Still thinking about this.
T’Pen adopts a second cat a while later, this one a stray gray tabby that she finds and cleans up and decides to keep instead of dropping him off at a shelter.
She goes the other route with the second cat, and gives him a people name, except it’s a Vulcan name so she names him, like, Sivok or something.
Marmalade is a complete goofball, floofy and affectionate and very rotund, and keeps trying to sit on T’Pen’s head when she’s meditating.
Sivok, on the other hand, is Very Dignified, and all sharp angles, and not very playful, but he does enjoy sitting on the window sill watching street traffic. He will only deign to allow certain people to pet him, and be very frosty towards strangers, whereas Marmalade greets everyone by rubbing against their legs.
Sivok, of course, does the cat thing where he shows affection by always being in the same room as T’Pen, but always with his back turned to her so as to not be overly emotional in his displays. He is the most Vulcan of cats. If one were to run a poll among T’Pen’s co-workers regarding which cat was their favorite, you would probably–well, you’d get a lot of write-in ballots saying ‘how dare you, all cats are good cats’, but you’d notice how Marmalade was deffo a favorite with the humans and Sivok a favorite with the Vulcans.
Sivok does have one unnerving habit, however, and that is that he will occasionally leave a dead bird on T’Pen’s pillow– at least until she learns to close the bathroom window so he can’t get at them anymore. She does acknowledge Sivok’s hunting prowess, however, and the fact that in different circumstances that would be a very desirable quality in a cat.