It has been approximately 9.5 million years since the first cats were seeded on this world.

A violent storm has broken a small stand of sweeping hair spruce from the tropical coastline of East Catland, one of two continents hosting cats. This raft has become the saviour of a family of padlcats, all adults, who had become disoriented in the storm and were unable to find land. Despite being extremely adept at swimming and subsisting on what the ocean offers, they are still semi-terrestrial animals that cannot swim indefinitely and need the respite of dry land to rest and sleep. Thus they cling to the rotting raft, day by day huddling closer as pieces off it fall into the dark depths. In these depths the debris will fertilize the seabed, feeding various deep benthic descendants of bath sponges, prawns, cockles, nematodes, copepods and fungi.

Rafts like these break off form coastlines every year, and they can last months, even years out at sea. But in doing so they become ecologically transformed. By time these rafts finally disintegrate or meet another coastline there is usually nothing left of the original life on the raft, having succumbed to the harsh ocean conditions, but it will be teeming with sea life, from fish to crustaceans to mussels and algae. So it seems that these padlcats are on borrowed time.

Over the next month, the padlcat numbers dropped from a few dozen to less than two dozen. To eat, they had to continuously hunt, and they exhausted all of the sparrows and mice that hadn't drowned. After a while, to hunt they had to enter the water. This is where many of this padlcat family met their end, in the jaws of giant predatory trout, or beaks of giant squids. Many of these predators were following the raft in wait of the next padlcat dropping in to take it's chances at fishing. Exposure to weather took a few others. It seemed as though the surviving padlcats were about to meet the same grim fate that practically every other padlcat in their situation had faced throughout their genus history. Those still alive were forgoing hunting in the water out of fear of the larger predators that had taken many of their siblings, cousins, offspring, parents and mates, preferring to starve.

Then they noticed it, a faint dark trim on the horizon. It wouldn't escape their massive, keen eyes. As the mountainous horizon drew nearer the padlcats became agitated with what little energy they had left. A mere kilometer from the coastline and the raft suddenly bumped, swaying all cats clinging on. The raft had become waterlogged and more submerged now than at the start of it's journey, so there was less exposed surface to huddle onto.

The cats could see that the water was swirling and churning. In their gut they knew it could chew them up like they could chew up a small fry. Millions of years of evolution of becoming increasingly more oceanic had selected for a cat that could detect dangerous water at a glance. The raft began to shake and shudder. Loud snapping and groaning sounds could be heard all around. The cats tried to pinpoint the sources of the sound, swiveling their heads around and digging their foreclaws into the dead, slippery wood, but couldn't identify the sound as they were happening all over the raft. The raft began to sink into the frothing watery disturbance.

The cats swayed their heads and mewed lightly in anticipation of jumping into the water, even though their chances seemed so slim, it was the only shot they had. They tilted and bobbed their heads to triangulate the best-looking spot on the water's surface to jump into, before in a leap of faith the first launched themselves in. Once one had jumped in, the rest quickly followed, encouraged by the action of the more proactive member of the family.

Although they have large, paddled hind legs, they are not adapted for such dangerous waters as the currents in this location, combined with the near-surface rocks, create various current-based hazards including whirlpools. By time the group emerged into calmer water they were already a few more cats down. Some never escaped the currents.

With less than a kilometer to go, the group of around ten padlcats paddled towards the tall dark mountains with their heads above the water, keeping the goal in sight and puffing little clouds of water droplets with their panting. It was all or nothing now. Two heads dropped into the ocean never to return. Nobody looked back for them because all they could focus on was the respite of the beach.

The foamy waves lapped across the black volcanic sand, then back out leaving the foam to fizz and steam on the hot sand, repeating. The coast was lined with palms, elderberry descendants and various new and strange kinds of pineapple. The greenery reached about halfway up some of the mountains, many of which were bare at the tops with black and red volcanic tephra, while on others the greenery covered the mountain more completely. Fluffy white clouds appeared to be emerging from ground level at a point within the mountain range, originating from an old, stable terrestrial hydrothermal system. Here there were no birds chirping like a human from Earth almost 10 million years ago might expect of such a scene. Aside from the waves and the wind rustling palm leaves, the only other sound was the buzzing of insect wings, in particular bees.

The cats stumbled (and sometimes slid) out onto the beach from the calmly lapping waves, too exhausted to take in the scenery, they all immediately collapsed on contact with dry sand and lay there panting with their mouths open and tongues out, their chests pulsating rapidly to get oxygen back into their now damaged muscles. Each one immediately passed out as soon as the panting calmed down.

The moon of this world is very similar to Earth's moon, and may even explain some of the similarities between the planet and Earth, such as tides. That night it would give the padlcats a rude awakening, bringing the ocean closer to them until it soaked them awake, forcing them to creep closer inland if they should want more sleep time. Some kept sleeping in the warm waves until they had to move to keep their nostrils above the water line. Eventually all of the padlcats would be awake and about on their shaky, sore legs, looking around at the moonlit palms, the mountains, the starry sky and the crescent moon. They had never seen such mountains, only knowing plains and the occasional hill. They had never seen or felt this black, sharp gravel or narrow, rocky beaches with such a short transition from the shore to the forerst. They were used to wide, flat, fine, red and golden beaches with vast wetland and dune ecosystems, with relatively few trees. It was stiflingly hot, even though the sun was now down. The water wasn't even cooling them.

The groggy, crusty-eyed cats were surrounded with scurrying life. Tiny lizards, beetles, amphibious prawns, snails, isopods, moths and flies filled the air and ground around them. Some flies, nocturnal butterflies and moths even landed in their eyes and their salt-excretion ducts to drink the protein-rich hypersaline fluids. The padlcats were too tired to groom themselves, so some built up a large gathering of insects on them. They lazily turned their heads and their gaze to things flying and running past them as they continued to recuperate.

They were not given much time to regain their strength before one of the group sounded an alarm tweet and kept their eyes fixated in the direction of the possible threat. All of the padlcat set their gaze upon the same direction as the one alerted. Upon some flat rocks were long, log-like shapes. But these logs moved occasionally. A blink of an eye in the moonlight here, or a shuffle of a foot there. The cats were not sure if they were looking at other creatures, or some phenomenon that they had never encountered before. But it soon became clear when one of the creatures lifted itself to it's feet on all four short legs and started slowly ambling across the beach perpendicular to the cats, keeping the eye on the side of it's head exposed to the cats fixated upon them.