Chapter Text
Your name is Emmy.
Occasionally you’ll go by Em.
Sweet-Girl, Stink-a-Butt, Her Royal Highness, Fat, Fatty, Fatso, Fatty-Mc-Fatterson, Chunky Lady.
Typically though, it’s Emmy-Cat. Your Keeper likes that one best. You do too! They say it rolls off the tongue. You would agree, if you could say it back. But when they say goodbye before leaving for work, all you can provide are high-pitched chirps and squeaks. As such is your routine. Next on the itinerary is having your breakfast, doing some lounging and general lazing about, then maybe you’ll squeeze in some time to play with Roosevelt.
A very busy schedule indeed.
Such is the life of a housecat.
Your favorite spot is located by the window in the living-room. It looks out onto the very small courtyard in the back of the house, boxed in by tall rock walls lined with wrought iron spikes that you sometimes watched squirrels scamper across. Your Keeper had put a small chair and table out there for when they wanted to do their own lounging, and occasionally you’d join them. In the evening the two of you sit on the small concrete porch to watch the sky darken. They’d talk to you about the day they’d had and make smelly clouds from the stick in their mouth. During the day they’d watch you climb the short tree out back to chase birds- it was more of a large branch poking out of the ground. At least that’s how Roosevelt felt about it.
Roosevelt had a lot of opinions about things, (and really he should) but mostly his opinions were about outside. He was more experienced with the world, being a whole eight years old now. He used to be an outdoor cat before your Keeper brought him in from the cold. Right before they brought you home from the shelter. He knew the world outside the house and courtyard, like the back of his paw.
You, on the other hand, had grown up here. He grew up out there. Once, you’d mentioned being jealous of everything he’d done or seen after he’d been telling you stories all afternoon, and he’d snapped. You had it good here. Real good, he said. He’d dragged it out to prove a point.
The sun was shining just over the courtyard walls, beaming warm sunlight onto the table by your favorite window. Deciding you deserve a break from your busy day, you spread out on the table. The spot was already warmed up for you from being drenched in sun as it rose up from its nap. Something you hopefully did not do for at least two to three hours.
Unfortunately, life is unfair. Your ear twitched as a scratching sound woke you from your nap, far too early for your liking. Lifting your head towards the sound, you came face to face with a squirrel. He sat just outside on the windowsill, staring you down with his beady little- he chittered something that was surely offensive, and you were on your feet in a mere second. How dare he speak to you that way. Not that you hadn’t heard curses like that before, but it was usually when your Keeper had their favorite humans over to drink lots of water from bottles and yell, very loud, but like. In a fun way. Point is, the little fleabag was basically asking for it.
He squeaked again, cocky little bastard. So you gave him just what he was asking for.
Usually this is where you’d slam into the glass, having forgotten that humans often liked having a physical barrier between themselves and the outside. But they wanted to see outside too, so they created windows! It was truly genius. At least you thought so.
However, you did not think that window screens were genius. They were not good at keeping cats from busting through the gap that an open window provided. Not as good as glass was, at least.
The frame clattered to the ground, landing on the concrete porch where your Keeper had placed the table and chair. You followed suit. In the scuffle, you had lost track of the squirrel, which would have been lucky for him if he didn’t have a death wish. Back on your feet, you gathered yourself before you heard him chittering relentlessly at him from the tree/branch/whatever it was. Laughing! At you! All bets were off.
You did not hear Roosevelt howling at you to come back. You followed the vermin up the tree, onto the rock wall, and right on over to the neighbors garden. It was a lot like that little red dot you often had the misfortune of meeting, just out of your grasp, but you would not concede until that squirrel was dead. It was impossible to tell how far you chased him, and when he finally stopped, he seemed as if he was cornered, despite all the space there seemed to be for him to run. He was stuck between you and a large dark path.
He chose the path. You were about to give chase, when-
A burst of red, and fur. Less of a burst and more of a splash. Less of a splash and more of a…splat. Staring in horror at the flattened squirrel a few feet ahead, you jumped back as a creature, bigger than you, bigger than your Keeper, roared past you and just kept going. Like it didn’t even care! That could have been you! You couldn’t tell if the squirrel was a warning, or if it just liked its options against the wide thundering path better than it liked its chances of surviving being mauled. You were just kidding when you said you wanted him dead- Just playing! It was supposed to be a game, like the little red dot!
None of that mattered though, as it quickly became apparent that you had no idea where you were. The area was completely unrecognizable. This wasn’t your house, or your courtyard. Your keeper and Roosevelt were nowhere to be found. A sweeping sound against the concrete, and as you look to your right a broom is shoved in your face. Someone was yelling at you.
“-Fuckin’ cat! Get out of here!!"
You were unsure why, but felt compelled to listen to the angry human. Running as fast as your little legs would go, you dodged the much longer and clumsier legs of humans (you don’t remember ever seeing so many humans in one place like this) in order to escape.
It was a fight to not be stepped on. You ran until you found a tree- a bigger version of the one in the courtyard. Much better for hiding. You hauled ass to get to a branch big enough to support your weight. Now you had some of a view of where you were. A moment of calm, looking around and taking it in to offer your little heart a chance to stop beating so fast.
