Sly's Questionnaire

Sly was happy for his first 7 years of life. 

The orphanage wasn't a palace, but it was always warm in the winter, and cool in the summer, and the children mostly didn't hurt each other. Such accommodations couldn't be said for some of the places Sly spent his later childhood. 

The other children picked on him some. His color and complexion made him stand out. So he learned to embrace it. Tricks, stunts, the occasional theft of sweets from the local grocery. Everyone looked at him still, but they knew him.

Then his ears started to change. And then his nose. And then he had to run. 

Town to town, first as a boy, then as a cat, then as both, as he grew more comfortable with his nature. 

He found places to stay, but only for a short while. Home remained elusive. 

Sly watched his mark.

He was curled up in a box of cardboard. All black, blending with the shadows of the alley.  The mark was in his mid twenties. That was good to know. More likely to live alone, less likely to have a house with a security system or cameras. Cameras are bad . Cops investigating a break in is fine. Cops letting authorities know that they saw a boy with cat ears meant that people would come looking for the strange.

Sly had almost been caught a few times.

Sly watched his mark, tail twitching back and forth.

1 am. He went. Padded feet up the fire escape. He got to the windows. There is an open one.

Easy pickings. He slips inside. He becomes a his boy form. Moving quiet. He finds the mans wallet, takes some food from his pantry. Not enough to notice. That way he can come back next month and steal more.

He leaves un noticed.

Enough food for a few days. As long as he doesn't have to run.

Sly looks through the window of the pawn shop.

It is so shiny. 4 sets of knives. Balanced for throwing. The handles are so polished and nice. 

He wants it. Sly wants nice things, but can't keep them often. He'll have to run, and leave a shelter behind. Or he will stash something in a hard to reach place, only to find some bird or rat, or other homeless person had found it and taken his nice things.

These look like nice things he could keep with him. 

"Shoo! Get out of here you mangy stray!"

The owner chases him away.

We would take it. Tonight. He wants it. That is the only way he can get what he needs. How he can get good things.

That evening he unwrapped his tools for lock picking. He moved carefully.

Click.

A quick run in, a grab. A few other things that catch his eye.

Then he runs.

Darkness swirls aorund him, sirens in the distance.

He is a cat before they arrive, and then he is gone in the night.

Sly looked in the mirror. He is 7. Probably. Ages are not exact when you are left on a doorstep as a baby. 

His messy hair has a new bit of fur added. Feeling the side of his head, he can feel his old ears have become flush with his head. They have shrunken in more. Retreating in as the ears on the top of his head grow in. 

His nose is changing. Becoming more squat. Wet. Smelling more. 

"No... No please. Go back! Please..."

"Simon? Simon are you alright in there?"

Sly jumps. The adults. What will they do?

Can he trust them.

Sly opens the door.  

---------

It was a few days before the men in suits came. 

He heard them talking. 

The adults were scared. They wanted to get rid of him.

And so he ran.

And he never trusted an adult again.

Sly slips through the window. 

The owners here always kept it open.  If he came at the right time of month, then....

"Oh hey there! What's your name?"

The old man. Gerald. He forget's Sly every time he comes. It's good that way. If Sly stays anywhere too long as a cat, people will try and catch him. Or take a picture put up sign. Then the men in suits come and he has to run again. 

Gerard forgot Sly every time, and that was the way Sly liked it. He got a few days of food, care and affection, he could leave, then come back a month later for the same. 


He had tried this before. When he was 8 and starving. An older woman, Samantha. She had made him a little sweater. That didn't stop her from turning on him when he had tried to reveal himself to her.

He'd had better luck with the homeless. Greg had known him as a cat and a boy, and not cared. Used the revolver now in Sly's backpack to scare off some rough looking men when Sly as sick. Of course Greg had died by the time Sly was 11, leaving him with just his gun to remember him by.