Fish Out of Water: The Catgirl Fishing Isekai

Part 1

 

Making A Splash

Chapter 1

 

????????

????-????

Uuuuugh…

 

I was floating, half in and half out of sleep, my consciousness tentatively rising towards awareness, finding only pain waiting for me there.

 

Nnnnnh… not yet. Five more minutes…

 

I tried to urge my mind to sink again, to drop back into that blissful abyss, and leave my aching body behind. But, try as I might to coax it back, oblivion refused to claim me again, and I was borne upwards like a bubble of air from under the water, until my head broke the surface and I forced myself to try and move.

 

Ooough… okay, that's enough of that.

 

The moment I tried, the throbbing in my skull cranked up several notches. Settling back down, I felt the room spinning around me. That, combined with how empty my stomach felt and how sore my throat was, led me to believe I'd definitely thrown up recently.

 

Great, this was just great. I must have gotten drunk at the stupid boat party, despite telling myself I wouldn't, and now I had the mother of all hangovers.

 

I wondered if I'd even managed to make it home, and if not, whose house I was currently convalescing in. Best-case scenario, I'd been able to beg Morgan to let me crash at her place. Worst-case scenario, I was in Mandy’s parents’ lakehouse with the other drunken idiots from the night before, which was not a place I’d want to be even if I wasn’t hungover.

 

At the very least, I’d found a comfortable place to pass out. It felt like I was lying on an actual bed instead of curled up in a bathtub with a couple of pillows, and someone had draped a soft, if slightly smelly, blanket over me. As I lay there, counting my vanishingly small number of blessings, I became aware of a pair of voices, speaking in hushed tones somewhere nearby.

 

“—fine the last time I checked on her, but she’s still pretty out of it.”

 

The first voice was deep and rich and rough, a voice that had been dropped on the ground and kicked around for a few years, with an odd accent I couldn’t quite place.

 

“Poor thing. I’m surprised she even managed to survive at all.”

 

The second voice was similar to the first, but a little less deep and far less craggly, with a more melodic tone to it, a voice I would call “husky” if it belonged to a woman. I wondered who they were talking about. Someone who’d gotten hurt last night? Wouldn’t surprise me, with how rowdy a boat full of drunk young adults could get even without leaving the pier.

 

“As am I. Shook Nils up pretty bad,” Craggly spoke again, and I heard a scraping, rasping noise that I identified as fingers being brushed across a stubbly cheek. “I’m sure whoever pushed her counted on her not surviving it.”

 

“So you do think she was pushed?”

 

Oh, woah, slow down. I knew things had been getting wild, but did someone really get so wasted they pushed some girl overboard and she got seriously hurt? Was I listening in on two cops or something?

 

“Felda, she fell outa the sky in the middle of the night. Tweren't no island’s passin’ overhead last night, and even if there were, she woulda died for certain fallin’ from that high. No, had to be some high society kid, cruisin’ by in his lord father’s cloud skiff.”

 

“But why? Who’d want to hurt a harmless little thing like her?”

 

“Why do the uppercrusters do anything? To screw one another over, or to screw us down here. My guess is, either she was a toy that someone’s kid got sick of, or she saw somethin’ she ought not have.”

 

Uuhhh… what? What on earth was all that? Had someone left a TV on in the next room over, and I was just so out of it I’d thought they were real people speaking?

 

Since returning to sleep had slipped out of my grasp, and I wasn’t doing anything lying there but racking up questions trying to decipher the weirdest sounding television show I’d never heard of before, I figured I should take another swing at getting up and getting my bearings. Steeling my resolve, I took a deep breath and tried to ease myself into a sitting position.

 

“Uuuuughhnnn…” I groaned in a mixture of pain and exertion, but managed to sit up on the bed, whereupon I found I hadn't just given one blanket, but had been entirely cocooned in them. They were heavy, and felt like old wool, which probably explained why I was feeling so warm.

 

“Hear that?” Husky voice spoke up again. “Sounds like someone’s awake.”

 

Hmm. That was either incredibly coincidental timing on the TV’s part, or something… weird was going on. I needed to be able to see, and that meant opening my eyes and wrestling my way out of all those blankets.

 

After wriggling my shoulders and loosening the tightly-wrapped wool enough that I could raise my arms, I grabbed the edge of the blanket draped over my head and threw it back, blinking open my eyes to take in my surroundings for the first time.

