Steeling myself, I jumped into the air, before landing in the mud.

“You have to flap your wings,” shouted Hangbelly from above. “Silly! Also, you need wings!”

Screwing up my face in concentration I tried again, this time twitching my shoulderblades, doing my best to imagine the sensation of imaginary wings flapping. Wings like a bumblebee. I would be a bumblebee cat. Once more I leapt, and for a moment, a brief, beautiful moment, I thought I had done it. I hung, suspended above the pond. Time slowed, then sped up as I plummeted face first into the muck.

Even in dreams, apparently I could hurt my nose.

Hangbelly burst into peal upon peal of ranine laughter, swooping around above me and performing hiccuping, gasping loop-de-loops. What a show off. I tried again a few more times, and then gave up in disgust.

While my ability to walk through other people’s dreams was improving, my ability to search the real world for teachers was at a standstill. No matter how hard I tried I could not project myself into the waking world. It was a barrier that could not be broken, locking me out like a door with a complex lock that favoured creatures with opposable thumbs.

I yowled my frustration to Mama, who boxed me about the ears and told me that kits who tried to run before they could walk were more likely to fall in holes.

“Alright,” said Mama, “you are an accomplished Dreamwalker. But perhaps there are areas of your ability that you are neglecting? And this is why you can’t take the next step?”

“I can’t think of anything,” I said, perplexed. “I’m doing everything.”

“What about your own dreams, my love?”

I looked at her in surprise. “My own dreams? What do you mean? I-”

“Have you spent time there?”

I rarely had time for my own dreams, but why linger in my own head when it served no practical purpose?

“No purpose?” she cuffed me lightly across the head. “Silly kit. Take my advice, explore your own dreams a little. See where they take you. A cat who does not allow his own dreams to grow is no cat at all. No wonder you are stuck! Do you know what you want? Do you give your own hopes energy? Remember, the purpose of cultivation is to know yourself, mentally as well as physically. Your thoughts, wants, dreams and desires are part of you, just as much as your body is part or you.”

A feeling of cold sluiced over me. The thought was like a dip in River’s winter depths.

What did I want?

I had spent so much time training, and all my dream-walking in others dreams. Could she be right? She probably was, Mama had to be at least three years old, maybe more.

What were my own dreams?

They were simple. I wanted the rats gone, but was that really a dream? I wanted to be strong, of course. I wanted to explore everything. I wanted to fly. Most of my waking hours were already dedicated to rats and strength, so the obvious solution was to work on the flying.

“Manifesting things in your dreams should help them become reality,” said Mama, as she kissed me goodbye. “Good luck.”

That night, I laid down to sleep, warm and comfortable, instead of dream walking, I let myself dream. And not the deep exhaustion of blissful unconsciousness, but the same state I entered when I visited other people’s dreams. It was a happy place. I brushed aside the thought that it was self indulgent. Silly thoughts. If Hangbelly and the others could control their dreams then clearly so could I, and I was excited to see what I could do.

I started off in an enormous wool basket, with extra bouncy balls of Very Nice Wool. I bounced them around for a while, then flexed my paws into them, enjoying the sensation and feeling my brain relax. This was nice, but probably not a very good place to learn how to fly.

So I dreamed up a beautiful, sunswept hillside, on a moor a little like the one I had traversed to visit Montadie. This one, however, was less bleak and had more flowers. It smelled sweet and sharp, like the Happy-Mint. The sky was bright blue and white puffy clouds passed by overhead. Some of them were shaped like giant cats.

I sat at the very top of the hill, the wind ruffling my fur. This was good, now I needed wings. First I gave myself sparkling, gossamer wings like a dragonfly. I rotated my shoulder blades slowly, trying them out, imagining their weight, mentally attaching them to my body. Briefly, I was distracted by the idea of giving myself six legs, or eight! Like a spider! Or more teeth? Or…But those were dreams for another night.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Once I was done I admired my handiwork. The shimmering lattice patterns of the wings were quite lovely, but did not feel right. I shrugged them away, and they disappeared back to wherever they had come from. How about thick, feathery ones, like Wuot’s? I imagined them carefully, coaxing each individual feather to life. These were heavier than the gossamer pair, and more robust. They started off soft grey, but that looked wrong too, so I changed them to deepest black, to match my coat. Black feathers, with a green and purple sheen, like I had seen on mallards along River’s banks.

I flexed the new wings. A little bit of wind gusted through the fine feathers. It felt tingly.

Interesting.

And yet…It didn’t feel quite right to have wings modelled after a bird, even a bird who was my friend. I sat my rump back down for a moment, heavy black wings sagging by my side. They felt even stranger dragging across the grass. They felt awkward. What did I want? I was only limited by my imagination, after all, that much was clear. I didn't want to be awkward - I wanted to be glorious.

