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Erik Ahlberg had made it a habit of his to lay out food almost every day for stray cats.
He really loved those animals, though he was allergic. He just felt a connection despite having to stay as far away from them as possible,
particularly to one big maine coon that would sometimes visit from the forests around trolberg.
He named it Erik II.
So one morning, the head of safety patrol was bringing out a few bowls of dry cat food and water when he heard the noise of cats scrambling to get there first, but with that also a few branches cracking under more weight than from just a cat.
Though he is stupid, and didn’t think much of it at first or at last, he felt a bit...watched. “whatever.” He thought, “the cats probably feel watched,too.” And indeed, Erik was looking on while the stray cats gobbled up the food he'd placed on the porch as if they were never going to ever get any more of it. Ever!
Erik decided to sit down with his coffee and sipped on it, absentmindedly looking into the distance while the hungry cats feasted, making for some funky background noise until someone tapped him on the cheek, and promptly asked “hey do you have any REAL food?”
Mr Ahlberg, Chief Ranger of the Safety Patrol had never seen a girl so cat and jumped somehow further back into the seat, barely taking in her unusual features, before he realised that he was going to sneeze, and did.
Now, after all this he finally could utter a few words “the food I set out is perfectly good!”
He huffed and turned slightly away from the new visitor to try and avoid having its presence trigger his allergy.
“Well yeah but I'm in the mood for some Really good stuff…. Aaand I won’t leave until you gimme some~” For a little while, they just looked at each other, Erik not knowing what to say,with everything happening his dumb little brain could barely compute.
Still offended, and squinting at the catgirl, he eventually sighed and got up slowly, then stretched his back, which made a crackling sound in return. “Sure, sure, I guess you aren’t the first one who is a picky eater….” The man went inside and the unknown visitor followed close by at first but soon began to show more interest in her surroundings than expected.
She did eventually end up sitting on the kitchen counter, watching from a good distance how Erik Ahlberg presented her with 10 different kinds of meat from the fridge, none to her liking.
While he was preoccupied with trying to figure out if he had any frozen chicken in the freezer, the intruder was already knocking over a few things on the counter,
but none of them really did much other than make little noises that slightly pleased her, except for the bowl of candy.
The spilled colourful things just fascinated the catgirl. For one second, the middle aged man turned his head to look at her and had to laugh,
partially to cope with how he was going to have to tidy up all that.
“What's all this then huh?” he asked britishly with a hint of nervousness and irritation at the situation despite wanting to come off as dealing with this absolutely effortlessly. For a second he observed Lilith's tail as it swished around almost hypnotically but before he could look back at her face half the candy that was still in the bowl had already been consumed like it was nothing.
Now after this behaviour, Erik would HAVE TO take the bowl from her which he did manage to do while reprimanding her on how too much candy is not good for her and she should have some more respect, but this just prompted his visitor to run away without giving him the opportunity to say anything about it.
Somewhat bummed out, the guy just put the leftover fallen candy back in the bowl, put the meat back in the fridge, and realised about 5 other things that had been eaten from, like his bowl of strawberries and a banana.
it was only noticeable because it definitely hadn't been opened like a normal human would open a perfectly intact banana.
He would also come to realise an entire bag of cherries was missing.
After all this, a relatively normal day played out for Erik, with all his usual safety patrol duties that he let Gerda do most of and all his usual planning to become famous. For a second, he had considered maybe to delay his mechanical bell keeper plans because the bells ringing that much would also disturb stray cats.. but however much he felt for them, he felt the future he had envisioned for himself took priority over other beings.
Erik got home and simply went to bed after a nice, long bubble bath with a bath bomb that smells of oranges. His bed was absolutely huge, and would usually fit 2 more people his size in it but he still managed to take up most of it.
The night passed while the catgirl’s stomach growled like a tiger as she sat on the wall. A little kitty came up to her with that cherry bag and Lilith just grabbed some of them and shoved them in her mouth, accidentally swallowing some of the seeds while she hungrily ate as fast as she possibly could. The kitty received some pets as a reward and the humanoid one lifted it into her lap where it started purring. The rejected meat would likely come in handy someday, but for now all the smaller ones are able to survive off of the prey they collectively catch.
There were dark clouds at the horizon, and wind blew through Lilith’s wavy pink hair, while her sensitive cat ears twitched on occasion due to the sensation.It decided to pay that funny moustache-having man another visit later. Maybe for longer this time, if things go better then. The catgirl swore to herself she would stay longer this time even if she was to get startled.
After all, she knew some of the small cats had been in the normal human’s house before, and he didn’t kick them out himself, he simply avoided them and covered his nose around them.
So then the next day and the next evening rolled around, Lilith trotted back to the house, and jumped onto a windowsill to look inside, but aside from a nice bedroom, there was no trace of any stupid human men. ‘huh’ it thought. ‘Looks like I’ll have to go look for something myself, what a bummer!’
She set on now, to try and be its own provider.
In a random direction she wandered off, soon seeing the wall around trolberg. The bellkeeper in the tower was quite shocked to see what looked like a civilian parkouring over houses in the distance, and then,close by.”Hey, that’s dangerous, what do you think you're doing?!” He realised a bit too late that the catgirl wiggling its butt,staring intently at the window, was in fact preparing to jump in it.
