It's the rumbling where you can really tell. No, not rumbling--crackling? My tortoiseshell cat Cinnamon purrs like a lit hearth, in rolling, crackling flickers of contentment.
Cinnamon can breathe fire. She huffs it over her food bowl as she eats--melted the plastic Tupperware I first fed her in, the night I found her. It's oven-safe dishes only now.
She was as big as a Maine Coon when I first found her, so I thought she was fully grown. Turns out she was still half a kitten then. She's as big as a fox now.
Of all her quirks, it was her scales that worried me the most, when they first came in. She started losing fur off her belly in chunks, and I'd catch her helping it along, grabbing tufts between her teeth and yanking it out. Stress, I thought. She'd been snappy lately, growling at the neighbor's dog through the window. Maybe the dog had scared her?
I got curtains for the window and an e-collar for her. She shredded the curtains and melted the e-collar. The melted plastic stuck to the fur around her throat. I had to put on furnace gloves and pull it off her while she fought and hissed and yelped, then stopper up the bloody patches where the plastic had bonded to her skin.
I felt so guilty about that. Still do.
She hid away from me for days, and when she came back, she'd groomed off all her belly fur. But instead of raw skin in its place, there were scales, orange and ember-bright. They dulled over days, settling down to a rusty shade.
She sheds her scales once a season now. She'll follow me into the shower to build up moisture for the shed, then get indignant with me for daring to actually take a shower. Clearly, I turned on the water for her, so why am I sticking around?
Her sheds go the easiest if I leave the water running once I'm done and let her do her thing. I come back in half an hour to a sheet of milky-white shed wrapped around the drain stopper and a freshly orange-bellied dragon-cat, furiously trying to dry her fur off with her tongue.
By the time her antlers came in, I'd learned to leave well enough alone. No disasters that time. She sheds those, too, once a spring. I've started giving the shed antlers over to an artist friend who makes the most elaborate carvings with them. My other cat Dinah--an actual cat, pale grey fur, tiny and prim like a living doll--adores antler-shedding season. Cinnamon will lie there, perfectly content, while Dinah grooms off all the velvet. ...and eats it, because even the fanciest feline is, inevitably, gross. I was worried some, at first, but it turns out antler velvet is a pet food supplement. Who knew?
I think Cinnamon is happy. Her tail doesn't perk up as much as a normal cat's--maybe the spikes at the end are too heavy--but she nestles up in the fireplace while I knit and purrs her hearth-flame purr; spends lazy mornings in the sun with Dinah, sunning her belly scales; and bumps my leg with her antlers to greet me when I get back from errands.
She and Dinah are each, of course, the best cat in the world.
External Links:
Ko-Fi
Art Gallery
Twitch
YouTube
Dreamwidth
Image Credit:Favicon (little icon on the browser tab) licensed from automotive.stocks on Deposit Photos
Copyright Statement/Fanworks Policy: Unless otherwise indicated, all works of fiction posted here belong to me. I offer revocable permission for readers/listeners to create non-commercial fanfiction and non-commercial fanart, as long as it does not reproduce substantial portions of my work, does not claim ownership of my work, and does not involve claiming to act/speak on my behalf. I reserve the right to revoke or modify this permission at any time, including by actions such as updating this statement, through direct contact, etc. If you want to create commercial derivative works, please reach out to me to inquire about arranging a license agreement. (Statement last updated 2023/03/12.)
Privacy Notice: This site takes IP logs that are deleted monthly. As far as I'm aware, this site does not capture or store any other user data. (Notice last updated 2023/03/12.)