this one day in december, we were walking down the mountain through the forest
it was sunny and cold
a beautiful, peaceful day

until we met this beautiful creature that confidently approached us

my immediate emotional reaction: love
my immediate rational thought: this means trouble! :-D

first thing i always do when i meet a new cat:
analysis of the creature.
in this case: still a kitten, talkative, mesmerizing blue eyes (in need of care)
the colors seemed just right to be a siamese!
not the type of cat that would live by herself in a forest

the cat was not afraid, we could even pick her up (for a few seconds)
we checked the gender as well as any sign of issue like ticks, flees, injuries, ...
she looked fine, fed, had nothing wrong except the eyes (just like most of the forest mammals)
"she must have been some time in the forest, but with human servants", we thought

we immediately fell in love with this cat
but sadly, we could not add another one to our family
pinkon would love it, zumo would not be happy with another energyball

we did give her a name though: tabak (which means 'tobacco')
"something you want, something you shouldn't"

with pain in the heart, we decided not to take her with us
so we mentally moved on and physically continued our way down the road

but tabak decided to follow us!
so we said: if she follows us all the way to our home, she can stay
we still had some distance to go...
we started hoping she'd keep up, so we'd HAVE to keep her and it would not be OUR fault :-)

but after a while, tabak decided she had gone far enough
she stopped
we continued, with a lump in the throat
she cried and called
we continued, with a lump in the throat and tears in my eyes
tabak turned around and went back up the mountain

it broke our heart, but we really couldn’t take her with us
we were almost certain she had a family
we could not just steal her
(although we thought someone else might just do that because she’s a freaking siamese...)
"tabak knows what she’s doing" we told ourselves

so we just promised tabak that we'd walk up again soon
so that we could meet again!

one week later, we saw her again higher up the mountain
she was with a human, we saw she had food and shelter
we were happy to see she was not alone

a few months later we met the family
they showed us tabaks private cat house
above the entrance of the house there was a nameplate:
Lucy

they told us they hadn’t seen Lucy for weeks
they did not understand why she’d leave and not come back
the news made my stomach turn

Lucy was not afraid to approach strangers
she’s a freaking siamese...
hanging out by herself...
in a forest...
any cat lover would realize this is a very unusual place for such a cat

back in december, we decided not to take her
maybe we were wrong?

up to this day
i ask myself that question
i just hope she's fine ❤️