Chapter Ten

"I cried my heart out over the loss and sheer exhaustion until Lune and Yuki came up to bring me down. I hadn't even noticed that the exit was hovering several thousand feet in the air, or that I would have died if I had fallen off. I could barely comprehend Lune when he apologized to me up, down, and even sideways for what had happened. He had no part of his father's plans, and had actually just proposed to Yuki. I managed to congratulate them as we stumbled back down the stairs, both of them supporting me, since I had been operating on a negative amount of sleep and hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. The broken arm wasn't hurting anymore, since my ability to feel pain had been short-circuited. Lune's father was all over the situation when we finally came down the last steps. He was apologetic too…that he had been getting my hopes up."

"Excuse me?" Baron was certain he had misheard.

"Oh, it gets better. He said that since I must feel like such a loser that Lune chose one of the hired help over me, I should marry him instead, since it wasn't like I had anywhere else to go. He even offered to change me back to a full human if I consented. Don't break that table Muta; you need to hear what happened next before your temper goes to extremes."

"Who said I had a temper?!" He was currently holding a writing desk between his paws, and the wood was groaning as it bent. He set the table down and walked over to her, his eyes still flaming.

"Did you give it to him?!" Haru cackled evilly, and Little Haru rolled her eyes.

"She always gets stranger than usual when we reach this part of the story."

"I take it you were forceful in turning him down?" Baron's own temper had risen at the former king's arrogance, and he was really hoping for a detailed description of her rebuke.

"That was one way to put it. I told him a number of things that I refuse to repeat in the presence of an impressionable kitten. I insulted him on every conceivable level, and than made up a few, just to insult him on those. I went into vivid detail what I thought of him and his idea, and told him that if he tried to force me into this marriage, I would spend the rest of my life making his a living nightmare. I also told him what I thought of his army, and said that if I, an exhausted and starving school girl, could take down his soldiers, than I could take down his entire army with one arm tied behind my back, but I wouldn't need to, since one was already broken and useless.

"By the way, I've always had really powerful lungs, and it's usually pretty quiet and peaceful here. Put that together with the fact that I was screaming every syllable, and you have an entire kingdom that gets to hear their beloved ruler getting chewed out for the first time in his life. It was obviously long overdue, and I managed to hit a note that shattered the Cat's Eye, a magical gem that doubled as the royal crown. That gem was what he used to make the blue portal and how he planned to change me back to a human. I also told him that I would rather live off garbage on the streets for the rest of my life than spend one day with him, but since he was stuck with me no matter what, I was going to have a lot of fun performing strange tortures on him, and then fainted from exhaustion." At this point, Muta was purring loudly, and Baron not too far from joining in, a blissful smile on his face.

"That was supposed to make you two laugh, but this will do. I couldn't speak for a week after my little speech, but everyone else went deaf for two. Lune said that after I fainted, one of his guards made a comment about if I can do all that I had just been through in the sorry state I was in, what would I do to his father when I woke up? That thought terrified him enough to abdicate the throne to his son, on the grounds that I wouldn't be allowed within seeing distance or a hundred meters, whichever was greater, of him and he would stay far from the castle. When I woke up, I met Doctor Polo, who was a bit scared of me at the time, for hearing what I said to his monarch. He got Lune, who then made me another offer. At least his didn't have the 'm' word in it." Baron guessed the next part.

"He wanted you to train his army, right?"

"He did, but he didn't want me to start until my body and mind had recovered from what had happened, which ended up taking a month. He also offered to take me in as his own sister if I had no objections, since he owed me big time. I was willing about the sister part, since I've never had a brother and had no other place to go, but I had a few problems with training the guys I had just taken down. He said that if I could defeat them in the state I was in, than I could handle a teaching position, although he wouldn't force me. I think even he and Yuki were scared of me for a while, even though they knew I wasn't directing the speech at them. I ended up accepting the job and the new family; the rest is history."

"Not quite. How did you get so good at fighting?" Baron still couldn't believe she had become a master by winging it.

"I told you; I liked kung fu movies and I used my imagination through trial and error." Haru looked out the window again, thinking. "I've never been able to forget that if the guards had had anything resembling a formal training, I would have been toast. The only reason I was able to keep the little humanity I have left was because I was more stubborn than Lune's father was. I figured out while recovering from that first incident that as long as I'm stronger, faster, or smarter than my opponent, I'll be able to keep control of my fate. Nothing fuels skill like a pig-headed determination. My new cat body was a bit more flexible than my human one, which really helped with relearning how to use it. A lot of these scars aren't even from battle; they're from me figuring out how weapons work." She started giggling again. "After watching the entertainers perform, I found out that even they were more equipped to fight, so I got one group to teach me how to throw daggers, and another to teach better balance. It's a little hard for them to teach effectively, since they thought I could be two seconds from tearing off their heads if they corrected me." Little Haru piped up.

"Everyone except my family and Doctor Polo's calls Big Sister the 'Demon-Cat of King Lune', and can't decide who's scarier; her or Renaldo Moon. The younger ones lean toward Big Sister, since they are too young to remember the criminal." The Bureau absorbed the information before asking for more. Muta asked the next question.

"How come you have no scars on your face?" The princess answered for Haru.

"She's pretty careful, and even though the guards are scared of her, they still think she's too pretty to try to damage the face." The general turned red, but didn't provide an alternative answer. Baron silently agreed with them and smiled at the half-cat before asking another question.

"How come your hair hasn't been cut shorter, with you playing near all those sharp implements?" Haru's eyes turned a bit sad.

"When I first came here, my hair barely brushed my shoulders when it was down, and I've been letting it grow out ever since, as a puny gesture that I'm at least part human still. If I know that I'll be playing with anything sharp, I usually tie the braid around my arm or waist to keep it out of the way." Baron thought of something else.

"The king mentioned that you saved his wife's life as a child." Haru smiled at the memory.

"I did. None of this would have happened if I had let her die." Muta snorted impatiently.

"Just tell us what happened, Chicky." She smiled at him.

"All right. When I was younger, I would sometimes find small boxes of fish crackers stuffed under my pillow or in my bag at school. At first I thought it was my mother, but she flipped out when she saw them, and would throw the uneaten boxes away while doing random raids on my room. She had always taken my appetite for fish as a personal insult. Being a kid, I was convinced that the one behind them was a fish fairy or something that disagreed with my mom for raising me as a vegetarian. I had been eating the crackers on the way home from school one day when a filthy little kitten started following me. Since I couldn't eat the whole box before Mom would catch me, and the kitten looked pretty hungry, I gave her the rest of the crackers.

"I had forgotten about the incident until Yuki showed me the engagement gift Lune had gotten her, which was a box of the same crackers that had saved her from starvation. Those crackers were the reason he was almost road kill, since he had lost his grip on the box at just the wrong time. Kind of funny, knowing that the reason I'm a cat is a crazy king and fish-flavored snacks. You going somewhere, Muta?" Baron hadn't even noticed that his friend had gotten up. He was already heading out the curtain, the platter and cover hanging at his side. He didn't turn to answer Haru.

"Yeah, one of us should check if the king needs any help. I don't think the Bureau's talked to him since you got sewn back into one piece. Baron can fill me in on any other details." The curtain billowed behind him as he sped down the hallway and staircase. The orange cat watched his friend's retreat with surprise.

"That was a bit abrupt."