Huh...I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before.
[Puss has to think about that. The question caught him off guard, and it's not something that can be answered with a quip or a single sentence, not satisfactorily anyway.]
I don't...no. No, I do know.
[He sits down on a lunch box. This is going to be a long story.]
You said that trolls can speak when they are born, but kittens are not so lucky. My eyes only opened a few days after I was born, and they opened...to no one. No mother's loving tongue, no mewling of siblings, no colony of cats to call my own. The winds of fate brought me to a home for orphan boys, where I was taken in and raised by the human that ran it. Mama Imelda.
The boys at that home were...not all kind. On my first day a brute by the name of Little Boy Blue saw me as nothing more than a target. Any new boy in that place was competing for Imelda's attention and what little food she could afford for us, after all. He was, however, a bit late. Another boy had already stolen my meager portion of beans.
And yet the thief -Humpty Dumpty was his name- surprised me that day. When Blue's follower had me by the scruff, he yelled at them to leave me alone. You see, I could not speak at that time. I only had a tiny kitten's mew to make myself heard. And Humpty was...an egg. Literally, he was a giant egg with arms and legs. His body made him completely defenseless against those bullies. They knocked him to the ground and spun him around. Brutal thing to do to someone who can't even roll over!
But he had stood up for me. And a cat, even a kitten, has claws. It was then I found the strength to fight back, to protect someone who had tried to stand up for me even when it was hopeless.
[If Branch notices a deep sadness tinging the wistful nostalgic fondness in Puss's eyes, he's not just imagining things. Their friendship ended far worse than it started.]
no subject
[Puss has to think about that. The question caught him off guard, and it's not something that can be answered with a quip or a single sentence, not satisfactorily anyway.]
I don't...no. No, I do know.
[He sits down on a lunch box. This is going to be a long story.]
You said that trolls can speak when they are born, but kittens are not so lucky. My eyes only opened a few days after I was born, and they opened...to no one. No mother's loving tongue, no mewling of siblings, no colony of cats to call my own. The winds of fate brought me to a home for orphan boys, where I was taken in and raised by the human that ran it. Mama Imelda.
The boys at that home were...not all kind. On my first day a brute by the name of Little Boy Blue saw me as nothing more than a target. Any new boy in that place was competing for Imelda's attention and what little food she could afford for us, after all. He was, however, a bit late. Another boy had already stolen my meager portion of beans.
And yet the thief -Humpty Dumpty was his name- surprised me that day. When Blue's follower had me by the scruff, he yelled at them to leave me alone. You see, I could not speak at that time. I only had a tiny kitten's mew to make myself heard. And Humpty was...an egg. Literally, he was a giant egg with arms and legs. His body made him completely defenseless against those bullies. They knocked him to the ground and spun him around. Brutal thing to do to someone who can't even roll over!
But he had stood up for me. And a cat, even a kitten, has claws. It was then I found the strength to fight back, to protect someone who had tried to stand up for me even when it was hopeless.
[If Branch notices a deep sadness tinging the wistful nostalgic fondness in Puss's eyes, he's not just imagining things. Their friendship ended far worse than it started.]