When Heero's father died, his oldest brother promptly seized on the mill. The middle brother laid claim to the ass, and with a brief mutter of 'like calls to like,' Heero left him to it.
Which brought the narrative up to the present situation, in the storage shed, where Heero and a small purple-eyed brown cat met eyes in a battle of wills.
"You might," Heero frowned thoughtfully down, "make a pair of slippers."
"I would not," said the cat, vehemently hoping this was so.
"A muff, then." He raised his eyebrows, eminently reasonable.
"I have mange."
"Do you?"
"It only just started. I'm sure I'll be bald within minutes."
Heero leaned back, crossing his arms. "What, then," he inquired, "would you suggest?"
"I'm excellent at catching mice," the cat offered.
"The fur-and-bones vs. meat ratio leaves me somewhat . ." he trailed off.
"Give me a little while," said the cat, "and let me think it over."
After several hours, Heero awoke to the cat clearing its throat. It sounded somewhat annoyed.
"You're done?" He sat up, trying to brush the straw out of his hair.
"Have been for hours. And washed. You sleep like an ox."
"You have an idea?" He politely ignored this last.
"I may," said the cat. "Suppose you make me some boots?"
He blinked. "Suppose I do?"
"Suppose you make me some boots," the cat nodded, "and a fine, large pocket."
"You haven't anywhere to put a pocket," Heero pointed out.
"Then suppose I acquire a belt," said the cat decisively. "And perhaps a nice hat . ." he trailed off thoughtfully.
Heero again raised his eyebrows.
Suitably attired, with funds from Heero's hysterically hooting brothers, they set out.
The cat suggested he rest, and set off with his pocket, and a carrot off the five-finger-discount shelf.
Having caught several young, tender, and inexpressibly stupid rabbits by luring them into the pocket, he left two by Heero's face, for when he awoke, and left for a tall mansion nearby inhabited by a rather kindly ogre--the sort one could borrow the best sort of books from, for a very long time, and would still hail you as friend the next meeting, before grilling on the philosophical and hypothetical undertones of the work in question.
The cat knocked very politely, although loudly, for the ogre was usually in a state of blissful distraction, and eventually he heard the meandering feet, and the door opened. The ogre frowned distractedly over his glasses, disapproving of any and all comers in his best ogrish fashion-- particularly as he hadn't had time to pull his hair back that day, after his ponytail holder had not only broken, but fallen in his oatmeal.
When presented with the rabbits, he looked at them quizzically, then scooped the cat up and insisted he stay for tea. The cat accepted the offer, knowing the ogre was much out of the way of Society, although he frowned suspiciously into his cup-- once the ogre had substituted a bookmark for tea leaves, and once mid-party he had tried to use the cat's cup to refill his pen.
Nothing peculiar being apparent, they enjoyed a quite amiable tea, and the cat told of the circumstances of his new master, whom he elaborated slightly as the Marquis Quixote Moulin, heir du Chat, as the ogre nodded patiently, waving five-spice rabbit clasped in his chopsticks. "And now," he frowned at the cat to see if he was quite done-- "I've acquired this new set of Milne translations, if you'd like to--"
He left with several honeycakes (slightly stale), and went to his master, who was chewing thoughtfully at the last remains of the rabbit stew he'd made upon discovering the rabbits. Building the fire had been a bit of an adventure, there not being much in the way of kindling or matches.
It became evident quickly that the cakes, although fresh, contained a dishtowel and rather delightful but rare page of the vulgar tongue translation of the works of Kenneth Grahame, in particular the reformation of Toad, and the late afternoon nibble turned rapidly into a voyage of excavation.
The next day, on revisiting the ogre with partridges in pocket, Grahame was welcomed home and cosseted. For several days these visits continued, each day bringing partridges, or rabbits, to the ogre, with the compliments of the Marquis. The cat drew the line at gophers, uncertain they would be appreciated.
The ogre, usually reluctant to have his readings and translations interrupted by anyone other than old friends, expressed an interest in meeting one whose very tastebuds identified fine literature.
In another palace, several minutes away by carriage, the Queen was banging her head against her chamber door.
