Kathani

Kathani is a brown broken braided tabby with gold-glittering fur. She inherited her translucent-tipped hairs from both parents, giving her fur a glimmering appearance when light hits it. Her fur glitters more than her parents’ and her eyes are gooseberry green. She’s half-Egyptian Mau and is of partial mixed Bengal descent. Like her Mau parent, her back legs are longer than her front legs and she has a primordial pouch. She’s microchipped and has a studded violet breakaway collar with a golden heart-shaped tag, but her human mainly only makes her wear it when away from the house. Her harness and lead are peacock blue.

Kathani is optimistic, stubborn, and competitive. She enjoys debating Idris because it’s fun and intellectually stimulating. Kathani is interested in her heritage, because she believes it’s important to acknowledge where one comes from and she’s proud of both her parents’ accomplishments, even if one had had a much cushier life than the other at first. She loves being socially and physically active, including going out with her human for work and for play. She thinks the lead and harness her human makes her wear are annoying, but because her human gets anxious if Kathani is untethered in public, Kathani is happy to be selfless and bear them.

Kathani is the daughter of Kiran and the Egyptian Mau Azem. Kathani was the only one of her litter, but Kiran and Azem would later have more when she was older.

Kathani was born when Kiran still lived at Tinunil’s house and Azem lived elsewhere. When Kathani was still a kit, she and Kiran moved with their humans to a new home. They would await Azem there. Kathani met Azem in the flesh as an older kit when Azem finally joined Kiran and Kathani at the house, but Azem’s human kept taking Azem away with them. Kiran told Kathani that Azem was a royal scion descended from King Azim of Toujours Nuit and would often be away on travel. Azem was Azim’s great-grandkit and one of Azim’s grandsons was the current king. Kathani always looked forward to Azem’s stories of their journeys.

As her mother had taught her, Kiran taught Kathani to be ambitious and not to take for granted what Kiran had achieved for Kathani to be born. Kiran had been born at a temple and essentially came from nothing. Her parents had been respected in their community, but they held no titles or territories. Somehow, Kiran had impressed her future housefolk enough to be brought across the seas and through the clouds, and then paired with the descendant of a king. Kiran taught Kathani grace and other skills she thought befit a noble lady. Kiran also taught her to fight, but emphasized fighting only in defense of self or others and always with the intent of escaping.

When Kathani was a young adult, she and her own human returned to Tinunil’s home. Kathani’s own human is a librarian who had started taking her to work when she was old enough. Like her other housemates, Kathani found a network of peers there and learned much with them. The other library cats were also keen to gossip, because the library was an excellent place to glean information.

When Kathani and Idris met again as adults, each at first had a poor impression of the other, because Kathani embraced her royal blood while Idris eschewed his. It took time for them to stop arguing and start discussing. Their housemates didn’t intervene because they thought it best for the two to work things out on their own. Once they did, they finally declared themselves partners and eventually wed. Kathani was pleasantly surprised when Idris proposed first.

They later had a litter of kits. Almost all the kits were adopted into new families. Morgan was the only one of their children to remain at Tinunil’s house. Kathani affectionately calls them Mori. Kathani still lives happily with Idris and Tinunil.