(Human) Author's Note:
This is the 2nd story in my "The Book of the Heaviside Layer" series , a collection of tales as told from each cat's point of view. This one is more of a history story. As always, I know there are a bunch of these kind of fanfic's around (especially Bombalurina and Macavity fics such as this one), but I would be honored if you'd read mine and mail me with comments (and if you would like to see the second part written to this story as it is a "to be Continued" tale) at : moonstar_83@yahoo.com
Bombalurina's Story:
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Ginger Fire
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Epilogue
(And story as told by Bombalurina)
It's all history now, tough most don't know about it. They don't know or don't want to know...it's all the same to me really.
Some may wonder how I managed to get out of being a mate of a "hidden paw"(A name in our clan that means a thief that kills all that stands in his way to get what he wants)
Sure, I could sugar coat the whole thing in my memory as most queens do, tricking my own mind into believing that everything about being with him had been good...Or that everything about him was evil... But I can't, because nether would be the truth..nether can fully tell the story of Macavity..and me...
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I was young and naive and knew nothing better. From the time I could eat solid food and clean my own fur I made my runs upon the back streets of London. Well, I did make my home with my mom in the same kind of places too... I can't remember Mom's name because she was never given one by human's and other cat's mostly stayed clear of her, hissing at her weather torn coat or the way her whiskers turned down. Mom's only name was the "old alley queen". Even though we were human hoppers, only staying at a single humans house for a couple days to get food, it felt safe to me...And I hated safe.
So when Mom wasn't using me as a kitten "food hook" (Putting me out on a human's doormat so they would see a cute, hungry, red ginger colored kit' before she would come out with her own sad eyes ready for them) I ran away to the darker side of the city, making friends with the lowest of low cats. At first it was just play and stuff and I stayed for only a few hours away from Mom. But as the call toward something new and different got louder for me I would stay catting around for weeks before coming home.
Every tom that was anyone knew my name and my nature and made a point of hanging around with me. I was happy for the new type of attention and learned quickly just how to handle the males my way... It was the very night of my coming of age that something I had never planned on happened.
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The air was alive with smells of the after midnight London night life. The smoke from pipes and whiskey filled my noise and I shook my head to be clear of it, as I walked down an alley way littered with trash.
"Hey Bombalurina *hic* were you goin' little queen?" A raspy female voice called down to me.
I sighed and looked up, knowing just who it was.
Razzleberry was a middle aged overweight yellow tabby who's human owned a food shop two streets down. She had a habit of drinking cups of the stores apple cider and going off half drunk to this alley every night.
And every night she would ask me the same question.
"Oh, nowhere special." I answered the same way I always did.
She hiccuped again and nearly fell off the pile of boxes she was on but caught hold of them with her claws just in time to pull herself back up.
"Gonna dig up some toms at the Cat's Eye?" Razzleberry huffed from the effect of pulling her weight up.
"Maybe so..." I said slowly with a smile, waiting for her to catch her breath
"Well you take care now, you know them there are pretty tough fellas Bomba..." She said with drunken but real concern like she always did.
"I will, don't worry!" I called, swaying my tail in goodbye and jumping over the wall at the alleys end , heading right were no other kitten queen would dare to go..a place I visited almost every day.
The Cat's Eye was a hang out spot for feline thefts, drunks, run always and smugglers. It was a large pub made up of newspaper and wooden boxes that stood near the rear exit of a old worn down warehouse. The pubs owner sold stolen cream for tuna and made off petty good in the food department.
This didn't bother me all that much tough the cats here were my "friends".
I made my way though the doorway and paused to lead against its frame.
"Hi everyone." I said dramatically and saw half of the room (all the toms that happened to be there) nearly fall over into their cream. The other half, (mostly their mates and other queen kittens) just looked annoyed.
"Hi 'ya Bombalurina!"
"Hey look it's little Bom!"
"Com'n sit with me sweetheart!"
"Yeah pull a box!"
I ignored their thunderous answer and just took a couple steps forward and stopped to lick my paw, slowly cleaning my face and then my ear in one gracefully move.
I smiled and purred "I dunno I really trusty..." About twenty bowls were noised my way across the box table.
"Thanks.." I said quietly and licked the nearness tom on the nose. I could swear I almost saw him melt.
"It's alright!" He said dreamily and another queen suddenly appeared to drag him off, kicking and sworming. My half smile was hidden as I began to lap at the cream hungrily, it was really the first thing I had had to eat since morning. The soft touch of someone rubbing their head against my side in hello made me look up in mid lap.
My smile faded.
"Oh..it's you..hello Pyrite." I said flatly
Pyrite was an okay tom, if you liked the "stick onto you like a leech" type. He was pure black with green colored eyes and always wore a brown collar lined with spikes. Once, back when I was a very little kitten I had a crush on him and he has never let me forget it since! I liked trouble. Just not HIM.
"My, my, My lady Bombalurina, your looking radiate this evening." Pyrite purred and tried to nuzzle me.
I pulled away at lightening speed and hissed.
"Get AWAY from me!"