"More blood!" shouted a nervous attendant.
"ARGH!" she bellowed.
"I don't believe," Quatre said thoughtfully, "that this is about her bath." He brushed cobwebs off one shoulder in mild irritation.
The attendant looked at him.
"We--" THUNK "cannot--" THUNK "--believe it!" THUNK.
"Your Majesty!" chirped one of her attendants.
"One of them," she swung around, scowling at them abruptly, "had a mare in foal. One--" she emitted a low growl, swinging her cape around, "has a cart. The two were left for a night, and in the morning there was a foal under the cart. Now-- which made the foal, the mare, or the cart? To us, the queen they bring this problem!" THUNK.
"The . . cart?" one ventured.
After that one had stopped twitching, she swung to look at Trowa and Quatre. "Do we not look evil!"
They looked at each other.
"Perhaps your beauty attracts them." Quatre said smoothly.
"We've got fangs! See? Mnaaahhh--" she pulled her cheeks apart.
Trowa kicked an attendant quickly in the back of the knees. "Grown men faint, your majesty."
She brightened. "He did, didn't he?"
The attendant had the sense to lie still.
"I'll have my bath now," she smiled, and they rushed in the pink liquid. They all frowned at it. She glared around.
"Blood and milk makes this colour, we're very sorry!"
She climbed in, pouting around her fangs.
"Perhaps," Trowa ventured, "if you didn't insist the blood was from animals already intended for slaughter and killed painlessly?"
She looked horrified. "We wouldn't be able to sleep!"
"Perhaps if you put on a bit of a show--" Quatre cocked his head. "Scare those small dogs of Lady Petunia's away, perhaps, instead of running from them."
"We fluttered our cape!" she looked affronted. "We looked as frightening as possible!"
"Perhaps if you . . bit them?"
She shook her head violently. "Fur gets caught in our fangs."
"Difficult to look evil while toothpicking." Quatre supplied diplomatically.
Trowa looked at him.
Another attendant came in. "Another supplicant, your majesty."
"What? No! Make him go away!"
"He has small children. Apparently they are starving, and he'd like to know if he can join the other farmers in farming the castle land."
"No! Absolutely not! There-- there will be a town out there soon! Give him money! Make him leave!"
"One child of four, named Sylphiel. She is chronically ill. One of seven--"
"ARRRGH!"
Quatre and Trowa sighed.
"Perhaps if we put heads on the gate."
"Perhaps if we stopped Lady Petunia from inviting so many visitors."
"I believe her majesty's rooms have been cleaned again. That must stop."
And in the receiving hall-- never intended to be opened at all-- sat the Queen, listening to a story with tears in her eyes.
"Oh, you poor thing! Of course you shall be our attendant! No, we're very sorry, but we have strict rules about bringing families to live here. No, you may take money back-- no, no, don't cry!"
Heero sat on the empty floursack by the fireside as he flipped through his borrowed translation of the Blue Fairy Book, studying such revered works as The White Cat and Beauty and the Beast. Carefully setting out some of the stew (for the cat to eat) and some of his bread attempt (for the cat to comment on) he settled in to read, and awaited the arrival of his companion.
An hour or so later, he scowled at the fire, sighing, and turned to A. S. Byatt's Djinn and the Nightingale, and the Glass Coffin, for something of a change. He'd become wrapped in the tale of the master craftsman, a shoemaker, who made the dinner for the old grey man beautiful, because he was a craftsman, even if he could not practise his craft. He eventually noticed the cat sitting near the fire, watching his return to alertness with a smirk.
"Where've you been?"
"Avoiding this bread. What did you bake into it?" the cat's eyes were still wide from poking the chunk, and having it roll back into place with a solid thud.
"Two dwarves and a gnome. I killed them this afternoon."
"I brought honey from the ogre," it twitched its tail officiously.
"You think that's all it needs?"
"I think it needs a pickaxe and an iron smelting apparatus, if you really want to know."
"Damn, you're right, I forgot to get those little wheelbarrows away from them before I mashed them into flour."
