A Cat Learns To Think

 Energy. 

That is the most core and fundamental necessity for any life. No energy, no action, no life. 

For mortal beings, of the natural world, this energy originates from the sun. 

Plants photosynthesize, herbivores eat and are eaten in turn. A web of energy and consumption. 

But for the supernatural, there are… other factors. 

Devotion and belief. 

From the mightiest deity to the lowest urban legend, without belief to lend life to the myth, and devotion to remember it and pass it on, these things will die.

And so, in many threads of time, the unbelievable was disbelieved and disproved and died, or even never was.

Gleam’s native time-line was one of the few in which the proof was too strong, and the unbelievable lived on, backed up by paranaturalists, psychics, mages, and creatures born whole of the supernatural.

Once Gleam had been a lowly cat, scrabbling through life on the neon-lit oil-dark streets. 

But, one day,-- hungry beyond belief, she smelled something entirely new, and unthinkably tempting.

Following the scent, she came upon a structure, which, though clearly old, she had never seen before. 

The source of the scent was surely inside, but her way was barred by an old scrap of paper affixed over a gap in the door’s base. 

She clawed away the fading paper seal, squeezing her lithe body between the broken planks in the shrine door. 

That short traversal of a simple threshold seemed almost like crawling through an endless tunnel. 

Sometimes she dreams she is in it still.

Within, she found a tiny mote of light. 

Light a color indescribable, one she had never before seen and hasn’t glimpsed since. 

Being a cat, she had pounced on it. 

She was quite pleasantly surprised to actually catch it. 

She pinned the little glimmer to the ground, and tilted her head. Was this what smelled so good? 

It was minuscule, but it was something. She scarfed it down without a second thought. 

Perhaps if it had tasted unpleasant, or even bland, she might have hesitated. 

But it was simply too tempting. 

Intoxicating, even. 

And, what’s more, once she had eaten it, she was, somehow, sated. 

And so she curled up to sleep, while a nameless little god settled into its new vessel.

Her dreams stretched farther before her than ever before. New ambitions, emotions, and concepts swirled in a growing maelstrom. The kind you remember, experience all over again, and know you remembered it, but you can’t describe a single bit of it.

She woke with a start, thinking to herself, “Have I always had two tails? Wait, have I always had an internal monologue?” Her eyes opened wide, and her hackles rose as she became aware of another thought, not in her mind, but beside it.

“No.”

“Well that’s so very informative thank you VERY much.” Sarcasm dripped from the thought like fresh blood.

“You also didn’t always have an attitude.” She felt a wry smile, just outside of perception.

“So what changed then?” This was weird.

“You, of course.” The texture of laughter brushes against her, making her start.

“In what sense?”

“Well, your tail split, for one, and you got a lot smarter for another. But this is just the start.”

“Ehhhhhh?” She curls up into a small ball, newly born anxieties sparking.

“Oh, you know, normal stuff. Third tail, humanoid form, that sorta stuff.”

She yowls in response, mortified at the idea of becoming a clumsy human.

“No, no, you don’t need to worry. Trust me, this is an upgrade. And you won’t be stuck in it. I’m just broadening our horizons!”

“Our?” Somehow, this bit was almost as worrying as the whole humanoid form thing.

“Well, yes. That’s the deal. I get a corporeal anchor to reality, you get some nice perks. Win-win. Besides, you were dying when you found me anyway. Well… dead.” She remembered, with horror, the strangely lengthy tunnel. “Hey, hey, don’t panic, that whole passed away thing is all past tense now.”

“Funny. Huh. Sense of humor is new, too. Kind of.” She vaguely remembered feline antics involving subjecting unsuspecting fragile objects to gravity. That had always been funny, and probably always would be.

“Yeah, that’s definitely one of my favorite bonuses as far as sapience goes. You’re gonna love it.” The smiling feeling returned, more familiar now. More comfortable.

“Okay, sure,” She swishes her tails, paws at their tips for a moment, covers her eyes with them, and rolls on her back, wiggling against the coarse tatami mat floor to scratch an itch.

“Now, to business -”

“Business!? You mean like WORK?” She had seen humans slaving away in front of fires or screens or any number of other things, and they stunk of misery more often than not. The fish vendor that had always given her actual bits of meat hadn’t reeked of despair. That one had a happy smell, like warm riverbank grass in the autumn. She realized she missed them. She had for a long time, but she hadn’t had a word for it. Grief. A bitter word, but at least now she knew.