 

I was in a bedroom, that much was certain. The walls, floor, and every bit of furniture I could see were all wood, and there was something about the room that screamed “rustic” at me. Maybe it was all the weird old trinkets on the shelves and walls; I counted no less than fifteen different seashells. There was also an old rope net that looked like it belonged in a museum, a fancy looking brass telescope resting on a wooden stand, and… were those harpoons hung up on the wall above the bed?

 

This place even smells old, I thought after a quick sniff brought in strong scents of dust and wood polish.

 

Speaking of the bed, I was positively swimming in it. It was so wide it could have fit about eight of me in it side-to-side, with room for two or three more at the bottom. Across from the bed was a wooden writing desk, a large book resting open in the center of it. In the corner was a wardrobe so tall it almost touched the ceiling, and next to it was one of the windows that was letting in so much sunlight. I didn’t have the best view through it from my vantage point, but I could definitely make out crashing waves in the distance, which meant I was still up by the lake. But I was also dead certain that no room in any house owned by Mandy’s parents would ever look like this.

 

I really hope I didn’t wander down the beach and break into someone’s condo or something.

 

The last stop on my visual tour around the bedroom was the door — wood, of course — which had been left cracked open about an inch. A few scant seconds after my eyes fell upon it, it was pushed open the rest of the way, and a man walked in.

 

As I’d expected, I had never seen this guy before in my life. Whoever he was, he was huge, and old, pushing fifty, by the looks of it. His skin was weather-worn and tanned, and his rough-cut hair was coal-black at the top, fading to gray at the sides. His cheeks and chin were sprinkled with so much stubble that it looked like someone had tossed a fistful of coarse ground pepper in his face. He wore a blue, high-necked woolen sweater and sturdy-looking black pants held up by suspenders, of all things, and just his forearms alone — exposed by his rolled-up sleeves — looked powerful enough to rip tree trunks out of the ground. If the strong scent of old fish and seawater coming off him didn't clue me in that he was the real deal, I would have asked if he was doing Moby Dick cosplay or something. And if he wasn’t probably furious with me for being in his house.

 

“Oh, good, you’re up,” the man said, in the grumbliest, rumbliest, strangely soothing-est baritone I had ever heard. Like someone was pouring hot chocolate into my ears, damn. “How are you feeling?”

 

It was also one of the voices I’d heard speaking in the other room.

 

“Uhh…” I said, clearing my throat several times, unable to shake the sensation that something felt wrong with it. I took a quick internal inventory and concluded that I was feeling pretty terrible. My mouth was dry, my muscles were sore, my back ached something furious, my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and worst of all, I was starving.

 

“Like garbage,” I concluded, pulling the blankets back around myself. Yeah, my voice sounded weirdly high, did I damage it while puking or something?

 

“Well I ain’t surprised,” the old man said, and I rolled my eyes. The last thing I needed was this old sea dog lecturing me about drinking too much, I knew I couldn’t hold my drinks. “You hit that water mighty hard. You’re damned lucky Nils an’ I were there, or you’d be feedin’ the fish out in the bay by now.”

 

Huh?

 

“I… I did?” I asked, confused. Did one of those jackasses push me out of the boat? It was Chad wasn’t it? I bet it was Chad. It wasn’t even that big of a boat, how could falling that distance leave me hurting this much. And why was I in this dude’s… nautically-themed bed and breakfast and instead of, like, the hospital?

 

“Aye, that you did,” the man said, nodding solemnly and stepping a little further into the room. I really couldn’t place his weird accent and it was driving me nuts. I realized he had a bundle of folded cloth in his hands, which he set down on the end table beside the bed. “Managed to find some clothes that might fit you, they won’t be what you’re used to, but they’ll keep you from catchin’ a chill.”

 

“W-wait, what’s wrong with my—” I started to ask while parting the blankets to see what could possibly have happened to my clothes, only for several revelations to hit me at once.

 

“I’m naked!” I cried, pulling the blankets tight again.

 

“Y-yes,” the man said, putting his hands up and backing away.

 

“Why am I naked?!” I demanded.

 

“I don’t know, lass, that’s how we found you!” the man shouted back, backing up into the doorway again. I heard a series of rapid thuds and someone else appeared behind him, peering in over his shoulder.

 

“Everything alright in here?” asked the… woman? She was the husky voice I’d heard earlier, but she was huge, taller than the old man, and when she poked her head in I saw that she had skin that was tinged faintly sea green, and two tusks that jutted out from the bottom corners of her mouth.