"And tonight, Sneezy, Spooner and Aardvark were ambushed by a fryingpan wielding lunatic, who then, suffering from a Jack and the Beanstalk overdose, proceeded to grind their bones with a pestle slashed from a nearby oak. Snow White, declaring it divine judgement, has opened a school to teach proper deportment, and at all costs cleanliness, to young girls."
"How's the stew?"
It licked its nose thoughtfully. "Alone, or in comparison?"
"Either."
"Quite nice. It never ceases to bemuse me that you grew up in a mill and can't bake, however. Not even mentioning the advantage of opposeable thumbs."
Heero grinned, pulling out the last of the cheese, a square of which the cat accepted politely.
It shivered.
Heero thought, then slid a hand over to the bowl. "It's warmer over here."
"I fail to see how. You're thinking of using me as a muff again," the cat sighed, but allowed itself to be pulled over and held between Heero and the campfire. Eventually the trembling ceased.
"There."
"I'm not purring."
Heero shook his head.
Trowa sighed, as Quatre carefully restrung a small cobweb obstructing the servants hallway on the third floor. The Queen had tried again that afternoon to face down the small dogs, but had suffered a wild giggling fit at the recently cleaned portraits in the main hall, wherein each subject looked suspiciously like the lap-pet also solemnly facing the onlooker.
Heero read quietly by the firelight, the cat draped across his chest.
"I know what he means."
"The dragon?" it looked up drowsily. "Reluctant Dragon."
"The boy writes poetry, and his mother listens to it, but she just doesn't seem to--"
"'Exactly! They just don't seem to! And you can't argue with 'em about it.'"
"Yeah. I know . . "
"I love Grahame. Who else would think up a line like 'there was a general stramash, or the earth sneezed, or shook itself, or the bottom dropped out of something--' or that scene in Wind and the Willows where Mole and Ratty are finding the doorscraper-- well, Milne is great too, and Barrie, but . ."
Heero folded his arms behind his head, grinning slightly.
"Is that the full version, with the dragon hunt in the beginning?"
"You think he would lend an abridged version?"
"No. I love it when St. George is describing his horse's heritage 'with an oriental flow of imagery.' It's so satisfying to picture the good man swearing until birds fall from the sky."
Heero nodded slowly. "It's not just about a dragon . . like Winnie the Pooh isn't about a bear . ."
"Peter Pan isn't about a kid wearing leaves?"
"Yeah."
The cat batted his chin gently.
"Yeah." He nodded. "You know."
Finding clothes befitting a Marquis-- of Moulin or otherwise-- was a difficulty the cat spent much time thinking of, while draped comfortably in the sun by the river and hoping he didn't awaken to a trout having seized upon his tail. He couldn't readily convince those minds unclouded by the lofty haze of fine literature (the ogre had accepted his description without comment) of Heero's greatness while Heero stood there with the majority of his body showing through his clothes, and his footwear bearing the distinctive weave of a flour sack. On reflection, he wasn't sure such an obscene noise in the direction of high fashion would go unnoticed even by the ogre.
The cat had scouted out the lands surrounding perfectly, setting his plot for the day the ogre turned human and went in to town for the book sale.
It had mentioned that the 'Marquis' would be in the area that day, and had high hopes of meeting the owner of so many wonderful books.
It left Heero bathing in a rather coolish stream (Heero's words on this were succinct and quite creative), and encountered the ogre as if by chance on the road. He was quite anxious to meet the 'Marquis,' having been assured of his knowledge of classics, but not of the necessaries for ruling. He'd brought several books on the subject, several of strategy, one of making tea, and two on documents relating to national affairs.
Heero was pulled out (he was rather impolite about the whole thing to the cat), and handed robes befitting his station by the ogre, along with a cup of tea, containing, by accident, the ogre's glasses. He removed these and climbed into the carriage, with many thanks to the ogre aloud, and many wishes the horses could have picked up their hooves a little faster, silently. (His original rags had been conveniently hidden.)
He fielded questions about his Marquis-dom quite handily, and the cat went on ahead.