As I gazed out across the valley I had made for myself to explore, I had an idea. I would make myself wings of sunlight! Transparent and buttery and sunshiny, just like a sunbeam sprite! It was the work of moments. They looked marvellous, flaring to either side, in all their golden glory, but didn’t really match the rest of me. So I changed my body into a sunbeam as well.

That was wonderful. I felt warm and sunny, and very, very pretty.

Now that I had satisfactory wings, there was nothing left but the act itself. The hillside and my tummy were both suddenly full of butterflies as I gazed down the slope of soft, waving grasses, windy spirits, to the friendly river, far below, that was waiting to catch me if I fell.

Sucking in a deep breath, I leapt high into the sky.

The wind pushed me up, and then I was flying.

It was easier than in Hangbelly’s dream, much, much easier. My eyes closed against the bright light, I flapped my wings as hard as I could till I had adequate height, straightening them out on either side as I felt the wind lift. I knew what to do, how often had I studied the birds, my heart swollen with envy?

I soared.

Higher, higher, higher, into the clouds, a bright happy cat spirit made of light and glee. The hillside was small beneath me. The river a glittering ribbon. The wind was fresh, the air spirits all around me, lifting me as if I was precious as a dandelion puff on my way to greener pastures. Little fat faces, each one with rounded cheeks, and streaming hair, they blew the wind before them, they were the wind, darting around my nose, and ruffling my sunshine fur. If only they were so accommodating in the waking world!

Together the air spirits and I swooped past vast, towering white columns of cloud.

When I finally tired of flying so high, I coasted down to treetop height, ducking and diving between the branches. This was exhilarating. The only thing that could make this more exciting was prey. And just like that there were rats! Fat, plump rats, free of disease, and a little reminiscent of Lavellan from behind.

Hunting rats from the sky was intensely fun. There were various ways I could kill them. I experimented with this and that, but my favourite was dropping down on them unexpectedly, sunshine death from above, shining claws and spurting blood! Scooping them up by the back of their necks I would propel them squealing into the sky and then… splat them on the rocks below.

In my dreams they tasted like salmon.

When I woke I had an idea. Many ideas actually, my brain was buzzing with them. And I felt invigorated and better rested than I had in a very long time. Mama was indeed very wise.

First, and most importantly, it occurred to me that there was absolutely no need to ever again disguise myself as a creeping rock. I could be a ray of sunshine (provided it was a sunny day, which it often was.) Secondly, my dreaming had given me an increased understanding of air and wind spirits. My subconscious seemed to have processed things that my waking brain could not.

I went looking for the wind and found it, playing around the roses, (which were looking particularly fine this year). There they were, those little puffing spirits, swishing and swirling together like schools of fishes in the air. We played together for quite a while, jumping and tumbling, and by the end of the day I was properly cultivating wind qi.

Flight was still something I could only accomplish in my dreams but with my new friends, and the ever thickening ball of air qi in my dantian, I was able to give myself a ‘lift’, making myself lighter, jumping just that little bit higher. Lingering in the air for just a second longer than I should had interesting results, and was the sort of thing that would make all the difference in a fight.

My third idea was rat related. Sunbeaming across the house, and then out into the garden, I went in search of Berryman Devil-lad. Predictably the little pixie was everywhere when I didn’t need him and absent when I did. However, I eventually located him engaged in a ferocious chicken race with Polly-wally. Round and round the goat shed they raced, whooping and cheering, with the hens just as excited as they were. It took a while to get their attention, and then even longer to get them to calm down, but once they did, I explained my idea.

“Montadie says the rats will move with the necromancer,” I said. Berryman and Polly-wally cocked their heads to one side. “And that the necromancer is working on… something. I want you to try and steal his things. Just like you do with the villagers.”

Polly-wally produced a holey sock from somewhere about her person, and held it up, wide eyes questioning.

“Maybe not socks,” I said, thinking hard. “But anything that he spends a lot of time with? Anything that you can steal without being caught, I mean. Do you think you can do that? Without the rats catching you? It will be dangerous.”

The two pixies exchanged looks then shrugged.

They disappeared without comment, and I took that as a promising sign.

The next day a pile of parchment notes appeared in my basket. Hand written in a dark, spidery hand they smelt of death and dust. I nibbled the corner of one, sneezed, threw up and buried them in the forest, after thanking the pixies who seemed unharmed from the experience.

A week later they brought me a sparkly rock. I don’t know what it did but it hummed with energy and made me feel very uncomfortable. Into a deep hole it went, and I apologised to the earth as I patted it over.

Whether or not these antics succeeded in slowing down the necromancer I never knew. But sure as day turned into night, spring passed into summer, and all was well.