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It...

She...

...whichever...

...came awake hissing, loud enough to shock the ears, struggling, and snapping at my hand.

I shrugged, and backhanded her across that strange, furred, not-quite-muzzled face.

Silence. Staring mismatched eyes.

"Would you have another? You've split a drop or two of my blood this day, and it seems you owe either courtesy for that, or vengeance. Your choice. Will you be calm, and do as you're bid, or shall I beat you until you will? It's all one to me."

A flat, soft yowl began somewhere deep in her throat, and I raised a hand again, the left this time, for the first blow had stung in the arm that drove it, and fresh blood stained the bandages on my forearm. I'd best be left-handed for a time.

She subsided into silence.

"That's better. Address me with words, not snarls, if you cannot be silent. You've shown me already you can speak. And you may as lief stop struggling. Every thief-taker learns first how to bind a man quick, and secure. Or a woman, or whatever manner of thing you may be."

Her thrashing ceased, and with a sigh, she... deflated, like a sail in a slack wind. She was even smaller than I'd thought, short and slender as a girl; it showed as she curled in on herself, her ears drooping.

"Silent, then? Well enough. I like my own thoughts as much as any man, and more than some. Now I'll say this, as I say to every outlaw I take:

You'll come with me peacefully, now or late, but you'll come peaceful, in the end. The only difference is how much persuading you'll need. I think you can see I'm not afraid to be cruel. Now what's it to be?"

A whisper... "No..."

"What's that? Will come, or no, if I unbind your ankles? Come, now, I've wasted time enough here."

"No, no, no. Oh gods, please no. Not now. So close, a few days..."

Her voice surprised me; I'd thought to hear a yowling snarl, like the threat she'd spat at me, but this was different. Soprano, lilting, feminine, musical, with a touch of strange accent. A voice a man wouldn't mind hearing more of...

I shook my head. Where had that come from? Had I lost more blood than I thought?

"I say again, will you come peacefully? Don't make me ask again. I've little patience for mummery."

"I can walk, but... where do you mean to take me? What do you want with me? If you meant to hunt me, why have you left me alive?"

Another criminal, a less strange and alien quarry, might have earned a kick for saying such. But I looked at those enormous strange eyes, and it struck me... she really does not understand. She does not know why I have taken her, or for what offense. Is she a savage, knowing no law but her will? And what manner of thing is she?

"You don't know? I am the King's Sheriff of the Seitforest, the sworn man of his Justiciar. I have taken you for those two folk you murdered near Greenway town not five days past. It is my charge to bring you back for trial, though fighting me as you did, it would have been within my charge to kill you.

Do you not know of laws? Of the King's Peace? What manner of thing are you?"

She cocked her head to one side, ears perked, defiant again. "You don't know? Your people hunted mine near to extinction, and you call me murderer? You, who slaughtered us by the thousands, talk of peace? You, who would kill me for defending my life, ask me if I know no law? I am Cathan Sidhe, in your guttural monkey tongue. You could not give voice to our name for ourselves. "

Cathan Sidhe. Cah-tan Shi. No. "You're a peasant superstition?"

"I am not. Oh, not for lack of your folk trying. You made the Daoine Sídhe a myth indeed. But we are better at hiding. So here I sit."

I rose from my knees, dusted myself. "No, up you get. Cat-folk, woman, or faerie, it matters not. You speak, you wear clothing, you not only use tools, but make them, for the hilt of this knife"... I drew it from where it lay tucked into my belt... " was never made for human hands.

So you are a person, and not a beast. Therefore, you kill, you stand accused of murder, and you will come south with me to stand trial for it. Now..."

"NO!"

I turned, scowling. "I mislike hearing that word. I warn you, though my species is not as cruel as you think, I am crueler still, and not a man to cross..."

I stopped.

I had taken many a desperate fugitive. I had killed outlaws with nothing to lose, for they knew they would be hanged, or drawn, or burnt, if taken alive. In the wars, I had done grimmer things still, and it was not for nothing that even my own smallfolk, the tenants of my lands, would make the sign against the evil eye behind my hand, and call me "Curst Jon" when they thought I would not hear.

But never had I seen such a look of terror and despair.

"South? No, please. I need... I need to go northward. Just a few days, a week. And I'll return with you, I swear, I... No, that's foolish. You'd not trust me... I... damn."

"There, you've said it. If the gods favor you, and you are judged innocent, you may complete whatever errand you think so urgent. Though I expect you'll hang." I stooped to cut the rope that bound her ankles, my grip awkward upon the hilt of her strange hooked dirk.

As I hoisted her to her feet by the yoke of hempen rope that bound her arms, wrists, and shoulders, she twisted her head to fix me in the stare of those mismatched eyes.

"I do not fear your justice, mannish hunter, mockery though it no doubt is. But, you may as well know.

