Don’t use Leap, don’t use Leap—

But I couldn’t help myself.

My back legs flared with a surge of white energy and I burst out from the trees like a firecracker.

Then I promptly tumbled, head over heels, into a stump.

HP: 95% (76/80)
SP: 82% (53/65)

Oh, whatever! It was worth it! And I swore that next time I saw a rough battle coming, I’d run instead of fighting back!

After I’d picked myself up and shaken myself off, I turned to see how far that Leap had taken me. I’d jumped over a bit of a cliff, actually—a one-meter-high slope of clumpy, reddish-orange dirt. So in a single bound I could go about one meter forward, I guessed? I dunno. I wasn’t good at triangulating distances.

Around that ruddy slope were the same familiar trees. But north of it—and behind me—was a striking smell and a noticeably cooler temperature.

I knew where I was without even turning around: a pond!

I jumped onto that stump I’d just clonked into to see it.

This view wasn’t quite as vast and unencumbered as the views I’d gotten of the Rabbitfoot Hills. Trees were everywhere—including some towering, glistening magnolias and bluish spruces. But it was still magnificent, and probably moreso.

Not far from me, the silvery pond stretched way off to my left and right, dotted with waterfowl and even, for a second, a deer who’d stopped to drink. Even under this overcast sky, the water was so luminous that it almost hurt to look directly at it.

Such a natural wonder had to have some Treasure, didn’t it? Huh?

…The System didn’t respond. I guessed there was nothing nearby that it considered important, then. Come to think of it, why had it labeled the fantasy equivalent of a trade paperback as “a Treasure”?

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata

Your System won’t detect everything. For one thing, it didn’t detect the bowl of milk, which I’m sure you considered a treasure.

Hrm… I guessed that was true.

More exciting than Treasure, though, was the idea of messing around with what appeared to be a flock of ducks.

Two dozen of the prettiest ducks I’d ever seen were out there, bobbing casually next to frogs on lily pads, dipping into the water for food. Their eyes were a stunning, scary red, the same color as their beaks. Ornate patterns of brown, green, blue, and even flecks of gold around the necks ran down their feathers.

One problem, though: they were at the far edge of the pond.

And there was no chance even my Leap could clear that gap.

And no I wasn’t swimming!

I darted up to the shoreline to scope things out better. My toes enjoyed the sand-like gravel there, but they couldn’t stay long—I had to sweep along the whole edge of this pond.

To my left (going west), the pond extended far away, past the huge magnolias.

To my right (going east), though, I could see the curve! I could sprint clear around that bend. It’d be a bit of a journey, but one I was amply prepared to make.

I stretched, wriggled, and then…Lea—

No, I wasn’t that foolhardy. I’d save Leap for a more desperate moment…or maybe for when I was within range of the ducks. But I hadn’t gained all that Speed for nothing. Kicking up a respectable spray of gravelly splash, I took off.

I didn’t stay right next to the water. I decided to sprint through the trees and just keep that pond on my left side. It twinkled through the foliage—and often in my eyes—as I went.

I wasn’t thinking of anything except my goal. All my thoughts were cast aside, but more deliberately this time. Instead of chasing a dragonfly because my one-track mind was out of control, I was chasing these ducks because I’d willingly surrendered myself. And the single-minded focus was perfect, because nothing was chasing me this time around.

—Wait, did I just pass what I thought I’d passed?

A blur of reddish-pink, almost magenta, kind of in the shape of a—

I stopped mid-run. A wave of shame came over me, shame for having cut the hunt short. But I promised I’d get back to it as soon as I…

I turned around. That reddish-pink shape was a while behind me. Now I was about halfway to my destination—I’d rounded the pond’s eastern curve—but the weird shape was still along that straight-ish part of the coastline.

Thinking back, that shape had been…

Sigh. No, it wasn’t the pink girl’s hair or anything. It was a tent.

On my way here, I’d sprinted past a rectangle-triangley shape. Looking back that way, I could even see glimpses of it through the wind-tossed leaves.

While I was reeling from that disappointment…

Snap!

Huge talons grabbed me, five on either side.

I was lifted helplessly off the ground and sucked into the grip of a huge, predatory…oh, it was her.

Not the pink girl, but the blue one, wearing a white sunhat, a short skirt, and some incredibly high boots. There was something hanging from a leather strap around her neck, something big and clunky. It struck a chord with my memories, but only a vanishingly faint one.

She nearly suffocated me with her hug—and then she actually kissed my hairy skull! I wished I could have said she was weird, but this was typical housecat treatment. The only weird part was how little fear she had of feral cat germs.

And, well…apparently she was no longer afraid of me. That sucked. It seemed like her fear of getting bitten was far outweighed by her amusement at me, uh, being a cat. Groan.

The witch kneeled and released me. Naturally I started running away. Immediately she grabbed me again. She held me tight, and this time she knew better than to let go.

“Aww, sweet baby…” she cooed. When she talked to me, she was slow and deliberate. I appreciated that, even though I was positive she was just using baby talk and, therefore, had little or no respect for me. “You’re going to help me today, aren’t you?”

“Mraow!” I roared.

She jumped to her feet. “I knew you would!”

Well, I tried saying “no.” Stage 1 Human Language wasn’t that helpful, was it?

Clutching me every step of the way, the blue girl brought me closer to the water’s edge. We ended up behind a bush.

“Okay,” she whispered, “what do you see out there on the water?”

Frogs. Lots of frogs on lily pads.

