Catgirl System

Everything was black, save for the candle in Chora’s holder and four others on the floor around us.

Curtains had come down. Chairs, a wooden wolf figurine, and a torn ottoman had been pushed to the side. Enough space had been cleared on the floor of Chora’s bedroom for me, her, a big bowl of water, a big bowl of rabbit stew, and a big board with… I still wasn’t sure what was on it.

“Normally this board is for talking to spirits,” Chora said, her voice low as if who-knew-what spirits were listening at that very moment, “but you can also use it to make any requests you might ask of me, your humble servant.”

While I was grateful for the opportunity, I also wished that cats could roll their eyes.

She passed me a wedge-shaped piece of wood with a glass window in its center. Ah—glass! I grabbed it with both paws and eagerly smashed it against my face. Glass, glasses, enchanted glasses, maybe this would help me read the board!

But the board was blurrier than ever before.

“…I meant for you to keep that on the board,” Chora groaned.

I put it down.

Chora laid one finger on the board, moving it now and then. It took me several moments to realize that she was pointing to different parts—and that the parts were individual letters. Still so hard to read.

“If you can read these letters,” she said, “then I want you to move this glass over each letter in sequence to spell out whatever you want to say. When you’re done, let go. Or point to the exclamation mark in the corner. I dunno, it’s your prerogative.” She coughed away that slip of the tongue.

“But if you cannot read the letters, then we’ll do it together. We’ll set our hands on the glass and move it together, all while you think of anything you might be burning to say. The board carries a mild enchantment. It should respond to your will—and to make sure that I don’t interfere, I will empty myself of mine.”

Good, because this board looked very cheatable.

It wasn’t hard to guess why Chora had decided to pull out this board. No matter what she really thought of me—whether she liked me or not—she was determined, for whatever combination of reasons, to be a good host. I’d take it.

Besides, if this board did what I hoped it did, I could ask some really handy questions.

To start, though, I decided to try it on my own. Shutting my eyes, I set my paws on the glass. At first I didn’t move it, just to see if it would do anything on its own. It didn’t…so maybe two or more people were required for that part.

Then I opened my eyes and spelled the only thing I knew:

C A T !

Chora squinted down at the board with a disgusted look on her face.

“Why would you even bother saying that…” she grumbled. “Ahem. Okay, I get it now. Stop me if I’m wrong, but these four things are probably the only four characters you know, correct?”

I nodded because cats can’t effectively roundhouse kick.

“You’re not trying to spell ‘cantrip,’ are you?”

I started shaking my head, but stopped myself.

Eye-to-eye communication is horribly limited, but I tried to quirk my eyes and face in such a way that they’d convey, “Nnno, but I wouldn’t not try to spell ‘cantrip’…”

“Well,” said Chora, looking a bit uncomfortable, “I can try and get you a cantrip, but—”

She stopped when she noticed I was pointing to my eye.

“…That’s a great idea,” she said intensely. “Cantrip glasses for spirits and animals? That’s like a billion-dollar idea. Except that most spirits can already read, and they generally have no money, so, maybe not. Anyway,” she said, back to normal in a flash, “a cantrip that can help you read? That’ll take a while. I promise you can have it in a week.”

Huh, really? I couldn’t tell whether “a week” was fast or slow for cantrip-making in this world, but I had a feeling that Chora had given herself a time frame that was way too short. I tilted my head curiously.

“Three days,” she snapped.

Ack! No, wrong interpretation! I shook my head wildly.

“One day.”

I waved one paw through the air to cut her train of thought off. Then I paused, waited a moment, and used both of my paws to draw a line in the air—drawing a longer timeline.

“Okay,” Chora said with evident relief. “Instead of focusing on speed, I will focus on quality. You have my word.”

So was this Chora the Chantrip Chrafter? Interesting. I started to wonder if there was more to this cabin than meets the eye, like a place for her to do that work. Was there an extensive basement, a toolshed I’d missed? Or were cantrips just made by mind magic and long meditation?

…Now her face was getting un-relieved again. I guessed it was out of my hands now. If she insisted on putting a lot of effort into the cantrip, of course I was gonna accept—and if she happened to be making things needlessly hard on herself, then that was kind of her business.