 

“Nyach!” I let out an inarticulate yelp, as I’d been scooting away from the mysterious old man who’d apparently found me naked and brought me home, and I’d finally run out of bed to scoot, thumping onto the hardwood floor and bringing the blankets with me.

 

“Guess not.” I heard the large woman say as I struggled to my feet. Keeping the blankets wrapped tight around myself, I continued to stumble backwards until my back hit the far wall, rattling some of the trinkets on the shelves behind me.

 

“Ah!” I yelped again when something moved in my peripheral vision, but it was just a full length mirror, in which I finally got a good look at myself.

 

I was shorter than I’d been yesterday, that much was immediately apparent. I’d always been “that tall kid”, and If I was being honest, I always kind of hated it, hated sticking out that much. I was less than thrilled to learn I had topped out at six feet, two inches as of my last birthday, but now it looked like I would be lucky if I could even reach five. My hair was also much longer, and an entirely different shade, having gone from a plain brown mop to an outrageously-vibrant orange mane that floofed out in all directions and cascaded down my back. And, as I watched, something moved in the mass of hair. Swallowing hard, I stepped closer to the mirror to get a better look.

 

There were large cat ears growing out of the sides of my head where my ears should have been. They were covered in orange… fur, I guessed, that was the same color as my new hair. They twitched as I watched them, and I could clearly feel the motion all throughout the back of my skull as muscles and tendons I didn’t have a day ago moved on their own. Shivering slightly, and acting out of a sense of morbid curiosity, I parted the blankets again, and got a look at the rest of my body.

 

And there it was.

 

A tail. About two-and-a-half feet long, maybe more, sprouting out of the small of my back, and covered in the same orange fur as my ears. Also like my ears, once I was aware of its presence, it was second nature to raise it up and, lacking anything better to do with it, loop it around my waist like a belt. It went all the way around, and then some.

 

So, to recap; I was in an unfamiliar house, with two people I’d never met before in my entire life, one of whom might not even be human, without even so much as some clothes upon my back, and I was now some kind of… half-human, half-cat thing.

 

Oh, and I was also a girl now too. That was definitely different, and, on top of everything else, way too much for my aching brain to handle.

 

“Ah, Bart, look out, she's going to—”

 

■ ■ ■ ■

 

Three stars continued their slow trek across the sky.

 

Somewhere else in the world, thousands of miles from the first, in an region of the southern central seas known as the Sea of Blades, hotly-contested waters frequented only by desperate pirates and even more desperate fishermen, another body hit the ocean. This time, there was no one around to see, and no one to jump into the water after them.

 

Two stars continued their slow trek across the sky.

 

Further across the ocean, in the coastal town of Strom's Landing, on the western edge of the island of Fulgar, homeland of the Fulminous Empire, a tired shipwright finished a last-minute inspection on the brigantine he and his employees had spent the last season and a half building. In the morning, the Royal Admiral and representatives from the church would arrive to carry out the blessing and dedication, and then this ship would join the rest of the royal fleet in their continuous campaign to establish the Empire’s foothold on the seas. While the man continued to run down his checklist, the ship let out a series of quiet creaks and groans.

 

A single star continued its slow trek across the sky.

 

Across that very same island, at a farm located in the outskirts of the Royal City of Lichtford, a farmer stirred from a deep slumber. Checking first on his wife and children, he stepped out of his door and made his way towards the modest barn where his livestock could be heard, kicking up a fuss, carrying with him a hastily-lit lantern and a sturdy iron poker from his fireplace. As he walked, he paused to regard the night sky, and the curious purple star he glimpsed for only a moment before it disappeared. Then, something hurdled from the sky as if slung by the moon herself, carving a large chunk out of the barn roof and coming down in the south field, digging out a huge trench in the dirt before finally coming to a stop in a smoking crater.

 

■ ■ ■ ■

 

With a jerk, I opened my eyes again.

 

“Oh, she’s back,” a husky, gentle voice said.

 

Looking around tentatively, I found I’d been put back in the bed. The giant woman with greenish skin had pulled out the chair from the writing desk and was seated at the foot of the bed. When my eyes fell on her she gave me a kind, if tusk-filled, smile.

 

“Welcome back, dear,” she said. “That was a close one.”

 

“What happened?” I asked, glancing around the room. “And where’d the old guy go?”

