Chapter Seven: One Confused Haru
Haru's body was stiff. Stiffer than she ever remembered it feeling like. It didn't even feel like she had lungs.
"Am I dead?" She wished desperately for the ability to breath.
Strangely enough, the wish was granted. Her world flickered with light, and her body suddenly became soft. Slightly put off balance, she stumbled a bit before falling over. When did she get on her legs? She sat on the ground for a second, waiting for the usual burst of pain to flow through her, but it didn't. She barely even felt the fall. She managed a breathy laugh.
Being dead already felt better than being alive.
Being fairly sure she had seen a light switch when the room lit up with golden sparks, she got to her feet and headed towards the wall, the skirt nearly tangling up her feet. She felt around for a moment before drenching the room in light. She turned around, and was a little surprised to see a regular bedroom, the most unusual thing about it being that the bed was canopied. She remembered wishing for a canopied bed when she was a kid, but had forgotten why it was so important to her.
On an impulse, she walked over to the bed to examine the quilt. Come on, she was a quilt maker's daughter, after all. She recognized the pattern, since it was a favorite of hers and her mother's. It was a double wedding ring quilt, the surface covered with interlocking circles. Red, gold, and cream was the theme, with exquisite stitches holding the layers together. Her mother had tried to teach her a few times how to make a quilt with this pattern, but the circles and curves always threw off the teenage girl's attempts. She reached forward with one hand to trace the stitches, and stopped cold.
Weren't angels supposed to be in flowing white robes? In all the stories she's been told, they never wore gloves, let alone the long pearly gray ones now on her arms. Why did her skin feel different?
She sat down on the bed and pulled off one glove. She stared in astonishment. Her skin felt funny because it was covered by snowy white fur, a little longer than what had been there when she first visited the Cat Kingdom. Turning her hand over, she noticed that there was padding on her palm, somewhere between a human hand and a cat paw. This must be close to how Baron's hand must look, underneath his glove. She looked at her attire.
She was dressed in a beautiful navy gown, making her wonder if she was really in heaven. She checked for a pulse, surprised to find it strong and steady. A vanity in a corner of the room caught her eye, and she ran to look at herself in the mirror. She stared in astonishment. Maybe she was in the other place besides heaven.
She was a drop-dead gorgeous white half-cat. This wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that Baron would never see her like this. He would forever remember her the way she looked when she died, which was probably as bad as she had felt.
Her heart turned heavy in her chest, but at least it wasn't the anvil it used to be. She pulled the glove back on while studying the door next to the light switch. Where would it lead? She sighed, knowing that there was only way to find out. The half-cat stood up and walked over, turning the old-fashioned handle slowly. What would the rest of this place look like? She slowly cracked the door open, and snuck a peak. Her eyes widened in astonishment, and she threw the door open.
It was the Bureau! Except it couldn't be; she was dead! She walked to Baron's desk, tracing one finger along the long feather pen. She strolled to his tea set and looked inside the pot for some of his tea. It was there, now cold. She inhaled the fumes anyway, closing her eyes to savor the action. This could only mean one thing.
She wasn't dead! This place was the true Bureau, and she could touch things, smell things!
'Always remember Princess; wishes have a lot of power if there's enough force behind it.'
She suddenly understood, and started laughing at herself. When she made wishes as a little girl, one of the most common ones was that she had a stronger body. Well, this one was certainly stronger than her human one! She couldn't remember ever feeling this physically good. All of her childhood wishes must have been building up, and others must have been wishing in one way or another that she would stick around longer. Plus with the cat magic smothering her in her dying breath, which would make her current form understandable. Now she understood that she had been wooden when she had woken up, which meant she was now a Creation like her crush!
She grinned; the implications of her new form were clear. Next time she saw Baron, he would be toast.
Baron! He still thought she was dead! She started pacing the Bureau, not wanting to wait until her friends returned, all demoralized from her death, and probably hours from now. Suddenly her head shot up, Baron's words returning to her mind when they brought her to the Cat Kingdom the second time.
'…the portal shard Lune gave me back at the Bureau.'
She didn't know where he kept it, or how to use it, but it beat waiting around here and warming up Baron's teapot.
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Naoko kissed her daughter's cheek one last time before allowing the coroners to take the body, tears staining the sheets as they wrapped up the beloved brunette. There were no words to speak, as the company slowly made its way to the library, which somehow felt like the most appropriate place to be.
Lune really should have been attending his kingly duties, but he never could have focused on the work anyway.
Yuki hadn't let go of his arm, crying silent tears into his fur. How could she have failed her friend in her hour of need?
The red-haired mother was taking it surprisingly well, having watched the illness slowly eat away at her daughter for years, and secretly glad that her suffering was finally over. Perhaps she was even enjoying a tearful reunion with her father as the red head sat there, with felines and fowl. But what was she supposed to do now that her daughter was gone? She would be so lonely if she tried to return to the Human World. Alone.
The Bureau may have been torn apart by the loss of such a loved friend, Toto and Muta weeping silent tears, but easily the one most distraught was the Creation Cat Lord himself.
Every joint in his body felt like it had frosted over with ice, shaking badly from the cold and the painful emotions. So what if he had a semi-fiancé? He could have told Haru how he truly felt before she left for good instead of keeping this heavy burden on his chest.
She had depended on him, trusted him, and he had let her down in so many ways. And now he would never know how she would have reacted, if he had been as honest as she was.
The giant white cat was pulling back the red curtain so that everyone could walk through it when a loud shout was heard from a hallway window.
"You dirty old cat! Do you ever stop hitting on girls young enough to be your daughter!"
Everyone froze, not daring to breathe. That voice! It was so familiar… but it couldn't be! Baron was the first one to break out of the trance to rush over to the window and see who it was that was chewing someone out. His heart slowly began to beat again, warmth enveloping his body. What he was seeing was impossible by any sense of the word. The others soon joined him, equally shocked by what they were seeing.
Two figures were down in the courtyard. One was easily recognizable as Lune's father, who had landed on his back and staring at the other cat with wide unbelieving eyes. The places Baron had shaved him had fur a good three inches shorter than the places he hadn't touched.
The other cat was quite obviously female, wearing a midnight blue dress that made her look like a mid-winter's evening as it shone against her pure white fur. Her back was towards the window, her shaking fists at her sides as she towered over the fallen ex-king, which was funny when one considered that she had to be shorter than him. She slowly raised one hand towards him, still shaking with anger and holding a purple shard.
"Out of all the people I was hoping to see when I came back here, you were the last one on the list! Physical similarities aside, I would never be able to tell that Lune was related to you! Whoever his mother was, I'm certain he takes after her side of the family!"
Lune coughed uncomfortably.
"It's sad that she didn't have to meet Mother to know that. But how would she know me?"
Baron knew. He didn't know how it was possible, but he had seen that body far too often to mistake it, and his heart was screaming the truth into his ears.
Lune's father kept staring at the white cat, his mouth flapping soundlessly. After another moment, a word emerged… one unbelieving word.
"Haru!"