[Fanfic, 100% Orange Juice] Cat Smile

Length: 6835 words

Genre: Slice of Life

B/D: This is a story to celebrate the lovely Nath and Sora cover art from Coffgirl! I figured these two deserved their own cover art after so long. I took the idea for the story from one of Coffgirl's other pictures, which I'll link at the end. I'm also going to start making the cover art larger when posted, since I feel like it looks better that way than when it gets squished down.

“You know, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Hime says cheerfully, clutching a cup of vibrant blue slushie in her hand. The day is unseasonably warm, and she can imagine no better time to open her heart to the majesty of the slushie than now. The fact that it has dyed her mouth an unnatural shade of cyan is a small concern, but then, she is technically a space alien, and it is the rare privilege of space aliens to have whatever colour tongue they wish. She sticks hers out at Nath, whose hair matches it almost exactly in colour.

For the unenlightened souls who have decided not to pay an exorbitant amount for a cup of luminescent ice, Frankford’s Leisure Centre is not an especially pleasant place to be. Tall ceilings, square rooms and windows placed too high up to funnel a cooling breeze to the people below are a recipe for sweaty disaster. It means a steady stream of coins for the vending machines that serve cold canned drinks and stale junk foods, and a rather more impressive stream of money for the slushie seller stationed cannily at the entrance; the only respite is in the swimming hall, where the smell of chlorine and the wavy reflections of light on the water’s surface have as much pull as a siren does to a ship of Greek heroes.

For Nath, the swimming pool is not an option, and not just because she forgot to bring a bathing suit. Her back is straight but her shoulders are heavy, and weighing them down are a pair of sleek prosthetic arms that seem much too small for her frame. Under the layer of faux-skin (that doesn’t quite match her tanned complexion) lies decades of research and innovation. And yet, she thinks wistfully, it’s still not as good as the ones I had during the war.

The problem, as she had quickly learned when her original arms began to break down, was not making a good prosthetic arm. That could come in time, and she had time aplenty. The problem was getting a good quality arm that could be retrofitted into the connectors installed in her shoulders. They – like her – were war-era technology, a taboo that human society rejected with all its being until the knowledge of it was lost entirely. She knew no more about the minutiae of her construction than anybody else, and the blueprints were lost to time, and fire.

What she had now were prototypes, custom built for her by a technology company she had nurtured with quiet investments over the years. She had lived so long that it was difficult not to become rich, especially given that she had combed over so many burnt-out military bases in search of replacement parts for the various ailing parts of her arsenal. One day, the Tractor Bits she used for tasks she couldn’t quite wrap her feet around would burn out, a grim inevitability that always made her clench her jaw when she thought of it.

“You’re probably right,” she calls to Hime, back in the present. “But I need to stress test them, and the data is more important than the parts.”

“And the way to stress test them is boxing?” Hime asks, a wry smile curling its way around her discoloured lips. “Although, to be perfectly honest, I’m rather more worried about your chin than the arms.”

As much as she hates to admit it, Nath can see her point. Standing in the opposite corner of the great boxing ring is Sora, occupying herself by taking experimental swings with her boxing gloves. Stripped down to a pair of bike shorts and a white tank top, she looks far too lean and short to be allowed anywhere near Nath in a boxing match. But there is a strange, puzzled kind of delight in her eyes when she swings her fists, a bubbling energy as she carefully adjusts her footwork. Under her smooth skin, Nath can pick out the swells of tough, sinewy muscles, long neglected but far from gone.

“You could always be my opponent instead,” Nath calls. “It’d be good exercise. Stop you from getting pudgy while Suguri’s away.”

Hime almost snorts into her slushie in her amusement, but manages to convert it into a ladylike giggle. “My pudge levels are quite within acceptable limits, thank you. Speaking of, don’t you have somewhat of a weight advantage on me?”

“I have a weight advantage on some horses,” she replies, clenching her prosthetic right hand experimentally. She bends the fingers one by one, rotates the wrist. The movement flow is good, albeit a little slow. Probably some lingering issues with the connectors, since the actual machinery underneath is more than capable of replicating human dexterity. “Sora, what do you think?”

