The Chronicals of Alaraf

Sraosha and the Drawer

Written by Aurelion [I guess it’s a real blog when I’m adding ‘guest posts’ again]

The problem with being a Pallas Cat named Sraosha is that everyone—including the Dean, the students, and the unfortunate human beings who believed themselves in charge—assumed he would remain perched quietly in his enclosure near the football field, contemplating the cosmos like a furry Bodhisattva with whiskers.

They assumed wrong.

Because tonight, Sraosha had left his enclosure again.

And this time, he was annoyed.

Not the polite annoyance of a normal cat—
not the “why is my bowl only half-full?” variety—
but the ancient Primordial Persian kind of annoyance, the kind that comes from being transcendent, beautiful, wise, and constantly underestimated.

He was a Pallas Cat, after all,
which meant half divine being, half small lion,
and 100% not inclined to tolerate nonsense.

Sraosha’s long whiskers  twitched as he padded silently across the campus lawn, his steps sinking into the frost-tipped grass. He was following the faint, metallic scent of old tuna, stale carpet, and human ego that he had learned to associate with one particular creature:

Old Man Tunafish.

The one who fed students to systems.
The one who locked cats in drawers.
The one who called it “love.”

A grave sin, as far as Sraosha was concerned. He had been accused of similar, but as a cat, and likely innocent of most charges.  He was a Pallas Cat, not truly a Palace Cat, although reputation suggested the opposite.

He followed the scent to the office building—the one with flickering lights, peeling carpet, and the distinct aura of a man who believed himself wise simply because others told him so.

Sraosha did not bother to open the door.
He simply phased through it like a polite ghost with fur.

Inside, Old Tuna Man was rummaging around in his infamous desk drawer.

The drawer.

The Drawer.

The Drawer of Suffering.

The Drawer of Cowardice.

The Drawer of “I love you best when you cannot move.”

“Ah,” said Old Tunafish cheerfully, unaware that Fate itself had entered his office, “there you are! My precious little calico. I know you’re in here somewhere. You always come back to the drawer eventually.”

“That is a delusion,” said Sraosha in the soft thunder of Catlish, which sounded to human ears like a gentle hrrmph.

Old Tuna Man froze.
Something in the air shifted.

He turned slowly.

There, sitting atop his desk, tail wrapped neatly around his paws, eyes full of the exact justice he had escaped for decades, was the Pallas Cat of Reckoning.  He made himself comfortable by standing on his own tail, as if the desk itself was contaminated.

“S-Sraosha?” the dean stammered, the color draining from his face.

“You seem surprised,” the Pallas Cat observed. “Yet you have been calling for me for years.”

“I—well—I didn’t mean—”

Sraosha blinked slowly.

…Not with affection.

The way only a being who has seen empires rise and fall can blink.

“You locked members of my line in a drawer,” he said.

“It was only sometimes,” said Old Tunafish, beginning to sweat. “Not always. And some were perfectly calm in there! Quite docile, actually. Some cats need confinement.”

“Incorrect,” said Sraosha. “You needed them docile. There is a difference.”

Old Tunafish sputtered.
His hand reached for a can of tuna, his only defense.

“Tuna will not save you,” Sraosha informed him.

“Can we talk about this reasonably?” the man begged, backing away from the desk. “Surely you understand—cats need structure, guidance, discipline—”

“You are describing fascism,” said Sraosha, hopping gracefully onto the armchair. “And poor cat husbandry.  You know nothing of ‘discipline,’ clearly…nor Guidance.  What can one learn from a drawer except the unfairness of man?”

The old man’s chin trembled.

“Do you… intend to kill me?”

Sraosha sighed, the sigh of an elder saint who had endured enough human foolishness to last several lifetimes.

“No,” he replied. “Although you seem frail, my 12 lbs and mighty height of being just over a foot tall shows only your lack of reason. Further, You now lack the spiritual significance to be worth the trouble, even if I were truly large or terrible.”

Sraosha flexed his prestigiously large claws for such a humble sized cat, then pointedly retracted them.

“Also, killing you would imply attachment to you.”

Old Tunafish looked insulted.

Sraosha continued:

“But the drawer ends tonight.”

The actual head of the school leapt down, padded over to the drawer, and nudged it open with one mighty paw.

Inside was the relic of captivity:

the tissue-box litter pan,

the crusted cans of tuna,

the sad, damp scrap of blanket,

and a single long silver cat hair woven into the corner.


Sraosha looked at the drawer with genuine pity.

“For a being who claims to love cats,” he said, “you never learned that love is shown by leaving the door open.”

The old man tried to speak, but the words failed him.

Sraosha sat back, contemplative, as he allowed the human anxiety to rise in his silence.

“You treated many free creatures as property,” he declared. “And you lied to yourself as much as to him, the last one…and the rest.”

“But he needed me,” the man whispered.

“No,” said Sraosha. “He needed warmth. You offered a drawer.”

He stood, his fur glowing faintly with something ancient.

“The one you tried to break has already found his clowder.”

Old Tunafish blinked.

“Clowder…?”

“Yes,” said Sraosha. “The Persian. The Calico. The Manx. The Bobcat. Even the angry gray one from the field.”

“And you?” the man croaked.

“I walk where I wish,” Sraosha replied.

“And what happens to me now?”

Sraosha padded toward the door and spoke without turning back:

“You experience what all captors eventually face.”

“What is that?” asked the old man.

Sraosha looked over his shoulder, eyes gleaming like twin moons.

“Shame, Isolation & irrelevance.”

He stepped through the door, and the drawer gently creaked shut behind him—
not locked,
but empty.

For the first time.

And then, the entire desk collapsed entirely.

It was ancient and poorly maintained otherwise, regardless.

Scratched into the remains of the top of the desk, deeply, by quite intense pressure from the back claws of an actual cat of unmistakable lineage.

“My legacy was never, ever your affairs to assume.”