A long curving path with buildings on either side, and hundreds, no- thousands- No, MILLIONS!!
…Probably not that many!
But a lot! Definitely.
A lot of humans. None that were familiar.
You were lost. You could have fainted right then and there. You’d seen your Keeper faint once. It could very well be strictly a human thing though…
Unsure if you could faint, you decided panic was a better way to describe how you felt at this moment. Slowly though, as you were looking at what you were at least 76% sure was what was called…a ‘city’...you noticed things. Things that brought you out of your panicked state much quicker than most. Music was playing from the buildings and spilling out onto the long path. Some humans danced. It was pleasing to your ears, even if a bit loud. Humans were laughing together, like you’d seen your Keeper do when they had their favorite humans over. Smaller humans ran around together in a nearby courtyard, complete with structures for them to climb on. Looking at it all from above made it a lot less scary.
In other words, the birds were singing, flowers were blooming. It was quite pleasant.
Maybe this was a chance to enjoy yourself for a bit before you sought out Roosevelt or your keeper. You deserved some fun, didn’t you? What, with that busy schedule, there was hardly any time for a break. That is true, the truest thing you’d heard all day, you agreed with yourself.
It’s settled then.
You had no idea how much distance you’d made. Then again, you weren’t really thinking about it. You had so much energy, it practically swept you down the street, all magic like. As if you were flying. You didn’t even feel tired. Or hungry. Though, now that the thought of food was brought up…
You were in a huge open courtyard. You hadn’t bothered reading the big sign. It was a large open area, with trees and park benches. A lot more peaceful than where you’d been earlier. People walked along the small paths, some looking over the fence along the cliff. You’d had a look over the side as well, seeing that the city was just one part of a larger one, spanning down the side of the mountain. There were even more buildings down on level ground, they all looked so tiny! Even the courtyard you were in now wasn’t at the top of the mountain. Just one spot where it leveled out to allow for a small forest. But now was not time for sight-seeing, it was time to find food.
There were no bowls of food nearby, but you weren’t quite sure where they would be if there were any in the courtyard anyways. You sat on a table next to a tree, surveying the area, and a memory flitted through your mind. Roosevelt had talked about how he used to hunt birds and sometimes even squirrels. You’d asked why, and he said to eat. You’d been in shock at the fact that he’d gotten his food all by himself before being found. You supposed maybe you could give it a try though, even when neither birds or squirrels sounded very appetizing. Your palette was more refined, and as your Keeper put it, expensive. Reluctantly, you decided to give this hunting thing a try, with real live animals, and not your toy mouse, that was definitely not a real mouse, and you had never once thought it was. Not at all.
(Roosevelt had broken the news to you rather rudely.)
Leaves went flying as you fell into them, once again failing to catch another bird. It wasn’t fair, their wings gave them a huge advantage. Their chirps sounded like mocking laughter, just like that squirrel, and for a fleeting moment you wished they’d get hit by the large shiny creatures that ran the little bastard over too. The thought was squashed when your attention was drawn away by a plastic bag rolling across the ground. You noticed there was a lot of garbage in this area. Like no one cared for it much. It brought to mind how sometimes your Keepers room looked like this, when they had a particularly bad week, or three.
The leaves shook loose from your fur as you sauntered over to the frankly nasty looking area of the courtyard. There were more trees too. Small and large, Prickly…the word scraggly came to mind. Not sure where you’d heard it, but it just sounded right. The lack of other humans in this area wasn’t alarming (Possibly because you didn’t notice) as it was getting dark after all…most went home around that time, you figured. Since that’s when your Keeper always came back from work.
You briefly wondered if your Keeper would mind you missing or not. Surely they’d understand that you were simply on a Great Journey of Self Discovery, and you’d be home soon. If you could find your way home that is. Doing so would be another quest for you to accomplish when you came across it.
Despite how late it’d gotten, how deep in the woods you were, the lack of humans, lights, and general safe areas to hide, you weren’t very scared. You’d always been able to see in the dark. While your Keeper bumped into things to get to the bathroom late at night, you watched them do so and wondered if they were awake enough to understand how silly they looked. That’s all this was…
(Perhaps Roosevelt was right. You were an idiot, sheltered and inexperienced in anything but shoving your face into a bowl of Fancy Feast Chicken and Liver paté. You were only so calm because you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into.)
In fact, you’d say you were excited to see where the night went. What would you encounter next? Maybe you’d even make a new friend, one who you could bring home to your Keeper. Oh, they’d be so proud. Roosevelt too. He’d congratulate you on surviving all by yourself.
(He was right to think you a fool. A ditzy, half-witted, hopeful fool.)
You tripped.
Landing on a thin grassy ledge, Your claws dug into dirt and root as you pulled yourself back up onto it. In an attempt to keep yourself from falling again, you pressed against the side of the hole you’d found yourself in. Up- Was too high to jump for. Down…Well you didn’t want to know what was down there, so you’d just have to try jumping anyway.
You jumped, scrambling to latch your claws and teeth onto something, anything. Nothing was there to hold you. You failed, and fell back to the ledge, it crumbled under your unimpressive weight. Yowling and screaming, and crying. You called for help, but nobody came.
So you fell.