 

The woman broke into a fit of giggles, bringing a hand up to her mouth, try, and failing, to stifle them. I didn’t think it was that funny.

 

“Ah, you fainted for a little bit there,” she finally answered after she finished laughing. “And I sent Bart back downstairs. Just us now, I figured that would make you more comfortable.”

 

“Wh…” I started to say as I sat up, and my chest… moved in a way it never had before that sent my heartbeat skyrocketing. Clutching the blankets tightly in my fists, I cleared my throat again.

 

“R-right… Uh, where am I?” I quickly changed the subject, asking perhaps my most pressing question.

 

“You’re in the upstairs bedroom of my inn, The Crooked Hook,” the large woman explained. Oh, so it wasn’t the old guy’s place. Apparently, something in my expression must have told her I was still confused, because she laughed again.

 

“Ah, forgive me, you meant where, in the world, are you, of course. You’re in the village of Rower’s Rest, on the island of Torgard, in the West Seas,” she elaborated, motioning at one of the windows, which had been opened and was letting in a gentle, salt-scented breeze.

 

“Oh,” I said, as though that explained anything. Well, it did at least explain why everything smelled so strongly of the sea.

 

“I’m sure it’s a long way from home for you,” the woman said, standing up from the chair, and boy, was she tall. Taller than I was, er, than I was before I’d apparently shrunk by a foot and become a cat… girl… thing.

 

“You have no idea…” I muttered, too quiet for her to hear.

 

“But, we can worry about that later, when you’re feeling better. Right now, I imagine you just want to get dressed, and I bet you’re hungry, hmm?”

 

“Uh, y-yeah,” I agreed, clutching my stomach through the blankets. Now that I was wide awake and probably not about to faint again, my body was making all its complaints known to me. The woman nodded, walking around the bed and reaching for the folded pile of clothes the old man (Bart, she’d told me his name hadn’t she) had left on the side table, grabbing the first item on top and holding it up.

 

“Come on then,” the woman prompted while I just stared at the article of clothing in her hands.

 

“It’s a dress,” I said.

 

It was a dress. Canary-yellow, embellished with white stripes, thin shoulder straps, and a strip of cloth that ran through a set of loops around the waist.

 

“Yes, a friend of mine has a daughter who recently moved to the city, she left behind some clothes she’d outgrown, so I was able to borrow this,” the green-skinned woman explained, again missing the point of my hesitation.

 

“Could I just get… some pants? And a shirt?” I asked. It seemed ridiculous to care that much about the clothes I’d be wearing with so much else going on, but I was still coming to terms with my new body, and I didn’t think I was ready for something like that dress.

 

The large woman, for her part, seemed taken aback by my request for a moment.

 

“Are you sure?” she asked, and I nodded my head. Lowering the dress and folding it over her arm, she brought one of her hands up to rub at her chin, looking me over. “Hmm… I think the baker’s boy is about your size. I can run and see if he’s willing to part with a pair, if you’re okay waiting for a while longer?”

 

“Absolutely,” I said, emphatically. Smiling again, she folded the dress back up and set it back down on the table.

 

“Alright then, I’ll be right back. I’ll tell Bart not to bother you, and you stay put up here, okay?” She paused at the door, waiting for my response.

 

“Okay,” I agreed. She nodded and opened the door, stepping out into the little hall area I could see beyond and pulling it shut behind her.

 

Finally alone in the room again, I slid out of the bed, taking the blankets with me, and started pacing around the room. Question after question rebounded inside my head. What on earth was going on here? How had I gone from a boat party on a lake to the ocean off the coast of some island? Why was that woman so huge and green? Why was I a cat?

 

Making sure the blankets were tightly closed, I stepped up to the open window and poked my head out to try and get a better look at where I was.

 

“Woah…”

 

The view out the window was breathtaking. I was on the second floor of a building that was a part of a row that sat opposite a row of docks, a stone's throw away from the ocean. We were on one edge of the coastline, which continued for miles into the distance, the docks giving way to a stretch of beach that wrapped around the far edge and continued unseen past an outcropping of cliffs. There were dozens upon dozens of boats of all makes and models tied up at the docks, and even more visible out on the bay.

