.

.

.

I’m not a mouse anymore. Mice hide because they’re afraid. Han shu!

She runs lightly down the corridor, skirt swirling, calves flashing palely even in the dim light, feet falling quietly. Unable to see around the curve, she nonetheless knows no one will be there – senses it.

I’m a cat, mào māo, choosing when to be seen.

As she comes closer to where there are others, she slows, becomes canny in her caution.

Or unseen.

Her bare foot slides forward across the chilled, metal grating, skimming barely an inch off the ground.

Boots are nice. Boots are play.

Boots are for when I’m a girl

And can clomp, clomp, clomp my way.

Laughter emerges as nothing more than a quick shake of her shoulders. These little rhymes she makes are silly and nothing like the complex jintishi poems she could write by age five, but they sing in her head. (Songs sound better than screams.)

Quiet little cat feet, pat, pat, pat.

She touches the grating delicately with her toes, smiling. Miào māo. There could be no point in being unseen if she were heard. She must be unheard as well. Because if she can be a cat for long enough, she’ll get to be a girl. (Laughter and running and not alone – Kaylee’s smile, the softening of lines around Simon’s eyes.)

A thought tries to slip through the filter, charting behavioral differences between species, yet she quickly redirects to simplicity.

If I were a mouse, Serenity would be my house,

But since I’m a cat, it’s simply where I’m at.

Running one hand along the metal plating of the corridor, she feels every dip and bulge, every nick and groove, every rough patch followed by smooth. The vibrating hum of mechanical life throbs with resonance in her chest.

But it is a house, a home.

(Jiā yuán, echoes her heart.)

She tries to suppress the knowledge, crawl back into the simplicity of childlike meter and rhyme, but …

The words lied!

Hands rise to cover ears, bu