Title: "Claws in the Moonlight"
Author: Pirate Turner
Dedicated To: My beloved, wondrous, and always inspirational and amazing Jack, and our darling babies - Merry Christmas and Happy Solstice, my loves! This is the fourth story in my 12 Days of Solstice/Christmas for my beloved Jack and our darling babies of the year 2011.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Puss has a very special Christmas mission.
Warnings: Het
Date Written: 19-20 November, 2011
Word Count (excluding heading): 3,144
Disclaimer: Puss in Boots, Kitty Softpaws, and all other recognizable characters mentioned within are ﾩ & TM DreamWorks, not the author, and are used without permission. Everything else belongs to the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

His orange fur was raised as he entered the tiny shop in the early hours just before dawn. A candle flickered to life, and Puss turned toward it, his claws and sword raised at the ready. "Did you find ze answer to mein question?" a thick German voice inquired.

Puss' black pupils turned to slits in his emerald eyes. Now he could see the man and all of the other faces around them. Lifeless eyes watched his every move as he stepped boldly closer to the inventor. His long tail swished. "I did." His free paw reached forward, palm up and claws outstretched. "Do you have my weapons?"

"I do," the man said, and his hold on the black and white objects on his desk tightened. "First my answer," he demanded.

"No," Puss refused, his furry, orange tail cutting fiercely through the still air.

"Ve had a deal," the German started, gathering his instruments into his hands.

"So we did," Puss agreed. His ears flickered; his tail swished again. Though he could walk as silently as if he walked upon the very air itself when he moved, Puss chose to let his bootsteps fall heavily upon the wooden floor. The sound of his steps echoed in the small shop as he came to stand directly before the German inventor's desk. Clutter normally filled the desk, but tonight there were only scissors and thread left upon it. The inventor clutched his latest invention close to his desk and reached for his scissors.

"Uh uh," Puss tisked and tapped the back of his alliance's outstretched hand with the tip of his sword's blade. "We did have a deal," he purred, "and I aim to make sure we keep it." He raised his sword to point at the man's throat, and the German trembled from head to toe. His clogs beat a nervous rhythm on his wooden floor. "I will give you a name," Puss continued, "and then you will give me that for which I have come. Then I shall give you the rest of your information."

The German nodded nervously, but before he could speak, a woman's voice called out, "Gepetto? Gepetto, dear, are you in the shop at this early hour o' th' morn?"

"I -" His voice shook. Puss' furry eyebrows arched in warning over his handsome, orange face. His tail cut through the air, and his blade made the mark of P in the empty air just before Gepetto's frightened and trembling form. "I - I am, Mary Margaret, dear, but don't fear. I'm fine. I was just hit by inspiration and had to see this toy come to life. Go back to bed, dear. I'll be there as soon as I finish this new toy."

His wife's answer was stifled by her yawn. "Very well, darling, but please do hurry. Ze bed. It is cold an' lonely vithout you."

Puss waggled his furry eyebrows at the terrified toy maker. His tail cut through the air in a teasing arc.

"I shall be fast," Gepetto promised and then breathed a silent sigh of relief as they listened to his wife's footsteps moving back into their bedroom. "Now," he said, turning back to the cat with whom he had forged an uneasy alliance, "who can make it happen? Who can give us a real son?"

Puss' emerald eyes glowed in the dark. His swishing tail stilled and remained raised into the air as he answered, "The name of the one you seek, Gepetto, is The Blue Fairy."

"And this . . . " Gepetto stammered. "This . . . This Blue Fairy can give us a real son?"

"Si," Puss affirmed, and though his answer was accompanied by a purr, the purr hinted of danger yet to come and sent chills racing down Gepetto's spine. "Now no more information," he warned, waving a claw in the air before Gepetto's widened eyes, "until you hand over what is mine."

Gepetto quickly handed over the merchandise. "I . . . I hope they'll be okay. I . . . I have never made weapons before."

Puss examined the products in question before nodding his approval. His tail swished once more through the air. "They will be fine." He hurriedly shoved them into a small backpack he was wearing underneath his cape before looking back up at their inventor. His eyes met Gepetto's. "Now listen, toy maker," he commanded, his voice a low hiss of warning. "You must do exactly as I say if you want that boy of yours to be a real boy. Create your son. Forge him from cloth or wood or what have you, but make him just the way you would want him to be if he were real. Then call upon the Blue Fairy."

"How do I find her?"

"You do not," Puss declared, his eyes shining. "She will find you when you are ready."

His eyes vanished from the dark shadows while Gepetto's next question was still on the tip of his tongue. "But how . . . ?" he started to ask, but Puss in Boots was gone, vanished into the night like the thief he was and leaving behind only a single P carved permanently into Gepetto's desk.

Puss rode all through the day and well into the night in search of the one for whom he had had these particular weapons created. He rode through city after city before finally the one he sought made her presence known. She moved so swiftly that he had barely felt the breeze from her passing before spying her directly ahead of him, holding his black, magical boots in her white paws and dangling them invitingly before her. "I told you," she called to him, "you will never be able to stay away from me for long!"

