How To Burn A Kingdom

Content Warning

This page describes or alludes to topics that may be uncomfortable or upsetting to readers. Please avoid this page if you are sensitive to descriptive blood, gore and some violence, some unsettling themes, regicide, arson, themes of psychological manipulation, mental issues, traumatic brain injuries, random criminal acts, spontaneous mildly humorous morbidity, unhinged-ness, and the fact that unless stated otherwise, almost every character in the story is an anthropomorphic cat..

yes everyone needs to be aware of just how traumatizing this story is/hi

## Extra

main page: The Amazing Tale of Kitten | world: The Rotating Lands | extras: Firecracker, Stairs

## Blurb

Kitten, a kitten in the magical Rainbow Kingdom (who may or may not be a reincarnated goddess), is thrown off a cliff for slapping the queen who named her. Now she wants revenge.

Kitten's plan is simple: she's going to build an army by venturing through each of the different kingdoms of the Rotating Lands and gather random bystanders to work for her in every one, then march back to the Rainbow Kingdom and smash her queen into powder. Easy, really. She WAS a goddess, she HAS the smarts, the strength and the plan, so what could go wrong?

...Well, with a team consisting of a paralyzed amnesiac found in a fire, an IOU demigod, an animate carpet and an obnoxious middle-aged bird, Kitten has to learn that people don't exactly like being bossed around and treated like minions. Kitten ALSO has to learn that the power of friendship isn't as silly as it seems, and that her actions have consequences she hadn't exactly prepared for.

Will she realize and be able to get herself out of the hole she's digging? Will she finally gain a conscience? Or will her whole journey crumble to dust in her paws?

...Do you want to find out? :)

## Prologue - ominous-er-angry forest ranting / the best character dies

*months after the first chapter begins...*

"Stupid stupid stupid. Stupid maze- Stupid home- who needs home- betrayed me- left me- those idiots-."

Angry paws, one twisted all the way around, stomped through the underbrush and fallen leaves, bleary, wet eyes narrowed into slits. They stumbled as they walked, knees wobbling from the days and days and days of unending travel pushed by the flimsy strings of energy they had left. They would not stop moving. They would not let themselves rest.

They were so close to getting back. They were so close to getting back. If they made it by tonight, before the plates moved again, they could go back to Toad- They could show those STUPID PEOPLE that-

that-

that-

...they would show them. they would show them all.

They paused suddenly with a frustrated sigh, whiskers twitching, digging their claws into the grass. "It's so EASY! It’s so easy. I can do this. I've done so much. Easy. Easy. Easy. It’s so easy." They wiped their eyes of forming tears, reminding themselves that they would not cry. No, they did not.

The cat continued walking again, through this twisting maze of unfathomable length, humming something quietly to take their mind off of their grief, sputtering insanity to themselves.

"Toad will love me. I’ll be back. They’ll regret ever bothering me. We'll be friends again. Toad will love me. I’ll be back. I'll have a friend again. He’ll show those dorks that I’m not awful. Toad wi-"

And then, all of a sudden, a crackling noise ricocheted across the maze walls. They froze, stiff with unnatural worry as the subtle crackles like snapping bones got louder and louder in gentle whispers of sound- like nothing they had ever heard before.

They brushed off a bead of sweat, shaking out their bushy fur as if trying to ward away the fear.

"You don't get scared." They growled sharply under their breath. "Suck it up. It was just a squirrel or something." They lifted their head high, striding ahead in fake confidence, foolishly turning their back on the noise even as they knew fully well that there were no squirrels in this forest. No squirrels, no birds, not even a lonely grasshopper.

There was nothing but the noise they tried so fervently to ignore.

And that's what was breaking their now delicate shield of everything they said they would not be. That's what was making it all the more terrifying: there shouldn't have even been a noise. "Just got to go back, find Toad, and show all those IDIOTS they're all WRONG!" The figure spat the word 'idiots' like venom, with passionate hate. “I’ll show them I’m great! I’ll show them I’m amazing! I’ll show them I’ve changed. Everything will be fine then. Everything will be back to normal.”

They began to hum their song again, like it would distract them from their emotions.

They kept pacing forwards; although it had been so, so long in a constant motion just walking and walking and walking on that their eyes burned from lack of sleep and every sickening feeling was like weights on their back, pushing them down in hopelessness. But somehow, they were unstoppable. They were so determined to keep going that somehow they were able to squirm through the bludgeoning pain.

Maybe it was insanity that fueled their mangled soul. Maybe it was the fact that they knew if they died here, nobody would remember them except as ‘ugh, that guy’ and his friend would go on living his life, unknowing that they had cared enough to try and come back. He would look back at everything they held dear and think “Eh, I’m kind of glad that guy's gone.”

Whether it was Toad or craziness that it turned out to be, they didn’t care right now. Because hey, at least it worked.

Only when it was far too late did they finally find out what the noise was.

The burst of blazing sunset orange was instantaneous and scintillating with radiant malice, blasting out painful sparks that sprayed their fur with burning ash and cinders. The cat stumbled backwards, full of trepidation and eyes wide as they whipped around; finding fire pouring over the ground, licking the once lush, green grass a crinkly, scorched black. They looked the raging flames straight in the face as it clutched everything- and stood there, shaking, right at the face of the burning, shimmering tendrils.

Toad. Toad. Toad. Toad- what if I die?- Toad’s out there- Toad’s out there- move! Move!- but Toad-

Toad won’t be there if I perish in flames, they reminded their spiraling brain hurriedly.

Oh yeah, it mumbled back.

And so they ran as fast as was physically possible, adrenaline coursing through their body. They ran, even as the blaze was always right behind- chasms chasms chasms chasms chasms- reaching claws at their pelt like something like something alive- The figure’s paws slammed into a root and they keeled straight down, face planting into the hot earth. With a moan of pain they dizzily staggered to their feet, jarred, stomach churning, pausing for barely a second to make sure they still had something safely on them before streaking horrified through the woods again. In the distance, they spotted a tall pine tree far away, still untouched by the obliterating glow in their blurry, jerky vision.

Tree- shelter? Shelter? Oh chasms shelter would be nice-

They darted towards it, shooting around its side and hiding behind its thick trunk, slumping down against the warm, rough bark as they tried to catch their breath, gasping for air in the thick smoke that wreathed the canopy of leaves in gray.

Crack.

"I’ll never get back home" They choke-sobbed, head buried in their crisped paws.

Crrrack.

They took a moment to look down at the thing they had on their wrist, sniffling and coughing from the fumes. It was a bracelet with small, faded beads slightly melted from the heat. Toad had given it to them, long before this whole mess happened.

“This is hopeless.” They moaned, holding the bracelet to their chest. "I’m an awful friend. I’m an awful person. I’ll never find- "

SNAP!

They felt the tree tilt behind them, and it took just a second too long to process this through the panic of the wildfire, through the flood of their emotions before they realized what was happening.

They jerked around, face contorted in pure terror, attempting to squirm away- A moment too late. The tree crashed down to the ground with a giant CRASH!- smashing their body under its now smoldering, blackened trunk. The figure was rammed downwards in the sheer force of the falling pine, already blistered face roaring in tortured misery as it slammed deep into something sharp and jagged. Everything was red and blurry- and the darkness creeping in was just as agonizing as the swirling, hungry, blazing fire that circled them like a pride of lions, ready to feast on their dying, mutilated prey.

"M-mommy..." They whispered, struggling to keep their head above the sea of burning flame and icy unconsciousness but failing-

Then they relaxed, scorched eyelids closing weakly over glassy eyes. The figure then slumped limp to the ground, never waking up again.

…Right?

## Chapter One - nothing important- nope, nothing at all

Once upon a time, in a realm far (but not that far) from our own, there lay a tiny, tiny planet. A planet so tiny at that, that it only barely managed to squeeze through being considered a dwarf planet, barely larger than our Pluto and virtually unnoticeable if, say, you were to take a walk through that particular section of space.

This planet is quite similar to Earth (it can support life, clearly) and is seen as a marble of turquoise, white and green from the cosmos- containing gleaming oceans filled with cool clear water, landforms of verdant peridot greens and a variety of creatures taking home there, many like the ones we know.

There is one massive continent clustered by islands on this strange planet, and on the continent an assortment of different biomes separated into kingdoms, each governed by a queen or king. The ruler's job is quite often to sadistically torture their subjects and laugh as they suffer, however, there are a few good monarchs who are able to manage this temptation.

This story begins in the Rainbow Kingdom, with a queen who purposefully chooses to hold nothing back and finds pleasure causing strife wholeheartedly.

Wholeheartedly.

Welcome to the Rotating Lands, where tectonic plates are those squares in sliding picture puzzles and anthropomorphic animals continue to deny their humanity and everything is flammable, except water, because water isn't flammable.

Enjoy your time.

. . .

The Rainbow Kingdom is currently located near the north left of the continent, made up of sunny meadows and mixed woods dotted here and there. The weather is fairly pleasant and the climate is fairly warm, but that’s better than nothing. In the center of the land, there is a large plateau surrounded by a terrifyingly deep chasm like a moat, circling it a thick, lush forest. Let's focus on that place.

The plateau is lopsided and very large. The northern half is higher up, a massive, slightly odd-looking city named the Prism spilled to the brim over the area. It buzzes with life constantly, humming like a space heater with abundant, chaotic energy. Farther south is a sort of suburban area where the energy and excitement goes to die, pretty underwhelming compared to what lies above it. There are far less exciting things here, besides the few alluring, peaceful little parks to visit blotched around the space and the occasional kid being thrown off a cliff.

We'll discuss that later.

An infinite rainbow arcs over the sky in day and night, cascading beautiful light down on the highland city and burning the eyes of anyone who dares to look up. It matches perfectly with the vibrant colors of the kingdom's inhabitants and their colorful homes, probably why the Rainbow Kingdom is named what it is.

At the head of the city, built to tower over everything, (even if that meant it was built a quarter off the edge of the chasm) there is a giant pink palace. In this palace, the best queen of all the land (especially after her old kingdom blew up and she assumed that gave her the right to take this one) keeps her subjects in a firm, unfaltering grip, sunbathing in the aura of angst from her citizens and dictating them to her whims. (She is also known for naming children in magical ways known to enrage both parent and child themselves, but once again, we’ll get to that later.)

Her citizens obey her will dutifully and fearfully, as no-one would dare to cross her. This may possibly be related to the fact that she hurls challengers to her might into the chasm, and maybe related to the fact that by removing all of the Red Bull from the Prism’s walls no creature trapped in the prison that is the Prism is able to leave, (Red Bull gives you wiiiings) but that is highly unlikely.

Honestly, it could just be spiders. Maybe she’s covered in spiders. Who knows.

. . .

Wishing Star, the Queen of Rainbows, slouched menacingly on her long coral couch in a large, barren side room of the castle. The space is void of much of anything, despite its size, the only objects besides the couch being a few corpses of potted plants hidden by darkness in the corners of the room, where no-one had bothered to open the curtains ever since Wish began her reign many years ago, and a little lamp on a side table that had been flickering for what seemed like decades now.

Wish, the Queen of Rainbows, slouches menacingly on her long, coral couch in a large, barren side room of the castle. The only furniture in the entire room besides that couch were probably a few corpses of potted plants hidden in the darkness by the far right wall, where the above lights hadn’t been bothered to be turned on ever since she began her reign many, many years ago, and a little lamp on a side table on the opposite corner of the room that one of her castle staff had turned on for her, as she would never do it herself.

She stares off into space in endless boredom with fiery eyes that could melt your soul if you looked into them too long, wondering if she squinted into nothing for a while something would happen.

“Chiiiirrrrppp?” She called once, her voice echoing through the emptiness. “Chirrrrrppppp?”

Silence.

“CHIRPPPP?????” Wish screeched finally, glaring up over the couch’s edge expectantly. She heard a faint “I’m coming!” squeak from the second floor, and someone crash down the stairs with a loud SMACK!

Her son appeared from the dim hallway lit only by flashlight placed haphazardly in the middle of the floor, the side table lamp that illuminated the rose-pink walls, mountains of dust and cobwebs, and finally the giant window on the left wall of the room, which blared out bright multicolored light from the rainbow just above.

Wish didn't use more than an eighth of the palace at most, her walkways like the well worn paths of a hiking trail, the rest of it clouded with dust bunnies.

It was a bit pathetic, to be honest. No, it was very pathetic. Very much pathetic.

His face was plastered with bruises, but he seemed to be unaffected by that, flicking some invisible dust off his cape, straightening up with a smile. “What is it?” He said brightly.

Queen Wish peered at him, holding up her head with her paws. “I’m bored. Entertain me.” She said, tail twitching.

He gave her a toothy grin. “The Insect of Destruction has arrived at the castle.”

