“OH my god!” Eshek exclaimed in a panic, like a bug had suddenly touched her. “This rat can talk!” Racing across the kitchen floor, she leapt up onto the dilapidated wooden counter with a scramble and, pausing for a split second to make sure the water filling the blocked sink was clean and not deep enough for a kit to drown in, dropped Nour in it. “Rat stew!” she exclaimed excitedly, then jumped off the counter and opened the cabinet drawers underneath the sink, messing about in there with her paws and head stuck inside and making a ruckus of metal clangs and scraping pipes.

“How do I turn this stove on? I gotta roast this little bug alive before it succeeds in its dastardly attempts to make me eat my own son. Didn’t end well for Tamora.” She snickered as she worked, pretending to turn on the fire that was definitely not going to be beneath a sink. “It really is a wickedly clever, manipulative little thing but I know better than to fall for it.”

Eshek gasped, reappearing from the sink to stare up at her daughter. “You don’t know Shakespearean literature? With Mr. Gameless Nerd as your dad? I’m—“ She let herself be barrelled over by her kit, holding her paw up so Nour dangled from it in mid-air above her ans dripped sink water onto her face. “Appalled! Mmm… I think your brother would be the tastiest, you’re right. Then Tilly. Then Cordelia. Then you.” She grinned up at her. “I think you’d be all gross bones, and you’d try to eat me right back — and no one wants carnivorous dinner. Guess that means you gotta be the hunter.”

Suddenly dropping her kit towards her, she grabbed her around the scruff and leapt back up onto the counter. “And I’m plenty tasty!” she replied with her voice muffled around her fur, incensed. Hopping up on her hindlegs, she reached up and plopped Nour on top of the old fridge, flashed her a grin, then quickly turned around, leapt off the counter, and raced out of the kitchen. If she trusted any kit to somehow get off the towering fridge without hurting herself, it was daredevil Nour; an early start to a climbing career had left her with the ability to basically bounce off hard surfaces. “I’ll never go in your soup!” she shouted back to her kit from somewhere beyond the kitchen, her mock-frantic voice echoing dully from the entry hall. Her chest fur was still specked with water. “Someone help! My kit’s gone nuts! Just totally bonkers!!” 

"Oh my god," Eshek muttered to herself, but she was grinning. And then, at the sensation of being chased, even if it was by her own tiny, dripping wet rat-kit, she began to laugh uncontrollably, just ugly, frantic giggles as she ran loops around herself to try and shake Nour off her trail. "You've been hanging out with aunt Chelsea?" she shouted over the air rushing over her ears, but the grin was still on her face. Nour's drenched paws made the most hilarious pitter-patter-thwack on the marble and it was sending her. "You little traitor."

She'd probably have to bring it up with Ber later when she was done being an idiot, because she thought they'd agreed Chelsea was to be supervised when she was around her nieces and nephews in case she, y'know... murdered them like Safiya had warned her she might, but right now she put it behind her to have fun with her daughter. She also totally wasn't irrationally jealous that her kits might like their aunt better than their mother if they got to hang out with her - she was so cool and suave, and Eshek was... Eshek. But she wasn't going to stop them seeing her because of that; they had the right, even if the thought made her insecure heart ache with all the things she wasn't. And she wasn't going to ruin Nour's game just because she was sad and wished she could be like every she-cat other than herself; she could be silly and stupid through it and cry later.

Racing across the entry hall, she headed towards one of the hallways branching off it and, without pausing, scrambled straight up the vertical surface of the door. Perched on the tiny sliver of wood at the very top, it slowly creaked closed, taking her with it, until she bumped against the wall behind it. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH," she screamed at the rabid kit below her. "A RAT. A RAT. A RAT WANTS TO EAT MY BONES."

“A KNIFE?” Eshek shrieked back as she ran. “Oh, Aunt Chelsea is SOoOoOoOO grounded.” Which was mom code for she was going to kick Bermondsey’s sister’s ass — or, she was going to fantasise about it and then walk up to and away from her bedroom door fifteen times and eventually give up and tear up a rabbit carcass because, frankly, she was too afraid of Chelsea to ever stand up to her like that. But she was going to scream at Bermondsey for two hours tonight when their children were asleep. That child of Severine didn’t scare her, even if he was the one who scared everyone else the most with his freaky stillness and cold eyes.

When Nour complained to her atop the door, Eshek just grinned down at her, making fart noises at her with her mouth. “Sucks to be so short, don’t it?” she taunted her lovingly. “Huh? Lil short worm? Grow some legs, squirt, and then you can be cool like your mom.” Not your Aunt Chelsea, she hissed to herself in an aside to the audience, murder in her eyes. But, finally, after taking the time to enjoy Nour’s scrabbling and cackle down at her, Eshek leaned down vertically, still hooked over the top of the door by her hind legs, and plucked her daughter up in her forepaws. She immediately lifted her onto the top of her head and let her scurry up her back like a horrible little mountain climber with tiny rodent claws. Then, letting out a melodramatic, dad-level groan, she lifted herself back up after her. “Oh my gosh, core workout day,” she panted to herself, patting her stomach. “Okay, rat child,” she continued, because she never called her kits by their actual names she’d so painstakingly picked out, pushing herself up to sit incredibly precariously beside her daughter and look out over the marble foyer; with their uneven, poorly matched weight, she swayed back and forth violently every time she or Nour moved and the door swung slightly back and forth. “Wh—whoa—enjoy the—whoa—“

The swinging of the door became more and more violent, until Nour and Eshek were clinging on by their claws like cartoon characters. “Okay!” she finally told her daughter; the floor was swinging back and forth so wildly it was just a blur. “It’s come down to it. Ready? Abandon ship!” She leaped into thin air. Freeze frame. Record scratch. This is me and my daughter Nour. I bet you’re wondering how we got in this situation.

Eshek landed with an oof. Then, after a dazed few seconds, she suddenly looked around frantically, still lying on her back, looking like caveman Spongebob. “Where’d she go?” she thundered. “Where’d she go?” She pretended not to notice her daughter squashed beneath her. She pushed herself to her paws and lumbered about like a bear, squat and wide-legged. “Where’d she go,” she continued to roar, in an impossibly deep voice, lower jaw thrust forward so she looked like a bulldog with an underbite, the tips of her fangs almost touching her nose. “When I find that rat, I’m gonna flay her for soup.”