He just purred louder and held up a paw "Now, is that anyway to treat your future lover Bomba?" I sighed and licked my rumpled fur, trying not to let my stomach turn. Listening to him talk was like hearing a snake rattle, you knew it would bite you if you got too close.
"Sheesh Pyrite, it's this same thing every night! For the last time: No I don't want to go eat with you, No I won't ever dance with you! Sweet Heaviside alive, I don't even LIKE you Pyrite!"
He grinned, a slow creepy thing to see that sent a cold feeling though me.
"Oh little sweet Bomba, if it were any another night..No, I know now I wasn't meant for you..tonight I come because someone else..of higher power..loves you..." Pyrite's green eyes shown with the news. (Of higher power?) I thought curiously. Pyrite may have been a snake of a tom, but what he did have was a big ego. If he said ANYONE was of higher power than him, he really meant it..in a big way. "Who is he?" I asked calmly and slowly, trying not to let curiously creep into my voice, after all, tons of toms said they loved me everyday..
"My boss.. Macavity..." Pyrite said softly as the first notes of music for dancing started.
My ears perked up a little at that name. I had never heard it before.
I shook it off and began to dance with the toms that where gathering in the center of the pub.
Pryrite just stayed laying on some boxes as I started flirting and began to sing in with the music:
" My boss has been watching you each night... and nick named you his little ginger fire! For you burn every tom right though... Walking on a dangerous crimson wire!"
I chocked my head with pride and danced between toms, a few on the floor watching the every movement of my hips.
"I've always walked the danger road and that suits me just fine... Where ever there is that trouble lurks, I'll be lurking two steps behind!"
I booped the two toms on the floor with my behind and sent them tumbling head over paws as I sang.
Pryrite just gave me an "I know you too well Bomba" look and picked up singing again. He propped his head up on a paw where he lay and watched me closely..:
"Macavity has been gazing at you and nick named you his little ginger fire! Never was there a queen more worthy of that name! For you play each day like a game... And whirl and dance and cheat romance like a little exotic flame!"
I did a little mini flip onto the box table and leaned forward like I was going to kiss Pryrite. He smiled smugly, leaded follow to, and instead of my face caught the side of a cream bottle. I had moved too quick for him. He growled and started to cash after me. I just laughed and joined the front of the rock and roll conga line of toms that were dancing in my honor. As the music reached it's climax the angry Pryrite cut though the conga line in his cash after me, sent everyone dancing tumbling, and I was huddled in a corner with a tom hissing at Pryrite in front of me. (the same tom who's nose I had licked earlier) I pushed the protective tom aside gently and glared at Pryrite. The whole room hushed down to the soft notes of piano as I sang just as soft:
"Who is this Macavity? I wanta know.. Who is this tom that only has eyes for me? I've heard his name always lined with shadows Now I dare to inquire.. One is this one that calls me... ginger..fire?"
Suddenly a cat appeared from the shadows, just melted out of darkness in the back of the crowd. Was I dreaming? No, he was definitely very real: A ginger, black, and red striped tom with wild fur along his head and legs, stripes of white interweaving toward the center of his face, riming eyes of an intense golden color. Eyes, that were watching, examining me, as closely as I was looking at him. Though he was a remarkably tall tom walking in a slow circle around me for some reason I wasn't afraid.
Slow thoughts,..feelings, hung in the air around us like silent electricity.
Others in the room were long forgotten. Even though I had never met him..I knew him.
Macavity.
I felt strangely clam, closing my eyes against a sudden heat that blinded me. Opening them again to feel Macavity rub his head against my inner tight I drew back a little in shock. He didn't move or speak but his eyes shown warm like a evening fire against wild forest stars. I had flirted before but never experienced anything like this. Scents. Feelings above everything. Something so very..well..MALE about him that it took my breath away and left me only with need. Everlasting Cat in Heaviside,I could go on for hours of feelings in a single moment then. I leaned forward slowly and we nuzzled, purring softly.. His scent smelled of fresh hay and old leather bond books..a comforting scent that sent me away from any fears I had once had, any part of my hard back street life that had ever hurt me. Half dreaming, I felt Macavity run his paws down my back in a quite caress. My world went out of focus and was lost in the feelings of us and the magic of his touch, he was really a cat with true magic though it was hidden and shown only to me in our joining. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane in the heavy silent air as he lifted me up over his head, ran a last loving paw over the inside of my leg and then cradled me in his arms like a baby kitten, lowering my body down to the floor softly. Macavity curled his body protectively around mine and distantly from where I was already half asleep I sensed, others, many other cats piling up around us to share their warmth and sleep. A distant end of the song they half whispered:
"It may come of no surprise That the Hidden Paw would have his eyes on.. a crimson fire!... a crimson fire... a crimson fire... a little ginger fire..."
As the last notes of my first mating dance faded away into the night it found the whole group of some of the most low life cats in all London curled up sleeping together on a pub floor..
and me, Bombalurina "Ginger Fire", a kitten no longer, in the middle of them all , sleeping with my head on a ginger striped hip,and purring contently.
~ ~ ~ ~ To Be Continued.... @@@@@@@@@@
This fanfic is © Rebecca "Becky" Lakey 1999-2000