The blonde girl blinks, tilts her head. It takes a second before Nath realises that she’s taking the question literally, and when her mouth opens it’s a stream of conciousness. “It’s really warm. I don’t like these gloves. They make my hands sweat. Can’t we do CQC instead? You look good in a tank top. Hime wouldn’t be pudgy if she didn’t eat so much jam. You should use your new arms to hug people. Boxing is weird because I don’t know where to put my feet.”

“I’ll deal with that in order, shall I?” Nath replies, and makes a show of ticking them off on her fingers as she goes down the list. “You’re right, it’s boiling. The gloves are necessary. I don’t remember what it’s like to have sweaty hands. We’re not doing CQC because I know how it’ll go and I don’t have a death wish. Thanks, you too. Hime’s jam obsession is frankly disturbing. I’ll hug you if you win. That’s what I’m counting on.”

“You know, if I didn’t have a delicious cup of sugary ice-water, I’d have half a mind to come up there and give both of you a quick boxing,” Hime says, far too pleasantly. Even in the blistering warmth, her smile is wintery.

Nath shrugs, rolls her shoulders a little before struggling to don her gloves. She knows that there’s a part of her brain that just intrinsically knows how fingers work, but it’s long out of practice. After a little fiddling, she gets one glove on, and then the other. Luckily, she thinks, the kind of punches she’s going to be throwing aren’t the ones that need fine dexterity.

“You ready?” she asks, throwing a glance over at Sora. The girl is bouncing on the tips of her toes, a ball of energy wrapped in a mane of shaggy blonde hair.

“If I win, you gotta do what I say for a day,” she says, with a stubborn set to her chin that Nath recognises. It’s a non-negotiable kind of chin. An ‘I don’t particularly care what you think, I’m sick of this war and I’m ending it’ kind of chin. A chin not to be messed with.

“A hug isn’t enough?” she asks.

“The hug is the price of admission. One fight, one hug.”

“Greedy.”

“Stingy.”

“Fine. But if I win, you have to do what I say for a day,” Nath says, although she isn’t quite sure what she would use that for. It’s in the spirit of competition, though, and she isn’t enough of a spoilsport to say no to some pre-fight banter. “Hime, please count us in.”

“Very well. Go to your corners, ladies, and remember that there are to be no headbutts, no biting, and no kissing. If I see any, I am withdrawing your ice-cream privileges not just for today, but for the rest of the week.”

Sora blinks slowly. “Why did you say no kissing? Hime, you’re weird.” She turns her gaze to Nath. “It’s cheating if you fire your arms at me like rockets.”

“I’m not a giant robot, you know. I’d also like to point out that I’m a grown woman who doesn’t live with you. My ice-cream privileges are none of anybody’s concern,” Nath grumbles.

“Yes, but you shall be disqualified, which means you’ll lose and be in Sora’s power for a week, and then I shall just ask her to forbid ice cream,” Hime sniffs.

“Don’t worry, Nath. I would never do it.”

“I know you wouldn’t. You’re not evil,” Nath replies, frowning. It hasn’t escaped her notice that the terms of the bet have been quietly multiplied sevenfold.

“Just because I believe in firm discipline doesn’t make me evil. Now! Are you ready? The fight will begin on the count of three. One!”

Nath raises her gloves level to her chin, and is gratified when the prosthetics respond. Quietly, she wonders what it’s like for Sora and Hime, who have to deal with having arms all the time. Sure, it’s convenient, but doesn’t it get in the way? She shakes her head, puts the thought to the back of her mind. No time for that now. She squares her shoulders, grits her teeth. Braces for impact.

“Two!”

In the opposite corner, Sora holds her gloves low, and takes an awkward step to correct her footwork. Combat training was a long time ago, and even that never quite dealt with the restrictions of boxing. But there’s still a bubble of excitement rising in her chest that she can’t quite suppress. In a few, short moments, her world will burst into furious motion. Her time with Suguri and Hime has been quiet and restful and still, a beautiful repose. But she was made for motion and trained for battle, and there still exists a part of her that cannot be satisfied until she uses those talents.

“Two-and-a-half!”

Hime pauses for a sip of her slushie before returning her eyes to the ring. She can’t quite say how she expects the fight to go; she only expects it to be less than orthodox by boxing standards, and blisteringly fast one way or the other. Her main concern is to watch for any unauthorised judo flips or combat rolls.