 

Turning my head to the left, I could see the rest of the village as it sprawled out from the coast, a series of roads that ranged from wide enough for two carts — whoa, actual horse-drawn carts? — on either side, with room to spare for people to walk, down to narrower streets that could only be traversed on foot. Following the largest road that ran through the rough middle of the village, I found it continued to the direction I was thinking of as north before hooking to the left and vanishing into some grassy plains. Even further beyond that, I could make out a forest, and some large swaths of cleared land that I guessed were farms. The forest continued for miles before the land began to slope upward, gently at first, then more harshly, before finally terminating in a range of towering mountains that cut off my view of the horizon.

 

“Wow,” I breathed. It was beautiful, the kind of place you’d put on a postcard, the kind of place you’d see an advertisement for on some vacation site, and comfort yourself with the fact that there’s no way a place that looks that nice could still actually exist. And yet, here it was.

 

Still partially leaning out the window, I took a deep breath in through my nose, eager to find out if the air was as fresh as it looked, and I reeled. From the moment I began to inhale, a tsunami of smells entered my perception and overwhelmed my aching brain.

 

I could smell the salt of the sea, of course, but that was just the opening act. I could smell multiple fires burning, probably what was producing those pillars of smoke dotting the rooftops. I could smell the tang of sweat, coming off the crowds of sailors and fishermen, which was thankfully quickly drowned out by the sweet scent of fruit, the heady smell of fresh vegetables, rich earthy tones like well-fertilized dirt, and meats. I could smell someone cooking meat, somewhere in the distance as though I was standing right next to the grill. But most of all, I could smell something heavenly that made my mouth water and my empty stomach clench, it was something indescribable, something…

 

Someone was knocking on the door.

 

“Are you okay in there, dear?”

 

It was the large woman. She was back. How long had I been standing there at the window just smelling things?

 

Shaking my head, I hustled over to the door and called out.

 

“Y-yeah!”

 

The door opened, slowly, and the woman poked her head in. She saw me waiting a step in front of the door and jumped slightly, but covered it with a smile.

 

“There you are,” she said, holding up a new bundle of folded cloth.

 

“Thanks,” I said, reaching one arm out of my blanket cocoon to take the clothes. For some reason, the woman hesitated.

 

“Are you sure you can manage on your own?” she asked, and I furrowed my brow.

 

“Of course!” I snapped, a little put out, and she nodded and passed me the bundle, stepping backwards into the hall.

 

“Alright then, I’ll just be out here if you need a hand,” she said, and closed the door once more.

 

That was… weird, right?

 

I couldn’t tell if she thought I needed her help getting dressed because I was injured, or if she was just treating it as a matter of fact. Well, at least she didn’t push the issue.

 

Stepping well away from the windows, I let the blankets drop. Repeating a mantra of “Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down,” I pulled the off-white cottony shirt out of the bundle and tugged it on over my head. After a brief struggle to fit my head through the neck hole with my new ears, I let the shirt drop. It fit, if loosely, and the sleeves were just a bit longer than they needed to be, so I had to roll them up to be able to use my hands. I picked up the pants next, but then thought better of it and searched through the pile until I found…

 

What are these called again? Breeches? Bloomers?

 

Whatever they were, they were a pair of small white shorts with a loose set of strings at the front to tie them up. If I thought of them as just very loose boxer shorts, they weren’t so bad. Finally, I grabbed the dark-colored pants and tugged them up my legs, again finding them a bit too baggy. After tightening the leather-laced front, I stood up, took a step, and they immediately fell down my legs.

 

“What the…” I started to say, before realizing what the problem was. The awkward position of my tail (and how quickly I was starting to think of it as my tail), sprouting just above my backside, prevented me from getting the pants fully up around my waist and hips unless I tucked it fully inside. Trying that, and finding it incredibly uncomfortable after only a few seconds, I found myself at a loss.

 

“How’s it going in there?” the husky voice came through the door again.

 

“Fine!” I shouted, as though I were just trying on clothes at a department store and she was just a pushy attendant. But things weren’t fine, and I didn’t know what to do. And for some reason the frustration of that realization was making my eyes sting.

 

“Actually…” I called out a second later. I didn’t like asking for help, especially after I was so insistent earlier, but I figured these were special circumstances. “Do you have some scissors? Or a knife?”

 

“A knife? What for?” she asked, concern in her voice.

 

“I, uh… I can’t… it’s… my tail,” I explained in fits and starts, and I heard her move outside the door, followed by a soft smacking sound.

