Turtle + Cat

Turtlecat lugs around a shell of a home
With overlapping plates of geometrical bone
It's a bit heavy
But when she's ready
It doesn't stop her at all from getting proper cat things done

Padding along a backyard fence

Part feline part Koopa

A bright red shell with furry feet

Sliding in two sixteen bit dimensions

Right and left only two possible options
Up and down being the others
Following pointed neko ears skyward
In an unlikely double jump to the clouds

To land in stylized form
Pacific Northwest in origin
Two parts black and one part red
Bold strokes define the bulk of a tortoise shell
Clawed feet at the four corners
An open meoar of a mouth facing to the right
Long tail in a thinking cat's S bend
Soon to decorate a totem somewhere near you

Where the beast will age well with the passage of time
To be found upon the Galapagos
By a Beagle borne Darwinian in search of foodstuff
Rounded up by the dozen for the trip back to the continent
After being observed sketched and catalogued
Only to eject all the human occupants roughly halfway in
Mutineering their way into the history books
As Turtlecat pirates of the Southern Pacific Coast
Plying the shores of Peru in search of riches
To decorate their black shiny shells
And rings for their petite feline feet

The Cataturtle cometh
Or so the legend goes around the campfire
"They move more swiftly than most realize
Coming towards flickering firelight to steal camper's eyes
Never revealing in their duplicitus semi-cold blooded ways
That your very soul is their ultimate prize
With the eyes just the windows
Left open curtains agape
To be licked up with prickly tongues
As your face is held steady in huge cat padded paws
Ears in almost pain from pinching proximity to unsheathed claws"

And just then the second camp counselor leaps from the bushes
Wearing a cat mask and ninja turtle costume
Causing everyone to scream in terror
Except for Tiny Timmy Turlington
Who swiftly drew his trusty Camp Boy knife
And plunged it into the chest of the artifice
Over
And over
Until the screams had died with the darkness of the night
Leaving only a meat tenderizing sound
Wet and dull
As knife blade entered chest to the hilt
To be withdrawn overhead
And stabbed downward once again

Timmy's eyes flashed with the light of a true Turtlecat

Of which there really were none
Leaving Timmy with the look of one undone

The remainder of the troop quietly crept away into the night
Leaving Timmy to tucker himself out of his own accord
As that seemed best