“Three! Fight!”

As soon as she hears the cry Sora lurches forward half a step before she catches herself. Nath grins. Of course her first instinct is to spring across the ring and put her speed to use in a blitzkrieg assault. It’s not a bad one, either. There are three big advantages Nath has that Sora doesn’t – weight, reach, and a confined space that limits the usefulness of straight-line speed. The weight and the space she can do nothing about, but she can limit the impact of reach by immediately swarming into close quarters where the advantage is smaller. Perhaps, Nath thinks, if she had had more than a fifteen minute primer on boxing movement before they started, she would already be across the ring and throwing short, vicious hooks.

As it is she’s wrong footed and forced to take a slower approach, inching forward in unpredictable increments, her eyes fixed hawkishly on Nath’s gloves, trying to measure the full range of a jab or a straight. The straight, really, is the most important problem. There’s a limit to how much weight Nath can put into a jab and be safe; the power has to come from the arms, and prosthetic arms designed for day to day living won’t have too much in the way of that. A straight, though, will allow her to leverage her weight while keeping her range, and she has plenty of mass to throw around. Try as she might, Sora can’t quite stop herself from clicking her tongue in frustration; this cautious, strategic kind of fight isn’t what she was looking for. She wants to feel the blood roaring through her veins, her heart hammering inside her chest. Now she knows that the itch is there, it’s impossible not to scratch it.

Nath keeps her hands to her chin and waits, patiently, for Sora to close the distance. It’s amazing how the blonde girl, so difficult to understand in any other circumstance, becomes as easy to read as a picture book when she gets in a fight. Her eyes are always darting around, focusing on different things – Nath’s fists, her feet, her body. Overexcited. There’s a nervous energy about her, her movements as taught as a bowstring. It’s a little scary, a little endearing. But very exploitable. Nath counts her breaths, and on the count of three, takes a sudden, explosive step forward.

Sora lunges immediately, pupils dilated, but not quite as immediately as Nath steps back. She finds herself unbalanced, open to assault. In a split-second decision she doubles down and surges forward with even greater abandon, gambling on Nath trying to maintain her distance. It’s a coin flip, but it’s not a good one. Nath’s left glove shoots out to meet her face.

“Tch!”

Nath hisses as she feels her prosthetic arms snap out to their maximum length, an inch or two short of Sora’s face. She misjudged how long her own range was. The girl is going too fast to avoid the punch entirely, but the energy is gone when it hits her, and it isn’t enough to rebuke her assault. She lets the glove roll off her cheek, ducks under the arm and keeps charging. In a whirl of blonde hair she closes the distance and cracks her first, heavy hook into Nath’s midriff.

The pain hits her only a split-second after the punch, and for a moment all Nath can do is wheeze. It was a good punch – shoulder back, with as much weight behind it as Sora could muster. The kind of punch that cracks ribs and knocks the thoughts out of your brain while your body desperately tries to replace the air that just got beaten out of your lungs. A second and third are right behind it, and they’re only a little better than the first – they don’t have the raw momentum from the dash, but now Sora has her feet planted properly and can really put some force into them.

Nath digs deep, and puts the pain away on a shelf in the back of her mind. It’s there, a part of her, but it isn’t useful. She can deal with it later. Sora’s fourth punch isn’t quite as quick and Nath seizes her opportunity while Sora’s gloves are low. This time her jab lands square and stiff, with just enough force to ruin her opponent’s balance. Without a shred of hesitation, she sinks all her weight into an uppercut and delivers it to Sora’s chin, lifting her straight off her feet. She regains her balance quickly enough when they hit the mat again, but it takes her a moment to recover from the shock of the blow, and a moment is all it takes for Nath to sidestep briskly around her and back into a more favourable range.

With the first blows exchanged, the contest begins in earnest. Sora darts forward more boldly, gloves up and ready to catch the jabs she know will come. The force is enough to halt her advance, but only briefly. For all Nath’s advantages in range and weight, the onus of exactitude is weighing heavily on her shoulders. Every mistake is an opportunity for Sora to come crashing in with heavy, withering blows, and the more of them land, the slower Nath’s body reacts the next time. Pressure is everything, and at every possible opportunity Sora rushes forward to apply it, to threaten. Nath’s jabs are not as strong or accurate as she would like, given how new her prosthetics are, and eventually the opportunity will come knocking.