 

“Oh, of course, how could I forget! In my desk, right side, top drawer,” she instructed, and I hurried over to the desk as carefully as I could while holding the oversized pants up with both hands. Pulling out the indicated drawer, I found several little black sticks, a few jars of black liquid, a folded stack of papers, and the promised scissors.

 

“Do you want some help?” the woman asked again as I held up the scissors to examine them.

 

“No!” I shouted, automatically, but again, thought better of it. I was pretty sure I could handle something as simple as cutting a small hole in some pants, but what if I screwed it up? How many more pants could I ask this lady I’d just met to borrow from her friends and neighbors if I made a mistake? If the past was any indication, that was highly likely…

 

So, swallowing my pride, I shuffled over to the door and eased it open a crack. The woman was waiting with her back against the opposite wall, and looked up at my quiet cough.

 

“A-actually… I could use a hand,” I admitted. Her lips curved upwards, and once again she gave me a smile, strangely soft and somehow so gentle and caring seeming despite being flanked by those tusks.

 

Between the two of us working together, the large woman was able to pick out a spot in the seat of the pants that, when given a small hole, would allow me to slip my tail through and rest comfortably against the base. It wasn’t perfect, but my pants weren’t going to keep falling down at least. Rolling the legs up like I had the sleeves of the shirt, I was, finally, some approximation of dressed again.

 

“There you go,” the woman said, stepping back from inspecting her handiwork. “That should hold for a while until I can sew the edges of the hole up, but try not to move it about too much.”

 

“Thanks,” I said, while she replaced the scissors on her desk. While she'd been working behind me, I couldn't help but get a few nosefuls of her — not like I was trying to, or anything, just, it seemed like my nose was working overtime, and had been since I woke up — and found that in addition to salt and sweat, she also smelled faintly of grease, flour, and for some reason, moss. I also, belatedly, realized that was the same smells I’d been picking up from the blanket earlier. I’d have to remember to apologize later for stealing her bed.

 

“You’re welcome, dear. Now, how about some lunch?”

 

Lunch? Oh, well, it was probably past breakfast time then. I moved to follow her back to the door, but paused. My eyes wandered to the corner of the room, where the full-length mirror stood in its stand.

 

Did I want to know? Did I want to see?

 

Clenching my fists, I stalked across the room until I stood before the mirror, and opened my eyes.

 

Woah.

 

Unlike when I’d looked out the window, I didn’t say it out loud, but I sure felt it. The style of clothes were a bit off, but with how loose and baggy they were, mixed with the serious case of bedhead my hair had going on, I looked… cute. I looked like I should have been taking selfies and posting them online with cheeky little comments.

 

Just woke up like this, I thought, turning slightly to the side and putting a hand on my hip.

 

Felt cute, might delete later. Again, I turned the other way, unable to stop myself from snickering at the thought.

 

I only meant to look for a second, but after dropping the silly pose, I found myself lingering there, in front of the mirror, tracing the edges of my new face with my eyes. From my cheeks to my chin to the shape of my nose, everything had been softened and rounded out. Not like I’d been given an entirely new face, just like the old one had been reshaped, ever so slightly. Just like I’d always felt uncomfortable being the tallest person in a crowd, ever since I started shooting up like a weed in middle school, something about my face had always bothered me. So what did it mean, that I didn’t feel like I was missing that lost foot of height, that this face didn’t seem to bother me at all?

 

That I couldn’t stop my lips from curling up into a smile?

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement, and remembered where I was and what I was doing. The large woman was waiting by the door, watching me with a bemused expression. I blushed — I could tell I was, I saw it in the mirror — and hurried over to join her.

 

“S-sorry!” I stammered, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. What had that been? I usually never bothered to look at myself in the mirror for longer than I needed to, and I tried not to need to very often, but twice now I’d gotten caught up staring at myself like some kind of dopey weirdo. I shook my head, and hoped that getting some food in my stomach would make my brain stop aching and let me collect my thoughts.

 

Following the large woman down a set of stairs, one thought rose to the surface, and that was that I couldn’t keep thinking of her as just “that large woman.”

 

“So, uh…” I began, and she looked over one of her broad shoulders at me. “Who… are you?”

 

“Oh!” she started. “My apologies, where is my head today? My name is Felda Stoutsinger, but you can just call me Felda.”

 

“Felda…” I said, trailing off as I tasted the name. That was… That was a name and a half alright.

 

“That’s right,” Felda said, smiling. She continued to smile at me for what I realized was too many seconds of silence before she tilted her head forward slightly. “And, what can I call you?”

