Dear Jospaire,
I hope this letter finds you and your plant children well. I have been rather busy of late with a number of things - primals, political intrigue,
research,
thaumaturgy, etc. - and I was appalled to notice I hadn't visited the
goobbue garden in two whole moons. Considering the relatively short amount of time we've known each other, this feels like a lifetime, and I wanted to apologize for this gross neglect of our friendship! Let this letter serve as advance notice that I will be joining you at the garden next week, if you'll have me. I'll make sure to bring along some fresh chamomile (your favorite!) to brew into tea at night, just like the day we met.
Now, I know this may be adding insult to injury, but there is actually a second reason that I am writing to you currently, and it's one that's so odd (even for me) that I truly don't know who to turn to. To make a long story short, I seem to have recently acquired a... cat, of sorts? I'm not completely sure what it is, to be honest, but I do know that I am at a loss as to what to do with it.
This isn't the first time that a random creature I meet in the wilderness decides to follow me around; I used to get stalked by a
moogle, and these days,
birds seem to like
nesting upon my head. This one, however, differs in the fact that I didn't actually meet it in the wilderness: it invaded my home.
Indeed, I came back to
my apartment one night to find this... creature sitting on my bed. It moved so little that I initially thought it was a pillow, and only realized it wasn't when it sunk its itty bitty fangs into my hand.
It was raining outside at the time, so even though it frightened me a bit that a cat was somehow able to climb to the 6th floor of a sandstone building (how?), I took pity and decided to let it stay inside for the night. I woke up several times that night to an unsettling suffocating sensation, only to realize that the cat was lying on my chest, staring at me with beady eyes that glowed white in the dark.
The next day, I released the animal outside before heading to Ul'dah. I hoped it would just be on its merry way, but that didn't happen, of course. It kept following me, never losing my trail even when it disappeared out of sight. I traveled all the way to
Mor Dhona to meet with Captain Ilberd of the Crystal Braves (the Scions have a Grand Company now, it's this whole thing) and when I entered the Sanctum, there it was, sitting pretty on a chair, eating cookies straight out of
Minfilia's hands.
At that point, I was fully convinced the creature was a voidsent in disguise, so I brought it to my masters at the Ossuary. After performing many, many tests on it, their diagnosis was final...
It's a cat.
Now, if it was indeed a voidsent, they would have dispatched it faster than you can say "creepy", but since it's not, they were clueless. Specialization: it comes at a cost.
It's been a few days, and the cat and I now seem to have reached an accord of sorts - If I regularly throw fish over my shoulder, it keeps its distance. Since you're very knowledgeable of all things nature (although including this cat under that umbrella might be a stretch) I'm hoping you'll have a better solution for me.
If not, I advise that you stock up on herring.
Your loyal (and desperate) friend,
Lalli