He tried to be good. It just never worked.
Mogget stretched out his cat feet as far as they would go, arching his back til the Charter-woven bones cracked, unfurling his barbed tongue to the breeze before settling a more comfortable dent in the lush grass. The air was cool and fresh off the river Ratterlin, and the noon sun couldn't reach him in the shade of the Fig Tree. He thought of asking for fish to complete his contentment—not quite happiness, not yet—but he knew Sabriel would most probably deny him out of cross perversity, on the grounds that dinner was 'soon enough.' And Mogget felt, rather wisely, that she was not of a mood to argue with him; and he in turn was not of a mood to be humiliated when Sabriel sent him yowling into the tree with a heated Mark nipping at his tail. Tinkering did not come easy to Sabriel, and she was bound to get extremely annoyed at whom or whatever it was that broke her concentration. An annoyed Abhorsen was something Mogget tended to avoid with a vengeance. Made a practiced art of, in fact.
The prince had toddled over while his mother's back was turned, and poked the cat-thing in his closed eye. Mogget bit back that yowl and slowly unfurled a pawful of claws one by one beneath the child's nose. Sameth, brave with his mother so near, had the utter gall to giggle, and closed his own hand around Mogget's paw, forcing unresisting claws back into the pad. Mogget gritted his teeth. Sabriel, despite the heat, wore her bandolier across her chest, and Mogget didn't need to open his slanted green eyes to see the glowing Charter Marks playing between her fingertips as she tinkered. The child, encouraged by the familiar's lack of opposition, tugged at his ears, and Mogget felt obliged to growl a warning before he scratched the crown prince's eyes out.
"Careful, Sameth," the Abhorsen called over her shoulder, beckoning her son to her with a free finger.
"Mogget is clever," Sameth remarked, daunted.
"Yes, especially when he's cross," Sabriel returned, a slight smile tugging at the edges of her resisting lips. Her eyes remained purposefully on Sameth and not Mogget. "So come away and see what we're making for your father."
"Cunning often outwits itself," the prince quoted in his childish voice.
"Not mine." Mogget growled, jerking his head up. The sudden motion set the perfect miniature bell on his collar to tinkling. Sam yawned.
Sabriel laughed softly. "No," she agreed archly as her suddenly drowsy child lay down on the grass beside her, "I suppose not."
But there was a bitter taste in Mogget's mouth as his eyes slid shut again—it was beyond his power to keep them open. Inside, where the Abhorsen couldn't see, regrets bubbled their way up in Mogget more often than he might have liked of late.
Perhaps he had outwitted himself this time. Saraneth was strong, but Ranna was a different keeper entirely, and an eternity under her spell had lost its appeal years ago. Not that Mogget would ever own to that, had anyone ever troubled to ask him.