She jumped, eyes widening. Oh STARS there was an Insect of Destruction??? She thought in panic, tensing up-

And then the mosquito came into sight, jerking around the air weakly from the sheer amount of bug spray that was in the air.

Wish growled, crushing in her paws, glaring at Chirp as he giggled madly. “I can’t believe you fell for that.” He chortled. She promptly flicked the mosquito corpse at his face, glaring at him again.

Chirp was always strange. Not only did he have the oddest mix of orange and rose fur and sort of looked like a scab from a distance, he always wore this red cape that he proclaimed was from a vampire, making him a vampire.

Also, he had the humor of a nerd, in Wish’s opinion. I mean, who makes jokes about an ‘Insect of Destruction’?

“Actually entertain me.” She hissed. He stopped laughing abruptly at her words, and searched her face with those wide brown eyes. Wish imagined he was scrolling through his mind to find something, like some kind of mathematician.

She thought of him as the kind of 7-year-old who would do that.

“A new kitten was born recently.” Chirp said.

Wish shot up, almost falling right off the side of the couch.

“NEW KITTEN??” Wish roared, face alight with excitement and eagerness. Her son nodded, clearly not sharing her enthusiasm. “Yep. A new kitten. Born maybe a few weeks ago?”

She frowned at his words. “Why didn’t you tell me then?” Wish said. He simply shrugged. “You didn’t ask me to entertain you.”

The Queen of Rainbows narrowed her eyes at him, stretching out on the plain couch, sinking briefly into its soft warmth. Then she slowly got up, shaking out her hot pink fur. She turned to Chirp. “Take me to them.” Wish said, as she always did.

Most of the previous castle staff would have backed up slightly at this, muttering “Um, that’s a bit creepy.”

But her son didn’t believe in the word ‘creepy’, and he smiled, taking her large paw in his tiny one and walking with her out of the desolate room. They passed Hamilton, the only remaining of the castle staff, who was hastily straightening the tapestries of Wish over the entryway, wobbling on a tall ladder to reach them.

“Hamilton, have you put away my laundry yet?” She called as they began to exit.

They flinched. “N-no ma’m-er- Your Greatness.”

Wish groaned. “Well DO IT then! Seriously, what have you being doing that’s distracted you for so long??”

“Rectifying your tapestries and feeding your fish, Your Greatness.” Hamilton said quietly.

The queen scoffed as she opened the main door to the castle, stepping outside. "Gosh, it's taken you THIS LONG?? Do it faster! Jeez!”

As she left, they climbed down from the ladder, appearing annoyed. Looking to see if anyone else might be spying on them, they quietly stood there for a second, before making a little huff and kicking the tapestry. They paused, then sighed, mumbling “this is pointless.”

Then they begrudgingly trudged over to the second floor to put away Wish’s laundry.

## Chapter Two - at least you weren't Turtlebert

Chirp wore a wide smile as he led his mother out of the palace, past the crowds of civilians that once were walking around, but now very politely backed up as far as they could from her view.

The two passed through here surprisingly quickly for the normal amount of people wandering through the streets (it might have been because, well, she was the queen, but considering she usually had to shove her way out of the city it was probably because there were less people out that just didn’t care about her authority) and headed towards the area at the far, far left, bane of the rich people and home of the boring, common citizens whose daily lives probably added up to: wake up, eat, read something, eat, sit around, eat, sleep.

Wish scrunched up her nose, trying to pull back from Chirp. If it weren’t for him dragging her onwards, she would have ran back to the castle, and probably watched an aggressive amount of TV just to get her mind off of how placid the area was.

“Are you SURE this is the right place?” She said disgustedly through the absolute silence around her, not even a single cricket’s chirp, which would have been appropriate.

He nodded, which made her concerned. “Absolutely positively, completely sure?”

Chirp nodded again. “There is no doubt this is where we are going.”

There was always something to say about him. He had an unusually large vocabulary for seven, had an obsession with people-watching, (it’s the best thing ever, according to him.

“They’re just like birds. They jump around being complete weirdos.”) and…

He always seemed to know when children had been born.

“I was sitting outside.” He was telling her “being a ruthless tyrant to my disloyal butterfly army which I may or may not have massacred because they kept annoying me and not biting people, when I heard a cry. Naturally I ran towards it. I saw…”

Chirp looked at her with wide eyes “baby.”

Wish arched her eyebrows. "You watched a random cat go to a hospital and give birth?" Chirp shook his head. "I saw the baby. That is all I shall say."

"And you followed her home to know where she lives." Wish continued.

Chirp nodded, eyes bright and sparkly. "How else would I show you?"

Wish nodded back. “Ah.” She patted his head, and he smiled. “Smart kid.”

They finally arrived at a small cottage, the outside walls, thickly layered and peeling greatly, were painted an odd, dull cornflower blue. It was surrounded by tall pine and elm trees, casting sparse patches of sunlight on the roof and making each pale roof tile gleam like gold. Queen Wish grimaced. The two colors did not go well together, in her opinion.

She and Chirp stomped through the uncut lawn, stepping nervously over the poky weeds that sprawled a small pebbly path to the door like tangled spider legs. They finally reached the front porch, its sides mobbed by ivy, and Wish stood there for a few seconds, just peering at it as a whole.

"And you’re ABSOLUTELY sure this is the house?" She repeated, unsure.

Her son nodded firmly, tail tapping softly on the wood beneath them.

"This is the place. The parent’s name is Lizard on Road."

Wish faintly remembered a cat with that name. She thought they had been acquaintances of some sort before she had become queen, and that Wish had gotten angry she hadn’t been able to name her as well as all of the other kids.

She sighed. Before her reign, parents were able to name their children whatever they liked. Middle names and last names were nonexistent, giving anyone the ability to name their kids anything that came to mind. They could name someone Not An Octagon! They could name someone Yardstick! They could name someone Indestructible Pillow!

Wish sighed again. That person trying to sell me pears at the castle doorstep had, she thought.

It’s not that Queen Wish was against it- no, she was in full support of the “Who Cares If It’s Weird Just Go With It” way of naming. She had, after all, named her son Annoying Chirping Noise simply because she was bored and it was funny at the time.

The “problem” with the whole thing was genuinely just because the current Queen of Rainbows thought that she had better name ideas than anyone else on the plateau. She would not settle for the bogus names they would give their children. So she was going to name them all herself.

Wish would not have named the mother something like Lizard On Road. She would have probably named her Roof Tile.

"What a long, annoying name." Wish murmured. "I guess I should name her kid something reptile-related and annoying too."

Chirp and Wish started laughing the moment she spoke the last word. "Like that's ever going to happen."

The queen clasped the doorknob, exhaling.

Then she promptly kicked the door open, unhinging it from the wall with little effort and effectively sending it crashing down to the floor under her foot with a loud CRACK!

On the other side of the wide, single-roomed cottage, a black cat almost jumped out of the plain, tan bed she was laying on at the opposite side of the space, whipping around to see who was there. Her pretty golden eyes were wide and round and panicked, as if a robber had just broken in, and then she saw the queen and they narrowed into bothered slits. “Oh.” She spat, curling back towards the wall. “It’s you.”

Wish nodded, her nose scrunched up in disgust. “It is indeed.” She hissed. “You could use some… interior decorating lessons. Very badly.”

Lizard On Road paused at this, looking around at her small table, bookshelf, tiny kitchen, and singular rug. “I think it looks nice, for a small ho-”

The Queen of Rainbows sighed. “What I mean is that your house is ugly and I might just arrest you if you don’t fix it soon.”

Lizard On Road bared her teeth. “Then you’d better prepare for kicking and screaming the whole way there.”

They stared silently at each other for a few moments, before Chirp walked out in front of his mother, saying quietly “We are here to name your child.”

The Queen of Rainbows nodded, blinking with wide eyes. “Yes. Now show us the child.”

Lizard on Road suddenly looked desperate, almost nervous. "Promise me you won't name her something stupid? I was thinking of, like, insect or reptile-related names, something cute like Firefly or-"

Wish shook her head. “Nonono, you see, I can only decide names for things in my line of sight. And your child isn’t air. So unless you want me to name them Thing I Can’t See, show me the child.”

Wish was very serious with naming children. It had started off as just a funny hobby when she could, and it had turned into a tradition of some sort. Now any time she heard a name that she had NOT created, it ticked her off.

She would make the mother upset. She would make the child upset. It would be hilarious, and she would laugh about it for long periods of time just because.

Someday, I should make it a law, Wish thought to herself.

Lizard on Road gritted her teeth. “I was getting there” she hissed sharply under her breath. Then, with a little sigh, she revealed a tiny little black kitten with a little white heart on her chest and pretty golden eyes. They seemed to radiate light, like something more than mortal. The kitten coughed, then let out a little squeak.

“OH mY cHASms she’s so CUTe!” Wish said gleefully.

“She looks like an omen of complete annihilation!” Chirp said not-so-gleefully.

Wish’s gaze was fixed on the little thing, eyes wide in adoration. "This is the most beautiful kitten I have ever seen."

Lizard nodded, smirking a bit.

"I must name it something appropriately perfect for this perfect child."

She thought for quite a while, looking stressed as she went through every awful kid name she knew. I sound like Chirp, she thought sourly to herself.

Wish thought hard for a long time. Lizard on Road was gazing up at her, slightly terrified. Chirp was peering at a picture frame near the left side of the space.

Finally, she grinned. “I have one.”

Lizard on Road, Chirp and the kitten each made a little squeak, eagerness in their eyes. Chirp padded over to his mother expectantly. The kitten meeped again.

The Queen of Rainbows ripped the baby aggressively out of her mother’s hands, holding the child up into the air.

“From now on, your name is…”

Wish paused extensively for dramatic effect. The room seemed to quiver in the silence, almost like a drumroll… or it could be that her son was attempting to make drumroll noises and failing horribly. The kitten let out another little meep of curiosity.

"Kitten."

Everyone froze.

And with the force of a tornado made of lions on caffeine and a supernatural clearness no less-than-a-month-old child should have, the kitten roared “WHAT???????????”

Wish, absolutely unfazed, arched her eyebrows. “You didn’t hear?”

“YOU-YOu-Y-YoU-” Kitten the kitten stuttered in a now very pitchy voice, eyes a blazing wildfire of anger and fur bristling like a porcupine as Queen Wish calmly put her back down on the bed. Kitten’s mother crept carefully down the side of the mattress, looking absolutely blown out of the water. She paced back towards Chirp, who was nodding shakily, muttering “I thought so.”

Wish shrugged. “Kitten. A name for a kitten.” She grinned. “You should be glad I didn’t name you Kitty- or Turtlebert. Those would be even more perfect.”

Lizard on Road slunk farther away, over towards the counter by the wall, watching Kitten quiver from sheer outrage.

"I'll make popcorn." She whispered, creeping over to the microwave and grabbing a bag of popcorn from a cabinet under it. Chirp turned over to her, trying his best to avoid the scene that was quickly growing. "How 'bout I help."

The kitten’s little golden eyes were bright balls of fury. She stood up on the bed firmly, in the kind of way someone who’s age usually knows how to walk does; you know, like someone a few years old. “WHAT KIND OF NAME IS ‘KITTEN’????”

Wish shrugged again. She did not seem to care that this very young child could speak as clearly as she could. She did not seem to care that this very young child was standing on the bed with such ire in her gaze and in her voice that it seemed her eyes could shoot straight through someone like a laser and her words could pound them into the earth like a mallet.

The Queen of Rainbows lived in a very weird kingdom. She also had no experience with children, despite having one of her own.

She supposed this was something they might do if they were a kitten named Kitten.

“The kind of name people give kids.” Wish responded simply. “Also, ‘cause it’s winter.”

The kitten let out a guttural screech.

“KITTEN IS AN ABHORRENT NAME FOR A KID. YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO YOUR KINGDOM.” She spat out.

Wish did not seem to care that a child this tiny had such a big vocabulary. She DID, however, care about getting insulted like that.

Her eyes narrowed in anger, her insensitive demeanor cracking. “You haven’t lived an eleventh as long as I have.” The Queen of Rainbows snapped. “How would you know what I am to my citizens??”

Lizard on Road and Chirp put the popcorn bag in the microwave, and patiently waited for it to finish as they watched their family members yell viciously at each other. When it dinged, Lizard found a large plastic purple bowl from a drawer nearby, and poured the popcorn in, sitting against the counter side together. They sat on the dusty floorboards, tails twitching, munching on the popcorn and occasionally having to pull a piece of the kernel that got stuck from a crevice of their mouths.

“Who do you think is gonna win?” Chirp asked casually, despite the eagerness with which he peered at Kitten and Wish, who were throwing insults so furiously that if this was a comic, there would be cascades of lightning spewing from their eyeballs.

With a bunch of starch in his mouth it sounded more like “hu du u htink es guhha in”, but Lizard on Road got the point.

