Princess Tutu ? HAL 2002, ADV, etc. This drabble is non-profit.

Cats Don't Dance
by Fushigi Kismet

They call him "Teacher." He slips in sometimes during rehearsal and sits in the corner, his tail thumping time.

Lilie likes to laugh and say that he was a dancer in this very school once, long ago, and came back in the form of a cat to make sure they were practicing properly. Pique says she daydreams too much and they both bend and touch their outstretched legs as their instructor strides by. He doesn't notice their guest - his eyesight is weak and he does not know quite why there was a job waiting for him when he wandered into this quiet little town. Surely a ballet school should have at least one instructor?

The cat lashes his tail with a bit more agitation and looks at the class of young dancers balefully from two yellow eyes.

Later he wanders outside where he meets his lady-love, sleek-furred and beautiful, and they brush up against one another, purring. The kittens gambol around chasing butterflies and stealthy blades of grass and one another. He licks one - his youngest - affectionately and sternly so that it stops and brushes with its paw at its wet ear.

You should be graceful, he tells it. Like a cat. Like a dancer.

The kittens pause to look at him and his wife settles down into a nap in the warm sun - she has heard this speech a hundred thousand times. At first, it was what made her fall in love with him.

Indeed, time does not flow the same for cats as it does for humans or even ducks. And cats possess a certain immunity to the contrariness of magic - so he remembers things that he shouldn't.

I was once a teacher at that school - a most illustrious position, that of ballet instructor. I will take you into that room someday and you can see what it means to dance so that you too might find the meaning in it. Now, what are the two most important things in the world?

Love and marriage! they chime back, dutifully.

Yes, but to dance is to love. And perhaps, to love is to dance.

And if anyone were to glance out the window of the dance studio at that moment they might have seen a curious sight indeed.

'Tisn't every day one sees a dancing cat.