Hiss awoke just after sunset to a familiar metallic clangor. With a sleepy groan, it groped for the noisy old clockwork alarm clock with its left tentacle, and with a sigh of relief, found it right next to its nest. Hiss had the good sense to hide the clock on the far side of its apartment when it needed to wake up in anything resembling a timely manner. No pressing appointments tonight, though.

 

The alarm switched off with a satisfying click, and the sleepy creature resolved to luxuriate in its soft nest a little longer.

 

 

Twelve minutes later, Hiss was rudely awoken from cozy near-slumber by familiar electronic screeching; it had, as always, forgotten about the second alarm clock, a hideously cheap plastic thing which of course sat on a counter juuust far enough away that Hiss couldn't turn it off without getting out of bed. With a rolling groan and a frustrated click of its now-extended mandibles, Hiss disentangled itself from its mess of blankets and pillows and plushies. Then, it twisted itself upright, hefted its wormlike lower body out of its nest, lurched gracelessly over to the counter, and mashed the "off" button on the little digital clock with impressive vigor. It was too late, though. Hiss was up, and Hiss was awake. It cursed itself for having figured out a working system for its mornings. Evenings. Whatever. Coffee time.

 

 

 

The rest of the world faded into irrelevance. The black brew encompassed Hiss's sensorium.

 

Musty. Musky. Powerfully earthy.

 

Rich, nutty overtones, but not sweet, and just a hint of bitterness.

 

Perfection♡

 

*ssslurp*

 

 

Hiss grabbed its homemade, handmade bags, shut its eyes, and took more than a few deep breaths. It could do this. It was a cunning, wretched creature of the night; a creeper in shadows, a predator in the dark where diurnal humans and affini feared to tread. It knew the rooftops and the alleyways where gentle affini light shone the least; the winding paths of greatest quiet and least social interaction. At its destination, it would brave the terror of friendly, well-lit aisles.

 

The hunter would have its groceries.

 

 

Hiss was well into the town proper and had just started slithering its way up a fire escape when it heard it.

 

"Hey, hey you! What are you? I really like your glowing eyes!"

 

Hiss froze. It felt its hemolymph run cold. Nobody ever took this alley. Hiss was supposed to be alone.

 

Hiss turned its head oh so slowly to look. An androgynous human with fluffy red cat ears was looking straight back. They smiled, and gave Hiss a little wave.

 

All pretense of stealth now consumed by blind panic, Hiss scrambled noisily up the remaining stairs of the fire escape, vaulted onto the roof, and bolted away. As it reached the rooftop's edge and coiled in preparation to leap to the next building, it realized with mounting terror that it could hear the stranger's footfalls below. They were pursuing it. Hiss was being hunted.

 

Block after block, building after building, leap after daring leap, Hiss continued to flee, but the feline stranger always kept pace with it, kept talking to it. The tiny part of Hiss's mind that was still thinking clearly realized that their pursuer was either a champion runner or had body mods beyond just cat ears. Then, as Hiss compressed itself like a spring for its next jump, that lucid part of it realized that it hadn't actually processed anything the stranger had been asking. And then realized, mid-jump, that it had badly misjudged the distance to the next roof. Hiss sailed into a metal balcony, bounced noisily off of it, and plummeted three more stories before finally hitting the hard ground with a dull, heavy thud. Hiss, battered and exhausted, took a break from high-level, wordsy thinking after that.

 

Hiss lay there quietly in the alleyway for, oh, about ninety seconds before it heard running, and then its pursuer's voice.

 

"Oh stars, there you are, please uh, please say something! Are you okay? Did you break anything? I was trying to tell you, I didn't mean to startle you so bad!"

 

Hiss had already lifted itself back upright, but as the waterfall of words washed over, panic started to take hold of it again. "Please, s-s-ssstop" it hissed with a shudder "T-too loud. Too, too much."

 

And then, everything was nice and quiet for a moment.

 

The stranger started talking again, but this time, they spoke slowly and softly, and with measured deliberacy. "I'm very sorry for overstimulating you. I promise to be more careful about that. Do you need help?"

 

"It'sss… I'll… be okay. Nasssty fall, but. Just bruises."

 

"All right," said the stranger, "I'm trusting you. You'd better not be hiding a cracked rib or something. I…" They paused for a moment. "I take it you're not the social type, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Want me to go?"

