Everyone's a Catgirl! Ch. 343: What If...? (Patreon)

Shortly after our spar in the forest, Sam and I hunted down another Encroacher for that evening’s dinner. She had called it a pickikk, apparently named after the sound it made as it walked. The bird was as large as a chicken and a lot fiercer to boot. Which was great, considering Sam and I were still running on the high from our earlier fight.

Plucking the damn thing took almost an hour between the two of us. At least she had a pair of gloves in her [Cat Pack]. We took turns removing the feathers, playing rock-paper-scissors—a game Sam was already familiar with—to determine who plucked the butt feathers. Needless to say, Sam was a better player than I was.

The sun was setting by the time I plucked the final feather. There were still tiny, stray feathers sticking out of several of its crevices, but Sam insisted that we’d done a fine enough job and that anything remaining would burn over the fire anyway. I set the wanna-be chicken next to the fire and collapsed on my back, waited for Sam’s next set of instructions. The adrenaline had sapped out of me, sinking into the dirt.

If someone had asked me on Earth whether or not I’d be comfortable butchering and plucking a chicken for dinner, I would’ve answered with an emphatic no. Well, strike that. I would’ve still answered yes, but I’d have bailed the moment that bird hit the table. Especially if the thing was still alive.

Now, though? I didn’t think much of it. Truth of the matter is, we had to eat, and nature provided everything we needed in the forest. Looking at the dead pickikk, I once again swelled with an abundant amount of respect for farmers. I’d learned a lot from Cannoli, Saphira, Shizen, and now I had Sam to add to that ever-growing list.

“This shouldn’t take long.” Sam pulled the pickikk by its neck and set it down on a cloth she’d splayed across the grass. 

I was exhausted, but taking into account what Sam said earlier about staying active, I clung to that feeling of control as I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled over to sit beside her. 

“Hungry, huh?” she chuckled.

I nodded enthusiastically. “Extremely.”

“Well, don’t ya worry.” She slid her knife through the meat and started to dissect the bird’s limbs from its body. “I’m somethin’ of an expert when it comes to cutting up pickikks.”

She wasn’t kidding. Within minutes, she had that thing dissected and portioned. Unlike before, when we had drained the blood away from our camp, Sam planned to use it to marinate the bird.

“Birds have to be the most unfortunate prey in the world,” I said as I shook my head.

“What do ya mean?”

“We bathe them in their own eggs, cook them in broth using their bones, snap said bones for good luck, and now you tell me we’re going to marinate it in its own blood?”

Sam’s blade hovered above the pickikk’s breast. “I guess when you put it that way”—she started to laugh—“they really do have the worst luck, huh?”

“Can you imagine cooking any other animal—er, Encroacher that way?”

“Hmmm.” Sam continued to cut through the Encroacher as she hummed. “I can think of a few other Encroachers that are prepared similarly.”

“Like what?”

“The pawm civet.”

My jaw dropped. Suddenly, I was creating this terrible scenario in my head where a tiny pawm civet was strapped to a metal gurney, and I, the heartless butcher, stood over it with a hatchet in my hand and a glint in my eye.

I raised my hand. “I don’t need to hear this.”

Sam snorted. “I’m kidding. Can you imagine? I haven’t seen one of those things in years.”

I frowned. “Are they rare?”

Sam nodded. “Extremely. I’ve lived on Nyarlothep for a little over five years now, and I’ve only ever seen one.”

And here I thought they were common. “There’s a bunch of them on Ni Island.”

Sam’s knife paused, and she turned her head toward me. There was a sparkle there that I didn’t see before. Or maybe I was imagining it. “There are?”

“Yeah, my friend Cannoli taught me to sing to them.” It felt weird to call her my friend when she was so much more than that. “Did it to get some strange orb from them.” I struggled to remember the name of the thing. It’d been so long ago. My thoughts briefly lingered on Cannoli’s bright smile, and I hoped she was doing okay. “She said pawm civets are rumored to have been created by an [Alchemist].”

