A teashop as a location for the Cats OC meme?
SO, a little bit ago I did an rp with @jubileethelibrarycat and @dorsey-doran-thewanderingcat where I introduced two original characters as part of my OC Abarrane’s backstory. Both were based off of work in progress Jellicle oc challenge prompts. Finally (after a lot of procrastination) I’ve finished em, so here’s the first one.
His name is Sangri, he is an orange maine coon cat with gray eyes. He is only around 4 years old, but he acts very mature for his age.
Sangri was born to a human family, he was among a litter of 5 kittens. Sangri wasn’t the runt of the litter but he also wasn’t the favorite, sitting squarely in the middle amongst his siblings. His mother would often coddle the runts while the humans would adore the more favored and hearty of the litter. As a result Sangri was often ignored for long periods of time, not because of any wrong doing but because he simply wasn’t deemed worthy of the attention.
One day the family held a Christmas party and invited several of their friends, one of whom was an older woman in her late 60’s. She ran an old tea shop in town and seemed to take great interest in Sangri. She coddled him and played with him the entire night, and when the guests began leaving Sangri felt a deep sadness at her imminent departure. He watched though as she exchanged a few words with one of Sangri’s humans, passing him a few pieces of colorful paper before reaching down to lift up Sangri.
Sangri’s eyes widened as she wrapped him in a scarf and began walking towards the door. He cried out for his mother for a few moments, staring at her with wide and stunned eyes. Then he heard one of his younger siblings crying out, and watched as she looked at him and then looked in the direction of the other call. With only a moments hesitation, his mother walked out of view just as the front door shut behind Sangri as cold wind blew across his face.
For a brief moment Sangri considered that this was for the better. If he was with this lady he would get the attention he craved and the love he so deeply desired. He could grow to forget his mother... maybe even forgive her one day. As the woman brought him into her tea shop he found himself purring at the beautiful smells that filled the air. He could get used to this life, to this smell, to... to this.
As the woman brought him up the rickety stairs to the apartment above the shop however, he found his senses suddenly flood with the smell of at least a dozen cats. It was overwhelming, but his confusion and distress were quickly shooed away as she opened the door to reveal the source. Cats. The apartment was filled with at least 11 other cats that were now glaring at Sangri with with a mixture of curiosity and distrust. His stomach sank as he realized the humans sole attention was no longer his, it probably would never be his again.
Those few months he spent with the tea shop owner were some of the worst of Sangri’s life. Cats were rarely allowed down in the tea shop, so most of the time he would have to stay cooped up in the upstairs apartment with his new living companions. Companions was the wrong word, the correct one would be rivals or at least that’s what the other cats considered themselves to be. They were at each other’s throats for the woman’s attention, for any chance they could get to slip out of the apartment for breath of fresh air or a moment of quiet. Sangri’s only happy memories came from being downstairs in the shop, watching customers swirl their tea and drink in peaceful bliss.
One day, Sangri found himself in the line of fire of two of the other cats within the apartment. He had tried to stay out of the way, but one of the Toms grabbed a large sewing needle and jabbed at the cat he was shouting at. Rather than scratch his intended target, the needle was smacked off course and ended up lodged squarely in the outer edge of Sangri’s ear. Sangri screamed in pain, crying quietly as he lay on the floor with the needle lodged in the sensitive part of his body. He could sense the other cats crowding around him, yelling and conversing about what to do before one to the proposed a solution.
The woman barely noticed any of them to begin with... she wouldn’t notice if one kitten went missing.
That’s how Sangri ended up thrown out one of the upper floor windows, landing with a thump on the fire escape as the window was shut behind him. The needle had been removed, blood flowing slowly down his face from the hole. Paws trembling he instinctively turned to feebly paw at the window, but stopped before he could make a sound. Maybe... maybe this was better. The human never really cared for him, she hadn’t even given him a collar. He had always heard tales about how he should always avoid becoming a miserable stray, but now he realized he had always been a stray. A stray pretending to be a wanted house cat.
So Sangri set to wandering the streets, learning to hunt, and eventually wandering upon a small crawl space beneath a human pub. No cats seemed to be living there, so he set up shop. He put up support beams, cushions and furniture, and even made himself a small work counter like he had once sat on in the tea room. After a little while he was able to make a few friends, inviting them back to his little hidden nook for tea and music from the tavern above. Over time the friends brought friends, those friends brought more friends, and eventually the crawl space became a common hangout for dozens of cats.
Sangri quickly began taking cream and small snacks from the tavern above. Sneaking around subtly in order to provide his customers with a variety of specialty mixed drinks. One day one of his friends brought him a gift, two small cone shaped gold earrings he had nicked from a human jewelry stand. Very carefully Sangri slipped one earring into the hole the knitting needle had left, but soon realized he didn’t want the other earring to go to waste.
And that’s how he ended up taking a shot of fresh goats milk a few nights later, as a group of friends watched Sangri purposely pierce his ear. The two earrings became a signature of sorts for the cats who knew him. He was no longer the unnoticed middle child he had been when he was born. He was Sangri, a friend to many and the best bartender in London.