Puss smiled; his emerald eyes danced in the dark shadows. "So you did," he purred as he brought his stallion to a stop. He flipped off of the back of his horse and landed smoothly before the one feline for whom he had spent so many hours of his life searching. He reached forward with an open, orange paw. "Now may I have my boots back?" he requested in his deepest, most sensual voice.

She continued dangling them before her. "Only if you can take them from me."

He moved with all the speed of lightning, wrapped his arms around her, dipped her right there on the wall surrounding the city, and pressed his lips to hers. His long tail stroked her furry body, running seductively down her arms before hooking into the cuffs of his boots and snagging them out of her grasp. Puss released her so quickly that she almost fell and was grinning at her, his boots already back on his feline feet where they belonged, by the time she had regained her balance. "One would almost think that was the only way you know of to win a senor's attention, Senorita Kitty Softpaws."

"Oh, I know many ways," she purred, her emerald eyes glistening in the night, "to earn your attention, Senor Puss." She danced across the wall, gliding ever closer to him, and tapped him underneath his furry chin with the black tip of her swishing tail.

"So you do," Puss admitted as he started to dance with her. They danced across the wall and moved on into the city itself, leaping from building to building and dancing over every roof top, until at last they came to slow on the last house on the opposite side of the city. Puss' arms were once more around Kitty, and he pulled her close again, singing to her a Spanish love song and sliding his furry body against hers.

Her white paw caressed his furry cheek. "You should stay more often," she told him.

"I would like to," he admitted, "but you know I have a wandering heart."

"We could wander together," she purred against his lips and then kissed him long and deep. Her tongue speared into his mouth, arching against his fangs and twisting around his own tongue. Their tongues resumed their dancing, and their paws ran eagerly up and down each other's seductive bodies, longingly caressing every inch of their lover that they had missed while also trying desperately to commit each spot to their memories for they both knew their time together would not last long. It never did for if it was not an adventure pulling Puss away, it was Kitty herself who got a wild air and whisked herself away onto a new and grander heist.

They purred deeply, and had he been a braver cat, Puss could have admitted that he would have liked to have stayed right there in Kitty's loving arms for forever - or, at least, until a new adventure called his name. It was Kitty who shattered their moment of purrfect bliss, however, as she cut the straps of his backpack with her claws and slipped it away from him with her tail. He lifted his mouth from hers, his green eyes glowing in the dark. "I know exactly what you are doing," he purred to her. "Come now, Kitty. You're much better than that."

She smirked up at him. "Maybe I wanted you to know," she spoke, her tail cutting through the air.

He reached behind her and swept his backpack off of her tail. Then, to Kitty's surprise, he pressed it into her arms. Her widened eyes watched him carefully. "Puss, I . . . "

He smiled sweetly, his green eyes raising adoringly into hers. His purr deepened. "It is for you, Kitty."

"You brought me a present?" she queried softly, and his pointed, perky ears twitched as he listened to her heartbeat quicken. "But, I . . . I have nothing for you," she admitted sadly, her lovely face falling.

"Did I ask for anything?"

"No." She shook her head.

He ran a paw lovingly over her beautiful face, then hooked his furry fingers underneath her chin and lifted her face so that their eyes again met. "I have everything I could ever want," his deep voice assured her and swept thrills through her. Her purr timidly answered his. "Go ahead," he said, dropping his paw from her lovely face that had been leaning into his touch and pushing his backpack closer to her. "Open it."

Slowly, Kitty's green orbs, rounded and enlarged by her startled surprise, lowered from Puss' handsome, smiling face to his backpack. She tried to ignore the way she shook inside as she opened his pack. It had been so long since she'd last received a true present, and she honestly hadn't expected to even celebrate this Winter season. Puss' return into her life had been enough of a delighted surprise; she never would have thought that the furry hunk would have brought her a present besides himself!

She cocked her lovely, furry head to one side as she examined the gifts hiding inside his backpack. Her long, ebony tail swished in the cool, night air. "Why," she murmured in growing surprise, lifting each piece of cloth gently out of the pack, "they're gloves!"

"Mittens," Puss purred with a debonair smile, "to keep my Kitten's paws warm." He took them from her and put his backpack to the side. "Here," he commanded gently, turning back and taking her right paw in his. "Try them on."

She shivered inwardly at his touch, a thousand thrills shooting through her fur and pass her flesh to warm the very depths of her heart and soul. "Puss," she whispered his name.

"Sh," he assured her, gently slipping her paw into one of the long gloves. "I know they're not quite your style. I know you don't like clothes. But just try them on for me." His emerald eyes rose back to hers as he continued to hold to her paw. "Trust me." His smile grew. His tail swished, and he purred. "You'll like them."

The glove stretched up to just beneath Kitty's elbow, and she gasped as she looked at it. She withdrew her paw from his and turned her arm around, holding it up to the light of the silver moon casting her loving glow all around them. Kitty's green eyes blinked in surprise. "You can't even tell I'm wearing it!"