It comes sooner than expected. With Sora always on the assault, it isn’t long before Nath runs out of ring and feels rope at her back. Crackling with energy, her opponent presses the advantage and starts throwing out jabs to the left and right, cutting off her attempts to sidestep and reposition. Sooner or later, Nath knows, one of those jabs will not be a jab, and she won’t be able to turn it aside with her gloves. It’s coming, and the only question is when.

The only way to succeed is to do the unexpected. With Sora’s eyes locked to her feet to predict her sidesteps, Nath sees her opportunity and lunges forward a half step. Sora, for all her strength, is human, and the human brain reacts slower to things that it doesn’t expect to see. By the time Sora looks up, there’s a right cross coming her way with a speed and force that’s too much to stop. She raises her gloves and plants her feet in vain. There’s more weight in that punch than humans were ever meant to have, and when it hits there’s nothing she can do but spiral to the floor like an autumn leaf falling from the tree.

From very far away, it seems – almost a different planet – Hime’s voice barks out a count. Nath breathes in short, heavy pants, cherishing the momentary reprieve. She’s streaming with sweat, her tank top plastered like wet paper against her chest, her back. If her prosthetic arms had skin, it would be glowing with exertion – just like Sora’s. There’s a certain savage beauty to the girl when she rises after four long counts, her gloves held belligerently at her waist before Hime gives the signal. Nath shakes her head and tears her eyes away from Sora’s tank top, sitting flush against the features of her body. Too much sweat. A cocktail of hormones. Not the time.

When the fight resumes, it is mere seconds before Nath realises that something is wrong. When you send a normal human being tumbling to the mat after a punch with half a tonne of weight behind it, they generally don’t get up. They certainly don’t get up and then start moving even faster than they were before they got hit. But Sora is very far away from being a normal human right now. The placid, sleepy girl that Nath has become accustomed is nowhere to be found in her rigid smile, her taut muscles, the glittering of her eyes. For only the second time in ten millennia, Sora is truly, fully awakened.

Nath retreats, gloves up and arms high, fighting for space and distance. But this time, Sora’s advance is too fast, too confident to repulse. She throws jabs as she moves backwards to try and control the space, but to no avail. Sora catches her with her fist out, and tosses a jab to open her up. She tries to weave out of the way, but the blonde girl is already throwing a straight to catch her. Desperately she thrusts her gloves in the way of the blow, and even as she catches it with the soft fabric of the glove, her body reels from the sheer concussive force of the attack. It is then that she knows, unequivocally, that she has lost, that her opponent is now well beyond her means to control.

It is easy, in hindsight, to know her mistake. If her cross – the one, thunderous punch that had knocked Sora to the mat and jostled her into full fury – had been a little bit stronger, maybe it would have knocked the girl out entirely. Perhaps if she had arms of flesh and blood, with thick, stocky muscles instead of delicate mechanisms, it would have been. But her arms were too weak ten thousand years ago, and they’re a hell of a lot weaker now. One way or another, the match has been decided.

The blows begin to fall like forks of lightning from a volatile sky, erratic but with blistering force. There’s no pattern, no strategy. Just energy, instinct. A force of nature. Too fast to resist. Too strong to stop. She dodges and weaves, bobs and blocks, but she’s a big target and there’s only so much she can do. Eventually, she guesses wrong. She sees a curved arm and moves to block a hook, only to realise it’s an overhand crackling towards her face. It’s too late for her to dodge. She moves her gloves to turn the blow aside, but the best she can do is to use her arms to protect her face.

When the blow hits, the sound of an ominous crack fills the air. For a fraction of a second, Sora hesitates, perhaps scared she’s done serious damage. But years of military training and a dose of raw instinct tell her to push her advantage. The window to stop the fight evaporates like rainwater under the Mediterranean sun, and she moves to press her advantage once more.

“That’s enough!”

Hime’s shrill voice distracts her, and she turns her head towards it just in time for the cup of slushee to hit her full in the face. Her world becomes cold and wet; when the shock passes, Hime is still standing at the ringside, her throwing arm down, wearing an expression that mixes worry and fury. The urge to fight dies away.

“Auuuuuu. You got blue in my hair!” she wails.