In a few days...well...I'm going to be very sick."

And then she started crying.

Truth be told, she caused little enough trouble, though the business of traveling with a prisoner is more troublesome than you might think. It is simple enough for the lieutenants of the Sheriff of Arwic or of Port Brasta to run a captive back, wrists bound to the stirrup of a cantering horse. But such men are thugs and sellswords, not foresters like my men, and a bound man, or woman, put to such casual treatment in rough country is not like to be able to run, or even stand upright, for long.

No, she rode. I walked. Though Bastion misliked her smell, his pride would never permit him to shy at carrying a prisoner, and she vexed him little enough, riding silent, with head hung low. Sometimes she wept quietly. I did not know that the Cathan Sidhe shed tears as humans did, but, then, I had not known that the Cathan Sidhe were aught but a smallfolk fable. I had seen tears aplenty, though, serving as the arm of His Majesty's justice, and was not apt to be moved by them, even when shed by a pretty girl.

Pretty? Girl? Where had that come from? She wasn't even human. Odd...

The first night, I built a fire. I had camped cold long enough, and had no cause to hide, this time. Perhaps some of my men were following, and might find me, had Thomas Thatcher done his duty. Dried meat is a mite more pleasant when boiled in a little water, as well.

She stared into the fire as I ate, draped in the wool blanket I had hung about her shoulders, for the night was cold. At last, she broke the silence she had held throughout the daylight hours.

"Were you planning on feeding me, or do you monkey people starve your prisoners?"

"Still your scolding tongue. I was thinking on that. With one of my own folk, I'd simply bind his feet and loose his hands. But I saw your hands when I bound them. You have claws, and I don't fancy any more cuts. Especially not if you've some sickness in you, as you said."

She sniffed, almost as if laughing. "That's what you thought I meant? Do you truly know nothing of us, then? It's nothing you'll catch, scratches or no. And, anyway, I'd not scratch you. I'm just hungry. I've had little enough this past week; no time to stop and hunt, or cook."

"So you don't eat raw, as cats do?"

"Do you live in trees, like monkeys? Look, are you going to feed me, or not? I'll eat from your hands, if you don't trust me with mine, but make up your mind. I'm hungry."

I met her eyes. Between us, the fire cast sparks up towards a canopy of stars. I shrugged, and tossed more jerky into the pot.

I don't know to this day why I didn't just free her hands. She'd been docile enough thus far, and those claws, though sharp, were not much longer than a housecat's, not a thing to let the life out of a man. Could it be that even then...?

But I get ahead of myself.

She had not lied about being hungry. She delicately snapped the pieces from my hand as fast as I could cut them and lift them to her face. It is an awkward business, feeding someone else.

"Hmmm. Pleasant."

"It's dried with spices. Some herbs. Berries. I have to eat the stuff too often, it may as well not be bland." Strange. Walking to her trial and almost certain execution, and she commented on the food?

She took another piece from my hand. Fur brushed against my fingertips... soft, shockingly soft, like the strange silk of Cathay. I had worn gloves when binding her, and lifting her to the saddle...I wondered what it would be like to run my hands through that fur...

I shook my head. Where had that come from?

Still, unbidden, my hands stretched out to grip her by the jaw, to turn her face and brush away the sandy patches where her tears had dried. Her eyes flinched closed, but she did not try to wrench away.

"You may as well save those tears. I'm the King's justice, and many have tried to move me to pity. You'll find none. This is my duty, nothing more or less."

She pulled away then, hard and fast, glaring at me. "What? Do you think me so weak? Free me. Face me again with even weapons, without that brute of a horse, and you'll see how much I fear you. I don't fear you, monkey. Never think it. I spit on fear. And I don't want your pity, whether you offer it or no."

"Then why do you cry, if you are so brave as you claim? If you truly match your boasts, and fear neither man nor god nor death?"

Her flattened ears relaxed slowly. "I can face your offered death, mannish. But it burns me that I must first be shamed so."

"Shamed? By defeat? By captivity? Speak sense."

"Are you truly so dim? A week ago was my twelfth name day."

"So. You're a child. What of it?"

"Do I speak like a child? Twelve is full-grown for us. We come of age at twelve. Now do you see?"

"No. Some custom of your people? Some ritual? Does this have to do with being sick?"

But she turned away, and would neither speak again, nor take more food from my hand.

I first noticed it the next day. I left her be as I broke camp, a shapeless lump wrapped in a grey wool blanket, but soon enough I was ready to leave, and so with a prod from my foot, I moved to rouse her.

She rolled on her back, flexing her neck this way and that, trying to stretch in her bonds. She stopped, sniffed the air, and... broke into a smile?

"Good morning, monkey.", she said.