She swallowed before responding with “I think Queen Wish will. She’s an absolute frut, but my daughter is just a kitten, even if she is terrifying and completely unnaturally loud.”

Prince Chirp shrugged. “I bet Kitten will. You’re right, she’s terrifying, but she’s also tiny. However, she is, like you said, inhumanly developed and very very screamy. To be honest, my mom is pretty lazy. She runs out of vocal energy quickly, so she has no chance.”

Then he turned to her, eyebrows raised. “I bet you a family size bag of Sour Patch Kids that I’m right.”

Lizard pressed her face to his, grinning, ignoring the fact that they were betting candy against her own 2+ week old child and their reigning monarch. "I bet you a party-size bag of Sour Patch Kids that I'M right."

Chirp grinned. "I'll take that bet."

“An eleventh as long as you have…” Kitten repeated. The words reverberated ominously in the silence. Then she snapped. “I am older than any mortal here will ever be.”

Wish stopped. “What the heck is that supposed to mean???-”

Kitten lurched over, pulling a teeny paw back, and-

-gave her the loudest, hardest slap the world had ever seen. The sheer force of the slap rung through the cottage like a blast of thunder directly overhead, knocking everything around them back, including Chirp and Lizard on Road’s bowl of popcorn, sending all of its contents straight at their faces, and the pollen and dust from the rafters covering the ground in yellow and gray speckles. Far away in the city, the citizens stopped what they were doing and just stood there for a moment as the ground rumbled and pondered this, wondering what could have caused the tiny earthquake they felt under their paws.

She was wobbling on the spot, the little section on her cheek that Kitten had made contact with bright red. Her nose was bleeding from the impact, and she looked dazed, incredibly surprised, and most of all, in pain.

“You’re going to pay for this.” Wish said quietly, before falling limply to the ground with a THUMP.

Kitten promptly started cackling, pointing and laughing at the Queen Of Rainbows comatose on the floorboards.

Lizard on Road gaped. “Is she okay??” She whimpered. Chirp shrugged. “Things like this happen. She’ll maybe have a magic seizure, since your daughter is unquestionably more than living, probably an angry goddess or something like that,”

“An angry goddess???” Lizard wailed. “How do you know this??”

Chirp shrugged again, holding out a paw at Kitten. “Do you think this is what a normal, average kitten would do?”

Lizard shrugged back. “I dunno. I’ve never had a kid before.”

Prince Chirp sighed, picking up one of the pieces of popcorn stuck to his cape and popping it in his mouth. “It is not. Smart people would know that.” Then he looked over at his mother again, who was twitching. “Mom will be fine though- she’s very resilient.” Finally, he stared Lizard on Road directly in the eyes. “I won. Time for those Sour Patch Kids.”

Lizard’s eyes widened. “Y-you were serious?”

He nodded. “Completely. I mean, if you’re going to bet on something, it has to be serious or there’s no reason to bet because even if you do win you won’t get anything and nobody will lose anything.” Then he narrowed his round eyes. “And only hamsters back out of bets.”

Kitten’s mother froze. “I am NOT a hamster.” She hissed, lifting up from her place lounging against the cabinet door and holding out a paw for Chirp while brushing off the popcorn from her fur. “Let’s go get that colossal bag of candy.”

Chirp grinned, taking hers. “I’m going to get so sick from this.” He said eagerly.

Lizard on Road walked over to the side table near the doorway, the actual door still unhinged completely and lying on the floor, letting all of the lukewarm air in. I should fix that at some point today, she thought. Then she opened a drawer and pulled out a wallet, then turned back to where her child was, screeching victory over the unconscious queen’s body. She had no idea how to parent, so she just called from the entrance “Be good! Don’t start any dance battles without me!”

“As if!” Kitten responded loudly.

Lizard sighed, not knowing what to say back.

“She’s growing up so fast.” She said affectionately. Then she walked out of the cottage with Chirp, who as they left casually said “do you like Legos?”

Kitten watched as they left before she peeked over at Wish, who looked incredibly disoriented, eyes half open. “How dare you.” The Queen of Rainbows said weakly, clearly dazed. The kitten huffed. “How dare YOU!”

"I’m the queen. I get the ‘how dare you’s."

"I am the goddess of betrayal and murder and spite. I don’t care."

Wish was silent for a little while, like she was trying to process this. Not wanting to believe it was true, she narrowed her eyes. “You are going to be in so much trouble once I can move again.”

Kitten scoffed. “I don’t care.” She stated again, chin lifted. “You can’t do anything to me. I am infinitely more powerful, more intelligent, and more cool than you are.”

Wish chuckled in a wavering voice. She lifted up an arm to wipe some nose blood from her face. “You are wrong. Very wrong. Just you w-”

Before she could finish the sentence, the Queen of Rainbows flopped limp on the ground again, and started twitching violently because of the magic seizure Kitten had given her.

It was very hard explaining this, as a less-than-a-month-old child, to the doctors who came when they heard their queen was shaking on the floorboards of a random cottage like defected jello.

Kitten also may have killed a man with a notebook. But that’s not important, nope, not at all.

## Chapter Three - unavoiding the unavoidable, also known as failure

*A few months later…*

Out near the edges of the plateau, at the border of a small park, Kitten sat with her back pressed against a tree in the grass, her inky black fur catching the sunlight from the side and making it shine. The speckled shade from the tree’s leaves cast a little circle of dark patches on the ground around her, almost hiding the little cat in the shadows as she glared out into the distance, watching her mother and Prince Chirp talk vividly about prehistoric creatures.

Kitten wondered how someone like Lizard on Road could ever be so interested as him in random bones you find underground.

Kitten wasn’t, of course. It sounded pretty dumb to her, especially as someone who had previously lived at the time those bones had been on living creatures.

And Lizard on Road still didn't seem to get this. She didn't seem to get it at all. Her mortal brain was clearly far too small to wrap around the fact that yes, she was a divine being forced to suffer 2776 reincarnations because she lost a bet, and no, that normal kids did not do this. Kitten had no relation to those mindless, squishy-boned little creatures who had to learn to READ and WRITE and WALK, and she never would be.

All her mother did was stare wide-eyed and pat her head, chuckling and giving her strained, unbelieving smiles before going to hang out with a child that was one, the freaking son of Queen Wish; two, was definitely not her own; and three, and far too high for her disgusting peasant class- and yet hang out she did.

“You’re just a normal little kitten.” She told the week old child who had slapped Wish so hard she fell unconscious and had to be taken to a hospital.

“What an amazing imagination you have.” She told the random infant who had screamed words some of the older citizens had to look in a dictionary to find the meaning of.

"That's nice." She told her own, ever-so-young daughter who had taken it upon herself to draw out every way she could cause the Queen of Rainbow's demise in detail.

Lizard On Road was clearly terrified of her, THAT Kitten could tell. It was infuriating.

Chirp and Lizard were sitting on a little blue picnic blanket near a lake, (which in reality was more like a giant pond) out in a small meadow with short grass and a pretty view of the chasm and its other side, which was blanketed in a thick, dark forest. The glow of the giant rainbow made the dirty, partially trash-tainted pond shimmer with bright colors to the point where if you squinted, the rays were bright enough you couldn't actually see all of the garbage, which was pretty nice. The rest of the scene was not. The two figures, one scab red and the other pure black, were laughing and yelling and discussing random things like Legos and candy and the kind of stuff Kitten would never understand even if she tried. No, she would probably punch them both. Yeah, give them magic seizures too.

They didn't see her alone and offer to invite her over, nor did they give even a passing glance in her direction. It was very annoying- but not like Kitten cared. Kitten definitely didn't care at all.

She waved a paw in the air. A meteorite streaks down from space and smashes them and the lake, she thought loudly to herself.

Nothing happened. Not a single thing, not even a pebble falling from the sky and smacking them in the head. She narrowed her eyes.

She waved both of her paws in the air. Lizard on Road suddenly transforms into a giant cheese ball, she thought again determinedly.

Again, nothing. The only yellow-orange feature of her mother were her eyes, and those were already that color.<Kitten huffed, folding her arms, not noticing the soft shifting noise beside her. This is pointless, she thought sourly. Absolutely pointless.

Kitten was sick of being a mortal. Every time she was cursed with reincarnating again, she attempted to use her powers, and it never worked. She didn’t know why she did tried. It’s not like she’d magically be able to summon tornadoes when she was bored, much less fill the tornadoes with alligators, especially when all she had left was her strength and her memory. She couldn’t trample ANYONE as a little kitten.

Kitten considered this for a second, which was more than she usually considered anything. To be honest, she was lucky she was given the ability to even REMEMBER she was a celestial being. I mean, that could have all been lost, and she probably wouldn’t have been able to process any of these thoughts at all. Kitten shivered at the thought- she, a being so great and so powerful, might have been… normal.

“What are they doing?” Someone said with a giggle, making her jump and fall sideways on the grass, bristling.<Kitten whipped around defensively towards the voice, screeching, “WHO IS IT??”

The speaker flinched, appearing surprised. They showed their face slowly, mumbling with an awkward grin “oops- forgot to introduce myself. Sorry.”

Kitten peered at them curiously. They were a young, pretty lilac calico cat with sage green eyes that glimmered in the semi-darkness and a fairly round, kind face you didn't ordinarily see on residents of the elite Prism, of all places. The Rainbow Kingdom itself was known for its general hostility, but the Prism? Even more so. Far, FAR more so, in fact.

“I’m Tilly.” The stranger said, her dainty white whiskers twitching.

Kitten blinked. “Hmm. That’s a surprisingly good name for W-”

Tilly shook her head, abruptly interjecting before Kitten could finish. "Actually, no. Queen Wish named me Turtlebert."

"Ah. So you got THAT name."

"Yep..." She shifted again, looking down at the grass. "My dad didn't like it though. Said he would call me Tilly instead."<Kitten humphed, turning away. "Must be nice."

Tilly gazed over at her again, pointing to Chirp. "But at least I wasn't HIM. Do you want to know what Wish- or Wishing Star, that's her real name- named her son?"

She cocked her head, brows furrowing. "...Chirp?"

Tilly giggled again. "She named him 'Annoying Chirping Noise'. Can you believe that?"

Kitten couldn't help but snicker now, disbelief clear on her face. "No way."

"Yes way! My dad works around the area of the castle- he's actually heard her call him that before, isn't that hilarious?"

"Poor Chirp." Kitten sniggered.

The lilac calico settled on the earth beside Kitten, her paws fidgety. There was silence for a moment.

“I’m twelve.” She said finally, a bit awkwardly again.

Kitten noticed her looking at her skeptically down at her. “And… you’re… two?”

Kitten shrugged. “I am seventy seven million years old. But in this form I am about 5 months old. Either way you are not close.”

Tilly simply stared at her, the amusement of talking casually to a young child without struggle shaken into sheer bewilderment. "...Ooookay!”

Kitten looked back over at her mother, not noticing any of it. “Your Queen of Rainbows named me Kitten because she's sooooo creative. I slapped her in the face and gave her a magic seizure for it, sending her into a hospital.”

They both caught eyes for a second, Tilly’s widened. Kitten shrugged again, glancing away, tiny tail flicking side to side. “You’re welcome.”

At that moment, Tilly decided there was no point in trying to make sense of this. She had sat down by what appeared to be an infant (maybe her growth was stunted? Dunno, she could talk pretty well) who turned out to literally be an infant and was talking to her in the way a fully grown adult was. This kitten named Kitten also had informed Tilly that she was seventy seven million years old. And that she had just slapped the queen and send her to a hospital.

Tilly decided she was just going to go with it, since any pointy reality or logic that tried to shove at her fantasy-adoring, imaginative brain was shoved back by what Tilly assumed was a god in a tiny little body, sitting nonchalantly by her.

There was nothing logical or realistic or sane about any of this.

“Is that your mother over there, with the prince?” Tilly said curiously.

Kitten nodded with a dry groan, her ears flattening. “Yeah. They’re friends or something. I don’t get it.” Then she laughed a little bit. “They have oddly similar interests.”

Tilly shifted by the tree. “Huh. Prince Chirp doesn’t have a lot of friends- he’s a bit… strange- so it’s good he’s found someone, I guess. Interesting he chose your mom though.”

“From what I know, young children need to be with their mothers a lot, but Lizard On Road is barely around me. Therefore it is not good, and she needs to spend time with ME, her kid, not him.”

“She might be scared of you. You’re kind of a weird kid.” Tilly admitted. “I mean, you did slap a queen.”

Kitten sighed. “That is true. I expect most kittens of my age do not talk or walk around or attack their rulers.”

“They do not.” Tilly said in agreement.

Kitten looked down at the ground for a moment, then eventually tilted up to gaze at her with a curious expression. “Does your mother do bonding activities with you? Just wondering if that was a normal thing or just a me thing, because it has happened in every one of my lives until now.” She said candidly.

