A Creation

Chapter 1

Perhaps it wasn't ladylike, but it was Muta who was keeping her company, not the Baron, so Haru didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed about licking her bowl clean. It had ice cream in it, her favourite flavour what's more, she wasn't going to leave any of it behind if she could help it.

Muta wasn't about to tell the Baron either, he was too busy doing basically the same thing to a dish of anchovies she had given him – licking up all the juices that tasted so good to him, but that Haru couldn't stand.

"So apart from being sat on again today, how has life been treating you Muta?" Haru asked, scratching him behind the ears when he was finished with his fish.

"You're getting very good at that," he said, closing his eyes in content for a moment. He respected a woman who stood up for herself, yes, he also respected a woman who knew how to scratch him just right and was happy to feed him.

"Well, I get a lot of practice," Haru pointed out, a laugh in her voice. She slipped down from her chair so that she could do an even better job and asked her question again. She knew he had heard the first time, but he had been busy with that last bit of anchovy juice.

"Eh, fairly regular. Birdbrain's moulting, Baron is spring cleaning, no one's been by needing our help since you," he paused in his recitation of what was and wasn't happening to yawn. It was quite impressive. "Lune and Yuki are expecting their first litter, which has the whole kingdom buzzing," the fat cat stretched and clawed the carpet a little bit, clearly unimpressed. It was, after all, something that happened to regular cats all the time.

"Haru! Leave the cat alone and get back to packing your stuff!" Naoko called to her daughter from the hall, going from one room to another.

"Packing?" Muta asked, looking from where the redhead had been to Haru and back a couple of times.

"Yeah," Haru said, pulling a face. "I'm off to University, and I'll be living in a Uni residency, since it's in the next town. Mum said I could leave a lot of my stuff here, since I'll be coming back for holidays and stuff, but it's kinda the first part of leaving home. I'm really gonna miss everything, particularly you Muta," she added, giving him a last rub before standing up to return to the task at hand.

The fat cat followed the young woman up to her room, and sat in the doorway, watching her pack.

"What are you going to do at this University?" Muta asked, checking his fur just in case he'd missed a little bit of anchovy.

"Waste three years of my life stressing about exams and papers probably, if not longer," Haru said, taking clothes out of her wardrobe and putting them in a large cardboard box. "I'm doing a Bachelor of Arts and Teaching."

"Isn't that an odd combination?"

"It is, but I get to go because of an Arts scholarship, and I really like the idea of teaching one day, if being an artist doesn't work out, you know?"

"Arts scholarship?" the fat cat was curious. A scholarship for arts meant that she had some real talent in the area, or she wouldn't have gotten it.

Haru smiled. She knew what he was getting at. Going once more to her wardrobe, the tallish girl removed a painting she had done the year before. It was her favourite, and her mother had paid for it to be framed. It was of that moment when the Baron had twirled her in his arms, dancing before the Cat King in his kingdom, except she had made all the cats people instead. Every time she looked at it, she heard that waltz playing again, and was back in the Baron's arms – at least in her mind. Others had sworn that as they looked at it, the dancers were moving.

"Pretty good kid," Muta said. "You should show the Baron that, he loves stuff like that."

"Muta," Haru giggled. "Haven't you noticed yet?" she asked, bringing the picture closer to the cat and pointing to something by the bottom corner of the head table.

"Hey! That's me!" The fat cat exclaimed, staring at a large cat eating from a glass bowl.

"Yep, and Toto is flying past this window here. I know he wasn't really there, but I felt like I had to have everyone," Haru said, pointing to the shadowy bird soaring in the blue sky beyond. If you hadn't known they were there, or hadn't been looking for them, you wouldn't have noticed the fat cat or the crow outside. They were normal things that people saw every day and didn't notice, but they added just that little bit of reality to the picture.

"What's a great picture like that doing hidden in your cupboard?" Muta demanded, appreciating it all the more now that he could see that he was in it. "It should be on a wall, hanging proudly for the world to see it. That deserves to be admired, that does!"

Haru sighed softly and wrapped the picture back up in the old blanket that was keeping it safe from the world, and put it away in her wardrobe again.

"Sometimes, I can hear it talking," this was what she should not tell Muta. He would go on at her about hearing voices. Oh, she could hear the music playing again through her mind, could remember just where the Baron's hand had touched her, but the painting … sometimes the figures talked, and it wasn't anything she could remember any of them saying at the time. It was the sweet nothings that lovers whisper to each other, or the king and his adviser discussing what a nice couple they made, and the guests speculating on when the dancers would be married. Sometimes even the cat would yawn, or complain about there not being enough food.

"It's a fantasy created from a memory Muta. If I had it out all the time, I might forget the memory and remember only the fantasy," this is what she did say as she closed the door on the picture. She didn't lie to her fat friend, it was – to a certain extent – true, but it wasn't the main reason.

Muta just grunted. The painting had him in it; that was enough reason for him to want to show the world and shout from the hills how great it was, even though he knew nothing about art.

"I still think you ought to show the Baron, he's the one that knows about art and stuff," Muta said, looking at the wardrobe for a little while longer.

"I don't leave until Monday," Haru said, stuffing shoes into a plastic bag before putting them in the box with her clothes. "You have four days to convince the Baron to come and see it. It's too big for me to carry through town to the Bureau."

"You'll be home every day?" he didn't want to bring the Baron and then find out that Haru wouldn't be home.

"Except Saturday, I'll be out with Hiromi for a goodbye shop, getting my text books and stationary and stuff like that," she said, folding the top of the box down.

"I'll bring him on Sunday then, or I'm not Renaldo Moon," the fat cat said, a smile on his face.

"Has Toto found out about your criminal history yet?" Haru asked, remembering that Muta had changed his name because the Cat Kingdom had declared him a criminal after eating all the fish in the lake.

"No," Muta said. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to keep it that way," he added.

Haru paused, her hand just a few centimetres from the next box. An idea was beginning to make itself known, and she began to smile.

"I won't say anything, but you bring them both on Sunday, I'll get Mum out of the house for a while, and we can have our own little party. I would like to say goodbye properly, and thank you of course," she said, giving the grouchy old fatso another pat.

"Deal," he said, eyes lighting up at the promise of more food. Turning tail, he left to begin the process of convincing the Creations to leave the refuge behind and visit the lovely young lady who had won all their hearts in the short time they had spent together.

Haru sighed and returned to her packing.