“Yes, and unless you want your hair to stay that way, I suggest you hit the showers immediately. Goodness me, Sora. Were you really going to keep fighting even after you broke her new prosthetics?”

A look of shameful realisation washes over Sora’s face. She takes a sheepish glance at Nath’s left arm, and sees a spiderweb of cracked polymer and exposed metal.

“It’s okay. We were both getting pretty into it,” Nath says, to cool the situation. Inwardly, she breathes a sigh of relief. Better an arm than her face. “Go shower, before we end up with matching hair colours.”

Sora nods, but mouths a dejected ‘sorry’ before she lifts off and flies gently out of the ring to the showers.

“Nice throw,” Nath says to Hime, after watching the blonde girl go. She climbs gingerly out of the ring; her left arm is still responding, but much slower than her right. “You’ve got a good arm on you.”

Hime rolls her eyes. “Yes, well. So have you. A good arm, singular. I knew this was a bad idea.”

“You did say something to that effect.”

“Stress testing new arms by boxing, of all things… And you had to do it with the one girl who hits like a truck and gets carried away with it.”

“Yeah. I get the feeling she was really enjoying herself. Better to have her blow off steam once in a while than to let it get pent up,” Nath replies. “Thanks for the save, by the way. That one looked like it was going to hurt.”

Hime has the good grace to look a little mollified. “You’re quite welcome. Goodness me… I feel like I’m the one who got stressed.”

Nath grins. “And testy. But it’s good data. I needed to know how these things would hold up if somebody was really swinging for me. Not well enough, I guess.”

“Are they not just for everyday living?” Hime asks, eyes narrowed.

“Hm. Sometimes, my life gets a little more interesting than I really want it to. It’s good to be prepared and to know the limits.”

“Well,” Hime says, pausing for a moment to work her thoughts through. “If you ever find yourself armless in a situation where it’s likely to be ‘armful, you can find a perfectly good set attached to Sora. Failing that, Suguri and I would both be more than happy to loan you ours, at a stretch."

Nath’s answer is slow and deliberate. “I… appreciate the thought. But I like to think that I can fight my own battles.”

“Oh, you can – provided you get to them before we do,” Hime replies, her smile glittering. “You aren’t going to comment on that pun?”

Nath grins. “It was pretty good. I’ll give it a nine out of ten, now that I have enough fingers to count that high.”

“Why, thank you. It was an artisanal pun, you know. You could say it was hand-crafted.”

A moment of silence to let her work sink in, and then Hime moves on to other matters. “By the by, do you plan on using the showers as well?”

“Why? Do I smell?” Nath asks, her voice laden with sarcasm and one fluffy eyebrow definitively raised.

“About as good as you look, which I’m sorry to say is not ideal at the moment. You’ll be nursing some bruises in the morning, I’m afraid,” Hime says, her voice wry.

Nath shrugs, as if to let the joke roll off her shoulders. The shower definitely sounds appealing – cold water to ease her aching bruises and cleanse her burning skin. But her mind jumps, unbidden and insidious, to thoughts of Sora peeling off her tank top and standing bare beneath the spray. She shakes her head, groans. Too much sweat. Too many hormones.

“Maybe in a little bit. I have to disconnect this arm first. Don’t want to get water in the mechanisms. Do me a favour and go grab us some slushees. I’ll pay you back.”

“I shan’t turn down an excuse to add another colour to my tongue. What flavour would you like?”

“Blue, of course.”

(+*+)

Nath finds them waiting for her at the foyer when she finishes her shower. It’s amazing what a measure of cold water has done to her disposition; she feels fresh, and free. Changing out of her tight tank top and into an airy summer dress has definitely helped as well. It’s not often that she appreciates the weird insistence that fashion designers have on sleeves, but they’re not so bad, now she has an opportunity to use them, and they hide the damage to her left arm.

“Sorry. Were you waiting long?” she asks as she approaches.

“Muuu,” Sora says, and darts forward for an awkward hug with Nath’s right shoulder. Her hair still smells slightly of blue slushee. “I’m taking you out for ice cream to say sorry. I won the fight, so you can’t say no.”

Nath grins, and pats her on the back. She can feel the silky fabric of Sora’s sundress through the fingertips of her prosthetic arm. For all the imperfections in their design, the ability to actually feel textures is worth more than she can say.