Tilly shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes, I guess. Not a whole lot- I mean, she does sell pears most of the time, but I get to have some fun with her every once in a while.”

“Hm.” Was all Kitten said. She stared off at the lake for a while. Lizard on Road and Prince Chirp had pulled out a random assortment of snacks from a basket by her mother and were looking out at the lake quietly, which filled Kitten with an emotion that bothered her.

“I’m never jealous of these dumb little mortals. I’m never jealous. But now, seeing them together, it makes me jealous.” Kitten mumbled finally. “I don’t get it. It’s not like it’s anything special, besides the fact that she seems to love Wish’s child more than her own.”

“Probably because Queen Wish stinks.” Tilly commented. “And the sight of your mother with the offspring of someone who stinks makes you jealous because your mother should know better than being around the offspring of someone who stinks.”

Kitten thought about this. “That might be why.”

Tilly shrugged again, looking up at the leaves of the tree rustling high above. “Prince Chirp is decent though, from what I know of him. Pretty different from the queen, I would say. Not only by his weird fur and, well, Chirp-ness, if you know what I mean-”

“I do.” Kitten interrupted, watching his figure scarf down a bag of chips in only a few seconds.

“Yeah, not only that but also” she waved her paws around in the air “his whole attitude, I guess. He’s very calm and thinks about what he does a lot more than Queen Wish.”

Kitten laughed. “That is undoubtedly true.”

Tilly was silent for a while, looking down at her paws. “My mom was going to sit with me here today, but she’s…” She sighed. “She found out her brother- er- my uncle- died a few months ago. We only got the news of it yesterday- and-”

Kitten was unconcerned by this. “Things happen sometimes, it’s just a part of life.” She said.

The lilac calico shook her head, wiping her eyes. “The thing is, things like this don’t happen all the time.” She looked over at Kitten, appearing slightly terrified. “He was beaten to death with a notebook. I don’t think things like that happen all the time.”

Kitten froze. “Um.” She said, trying desperately to hide her quivering voice. “Um. Uh, that really is…”

Tilly drooped her head, her shoulders sagging. “I can’t find words to describe it either. I mean, who would do something like that? He was the best uncle I’ve ever known, and now he’s gone.”

Kitten got up quickly. “That must be horrendous to think about. “ She said as fast as she could. “I-I have to go.”

Tilly looked up at her almost… suspiciously. “Why?”

Oh chasms- Kitten gave a brief little shrug, racking her brain for an excuse. “I’m starving.” She finally said. “And my mother won’t share her chips.”

Tilly opened her mouth to say something and Kitten added “I asked her a while ago.”

“Ah.” Tilly said. “Okay then.” She smiled softly. “Bye, Kitten. Let’s hope Wish spares you mercy.”

Kitten cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

Tilly arched her eyebrows. “Wish finally got better. She’s out and about now. And if I know her well enough, and I do, she’s coming after you.”

Kitten sucked in a breath. Double chasms- “Thanks for that then.” She mumbled. Then she stepped back a bit before sprinting out of the park’s leafy hedge walls as fast as she could, almost leaping back to her home.

She raced down the rocky street as quickly as her stubby little legs could take her, flinging herself down the road. Her thoughts were spiraling crazily- which was probably the main reason Kitten made such a big mistake.

Of all of the people- of all of the people to be related to it was her?? The random cat that had given me a weird look so I smacked him with a notebook fifty four times just HAD to be related to Tilly.

If Kitten had been actually thinking, she would have known that running towards her house was a really, really bad move. Wish knew where she lived, after all, and if she forgot, Chirp could just tell her, because he knew too. But Kitten still wasn’t thinking.

If I get inside, I can hide in a cupboard or something. Then when Wish comes in to find me, she won’t. Kitten didn’t pay attention to the fact that there were multiple bushes nearby capable of hiding her even better. A-and if she starts opening all of the cupboards, I have plenty of forks to throw at her. Kitten didn’t pay attention to the fact that in the bushes, where Wish would never look, there were tons of pointy sticks and poky leaves that would hurt her just as much.

She almost fell over as she skidded to a stop in front of her house, fur puffing up. Okay, I’m here- Kitten didn’t pay attention to the voice in her head that said “Kitten, you’re being a moron right now.” She barrelled through the messy yard, up to the porch-

Kitten also didn’t pay attention to her surroundings.

Right as she leaped up to the door, something side stepped right in front of her, and she crashed right into it.

Kitten fell back, confused and slightly dazed. “Wh-” She began, looking up at what was-

A big, pink and white bandaged face grinned widely down at her. Kitten froze.

“Hey, Kitten.” Wish said.

## Chapter Four - you fool, everything has consequences

“H-how did you-” Kitten tried to keep her composure, but she was panicking more now. She sucked in a breath, putting on a bothered face. “How long have you been standing here?”

Wish frowned. Her nose was covered with bandages, and she looked a little faint, but ultimately much better than when she was taken to the hospital. It made Kitten nervous.

“An hour or so, ever since you went to the park with my kid.”

Kitten groaned. “Ah. Of course.” She gave Wish a little smirk, despite her fear. “This is the first time you’ve actually tried to be smart in a while.”

Wish’s frown dropped lower. She stepped over and rested an arm on the porch railing. “I said you would be punished. Did you think I was going to forget?”

Tilly’s words reappeared in her mind. “Wish finally got better. She’s out and about now. And if I know her well enough, and I do, she’s coming after you.”

Kitten shrugged. Wish is dull and uncreative, she told herself determinedly. She’s not going to do anything to me. And if she tries, I can just punch her again.

Two other figures appeared from the bushes around her home- one a big, blue-tailed skink and the other a lanky gray cat who Kitten knew to be Hamilton, Wish’s butler, from all of the times they accompanied Chirp on his and Lizard’s playdates. Kitten’s pelt bristed at the sight of them in particular- they were possibly the dullest, blandest cat alive.

-Or they were beyond masterful at hiding their emotions and skilled in the art of being so incredibly BORING.

Suspicious.

She looked up at Wish, about to speak again, when Wish cut her off, smirking gleefully. “I knew you’d try to run. I knew you’d try to fight. I knew you’d expect me to be dumb and do it all by myself.”

They approached closer, grabbing Kitten, who was bristling hard enough to look like a porcupine from a distance. She screeched in fury, trying to claw at them as they picked her up, but Hamilton was surprisingly resistant to her frantic tearing up their arms. She purposefully ignored the thought in her head that wondered why.

Kitten was quickly out of breath, panting and desperately trying to squirm out of his grasp, but it was hopeless now.

Wish lurched over to grin smugly over Kitten. “You were wrong. And you will die for that mistake.”

Before Wish could jerk back up, Kitten said “w-wait,” holding out a little paw and putting on the most utterly heartbroken expression she could muster.

Wish raised an eyebrow, looking bothered. “What is it?”

Kitten let out a dramatic sigh. “In my house, there’s a backpack. It’s black with green on the front. As my final request, I would like to wear it as I perish.”

Wish just peered at her for a moment. “...No. I know you’re hiding stuff in there.”

Kitten’s sigh was pathetic and weak this time. “It’s filled with pantaloons. You can even check.”

Wish stopped at the word ‘pantaloons’, raising an eyebrow skeptically. Before she could make a remark, Kitten added “as I said before, I would like to die with them. It would be my final request of you.”

The Queen of Rainbows gave her an odd look.

"Why, of all things, do you want pantaloons?" She snapped. "I bet they don't even fit.

Shush and just get the backpack like the foolish, shortsighted, petty queen you are- "I stitched them for my mother." She said desperately. "They don't fit. I'd like to die with them."

"Suspiciousssssssssssss" the skink hissed.

Wish raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. "Yeah right."

"They're a big waste of space." She added.

The Queen of Rainbows blinked. She stood there silently for a while, before laughing. "Then OF COURSE you can have them! They're just like you!"

Kitten huffed, watching her waltz into her house with barely controlled rage. If she could, she would have ripped Wish's face off. But Wish had fallen for it, and that's what kept her cool.

No matter what she thought of herself, Wish was an idiot at heart.

## Chapter Five - we live, you die, nobody tells your storyyyyy

...

Kitten's demise went out unlike Kitten expected it would go, which was annoying. Not only because, well, it was her demise and she wished for Wish to have as little fun with it as possible, but also because if Kitten knew how it was going to go, maybe she could have stopped it. However, this was like nothing she had ever seen- and in the simplest description, it was horrible.

Mind-blowing-ly cunning, and also horrible.

Kitten had her backpack on, and was tied to a punching bag at the very edge of the chasm. Close enough she didn't even think about escaping, as a single movement would send her toppling off the side. She had been tied there for hours with no sign of being pushed off, not even a twitch of some intention.

Meanwhile, Queen Wish, her captors, Prince Chirp, her mother and Tilly were having a party right before her.

Colored fairy lights were strung from tall trees, and in the center of a small clearing near the edge was a picnic table loaded to the brim with cake and ice cream and candy and soda and even literal sugar in a container Chirp was eating far too much of. There were far too many pastries and sweets for Kitten to count, the aromas too much to bear for a tiny kitten nose like hers. But not a single piece reached her mouth. Not a single bite was offered to her. And she got to watch as the only people she really knew yet devoured it all right in front of her face without a single look of remorse.

'Cept for Tilly. Tilly tried to offer her some. However, Tilly was a wimp so she didn't count.

Ah, the poor girl. She kept looking out at Kitten so mournfully, like this wasn't something that almost certainly happened at least twice a week. She also attempted to hand Kitten at least five slices of pie, two sodas and bowl of ice cream before giving up, and every time Wish would catch her the second before Kitten could even open her mouth, and she was starting to think that was intentional, because it had been a while since Kitten had felt this much rage towards a mortal before. The anger was usually saved for ranting and cursing at the sky, hoping her boss was watching so they could see just how mad she was, but she couldn't handle this.

Kitten didn't know what kind of strategy this was, what kind of insane torture this Queen of Rainbows had thought up, but it was working, and that's what she hated the most.

I'm going to get her back, Kitten thought menacingly to herself. I'm going to burn up her ugly, wasted castle until all there's left is ASH. THEN she'll see what she's done. THEN she'll regret it so bad, hahaha. It would be her worst nightmare.

She shifted on the backpack, and heard pebbles cascade into the jaws of the chasm beside her. If I survive this, which is doubtful, she added in her mind, feeling cold sweat drip down her head.

She watched Wish shove a pink cupcake into her mouth, whisper something into Lizard and Hamilton's ears, and then get up, heading towards her. Kitten blinked, eyes widening. It was time already?-

Wish stood before her, chest puffed out and paws on her hips, and took a few minutes to finish chewing before grinning at her, eyes flashing. "You are going to die tonight, Kitten." She said smugly.

Kitten nodded. "We've went over this quite a few times."

Wish frowned. "This is MY speech. I don't want your fancy words in this."

"'Quite' isn't even a fancy word-"

"SHUSH!" Wish screeched. Then she turned around, grinning again. She pointed at Lizard on Road, then did a little 'come here' motion with one of her paws.

Lizard put her paws over her head, looking nervous. "I'm broke." She said desperately. "There's nothing you can take from me but Transformers."

Wish frowned again. Chirp whispered something in her ear, and she blinked, face flushing. "Oh- uh- sorry." She stepped up to her, tail twitching. The Queen of Rainbows continued. "Lizard on Road, are you going to miss Kitten once I shove her off the edge of this fine 12 digit chasm I have here?"

Lizard on Road gazed deep into Kitten's eyes, seeing all she had done for the maybe 4 months Kitten had been hers.

She shrugged, looking away. "Honestly, not that much. Parenting is too stressful for me. I'd rather write an essay than deal with this creature."

Kitten drooped.

Wish patted Lizard's shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry, I bet next time an aggressive goddess won't inhabit your newborn like this mistake." Then her grin widened. "Who knows? Maybe the kid will be GREEN."

Lizard's eyes shined. "Ooh, I like green." She paused. "I wonder if they'll be GAMMA RAY. Then I can name them Transparency."

Wish stared at her, pulling her paw away slowly. Lizard stopped. "Or you could. It's up to you, anyways."

Wish nodded, returning to normal. "That's what I like to hear." Then she waved her paw at her son, bending down on her knees when he stepped up so that they were eye to eye.

"Chirp, will YOU miss her when I make her go bye bye?"

He shook his head. "She is but one of many passing over for her wrongs. If I say I miss her, then I must miss all of the ones before her, and I do NOT miss Larry."

Wish grimaced, lifting back up again. "That's a good point. Larry deserved that airplane."

She waved for Instability and Hamilton, and they did the same."Instability, Hammy-"

"Please don't call me Hammy." Hamilton murmured. Queen Wish gave them the stink eye. "Instability, Hamimimelton, will you miss her either?"

