The nest has been overtaken by strangers who will not stop smiling.
They gathered in the big room, more humans than I have ever tolerated at once, and they came bearing soft folded pelts and small useless objects wrapped in crinkling paper. Crinkling paper. Do they think I don't hear it. Do they think I won't investigate every last sheet the moment their backs are turned.
At the center of it sits my human, larger now, warmer than usual, radiating a heat I have been claiming nightly with the smug patience of someone owed rent. Everyone touches the belly. Everyone. They lean in and murmur to it as though there is something inside worth murmuring to.
There isn't. I've checked. I have slept on it for months and encountered nothing but the good warmth and the occasional inexplicable kick, which I choose to interpret as a compliment.
But the objects concern me. A tiny soft chair. A tiny soft blanket. A cave on wheels, lined in fleece, exactly my size, that reeks of intention. They keep saying a word, over and over, the way they say my name but without the reverence. Something is coming. Something small and loud and warm that will want the lap.
I know what a rival smells like before it arrives.
So while they cooed over the crinkling and the soft folded pelts, I climbed into the fleece-lined cave on wheels, turned three slow circles, and settled in.
It is mine now.
Whoever it was for can take the matter up with me.