“Well, I’m not saying you wouldn’t have won, but one of you got a face full of slushee and the other one didn’t, so you may have to redefine who the victor actually was,” Hime says, with a slender smile that says her anger at Sora for going over the top has dissipated.

Sora groans. Although she can’t exactly argue, it still strikes her as somewhat of a miscarriage of justice to have a hard-earned victory revoked for a minor misdemeanour like almost killing her opponent. Nath rolls her eyes a little.

“Lucky for you, I’m a benevolent dictator. I’ll allow a mission to procure ice cream.”

“Roger,” Sora says, and peels herself away from Nath’s shoulder. “Nath, which is better – rocky road, or strawberry? It’s important.”

Hime sniffs. “Surely it has to be strawberry. Not only is strawberry a true classic among ice cream flavours, but it has a refreshing fruity taste perfect for hot days. Rocky road is too stodgy.”

“Not stodgy. Decadent. Ice cream’s meant to be a treat. It should feel like one. Strawberry lacks imagination,” Sora contends hotly.

“Oh, I see. So you think ice cream should only be an occasional thing. Perhaps you just haven’t eaten enough of it to have reached the correct conclusion? Oh, Sora. I didn’t know you were an ice cream novice.”

“I’m not a novice! You just eat too much ice cream so it isn’t special anymore. You don’t appreciate it.”

“Spend ten thousand years as the core of a spaceship, eating nothing but nutrient paste, and then you can tell me I don’t appreciate ice cream.”

“I spent ten thousand years asleep eating nothing. That’s even worse.”

“So you are a novice. Nath, can you please inform Sora that she’s being silly and not appreciating the true majesty of strawberry?”

“Nath, don’t negotiate with terrorists. She’s trying to push her strawberry agenda for nefarious purposes.”

Nath sighs, and feels a sudden pang of pity for Suguri. Sora and Hime are tough to handle on their own without the semi-playful bickering they fall into when they’re together. Although, she admits privately, a lively atmosphere like this isn’t a bad thing.

“Vanilla,” she says.

“V… Vanilla? Well, I mean… It isn’t offensive, but do you not think it lacks a certain specialness?” Hime asks.

Nath shrugs. “I like simple foods and subtle flavours. Strawberry is too in-your-face, and rocky road has too much going on. Vanilla is delicious on its own, but also versatile enough to be a compliment to other, bolder flavours, as well as almost any topping. It has endless possibilities. There are only so many ways to enjoy strawberry and rocky road, but you could have vanilla ice cream day after day and never get bored.”

“That’s cheating,” Hime says, with the pout of woman who knows she has just been outmatched. “We’re trying to bicker here. You’re not allowed to come in and have an actual, cohesive argument.”

Nath raises an eyebrow. “I see. Here’s my other argument: you spent ten thousand years eating nutrient paste, and Sora spent ten thousand years eating nothing. I, on the other hand, spent ten thousand years wandering the earth and sampling its cuisine, and I say that vanilla is better.”

“Ooh. You’re secretly a gourmet. I didn’t even realise,” Sora says, with the same sense of awe usually reserved for superheroes.

They fall into step naturally, Nath in the middle and the other two either side of her, and the conversation flows freely as they thread their way through the winding cobbled streets towards the centre of the town. In the sunlight, the shopfronts are more cheerful and inviting than Nath remembers them; it almost feels like a different town to the one she’s lived in all these years. More alive, and more noisy.

“Nath, Nath,” Sora says, tugging at her sleeve. “Let’s all hold hands. It’s a rare opportunity.”

She frowns. Although it certainly wouldn’t be a punishment to hold hands with two pretty blonde girls in public, she doesn’t like the formation they’re in. If she gives in to a request to hold hands, it will only be a matter of time before one of them suggests skipping, or even worse, singing, neither of which she has any stomach for outside the comforting walls of her own home. The best way to handle the situation, she decides, is to deflect it with a joke.

“It’d be less rare if you didn’t break my arms as soon as I got them,” she says.

“Muu… I said sorry.”

“Speaking of,” she continues, a little more gently, “do you two mind if I drop the broken arm off at my house and then catch up with you later?”

“But what if you get lost on the way back? This town is a maze. Me and Suguri get lost all the time.”

