“Prince of Cats”

I am no friend of Montague.

My heart lies with Capulet—the mad one, my sister said, warning me too late as if I would have heeded her. She favoured my love’s enemy, on the strength of a wink in the marketplace. The flicker of a passing eye and she was sworn.

No such gentle flirtation for me. I was pinned by a black fire stare, which I freely met and held, and was hunted through the streets until I tired of the chase; too soon, some would say, but I am a kitten with claws.

To state that we loved would be too generous, for cats do not love. They can be fond and show affection, though mine preferred to tease when in a lighter mood. Such moods were rare. He came to me hungry, he came to me in anger, and, I think on occasion, in jealousy, testing my loyalty when he made no public claim. Unlike him for me, I was neither his first nor his only.

I was his last.

What demon drove him to loathe so fiercely a rival house when they had done him no ill that I could see? I ask this now, once all is said and done; to ask it sooner did not occur and surely would have been my end. It makes no matter now. He slew Mercutio—he of the flirtatious wink—and was slain in turn, by the unlikeliest of villains if the truth be known. The boy Romeo did avenge his kinsman with an unlucky thrust, but ’twas vengeance after all, spurred by love of kin over hate for an enemy. Even I, whilst choked with horror at the scene before the Prince, did see cause for mercy though Lady Capulet demanded more than banishment.

It makes no matter now. He is gone. They are all gone: Tybalt, Mercutio, Romeo—and Juliet, the Capulet cousin whose unfortunate passion brought untimely ends to all but the blood feud. Peace has finally come, but at such a price. A sorrowful peace, born of tragedy and loss too heavy to bear.

I do not trust this peace. I too must be gone.

And his child will go with me.