Just in time, he dodged the projectile, who had already jumped back out of the other side when he turned around.She disappeared behind some bushes and trees, and set out to find whatever it could. It did find quite a few mushrooms that looked delightfully colourful but sadly Lilith had no way of telling which ones are poisonous or not. Oh well, a tiny bite won't hurt.
…
Tasted gross! It was tossed and Lilith continued on, at some point climbing onto a tree where a smaller cat was sitting, and a tiny one as well. They purred in unison as the setting sun warmed their paws.
After this tiny rest, Lilith continued to explore its surroundings for half an hour more, almost rounding the whole city.
Arriving at the foot of yet another mountain, it turned around to spot something. A lot of trollfires around, and a faint sound of..voices. A smell as well, mostly unrecognisable but Lilith wanted to investigate and hurried in that direction. Once in line of sight with a woman and two kids it didn't recognize, she immediately froze up, halting in the middle of a step not knowing what to do.
The blue kid was normal to see outside of the wall, but not these people, very strange, Lilith thought as it climbed a nearby tree. The scent of these people was now a lot clearer, a mix of blue kid, books, funny moustache man, responsibility and,,, a quite strong bug smell. Very suspicious, Lilith thought. It continued to watch them talk and have a decently good time, albeit seeming a bit shaken , but not that Lilith could relate right now, she didn’t see what happened to them.
They eventually went to sleep, giving the catgirl plenty of time to think of what to do.
But before she knew, the sun was already rising! She had just begun sniffing carefully at what they had with them. It was soon enough to identify the moustache man smell on the bug glass, and Lilith took it in between her teeth. It locked eyes with barely awake Gerda who was only capable of presenting a look of confusion during this tiny timeframe, and then bolted away.
“Wait, where are you going!”
“Deputy Gerda, I think she took the jar with Ahlberg in it!” the small boy said, while Gerda put on her hat and sighed. The emergency blimp was ready, and she could chase after this stranger but of course, finding Hilda and her mum is the most important part. Not that the head of safety patrol had any use here and she hoped the catgirl would just play around with the jar instead of consuming what is in it.
Lilith, proudly having captured the man of desire, was trotting back towards the city. It quickly hopped onto the wall, to sit down on it and take a first good look at the jar. The man-bug inside of it was not all too pleased with this climbing on city property, and buzzed insistantly. He was likely holding a rather quite epic speech in his head. The catgirl had to giggle at the little creature moving about so grandiously and yet, being perfectly contained.
Well, if there was no prey in the wild she would have to go look in the city for something.
…Unfortunately, no stores were open yet. Lilith could only look through the windows, and it stayed fixated especially long on a certain cake and pie shop she had found one and a half hours into its exploration of the city. The sun became visible in the glass as it rose higher and higher on the sky, and so with more people flooding the streets, Lilith instinctively made its way back over the wall and therefore towards the wilderness.
Gerda and the kids, now having reunited with the mum and her blue haired daughter with pronouns, decided that it was time to try and find the most useless man of Trolberg. He was still throwing a tantrum in the glass jar in Liliths mouth when she once more locked eyes with Gerda Gustav, this time conveniently unable to catch it as she was in the emergency blimp.
Lilith however knew she would be screwed if it decided to stay there in between the trees and felt forced to run back into the city, Gerda soon following after her. Everybody near them was too stunned to even speak, not to mention try and help the german woman in her endeavour to catch a catgirl.
Eventually, they reached what Gerda knew was a dead end and Gerda's "got you!" Startled Lilith so much she dropped the jar in a corner out of sight and it shattered. In a panic, it just took the Erik Ahlbug itself into her mouth and jumped a fence, once more escaping.
Gerda let out a sigh as Johanna and the others finally caught up to her.
Thinking Lilith had lost her, she went back to looking into the cake store again, and got incredibly distracted staring at all the delicious sweets, especially a little blueberry pie seemed enchanting.
What the catgirl hadn't realized until she spotted Gerda's reflection in the glass window however is that she was now surrounded.
It turned around to face everyone and her ears flattened down a bit in disappintment.
Deputy Gerda scanned Lilith's clothes, arms and hair trying to spot the bug-shaped man of her nightmares,until she eventually had to look Lilith back in the face and muttered, "Die hat da doch irgendwas im Mund!"
Lilith frowned, and crossed her arms. She just went back to staring at the pies. "Mm."
Gerda sighed. "If you give him back to us, I'll buy you one of the small cakes."
A smile as big as having a bug in its mouth would allow formed on Lilith's face. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue from which the bug-shaped man tumbled out into Gerda's gloved hand.
Gerda gently gripped him like a hamburger, then handed over a few coins with the other hand with which the Catgirl immediately dashed into the store to acquire the pie.
Lilith ate it absentmindedly and occasionally eyed the Ahlbug while following the group back into Safety Patrol HQ
Erik wasn't being as active as usual, seeming a bit sneezy for a bug.
He didnt complain at all being put on the table or when the circle of flames formed around him.
When he finally returned back to his usual stupid human form, he still didnt budge much.
Instead he sneezed once and with a whiny voice, declared. "I am allergic to cats…"