The shape was only visible where its form blotted out the stars set in the great dome of the sky, but as it capered and cavorted, Warts had the sense that it was a felid…an impossibly huge, or perhaps only impossibly thin cat made out of the very stardust it blotted from the sky.

“You are attempting…to understand me,” it said.

“Th-that’s right,” said Warts.

“Tell me. Do you understand yourself? Why you want what you want, why you need what you need, why your body works as it does?”

“I…no, not really,” Warts replied.

“Then let us dwell no more on you understanding me, or on me understanding you,” said the star-cat. “For if we cannot understand ourselves, what use is there in understanding others?”