Fyodor smelt it before it happened.

A smattering of raindrops, sprinkled innocuously across the sidewalk like dappled light. One, then another, painting the pavement darker grey; between the sun and the sky sat a veil of stormclouds too stubborn to reel away. The rustle of mid-autumn leaves ceased in a whisper, beaten docile by the water that misted through its crisp skeleton.

You’d realized half a minute after he had, his sharp gaze lingering on the way you outstretched a curious hand towards the sky. And sure enough the wind whisked mizzle to your palm, dropping dew that splattered unceremoniously on your wrist, then the shoulders of his coat. He couldn’t help but shudder when the droplets soaked through, the bite of cool rain uncomfortably damp and itchy.

His ears flicked in irritation, violet eyes meeting the shadow of the sun– a silver, flat coin of a thing, powerless against the downpour that was sure to happen. If there was one thing Fyodor hated more than anything in the world it was rain. The unpredictability of the droplets, the damp stickiness that lingered after– the violence of unrestrained freedom. How it might trample like an angry god through the skies, when he should be the one to reshape the natural order of the world.

Fyodor let out a soft, almost inaudible hiss of breath as he let you snap open his umbrella, shifting just a little closer to your side. His tail curled in, wrapping around his leg, shoulders hunching in unconscious defiance of the now-shattering rain. It was less cold by your side, your warmth softening his rimed edges.

“The path back will not take long,” he observed, long fingers resting over yours on the handle of the umbrella. “It is wiser to escape the storm while we can, no?”

His voice was carefully modulated to avoid betraying the growing panic behind the threat of arriving home soaking wet, but he still sidled closer to you with a look of disdain towards the grey world outside of your shared canopy. Framed by wilting trees and sputtering streetlamps, you seemed to be the only spot of color in a fading canvas.

“After all, I could not bear to see you fall ill.” A honeyed half-truth, his words were crystallized in delicate misdirection visible only by the way the fur of his tail grazed your wrist like an unbidden plea to keep the umbrella a little closer.