Luminari

Chapter fourteen

By noon we made it out of the swamp and into the village, but this was no ordinary village. It was inhabited strictly by cat people, and every other species was only visiting. Cat people were tall humans covered in cat hair with cat shaped heads, pointy cat ears and tiny triangle shaped cat noses. They spoke English and wore clothes like people, they drove carts with horses and lived in little town houses. There were cat police officers roaming the streets, cat children playing in their yards, and poor cats begging for money.

"I'm thirsty let's stop some place for a drink," Inola suggested pulling me into a tavern.

The tavern was a small, crowded room with lively music and cheering people, the bar served regular drinks like beer and wine to adults but also severed dozen drinks made from milk, milk shakes, chocolate milk, fish flavored milk (I gaged while reading that), and just plain regular milk.

Inola sat down at the bar and ordered herself a strange drink made from tree bark then the bartender turned to me and asked what I wanted. The bar tender was a fat orange cat with a flat face and wide frown, he wore a dirty apron and blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He rolled his R's like he was purring.

"Just plain milk."

"You don't even want chocolate?" the bar tender asked in disbelief.

He pulled a glass milk bottle off the shelf and poured the slightly warm drink into a dirty broken cup then handed it to me. I was never the biggest fan of milk, but I liked it even less at room temperature, the milk was really thick and fatty like cream and left a strange taste in my mouth. The door was thrown open and a tall, dark human boy wearing bright red swim trunks ran past everyone. He practically leapt over the bar and locked himself in the bathroom.

"Holding it in too long?" A tabby cat with a bowl of fish milk in his hand joked and everyone started laughing.

Suddenly the door was kicked open and an eight-foot-tall black cat with a large wooden club in his hands came charging in. He wasn't wearing a t-shirt or shoes and he drug his tail behind him like a limp rope, his muscles were huge and thick like a body builder, and he looked angry his nostrils flared and his eyes bulging.

"Where is he?" the cat roared, and everyone pointed to the bathroom.

"Oye, Mitch you've got to where a shirt and some shoes if you want to come in here," the bar tender said and Mitch growled he lifted up his club and brought it down on a table, he cracked the table in half and knocked all the drinks over onto a striped, gray cat's lap.

"Dude these are my best trousers my wife's going to kill me if she finds out I've been drinking," the cat shouted getting up in Mitch's face.

Mitch balled his paw into a fist and punched the gray striped cat in the face. Before my eyes the entire bar started to fight, drinks were being thrown and men were punching and clawing each other, screams of terror and irritated hissing filled the air. Inola grabbed me and lead me out of the bar weaving around, over, or under the fighting cats and smashed furniture then out the door.

"On the bright side we didn't have to pay," Inola said with a chuckle fascinated by the drunken bar fight peering through the windows to see more.

"Do you think that kid is going to be okay?" I asked looking for the boy in swim trunks.

"Who knows, come on we have to find a horse," Inola said leading me away from the bar towards the street market.

The market was just like any market only I noticed there was more fish and yarn then there would normally be. We found a bright white cat standing in front of a horse stable she was wearing a colorful rag dress, with a golden nose ring hanging from her nose, her ears covered by a red bandana.