I felt bad leaving someone in advanced stages of pregnancy to prepare a meal alone, and beside, although no human thought of it this way, she was in a sense my sister-in-law and the mother of my future niece or nephew, so I went down to the kitchen and spent a pleasant hour helping Liliana and talking with her.

Mostly Liliana wanted to share her love for Trevor and the unborn baby. She told me about how he first started courting her, getting engaged, and the wedding, the physical discomforts and joy of her pregnancy, and her various hopes and plans for the baby. She also asked me personal questions about my life, which surprised me. Most humans didn't give enough thought to beast-kin to even wonder what our lives were like for us, let alone took interest in them.

"Why are you asking me about that, mistress?" I asked when the topic touched on the circumstances of my birth. I didn't understand how that could hold any interest for her.

"I tried asking Trevor, but I could see that it's a touchy subject for him. I wouldn't like it either if my husband did something like that, but I don't have to worry about that with you, which is why I'm happy father in law sent you instead of Trevor bringing home a stranger", she answered.

Of course she was right, and since she was my mistress I had little choice but to answer her to the best of my ability. If I tried to hide anything or lied about this she could eventually find out the truth from Trevor or father, and then I would have to pay a heavy price.

I told her how my father was looking for someone to help around the house after his wife gave birth, similar to how he sent me to help Liliana, and ended up purchasing my mother, a cat-kin who was 12 years old at the time, from the farmer who owned her parents. After the old mistress gave birth to Mark, her second child, she fell ill and took a long time to recover. It was then that father began using my mother as his mistress. At the time she was only a little older than I was now. She told me she admired father since he treated her far better than the farmer did, so she enjoyed being used by him in that way, and I was the product.

Later the old mistress gave birth again, this time to a daughter. She never recovered from that, and a few months later she died. I was still a small child at the time, so I only had vague memories of her. After his wife died father elevated mother to a status similar to that of a concubine and had 3 more children with her. He seemed to have genuine affection for us as he would spend time with us, buy us gifts, give us allowances, and take us a few times a year to visit mother's parents. As I grew older those visits filled me with more and more sadness at their condition.

I wondered why, if father truly cared about mother, he didn't buy her parents and rescue them and their remaining children from their poor circumstances, but that was not a question that I could ask, and if I asked I was more likely to receive a punishment than an answer. I was sure that if that was something that father could be convinced to do mother would have already tried. It was also possible that father did try but that the farmer refused to sell. In that case there was nothing father could do, and he wasn't likely to tell us about his failure.

I kept the most of the details about my grandparents' lives out of my narration. There was no need to share more than I've been asked, especially not if it was something that was painful for me. Liliana wore a warm expression as she listened to my story.

"I imagine your mother must have had a great deal of admiration for your father", she said when I finished.

"How did you know that?", I asked, surprised. I knew that was true both because mother told me and because I could see the way she looked at him when no other humans were around, but how could Liliana guess that just based off of my story?

"Because he took her from the house of a poor farmer and gave her a better life. He was her rescuer. A young girl tends to admire a man like that", she explained. I couldn't say she was wrong, but she did leave out the part where father took mother away from her parents. Still, if the farmer sold her to father then it was likely he would have sold her to some random human sooner or later, just like he did with most of her siblings. Mother might have considered that and been grateful that her buyer was father. She could have fared far worse.

Also, ever since I was young I never once noticed a situation where father forced himself on mother. There were occasions when she mildly hinted that she would prefer not to in that moment, and always father would notice and respect the hint, which implied when she didn't hint a refusal it was because she was willing as well. I assumed that if that was true throughout all my life, it was also true when they started their affair.

"You might be right, mistress. I hadn't fully considered it before", I said. Liliana seemed pleased with herself.

Soon after that Trevor entered the house. Liliana rushed out of the kitchen to greet him, leaving me to finish cooking the dinner. There wasn't much left except to remove the food from the fire before it burned, and so a short time later I served my masters in the dining room. I, of course, ate my meal alone in the kitchen. I was used to it. Even in father's house we would serve the human family in the dining room first before eating our meal together in the kitchen.

The good thing about being the ones to prepare the masters' meals was that we got to eat the exact same food as them. They couldn't prevent the cooks from tasting as much as they wanted or secretly saving portions for later, not without spending all day in the kitchen to supervise us, and they didn't care to make the effort to try. Thus slave cooks did have a certain privilege that even their masters conceded as a matter of custom.

Liliana proved to be an excellent cook. The meal was delicious and consisted of a thick mushroom soup, a roast in a thick vegetable sauce with a side of mashed potatoes, and a blackberry pie for desert. I washed it all down with water. I could have taken a glass of wine, nobody would notice or care as long as it was a moderate amount of the inexpensive variety, but I never liked it as a drink, only as an ingredient in cooking.

With a large room all to myself, a mistress that treated me almost like a friend, and delicious food, perhaps my life here won't be so bad, and as mother said, I was still in the same village. I could visit them and they could visit me any day of the week. I returned to my room after clearing the table and washing the dishes, feeling much more cheerful than when I arrived.