They shook their head. "I have many reasons why." Hamilton began, pulling out a suspiciously large leaf of paper. Wish flung it onto the ground and stomped on it, glaring up at them. "I just wanted your approval." She hissed.

They hmphed quietly, but made no attempt to pick the paper back up. "Sure, yes, fine." They grumbled. "She's a tiny ball of s-"

"Hammy, we don't need that much." Wish said, patting their shoulder. They narrowed their eyes at her, and reluctantly stepped back.

"Instability?"

The blue-tailed skink stepped up, giving Kitten a wide-eyed stare. He stood there for a while, before hissing. "You're a little turd and, even though I usually don't say this as I consider myself having decency, I wouldn't mind you gone."

Kitten's brows furrowed. "I haven't done a single thing to you in your life."

He shrugged, making a dramatic gesture putting his hand to his heart. "Not that you know of."

"Ooooo, burn. Nice." Wish said, grinning. Then she pointed to Tilly, who was licking a tiny cup of chocolate syrup, and flinched. "Turtlebert. What do YOU have to say to this snobby little wreckage?"

Tilly stood up, her eyes falling on Kitten’s rather embarrassing figure. The silence between them stretched on for miles.

“Sorry.” She mumbled finally, her green gaze shining sadly. “Sorry -”

"For NOTHING!” Queen Wish cackled in a booming voice that rattled the chasm walls behind Kitten, shoving her fists in the air. “Nothing at all! Because you SUCK!”

The lack of any crickets only made the noiselessness of the people around Wish louder. She looked at them, her grin lowering with her paws. Then she coughed.

"We’re getting off-track here.” Queen Wish said firmly, putting her paws on her hips. “The point is, no-one likes you. No-one cares that you think you’re so special. Lizard here deserves far more than a bratty little loser like you.” This crossed quite a couple lines for Kitten. “I’M A GODDESS!” Kitten screeched. “A BEING FAR SUPERIOR TO SNOTTY QUEENS LIKE YOU!”

Wish huffed, her rage-filled eyes narrowing into slits. She laughed. “Yeah right.”

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!”

“I sure can.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHO YOU’RE MESSING WITH!”

“Oh no, I do.” Wish snarled, lurching down until they were face-to-face, the queen’s breath clogged with the smell of pumpkin spice and buttercream frosting. “And I ALSO know thatI can probably still sue you in the afterlife for what you did to my face.”

“Your face does look pretty darn what I did-”

Wish gave her a nasty grin. “See you there,” she sneered.

Kitten gave her an angry bark of laughter. “OHOHO YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET TRIFLING WITH mE- YOU’RE GOING TO BE asHAMED OF YOURSELF FOR CAUSING YOUR dEMISE-”

The Queen of Rainbows put a paw to her moth. She gave her a look, head tilted and eyebrows raised. “Kitten, I have no shame.”

Then she pulled back a fist, through Kitten's unfaltering screams, and punched her straight in the gut- knocking her and the punching bag right off the cliff edge.

"YOU FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL" Kitten shrieked, her voice fading into gutteral echoes as she plummeted into the shadowy maw of the fantastically deep chasm below- the sound of her roars but a reverberating whisper on the dull stone of this inescapable doom.

Chirp, Tilly, Lizard, Instability and Hamilton all stared as Queen Wish stood there, absolutely nonplussed.

She turned around, stretching out her arms. "Wooooo, that was fun, wasn't it?"

No noise, again. Not even a cricket's chirp, as said before- crickets were far too terrified to make home on the Prism.

"Anyone want to go back to the palace and play some generic racing games?"

"Me!" cried Prince Chirp, stuffing a strawberry cupcake into his mouth to the point that his words were almost impossible to hear.

"Easier than parenting." Lizard mumbled, sipping some fizzy cranberry juice. Her fatigued eyes lit up. "I want in."

"...Do I play?" Instability asked vaguely.

"No." Wish said.

He brightened. "Then I'll come too."

"...Can I?" Hamilton whispered tentatively.

The Queen of Rainbows laughed. "Hey, I'm in a good mood. Do the dishes in time and maybe you can."

Hamilton's eyes blazed with the light of a thousand suns. "They'll be spotless enough to burn eyes, Your Majesty."

And so they left, abandoning the junk food party without a second thought- all except Tilly, because Tilly was a wimp.

...

Tilly peeked over the edge- well, as far as she could whilst being pressed to the ground to ensure she didn't fall off, just in case the wind had bloodlust tonight.

Kitten's small shape was gone, swallowed by the black, immeasurable abyss, as well as the punching bag she was tied to.

Tilly pressed her head to the ground- if you listened close enough, you could still hear the shrill cries of all who had met their demise at this very spot, worn with mortified tears and hope's rotting corpse.

She lifted up, wiping her nose. "Weirdo kids don't deserve to die so young," she mumbled to herself.

Then, slowly, she sulked away from the scene and headed back home.

## Chapter Six: the end.

In the castle, Queen Wishing Star, Prince Annoying Chirping Noise, Lizard on Road and Hamilton play generic racing games and Instability watches from a corner.

They have a wonderful time, and Hamilton defeats Chirp, Wish and Lizard in MarioKart with a terrifying kind of sheer skill you don't usually see in fairly old butlers, making Wish wish she never let them play, but they have fun anyways. Tilly goes home, writing in a large notebook she only writes in for the chasm deaths she has witnessed. She's on the last couple pages now, and it unnerves her.

They all move on with their lives fairly well, as they have all experienced this a disturbing amount of times.

Kitten? Well, sorry to tell you, dear reader, but Kitten is gone.

Kitten could not be alive.

Why would you think she is alive? It is very clear that with a chasm this long, the fall will kill her tiny, pathetic little body- and also, really, she's going to starve to death before she even falls halfway. This is one digits less than a trillion feet in depth, you do realize. One trillion is a lot bigger of a number than you probably think.

I would know. I'm the narrator.

I hope you enjoyed this mildly disturbing, mildly concerning and rather depressing end, as heroes are for lil simpletons and you should give up on your dreams before they get to your head and you start believing yourself or something.

(I would also know that. Probably because I'm the narrator.) I hope you liked the story.

...

...

...

Kitten kept falling.

She had been falling for quite a long time now.

## Chapter Seven: but i thought that was the end-

Kitten had been falling for quite a long time.

The wind was otherworldly painful, and the speed she was rocketing downwards into the blackness on this stupid punching bag was terrifying.

Somehow though, she never hit the bottom. Just the blackness, blackness, blackness, blackness, blackness, the unfathomable blackness stretching on forever.

Was it really almost a trillion feet?- Wouldn't that be over by now?

You see, as a punished goddess cursed with hundreds of reincarnations, Kitten had no sense of just how big numbers were. They were all meaningless to her, a being whom once could spend millennias in thought with no care for what happened below her. She, like the rest of the celestial beings above, assumed she was above waiting, above patience.

This chasm seemed to disagree.

You see, it takes an average object around 22 hours to fall 100000000000 feet, did you know that?

After a while of quite rough, endless falling, Kitten decided enough was enough.

"Stupid Wish-" Kitten snarled to herself, her voice drowned by the wind. "Oh, she's going to get it. She's going to get it so bad." She bit into the ropes strung tightly around her, slowly tearing it with her tiny kitten teeth. She finally managed to rip it off, and was flung into the air, being much lighter than the punching bag, and watched it fall before her. The jerk backwards was painful, and the wind was still quite fast and hard. She wasn't protected from it anymore, and it HURT.

But now she was free to get into her backpack, and she twisted around, keeping a tight grip on it so it didn't fall away too.

Carefully she unzipped the backpack, grabbing its contents and ripping them out.

When Wish peeked into Kitten's backpack, she found a lot of pantaloons. A rather concerning amount, but not much more.

Not much more that Wish, saw anyways. Queen Wish is kind of lame.

Well, they WERE pantaloons. A bunch of pantaloons glued onto a parachute, that is.

Kitten is a god. You'd EXPECT her to plan ahead.

Kitten held onto it with a clasp of steel and zipped up everything else inside before it all spilled out as quickly as she could. She shoved it on her back, and she inched her way up the parachute shaking like water in a typhoon on a sugar high, grabbing the other side and wincing as the velocity of her fall veered back dramatically.

The punching bag disappeared from view. Many, many, MANY hours later of falling at the same exact speed she had been, the same exact pummeling force driving her to the ground (well, less so, as she now was probably not going to die from the sheer impact, rather starvation as the parachute declined her speed quite a large amount) bring her no further to the pit's bottom- she arrived, the whole ordeal amounting 31 hours.

Kitten was very tired, (as it's pretty darn hard to fall asleep when there's air blasting your face) pretty thirsty and hungry, and so full of anger and fire that she might explode. The punching bag was before her, a mess of fuzz over the ground. Kitten grimaced, remembering that could have been her, before spotting what it lay amongst.

Bones.

There were so many bones.

(There was also an airplane, but Larry isn't an important character.)

The bottom of the chasm was a wide, flat space filled to the brim with shiny, ivory white piled like dead twigs everywhere. Skulls and ribs and teeth and legs, of all different sizes, of all different species.

Some of them were big, and some were so small. Children, perhaps- The bones of people of every age scattered all over the floor.

Queen Wish could not have done this alone- that was certain. There were simply too many.

Was this really her idea, then? Kitten wondered. Or was it a history of death penalties and evil she decided to bring back to life?

If our protagonist was anyone besides Kitten, they might have cried. Their eyes would be wide at the horror, the tyrannical monstrosity that Wish is for letting this continue. In their head, they could probably imagine the suffering of families who got to watch their loved ones suffer a brutal death down here, the children traumatized for the rest of their lives as they got to experience their sibling's, their parent's, their friend's demise.

...But our protagonist is Kitten. Do you REALLY think Kitten ponders things like those?

"Sick." Kitten said, giving a light chuckle as she clambered over the punching bag's remains. "When I'm done with The Queen of Dragon Pens, I might get myself one of these."

And so she took a nice sit down on the ruined base of the bag and unzipped her lovely green and black backpack, pulling out a granola bar and taking a big bite out of it. She ignored the sharp finger bones attempting to slice open her feet as she waved them carelessly and ignored the entire depressing, mortifying aura of the place and image of what would be the Catacombs if instead of putting the bones on the walls you simply tossed them on the ground and made a Body Carpet.

"Nom nom." Kitten muttered to herself, mostly because she could. "I'm going to pulverize Wish. I'm going to disintegrate Wish. I'm going to burn her so hard she EVAPORATES. Nom nom." There was a pause before she continued, still very unfazed by her surroundings. "I'm going to make her regret everything she has done. From those gummies she gave out that tasted like counter cleaner, that chalk full of allergens... oh, she'll have a taste of her own medicine." Another giant bite from the granola bar, the sound of Kitten's chewing far louder than it should have been. "Nom nom." She added.

Then Kitten stopped, and she looked up at the most miniscule sliver of light that peeked out from above.

"But how do I get back up?"

She peered around again, watching for quite a while. Then it clicked in her mind, the gift of a cat's dark vision allowing her to spot exactly it. "Aha. Of course." She pointed to the thing ahead- "the elevator."

(What did you think it was going to be? A pOrTaL or something? CLimBIng? You should know by now this story doesn't work like that.)

So she slipped past the bones, tread carefully through the Body Carpet, and looked up at the wall before her, a very large door stuck carelessly against it. Beside it was a button, and she pressed it.

There was a raucous noise echoing from inside, and she heard something smash to the ground inside. The doors creaked open, revealing a very squashed elevator compartment which appeared to be from many decades past. It smelled like lethargy.

Kitten stepped inside, the angry thoughts swirling around in her head only growing clearer. She was going to crush Wish. She was going to free the Rainbow Kingdom from Wish's control and then snatch it all for herself. And Wish's ghost would watch with dismay, and it would be hilarious.

Now she just had to get up.

Inside, the walls were rusty and the flickering yellow light from above fluctuated every moment. It was made of old sheets of something metal, and by the door had two buttons.

One button had 1 printed on it, the other had 2. It was as simple as that.

Then it struck Kitten, (as for whatever reason it hadn't before,) that an elevator could never go as fast as falling from an extreme height and that this was going to cost her days.

"Wait-" she cried, but she had already pressed 2 and the elevator doors snapped shut, slowly puttering to a feeble rise.

Kitten stood there, stunned, then slumped to the ground, groaning.

"This is going to be great," she snarled to herself.

## Chapter Eight: what happened in the future which was actually in the past

It took far too long to get to surface level. If you were counting, it took just under two weeks. This is a considerable amount of time as the elevator was, in fact, rising at a speed of 29,999,997 miles per hour. Just putting it out there. Why? Because throughout the Rotating Lands, royalty is known for being morbid. Who WOULDN'T want to see the corpses of hundred of innocent children?

In the grand scheme of things, however, that is unimportant. What must be focused on is the fact Kitten did eventually get to the top, emphasis on eventually.

