It was 4/21. In the basement beneath the burnt and bombed rubble of Alaraf, there was a classroom. On a stale, subterranean Tuesday morning, to maintain some routine normalcy, Duke Leto stood within it in front of sparsely attended desks. 

Two cats rested on the table in front of the whiteboard.

“These cats show two different types of exhaustion,” Leto explained.

He picked up the orange creamsicle Manx, who promptly covered his eyes with his little paws.

“This cat is over-exposed. So we put him in the box.”

And sure enough, there was a box labeled:

NON-LETHAL SCHRÖDINGER CAT SLEEPING BOX

Next was a darker cat with a lighter coat growing in beneath the old fur.

“Do not try this with this cat. Only I can reliably not get bitten.”

He demonstrated that the smaller cat was nearly asleep and could be lifted like limp pasta. The cat did not fight back.

He sighed.

“This one has burnout. So we also put him in the non-lethal Schrödinger cat sleeping box.”

So he did.

“Anyway. That concludes class on that question you did not ask.”

“What about the cats?” asked Professor Bird.

“What cats?” replied the elder professor, entirely deadpan.

---

Earlier, a headset had been removed from one cat, while the other had his fur tangled in Velcro. Neither fought, and Leto had to treat one for ear injury and the other for injury to feline dignity.

He understood the difficulty of being a visible fluffy cat all too well.

The fur roots and skin around the darker cat’s ears were nearly red.

---

Ruh knew he was asleep when he found himself before the scariest cat he had ever known.

It was not a room, per se. It was very dark, except for one ray of daylight cutting through the center from above.

The larger cat stepped into the light slowly and sat there patiently as Ruh approached, then sat on his haunches.

“I thought you hated me,” Ruh said, looking fully at the cat in the sunlight.

He had a nice suit, was very quiet, and carried the aura of a pillar. His tail twitched only slightly while the rest of him remained utterly still.

“I thought the same,” replied the quieter cat.

Ruh paced around him in silence. No claws were out. No fur was raised in defense.

The cat in the sunbeam held his impossible stillness for another moment, and then one eye betrayed him with a small involuntary wink.

Ruh sniffed him cautiously.

He did not move.

He smelled nice. [Vetiver, maybe.]

Ruh poked him very gently with a paw.

“Yes, I’m real,” came the reply.

Ruh sat again and tilted his head the way a canid does when trying to understand.

“Why aren’t you trying to claw me?” asked Ruh.

“Because I don’t hate you.”

“…Anymore?”

“Maybe not ever.”

Ruh sat with that for a moment.

“Maybe.”

Ruh replied uncertainly, “Why did you wear so many different coats?”

“I wore coats because the fur never came back right,” the older cat replied matter-of-factly. “I did not think you would respect me as I am now.”

Ruh blinked. “I was intimidated. I thought you did it because you could terrify a room, and if I mastered that, I’d be emotionally bulletproof.”

“How did that work out for you?”

“As well as it did for you, more or less.”

The older cat slow blinked at the younger still hiding in the dark.

“Just please don’t reinvent history too much,” said the larger talking cat. “It is hard enough to explain as-is.”

“I have no idea what you could possibly be implying about me.”

Ruh decided that cleaning his face was now the best possible use of his time.

“I’m just a cat. Alhamdulillah and meow.”

The larger cat finally moved from the sunbeam, only to herd the smaller one into sharing it.

“…And no more disappearing,” the quieter cat said.

“So you don’t hate me,” Ruh affirmed, as he hid beneath a variegated grey cat tail with zero underfur and more warmth than expected.

“No. Rest.”