Slipping into Madness

B3: Où est ma chatte?" ("Where is my cat?")

You are a stranger in a foreign land – try to communicate with the locals in an attempt to find your missing pet – short story. (<1000 words)

At the sight of that bright blue eye, I felt my own eye widen and I jumped back, looking up from the telescope to the night sky. “How? What? I don't understand.”

A snort from behind me was accompanied by a bit of smoke. I coughed. It's difficult to have a dragon as a roommate. Especially when they behave as though they know everything. Xander's deep voice rumbled through me, as it always does. He's such an uncomfortable muse, sometimes. “What's there to understand? You've found Dragonholme through your silly lens, and you're surprised that someone noticed you noticing them?”

“Dragonholme?” Was that the name of the strange planet? It fit. It seemed like it was full of dragons. But that eye had looked more like a human's than Xander's gold reptile-slitted orbs. I bent down to look back into the telescope, but in my startle, I'd jogged it. I tried to find the planet again. As I did, black Alice, the cat that thought of me as her loyal subject, wound around my ankles to get my attention.

Between the cat, the telescope, the smoke now filling the room with a remarkably strange yet pleasant aroma (not like his usual brimstone—more like a combination of scented candles . . . ginger, vanilla, sweet peony, and evergreen if I had to sort the scents) and the sarcastic presence of the dragon who thought he needed to guide my life, I had too many thoughts pulling me in too many directions, and I was dizzy. I tripped. I sat down quickly, barely missing Alice on the way.

To my surprise, the floor was no longer the hard wood it should have been. Instead, as the smoke cleared, I saw that I was sitting on a purple moss colored boulder. Around me were the fantastical plants that had the shape and color variety of coral that I'd last seen through my telescope.

I whipped my head around. “Xander? What's happening?”

He was looking up, and his voice was distracted. “Wasn't it time for an adventure? Your fingers have been getting slow—ah, there she is,” without even looking at me, he sprang into the air. His green wings flashed over me once as he spiraled upward, and then he sped into the air toward a red speck in the distance.

I gave a frustrated sigh. Here we were, stuck on a distant planet, and now, my native guide had gone off somewhere. Courting maybe? There was no telling what he was doing or how long he would be. I'd just have to fend for myself and hope that I ended up doing something interesting enough to bring him back to me.

I looked around just quick enough to see Alice stalking off into the distance. That wasn't good. I had every dependence that Xander would thrive wherever he went, but Alice was only a little cat. And I had no real sense of the terrain or the dangers or the inhabitants that we would face. And so I stood as fast as I could and hurried after her.

“Alice? Don't wander off, sweetie.” I followed her, wishing I had a can of cat food in my pocket to encourage her to come back to me. The moss was slick enough that I couldn't really hurry, but I walked quickly past a fantastical green and purple spray of stalks twice my height to see a black tail disappearing around what looked like a aquamarine barrel cactus. But by the time I got to where she had been, Alice had disappeared. I stopped, looking up.

Right in front of me was a person—a head and shoulders taller than me with long green hair, complete with goatee, blue eyes, pointed ears, long fingers. He looked startled to see me. “Who are you,” he said, and I wasn't sure I should understand him because he wasn't speaking any language I knew, but I did.

“I'm Xander's Rhyssa.” There was some embarrassment in claiming I was part of Xander's treasure, but we've been on enough adventures that I knew it would be best. I bowed in greeting. “Have you seen Alice? She's a cat, black and furred, four paws, a tail, and a curious pink nose that leads her into more trouble.”

His eyes widened—and I suddenly recognized him as the other lens user, or I thought I did. But he seemed startled and unsure. He bowed back. “I'm Maritte's Taliesin. I saw something of what you say. Follow me.”

He turned, and I followed him into the unknown.

Word count: 764