Lick, comb, smooth the fur. Spread her claws, cleanse them of sand. Lick, comb, smooth the fur. Ignore the acrid salty bite. Lick, comb, smooth the fur. Dig out that knot, squelch the life out of that parasite. Lick, comb, smooth the fur. Lick, comb, smooth the fur. Spread a paw atop her ears, nag at the unruly mat of ribbons, smooth them so that they could fly again. Lick the paw, wash her face, lick the paw, feel it comb her whiskers of debris so that they felt the slightest shift of wind across their sensitive hairs. Smooth the fur beneath the straps, lick, comb until satisfied.
A daily ritual, an hourly ritual of the batty cat as her stormy eye rolled in its socket, dark red leaking from its pupil, a cleanser not only of sand and salt but of her cobwebbed mind, so that for once it felt clear of all thought and feeling and Jupiter simply was. With a final comb of the fur on her chest, she stood, shook her glossy coat, and strolled from her seat with all the gracefulness of a gust of wind, meandering through the streets. Her tail was raised high, subtly swinging the scythe-like tip, and she would have seemed just a cat if not for the rolling of her drunken eye that focused eerily upon those that she passed, an alarm bell warning that something wasn't quite right.
Ah, but nothing was ever quite right, so what did it matter?
Jupiter cast a glance around the battered town, already cross with the wind as it dulled her coat's fought for sheen. The batty cat had acquired a good amount of vanity, despite the constant tufts and tangles and curls within her snake like fur, for she liked to pretend she was a proud cat, and she kept her coat clean as any prideful cat would. Besides, it felt good to be clean, especially with her whiskers, for when they were pestered by debris it was as if a whole sense had been clogged, so unnatural was it to not sense the slightest shift in the air or feel the coolness of the shadows, like a stony wall pressing its palm against her cheek.
It seemed the Litleo she'd seen thought something else of its mangy coat, so tattered it appeared as if the fur itself had grown cross at the number of head on fights it had encountered. Head on was a silly strategy, thought the batty cat. Not even a strategy at sll, she supposed. Fighting just by fighting. Where was the fun in that?
Ah, well, it seemed that there where some advantages in such a style, for although the cat had missed the most of the battle, she'd seen the bird fly off, it's feathers in tatters, and knew that the outcome had ended in the cub's favor. How queer, the cat thought, how queer indeed. Had it been luck or brute force? Some small decision gone wrong for the bird, or an act of acute calculation by the cub?
The mystery intrigued Jupiter, its details swirling and fogging the cat's mind until she could think of no else, and so she had set about grooming her fur, for it had grown all mussed and her thoughts were all fogged and it simply wouldn't do. Satisfied with the session of vanity, the cat was in the process of searching again for the target of inquiry, and it wasn't long before she spotted the cub leaving a shop across the rickety boardwalk street.
Slinking so as to surprise the cub, the batty cat leaped in and out of the shadows, beneath the crowd and across the street, her mind, as it always seemed to be, so foggy that it became like that of a child's, only able to focus on one thing. And so her thoughts slipped up into view one by one, pushing out the others into the cobwebs of her ransacked mind, and she forgot completely about the task at hand--that of her journey--and instead became obsessed with the cub. And while she pondered without really pondering, Jupiter prowled softly across the street, her mind framed upon the single mystery of the creature.
With one last bound off of a board that clattered beneath her paws and splintered into her velvetine pads, Jupiter landed upon in front of the mangy cub as she walked out of town, intercepting the creature in such a manner that her stormy eye seemed to stare right into the cub's head before Jupiter turned, seating herself with a flick of her soiled paws.
"You know, you really should clean that coat of yours," declared the cat with a gritty tinge to her nonchalant voice, fangs flashing bone white as she tugged a splinter out of her paw. Emerald eye glistening, she stared at the cub, her red eye rolling away from its companion, it's color leaking from the pupil like a bleeding storm.
"And no, I'm not part of a clan, and I'm not here to steal your stuff. Probably. I've got a bag and everything," she declared with a sort of prideful tint to her voice, puffing out her chest and displaying the carefully engineered quadroped travel bag, the wind tugging at her ears. The batty cat waved her tail in the air and snickered gleefully, showing her teeth with a curl of her lips as if she were grinning.
"Nice battle." She added with a glint of her teeth. "Well, probably."