I took a drink, set my paws back on the glass, and looked imploringly up at her.

“Understood,” Chora said, and she set her fingers on the other side. “Now we watch the board and relax ourselves.”

It was easy for me to loosen up in this room of soft edges and cloudy incense. I couldn’t say the same for Chora, though, just based on her stiff posture. Nonetheless, we let go together as best as we could and, after about a minute—just long enough for me to suspect that this would never work—the glass started to move.

Was the sensation instinctive or supernatural? No, neither…the sensation was both of these things, mixed together and made inseparable. As astounding as it was, it also made me feel uncomfortable. I felt exposed, somehow, maybe because the threads of fate or the universe or Sierra’s secretary were running through me all too palpably.

I couldn’t see what we were spelling, but I knew when we were done. The current of cosmic instinct stopped its flow, making us stop too. I let go and looked at Chora.

She snapped up a pencil and paper off the floor and scratched out what we’d spelled. Then she looked it over, her thoughts clearly moving fast.

She recited, “Werewolves wanted me. Who are they?”

Then she set the paper aside and took a deep, preparatory breath. Meanwhile, I wondered why this, of all questions, was the one that the universe and/or my subconsciousness found most prudent for me to ask.

“The lycanborn—also known as lycanborns, lycanborn people, werewolves, it all works—are people who transform into rabid, powerful wolves in the light of moonrock and meteors. They went from persecutors to persecuted in the span of about a thousand years, but today they’re just people with this specific hereditary power that they almost never use. Hm… I guess it makes sense that you’d find some of them in the Vencian Wood. There used to be a lycanborn estate around here, but it was virtually destroyed in the South Vencian War, along with countless other things…”

“Meow!” I interjected.

“The war? You want to hear more about it?”

“Meow.”

“Sorry, I would give you the whole encyclopedia’s worth if I knew,” Chora sighed. “I think that started in the year 3894, something about the cost of grain…lasted about ten years. Some lycanborn farmers versus the Anti-Heraldic Wizards who came down from outposts in the more southerly Kaug Mountains. They taught me about it in school, but…forgive me, spirit, I never thought it would end up being useful.”

“Meow,” I said consolingly.

Chora bit her lip. “What gets me,” she said, “is how you say they ‘wanted you.’ You mean as a servant, a pet?”

I nodded. This part really didn’t seem that complicated to me.

“How did it happen? Were you just walking along in the woods when they spotted you, came after you, maybe even trapped you?”

Wow, she hit the nail on the head! I nodded vigorously.

“So you mean they just saw you and thought, ‘Hey, I want that.’”

Um…yeah, they did, what’s your point. I nodded again.

“Just a wandering animal—wandering spirit, excuse me—like you, huh?” Chora said.

Yeah.

“But why would a wolf person even want a…”

She glared at me—with fear?

Aw, no, this was a weird repeat of that time she found out I had an Inventory! I wasn’t that amazing, I swear!

“The gall, man! The absolute gall!” she cried. “You can’t just tame a cat. I mean, what would they even do with you? Keep you in the garden, let you be their walking lawn ornament?!”

I meowed with my head high. This was still bizarre, and I wasn’t a man, but as a lifelong stray, I couldn’t have agreed more!

“Did those people hurt you?”

I was hesitant to reply, since Chora was starting to sound like a pro-cat anti-dog fanatic. Eventually, though, I did nod.

“I’m sorry, cat spirit,” she said, her irritation leaving like smoke. “I’m sorry they did that to you. You want to be free, so you should be free. I’m not doing much of anything in this cabin anyway—I speak from the bottom of my heart when I say that I would be honored to serve such a noble cat spirit as yourself. Those people deserve a beating…or at least a long lecture, something to make them feel guilty.

"Since these lycanborn people have wronged you, if need be—if you ever say the word—I will hunt them down to the ends of the earth, for your sake."

She blinked.

“Or the ends of the forest.”

Whatever Chora thought of me, whatever her motives, the one thing she’d always respected was my cat-ness. In honor of the respect she gave me, I let her be my liege.

She kneeled and raised her hood. I set one paw on the back of her head.

Didn’t know if I was doing this right, but I sensed that she didn’t quite know either.