I despise cats. Skulking killers of the smaller birds, delicate and fragile. Birds that fill the air with sweetness and harm nothing.
My latest songbird hops about its gilded cage, whilst the northern woman is taken back to her captivity, more docile than when she was first taken.
It amuses me, then, to claim a cat as a kinsman, dark and sleek.
There are stories amongst the Gondorians of the great queen, Beruthiel. Is it any suprise that we too have our stories? Cast out from the loveless north, returned back to the heart of her own peoples. Beruthiel and her nine wicked kits, washed up on the hot southern shores and borne back in glory. A brave woman, to submit to the exile of Gondor, to marry their dried up king. No wonder the marriage was fruitless.
But it was not her at fault. No, not fecund, ripe Beruthiel, with her ink black hair and cherry sweet lips. The stories say that she was married before she set forth for Gondor. That her cunning cats were her own nine sons, changed into feline form by her own clever arts. Others say they were her brothers.. or her lordly lovers. It is but a tale, after all.
On her return, her cats resumed their true form. High men, lordly, princes with flashing dark eyes and, for all the years they spent as such, the quiet footfalls of cats. Of her nine cats, nine houses claim descent from this pretty story. Most now are withered with time - the line is dead, or their blood so mingled with lesser men that there is nothing of grace or might left to them.
But, some - a precious few - remain. No longer cats, but lions of men, awaiting our time.
