#themis ffxiv

The mother pulled her daughter out from behind her and sat her on her lap. Hold out your hand, she said. There. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Let him come to you. 

The child did. Themis stared at the small hand—so small, it could only cover his muzzle. He sniffed the outstretched palm, making the girl flinch. Then he touched the palm with the tip of his nose and purred as he pressed his forehead against her warm skin. 

He could tell the child was breathing very fast, but the more he purred, the more he felt her muscle tension ease. Before long, the girl began stroking his head—tentatively at first, which grew bolder with every second that passed. Themis did nothing but sit and purr and probably lick her small thumb. The child giggled. 

So he’d received an extra helping from the humans for a very good job. Now he idled away the rest of the afternoon until the store’s closing, watching people and cars pass by outside in blurs. 

“You did well with the girl.” 

Themis turned his head to see Venat approaching the window. The white she-cat leaped nimbly to the sill and made an elegant land next to him without so much as a hair of her thick, snowy fur out of place. Venat curled her tail around her paws and looked out the glass. 

“We could always count on you to make the little ones feel at home.”

Themis dipped his head. “Thank you, though I only did what the others would have done.”

A snort came from up ahead. Hephaistos had returned to lounge on his usual perch—the highest platform of their cat tree that the others, Hythlodaeus mostly, had dubbed his “Pride Rock”. The dark ginger tom never cared to correct him, so the name stayed. Now he lay on his side, head straight, surveying the room and the masses the way a king might survey his subjects. When his gaze landed on Hythlodaeus in his cage, grooming his long yet perpetually unkempt lavender coat as though nothing had happened, his nose wrinkled in annoyance. Then he averted his eyes away toward the window. 

“Not everyone,” he said in his gruff tone. 

Themis glanced over his shoulder at Hythlodaeus, having finished grooming and was now staring at a food bowl sitting a little ways away. Hades, standing not far from the cage, rolled his golden eyes and stalked over, about to give another lecture his friend probably wouldn’t listen to. Across the room, Hermes lay curled on his plush bed, listless and forlorn, as his gaze refused to leave the door through which the humans had taken away his favorite plushie—a little blue bird someone had given him once. 

It wouldn’t have been a normal day for Themis without the usual chaos that followed wherever Hythlodaeus went. On that particular day, it manifested in the form of a broken potted plant when the mischievous tom, curious of the new object the humans had placed on the high beams, went up the cat walks and leaped onto the beams. He was nimble on his feet and could balance himself even on the thinnest of platforms. Themis hadn’t quite seen what exactly had occurred, only that a crash had sounded across the room followed by frightened screams and startled yowls. When Themis had looked, a potted plant had broken into shards, dirt scattered on the carpet, and both Hythlodaeus and Hermes were drenched after the former fell flat on the latter’s drinking bowl, splashing water everywhere. Small wonder the girl had gotten scared. So while the humans cleaned the place and put Hythlodaeus in the cage as punishment, Themis had attempted to ease the girl with his company. 

Hermes, on the other hand, had been inconsolable because his blue bird had gotten caught in the chaos. Venat’s efforts to appease him had been in vain. It hadn’t been until Themis touched his shoulder with the tip of his tail and said, “Let’s bring her to the humans’ attention,” that some semblance of reason returned to the dark cat’s jade eyes. They’d pawed at the nearest human legs and meowed at him to fix the bird. 

“I swear,” Hephaistos went on, “we shall never know peace if Hythlodaeus doesn’t rein himself in.” 

“The boy is curious. Could you fault his curiosity?” Venat asked. 

“The boy, as you gracefully put it, is six years old. He should act his age.”

“Oh, come now.” Venat chuckled. “Don’t act like you’ve never done a reckless thing in your youth, Hephaistos.”

Hephaistos scoffed. “He should be ashamed that someone four years his junior has a better head on his shoulders.”

