Aefia chased behind the orange Persian cat while Henry ran behind the white, the one with two different colours for her eyes. "Where did that one go?!" She shouted from the opposite end of the hall while looking underneath a cabinet for the now missing orange cat. "She ran under the bed!" Her younger brother shouted from inside her room.
"Nevermind... This one will come out sometime sooner or later." Staggering to her feet, she ran towards her room while mumbling words to herself in a soft voice.
***
Exactly three weeks had passed since the watchman incident, and her health was confusingly growing more steady. And the presense of the Guardian of Silence was abnormally still and unmoving, a little too astonishing for peace and quiet.
Then there was a very questionably overprotective elder brother who kept asking for information about her collar and why she was injured. "Well I got entangled in some dungeon mess while trying to sneak out to buy a few things." She honestly replied without hesitating and expecting some scolding and restrictions back, but it was the direct opposite for what had actually happened.
"Is there anything else you want to buy?" George asked while standing up and pushing the pile of papers outin front of him. "It can be anything that makes you want to stay at home the rest of the day and not bother going out and 'accidentally' jumping into dungeons." He folded his arms while Lewis snickered from beside her, laughing about her situation.
"Then... I guess... I want fluffy, chubby, pretty, cute looking cats." She answered with a straight face while looking sideways at the now coughing and choking silver-haired brother. Then, her voice turned into a mutter as she laughed at his ears. "Serves you right... Enjoy the suffering... Grandpa."
"I am not a grandpa!" Lewis spoke while smacking his hand against the back of her head as she bent into a bow to dogde the blow. His hand immediately slammed into his older brother's elbow as he looked up to face the oncoming wrath and clasped his fingers around his earlobes. "Sorry! It was her fault! I didn't mean to do it!" He protested against himself as George grabbed onto his right ear and dragged him outside the door.
"Yes! Now that was well-deserved for the stolen ice-cream last time!" Henry clapped while watching his brother get taken away for punishment. "Now he can take his 'sweet-tooth' reason to mom and learn his lessons! Although of course he won't get beaten up to that scale to actually teach him a lesson!"
"Hey." Aefia smiled as she placed a hand onto the dark purplish hair of her younger brother and rustled it with a gentle movement of her wrist. "Don't yearn for someone to be beaten up, you would have suffered a lot of pain if you were in their place, wouldn't you? And besides... George isn't going to hit him the way mother would, you know. Even the duchess is sick, so the most he will get is a bit of a chore around the palace." She softly muttered while he took her wrist and walked out of the room.
"Honestly... What colour cat would you like the most?" The kid asked as he looked up with anticipation. "I prefer mine to be a full white and fur as long as my fingers! And one who I can cuddle to sleep with and they won't scratch me..." He trialed of as he described the little details of a cat. "And a bushy tail with tiny feet so that when they run, it would look like a living doll just went past us!" As they took a turn, a silent reminder went into her mind, reminding her of an incident not long ago.
"Hey Henry... Can you promise me one thing before we actually get cats?" She asked with a warm voice as the kid nodded with the empty juice cartoon at his hand. "Don't do anything worth punishing with the cats. You can definitely not swallow their fur and interact with their food... And do all other bad things so you don't get sick. Did you understand that?"
"Of course... Don't get me wrong for a four year old baby!" The kid proudly replied as they continued their way to the library. But the promise was actually a matter put to trash after only six days of getting cats. The absolutely tired and ill kid stayed in the bed all day and only got up when he had to make a run to the bathroom. And once the doctors had confirmed, then only did Aefia get cornered by the two brothers and almost got her head cut off.
*
"Well it looks like the young prince has eaten a little bit of the pet food you have gotten for the cats, resulting in his indigestion." The doctor answered while retracting his arm from the kid stuck to the bed with a thermometer popping out from his mouth. Many gazes fell to her as she trembled in place, while finally, Lewis asked her the ultimate question. "Wasn't it your idea to get cats?!" He turned halfway to shout against her ears as she stood in place with her face completely expressionless, silently laughing after hearing about the thing the kid had done.
"I did inform him about not doing anything like that!" She responded after a very angonishingly long time. "And plus... If I had been the one to motivate him to do this, I would have consumed them myself! I may be dumb... But I am not stupid!" She held her hands out in a surrendering gesture. But honestly... I already know he is about to reply with a rather... Very common respond.
"But the cats are the root cause! Of course humans are never eating cat food!" Lewis interrupted as he suddenly broke into a laugh. "And honestly I didn't think someone would be stupid enough to do such a thing." He held his stomach while laughing as Aefia stared with a smiling face and soon silently started laughing beside him too. But what none of them knew was their elder brother was infuriating over their laughter and mockery.
Two hands slammed onto their shoulders with pressure as their mouth got sewn up with invisible threads and fear crawling up their faces as they got dragged out of the room and pulled into the study. Two bowls were placed in front of them as cat food poured onto each of their bowls and George stood in front of them with a stern look. "Eat it... " The words left his mouth as they struggled to smell the food placed in front of them.
Aefia irritatingly jabbed Lewis's ribs and picked up her spoon as he did the same thing. Just in time, another servant had intervened and taken away their elder brother's attention for a few seconds. "What do we do?! This is what happened because of you!" Lewis whispered to her by turning slightly sideways on his chair as she locked her eyes at the busy person in front of them. Then, silently setting down her spoon, she grabbed onto his hand and dissapeared out of the room in a flash.
