That Darn Cat!

[Klarion]

Content Warnings: This is very goofy. A man is driven to the point of a nervous breakdown by a cat. That’s it that’s the story.

As a professional Hunter, Wallace Snipe was not at all unaccustomed to those rare moments where the prey finally gets a clue and the tables turn. From humanoid bounties to big game, he understood that it was the height of foolishness to underestimate his targets. Thinking like that got you killed, after all, and Snipe had been in the business for a long freakin’ time.

What he was unaccustomed to, however, was being doggedly pursued everywhere he went by an angry, judgmental, supernaturally-powered house cat. And to tell the honest-to-goodness truth, Snipe was very nearly at his wit’s end over it. Not only had the little witch boy’s familiar tracked him all over Nos’Talgia, now it had chased him clear across the stars, all the way to a dingy, hole in the wall drinking establishment in Karim. It was insane, and he certainly wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it for himself, but it was true: the cat was here. In Karim. Still hunting him.

“I-is it still there?” he asked the elvish bartender, trying to keep his head down as he hunched against the bar. The large man shook and trembled from terrified exhaustion, struggling to get the words out. He hasn’t had a wink of shut-eye in days now, and it was really starting to show. “The… the…”

Snipe closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to try and muster up the courage to speak. Glaring red eyes stared back at him from behind his eyelids, sparkling with killing intent, and his own immediately snapped open in a panic— fixing on the bartending woman’s face with a desperate gaze and feverish, bloodshot eyes.

“… the cat,” he managed to croak out, voice barely above a whisper.

The noise of the bar nearly drowned him out, but she seemed to hear him all the same. Sighing, the elvish woman shot him a flat look, utterly unconcerned by his plight. Instead, she continued to polish the inside of a shot glass with a rag, wondering just when, exactly, this unhinged wild man would get the hell out of her bar.

“I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again, sir,” she replied, dry as the unforgiving desert wastes outside. “I haven’t seen a single mangy, flea-bitten feline in here, not if you don’t count the thrice-damned cat people. Now, iff’n you don’t mind— are you gonna order something, or do I need to have my friend over there escort you out? Because that’s definitely an option.”

She jerked her head to the side, indicating a tall, lean-muscled Gerudo woman standing guard over beside the door, who was staring back at them with a faintly amused expression. Normally, Snipe wouldn’t have hesitated to get into a brawl with such a fine specimen, but his mental state was absolutely shattered. The past several days had been a living hell, after all— the fuzzy, whiskered devil haunting his every waking moment had made sure of that.

Hastily shaking his head, Snipe dug around in his pockets, nervously dropping a few copper coins onto the wooden bar top a beat later. They tinkled across it loudly, jarring him a little. “Just a glass of water, please. Don’t think I can stomach anything stronger at the moment, considering…”

He’d barely finished speaking before the woman had snatched the coins up, tucking them into a pouch tied to the waistband of her apron. Turning away with a slight shake of her head, the elvish woman set to fixing him up a glass of Karim’s finest and most renowned resource: water.

“Some people,” she muttered under her breath.

Behind her back, Snipe stared blankly at the bar top, wondering just where it had all gone wrong. It had been a simple job! Tranq the kid, deliver him to the drop off point, and get the hell out of there. Obviously, he hadn’t factored the single-minded tenacity of the average domestic feline into his plans.

The beast was an absolute menace! It had torn up his bedding, pissed in his boots, and scratched the inside of his ship all to hell. And what’s more, he hadn’t caught sight of it beyond the faintest glimpses every now and again— almost as if the damned thing knew just how to escape his notice, hanging around juuuuuust at the edge of his perception to mock him. The thing was like a ghost, a phantom! It was maddening!

Slam! The man jumped as a glass banged down on the counter directly in front of his face, the tiny splash of water landing on his hand helping to snap him back to reality. Glancing up, he gave the bartending elf a nervous, hopeful smile— and was promptly ignored as she turned to help some other customer, dirty apron swaying about her hips as she moved away from him. Maybe he would’ve had a chance with her, once upon a time. Definitely not now, what with this case of feline paranoia he’d developed.

Snipe scowled. Not only had that damned cat sabotaged his sleep schedule, it was also ruining his luck with the ladies! He needed to find a solution to his feline pest problem, and fast. If only there was someone out there who believed him when he said he was being relentlessly stalked by the mascot for freakin’ Meow Mix. His reputation as a bounty hunter would never recover from such an embarrassment, that was for sure, but he thought it might be worth it, to have a little help. Unfortunately, people in his line of work gossiped worse than a bunch of little old ladies!

Pah! Snipe scowled, hunching protectively over his drink. He’d figure something out, it was what he always did. He’d even do it alone, just like that time he’d been cornered by a bunch of raptors on a dark, dreary night in the depths of Kraw’s jungle, or that other time he got stabbed in the gut by a bandit while trying to track a mark in the Hinterlands— he’d nearly died plenty of times, this little beast shouldn’t be an issue for him at all! If “figuring something out” meant leveling the business end of a shotgun at a cute, defenseless little kitty cat… then so be it.

Feeling better about this whole situation than he had in days, Snipe nodded determinedly to himself and went to take a generous swig of his water. Only, when he lifted the glass to his mouth, a reflection in its liquid contents caught his eye. Barely a flicker of movement, a little splash of color, but his brain focused on it all the same, a little spark of recognition going off in his mind.

Orange, black, and white fur… gleaming crimson eyes…

Snipe’s eyes nearly boggled out of his head. It almost looked like… but no, it couldn’t be!

Shrieking in horror, the man hurled the glass away from himself and leapt to his feet. The sound of it shattering against the far wall didn’t even phase him, nor did the sight of at least a dozen other bottles of various liqueurs and spirits crashing to the floor in a hail of glass shards and sticky, sharp-smelling liquid. No, no— Snipe was too busy searching the rest of the bar with a desperate, increasingly panicked stare, spitting obscenities at his invisible foe.

“I’ve got you now, you furry feline fleabag! Come out and face me like a man!” he roared, glaring at everything and nothing all at once. His eyes roved around the crowded room, searching under tables and around chair legs. He couldn’t see it, where was it?! It must be hiding from him again, like it always did! That darn cat!

Meanwhile, the elvish woman behind the bar merely looked on in horror as the man dropped down to the floor and began crawling around on all fours, swiping at shadows to try and find whatever specter he had claimed was stalking him. Several Tabaxi and Khajiit patrons appeared to be visibly offended by his outburst, glaring at Snipe as he continued to bite out the most vulgar, cat-oriented insults he could imagine.

“Goddamnit,” she breathed, hiding her eyes with a hand. She almost couldn’t bear to look, only peeking the tiniest bit to stare hopelessly at the appalled stares if her fuzzy clientele. “God fucking damnit. Should have thrown him out when I had the chance, but nooooo, I just had to let him get all hyped up on this anti-cat bullshit…”

As she watched, the Gerudo woman guarding the door started across the room, clearly intent on taking out the trash. And from behind the bar, safely tucked behind a handsome selection of vintage wine bottles, Teekl observed the scene with a uniquely feline smirk of satisfaction.