At that, a swell of pride blossomed in Themis’s chest. Hephaistos, with his sharp gaze and thin, dark orange pelt, was the oldest of them, and Themis liked to think the wisest too. He rarely strayed from his Pride Rock, rarely interacted with the rest of them. Themis always looked at him with a reverence one might give to their elders. While Hephaistos and Hades often bickered and Venat always tried to get under his skin (though she always seemed to want to get under everyone’s skins—Hephaistos and Hades were just her favorite targets), Hephaistos always treated Themis with a measure of respect and, dare he say, friendliness. He would give Themis little bits of stories and wisdom in his brusque manner, and Themis always absorbed everything like a sponge. So to hear Hephaistos praise him so casually made Themis sit a little straighter, a little taller. A small smile played across his lips. 

Venat noticed it and giggled. 

Over by the cage, Hades and Hythlodaeus were still at it. 

“That’s why I told you not to climb the beams!” An irritated grumble drifted up to the window sill. Hades, small and gray with his mouth set in a perpetual frown, glowered at his friend. 

“It’s not my fault if they’d put the pot in such a precarious position,” the lavender cat retorted. 

“Well, it’s your fault if the pot fell because you bumped into it.” 

“I did not bump into it. I just brushed past it.”

“Semantics.” Hades’s voice was clipped. “In the end, the pot fell, and you’re grounded inside the cage. Again. So don’t complain to me if you’re hungry—”

“But I aaaam!” 

Themis always found it funny whenever he saw Hades and Hythlodaeus bicker. Always it was the smaller one scolding the bigger one; but despite their constant arguments, Themis had never seen such an inseparable pair in all his yet-short life. 

“Just push one of those bowls to me and no one will know how I got my food,” Hythlodaeus went on. 

Hades looked incredulously at him. “How could you even eat it from inside the cage?” 

Before Hythlodaeus could respond, a groan sounded from the green plush bed, where Hermes lay with his paws covering his ears. “Could you two please stop? I can’t stand listening to you squabble any longer.”

Hythlodaeus paused, then turned his attention to the languid cat. “Hermes,” he began, his voice quiet, “I really am sorry.” He did look like he meant it, but the black tom didn’t give him the chance to properly apologize. Before Hythlodaeus could finish, Hermes had already turned away and burrowed himself deeper inside the plush bed, slipping his head beneath one of the pillows to quell the noise.

Silence fell. 

Hades stalked away. Hephaistos huffed under his breath. Hythlodaeus pursed his lips before moving to the other side of the cage, curled, and tucked his paws underneath him. Venat frowned at the sight while Themis stared at the plush bed where Hermes had taken his refuge. 

“He’ll come around,” Themis said. “He always does.” 

Indeed, it wasn’t quite the first time Hermes had drawn into himself. Before he received the blue bird doll, it was almost a weekly if not daily occurrence. Sometimes, Hermes didn’t even have the energy to get out of his bed. Themis often found himself accompanying the older cat, grooming his dark pelt until his fur shone sleek under the light. 

One day, one of the human visitors who’d taken a liking to Hermes gave him a toy—a doll in the form of a small blue bird. The look of joy that had crossed his face was nothing like Themis had seen before. Rarely could Hermes be seen without his new possession since. He’d taken it with him everywhere and he wouldn’t let any other cat play with it. Everyone had respected his desire and left him alone with the bird. A reserved but happy Hermes was a better company than a despondent one, as Hades once voiced to Themis. 

So this was nothing new. Perhaps Hythlodaeus did get what was coming for him. Perhaps Hermes should have left his bird behind in his bed when he’d gone to drink. But regardless, the bird only needed some cleaning, and possibly a little stitching as Themis had spotted some of the seams fraying. Hermes would get his blue bird back either tonight or tomorrow morning. 

Themis turned his attention back out the window. The sun had sunk so low, it was almost impossible to see beyond the line of trees across the street. The sky blazed red with dozens of golden streaks shooting out of one point from beyond the horizon, uselessly fending against the crowding darkness. On the streets, lamps flickered to life, casting orange glows against the glass that reflected off their pelts.

