Human Intrusion

Astrid didn’t like humans.

They weren’t necessarily bad, she’d admit, however they were still irksome, always meddling with her space.

The wandering ones outside her home weren’t bad, but the ones that came inside were annoying at best. Didn’t they know it wasn’t polite to mess with someone else’s territory? You didn’t see her going to their home and messing with things!

So when her meal had been served in what she’d come to think of as the ‘containment area’, a small section of her home that could be closed off from the open area she usually roamed freely, she had known that they were up to no good.

She had even protested! Growling as she paced outside the little entrance, refusing to go in for hours, and even entirely leaving at one point.

But the humans hadn’t budged, and they certainly hadn’t moved her food out of the Zone of Isolation.

Eventually, hours after she usually enjoyed her morning meal, she’d caved and slunk into the area to claim her food. Unsurprisingly, she’d promptly been closed in and offered compensation in the form of a treat.

The apology was appreciated.

Being locked up and having her home intruded upon was not.

Still, a while later, she heard the telltale click and the wiring blocking her exit swung open once more.

She didn’t hesitate to sprint out, already beginning to sniff around her home and take in the spots where humans had been. For the most part, she didn’t notice anything that had been disturbed…

Which was nice, at least they hadn’t been obnoxious!

And then she reached her shelter.

Her ears perked as she followed the human scent inside, frowning at the crisp smell of her sleeping space. Gone were the smells of wood and earth that always crept in from her going in and out, and in its place was simply the crisp smell that was hard to describe.

It was almost nothingness, if nothing could have a smell.

She huffed irritably, slinking around the edges and rubbing against the wall to begin spreading her scent around her den once more as she made her way over to investigate the fluffy bed in the back corner.

The grey and brown smudges it had picked up over time were gone, the fluffy white she remembered from when she’d first discovered the den returned once more, and she couldn’t help but blink in surprise as she sniffed at it.

It lacked the scents she was used to, but… She poked at it, surprised to realize it was as soft as it looked.

It hadn’t been in bad shape before, if it had she would’ve found a different bed, but it certainly hadn’t been this fluffy and soft anymore.

She huffed, but climbed in and curled up, snuggling down into it and unable to suppress the happy noise she let out. This was… actually pretty nice, she decided.

Okay, she thought, maybe the humans were allowed to come into her den and make her nest soft again.

She really wished they didn’t wipe out all the scents with it though.

And just because she’d tolerate them fixing her nest didn’t mean she had to like them.

She nodded to herself. That seemed fair, she decided.

“Dinner!”

What?! Already?!

She blinked but raised her head and climbed out of her nest. Well, if it was dinner time she might as well go eat.

She hummed to herself, padding out of her den and heading for her usual feeding area, tail flicking behind her as she observed her home once more. Unchanged, mostly the same smells… At least all she had to worry about was her den, that wouldn’t take long to fix.

And again, the improved bed was something she couldn’t exactly complain about.

Plus, food time was always great, she decided as she tucked into her meal.