They appeared to be standing right in front of the study door as they waited slightly for a signal. "Samoyed! Husky!" Their brother finally shouted as they shared one single glance at each other and ran towards the garden. "Where are we going?!" Lewis asked in panic as they ran with their lives hanging on one thread.
"Do I look like I know?! I don't even know how to make him forget it!" She replied while bursting into the garden while it was still fully dark. But unfortunately for them, a guard was already waiting as they got dragged back inside by their collars and got absolutely threatened by George. "Thanks to your absurdly loud and high octave laughter, I am being forced into this situation." She spoke while playing with her glass pen against the wooden table they were sitting.
"From now on... I hate cats." Lewis mumbled while shaking his hands due to the pain radiating from excessive writing. Just when he titled his head to look at her side, a sudden symphathy washed over his mind as he watched the orange cat come over to sit at her table and fall asleep with her finger strokes. "Nevermind... I still like them." He softly mumbled while still staring at the cat.
Then, the door to the study jolted open again, and this time, George was seen smiling with the white cat resting at his shoulder. "You are both dismissed... No more punishment for the day." He added while putting her down on the ground as she walked over to Lewis's lap. Seeing this, Aefia stood up and glanced sideways at her brother. "That there... Is the power cats have over the human mind."
***
Back to present time, she was now struggling to chase behind the cats who were supposedly in their feeding time. Her feet ached from all that running with heels on, despite them being only two inches tall, and being blunt and spread at the ends. To think... I fought with heels on when I faced those ugly monsters or paranormal creatures.
She caught up with Henry soon after as she reached her hands at the edge of the bed and the white cat rushed over to her grasp. "Done... Now where is her food bowl?" She looked around as soon as her gaze caught the sight of the child with wide eyes filled with eagerness. "No Henry... You can't feed them. Have you forgotten your situation two weeks ago?" She gave a stern look at the child.
"Oh come on!" He folded his arms as she rejected his help and stood facing away from her. "Stop being such an overprotective sister! I am smarter now!" He protested while sounding a little upset and waited for her sincere side to surface, but instead, she caressed the cat at her arms and walked towards the door. "Try another time Henry... I still don't trust you around cat food." She replied without glancing back.
"Ae-fi-aaa! Aefia I won't do that again! I promise!" The kid trailed her while running behind her quickened steps towards the cats' room. Unknowingly, the orange cat came out and came side-by-side to her as she pushed open the door to the room and placed the white cat onto her paws. "I can only let you watch over the cats while they eat... But that too will be from a distance, do you understand that? Lewis and George are currently busy, so they won't be watching over this matter for a short while." She answered while standing up and dusting her clothes before departing the room.
Happy with the reply, the kid went to one corner and crounched down, watching the cats feast on their biscuits. Just when she was about to leave, a sudden shift in air inside the room moved as she immediately stepped closer to Henry with alert ringing inside her mind. Her hands had unknowingly held out a gun, the one she had taken from the competition. It had become a sort of muscle memory to her now.
The window cranked open a little further as a guard wearing the Viscount's sigil, entered the room with concern at his face. With the gun pulled out in front of her, she straighted her arms while squinting one eye shut and ready to shoot. "Henry rush to my room!" She spoke softly as she watched the kid hesitate.
But even the child wanted to act as a backup for her as he stayed behind her legs, grabbing onto her coat with tight hands. "What is happening?!" He asked with a shivering grasp. With the voice already echoing inside the room, the guard lifted his gaze while stepping onto the floor and bowed immediately with a fearful gaze at the weapon at her hand.
"Young master... It is me." The guard spoke while lowering his gaze. "I was the one who you spoke to that day at the marketplace when you were seemingly severed. I was the one from the five of us to speak to you at the end." He spoke while watching her lower her pistol from the target, on his forehead. But his gaze lingered only at the kid still stood stuck to her like glue. Unlike the strict, tyrant-like, protective imperial ruler she would make, her brother seems to be a little fearful of small stuff, like now.
"You could have entered through the front gate with the guards being alert." She spoke with a serious and curious gaze. "Is the situation a dire one that the long trip will become a problem?"
"I am afraid yes. I have just received an intel that the assassination is today." He remained bowing while turning more serious and anxious over the time. "And you might want to check on the rest of your family members now for their safety." By the way he was speaking, Aefia knew for short that he was stalling the main matter with extra words and too much respect to make up for the time it takes to kill a member.
"Just say it! Say anything! Cut to the chase!" She grabbed onto Henry's wrist with a ready movement to run in case the guard in front of them were to kill them first. The hesitation dropped as soon as he looked up and towards the window. "The assassin... Was seen around the palace grounds just a few minutes ago." He added while looking over the window sill, but just as he turned his head to face the two others in the room and the aggressive growls of the cats, a sound of leaves rustling echoed into the room through the window.
Immediately, her eyes caught sight of a darkly suited body leaping through the trees towards the right side of the palace. An immediate horror reached into her mind as her eyes widened with shock and realization. "It's the middle brother of this family... Right?!" She shouted at the guard's face with shadowed eyes.
Without another second spent in waiting, she took Henry into her arms and left him outside her room door. "Get inside and get cover! Don't come out even when a familiar voice is heard!" She ordered him while taking off towards the direction of the study.