It had wandered through the fields before, and heard cheerful legends of the Evil Queen, but had not had time for further investigation. Reaching the castle, it was minorly perturbed by the rose-coloured pennants, middling daunted by the flower gardens (although of white lilies), and significantly bothered by the blonde girl with fangs running towards it in tears.
"I say," the cat said, looking up at her. "Do you know where I could find the evil queen?"
"I say," she replied, "Do you know where we could hide?"
The cat thought. "I may," it said thoughtfully. "There isn't anywhere in the castle?"
She shrugged, looking around. "We don't know, you see, we are always escorted."
"The towers?"
"Too nice."
"The . . crypt?"
She squealed. "A crypt? Do you really think?"
"Castles . . often have them."
Without regard for feline dignity, it was scooped up and drug down the nearest unappealing hole. They soon found the crypt, after the dungeons, by which point the cat was quite twitchy.
"What are we hiding from?"
"Them," she whispered, before grabbing several cobwebs and pulling them over her head, gently removing several bits of jewelery from one corpse, and putting them on, and lying on a slab of marble. "Oh, how we wish we'd known this was here! We might never go back!"
"We would very much like to," the cat glanced around nervously.
"No!" she sat up. "We won't! We don't have to be responsible! We're evil!"
Lady Petunia growled. "Where is that girl? I found this lovely sun hat, and . ."
Trowa indulged in a moment of quiet alarm, as Quatre explained 'black' again, in gentle tones. They eventually had to leave to take care of the rabble in the courtyard, who had brought their queen fruit and garlands of flowers, and were demanding to see her in a jubilant horde.
Heero's carriage arrived at about this point, as the two had become embroiled in a discussion of the finer points of kite flying, and the castle was at the end of the road. He looked around impatiently, climbing out of the carriage, and asked politely what was going on. At the sight of one farmer attacking Quatre with a bouquet, he took action, quickly dispersing the crowd, to the great relief of the castle staff, who addressed him with several imminent problems, such as diplomatic relations with two neighboring countries (whose diplomats were favorably surprized when not bitten) and a marriage suit with a pompous, overweight duke, dismissed with a certainly not.
When the somewhat traumatized cat found its way out of the crypt, Heero was being shown, with the ogre, to the state room to talk to a local witch on the tricky subject of astrology for the geranium farmers (a flower their queen refused steadfastly to mention at all).
When she herself emerged some time later (she was caught trying to sneak bones from a live chicken), she was greeted guiltily, and protested vehemently, asking couldn't they find someone else!
All eyes met.
The ogre had politely informed her that (being an ogre) he lived in bone-crunching seclusion in the deep woods . . and that his castle possessed a crypt. She left with many promises to visit, as he informed Heero of all he would need to visit and teach him as King.
The cat had sorrowfully offered to return the boots, after washing the cobwebs and corpse-fragments repeatedly off its fur. Heero picked it up, having set down several books of research on the subject (by learned experts such as Grimm, Lang, and Perrault), and kissed it firmly between the whiskers.
Then they blinked.
Heero shuffled through quickly, frowning. "We don't think that was quite what was supposed to happen."
"These boots are too small." said the cat. "Why did you do that? I'll miss my tail. I must say, I was rather proud of it."
"You still have it." Heero pointed.
It pulled around the brown tail, now attached to its . . head. "Oh."
"It doesn't say anything about changing people back to cats . . why are you a boy?"
"Because I was a boy cat, I assume," it answered sardonically.
Heero nodded, before helping the cat extricate itself from the boots.
"You'll have to get me new boots." it pointed out irritably.
He nodded.
"And a new pocket."
"We will."
"Do you suppose," the cat said thoughtfully. "That that works for anything? Just any old cow or anyone?"
"We would rather," Heero said firmly, "not go about kissing cows."
"Well, no."
"We don't usually kiss anything, by preference." he scowled at the cat.
It looked slightly guilty. "Sorry I wasn't a beautiful princess like the Queen."
"We're very glad," Heero answered, eyes widening, "that you aren't like the queen."
"Are we?"
"If we had to choose . ." the king trailed off.
The cat thought.
"Should we try that again without whiskers?"