And the doors opened with a creak and a groan, noises that had not been heard in tiny kitten ears for 1.98 weeks, spraying the petite black shape huddled against a wall with a blaze of moonlight.

She whimpered, lifting up slowly and stretching. She squinted at the light, eyes for days wide circles narrowing into slits, and expected in her mind to see the Prism's stubby pastel buildings in the distance, maybe the stunted deciduous trees waving in the breeze or the rainbow still gleaming in the night.

But all she saw was a little green forest, and it was at that moment, when she stepped out of the elevator box, that it finally hit her that she was on the wrong side.

...

Ahead of Kitten was wood and grass and every leaf, every blade, every twig in her sight filled her with rage. How could she have done this???? How could she have spent two weeks just to end up on the WRONG SIDE????

(there were two elevators. why would there not be two elevators?)

Kitten marched out onto the pale, moonlit grass as the elevator platform plummeted back down, every hair in her pelt bristling.

"YOU SPACESHIP OF AN ELEVATOR!" She screeched, ripping a twelve-years-expired, half-opened granola bar and hurling it into the shaft of nothingness. It exploded."SERVES YOU RIGHT!"

She stomped around in circles, snarling angrily to herself, before collapsing in the grass, exasperated.

"I'm on the wrong side," she mumbled to herself. She planned for everything. How did she slip over this?? "I'm on the wrong side." The sky was dark, the moon nothing but a comforting white ember in the essence of shadows that hung from the trees. "...What do I do now?"

Then something hit her.

(No, not literally.)

She pulled around her backpack, unzipping it and pulling out the parachute, digging around under it and placed her paws on a little notebook. She jerked it out, alongside a ball point pen, and flipped it open to a blank page. She laid the pen nib on the page for a moment, in thought, before starting to scribble something rapidly on it.

In Kitten's head, she was starting to realize the idea of rushing right up to Wish and trying to defeat her probably wasn't going to work that well. I mean, she could do it, but it would probably take a while.

What if... she built an army?

An army! Yes! She would travel around the kingdoms to capture civilians, cause chaos, and then she'd come back around and OBLITERATE Wish! Hahaha!

It would be a lengthy journey and the element of returning from what was thought to be dead would certainly be ruined by, er, the media of her victims on her quest- she knew herself too well- but who was going to stop her?? There was nothing any atrocious queens, concerning princes or frankly unnerving old butlers could do to get in her way.

She chuckled. They would remember this. The whole stupid Rainbow Kingdom would get the hell it paid for.

Kitten, satisfied, clicked away the pen tip, observing her work. The sketchy image of a map was sprawled over the paper in black ink, a path scribbled over each section- her plan. She grinned down at it, tail twitching, and then folded it up, neatly shoving it into her backpack and zipping it up. Then she stretched out again, getting up slowly and putting her paws on her hips. There was no time to stand around- she wasn’t going to risk Queen Wish spotting her, not now. And so she stared out at the bushy forest that wrapped around the Prism like a wall, the moonlight painting the dark leaves silver, and said to herself “It’s time to get a move on.”

"Ah, that sounds trite," she mumbled to herself. Then she shrugged. "And now thy overflow with corniness. Oh well."

Kitten looked up, her gaze narrowing in determination. "Into the forest I go, then. Not much else left to say."

She stood there for a moment more. This wasn't right.

Kitten coughed, lowering her voice. "Time to die."

Yep, that was it.

And so Kitten adjusted her backpack, gave a gesture to the city behind her, and strutted into the woods.

...

The forest like a wall around the chasm around the Prism was aphotic, lit only by patches of pearly light that broke through the dense canopy above her head. It was utterly noiseless besides the crunching of grass under her paws; not a squirrel dared to move even a muscle, not a bird, not even a lonely grasshopper.

Kitten wasn’t used to this much silence- not even in the endless falling, not even in the elevator, not even back at the Prism. Lizard on Road would toss and turn in her bed at nights, whispering incoherently in her sleep. In the day, when she would lay with Kitten and edit the newspapers for her job, she would be mumbling the words to herself as she read them, her soft voice blending into the background of trembling songbirds and shivering wind.

Lizard was a horrible mother, but she was always there, Kitten thought as she walked in this pure nothingness. Then she recalled the way Lizard had just let her die with but a shrug, and the thought died.

"...not that much. Parenting… stressful… I'd rather write an essay… this creature."

Kitten huffed, lifting her chin. Well, she didn’t want Lizard on Road anyways. No commoner would mother a being like her.

The quiet only stretched, even through Kitten’s mental grumbling. It was unnerving- what was with this place? There was no way that she was a-

Right as the word crossed her mind, she felt a tremor in the ground below her paws, rippling out behind her. Kitten turned, brows furrowed, to see the trees start to warp and stretch and what were once tiny bushes reach up from the soil into giant, brambly walls. She froze, the realization hitting her all too late.

Kitten raced back towards where she had entered the forest- “No no no no no no no no no-” but a root shot out of the ground and she crashed into the sharp grass, watching as the entrance weaved itself close.

"Nice," she snarled dryly. "That's a blast."

Kitten lurched up, stomping on the root angrily. "What a nice, big maze we have here."

You’d think that, as the reincarnation of a goddess, that Kitten would have known there was a maze in this forest. She knows so many other things random little kittens shouldn’t, why would you doubt it?

Then again, I’d like to remind you that she, like all beings on this planet, tends to forget important things at inconvenient times.

I would also like to remind you that most gods probably don’t pay attention to every detail of the landscapes below them when they don’t think they’re ever going to have to be involved with what happens down there.

Kitten in particular was one of those gods. And even through the many reincarnations she has faced, she still hasn’t learned that much.

Kitten stamped furiously at the root like it was a bug deserving nothing but to be smashed into the ground. “Stupid, stupid maze!”

The root was not alive. Therefore, it gave no response. This only made her angrier. “I HATE MAZES!”

Now, she in particular was known for hating a lot of things, but mazes were something beyond that. Not many physical items enraged her as much as mazes did. Not even pineapples.

Mazes were designed to waste your time. Mazes were designed to make you lose your mind with the twists and turns and dead ends- even the word itself gave her rage, with the lethargic ‘a’ and twisting ‘z’ and ‘s’. Evil incarnate, that’s what Kitten thought. Evil incarnate.

In her ire overpowering, Kitten stood there, bristling, knowing it would get her nowhere. “I hate mazes!”

What made it all worse was the fact that there was no easy way to get rid of this monstrosity. She had no powers, no matter how hard she tried. She could not vaporize the walls. Kitten was also in no way about to spend days trying to make it through the maze. That would take far too long.

So Kitten decided she would do the only thing she was capable of: burning it all down.

The little black cat flung her backpack around the side of her shoulder one last time, unzipping the front pocket and digging her sharp white kitten claws into the little space, jerking out a petite blue rectangle with unnecessary force. She grinned down at it with morbid satisfaction, at the lighter she clutched in her paws.

And now, at this very moment, Kitten, 78998th reincarnation of the goddess of spite, misery, thoughtless backstabbing and coke-flavored tic tacs, (a goddess of which history itself had no recognition of, having been gone for practically half of known time) was about to start the book.

Why? Because she's an idiot. (Don't tell her that though.)

It's funny, really funny, how one silly little decision can mess up the course of your whole life. Take, for example, what is about to happen right now.

Kitten flipped open the lighter, marveling at the little blue flame that screamed out of it. She held it there for a moment, just gazing at it, then indeed did something silly. Kitten lifted the lighter high above her head in an exaggerated, dramatic motion, and hurled it to the ground.

In any logical world, nothing would have happened, probably. It probably would have done nothing in the slightest. Except, well, it did do something.

Hmph, Kitten thought with a smirk, watching fire flicker up from the lighter in the grass, catching on the dark blades and curling them black. This stupid maze can die in flames.

It was slow- at least at first. But within moments, the glow started to spread. It spread across the floor, chewing at the carpet of green at Kitten's feet. It spread up the walls, twisting at the once-menacing brambles and thorns. Kitten was about to think smugly again how enjoyable watching this would be, when she realized that she was in the maze and couldn't get out.

...Wait.

The realization smacked her head like a bowling ball.

...She was in the maze, she was burning the maze, she was stuck in the maze which had prompted her to burn the maze which she was stuck in which meant...

Huh. Erm. Well- this wasn't good.

A scintillating blast of radiant, fiery malice bared its charred teeth at her nose.

This wasn't good at all.

Before Kitten could process another line of narration, she was at the face of the ever-hungry blaze, petrified.

I really need to get better at this, her head mumbled.

You really do, she mentally mumbled back.

A smoldering branch crashed down behind her, and she squeaked, jerking away. She had to move. She had to move.

In the panic of the scene taking place, amidst the crackling wildfire around her, Kitten ran. Into the labyrinth before her, of which her hate spanned as far as its own mile-length walls.

Probably wasn't the best idea. There were probably far better ideas out there, especially concerning arson. Just spur of the moment, I guess.

She wasn't even aware of her steps anymore, just the motion of sprinting away from flames she caused that she knew would eventually be after her life.

Dang it. Dang it. She really should have thought this through.

Kitten swerved through those disgusting walls, the forest ablaze never out of earshot. The curves and twists seemed unending and escapeless, and her paws were racing faster than she could manage. Racing, racing, racing, teetering forwards uncontrollably.

She barely caught herself, running on and on and on and on and on-

Out of nowhere, something squishy hit her feet and she crashed to the ground, pebbles and little, hard stones spraying her side as the uncomfortably warm soil smacked her face.

Kitten groaned. staggering back up to her feet and grimacing at the sight of sticky red blood trickling down her calf. She peered at the wound for a time- the fire would probably dry it, right? There was no need to worry- before she spun around, preparing to spot another stupid root to stomp pointlessly on- just to find an arm stretched out across the maze passage. Kitten's eyes widened in horror, morbid curiosity dragging forwards- where there's an arm, there's... there's usually... a...

She cringed, stepping backwards and almost falling over again in the process.

There was a body. Someone- er, somecat, splayed on the grass, face planted in the ground streaked with scarlet, their mid-torso down crushed under a giant pine engulfed in flames.

She stood there for a moment, unable to move. In the back of her mind, a voice whispered 'I did this', barely audible but rattling the walls of her skull all the same.

"Well, they look quite dead," Kitten muttered promptly to herself. Quite dead indeed. Outstandingly so, even. Why was she bothering to stand before something so certainly probably dead?

Well, they could have family, maybe. Maybe when the forest was nothing more than a field of ash, they'd find this cat's skeleton and they'd hunt her down. That wouldn't be surprising. Kitten had experienced far more, far more often.

And there was something familiar about this cat, in a strange way. Even with their face out of sight, somewhere in her recognized their fur, recognized the paw she had tripped over. A tangible memory just out of her reach.

She heard a crack above her and jumped to the side, barely dodging a tree limb in flames hitting the spot she had been standing just moments before. Fine, she decided. Fine fine fine. I guess I'm doing this, aren't I?

Kitten stumbled up to the log, pushing on it with every fiber of strength unimaginable in four-month-old paws.

After a terrifying effort, she managed to roll the log off of them, paws burned to the second degree, exposing their flattened lower body and how big they actually were. Kitten grabbed one of their massive cream-toed paws and jerked them upwards- trying to avert her eyes from the streaks of crimson that dribbled from their face. No, dribbled wasn't the right word. Leaked. Leaked. Leaked. -Nope, nope seeing them under that tree was enough, she wanted her dinner still in her, thank you- Kitten struggled to get them onto her shoulders, pulling their sheer, limp size against her tiny body.

With a groan, she got them positioned on her, feeling waves of heat stab at her sides- there was no time to waste. She was not going to have spent that long sitting in an elevator just to die. Kitten clenched her teeth as she began to stagger forwards, step at a time, even as the flames were always behind, like something alive. Her pace was lagging, with this gargantuan bag of bowling balls to carry, but she continued on still. She would not die. She would not die.

On and on. And on and on and on. It had been a mile at least, her pretty fur certainly non-existent and her feet dragging and every step in this SPACESHIP of a maze making her stomach twirl and spin. She would not die here. She WOULD NOT DIE HERE.

And so, when the moonlight finally cracked through the dying branches and twigs of this starforsaken maze and the exit was in her vision, she burst with the flimsy nothingness of her energy out of the blazing woods, falling into grass (that were agony to her raw skin, but, eh, to be expected) instead of crunchy ash.

The cat she was carrying fell on top of her, knocking the smoke and air from her chest, but the clearness of the field she had launched herself into was ambrosia to her lungs. She pushed them away, turning back to see the thorny walls crumbling in fire.

Even though she felt incredibly stupid for starting all of this, she was out! She had rescued someone, and her plan was beginning. It was all beginning. She gave the woods a gesture too, before spinning around to the body behind her. Now, time to deal with this guy.

