[Lauchenoiria]

“Skinny! No, not there!” Princess Leila shouted, shooing the hairless cat away from her sock drawer. Skinny, as she’d called the cat (in English; it was funnier that way), meowed in mild distaste and instead curled up on top of a pile of history textbooks Leila had liberated from the palace library while the men were distracted.

The cat was a long story. King Shapur’s cat laws did not discriminate; they applied equally to all cats regardless of fur colour, or texture, or length. Including hairless cats. The general public, however, were far less accepting. Leila had stumbled upon a group of young boys bullying an underweight hairless cat while she was making her way home from one of her meetings with her Kerlian contact. Fearing for the boys – not the cat – she quickly intervened before the authorities could see them breaking the cat laws.

And then the hairless cat had followed her home, up through the secret passage. She’d woken up to find Skinny sitting on the end of her bed. At first, she’d tried to chase the cat away; after all, she was not the world’s biggest cat fan. But Skinny was persistent, and Leila realised that his hairlessness meant he did not trigger her allergies. Her father had no objections (in fact, he was ecstatic), so Skinny now lived with Leila, and followed her around everywhere she went.

This was for the best; because the other palace cats were afraid of Skinny, who’d been a street cat before Leila’s intervention. Which meant they kept far away from Leila, just as she liked it. Really, it felt like some kind of divine blessing.

Her latest task from her Kerlian contact, however, was not. The Kerlian was getting impatient with Leila’s lack of progress on the Chief Advisor Hashemi situation. They still had not managed to figure out what he was up to; though they had ascertained a few surprising facts over the course of their investigation. Firstly, was that Hashemi was somehow embroiled in the Cosmic Infinity cult. That had come as a surprise. But they still did not know what his end goal was, nor what he was keeping in the attic.

It was that last piece of information that Leila had been tasked with acquiring. She sighed as she exited her room, climbing up the stairs; Skinny in tow. She knew where the room was, and how to get to it, but it was always guarded by cats. Not her father’s cats; no, they were not happy about whatever was in the room. If her father’s cats got close, the attic cats would chase them away quickly and without prejudice. Perhaps Leila was anthropomorphising the cats’ behaviours, but it sure seemed like the attic cats were guarding a secret that the King and his cats were not permitted to know.

This was, in a way, true. Hashemi had indeed trained some cats to keep those belonging to the King away from the attic room. It was quite simple, in fact; though if animal rights activists had discovered his training techniques they may well have stormed the palace in a war that would have rivalled the Thraxian-Saladian War (now known by many names among indecisive users of social media, including “the Lizard War”, “the Cat War”, “the Catflict”, “the Housecat, the Wizard and the War(drobe)” among more) in crazy.

The Kerlian had not sent Leila to the attic unprepared, however. As she hid in the secret passageway, an onlooker would have had to do a double-take at the sight of an eleven-year-old in a tiny hazmat suit, wearing an air filter mask, and holding what appeared to be a water pistol. It was not, in fact, a water pistol; but it was not far off. It had been a water pistol, once upon a time, but it had since been modified so that instead of water, it shot cat treats some considerable distance.

There is nothing normal in Zargothrax.

The cat-treat-gun (name TBC) was to be a distraction, and a weapon if needs be. She would lure the guard-cats away, and then she would investigate the room while Skinny stood guard (this was honestly a good plan. As previously stated, the other palace cats were terrified of Skinny, and the attic cats were no exception).

Leila fired a cat treat down the corridor, feeling rather silly. But it worked, as suddenly five cats appeared from nowhere and shot towards the treat, faster than it had flown from the treat-gun. Understanding that five cats would get through one treat very quickly, she shot almost the full barrel of cat treats past where they were running, and then quickly turned the other way and ran to the room, Skinny hot on her heels.

It was locked, of course. But the Kerlian had given Leila something she called a skeleton key; which worked rather well with the ancient lock on the wooden attic door. It clicked, and Leila quickly slipped inside, only to stop short and stare straight ahead in utter shock and disbelief. She opened and closed her mouth around ten times before she managed to get the single word past her lips.

“Grandfather!?”