Unexpectedly turned into a cat, Kat falls into Middle-earth with the mission to prevent a death. In a feline form she can only communicate with the elf Legolas - and that he is such an attractive specimen is certainly not helpful...
A humorous (but...
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Aragorn and Arwen, by SaMo art
The idea that Winter could actually be enjoyable would never have occurred to Ramtop people, who had eighteen different words for snow.* (*All of them, unfortunately, unprintable.)
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
4. Winter Is Coming
It was a mirthless quest so far, and the days soon blended together, always following the same pattern; wake up in the evening, eat cold food and then walk, walk, walk all night and all morning. The bone-chilling wind was constant, and though it did not bother Kat directly she felt sorry for her companions who never seemed to thaw entirely. Even the elf complained of cold feet, but in his case she thought he ought to have known better than wearing shoes rather than stout boots like the humans did.
The only bright spots of the journey were the language lessons and the cuddling. The hobbits continued to take an interest in Kat's learning, and she finally managed to wrangle the reason behind that from Legolas; he had told them she was mentally disordered! Now everybody thought she was a poor, crazy cat who believed she was a human. It naturally annoyed her to no end, but no matter what she tried, the stubborn elf would not see reason. And as for the hobbits, she could not speak with them directly so there was no way to convince them otherwise either.
Unfortunately it was hard to stay angry with the elf. He really was very sweet most of the time and she enjoyed talking with him. In addition he was a great cuddler, nobody could manage to find just the right spot to scratch like him and he never pushed her away, even when she accidentally nibbled on the feathers of his arrows.
As time passed, the whole Fellowship began to accept Kat as a permanent addition to their numbers, although they obviously put her in the same category as Bill the pony – cute, amusing and possibly a tiny bit useful. In the pony's case his use lay in carrying things, for Kat it was the warmth her body provided under their blankets.
Not all of them were cat persons, that was obvious – and after a while Kat knew exactly who to avoid. Axe Guy was number one on her list, he clearly was a dog person if there ever was one, and in addition he looked so dangerous and cross all the time.
Number two was Gandalf the wizard, who maybe liked cats in general but since Kat could never resist toying with his impressive beard she had been banned from his lap.
Third on her list was Aragorn, the tallest of the lot. He was the kind of man she would never have approached as a woman and therefore saw no reason to do so as a cat either. He reminded her of that popular boy in school who was both good at sports, liked by teachers, smart enough to make good grades, kind to his many friends and handsome. The type all the popular girls had crushes on and who would later get a well-paid and important job, marry a beautiful (and nice) woman, have two well-behaved and pretty children and a large, friendly dog that he would play-wrestle with and call a 'good boy'. Aragorn treated Kat with indifference in her cat form, hardly noticing her most of the time, and she knew that would have been the case even if she were her true self.
