Lin's Twolegs usually kept to their own devices and let him do as he wished. If Lin wished to play with them, he would meow at them loudly until they paid him attention. If he wished to sleep on their bed instead of his own, he would be allowed entrance. If he wished them to open the screen door into the yard, he need only yowl and they would do so. It was a very nice set up. Such that he had thought that he knew everything about how the world worked.
That was, until his Twolegs brought another cat into the house. That was new. And Lin hated it. The cat came in a box, the kind Lin had to go in when he was a kitten and went to the vet's in. Another Twoleg had come in with carrying the box and set it down. They opened the box and out stepped a cat. A she-cat. Suddenly, Lin found that he didn't hate this newcomer so much anymore.
He perked his ears with interest. She wore a blue cloth around her neck in place of a collar. She was all white, save for some patches of blue-grey fur along the base of her tail and her legs. He approached her with a smile.
"Why, hello there-"
"Stop right there." Lin stopped half a tail length away, surprised. "I do beg your pardon, Miss, if I've offended you. I only wanted to introduce myself, I am-"
"I don't care to know who you are. Do you know why I am here? I suspect not. I am here because I have a pedigree and you must too, else we would not meet. I only speak to toms with pedigrees." She sniffed haughtily, looking bored. Lin was confused. "I... I don't understand." He admitted, sheepishly. "Will you be telling me why you're here, then? Since you know and I do not." He watched her come closer, brushing her pelt against him. Her scent overwhelmed him as she passed and he turned to watch her as she walked by.
"I suppose I must. I am here so that you may father my kits. That is all. I am not here to get to know you, just to do what is to be done, I suppose. This is nothing personal. Is there some place we can get out of the way of prying housefolk eyes?" She asked, headed towards the back door. "Oh, uh, sure, follow me!" He came to stand at the screen door and mewed loudly for his housefolk to open it. When the door was open, the she-cat slipped outside and Lin followed from a respectable distance.
"This is all rather abrupt." Lin said. "I mean, fathering someone's kits... It never crossed my mind, pedigree or no, as you claim." Though he had to admit that the knowledge that he had papers did stoke his ego. "And, you say it's nothing personal, but... May I at least know your name? I'm Lin." He finally got in.
The she-cat had been in the middle of pawing at the grass, as though she hadn't seen anything quite like it before. When she looked up, it was with rolling eyes, before she nodded.
"Very well, if that's what it requires to see the job done. My name is Lady Tart. You can address me as such. Not Lady, not Tart. Lady Tart." She turned away from the grass with a swish of her tail and approached him again. "Let's get on with this, then." Lin wasn't quite sure what to make of this entire encounter, especially because now he was the cat being bossed around.
They spent some time together and then she went back inside, was ushered back into her box and left! He didn't even get a chance to mew goodbye. Still feeling rather befuddled by this whole encounter, he walked to his bed and lay down promptly. Maybe later, this would be a tale worth telling Bell about, he mused as he tried to wrap his mind around the events of the day.
