How did I not realize that our fishing trip would take us to Mirror Pond, where I’d just been terrorized by a blue fairy and her swarm of chirping insects?

As soon as she realized it, Reed’s feet scuffed to a half in the grass and she said, “Uh, last night I found our—our friend our valued guest—at the pond, and they didn’t look too happy to be there. Bayce, are you sure we can’t change locations?”

“Hey, cat,” Bayce said, swinging her head right past Reed to look at me, “should we stay or go?”

My gaze lingered on them both for a second. Along with her usual armies of bracelets and rings, Bayce had put on flip-flops and a short, light dress checkered green and white. Over her head she held a parasol casting cool blue shade. Reed dressed as if she wasn’t going anywhere near the water: non-watertight boots, corduroy overalls, and a red plaid shirt. While Reed had a mud-brown tote bag over one shoulder, Bayce wasn’t burdened with any of the fish-catching gear that I would’ve expected her to have—probably because she had magic-y ways around that.

And then there was me. Dinky little gray cat standing between them.

I knew Reed had a point. Last night that pond had filled me with mortal fear. All the same, continuing on with Bayce had a point too, since last night that pond had filled me with mortal fear, meaning that confronting it again might make me stronger, meaning Experience Points, meaning Levels, meaning…betterness overall!

“Meow,” I said, pivoting toward Bayce. She beamed and fist-pumped.

Reed smiled hesitantly. “I’m glad it was your decision,” she told me, and I knew she meant it.

As we walked on, I turned toward the cabin shrinking in the distance behind the trees and noticed a figure moving on the roof. It had to be Chora wrapping up her morning exercises.

What would she say when she discovered the house empty—no Reed no Bayce no Taipha no nothing—without a single word to her about it?

Well, she’d probably conclude that we all went on some wacky adventure, which would be right.

And she might be happy to have the place so quiet and all to herself.

Yeah. She seemed like that type. Catlike, one could say?

It was a bit of a chilly day. The wind made it bracing even as the sun tried its best to shine hard on everyone. Clouds were patchy, not like regular cloud patches but like discrete, almost square shapes you might actually find on mended fabric.

As a strand of sparrows passed by on our left, I marveled at the way that humans could walk through the woods without getting interrupted so much. Animals that would’ve jumped at the chance to annoy me (namely squirrels and raccoons) saw humans and, evidently, turned the other way. Like they did when they saw my nekomata form…

It just confirmed what I’d already figured on Earth: humans had power, but they were also kind of ridiculous.

I dunno who said that lions rule the animal kingdom. Sure, an individual housecat could rule an individual human family, but…clearly it was humans who got to strut around and do as they pleased, humans whose mere suggestion of weapons scared off everything but bears and wolves—humans who got to eat, and live, and entertain like kings. Humans who had no idea how hard it was for us commoners to make it out here, and were, it seemed, never meant to.

Those words sure make it seem like I held a grudge, but getting to know a few humans was thawing my icy attitude. Yes, I admitted it to myself at last: humans were not necessarily that bad and they could even be funny in the good way.

And they made good bodyguards! Not that I needed any.

Stats

Taipha Ash Heather Lv. 13 EXP: 43% (832/1950)

HP 100% (303/303) SP 100% (248/248)

ATK 49

INT 33

DEF 35

WIS 24

SPD 42

I may not have gotten any spicy new moves on my last Level-Up, but as usual, the gain in Stats gave me a boost in self-confidence. At least I knew for sure that I could’ve outrun these girls in my sleep. Was there any way to see their Stats, I wondered? Another aimless, answerless question for as long as I couldn’t speak or write, huh?

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

As we walked, the air occasionally filled with Bayce’s observations about the course of the clouds and stars above our heads. The legitimately cool thing about it was, she could point out all the stars and constellations without even having to see them! She pointed up to Lylert and traced her hand along its lines, then to Oron low in the east. I knew she wasn’t faking it because she pointed with both arms, one hand gripping the other wrist, and held her arm rigorously steady, as if aligning it with the magnetism of the very planet. I was sure she could’ve pointed through the earth too.

