A/N: So this is from a story I've been trying to write for years, to the point of 44 pages worth of different versions of this idea, but no actual idea that didn't end super depressing or cheat at least one of the characters out of something important at the end. Like, when I feel depressed or want to read something depressing, this is the file I look over and sometimes add to. The final title I decided on if I did ever publish it was 'Broken Vow', just to give you an idea of how depressing the content is.

This part was one of the earlier versions that wasn't as depressing.

SoulBound

Haru gave her amnesiac husband a glare while holding the bear close. "I don't see why not. If you can have a mistress, I can have a teddy bear," she reasoned while forcing herself to place one hand on his chest and forcing him to walk backward out of her room.

Machida gaped in complete shock as he stumbled slightly since he bumped against her dresser. "… You knew what was going on? Before the accident, I mean."

She gave an angry snort. "You didn't exactly hide it from me. Even if you weren't blatantly honest about the fact that your secretary's prettier than I am, you were pulling a lot of late nights for someone who can set his own hours. And yes, I noticed that you stopped after the accident. Good night, Machida."

"Why didn't you leave me, if you knew I was cheating on you?" he demanded, making her laugh bitterly.

"Who says I didn't? I was caught before long and informed that if I ran away again, the family would lock me into a loony bin until I'm ready to play housewife again. Since I don't want to get brainwashed, I've been playing housewife. Good night, Machida."

He kept staring at her, his eyes becoming… pitying?

She glared at him, turned his body to the door, and began shoving him out. "Be grateful you only found a teddy bear. Other girls in my predicament have been known to seek affection from the hired help."

"What? We don't have hired help," he tried to say, but now that he was outside the room, she closed the door on his face and locked it.

"Precisely. Because I don't want anyone to doubt my fidelity."

Just to be on the safe side, she wedged her desk chair under the doorknob to ensure her privacy. "He has no right to judge me," she snarled under her breath as she got dressed in her favorite pair of flannel pajamas. "Not after breaking his vows."

All but the private one, in any case. After the affair was made known, she was grateful to be spared his touch, but… at the same time…

She wanted to be a mother. She wanted someone to depend on and need her. It would have been so lovely to have at least one clear memory of arms holding her close, since affection wasn't exactly encouraged in her upbringing. If she could just have a child to fill the void, she would never ask for anything again. But she knew better than anyone that it would never happen, as long as Machida lived. And even then, there was no guarantee that the next guy she would be forced to marry would treat her differently.

Haru crawled between the simple sheets and held her little teddy bear close after shutting off the lights. The same teddy bear she had once hoped to pass onto her child. "Shall I tell you a bedtime story?" she whispered to the bear.

It didn't answer, but she long made up her own answers for the bear. "Once upon a time, there was a princess. Although her country wasn't very big, her family was very proud of their position, and had long valued appearances and social standing over silly things like happiness. The princess wished with all her heart to be like everyone else and live her own life, but she was bound to the role that had long been decided for her.

"But on the day she met the one her grandfather the king decided she should marry, she decided she was sick of pretending to be someone she was not. Showing more bravery than anyone had known from her before, the princess tore off her crown, escaped from the palace, and ran away to a place she had only glimpsed once before. It was an abandoned castle, with large pieces of it rotted away. Although she knew it wasn't safe, she climbed up the highest standing tower, and made a small bed inside a simple storage chest. Invoking power that she barely knew how to use, she forced herself to fall into a deep sleep, one that only her true love would be able to awaken her from.

"Thorns grew around the tower to support it, and to protect her from all unworthy to enter. The spell had meant for her true love to rescue her in a century's time, but then a hundred years came and went. Then it was five hundred, and then a thousand. Despite the girl's best intentions, no one ever came for her. No one ever felt the need to, even before her story faded from the local legends. Do you know why she was never awakened?"

The bear was still silent.

Just to drive the point home, Haru sat up, took off her wedding ring, and tossed it at her little trash can, although she missed it by a long shot.

Again.

"It's because true love doesn't exist."

If her eyes felt like they had any tears left, she would have cried herself to sleep. As it was, she could only drift into an unsteady slumber that wrapped her in a velvet embrace.

ooOoo

Without warning, she was standing in the middle of a strange, tall room. The walls were either marble or polished stone, but they were white and perfect.

Haru didn't get much of a chance to study the walls, because her attention became captured by… a cat?

He was a ginger even taller than her and dressed in a complete set of grey top hat and tails. He was staring back at her with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

"Surely you jest," the tawny cat begged in English, his accent the same one that Machida had adopted after the accident. He pointed a single accusatory finger at her, his expression turning into revulsion. "You expect me to marry that?"

Machida couldn't have said it better himself. Fighting back the urge to cry, she decided to give the cat a taste of his own medicine. "Who says I'd have you?" she sneered, grateful that Machida's condition had given her a bit of time to smooth out her accent. "I'm spoken for, Kitty Boy."

"K-Kitty Boy?" he snarled in scandalized rage as he began flexing his hands.