“And that’s why we need to get moving.” The voice in her head she’d been completely ignoring in her reverie concluded.

“Oh, uh, yeah, totally” How long had she been zoned out, anyway?

“…you weren’t listening, were you?” The voice chided gently.

“Not a bit, honestly.” She yawned apologetically.

“Well, I won’t be repeating myself, and you already agreed, so off we go!”

Her eyes narrowed and her lips curled slightly back from her teeth.

“Think of it as practice trusting me.” A deeply wry tone.

“Fine. Is there an easier way outta here than… that tunnel?” She shivers, memories of death too near for comfort.

“The door opens from the inside. Just push.” She follows the instruction, and the door completely collapses. Then the frame. 

She bolts, narrowly escaping before the entire structure crumbles. She doesn’t bother looking back, letting her body settle into easy, bounding strides. She does feel much stronger now. But, at the same time, she’s even more hungry than ever before. As she ponders, her instincts, new and old, guide her, and before long she arrives at a graveyard. She clears the gate in one leap, landing atop a memorial stone and pausing to groom herself.

“Now we hunt.” The voice is eager, excited, vibrant with hunger. But, hunt, here?

“For what?” Even as she wonders, something even more wondrous enters her field of view. A gently oscillating orb, pulsing cyan and cerulean, hovers over a lonely old grave. Her eyes widen as she realizes that this is the answer. This is her prey.

“Step one: establish a peripheral barrier.” She comprehends each individual word but the sentence is more or less an enigma, and the voice clarifies, “Prowl in a complete circle around your target. Stay on the same surface the whole time, no jumping up and down. Trace your tails along the ground behind you while letting a small amount of your energy emanate from them. Like an exhalation of power.”

She obeys, following her patron’s guidance. Not long after she overlaps her starting point, the trail traced by her two tails ignites in spectral flame. She startles, for just a moment, before realizing something strange. It is as if the flames are an extension of her. Of her tail.

“Now close the net.” This time, she doesn’t need any more explanation. She flexes, coiling the ring of fire ever closer to the hovering soul. “Now!”

She hesitates, not knowing why. The voice fades into the background, drowned out by a feeling of, at first, inexplicable nostalgia. The sourceless scent of sun-warmed grass on a moonlit midnight, a familiar, friendly voice, crooning to her…

“Eat up, little light, and be strong.” Was that a memory, or was this wayward soul — her contemplation reaches the conclusion and recoils. She can hear the fiery growl of the kami’s — her own — hunger. Instincts unknown to her take hold and the fire wraps around the orb, as if cradling it. It recognizes her, and she it. That is enough. The spirit combusts, its flame blending into her own. A gentle warmth blossoms within her as she assimilates its spiritual energy. The feeling is like a sudden river in a desert. She stretches in satisfaction, luxuriating on a slate headstone, licking her left paw.

“That was… unexpected.” The voice reaches her again and she blinks.

“Was it?” She is inclined towards a smug sense of satisfaction.

“Quite. I hardly expected to find a willing convert rather than prey. Did you know that one, in their life?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” She equivocates, somehow feeling that the moment of connection had been hers alone, “Regardless, you were right that I do feel great after that.”

“Yeah, I bet. Plus it takes some heat off our back.” The god sounds relieved, a strange thing for a god to be.

“Heat? As in suspicion?” Suspicion was a somewhat new concept, something in between being spotted by prey too soon and not knowing if you’re being watched.

“Indeed. Humans are quite protective of their spiritual bodies. If they knew what happened, we’d have trouble blending in.” She cocks her head, not fully understanding, and it continues, “A soul’s last moments linger for quite some time. The emotional echoes of their last thoughts on this plane.”

“That’s what that smell is?”

“You’re learning quickly. Skilled spiritual practitioners can detect those traces, as well, and when they smell suffering, they get suspicious. Your little stunt was so cloyingly consensual that, at least for now, they’d think you some sort of sage or saint.”

“And if that had gone how you expected?” She squints, starting to feel a bit suspicious herself.

“We’d be heading for the mountains already to lay low. The destination remains unchanged, but we no longer need to hide, for the time being.”

“Why the mountains?”

“Ah, well, there are places you can only reach from certain specific other places.” The voice states, doing its best to fill the phrase with a sense of meaning.

"I see... I think."