The slightest hint of a blush colored Sam’s cheeks. “Noted. When I next get some time away, I’ll have to take a trip to Ni Island.” She resumed her butchering, carefully spilling the blood into the large pot that hung from the tripod at the center of our campfire.

“Why? You like pawm civets?” I asked.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, kinda.”

“Well, then let me show you around when you do,” I said as I leaned back on my palms. Sam glanced at me with a hum as she drained the bird, then stood and jogged away to remove the innards. When she came back, I picked up right where I had left off. “There’s this incredible spa resort on Ni, too.” Heat rose to my cheeks as the memories of wild nights came back in a flash. “I think you’d enjoy it if you like the bath in the queen’s castle.”

Sam laughed, but seemed a bit nervous. “The castle’s bath is a bit too luxurious for my liking.”

I frowned. “Really? You seemed to fit right in.” Maybe I hadn’t noticed. Maybe I was more enamored by the sheer size of the thing because of the company I’d had. I thought to retract my statement, but I bit it back. I didn’t want to look like an indecisive idiot who was just telling her what she wanted to hear.

Sam shook her head. “Nah, I much prefer this.” She gestured to the sky and the forest. “This feels like home. The company ain’t half bad either,” she said, catching my gaze with a wink.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m no Captain Celestine,” I teased.

Sam made a gagging noise and looked over her shoulder as if the woman could appear at any moment. “Talk about someone with a stick up her ass,” she grumbled. “She’ll look for any opportunity to undermine and belittle. She’s a kitten in a woman’s body, I swear.”

“Was she always like this?”

“Always.” Sam severed the pickikk piecemeal, separating the breasts, thighs, wings, and legs. “Every time she opens her mouth, I swear the air drops ten degrees cooler. She reminds me way too much of someone else I know who’s just as haughty and pretentious.” She drew a deep breath as if trying to calm herself. “Look at me, goin’ on a tangent.”

I chuckled. “I don’t mind. Feel free to let loose.”

“No, I really shouldn’t. Sometimes inside voices are best left inside.”

Boy, do I know how you feel. “Get yourself in trouble a lot?”

“A lot. Way too much. I’ve always been a troublemaker. My parents didn’t like that part about me at all.”

Parents? Usually, all I hear about is the mom. “You, a [Berserker]? A troublemaker? Wow, I’m shocked,” I said sarcastically. “You’re the spitting image of a valedictorian.”

Sam opened her mouth just as I realized she might not know what that term meant. Her gaze dropped to the ground briefly, and she gestured for me to come closer. “Mind startin’ the fire?”

“I got it.” Now that I’d become reacquainted with my past as a Boy Scout, Sam’s tools didn’t look so strange or foreign to me anymore. Within seconds, I managed to get a good spray of sparks. I leaned down and blew on the tiny flames. They steadily grew larger and larger, licking hungrily at the firewood. Soon enough, we had a fire. “How about that?”

“‘Atta boy! You’re really gettin’ the hang of this!” Sam praised. She leaned over the pot and used a wooden spoon to stir the blood inside. Procuring spices from two of the pouches she’d set aside, she sprinkled them in and continued to stir. “This is gonna taste a little funky at first, but I promise you’ll grow to like it. Kind of an acquired taste sorta thing.”

“I’m okay with that.” I had survived drinking frozen orange juice from a can for half of my life, so I was sure I could deal with whatever Sam was cooking. “Where did you learn this recipe?”

“I made it up myself.” She tapped the rim of the pot with the spoon and watched as it came to a steady boil. “I was lost in the woods a few years back with nothing but my axe to keep me company. So I hunted down a pickikk and…uhh…”

“What?”

She rubbed the back of her head as her lips curved into an awkward frown. “Well, I was really hungry. See, [Berserker] can use [Forsake Hunger] and [Forsake Thirst]. Which is great, because it takes away the sensation of hunger and thirst, but it doesn’t remove the need for those things. Your body still needs food, obviously, so… I was on my second day without any food. The Skill happened to expire just after I’d gutted the thing and, well, I ate the whole bird raw, blood and all.”