We got to Mirror Pond at half the speed it would’ve taken me on my own, naturally. Leisurely walks were fairly new to me—if I was gonna relax, personally I’d do it at a run or a trot. I wondered if Chora was a jogger…

Then, with a sweeping-back of oak leaves, we could see the dazzling waters, the lazy ducks bobbing at the far end, and the slowly turning lily pads. Much more serene and, uh, normal than last night.

Go ahead, Bayce, make my day.

“Any preparations in order?” Bayce asked me as she snapped her parasol shut.

I shook my head. “Mah.”

Reed took two rose-colored pompoms from her tote. She was really serious about this, huh?

Excitement spread across her face as she said, “What are the rules, exactly?”

“None,” said Bayce. She was striding up to the shoreline already, and I followed suit—didn’t want to miss any advantage. “We just catch as much as we can.”

“I figured, but…shouldn’t you have a time limit?”

“Right, right!” Bayce chuckled it off. “Yeah, we settled on two hours. We shouldn’t try to catch fish forever with no breaks. Can’t have anyone fainting.”

“Exactly,” Reed agreed. “It is pretty hot out here, and it’ll only get hotter when we get started.”

“Yep!”

“Um…hey, Bayce?”

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to check that none of that last sentence was innuendo you planted on purpose. You know, just to catch me in a web of my own making.”

Bayce, in a rare moment of apparent thoughtfulness, hummed. “No, it was all you. And, if your mind also happens to be on fish jokes, I hate to inform you that those are just too crude. Even for me!”

Before my mind could say “I don’t know what just happened,” a pompom went flying and hit Bayce in the side.

“Ack! Hey!”

“Somebody’ll smite you for that,” Reed said. Even her lowered head and furrowed brows couldn’t hide the smile of suppressed laughter.

Well, I could certify that part, no question. I was going to smite Bayce…in the grand game of fishing. Maybe fish lent themselves to “crude jokes” because humans who fished for a living were often poor. Did poverty exist in this world? Sad!

Anyway, it was about noon, so Bayce decided that we’d start at the top of the hour, when the sun was directly overhead. We trusted that she’d be the master of sun-tracking, of course, so we allowed for a long, meditative pause of total silence as she stared straight up into the sky and somehow didn’t blaze her eyes out, with me on the bank sitting about twenty meters away and Bayce at the tip of a little natural jetty of dirt and tall grass. Reed stood behind and between us, armed not only with pompoms but with an hourglass to tip once we started. Hopefully she wouldn’t knock it over with the force of her cheerleading seconds later.

Hm. I gave Bayce a long, unashamed look all over. Not at her body necessarily (when she’d held me way-too-close, I saw all I was prepared to see of that), but with an eye toward her strategies. Was she going to catch fish with her bare hands? Most likely not, but…she could, couldn’t she? Besides her anatomy magic (if my guess there was correct), I’d experienced her gravity-pull stuff firsthand. Ugh, if she tried to use that to claim my fish…

Well, I trusted Reed as a referee. She seemed like a fair, unbiased judge. Wait, no, she was the opposite of that. But even if she wasn’t unbiased, she was at least a friend to us both, so she was doubly biased toward both of us and it canceled itself out.

Like a firecracker in a desert sea, Bayce’s voice rang out all of a sudden: “Go!”

Not even waiting to see what she would do, I Leaped straight into the water!

Augh! Blegh—gah! Water went straight into all my head cavities. Worse, so did a couple of tiny fish. I coughed and sputtered as I paddled and tried to get upright.

I couldn’t see anything. Murk, all murk. Muddy greenish-yellows and dark teals swirled around me. I knew I’d just crashed into the sand at the bottom of the pond and stirred up everything. Not an amazing start.

But the clouds of sediment eventually fell, and my vision cleared up. Yes, there were definitely fish all around me, and while most had scattered far out of my Swiping range, they (or their more gullible neighbors) would be back.

…I was not a crocodile.

In my excitement to get a running start over Bayce, I had totally forgotten cat hunting fundamentals. Paw the surface like a bear, don’t dive in like an otter! And don’t think you can just hang out underwater with the lungs of a patient crocodile!

As a consolation for myself, I did snag one of the tiny fish that swam up into my nostril just as it was coming out.

Score one. Nice.

EXP: 43% (840/1950)

And like 5 Experience Points.