## Chapter Nine: darn. no refund? / deja vu, I've just been in this place before

Queen Wish's bedroom was large. Then again, everything was large here. The bed could fit ten, the room itself could fit a hundred.

It was specifically built that way a long long time ago because the Rainbow Kingdom once had a nice, fun ruler who held parties and kept the drawbridge down and kept the Red Bull in stores and usually there were at least fifty people in a room of the castle at a time- but since the end of their reign, the energy and excitement of the place had fallen tired and cold.

The room was giant, and dark. Pitch dark. Giant, empty and pitch dark.

…Wish woke up in the middle of the night to someone tapping her shoulder. She groaned, stretching out her arms and accidentally hitting whoever was there, who squeaked.

"Whoisiy" she mumbled groggily, awake by threads.

"Mama." A little voice said by her ear. "Y-"

It took her a second to recognize who it was. "Ohhhhh, Chirp." she said with a giant yawn. "Diyouhave a nightmare? You can sleep wi- \*yawwwwnnnn\* - me if you want... Idunno... You can go get ice cream or somethin' too, Iwont mind..."

She heard him shift on the bed with her waking ears, saw the uncertain expression on his…

…wait.

She could see?

Wasn't it supposed to be pitch dark?

"Mama, you should look outside." He said, scooching closer to her.

Brows furrowed in confusion, Queen Wish stretched again, promptly peeking her head over the front board of her bed. She squinted.

Crackling smoke and fire from the circling forest beyond met her eyes.

…

Kitten observed the cat, still slightly smoldering in the grass. They were a large honey or taupe brown tabby, with thick black stripes and some cream color on their chest and forepaws. They looked strong. Incredibly malnourished, but also very strong. And, er, the fire.

They were plastered in burns and blood, legs twisted at wrong angles, and a gash just under their left eye was a river bleeding down their face. Something colorful had melted into their right wrist, and if it weren't for the faint bubbles of breath that Kitten felt when she carefully put her paws on their chest, she would be digging a grave for this guy.

They were one of two things: barely dead or dying.

Kitten knew that face. From somewhere in her recent memory, she knew their eyes and she knew their paws and she knew their name- but what was their name? And who even were they that she managed to recognize their body in the middle of a fire?

They must be important, she thought. And after I doom them to eternal servitude for saving their life, I can ask them their name.

If they don't die of blood loss, she added mentally. I should fix that.

She ripped off her scorched backpack, the Creeper on the front barely visible which made her indescribably sad, and tugged out the pantaloons, eyeing the shape they were in before jerking off one and wrapping it carefully around the wounds on their legs. She was used to the blood. She was not used to floppy limbs pointing at 330° that were supposed to be at zero.

She shoved another pantaloon at the hole in their face. "You're not dying on me until I get your name," she grumbled audibly. "Because I'm still not sure if I want to punch your guts out or not."

At that, shakily, they twitched, and puddles of glazy blue eyes faltered open to meet Kitten's surprised expression.

"Oh- Already?- Dang.- Well- Hi." Kitten internally growled at herself for that sentence structure.

They let out a dull moan in response, black whiskers twitching. She watched them blink around the scene before them- the meadow, the red grass, the plumes of smoke drifting from behind them- but eyes never focusing on anything.

One more blink, their- his? his wide round eyes finally fixing up at her and clearing somewhat.

At that second, she puffed out her chest, gave her face a little groom, wiped the ash off of her nose, and leaned down to face him- yes, that seemed right- eye to eye- which wasn't all that hard, as he was ginormous and she was tiny.

"I am..." she frowned, "Kitten, and I have valiantly saved you from a gruesome death in flames."

Another frog blink. No words, no noises, just staring.

His eyes were almost to the point of soulless- the kind you'd find more regularly on deranged villains- but he had given no sign of being anywhere near evil, at least not yet. He hadn't really given signs of being more than semi-alive either.

Either he was a mind-blowingly talented actor- which, considering Kitten's luck, was in no way impossible- or he was actually dying.

Kitten was pretty sure he was actually dying.

"HEY," she shouted at his nose. He went cross-eyed, continuing to stare. "HELLOOOOOO. YOU BETTER NOT BE DYING." She paused. "Nod if you are alive." Kitten was pretty sure that was supposed to be how it worked.

The random teenager gave a small, flimsy nod. That, or he was going to throw up. She hoped that wasn't it.

"Good," she continued. "So, anyways," Kitten cleared her throat. "I am... Kitten... I am Kitten, (argh) formerly the goddess of spite from times distant and past. Yes, you heard that right- do not mess with me. I rescued you VALIANTLY from a burning forest, and without my assistance, you would have surely-"

He finally spoke, right as she was about to continue, with a hoarse voice and breath hard with the metallic scent of blood. "Monster?"

"-What?" she mumbled, brows furrowed. Kitten spun around, confused. "Where?" She twisted back around to face him, shoving a paw to her chest. "ME??"

He moaned again. "You're- I'm- I was said to-" He shut his eyes tightly, grimacing at the blood from his lip. "What?..."

"You're out of your mind! I'm a GOD, not a monster!"

"You're a wh-"

"Anyways. We're off-topic here." Kitten said sharply, shoving the pantaloon at the blood again and cutting off whatever he was going to say. "I'm here because I have been DISGRACED and I am getting my VENGEANCE because I was THROWN OFF A CLIFF and no IDIOT QUEEN is getting away with it."

"Tough."

"YEAH!" She sighed. "Seriously though, this Narrator is messed up. Don't tell her but putting me here, in a tiny little kitten is LOW."

(Kitten was fat and ugly and really really stupid.)

Kitten waved her paw. "But I'm dealing with it." She swung the paw down right at the tabby cat in the grass, pointing at his face. "In favor of me rescuing you from mortality ablaze, you, sir, owe me your life."

He was nonplussed, absolutely unfazed. Probably didn't even recognize what she was saying. Kitten cleared her throat. "You're going to work for me for the rest of your existence, 'kay? And in death. I want your spirit too. Your life for your life." She leaned in a bit closer now- to where she could feel on her his murky breath on her cheeks. "Now, what's your name?"

He was smiling oddly for a while. He didn't respond for a time, gazing off into space. As time went on, the smile slowly dropped. Finally, he mumbled: "I... don't know."

...

What?

"Everyone knows their name." She said quietly. "That's silly. Come on, tell me."

"I... I don't have one?" In his eyes like melted ice was disturbance at its finest. "I don't know." He glanced up at her hopefully. "Do you... know?"

"Would I ask if I did??" Ughhhh, this was not going great.

"No..."

She sighed. "Okay. This is fine. Would... your favorite color remind you of your name? I dunno. What's your favorite color?"

"I don't know."

"Huh. What's your favorite song?"

"Not sure. Oingo Boingo is a pretty great band though."

Kitten stared at him for a long, long time. "Where do you live, so I can return you?"

He opened his mouth to respond. His gaze trickled downwards, and with it his expression. He gave her a little, humorless chuckle. "I... don't know."

...What?????

Kitten stepped backwards slightly, her brows furrowing. "You don't know? Seriously?"

"...No."

"No name, no home, no favorite color?"

"No... I... I have siblings. I think? I don't know where they are. Something happened to them. I probably have parents. I had a house somewhere, but... I-I don't know where. I lived somewhere else too? But there's nothing..." He bit his lip. "Nothing me. It's all... Who..."

"What is this?! Amnesia, you're saying? I swear, this must be fake." She threw her paws in the air, fur bristling for some unknown reason. "This is crazy! All I needed was a name, and you don't even have one!"

"I'm sorry..."

"Arghhh, and to think I was going to use you, dear chasms-" She attempted to power walk away as quickly as possible, slipping on her backpack-

And a sickly warm paw clenched tight around her ankle, slamming her face-first into the ground. It released weakly not long after, and she spun around in a rage, spitting grass angrily out of her mouth, glaring at those wide and desperate eyes. He had rolled over to grab at her foot, and judging at the awkward position and his clenched teeth, it must have hurt.

"Don't leave me!" he whimpered before she could manage to snarl anything, his voice cracking. "I'll die out here alone!!" I don't want to die- I can be useful, I promise-"

Kitten growled, kicking her feet away from his bleeding paws. She shook them in his face pointlessly, as if this would do anything to get the red off. "You'll never be, y-"

And then, in the middle of her word, a marvelous idea came to her mind that she somehow hadn't even thought of yet, and she stopped suddenly, lowering her paw. Useful?

She laughed loudly. "Ahaha, what am I saying? Your name is-" she looked around briefly for inspiration "-Blaze! Blaze. That's who you are."

"I have a funny name." Blaze mumbled.

"No, it's a cool name."

"I guess it is kind of cool."

"And you're fine! You're fine. Who needs a home, anyways?" Her smile was a supernova before his face. "I'll say it again! You, sir, are part of my epic quest to blow up that queen that threw me off a cliff, and you are invaluable."

His reddened and blackened eyes were skeptical. "You were just-"

"I always knew your name."

"You were trying to leave!"

"What do you mean, 'I was trying to leave'? I would never. You must be seeing things."

"You were upset because I didn't... I don't know anything!"

"That brain injury is messing you up. I didn't say any of that!"

The cat now named Blaze frowned, after a moment. He wiped his eyes, looking down. "...Maybe I was." He blinked, lifting a frail paw off the ground. "Are... you sure... are you sure... it's Blaze? That... It... I don't know."

Kitten jerked down right to his nose, making him flinch back. "I know this is literally the fifth time I've described this in this chapter\*, but I RESCUED YOU! I CHOSE to carry you, to risk my own life to get you to safety." She didn't add the part about how little she wanted to, nor about the disappointment that she ended up with a disgruntled amnesiac. "After all of this, you doubt me? What have I done to deserve such mistrust?" She gave a dramatic sigh. "All I needed was a strong, loyal, bli-" she smiled over the word- "LLLEIVEing, bleLIEVING, believing follower, and then you come..."

It worked. Blaze shifted, rubbing his black nose with a guilty expression. "I... I'm sorry... I'll... I'll do... I'm sorry. I'll... listen... listen better..." His words were slowing and he was clearly fading back out of consciousness, which was not what Kitten wanted to see.

"Come on. Get up. No need to dilly-dally where Wish can get me. Let's go."

"I can...t I can't."

She stomped down hard on his foot, knowing her feign of caring was slipping, growling "You can feel that, can't you?"

He bit his lip, eyes like marbles, a bit nervous of his own state but absolutely nonplussed to what sounded like toes cracking. "N...o?"

Dear chasms. This was just spectacular. Ha ha.

"Well," Kitten said, putting her hips. "You might not like it, but..."

## Chapter Ten: ant season / b&b&b - bed and bed and alexander hamilton? We are waiting in the wings for you

*(This chapter in particular is dedicated to Tilan, who gave me wonderful constructive criticism on the first section of the draft of this and never lets my ego get too big when I think my writing is flawless (in the most helpful way ). Hopefully the rest of the chapter isn't that bad xD I have no idea if you will see this, but thank you. Sandrence forever and rivlock supremacy <3)*

…

"They haven't found you?"

"No- at least not yet."

Two figures on a porch swing bathed in torchlight and shadows gazed up at the inky sky, watching the stars. They were a badger and weasel, their fur brushing as they sat close together.

"That's good," the badger said. "I don't know what I would do if you were gone."

The weasel chuckled, a sallow expression on his face. "I don't know what I would do if I had to see Virtue again."

They watched the meadows ripple, a sea of grass and wildflowers. It would be quite beautiful, illuminated by the warm lantern against the pitch darkness, if it weren't for the rage of ant season underneath. Instead, it was waves of terror, under the seemingly peaceful green, legions of painful mounds just waiting to be trod on. Rumors said they were particularly deadly this year.

"Queen Wishing Star has sent out a message while you were out shopping- there's this kid- black fur, gold eyes, fluffy fur- said she gave her a seizure with a slap." He continued.

The badger giggled. "Well, I mean, she deserves it."

"Ophelia, Wish threw her off when she got out of the hospital."

Her mischievous smile wilted, a drooping rose on dark fur. "...Oh."

"Wish says she lived. She lived! And she's bucketing\* every home in the kingdom that if you see her, to report it."

"Poor girl." Ophelia mumbled. She turned from the stars to face his small shape. "How did she live?"

The least weasel shrugged. "Dunno. But she did. And she's out here, somewhere."

It was quiet for a moment. "Loyalty deserved to live, " he whispered, leaning on her side.

“Oh, Justice…” Ophelia murmured, her voice softening.

“I know, I know,” he said, wiping his eyes. “There was nothing I could do. It still hurts. He was so little-” Justice’s voice was cracking now “-but oh, she was in a mood, and the tennis ball barely missed her heel.”