“Which, might I add, baffles me,” Hime says, swooping in to give the tone of the conversation some much needed lift. “I’m from outer space and I still have a better sense of direction than you two. Nath, you go ahead. I’ll escort this one to the ice cream parlour so she doesn’t end up crossing the border.”

“I’ll be quick,” Nath replies, and turns on her heel. She catches Sora’s frown out of the corner of her eye before she leaves, and mouths a quiet apology. A scoop of ice cream will cheer her up.

The way to Nath’s house is not short, but it is at least familiar, and she takes it with a soldier’s brisk stride. She could fly, but on such a warm day, she prefers to keep to ground level and the shade; she wouldn’t be flying high enough for the air to really cool down all that much. It isn’t long before her pace has swallowed up the distance, and her apartment building rises into view.

As she nears the building, she slows her pace. Her apartment is on the very top floor, and it has long been her habit to simply fly up there and let herself in from the balcony rather than to go into the building and up the stairwell. But today she has some business to attend to before she throw off her malfunctioning left arm. She peers into the deep shadows cast by the neighbouring fences, and finds what she’s looking for: a glint of gold in the darkness.

Hesitantly, she frames a question to the open air. “You’re here again today?”

Her answer comes in the form of a grey cat sauntering out of the shadows to meet her. It’s become a fixture of the urban landscape around her apartment, always hiding in corners or sunning itself on the pavement – in between scavenging from their bins, of course. In Nath’s opinion, it can’t be more than a year old – it still has long, gangly legs that the rest of its body hasn’t quite grown into. It doesn’t have a collar, and it seems too thin to have a regular owner, but she can’t quite bring herself to believe it’s a stray. Not when it’s so confident around people, and especially people as large and intimidating as herself.

As the cat begins to wind itself carelessly around her ankles, she quickly sweeps her gaze around. There’s not a living soul to be seen. Good. When she’s satisfied, she slowly crouches and holds out her right prosthetic hand, palm upwards, for the creature to sniff. She’s close enough to see its nose twitching as it does, and feels almost nervous, as if awaiting a judgement.

The tension ends when the cat playfully headbutts her hand, trying to press its nose into her palm. Slowly and gently, hyperaware of her own inexperience in operating the prosthetics, she draws her hand across its back, feeling the texture of short, sun-dappled fur through artificial fingertips. She’s almost surprised when the cat begins to purr.

“Alright, alright. Don’t tell anybody, but I have something for you today,” she says, and starts rummaging in her bag. From underneath her towel and her tank top, she draws out a sachet of cheap cat food. “I’m not supposed to feed strays, you know.”

She doesn’t know why she’s telling a cat this. It certainly doesn’t care about the morality of the situation. But its eyes seem to almost glitter when it spies the packet of food, and before long it is reading up on its hind legs to brush its face against the packet, even trying to bat it out of her fingers with its paws. Upon seeing it closely, she’s almost sure it’s male.

“Settle down. Let me see here,” Nath murmurs, her sticking her tongue out of one corner of her mouth. She’s sure the packets are just meant to be torn open at the top. It’s a little while before she can manoeuvre her stricken left arm into position, and grasp the pouch between finger and thumb, but once she’s done it she manages to open the packet cleanly and empty the contents onto the ground.

“Sorry. I don’t have a bowl,” she says quietly, to a cat that that is currently trying to purr and eat at the same time, coming out with a broken rumble. “I bet you eat off the floor all the time anyway. That stuff stinks, too. You sure seem to like it, though.”

More purrs, and the occasional snaffle. She’s never seen a creature eat so fast, and somehow it strikes her as very sad.

“Of course you like it, don’t you? It’s better than eating thrown-out food all day. He says, ‘Yes, I like real food. I am the king of cats. Listen to the song of my people. The words are purr, purr, purr,’” she says, adopting a nasally tone for the cat. “It’s a very cute song, Mister Cat. Oh, wait. It should be Your Majesty, shouldn’t it?”

“…Nath?”

Her reaction is immediate, and unfortunate. She springs to her feet and whirls around, cheeks burning, to find Sora hovering in what had been her blind spot. Her sudden movements scare the cat, who looks for a moment as if he might bolt away; instead, the feline settles for continuing to eat, but growling fiercely in between mouthfuls.

