Cat Tales.

We have cats, or - more correctly - cats have us.

Our Feline Overlords are called Cleo and Pixie and we've chosen to keep them outdoors. They have our garden to play in and plenty of (other) unkempt urban wilderness nearby. I often envy them.

Cleo is the Queen. She rules the garden with well-timed and unexpected attacks on anything with the audacity to move or breathe in her queendom. This includes her brother Pixie. (See picture above. If you look closely you can also see our Naughty Tree.)

In the absence of toes to chew on,
Pixie will settle for fingers.

Pixie is a beautiful cat but an unbelievable coward. I suppose it's partly my fault because I had him turned into an ex-tomcat several years ago. (Sorry, guys).

The removal of his Dignity and Pride has no doubt made him the laughing stock of his champagne-cork-soccer buddies and he's developed a toe fetish since. I suspect it's a coping mechanism.

About two years ago, our neighbours got a new cat. A domesticated one. You know the type: sociable, people-loving and utterly naive. Cleo hated her from day one. Pixie pretends he does too, but you can tell he's actually scared of her.

More than a year of hissing, growling and pitiful meowing later, the neighbours' cat got pregnant. When her Humans moved, she got left behind, so she's been eating Cleo's and Pixie's food since, which hasn't improved their opinion of her.

In turn, Mum abandoned her remaining kitten and I had to adopt it. I tried not to, but have you ever said no to a kitten?

The first weeks, this was the side
of Guest Kitten we saw most.

Guest Kitten is one of the cutest specimen I've ever seen and she believes our cats are her family. When she started to follow them around, it worried me at first. I expected to find pieces of Guest Kitten impaled on herb stalks to mark the borders of Cleo's territory.

It hasn't happened. Cleo is apprehensive but seems to tolerate Guest Kitten, while Pixie is - you've guessed it - afraid of her.

Guest Kitten at play.

In the beginning, Guest Kitten wasn't too crazy about Humans, but after weeks of 'apprivoiser', as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry called it, she's warming up to me.

So far I've been able to pet her, pick her up and determine she's a 'she'. She's also beginning to rub against my legs. I guess I'm hers now. I don't mind. Did I mention how adorable she is?

Now, Guest Kitten needs a name, and this is where you come in. I'd love to name her after a female character of a novel, be it from a published one or a WIP. Yours or someone else's, I don't mind, as long as it fits. Please post your suggestions in the comments and I promise I'll consider each and every one.

To help you choose, here's Guest Kitten in action, exploring a box:

However, in the end, the box was claimed by the Queen herself ...

... while Pixie watched from a safe distance, ready to escape at the first hint of danger:

Afterwards they met up for family dinner. There was much rejoicing.

The End.

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