She looked at them worriedly. The tips of his gloves were hemmed so that his claws could come out without tearing the cloth. But she still folded her arms with a stubborn glare while trying not to worry about being seen in her flannel pajamas.

Even if he killed her for the insult, there was no way she was going to marry a cat.

"I'm spoken for. Get someone else." This was quite possibly the first time since getting married that she was grateful of her vows. Whatever else her marriage had taken from her, at least she was safe from-

"I'm afraid that's quite impossible, Miss," someone said behind her, making the girl turn around.

There was another cat behind her, one wearing robes like a priest.

'Oh, don't tell me they're going to try doing the ceremony right now!'

"Your destiny is irrevocably tied to Baron's, no matter what prior commitment you have as a human," he informed her, although his expression was one of disapproval.

That made her blood boil. It was one thing to be informed of such things by her grandfather, but completely another for some strange cat to mirror the same words. Especially when said cat was looking down his nose at her like her grandfather was fond of doing.

She made some angry, incoherent sounds before she was able to speak again. "Just who do you think you are? What right do you have to arrange my life?" she demanded, but the priest shook his head in a way that made her think he was intentionally trying to show that he was more refined than her.

"It is not my right, Miss. It is the will of our goddess that you marry Baron."

"Forget it!" she shrieked, trying to run for her life. But… it was as if she was standing inside a bubble that refused to break. She tried again and again to break free from her strange imprisonment, but nothing would work. She kicked at the barrier with frustration.

"Do you about have all of that out of you now?" the cat in robes asked in a tired tone when she stopped for a breather.

"Not by a long shot!" she snapped at him. "I'm already married, so I don't need a husband!"

"Ah, you heard her," the orange cat exclaimed happily. "She's already married. By her laws and ours, we can't touch her."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," she drawled, making sure that the cat had no reason to even think fondly of her.

He gave her another intimidating glare. "It appears we are too late. Married is married, after all."

The priest frowned while looking intensely at Haru, taking in every detail like he was trying to find something. "… Or perhaps not. Tell me, miss; if you're married, where is your ring?"

'Oh no.' She looked down at her bare hands with horror. "I-I took it off for a while. I don't sleep with it on. But I'm still married!"

"Rather peculiar behavior from a married woman," the robed cat drawled in a manner similar to what she had used on the orange cat.

Every inch of her bristled at his superior tone. "You don't have a right to judge my habits! I am married, I am not looking for a second husband, and even if I was, I wouldn't go for a feline!" She directed that last statement at 'Baron'.

"Bastet, if you please," he corrected between gritted teeth.

"Well I don't," she informed him in a stiff tone. "Cat is cat, and I'm still married. Good day."

Remembering something her mother had once said about nightmares, she rolled up one sleeve quickly in order to slash her nails across an arm.

Haru sat up with a gasp. Dropping her bear beside her, she rolled up the same sleeve she had in the dream.

There were four long fingernail scratches, with small beads of blood appearing here and there. Her entire body was drenched in sweat, and her heart was pounding a mile a minute. She set both hands against it, trying to force it to calm down, but nothing was working. But even as she tried to calm herself down, her mind began to list reasons why she should continue to panic.

That tawny cat was a little too much like her 'post-accident' husband.

Machida only understood English and dead languages where he used to only know Japanese.

His appetite now centered on fish when he used to live off chocolate.

He had completely cut off the affair with the secretary that's sole purpose had been to hurt her.

He actually tried to talk to her every now and again instead of ignoring her for days, weeks if he could get away with it.

He had some trouble with balance after the accident, although his legs hadn't been injured at all. But after he got his balance under control, he could fence!

He made tea like a professional, though she'd never tried his concoctions. He couldn't resist the chance to insult whatever Haru was choosing to drink every time he failed to talk her into a sip!

He needed help relearning how to shave. He now preferred bowties to neckties.

The cat from her nightmare had worn a bowtie. The cat had an accent identical to the one Machida now used, although the voice was still different. Even the way he held himself was similar to how Machida did anymore.

… There was only one way to know for sure.

She got dressed despite the hour and opened her laptop.

"Giant half-cats," she whispered while typing the phrase.

Over three million matches.

"Minus anime and manga references," she continued with a sigh.

Over eighty-six thousand matches.

"Okay, how about 'giant half-cat in English folklore?"

Over seven thousand matches showed up, but before she could start her search, her screen froze and closed out the internet window on its own.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, just as a notice showed up in the corner.

Unauthorized search. Do not attempt again.

Her blood ran cold. "Unauthorized," she whispered in disbelief.

Why would a search about half-cats activate her family's firewall… unless there was something to hide?

xxXxx

I know it looked like I forgot to update last week, but I didn't. Due to literally taking a year to move into a new place (still at the old place! AAAHHH!) and realizing that I've been stressing out about making enough one-shots to last until I finish a story as opposed to working on the actual story that's now in competition with a new idea that's refusing to wait its turn, I've decided to switch to updating the first Friday of every month until I get things sorted out, with the exception of Birthday Bash next month.

I am extremely hopeful that by the time the next story, whichever one wins, is ready that I'll be able to go back to twice a month, but we'll see.