But no ducks…

“Do you see any blue ones?” she continued.

I looked across the crowd again. All of them seemed green with dabs of black to me, but maybe I was missing something…

Wait, I couldn’t say words. Why was she even asking me? And why was I actually trying?

The witch took one of my paws softly in her hand. She squeezed the paw pads for a second. Urgh. I sighed deeply.

Then she “pointed” my paw toward the frogs so it poked just outside of the bush. “I see a blue one! There in the middle!”

Huh. She was right, and it was just in the place you’d think I would’ve looked first. But the blue tint was so subtle—less like ocean and more like turquoise.

At this stage she had me hanging securely, and surprisingly comfortably, in one arm. Now she raised her free arm high above the bush, flipping it palm-up. What looked like crumbs and woodchips fell out, carrying an odd minty scent. But only for a fraction of a second before—

A frog and lily pad zoomed onto her hand!

Now she looked like some kind of swamp waitress.

Laughing wildly, the blue girl ran out of the bushes and up to the shore so suddenly that it was a miracle we didn’t all fall. She found a clear, duckless, frogless part of the pond to set the frog’s lily pad in. I noticed that the pad had a pretty pinkish-white lotus flower on its edge.

And that flower would make a great prop for the photos she was about to take. With her now-frogless hand, she wrangled the object hanging from her neck. It was bulky, and she still had a cat in her arm, but a determined and carefree mind can do anything. She grabbed it.

As she began to use the object, I discovered what it was: a Vencian camera. It really wasn’t all that different from models on Earth, give or take one or two hundred years and a change from wood to plastic.

And wow, she was dexterous! The way she flicked that camera into different positions with only one hand, and with me in her arm, not to mention the mere milliseconds between each camera flash and all the angles she got in…honestly, it was like watching a force of nature.

Not that I would ever admit that aloud, even if I could. After each shot, she praised herself: “Ooh! Nice one! Cool! Two more like that! No, three more!”

Two minutes into it, though, I felt her grip weakening.

I took the opportunity to wrench myself free, and dropped onto the gravel.

For a moment it seemed like she wouldn’t even realize I was out—like she’d be forever absorbed in her own narcissistic photo land. But then she froze up and gasped.

“Baby!” she cried, with the voice of an outraged parent. “Don’t do that!”

“Mraow!” I cried back.

I could’ve run away. Instead, I decided to position myself right in front of her, next to the frog on the lily pad. (That frog hadn’t flinched once during this entire ordeal. I admired them for that.)

Then I reached my paws over to that lily pad. Slowly, because this would require some delicate moves.

Using my claws and every ounce of my own dexterity, I plucked the lotus free and set it, like a crown, on my own head. Then I looked into the witch’s face.

“Meow-w,” I pleaded.

She arched her eyebrows up in concern. Then her expression softened, again like a parent’s, delighted at the silly thing her supposed “baby” had done.

But then, eventually, she understood. She pocketed her camera and patted her bluish-green hair with her hands.

“You mean my friend, with the pink hair?” she asked.

“Ma-aow.”

Her face changed to a look of horror! “You like her more than me?!”

Well, duh. “Meow!”

She pouted, huffed, and kicked the gravel, but soon she calmed down about it.

Then she kneeled down to my level and told me, “Her name is Reed. She’s not at home right now.” Playfully, she added, “But that’s her special spot. I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone where she is…”

I got whiny. “Mrea-a-aow!” I yelped, making my eyes big and watery.

“Okay, okay!” she said.

Then she gave me a big, long-winded explanation of where Reed was, accompanied by a flurry of hand gestures, and I barely understood any of it.

Why’d she have to give up the baby talk now?

I was lost the moment she started explaining! Frantically I pored through all my mental knowledge of human gesturing—and realized I had no cue for “slow down” or even “say that again.” And even if I had, what were the chances that I could exploit that knowledge—without having to shapeshift and potentially scare her out of her wits first?

At the end of it all, I groaned slightly, and the lotus took that all-too-opportune moment to fall off. Judging by the smile that curled on her lips, she thought it was a purr.

She took a moment to simply look at me and smile.

“Well,” she said, “now I know you don’t like getting hugged so much.”

Great! So at least we’d covered some ground today.

She reached out to me, but instead of rubbing me on the head as I expected, she offered me her fist. I smelled it. It had more of the pond’s scent than hers—thinking back to the deceptively colored tent, she definitely must’ve been camping out here—but I did appreciate the thoughtful move.

After a surprisingly quick “bye,” the still-nameless witch began to walk away. But I wasn’t going to let her leave just yet. Not without a gift. She seemed like she’d need it more than me.

Poof!

Old Wembley’s Basic Fire Magic landed in the dirt.

It spooked her, and she squealed. As she turned around, her eyes fell on the book, then widened.

“Did you…you did?”

“Meow.”

“No way!” She trotted over and picked it up. Then praise spilled out of her mouth! “A spellbook? For me? Cool! Wow, does this have—? This is so—!”

I sat up straight and tall with pride. This was going even better than I could’ve dreamed! It had to be a pretty rare book.

“I think I have this one already!”

Or…not?

“But not with the same cover.”

Oh, okay.

“Or with blood on it!”

The raccoon got blood on the cover? Wait, why’d she sound excited about that part?!

“I can’t…I can’t read this…”

When she opened the book, clumps of pages stayed stuck together and a few even disintegrated.

“Uh…”

I couldn’t be around her anymore. With another Leap, I ran off.