 

"...M'not, no. People are, ssscary. I'd usually tell you to piss off. Or run away, like you sssaw. But." Hiss slumped against the brick wall, its body shaking. "I just had a panic attack and then fell off a building. Ssstupid lizard brain's still convinced I'm in danger, and I, I need a distraction, and I-I'm sssorry I ran, I just, I just-"

 

"Shhhhh. Everything's all right. I'll stay as long as you need. Deep breaths."

 

 

True to their word, the stranger sat with Hiss in the alleyway for as long as it needed. They talked it through some breathing exercises, calmly and evenly. They also seemed to be doing their best not to stare, which the creature appreciated. After a few more moments, Hiss felt ready to speak.

 

"I… think I'm calmer now."

 

"I'm glad to hear that, friend" replied the stranger, with a gentle smile, before pausing for a moment. "I uh, I realize that, in retrospect, that 'Hey, what are you?' was a pretty rude way to try to get your attention", they continued, a bit sheepishly. "I'm sorry I startled you."

 

"Eh, it'sss far from the most impolite thing anyone's ever shouted at me. It was more the fact that I thought I was alone, only to get spotted while in the middle of, you know… sssneaking up to someone's roof."

 

"Oh. That makes sense, actually. Sorry. Again", they said, suppressing a grimace. "...I can go now, if you like. I assume you've got places to be."

 

"Wait," Hiss interjected. "You're the first stranger I've ssspoken to in ages, and you've been nice. I'm not going to tell my therapist I just let you beat yourself up and walk off."

 

"Beat myself up? Friend, you fell four stories onto concrete! I beat you up!"

 

"Yeah, well, I've got a pretty tough cuticle, and with all these body mods, my bones are probably like fifty percent affinium or plantechium or whatever at this point. You'll need to ssstep up your game if you want to actually hurt me" Hiss said with a toothy grin. "Anyways, want to trade usernames or something before we part ways? Or uh, crud, actually, wanna also trade actual introductions? I, jussst realized I never… asssked for your name…" Hiss mumbled a bit guiltily.

 

"No worries! I'm Kit! They/them pronouns. Name to match the uh." They gestured at their ears and to an impressively fluffy tail that Hiss hadn't actually noticed before. 

 

"Ah, like 'kitty', because of the cat stuff," Hiss remarked. 

 

"...You mean fox stuff, I assume? These are fox ears. Same with my tail." said Kit, a bit confused.

 

"R-right, of course. Anyways, I'm Hiss. It/its. I'm uh, not sure I've ever actually seen any images of foxes, so I just kind of… assumed."

 

"Hey, no worries, Hiss. I really like your mods, by the way; it's a striking look. Is it based on something?"

 

"Oh, lots of things!", Hiss replied excitedly. "The cuticle, that's to say, my 'skin', is like a velvet worm's. There's actually a small population of them out in the forest; they're extinct on earth outside of the pet trade, so I think some rich people must have brought some here and then lost them or let them go? Anyways, I went for a more snake-y sort of worm body, without the little hydraulic legs that velvet worms have. My tentacles, as you could probably tell, are like the arms on an octopus or a squid; they've got suckers just like the real thing, but mine actually branch into 'fingers' at the ends for a bit more dexterity!"

 

"What about the glowing eyes?" asked Kit. 

 

"Well," Hiss answered, "those I got mostly because glowing eyes are really cool, but there's lots of animals that either produce light themselves, or have symbiotic bacteria that produce light! It's called bioluminescence, and it's quite common in deep sea fish, like the needly-toothed ones my own front row of teeth are inspired by And uh…" Hiss's face sank a little "I'm not bothering you, am I? You've probably got somewhere to be too…"

 

"Hey, infodump all you want, Hiss; this is all super interesting. That said, I don't want to hold you up. Let's trade numbers and usernames and chat in the future!" said Kit, communicator in hand

 

Hiss nodded, and they wrote down each other's info. "Well," said Kit, "I should probably get going. You're a cool person, Hiss."

 

"Creature, not a person. And uh, yeah, you too, Kit". The two shuffled out of the alleyway, waved goodbye to one another, and then both turned to walk in the exact same direction.

 

"You uh, also going to the grocer?" asked Kit.

 

"Uh, yeah" said Hiss a bit awkwardly. "Guess you are too, then?"

 

"Mhm", replied its new acquaintance. "Want to hang out a little longer, Hiss?"

 

"Yeah, that sounds pretty alright" Hiss replied, as the two started to make their way.

 

"Hey Kit, wanna sssee my mandibles?" Hiss blurted out without thinking, immediately silently cursing its selfishness. Stupid. Keep making everything about yourself, see how much anyone-

 

"Oh hell yes", interrupted Kit with a grin.