Cats As Cats Can
Lalli slept, and as he slept, he dreamed.
They were particularly random, incomprehensible, and above all frustrating dreams tonight; a whole menagerie danced through them, with each different animal demanding something new of him, while a red-tail laughed in the skies above.
Fortunately, Emil was there, but he was a dog, a squirrel, a seal--another whole menagerie. And the others pressed home their demands, forcing Lalli to socialize--to deal with stupid, stubborn, nattery-chattery people who couldn’t just leave him be as he wanted. Still, Lalli was comforted by the presence of his best friend, even though they called each other different names in the dreams.
They went to Tuonela and back, always together, except when that infuriating red-tail ripped Emil-by-another-name away for a bit. When that happened, Lalli slumped into the waters of Tuonela, gloomily looking at the reflection that wasn’t Lalli Hotakainen at all--in looks, at least.
But it all worked out more or less all right. Lalli got to see Emil “kill” the red-tail, which was most cathartic. All the people quit bothering him, which was even better.
Then he and Emil were in a gigantic mechanical warrior, their minds linked together as they battled the monsters the Rash had spawned...
...only they were a painting in Lalli’s tatty old studio, waiting for Lalli to put the finishing touches on his latest creation...
...but Lalli was too busy hustling a weirdly-garbed Tuuri out of a tall cement building, while Emil fretted over how his explosives had knocked the safe they were supposed to open clear out into the street instead...
...Sick and fevered and twisted and why couldn’t he have died when it caught him in the dreamworld--but no, because Emil was there, making the pain better and worse, keeping him human, and he was Lalli again, instead of the näkki the Rash had made of him...
Lalli sat bolt upright with a gasp, sweat running down his face in rivulets. Barely a breath away from Lalli’s face, a large, glowing lynx stared at Lalli calmly, its unblinking eyes boring into his. So, his luonto had finally returned--but only after the ghost attack that could have killed all of them had been thwarted by Reynir and Onni. Stupid weird, foreign spirits.
Well, it was here now, anyway. They did the slow blink at each other, but a sudden noise had them both looking to see its cause.
A large, fearsome-looking lioness was meandering their way.
For a moment, Lalli thought it was Sigrun, or rather, whatever weird foreign equivalent of a luonto she would have. A moment’s consideration of the counter-indications--she wasn’t red, for one--brought the realization that this was, in fact, the kitten, as she saw herself. She proved this by coming right up to Lalli and his Lynx, chirping happily in greeting, and flopping down onto her back in a silent but pointed demand for a belly rub.
As Lalli was attending to Her Majesty, he looked over to where Emil sat, asleep. For a moment, the golden-haired Swede’s form shifted into that of a dog, then a somewhat pudgy red-head, before reforming into the softly flaming mass that was “the Firework”.
Lalli “the Phantom Strike” slept on, knowing he would need the rest to face what was to come...
