Kitty Fashion

“We are not supposed to go anywhere near them, and you know this!” Runa exclaimed, nearly shaking, although she tried her best to remain calm. It wasn’t so easy. She hadn't thought much about it when Irfan came bearing unusual amounts of lace and silk. Irfan could always find new clothes, especially when she had no expectations of him, and especially those that Runa couldn’t even think about.

But to get clothes that didn’t belong to them? It was one thing to get human clothes! Some of them were fine, and you only needed to find your size. Some — like hats and pants — couldn’t fit because of their differing anatomy. But to take clothes — steal?! — from the Felis? It wasn’t about fitting! It wasn’t about clothes at all!

“Irfan!” She let out an exasperated sigh which bordered on a yell. “You were in so much danger!”

“Nothing bad happened, didn’t it?” Irfan dismissed with the ease of someone who hadn’t ever taken anything too seriously, including his own life. Runa was going to start getting grey hair because of him. If nothing else, she was fairly certain she’d look good with her hair streaked with grey.

“Nothing bad— Irfan!” She stopped herself again and then exhaled more loudly than it was strictly necessary. “Alright. Tell me what you did.”

As she spoke, Irfan ignored her and opened the decorative bag he’d brought to her. The scene was something familiar to her, something they’d done a hundred times, but he’d never taken something he shouldn’t have. Irfan didn’t make a habit of just taking things. He bought things — just like everyone else did — but his contempt for the Felis was, apparently, a lot stronger than his moral compass.

“They were encroaching on our territory,” Irfan said, and Runa reeled slightly from the word territory but she understood what he wanted to say. “I just came by, nabbed this, and disappeared. They didn’t even see me.” And then, he added as an afterthought: “I’m surprised there’s any of them left to come so close. I was sure they were too busy with turf fights.”

Runa nodded thoughtfully, but now that Irfan was there — whole and unharmed and talking calmly and rationally — her previous anger and worry seemed misplaced. She was more concentrated on his hands, and on the clothes she’d only glimpsed before. Now that she could see them more carefully, she noticed it was several pieces of clothes. A silken cropped top in two colours — pale pink and pink pale — a spotted leotard, a soft lace choker. Long, flared pants. They were made from a stiff material, but their edges were covered in tulle. Two dresses, long but so thin that she would’ve thought they were towels or maybe decorative tablecloths if she hadn’t unravelled them.

“This is nice clothes,” Runa noted. “And it is a big bag, too.”

“There were several smaller ones,” Irfan confirmed, much to her affront. “But I thought it’d be easier to carry them like this.”

“You’re crazy,” she claimed. And he was — he was, but nothing bad had happened. She decided she’d rather not know the details, and when Irfan suggested that they should try the clothes on, she simply nodded.

Standing there, in a spotted leotard that fit her almost perfectly — Felis, too, needed to have a hole for their tail on their clothes — she thought that details didn’t matter. She touched her hand to the lacy choker Irfan had brought and then noted that this fashion wasn’t so different from theirs. It felt different, that was, maybe, what this was about.

Runa decided she could let Irfan get out of trouble easily — at least this once.