The throng of people had thinned outside. The shop would close soon. A couple of the humans lived in adjacent rooms so they wouldn’t be entirely alone. In a few hours, the humans would give them dinner and turn off the lights before returning to their abodes. Then the cats would have nothing to do but sit or sleep or stare somewhere across the room. 

Hythlodaeus rarely shut up. He’d talk about anything and everything and try to get everyone to be his conversation partner. On most occasions, it was Themis who indulged him, mostly because Hades quickly grew tired of it. Tonight, for once, Themis wondered if it would be a quiet night. 

“What do you see, Themis?” Venat’s soft voice broke through his reverie. 

Themis glanced at the older she-cat. With long snowy pelt and brilliant cerulean eyes, he’d sometimes heard human visitors ask if they were related—Is she the mom?—to which they would receive a chuckle and a shake of the head. Venat often took the joke further, calling him “son”, and Themis never minded to play the part. However, sitting side by side now and seeing their blurred reflection on the glass, he realized how similar they actually looked: same fluffy fur, same bushy tail that curled around their paws, same bright curious eyes. Except her fur was thicker, especially around her collar, and her tail was bushier. 

Her elegance masked her age. One wouldn’t have thought she was over ten summers old, only two years younger than wise old Hephaistos. The gleam in her eyes made her seem like a newborn kit who’d just had her first experience of the outside world, drinking every scent, every sound, and every sight that she could take. Her childish behavior often grated Hephaistos, especially whenever she rattled his cat tree, attempting to make him slip from his perch. One time, she walked past Hades and intentionally brushed her long tail over his nose. The grouchy tom had let out an earth-shattering sneeze that made Hythlodaeus and Hermes jump. 

Now she stared unblinking at the dimming light. Soon, the sun would disappear, and the first stars would wink to life. 

Themis followed her gaze. “I see the sky, boundless and free,” he said. “I see the trees, a vast expanse of green, like a carpet, stretching far into the horizon.” He looked down at the street below. “I see people, heading somewhere, doing something, all with a purpose, all with a destination in mind.” How nice they looked from his second-floor window sill—to see a crowd of humans going about their everyday life in their untroubled way, as though the only thing occupying their minds were their most mundane of concerns.

But Venat seemed to have a different thought. She barely glanced at the humans. Her gaze was fixed on the distant sky. 

“I see life,” she said. “Unbounded, unlimited life.”

Once upon a time, Venat had joined him on his window sill much like that evening. Only, the sun had just begun its slow climb over the sky then, and there hadn’t been as many people outside. In a whispery, wistful voice, she’d asked him, Have you ever felt it, Themis, this indescribable desire that spurs your very being? Every time I glimpse the open sky, I see the myriad possibilities to be discovered.

Sometimes Themis wondered if Venat was bored with her life at the shop—if she dreamed of leaving and wandering the earth. But the she-cat never required an answer to her rhetorical question. After posing her inquiry, she’d spent the next several moments marveling at the sight of the outside world, before a pensive expression slid across her face, just as it did now. Themis could almost count the seconds before it disappeared behind her mask of nonchalance once more. 

Venat looked at him and grinned. “Guess I better see how Hythlodaeus is faring.”

She leaped from the sill and strode to the cage at the other side of the room. Themis followed her retreating figure, then shifted his gaze up to Hephaistos, who’d long since closed his eyes. Whether or not he’d heard their short conversation, he didn’t show any signs.

Unbounded and unlimited life… huh?

On the street below, people still passed idly by—peacefully, serenely, seemingly free to do anything to their hearts’ content. He could see it—Venat’s vision—albeit his idea was rooted more on the humans inhabiting this star. 

Themis’s lips curled into a  small, quiet smile.

He left the window sill and followed in Venat’s wake.