.
As his eyes slip close he hears Grandma laugh, making him smile even as he drifts off to sleep.
