The Feline

Whiskertin grew up wanting, with a poor family and their highly peculiar fur pattern, they were neither popular nor lucky. Their face, along with their feline grace led them into the shadows, where they could live and take what they wanted without the scorn of their own kind or those who considered themselves above their station.

They watched the wealthy and the nobility closely, and they “borrowed” from them often. At first it was food, coins, and shiny trinkets, which they used to decorate the crack in the wall they called home. But Whiskertin’s ambitions stretched far beyond simple thievery. They borrowed mannerisms. They borrowed style. They borrowed clothes, posture, speech, and confidence.

In time, they learned to walk among the nobles so naturally that no one thought twice about whether they belonged there.

One morning they woke up in a manor house to the sound of a butler politely asking what they’d like for breakfast. They realised that something had changed, they were no longer the thief pretending to be wealthy. The façade had become real.

Only their old name knew the truth.