The Eye of a Cat

Cats don’t belong in the stars. They shouldn’t be up there to begin with.

But this didn’t change the fact that a little black cat sat among the stars, playing with them as they twinkled and glowed.

How this cat came to be in the stars, no one could say. Some say she was created by the stars themselves, for want of a playmate during the daylight hours. Some say that she wandered up into the heavens on a whim, curious about what there was to find up above the heads of so many. And others more said that she was the very darkness itself, stretching between each and every star.

She didn’t know how she got up there herself. She’d once been on earth, though that was a time from long ago. But she could remember her mother, a black cat much like herself, telling her stories about the stars up above. Maybe that’s waht did it, what brought her up so high. The stories that her mother told her to sooth her to sleep, to accept the gift of Hypnos.

But she wasn’t sure.

No one was.

As the cat grew older, she found herself lingering more in one place than any other. Near a world she’d once known, so long ago. There were people down there. Small, almost insignificant in comparison to the wide, dark expanses of the skies above. And yet they were so persistent, and the cat found herself sitting to watch them more and more, intruiged by their doings.

One night, while she was watching, her old friend came to visit her. The humans called them the North Star, and considered him to be very important indeed.

“What are you watching the humans for?” they asked, looking down towards the many sleeping humans.

“They are interesting,” Said the cat. “They’re very clever, and make many things. Many have taken a liking to my kin.”

The North Star hummed, watching with her for a moment.

“I hear stories,” They said after some silence. “The humans have noticed you. Or rather, they’ve noticed your eye.”

The cat looked over to her old friend, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“They can see your eye. It’s very bright against the night sky. They say that it grows and shrinks with the passing of the days every time you blink. And they say that the moon is watching over them, protecting them from things that might hurt them in the dark.”

The cat hummed in thought, watching quietly.

“Do they? Well that’s certainly interesting.”

“They’ve even given you a name,” Said the North Star. “Like they have given me. They’re calling you the Moon. A curious name, isn’t it?”

Again, the cat hummed, finding that she rather liked that name. She shifted in her spot, tucking her paws beneath her.

“Curious indeed. Humans are a strange breed, aren’t they?”

The North Star shrugged, in a way that only a star can shrug, biding the cat farewell before returning to his usual place in the sky. The cat continued to watch the humans curiously.

She decided that she was quite happy to remain where she was for a while longer. She rather liked the attention the humans were giving her. So she settled in and relaxed, watching on as the humans continued their existence down below her. Even as her whiskers grew longer and the fur around her muzzle started to grow silver like the stars around her. Still, she continues to look over the humans, slowly blinking at them as many times as she could bare.

The little humans loved her. And she, the Moon, loved them right back.