 

“Oh, Sssss…”

 

…sssshit. I hadn’t thought about what usually happens after you ask someone their name. I couldn’t give her that name, it definitely wasn’t a girl’s name. Well, maybe it could be, but it would definitely stick out. I wracked my brain for something better, something that at least still started with the letter S.

 

Sarah? No, too bratty little sister. Susan? No, too weird coworker. Sabrina? No, not unless I felt like finding a broom, a giant hat, and a talking cat.

 

Wait.

 

“Ssssam… anth… a?” I tried, then, because I completely mangled the delivery, repeated it. “Samantha.”

 

“Samantha?” Felda asked, like she was asking me to confirm once more before she could believe me. Hearing the name from her made it sound even weirder, but not… bad weird, just weird weird.

 

“Or Sam, for short!” I hastily added. “Sam works too!”

 

“Hmm, okay then, Sam,” Felda said, and for some reason that felt a bit less weird. “You go take a seat at the counter, and I’ll be right back with something to fill your belly.”

 

She stepped aside and I finished descending the stairs, finally getting a proper look at the ground floor of the Crooked Hook. It was a restaurant, that much was apparent from the smells alone. The scents of meals long past hung in the air like old ghosts, and the scents of salt and grease clung to every surface. The layout was wide, with a huge open floor space in the center occasionally broken up by support beams, several sturdy, thick topped wooden tables with their chairs currently stacked up on top of them. The two farthest walls were lined with booths that sat beside large windows that were letting in plenty of mid-morning sunlight. Opposite the closed double doors at the front of the building was a wrap-around bar/counter that wouldn’t look at all out of place in any tavern, old or new. The shelves behind the counter were stocked with glass bottles of various shapes containing liquids that ranged from pale gold to black as ink, and there was a rectangular cutout in the wall, through which I could see Felda, moving around what must have been the kitchen.

 

And, other than Bart seated at the counter, the place was completely empty.

 

“Ah, uh, hey there,” I said as I padded across the floor. He looked up from a glass of something. Something I hoped, for his sake at least, wasn’t alcoholic, as early in the day as it was.

 

Should I sit right next to him? That seemed a little presumptuous, but it also seemed ruder to specifically sit one chair away, but not as rude as sitting at the opposite end of the bar, which is what I kind of wanted to do. Not just because this guy had apparently seen me naked, but because he kinda unnerved me for some reason I couldn’t really put my finger on. Aside from the old-timey fisherman’s getup, he seemed like just an ordinary older man. Was it the scars and tattoos on his massive forearms? Was it the steely look in his dark eyes?

 

Oh, and now he’s staring at me. Why is he—

 

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked, and I jumped.

 

Oh, oops.

 

“S-sorry!” I blurted out and hurried the rest of the way to the bar. I climbed onto the stool one stool to his left. Bart “hmm”ed and faced forward again, lifting his glass.

 

Silence hung in the air like a thick fog, broken only by the distant clattering of Felda in the kitchen. Was he going to say something? Should I say something first?

 

“Soooooo…” I opened my mouth, and immediately he was turned and looking at me with that intense stare. “You’re Bart?”

 

“That I am,” he said, nodding.

 

“Cool,” I said, like an idiot. “I’m, uh, Sam. Short for Samantha.”

 

I was trying not to look directly at him, since apparently in addition to compulsively smelling people, I’d also picked up the habit of staring at things a lot more since becoming a cat, but I couldn’t miss the way his head tilted and one of his eyebrows lifted.

 

“Sam?” he asked, sounding… skeptical?

 

“Yup,” I confirmed with a nod. It was feeling less weird with each use, which I took as a good sign that it was a fitting fake name for the time being. “Is, uh, is Bart short for anything?”

 

“No,” Bart said, a little too quickly I felt.

 

Silence threatened to rush back in, and ordinarily I’d welcome it, but I was already so far out of my comfort zone it didn’t feel worth it trying to stubbornly start sticking to just one old habit.

 

“You said you pulled me out of the water?” I asked.

 

“Aye, that I did,” he said, and I had to resist the urge to start pulling at my hair.

 

“Thank you,” I said plainly, unsure of how you’re supposed to sound when you thank someone for saving your life.

 

Bart just looked at me for a moment, then nodded and turned away again.

 

“You’re welcome, lass,” he said into his drink.