I did not answer. Truth be told, I knew not how to answer. I was prepared for many things; scolding, puzzling remarks about sickness or shame, a continuation of the last night's sullen silence, but friendly good cheer? I just rolled the blanket, and stowed it in Bastion's saddlebags.

She rolled to her feet with an acrobatic grace, and stood waiting. "I'm to ride that monster again? Well, then you'd best help me up."

She sounded amused, her voice high and clear and musical, like chimes.

And things became stranger still. As I hoisted her upward, she sniffed again, then, with a soft... growl...?... leaned into me, and rested herself nestled against my shoulder. Through an ear half-muffled in fine, silken fur, I heard a murmur...

"Hmmm. You smell...well, this is going to get complicated, I think..."

What? Flustered, I clung to what I knew. "Are you going to mount up, or must I tie you across the saddle like a sack?"

"Oh... all right. If I must."

I remember the rest of the day in flashes, as pictures of sunlight through trees, of the sound of birdsong, and of her voice. She talked, that day, in occasion questions, and remarks that grew gradually stranger...

...

"I've heard that some of your people keep cats. Is is because they find them pleasing to the eye?"

"What? No, mostly it's to kill vermin. But many do admire their grace and form. Now be quiet."

...

"Do you smell anything... unusual... today?"

"What? I'm no cat. If you've scented something, you'd best to tell me. In these woods, it's not like to be a friend."

"No, no, that's not what I mean. Er... I wonder if you might stand downwind?"

"Pfah. Save your insults, cat-thing. I don't care if I stink in your nostrils. Shut up."

"No, I didn't mean... oh, nevermind."

...

"Damn!"

"What?"

"It's coming on faster than I expected."

"What is? Is it this sickness you spoke of? Speak sense, or shut up."

...

"Ape-man."

"What?"

"I need to...warn you... of something. I may start behaving strangely soon."

"You're behaving strangely now. I warn you, if this is some escape ploy, I'll gut you without a second thought. I've seen all the tricks before."

"Nooorrrrr. It's not thaaaaaaat. Just..."

"Stop that yowling. Gods below, your folk are a pain."

...

I stared across a flood, moving wilderness of muddy water and the tops of submerged trees. Perhaps fifty yards across, I judged. It might as well have been fifty leagues.

"Where are we?"

"Brock's Ford. Not that it matters. Must have rained in the Eigenpeaks. Can't cross here. We'll have to go upstream to White Falls. Best be going, there's still some hours of light left."

Damn, damn, damn. Cut off from my men, if they were indeed following. Even if I could cross at White Falls, I'd add three days in the wilderness with this half-crazed Sidhe.

Was it my imagination, or had I heard a soft whimper from my captive?

...

I don't know what would have happened had we not been trapped by the river. The gods are subtle, and the ill luck we curse is oft a blessing, could we but see it.

In the fading light of late afternoon, by a river still swollen and uncrossable, I stopped our strange procession to make camp. And it was there that she finally broke.

Looking back, I don't know how I could have missed the signs. But hindsight is wiser than foresight, and I tell this tale backwards, it seems. No, no, forgive me, I shall proceed in order. We'll come to the truth soon enough.

"All right, we'll camp here. A hour more, perhaps, and we'd lose the light. Let us get you down from there."

Silence.

"Well, come on then, you...wh...?"

Her features were twisted with ... pain?... and now I heard a soft, thin, keening sound...

"Are you sick? Or faking? Come on." I stepped over to steady Bastion, who stamped nervously.

She gasped, and her eyes sprang open, glistening with mad light. "No! Don't touch mee! I couldn't stand it nooaaw!"

Rage darkened my vision. Enough. I seized her by the worn leather of her jerkin, and half dragged, half lifted her from the saddle. Feather-light for a person as she was, still she must have come down hard; I near threw her.

"Order me no commands," I snapped "I mislike them from any lips, and certainly from your..."

A furred cheek rubbed itself over and over against the hand that still gripped her collar. She... rumbled...faintly. No, wait, she was a cat, she was... purring? Anger vanished in shock. One green eye, and one blue eye shone up at me, and batted lazily.

"I give up.", she whispered. "I give up. I can't stand it any moooaar. I thought you wouldn't smell right, but you do, and just makes worrrrrrrrse..."

"Wh...?"

A deep breath, clenched teeth, fighting for control of... what?

"You're right. I can't command you. But I need you to do something, and I can at least ask. I'll beg if I must, but please, if you have any compassion in you at all...I need you to... to..."

"What?"

An inarticulate yowl. She thrashed wildly now, crushing the thick grass, scattering leaves, squirming in her bonds.

"Damn your stupid monkey tongue! The word. What is the damn woooorrd?"

She froze, ceased thrashing, rolled onto her back, ears and whiskers quivering. She smiled, slowly, more like a smirk with just a hint of white fang showing.

