Magic Cats: Fall of the Stars

The Gifts

Jade woke early the next morning, she had to get to work if she was going to make enough presents for all her friends by the end of the month.

Delta was already awake, her pawprints led out of the alley.

Irony was curiously examining one of Jade's experiments. "Delta went to fetch some tape for you." She said once she noticed Jade was awake.

"Thank her for me when she gets back." Jade suggested. "I'm going to fetch some supplies, too. Can never have too many."

Irony nodded, standing up as she finished examining the contraption. "I'm going hunting then. I don't want either of you skipping meals just because of this present thing."

Jade nodded in return and darted out of the alley before either of them could say another thing.

She paused for a moment, listening to the sounds of nature. The birds that stayed for the winter chirping, the wind blowing the snow off the roofs, dogs barking in the distance. Aside from the dogs, Jade found it rather relaxing.

She couldn't just stand around though. She had work to do.

As she searched the streets and alleys for anything she could make into a gift, Jade spotted a human carrying some chopped wood from his backyard into his house. He was going to make a fire. He dropped one, and all at once the possibilities of what Jade could turn that wood into went spiraling through her head, all the contraptions she could use it for.

She almost took a step forward to grab it, but she shook off the thoughts, she had to stay focussed on making gifts for her friends.

She would need something that lasted a while and wouldn't decay like a leaf. Maybe she could roll a bunch of tape into a ball and carve it into a cat shape, Delta might like that. She'd have to find a way to prevent the sticky part of the tape from being exposed, so Delta's fur didn't get caught, her fur was getting pretty long now that it wasn't so matted from the heat of her fortress.

A colourful blur at the corner of her eye caught her attention, some human had lost a cat toy, it was shaped like a mouse. Perhaps Delta would like that better.

No, Jade wanted to make all the presents on her own. It would feel more special if she custom made them for each of her friends.

Wood wouldn't decay. Maybe if she went back for the dropped piece of wood she could find a way to carve it into an interesting shape.

That would probably be too hard. Maybe even painful.

"This is harder than I thought." Jade thought out loud. "And I can only think of ideas for Delta. What would my other friends like?"

"Quit talking to yourself. You could end up confusing someone into thinking you're talking to them." Growled a passing dog. A fluffy white one Jade had never seen before.

Jade thought for a moment about why she might never have seen the dog, until she got bored and finally thought of what Misty might like.

Misty liked exercise, and she liked new things. So if Jade created something that would blow in the wind that Misty could chase, Misty could have a new way to exercise on windy days as a break from her strict schedule.

There was a playground near the alley Jade lived in, as far as she could tell the only way to get there was through one of the connecting alleyways, the humans liked to fly their kites there. She could find a lost kite and use the string from the tail in her new invention.

It didn't take long to find an old discarded kite stuck in one of the trees. She climbed up and pulled it out by the tail. It tore along the way but the tail didn't come off. If she held it just right, though, she could claw the tail off.