Beneath The Cherry tree

The cat closed her eyes, tilting her head back and allowing the spring sunlight to bathe her face. The air was sweet with the scent of various kinds of flowers, most prominently jasmine.

From the twisted, skeletal grey-brown tree which reached out over the queen's head and poked it's gnarled branches towards the clear blue sky, several paper thin cherry blossoms, as light as snow and as soft as a whisper, floated down.

The cat sighed. Despite the tranquil spring beauty, she was not happy; in fact, she was fairly miserable.

"This is not a day to die," she whispered. "A day so full of life..."

She knew what she had to do. She opened her paw, clenched around the seven or so tiny red pills she had pilfered from her owner's medicine cabinet -- and boy, was it ever difficult to get open the child-proof top!

"Now or never," she said softly, staring at the pills. Tiny red gems, each nearly see through, each quite beautiful, like stained glass -- and each containing death for a cat.

"I'll do it," she said, suddenly strengthened by the sight of the deadly jewels, and by the cruel, painful memory of the events which had led her to this decision...

Taking a deep and unnecessary breath, she put the red gems in her mouth, and swallowed quickly. A brief feeling of nausea came and passed. A few moments also passed. The queen was beginning to wonder if the pills had worked.

She lay down beneath the tree, gazing at the sky with eyes that reflected it's hazy blue. A cherry blossom fell on her face -- then another, and another, and as she fell asleep for the last time, her left paw unclenched... and a note, written on the back of a paper napkin, fell from her paw.

"Died for you. Don't regret me. You drove me to it," said the scrawled words of one unaccostomed to using a pencil.

And so, she died peacefully, quietly, under the cherry tree and the snow-like blossoms, in the jasmine's sweet fragrance and in the sun's hazy warmth, a wistful smile lingering on her face and in her still wide open sky blue eyes.

He was getting worried. He hadn't meant to yell quite so loudly at her -- hadn't meant to drive her away. And now he didn't know where she was, or even how to find her. No one in the Junkyard seemed to know where she had gone off to when she ran crying, sobbing, away from him. They had all been to scared to ask.

He did not get angry often, but when he did his temper was beyond control. He had never before been so angry at her -- never in the short time they had known each other. But now he was calm, and worried. Where was she?

Inquiries around the Junkyard led to one clue: old Gus said she had mentioned a cherry tree to him once, and suddenly he remembered her favourite place... a place she had brought him to once, before the fight. It was a beautiful tree in spring, but when he saw it it was bare and grey from the winter, it's bony branches laden with snow.

Now, as he ran up to it, panting for breath, it was laden with a different kind of snow; the snow of a thousand delicate cherry blossoms. Despite the worry of his mission, he couldn't help feeling a sudden serenity, as though life didn't matter that much... as though he could lie down and die beneath the cherry blossoms...

...as, apparantly, she had. He fell to his knees beside her, stared at her, tried not to cry and tried to cry at the same time. He wondered why he felt nothing, though it was obvious from the note in her paw that it was his fault she had died.

He found himself wondering, dispassionately, detatchedly, how she had gone about killing herself -- he could see no wounds, so she must have taken poison.

He didn't wonder why, only how.

Her eyes were open, gazing at the hazy sky, reflecting back it's warmth and tranquility. He closed them.

He found, suddenly, that he couldn't bear to look at her lying there, so peaceful and content in death, while he was left to live on, praying for forgivenece for driving her to the brink of despair... and over it.

But even as he unsheathed his claws, and prepared to slit his own throat... he thought to himself "The coward's way out. The easy way out."

"I must atone for her death...

...with life."

And so he did not die, not that day. He returned to the Junkyard, having buried her beneath the ground, beneath the cherry blossoms, beneath the tree she loved. He told the other cats what had happened.

No one accused him. If any had wanted to, the sight of the pity in Jennyanydots' eyes when she heard the news would have stopped them. She was the queen's mother -- if she forgave the tom, so would they.

No one accused him openly, but he felt accused nonetheless. He might have left at some time... but he had promised himself, and promised her, that he would live and suffer for his crime.

Perhaps some wondered why he didn't cry, and thought that maybe he didn't love her... they could not be further from the truth. He had no tears to shed -- she had died serenly, even if a bit sadly, and that would have been happier for her than life with him.

Life with someone who could make a queen kill herself.

And she slept on in the earth, beneath the cool soil, beneath the cherry blossoms, beneath her beautiful tree, and if she knew, just a little, what went on above...

...she made no move to rise from the grave...

...to awaken from her final resting place...

...to forgive him for her death...

...maybe she knew that he would never forgive himself, either...

...and so Rumpelteazer died, while Mungojerrie lived on.

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