"Prrrecisely," Puss purred, his tail swishing happily and his green eyes gleaming with mischievous knowledge. "And that's not all." He gazed into her eyes, and his purr deepened. "Press your thumb to the side of your forefinger."

Kitty did and gasped again as tiny, silver daggers popped out of the fingered ends of her black and white glove. Looking closer at them, she noticed the way they curved. Her heart beat sped. She tingled from the tops of her pointed ears to the end of her swishing tail as she fought the tears that threatened to well into her green orbs. "Puss!" she cried in delight. "Puss, you've - !" And yet she could not seem to find the words to voice what he had given her. She stared at him and finally managed to whisper, her tail whisking more quickly, "You've given me my claws back!"

"Si, mi amor," Puss answered with a huge grin filling his handsome, furry face. He slipped her other glove onto her bare paw with all the speed he used when fencing. She touched her left thumb to her forefinger, and tiny claws popped out of that glove as well. Puss cupped her face and lovingly stroked her fur. "Now no one needs know of your shame, sweet Kitty, unless you choose to share that secret with them." Her heartbeat and purr filled his twitching ears, and he answered her with a deep, loving, and joyful purr all his own.

"Are they . . . " Kitty's tail swished. She looked back from her gloves to Puss' handsome, smiling face. "Are they sharp?" she asked.

"They are supposed to be. Try them out," he coaxed her and then ducked as her claws swept at his head. "Senorita," he cried, his fangs and emerald eyes flashing, "I did not say on me!" His long tail cut through the air.

She shrugged and grinned mischievously at him. Her emerald eyes gleamed in the dark of the night. "I have to try them out on somebody," she returned.

"Very well," he said, drawing his blade and slashing both it and his tail through the air. "Then do your best." He blocked her onslaught with his sword, but when her claws touched the blade of his sword, the collision wrent the air with such a horrific sound that both their ears laid back against their head.

"I didn't feel it!" Kitty cried in surprise. She flexed her claws. "And they stood up!" Grinning, she looked back at him. Her ears shifted back and forth on the top of her furry, black and white head. She gestured at him to come closer to her with her paws. "Now, now, Puss, do you really need a sword against little, ole me?"

He knew he did, and yet for this one night alone, he was willing to be scratched by her if it was what it took to prove to her the value and ability of her new claws. He sheathed his sword and lurched forward, meeting her claw for claw and blocking her every attempt to slip pass his guard. He knew from the way she fought that she wasn't really trying to hurt him for never before had it been so easy to keep her from landing her mark upon his smooth and handsome fur.

Their paws grasped each other, their claws entwining, and they kept fighting, slowly going backwards across the rooftops, until Puss successfully backed Kitty up against a chimney. He twirled her around and pushed her forward. "There," he purred, his tail swishing, "have your practice."

She didn't hesitate. She launched herself forward at the chimney, and his ears laid back against his head as her claws cut into the brick with a frenzy. He was so busy watching her valiant and wild beauty that he almost didn't see the big man in red jump out of the chimney and go running in the opposite direction from them. He grinned as he watched the famous St. Nick jump onto his sleigh and run away with all his reindeers.

Looking back at Kitty, he realized she hadn't even noticed. She was still busily cutting into the chimney and delighting in each permanent mark her claws left. His tail swished. He waited for her to tire, but she kept slashing at the chimney. He turned and sat down. His tail still swishing, he rested his furry head in his paws and tried to wait for her to get done. He longed for his guitar, but it was back on his horse.

Finally, Kitty did tire of attacking the chimney, but even when she tired, she was still beaming joyously. Her happy grin filled her beautiful face as she turned back to the tom who had made one of her fondest wishes come true. "Puss," she cried, "it works! I really do have claws again!" She threw herself at him, tackling him right there on the roof, and he hugged her to him, his black boots digging into the rooftop to stop them from falling when he felt them begin to slip.

He again held her lovely face inside the loving and warm confines of his paws. Their tails swished in blissful union. "Feliz Navidad, Kitty!" he breathed to her, and she grinned.

"Feliz Navidad, Puss!" She had never needed any mistletoe or catnip to convince her to kiss him, and now she did just that again on the rooftop, kissing him with such passion that he quickly succumbed to her and rolled over onto his back. She went with him, his arms wrapped around her, and continued to kiss him.

Their tails brushed against each other and then entwined, the very tips of their tails unconsciously forming a heart together. He returned her caresses and kisses in full with all the passion he held for her. Their commingling purrs rose into the night air. They continued kissing and frolicking, showing each other with their touches and kisses how much they'd missed each other and other things that they would never put a voice to and Kitty thanking Puss again and again for the return of her claws.

They loved each other fully underneath the star-filled, Christmas sky, and the moon smiled in the light of their love. They need not voice the emotions that filled their beaming hearts and joyfully purring souls. She had watched over love through the eons and always knew it when she saw it, and Puss, just as he did with charisma, courage, and savoir faire, had love in spades to outlast the ages with his beloved Kitty.

The End