"Oh, yes, that's it. Fuck. I want you to fuck me."

Some moments seem to freeze in time. Some moments settle on you with the weight of an anvil. Some moments call your attention to every detail, and burn it in your memory. Birds sang. Pale sunlight streamed through the branches, dappling us in shadows. Bastion whickered.

A single oak leaf clung to her neck. Her ears were tipped with black fur.

Understanding settled on me at last.

"Wait. You're a cat. Or like a cat."

"Yes."

"You said twelve years old, exactly of age."

"Yes."

"You knew you'd be... sick, and were ashamed of others seeing it."

"Yesssss..."

"You asked if our people found cats beautiful. And you were suddenly...friendly."

"Yeeess, yeesss, I knooaaaw!"

"And then you couldn't stand it any more because I 'smelled right'."

"Yeesss, and it's not getting any b..."

"You're in heat!"

"YES! Please!" She'd managed to roll over again, up on her knees, but with her hands still bound behind her, she could not support herself, and her face and shoulders rested facedown in the grass. I stared. Seconds stretched.

Birdsong, treeshadow, the smell of leaf mold and trail dust.

"Pleeeease..."

"I don't understand. Am I not your enemy?"

"It doesn't matterrrr naowww..."

My eyes took in her arched back, the lifted tail, the slender, but graceful, curve of her waist and hips, the roundness of the buttocks and how they quivered with the eagerness that she presented them to me.

A strange, exotic, and yes, beautiful, woman, bound, kneeling, begging me to take her...

My erection was like a bar of iron, painful against the front of my breeches. As if sleepwalking, I knelt down, placed my hand on the outside of her hip. Her whole body shuddered, and she squirmed, trying to back herself towards me, but without her hands to push.

I reached about her, fumbling for her belt. Firm, slender thighs parted further, and softness thrust itself frantically against my hand.

"Hey, easy. You'll have to hold still a moment if you want me to get your pants off."

"Yes, yes, yes... please, hurry. I want you in me, I want you..."

I finally had the buckle off. I yanked at the waist of her trousers, and something tore, loudly, but I didn't care, chills ran races up and down my spine, the hair of my forearms stood on end, my skin was on fire. And she... compared to her, I was calm.

Her thighs were too short, she could not get her hips and buttocks high enough. I snarled, half like an animal myself, and reached my arm under her stomach, planted my palm across a taunt, flat, downy waist barely wider than the span of its fingers, and just... lifted.

Somewhere far beyond the fire in my brain, she made noises no human being could make.

I could not see. Somehow, some way, I did not remember, I had gotten my breeches open. I thrust wildly, seeking, not finding... my other hand fumbled below her tail, finally found smooth, moist, elementally female wetness... I grasped myself at the root and lifted her, guiding me in.

Into warmth, moisture, tightness, so tight it might have stopped me, had I not been so hard I throbbed with every heartbeat. I could not feel the ground beneath my knees. I could not feel the sunlight, the air, I could not feel anything but the pulsing, gripping warmth inside her, enclosing just the tip...

From somewhere else, her high-pitched gasp: "Oh, gods!"

Her buttocks quivered, bucking, spasming, trying to push back, to drive herself further upon me, but with nothing to push against. I released myself, grasped the base of her tail, hard, lifted, pulled, thrust.

A tightness like a ring of muscle resisted a moment, and then gave. She screamed, but did not slacken her efforts to stretch upwards, to impale herself. I gripped her tail and stomach, and lifted her to meet my hard, rhythmic thrusts. I must have still had wit enough to hear, for I remember her high, thin whimpering and gasps, and how I grunted at each fresh, penetrating thrust. I must had wit enough to see, for I remember her bound elbows flexing against the rope, her helpless hands flexing behind her, clutching the air.

I cannot describe the feel of the muscles of her buttocks quivering, the muscles within her spasming, gripping me, pulling at me... it was delicious, wonderful. I could not have lasted more than two minutes, perhaps three.

And yet still she raced on ahead of me, for before I finished, she stiffened with a shriek, her entire body rigid as a plank, and screamed, a shockingly human scream, on and on, until she lost her breath, gasped in, and screamed again, and again, and finally hung limp in my arms, passive and unmoving, sobbing quietly.

I thrust into her, again and again, for perhaps ten seconds, or twenty, before I let out an animal roar that tore through my throat like ground glass, and spurted into the delicious squeezing warmth of her, on and on and on, and finally, spent.

We collapsed on the grass and dirt, panting, my sweat soaking into her fur. I moved to roll off her, lest I crush her tiny form under me...

"No." she whispered "Don't pull out yet. Please." I rolled to one side to lie upon the grass, turned her with me leaving myself within... savoring the sensation of her slowly contracting around me as I softened, of drifting towards sleep to the sound of her purr.