Who: Carabosse and Puss de Carabas
When: Wednesday, late evening
Where: The Sleeping Woods
What: They chat about her arrival and other things

It was late in the evening, shadows creeping along the trees.

Carabosse stood stately in the midst of the sleeping woods. She hoped to catch a glimpse of the king but she could not know the kind of mischief he was running about just now. When the cat slinked up behind her, brushing his bright orange tail over her clean, black dress she almost frowned.

"Do you care to explain what took you so long Carabas?"

He purred rather loudly, as if to say I missed you before he spoke. "I had to find someone I could trust. I can't exactly write with my paws."

"Did you forget about the signal I made for you?" she asked, her perfectly plucked brows crinkled. It hadn't taken all that long to put together. She packaged it simply so that the cat could easily open it. The black butterflies inside would float back to her and burst into red flowers if it was a good location for her to move, black flowers if she needed to find some other place to dwell.

"Oh," he said. "Oh. Yeah. I did forget." It was still resting in the bottom of his bag, forgotten underneath his discarded, scarlet clothing.

She should not have been surprised. Puss had a famously bad memory. She took a few steps further into the woods, her long black dress swishing around her legs. "Have you seen him?" she asked the cat who trailed behind her.

"Oh yes," Puss replied. "He looks wonderful," he said. "Up to trouble."

"Of course he is," the tall witch replied. She was fey too. She understood the need to cause havoc and chaos, as if it were a biological imperative. "Have you seen her?"

"Well Boss," Puss answered, using his favorite nickname for Carabosse. "I set the plants for her, as per her request, but she has not yet arrived. Not to my knowledge anyway."

"Curious," Carabosse said quietly. She wasn't about to explain why this was so curious to Puss. He knew a great deal of information her typical servants would never learn. Of course, Puss wasn't her typical servant; he wasn't a servant at all.

"I did find someone you would take a great interest in," he said proudly, as if this were his first task and not some secondary mission he'd assigned himself. "She's a witch, but she doesn't know how to use her magic yet. She has monkeys for lackeys and such a wicked sense of humor..."

"Carabas," she said, silencing his rambling words. "I did not come to take an apprentice. I came to settle a place for myself in faerie tale history."

Puss laughed, such a strange noise from a cat, "if you don't take her on, I will."

"You'd teach her the old ways?" Carabosse asked, suddenly disturbed. "Blasphemy."

"You think I don't have an itch to practice my own magic?"

"You'd be her slave."

"I'd be her servant. It's not entirely the same. My servitude would have a length, an end result. And I would see her have magic to rival your own."

"Honestly Puss," she said, using his common name, an uncommon thing for the dark fey. "I believe you capable and you have a wonderful eye to pick out those with talent. Just the same, I would rather not see you serving some creature that you had to teach the ancient ways. If she cannot learn to invoke you herself then she has no right invoking you at all."

Puss was quiet for a time, sitting next to one of his favorite ladies. He had this habit of collecting powerful, magical entities to surround himself with. It was almost like being home, amongst his own people. He often wondered, since Cara obviously knew the ancient ways, why she had never invoked him. He chalked it up to stubborn pride. What she couldn't achieve on her own was hardly worth achieving. "I see someone who needs my help Boss. I can't help it. I haven't felt this way since the miller called me forth."

Carabosse shook her head. "You do what you want to Puss. If you can achieve some measure of success with your little witch I may just take her on."

The cat was practically glowing with happiness. He purred his approval rather loudly and rubbed against her dress leaving little remnants of orange fluff on her hem.

"Really now Carabas. Do you know how difficult it is to keep black clothing free of lint?"

Tags: puss, carabosse