“You’re meant to be eating ice cream. Why did you follow me? How much did you hear?” she asks, trying to keep the note of accusation of her voice.

If she’s offended by the brisk questioning, Sora doesn’t show it. “I came to ask what ice cream you wanted, so we could order when we got there. I flew so it’d be faster. Is this your cat?”

“I – he’s – No, no. It’s not my cat, it’s just a cat. I keep seeing it around so I thought I’d say hello to it. I, uh, don’t normally do this. I’m not that kind of person. Y’know, that does the… uh… cat… baby talk… thing.”

She’s babbling, and her babbling is digging a grave for her dignity to lie in. She feels absolutely mortified. The one time she stops to talk to the damn cat, she’s ambushed by one of the few people whose opinions she actually cares about. Typical.

“Of course. He’s not a baby. He’s the king,” Sora nods sagely. “He must’ve been hungry. He’s eaten it already.”

Sure enough, the food is gone, and the cat has begun to occupy himself with sniffing at Nath’s sandals, with the occasional glance over at Sora.

Nath sighs, and uses her right arm to scratch the back of her head in a motion that feels natural but unnatural at the same time. “Listen, um… Don’t talk about this. It’s embarrassing. For me.”

“Why? You fed a cat. The cat is cute. I don’t get it.”

“Just humour me, alright?”

“Mm. You’re a benevolent dictator, so okay,” Sora says after a moment of hesitation, and puts her hand over her mouth to signal that the secret is safe.

They’re interrupted by a stern ‘nyaaa’ from about ankle height. Almost by instinct, Nath drops to her knees to stroke the cat, who leans his body clumsily into her hand, purring with satisfaction. Her cheeks continue to burn with embarrassment, and she studiously avoids looking at Sora and instead absorbs herself in noting the colouring of the animal: grey fur with the occasional white stripe, dark ears, white splotches under the chin. She seems them close up when, to her surprise, the cat puts its forepaws on her knee and reaches up to lick her eyebrows.

“Um, Nath?” Sora asks, kneeling down with her.

“Yes?” she replies, when the cat is done grooming her with its warm, scratchy tongue.

“N… Nyah.”

There’s a moment of silence. Nath turns to Sora and finds that the blonde girl’s cheeks have turned exactly the same colour as her own. “Uh… what?”

“Don’t make me do it again!” the girl says, and throws a frustrated punch at Nath’s shoulder. “You pet his head when he meows, but you won’t pet mine? Racist!”

Despite everything, Nath allows herself a chuckle as she reaches over and runs her hand gently through Sora’s fluffy hair. “Alright. Let’s make a deal. You don’t tell Hime I was making conversation with a weird cat, and I won’t tell her you were jealous of him. Deal?”

Sora pouts, but gently pushes her head up into Nath’s palm. “Deal.”

“Alright. Sorry, cat, but the party’s over. Come back tomorrow and maybe I’ll have some more food,” she says, climbing to her feet. “Sora, you might as well come in and help me disconnect this arm, and then we can go get ice cream.”

“Roger,” Sora says, lifting off. “Hey, what are you going to call him? The cat, I mean. I think you should call him Major.”

“He’s not big enough to be a major. Besides, he isn’t even my cat.”

“I think you’re his human, though. That’s how cats work.”

“How would you know? You’ve been asleep for ten thousand years.”

“Cats sleep a lot, too. We’re on the same wavelength.”

Nath sighs contentedly. She feels tired, but the sun is still high, and she has so much left to do. There’s data that needs to be sent back to the prosthetics manufacturer. Then she has to educate her friends on the majesty of vanilla ice cream. Her world seems to have gotten so much livelier since she saw Sora wandering around through the whims of chance. It’s fun, but hard work.

But, thankfully, not hard enough that she forgets to buy some cat food on the way home.

A/N: Phew. This was by far the longest thing I've written in a while. Since I've done so much slice of life OJ stories all in a row, I've really been craving an action scene. I also kinda wanted to explore the slightly uneasy dimension to the Hime/Sora dynamic that came out in Thunderstorm. All in all, this was pretty intensive to write, but also pretty fun, and I learned a bunch about boxing!

Here's the picture I took inspiration from, again by the talented Coffgirl: