Archive of Our Own ^beta

Capnap realigns his thoughts.

“Ugh. I should start at the beginning,” Catnap says with a huff, “But I’m starting near the end...”

Letting go of the frames, Catnap digs his feet into the wall to anchor himself. He leans all the way back through the open window, arching his spine, and allowing himself to go almost upside down as he moves his arms over his head, reaching past the window seat to the wooden coffee table that runs along the length of the windows.

On this table were a small red box, a lighter, a wine glass, and a corked bottle of red wine. Carefully taking these into his hands. Then he clutched his stomach muscles and sat up, moving his arms alongside his body while he got back into a sitting position.

Sitting the glass and bottle on the outside windowsill, he held the red box and lighter in his hand, merely staring at it. The cat opens and closes the box, wondering if he should or not. The drug dealers warned the younger ones, ‘Don’t touch your own stuff.’

‘Drug dealer...’ Catnap barely able to say that word aloud, scared of what kind of critter he had become. He had seen firsthand what other substances do to critters and the ‘Red Smoke’ was a hallucinogenic; it could make him see his memories as if he outsider watching in.

“You’re thinking off topic again,” Catnap scolded himself and closed the box, “Later...” he looked to the Moon and began recalling as best he could...

Catnap whispers words to the Moon:

While his name, ‘Catnap’, and his cat-like appearance made it seem like he was just an overly tall cat, Catnap was a hybrid. His birth mother was a short-haired blue cat, and his birth father had been a red fox. And like all hybrid critters, he had strange traits

The trait he was born with was this freakishly long tail. Later in life, he had trained it to be used as an extra limb, such as grabbing objects and even using it to climb up on trees and buildings.

However, Catnap did not have one of the most common traits that 70% of hybrid critters are born with: being a hermaphrodite, which meant having both male and female parts...

Hybrids were never a thing in the distant past, yet, as more and more critters came together in cities and towns, living in the same spaces as each other, they began falling in love outside of their own kind. A hundred years ago, critters would be shamed for finding a mate different from their kind; some even went as far as murdering the poor couples, along with their offspring.

Now it was accepted by cities, although in towns and villages, it was still frowned upon.

With hybrids becoming common, more studies have been done with them, and the hermaphrodite was one of the first traits noticed. The term ‘hermaphrodite’ was used in the past, but in the modern age, where critters are trying to break away from bad memories of their blood-filled history, new words were coined for them. ‘Maphs’ or ‘Inner’ were two new titles, but these were used depending on which part of the city a critter was from- it was most popular to say ‘maph’ in his area.

For Catnap, his other trait was his unusually loud purr- it could be heard at a distance, and sometimes when he spoke, it would purr along as he said words, like a little static filling his tone and pitch. His voice was deep. It happened after he left his hometown, for some reason, and he hated the sudden change at the time because everything in his left was going wrong and-

Catnap tuts loudly, some again, his mind was going wild... he did not want to think about that at the moment. Just the facts and move on to the next thing, and get this strange ritual he did every year over with..

He thinks about his birth mother and father again, frowning at the slow-moving clouds in the distance, wondering if they would block his view of this lovely night.