The mental image of Sam snarling and tearing some poor Encroacher limb from limb was a lot easier to picture than I would’ve thought. Drinking the blood, though? That was a new one.

“I’m sure it deserved it,” I said, trying to stifle a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Her cheeks turned a bit redder, which was kind of a nice thing to see on her. Sam had come off to me as extremely dependable and hard to embarrass. Blushing was not something I imagined she did a whole lot of. “If you wanna eat, you’ll snap that trap shut or tell me what’s so stinkin’ funny. Remember, I’m still your trainer.”

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry, Captain Sam.”

Sam rolled her eyes and gently slid one of the pieces of meat into the pot. The smell was incredible. One by one, she slid the remaining pieces into the pot, stirring all the while. She grabbed the flask of water next to the fire, took a swig, then poured some of it into the pot before capping it and tossing it back into the tent.

“Just seeing you blush. It’s cute,” I said. “It’s rare.”

Sam choked on her water. “Oh, Saoirse’s tits, Matt—”

“Hey, you asked!”

Sam caught her breath and shook her head. “Anyway. How ya feeling?”

We went back and forth for a bit, and Sam insisted that everything I was experiencing was normal for [Battleguard] training. According to Sam, the sense of power and euphoria I felt was normal, and it was something I would have to temper over time so as not to hurt the others around me.

After that, the silence pooled between us once more. I didn’t have very many questions at this point beyond when sleep would be allowed. And the silence sucked. It made me worry about Ruyah back at the castle with an ice queen. It made me think of my girls and hope they were safe and happy and alive. 

“How did you become captain?” At this point, I was just trying to fill the air with anything I could think of. 

“There’s a lot to it,” Sam said, gesturing with her free hand. “I was still a [Warrior] when I enlisted in the unit as a simple soldier. Let me tell ya, though, guard duty is the real test of your mettle. More than anythin’, it’s boring as hell.”

“Oh, yeah?” I nodded, half-paying attention. 

I’d been relaxing for too long, and my body was getting comfortable again. It was hard to focus when you were sleep-deprived, hungry as hell, and had a buxom babe cooking for you. My mind began to wander, and my eyes followed suit. They started low, around Sam’s ankles, then slowly worked their way up her toned legs and settled on the generous bust that shaped her breastplate.

“What’s really on your mind?” Sam asked as she passed me a smirk.

Shit. Did she catch me checking her out? “T-That. Er. Guard duty. Yes. I’d like to know what your journey to captain looked like.” I hoped I’d made a good recovery.

Her smile widened. “It took a lot of effort.” 

Sam left the spoon in the pot and undid one of the buckles around her chest piece. The left side of her armor sagged. After undoing the buckle on the other side, she slid the guard up over her head and set it beside her, leaving her in that thin leather top that clasped her neck and left most of her back bare. The taut muscles around her shoulders flexed as she returned to stirring the pot.

“Years of fighting Defiled and proving my worth,” Sam continued.

I swallowed against the dry lump building in my throat. Another friend was waking up, and I did not want Sam to see. “L-Lot of work, huh?”

“Mhm.” The tone of her voice took on a more sultry tone. Damn it, had she caught on? “Strenuous. Tough. Sweating every day, constantly beaten down. But as long as I got back up, as long as I was…on top, I didn’t mind.” Then she snorted. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna charge ya for lookin’.”

I got flashbacks of the day I met Ravyn. “That obvious, huh?”

“You are not sly at all.” She tapped the spoon on the pot.

I froze. 

“Not that I mind.” Her grin widened, and her ears flicked forward. “You’re just as cute when you blush.”

I let go of the air I’d been holding. “Yeah. Alright. I deserved that.” Sam cackled. “You’re a lot of fun to be around, Sam.”

“So are you, Matt.” Eyes bright, Sam tapped the spoon against the bowl. “Dinner’s ready. Afterward, why don’t we go clean up in the river? We smell like a pair of swamps.”

I swallowed hard. “In the river?”

She nodded, her eyes sliding to their corners.

This just never gets easier, does it?