She was a mother. How lovely! The kittens were all just as beautiful as their mother, mewling and squirming and just as cute as they could be. Autumn wasn’t crying over the kittens, really. She just had some allergens. Something in her eye. Really. Wiping underneath her lashes, to keep from smudging her waterline eye liner, Autumn watched the nest from a distance. Somehow, in this scary world, this momma had raised her beautiful babies. It made something catch in her throat, gosh. Maybe there was goodness in this spooky-a** place, too.

The mother meowed at her, and hadn’t she read something online that cats didn’t meow at each other? The purred and chirruped and all sorts of cute noises. Not meows. Those were like… a people thing. Taking the hint, she shuffled slightly closer to the nest, crouching down.

Maybe… maybe the cat had wanted her to follow? She knew how scary this place was, and needed help? Come to think of it, Autumn hadn’t seen any normal animals around this spooky place. Just cats. And that had been Zac’s cat, Mogget. Maybe normal animals weren’t supposed to be here at all. Or, you know. She could be overthinking all of this s**t.

“Hi baby,” she called softly, not wanting to startle the cat. She looked up at Autumn and blinked, meowing softly once more. Autumn couldn’t help it- she smiled. Spooky or not, this was a damn cute cat. With her flower nest, and her babies, and the snapdragons growing from her head…

…Wait, what the ******** blinked. The cat blinked back. She blinked again, just to be sure, and s**t- why was she even doubting this? She’d befriended a demonic deer, and there was a girl with ice for arms… flower-growing cats weren’t even close to the weirdest thing she’d dealt with in the Otherworld. Autumn fished into her purse, pulling out the bagged chicken breast she’d intended to be bait. (Well, no. Originally it was going to be a salad, but this was a much more important cause.)

“Hey. Hey, look at this,” Autumn crooned, offering out a torn piece of the chicken. The cat blinked again, and rose up- then her kittens followed, and Autumn felt like she was going to lose her mind. This was just too cute, weird-a** flowers and all.

The mother took the piece of chicken, purring in delight and sprouting more flowers. She turned and offered it to the babies, and piece by piece, the chicken was whittled away to nothing. It was hard to be uneasy, even in this scary place, with such a precious family in front of her. With her babies fed, the cat seemed contented enough to let Autumn near. Carefully, she flipped its collar…

Rosalinde, a cat whom owns herself.

How weird. And yet…

“I like you, Rosalinde,” Autumn said aloud, laughing a bit to herself. The cat- Rosalinde- purrruped happily, trotting over to rub against Autumn’s leg.

Maybe if this world was full of things like Pax and Rosalinde, it wouldn’t be so bad.