 

In the kitchen, something began hissing and crackling. I felt my ears shoot upwards to stand at attention, because that was a familiar sound. The sound of battered food hitting hot oil. Whatever Felda was making in there, it was apparently going to be deep fried. That thought sent my already-empty stomach preemptively churning.

 

Without thinking, I took a particularly-deep sniff at the air wafting through the open kitchen window, and again it was like getting hit by a truck. I could smell the dry, yeasty smell of old bread, egg, hot oil, sweet wood smoke, and spices, I could definitely smell those. And I could also smell Bart, and he smelled like salt and dirt and old leather. But just like before, one smell began to overpower the rest, something fresh and pungent, with a hint of brine to it, buttery and so, so savory, utterly unlike anything I’d ever smelled on earth. I didn’t know what it was that Felda was cooking, but I wanted it.

 

“You alright there, lass?” Bart’s voice cut through my reverie and brought me back down to earth. I opened my eyes, not remembering when I closed them, and turned to look at him.

 

“Huh?” I asked, and Bart stared for a moment, then raised a hand and tapped at the corner of his mouth a few times.

 

“What are you—nyeh!” I jumped, and brought one of the loose sleeves of my borrowed shirt up to my lips, wiping them. I had been drooling!

 

Okay, I really wasn’t sure what was going on with my nose, but it was probably a good idea to try and avoid taking anymore big whiffs of anything until I figured that out.

 

“Thanks…” I muttered, hunching forward over the bar and covering my nose and cheeks with my sleeves.

 

Again, Bart just nodded, and turned back to his drink. I wondered if Felda had ever considered getting stools that swiveled.

 

Finally, just when I thought I might not be able to stand waiting any longer, Felda returned from the kitchen. In one hand she carried a miniature woven basket, in which rested four long strips of something that had been battered and fried to steaming perfection, and in the other hand she carried a glass pitcher of something pale yellow and cloudy. She set the basket in front of me, and it took everything I had to wait while she poured some of the pale liquid into a glass for me.

 

“Here you are,” Felda said, beaming at me.

 

“Oh, wow, thanks, it looks amazing,” I said, genuinely. The outsides of the fried strips of whatever it was were covered in a perfect golden-brown crust, flecked with seasonings and spices. Tucked into the basket with them were two wedges of some tangy, citrus-scented fruit. Not wanting to seem like I was second-guessing Felda’s recipe or presentation, I took them and squeezed them out generously over the crispy fried strips.

 

“Careful, they’re hot,” Felda cautioned as I picked one up between two fingers and, heeding her warning, blew on one end to cool it.

 

“What is it?” I asked. I wasn’t willing to try giving it the sniff test, in case I knocked myself out again or something.

 

“Speckled cod,” Felda explained, and I paused.

 

“Aw, fish?” I asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of my tone. I knew better than to say it out loud after Felda had been so generous, but I’d never been the biggest fan of seafood. With a quiet sigh, I braced myself and brought the fried strip up to my mouth, hoping it wouldn’t taste too bad.

 

Then, I took a bite.

 

Oh my god…

 

I stared, unseeing and unblinking, at the wall opposite the counter, and felt tears forming unbidden at the corners of my eyes. I realized my mouth was hanging open and I closed it with a snap, chewing the single mouthful I’d taken, uncaring if that was drool, or grease, dribbling down my chin. The crispy batter gave way to tender, flaky flesh the color of fresh fallen snow. It was just as savory as it had smelled, with a mild sweetness that paired perfectly with the crisp, perfectly salty, lightly-peppered batter and hint of tangy lemon. As I chewed, I briefly felt at one with the world, the universe, and everything. I felt my soul leave my body, to hover above me in a plane made of pure pleasure and flavor, until I, finally, swallowed that first divine bite.

 

Back inside my body, I blinked my eyes several times to clear them, then stared down at the basket of fried fish. I still didn’t know, basically, anything about where I was, or how I’d gotten there. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was anymore. I didn’t know what I was going to do in this unfamiliar world, how I was going to move forward from where I currently found myself. I didn’t know when… or if, I would ever see my home again.

 

The only thing I did know was that I wanted to eat like this again. I wanted to eat like this every day, if I could.

 

Turning my head, I found Felda, giving me her biggest smile yet. Even Bart was looking less intense as he watched me.

 

“Thank you…” I whispered.

 

And then, I devoured the fish, down to the very last crumb.