Queen Beruthiel had many cats. She loved them all very much. She loved her cats with big bobtails. She loved her cats with ridiculous ears. She even loved her cats with crazy fur patterns. But there was none more special to her than Roger Chillingworth.

She didn't know why he was called Roger Chillingworth, only that it was what his collar had said when found him strolling in the forest.

Yes, he'd had a collar; no, she hadn't returned him to whomever he had so obviously run away from. If someone was going to have a cat, then that cat should stay inside and lounge like it so obviously deserved. If they let their cat slip away, then it seems like he shouldn't have been their cat in the first place. So what if she took every cat she saw. What would her subjects do about it? She's the queen! Are they going to sue the queen?

Who will stop this madwoman from taking all the cats? Her subjects cried. They never got a good answer because she kept stealing those cats until the day she died.

Massive amounts of the taxes were being spent to procure all her lovely cats the best food in the kingdom. The kingdom was in disarray over the disproportional tax outlets, but the queen didn't care because she just kept accruing more cats!

Most of the funds were going towards Roger Chillingworth. He was being lavished. he was adored by everyone. He had all his little cat heart could ever want. Not that he had want for much, he was a cat who liked to lounge after all.

Until one fateful night when Roger Chillingworth and a couple more unimportant cats were catnapped by the most unruly rapscallions to ever have been conceived. The queen was in shambles over losing her most beloved cat. She wouldn't eat nor sleep. All night she would roam the halls filled with the pilfered cats but only see reminders of Roger Chillingworth and burst into tears.

Her subjects hadn't sympathy for the queen.

Roger Chillingworth, on the other hand, was immensely anxious. No one had given him his daily bath. His food was of abysmal quality. There weren't even any pillows to lounge on! Where was his queen? She would rectify this terrible mistake!

He yowled. He screamed. He whined. When they sensed his displeasure, the other cats started to yowl along with him.

"Why are they all so loud?" one kidnapper asked in the midst of this noise.

"I don't know." Said another.

"Toss them on the porch then. See if they need to do cat business."

"She'll find them!"

"No, she won't, she can't take them; they'll be on the porch."

They were left on the porch to do their business. It was a dark and cool night with the wind blowing through the trees with noises that sounded like laughter. Roger Chillingworth was afraid. He hadn't been outside since that night the Queen found him.

Oh, the queen. Never had there been a non-cat better than the lady. Never had he been fed better than when he was with her. Oh, the food she would feed him. Oh, the scratches she had given him.

With the wind in his fur, he lunged off the porch and ran into the forest. The other cats going through similar internal conflicts but slower and with much less conflict, startled and jumped to their feet. Roger Chillingworth was their unelected leader. They didn't know what they would do without him.

One by one the other cats followed him into the woods.

An Ent remembers seeing these cats. He gave them directions to the end of the forest. A lovely bunch of cats they were. Very polite if a tad urgent. He remembered the night being the darkest one in quite a while. He remembers because it was so dark he almost stepped on a large one before it started yowling. Poor creatures. He hoped they got where they needed safely. He'd heard there was a cat snatcher in these parts.

A boy remembers the cats. They almost came up to him when he held out his hand, but a large one hissed at him. This cat was almost as big as a lamb, and the boy did not want to deal with angry cats that night. It was only after the interaction that the boy remembered his mother saying to never let the cats out or the queen will gobble them up. Angry cats didn't deserve to be eaten just because they were angry, so he chased after them, yelling and stumbling over obstacles unseen.

A woman was taking her dog inside when he bolted back outside. She couldn't hardly get out the door before her dog was almost lost to the darkness. She sprinted towards the blob of her dog, shouting his name all the way. She ran into a smaller form who was also shouting, but he was shouting something much more urgent than the name of her lost dog.

"Cats!" the boy shouted at her.

"Cats?" she asked.

"Cats!" he repeated.

"Oh no, cats!" she shouted.

They ran off in the direction of her dog's barks shouting 'cats' and stumbling over invisible rocks.

Queen Beruthiel had been on the guarding wall when she heard the noise first. Then she saw the torches. It seemed everyone and their dog was running towards her castle. In the dim light, she could make out smaller forms scampering towards the castle.

"Cats!" she shouted gleefully. "Open the portcullis!"

"But ma'am," a guard gestured to the ever-growing mob of people running just behind the cats.

"Do it!" Queen Berutheil screamed. If she couldn't have Roger Chillingworth, then she would fill the hole in her heart with more cats. These cats, they were hers already. If the cats were running away from her subjects, then the cats didn't want to be with them. Yes, she could feel her cats already in her lap.

Her cats were almost to the castle and so was the unholy mob. She flew to the ground where she could greet her cats. From this distance, her cats looked familiar.

"Roger Chillingworth?" she squinted. "Roger Chillingworth!" she raced toward the cats which she noticed were also hers, but she didn't care as much for them as much as she cared for the venerable Roger Chillingworth. "Roger Chillingworth!"

The mob halted as one. Both the people and the dogs. It was too late. The cats had been lost, never to be seen again behind the fortress of stone the queen called home.

The cat leapt into her arms, and she squeezed him. The moon came out from behind the clouds and the night was bright again. A spotlight was lit on one woman and her cats, all alone in the world.

"Roger Chillingworth." She cooed.