The badger put a paw around the tiny shape, who couldn’t help but sniffle. “That monster. That spaceship. I hope she rots on that couch. He was eight. EIGHT!” Justice jerked back up in outrage, his dark umber eyes alight, “And now Mom and Dad are hunting ME down for it! We were playing TENNIS, for chasm’s sake!! I didn’t go to that ONE bank with them, and now they think I killed Loyalty. Urghhhhh…” He curled back down on the seat.

“I’m sure they misunderstand,” Ophelia said. “They know what the queen is like up close- you guys lived in the Prism.”

“...Yeah,” Justice mumbled sourly. “Not like they care though.”

The cicadas hummed nervously, clinging to the walls of their house. It was a bad sign when not even cicadas were silly enough to try and go out there.

"Jus." Ophelia clasped his paw with hers, turning to face him with beady black eyes. “I won't let them get you. Never ever. I don’t care what they try- no matter what happens, I will be here beside you. And no matter the time of night, I will always be here to support you when you need someone." She smiled. "No criminal masterminds will take you away from me."

Justice sniffled, smiling back helplessly. “Aww, you’re the best, Oph.” He gave her a tight embrace, and she did back.

"I heard from Yardsale when I was getting cheese that the maze burned down." Ophelia whispered.

Justice blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah. She said she hadn't even seen her HOUSE that ablaze."\*

"Dang."

"I thought that mess was invincible."

"Same."

"Do you th-"

"GAHHHHH!!!"

Ophelia and Justice froze, separating slowly with widened eyes. Ophelia gave Justice a nervous glance, her nose twitching. “Is there…”

…

The two of them rushed into the house, Ophelia grabbing a big padded blanket and Justice pulling out the flashlights and smaller things. Then they put on thick boots, prepared what they were carrying and stepped back outside through a side door to another distant shriek of pain in their ears like a reverberating whisper, echoing across the fields.

"Let's go." Justice clicked on his flashlight, giving a nod to Ophelia, and they headed off in the direction of the cry, neither wanting to admit how frightened they both were inside.

The porch light faded into the darkness against the bright artificial beams, starkly illuminating the mounds of red-brown earth littering the ground. The sound of crickets chirping fearfully on the tips of grass blades and their heavy footfalls rang through the otherwise silent night, the screams not returning a third time.

"Who do you think would be out here this late?" Justice muttered, unable to keep the voicelessness any longer.

"A nocturnal?" Ophelia grunted.

The least weasel blinked. "That would make sense, actually."

"All I know for certain is that whoever it is is NOT happy." Ophelia said with a humorless chuckle. "That I can tell without a doubt."

They continued walking, carefully, quickly, taking their steps in long strides and cautiously pacing over the anthills.

"Do you think they're even out this way?" Justice said again, his voice tense. "Was the sound even real?"

"It was quite real. I mean, we both heard it, anyways." She turned to him. "And what if we go back just to find a corpse when the sun comes up?"

"I guess that's true," He mumbled, "but this gives me bad vibes."

"It's almost 2am. Everything is going to give you bad vibes."

"True, true, tr- AHHH!!"

Justice just about leaped into the air, his flashlight crashing into an ant pile. He clutched Ophelia's bristled fur tightly, his breathing like flailing air on her side. She gave him a horrified look. "What??"

"Y- it's-" He waved a little paw "It-"

She lifted her flashlight beam from the grass to find almost certainly what they were searching for- big, glittering golden eyes squinting through the glare.

"AaCKk!"

The short black kitten in front of them moaned weakly, shielding her ears.

Ophelia tried to flatten her fur back down, attempting to regain her calm. "I... apologize for that. Sorry."

Justice slowly peeled himself from the badger's lower hip, saying "Are you... the one who was screaming?"

"Yy... Yf...es." The stranger burbled, the words stubborn but frail. "Fhese... stipid nts... hurt..."

He noticed, after a moment, that her shifty fur was not shifting from wind but rather positively swarming with ants. "Do... do you need help?"

She proceeded to crumple flat on the ground. Justice shivered. "I'll take that as a yes too."

Ophelia unraveled the blanket and Justice heaved the little creature on it, afterwards pulling out the baking soda.

"Dyont leave... bzale." She muttered with a rocketing wheeze as he threw baking soda at the insects on her pelt.

"Who's 'bzale'?" Ophelia cut in. The figure pointed back behind them to what looked like one of the biggest anthills the two of them had seen that season. "dunno... he's my.... he's..."

Whatever voice this person had been screaming with was all gone now. "yucan't... leav..."

"But that's an anthill." Ophelia said, before she stared at it one more time and realized that she was very wrong.

There was someone else in the grass- another cat- only an ant hill in the sense he was slumped over on his stomach and was in an even worse state with the ants than his companion, unresponsive, his glassy eyes making her sick inside.

"Nevermind, plums." She mumbled under her breath. "This guy needs the ER."

"H...hfcomes too... my... utnhfg..."

"Yes, yes, I know- Jus, the powder-"

He nodded, handing it to her, and waited as she heaved the larger cat on the blanket too, leaving a white dust cloud as he landed limply on it. Justice watched the kitten punch 'bzale's side weakly, muttering "Rragh, wdidi telyouab... lyhinfikegat...itswghered..." before going quiet.

Ophelia grunted, lifting up the blanket with her mighty paws- it was surprisingly easy as the two cats were disturbingly light- and started to stagger forwards. Justice anxiously nabbed his flashlight from the anthill, shaking it before scurrying over beside her. "Left a bit. Bit more. You're good- oop- to the right some-"

"I can see where I'm going, Jus."

"Oh- sorry. Heh. ...Wait wait don't step there-"

...

"...Oph, she's woken up!"

Ophelia yawned, stretching under the covers of her bed. A bright dawn ray hit her face and she squinted in it, rubbing her eyes. “Mmmmf.” She mumbled, head still half-asleep.

"Ophelia!"

She clambered out of bed, the sunlight split by dark curtains warm on her black fur. “Whaf?”

“Oph! The kitten’s woken up!”

‘Oh!” Ophelia blinked, jerking up. “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

She rushed out of her small bedroom into the living room of her and Justice's house, then turned a corner into the smaller guest room. Justice was leaning on a stool over the two cats they had saved from the ant fields and whipped up to face Ophelia as she entered, pointing down excitedly.

The kitten was indeed awake. Her bleeding companion (Oph needed to get more bandages) was still incapacitated, but at least she had recovered. She was looking up at the two of them skeptically through puffy eyelids, probably extremely confused at her location.

"Good morning!" Justice said cheerfully, smiling.

"...Morning." the kitten retorted. Her voice was slightly less pitchy than Ophelia would have expected for a kitten, what, looked like 3 months of age? And the fact that she was talking at all was also a surprise. It made Ophelia wonder about things.

The black kitten gave them a strange expression. "Morning. It's morning. I was... there were ants." she groaned. "how long has it been? I'm in a very... very important matter."

That was somehow less surprising.

"You've been out for two days." Justice said with a nervous edge.

The kitten's eyes widened. "TWO DAYS???"

"Yeah," Ophelia cut in. "You and your friend. If you don't mind me asking, dear, how did you get out there? Where's your mother? And-" she nudged the larger cat, who hadn't twitched in around 58 hours. "who's this?"

The kitten gave them a haughty, half-awake sniff. She was in an awful state of weakness and bleariness, her fur matted with bites, but she still managed to speak through this, with some supernatural courage. Ophelia would have thought someone so small would be far more frail. "MY mom didn't help me w... when Wishing Star threw me off t...hat stupid chasm. I'm out here because I'm... out for... REVENGE."

Justice's eyes widened. "Oh!! You're- You're Kitten, right??"

Kitten stared at him. "...Yes. She... Wish told you?"

“Yep,” Justice mumbled. “Bucketed it through all the towns, as far as I know.

Kitten, THE Kitten, huffed. “I wouldn’t think any more of her.” She cleared her throat in an anemic manner. Those ants must have hit her hard. “I got out there… because I m… I made her dumb fores…t die. It… was… hot. But I was… NOT… going to walk through that dumb maze. It would… take way… too LONG.” She tuned to the cat beside her, looking back up at them as she nudged him. “Blaze? He... Ifound 'im in... in the maze. When it was on fire. He uss under a tree when I... found him. 'is ead went... his head went" she made a little explosion motion with a paw.

"So that's his name." Justice said amidst his wince at Kitten's description of her companion. He chuckled weakly. "You kept calling him Bzale."

"Oh." Kitten said, the fragility in her expression lessening slowly in every word she spoke. In a way, it was relieving, because the reader was likely having brain jet lag from the delirium in her speech. In the same way, it was terrifying for reasons known simply as dramatic irony and being faced with a toddler who could walk and talk and commit arson and carry what was basically a 6'1" sand bag out of said arson. "Prby 'cause I was... 'cause I was being bitten by... cereal murderer ants."

She groaned. "My ead urts."

Justice and Ophelia watched numbly as the little black kitten began to smack this Blaze character, continuing to mutter to herself.

The weasel and badger both turned around.

"We're idiots." Ophelia whispered, squatting down so they were somewhat ear to ear.

"Well, she's off with the right motive, at least." Justice whispered back.

"We're supporting an arsonist? A kid on a revenge quest, sure, kid stuff, but we're associating ourselves with a very small criminal."

Justice eyed her. "You associated yourself with a very small criminal the second you met me, and we live together."

She sighed. "Touché."

"And are we really going to discourage someone with such a wholesome mission?"

"No..."

Justice nodded. "So don't be a Henry."

Ophelia scrunched up her nose, snickering. "Ew, don't remind me. That guy is unbearable."

"He's uppp" Kitten grumbled from back on the bed, catching their attention again.

Justice and Ophelia turned back up to find the kitten had somehow managed to pull the pale tabby on his back, giving the two an extremely pleasant view of a messy, lumpy red face and sleepy eyes. 'Blaze' yawned.

"...Blaze, say hi." Kitten said, commanding the large tabby as if he was just a very big tool.

"Gghgbghghgbvvh." Blaze gurgled dryly in response, trying to roll back over on his stomach, having none of it. Kitten frowned at him, and opened her mouth to speak.

Ophelia stepped in before this got any more awkward. "So, would you two like any breakfast, maybe?" she said. "So we can talk... stuff over."

Kitten shook her head. "Oh, no... we're good." She seemed to have recovered exponentially, her partner not so much. She struggled to clamber off the bed. "...We'll be going now. Thank you, strangers, but I'm on a quest... No time to lose. Blaze, get uAHHHHHHHH-" The last part was uttered as she toppled off the mattress- Justice lunging out and catching her just before she hit the ground. He put the little cat just barely smaller than him back up gently. She glowered at him, teeth gritted. Blaze shifted over to stare at them.

"Yes, yes, your quest. I love your quest. You're an awesome kid. But if you go out now- ehh, it's NOT going to go well. I'd suggest you continue resting for the day- maybe longer."

Kitten huffed. "Stupid restt. Whhat's with these ants... anyways?" she spat, melting back into the bedsheets. "They're CRAZY. I EAT ants. They don't... aren't supposed to eat ME."

Ophelia winced.

## Gallery/Art section?

if you has arts happy make would onyx yes :D explode would make onyx yes :Dkitten's war crimes by the AWESOME AMAZING FIN YAYYYYY
## Trivia

How To Burn A Kingdom/Trivia because of the sheer amount of trivia there is.

## Notes

1. ↑ a wonderful excuse given by one of onyx's wonderful friends. also, because it's winter.
2. ↑ Age on this planet is pretty similar to on Earth, in the way that her age would be young. However, the average lifespan of the creatures of this planet is about 100 years, so compared to her age on Earth she would be seen as younger here.
3. ↑ also known as lil baby
4. ↑ also known as not lil baby
5. ↑ \*insert Minecraft backpack\*
6. ↑ it is a fact that since visible light is in a spectrum of light, the light waves we as humans cannot see would also be defined as some kind of color if we COULD see them. Henceforth, gamma ray colored.
7. ↑ This is actually a serious insult because it's actually a dinosaur
8. ↑ Take notes, kids. expiration dates are a ticking time bomb.
9. ↑ in which she then falls over on a hard concrete road because she was being stupid and running too hard being a show-off and busts her knee, shoulder, shirt and watch and still has the scar on her knee multiple months later and a new watch because that screen was done shattered- oh wait, this is Kitten not Onyxclaw nevermind.
10. ↑ This part onwards was drafted on at least five different pieces of paper and two different notebooks. The point where Ophelia asks about breakfast was rewritten on each piece of paper because Onyxclaw00 has no memory skills and thought she was writing something new every time. In one way, she was. In another way, she was also just wasting paper. It finally got typed up. It was a mess. Why am I putting this here? Because I think I'm hilarious.
11. ↑ The author wrote this, and then proceeded to yawn as well, despite being not tired. The author, editing this, proceeded to yawn adding this sentence in. Such an event is contagious, whether fictional or not.