Cherry, for today, at least, was staying close to home. In fact, she did not even leave her own yard. Today was just a lazy day for her, as she sat in a lawn chair on her female twoleg’s lap, purring as the twoleg stroked her fur. It was just a nice, quiet day.

Until she heard a twoleg kit crying.

She opened her eyes, her twoleg also sitting up, looking at something on their fence.

It was another cat, or she thought it was a cat. Whatever it was, it looked pretty annoyed, and it was easy to tell that it was most likely the reason the kit was crying. But why would he attack a kit? It sounded like just a little one too, and Cherry felt so bad for it. Her ears pinned against her head as she looked back to the strange-looking cat. She wasn’t going to run this time.

“Why’d you do that? What did you even do? Why’d you make the poor kit cry? It’s just a kit. It’s not doing any harm.”

She looked like she herself was going to cry as she said this, her face twisted into a pout. It was easy to see that the small tortoiseshell herself was rather comfortable with twolegs. Even now, she was comfortably laying on the lap of one. She jumped down, moving to sit at the base of the fence. Her twoleg was watching intently, making sure there wouldn’t be any fighting, but if the weird cat did get aggressive, Cherry would probably just run anyway.

262 Words

Salamander

“I am not a kit!” Cherry said in a whine. “And so what if they cry? They’re young. They’re learning. That doesn’t mean you have to be a bully! You were a kit before, right? Sorry, I don’t know what you are…. B-but that’s beside the point! You’re a big meanie, and nobody likes a meanie! And I don’t want a meanie like you in my yard, so you have to leave! Or I’ll, uh, I’ll do something really bad to you! And…. and you won’t like it very much! And I won’t even apologize for it!”

Cherry scrunched up her face, trying to make herself as big as possible. She probably looked similar to an angry puffball with claws in that moment, with the way her fur bristled as she stared at the weird cat thing. She eyed the tail as he lifted it to show her, and her eyes widened. “A kit did that? How? Did the kit also take all of your fur? Is that why you look so weird? I mean, uh, no! I’m still mad at you for being a meanie!”

The furless kinky tail tom started to look startled, and Cherry puffed her chest out in pride, not even noticing that he wasn’t even looking at her. “Yeah! That’s right, you better be scared! Because I am super scary, and you don’t want to mess with me if you know what’s good for you, meanie!”

241 Words, Cherry is so scary

Salamander

Cherry seemed to be growing very exasperated at this point. "It's a kit, of course it doesn't understand you! Twolegs don't speak cat, especially not the kits! If the kit wants to play with you, you let it! Running away is how you got hurt! How can you live with twolegs and know nothing about them? Do I need to bring out my twoleg's kit to teach you how to behave around them? Because my momma used to tell me that cats that are mean to their twolegs get taken to a very bad place. They go into a room and never come back out. They'll take you there, too, you know. You have to be nice so they want you!"

Cherry seemed to have lost her mind at this point, because she jumped up right onto that fence, and looked the hairless cat dead in the eyes. "Now we are going to go back to your twoleg kit and you are going to apologize! And you are going to let it pet you like a nice cat, or whatever you are! And just so you know, I do not look weird! Most cats I meet have fur just like me! You just have wrinkles! Wait, are you a new type of twoleg that walks and acts like a cat? Twolegs don't have fur, and you don't have fur, ooh maybe you're kin! Even more reason why you have to apologize!"

Cherry began to bound down the fence, towards the direction the hairless cat came from. "I won't leave you alone until you come, meanie! Cats say I can talk a lot, and there will not be a 'Cherry shut up' moment until you say sorry to that kit! Now come on!"

I give up on word count, too many pages for me to use docs

Salamander

Now Cherry was just confused. "I don't get it. You can leave for an entire moon, why go back at all? You don't like your twolegs. You do nothing but hurt them. Why not just stay gone? You can take care of yourself out there, why don't you? Wouldn't you be happier alone?" She cocked her head to the side, staring at this apparent cat, trying to make sense of him.

"You don't just look weird, you act weird, too. You're clearly not meant to be with twolegs. I've seen plenty of cats who've run away. Why don't you? Do you just like being mean?"

She scrunched up her face, clearly going back to being upset. "I told you, I'm not a kit! At least I'm calling you what you are! ...and my name is Cherry. And no, I won't leave you alone! You have to go somewhere, you can't stay at my house! Beside, my twoleg won't let you! I'm the only cat my twoleg wants, not some mean thing like you!"

Salamander

"And as long as you stay, you're always going to be a grumpy old bully. And you will always have to deal with that kit that you hate so much. And apparently you're lazy. You really just aren't a good cat. You're mean, and lazy, and wrinkly, and you don't even have fur."

Cherry jumped back into her own yard, giving up on trying to get the cat to go home. She no longer looked like a puffball, she legitimately just looked like an angry cat, now that she wasn't trying to be intimidating. It was still an odd look for her, though, being as young as she was. Even in her glare, she had that wide-eyed innocence. But Cherry was nothing if not stubborn.

"So, you don't want to go back there, but you don't want to leave. What do you want to do? Are you just going to keep coming to my house?" It was a genuine question. What was Salamander looking for here? He was just going to go back to where he had been running from. He made no sense!

"And stay away from my twolegs! I'm not going to let you hurt my kit! Or, uh, not my my kit, but my twoleg's kit. Agh, shut up Cherry! Just go away Salamander! Please?"

Salamander

"If you were nice, maybe I would share. But you came to my house and now you won't leave me alone! So I won't be nice to you! And I know other cats won't like you either. But they like me! Nimbus is even my new best friend! So there! And he won't like you being a meanie cat, either!"

Cherry gave a huff, padding over to her twoleg. Her fur was still bristling. And he thought she would grow to like him! She would never like a cat like that! She just wanted him to go away! "I bet my twoleg would tell you to go away if you came over here! Because she will protect me too! And she won't want a mean cat like you! Not a cat that makes his own twolegs cry! And not a cat that won't leave her cat alone! My twoleg is the bestest twoleg ever, and she says go away too!"

She rubbed herself up against her twoleg's legs, still trying to put on her best mean face to Salamander. Her twoleg picked her up, putting her back on her lap, although the air was a lot more tense as they both waiting for what the hairless cat would do.