Beatrix

For the first several months of her life, Bia was your average housecat. Sure, she'd been taken from her mother perhaps before she was fully weaned, and sure, maybe it took her a while to warm up to her new family, and okay, fine, maybe she wasn't totally litterbox trained, and maybe clawed a little more at the furniture and walls than her human's parents would have liked, but she was still a kitten. That's just how kittens are for a while, you know?

None of that was reason to take her away.

The shelter where she found herself was overwhelming, a cacophony of voices all yelling for food, for water, for attention, crying out, "Over here, over here! Pick me, pick me!" And she was just a kid - Who could have blamed her for bolting from her kennel as soon as the door was opened, rocketing off the arm of the employee who had come to feed her and scrambling out the door as a family walked in in search of a new pet of their own, running until they could no longer see her and then running further, until exhaustion overtook her? She didn't belong there. She had a human who loved her, who cuddled her like her mom had, who fed her pieces of salami when she came home from school before her parents were back from work, who showed her videos of birds and fish and mice, and then videos of her watching those videos of birds and fish and mice, pawing at the screen in awe.

No, she didn't belong there in that cold, hollow room full of screaming strangers. She belonged at home with her human.

She had to get back.

Out in the woods, scared and lost, she met another cat, old, gruff, and grizzled. But when she cried to him her tale of woe, he met her gaze with compassion - They would travel together. He would teach her to survive, as he had on his own for years... and, eventually, they would find her home again.