To Blunt The Sharpest Claw

Chapter 1 Part 2

Oscar looked at Lydia. Her eyes were wide and beautiful, and her fur shone as though Flumpt had tried cooking her.

He put a paw on her shoulder. He wouldn't lie to her, he just wouldn't tell the truth. If this world was full of animals who had no secrets, then his own would be safe.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just—I don't know—"

"Homesick?"

He smiled. "Homesick, yes. That's it. I suppose I just need to know that we'll get back again. One day. Without dying first."

Hopeful again, she moved closer. "Of course we will, Oscar. You'll see the Loud Puff again—"

"Purr."

"—and Binkle-thingy."

"Binklemitre."

"Him too. And you'll see your cataclysm again also—"

"I'm sorry, my what?"

"Cataclysm?"

He frowned. "What the fluff are you on about?"

"Where you work. The Velvet Paw place."

"The Catacombs?"

"That's the one."

"How could it possibly be called cataclysm?"

"I did think it odd."

"It's not odd, it's ridiculous."

She shrugged. "Well, I thought it might be called that for secretive purposes. You know, as a ruse."

"A ruse." It was not a question.

"Yes. A sort of tactical disguise."

With a scoff, he continued into the palace. "Please tell me that you haven't been put in charge of anything important."

They left the rose glow of evening and balcony for the palace's hallways of green and gold leaf. He'd become used to the building's opulence and size, and the ridiculousness of it being a free hotel for everyone and anyone. The bewilderment that he'd felt when waking up in the place after trying to ladle a beast to death had been replaced with a conviction that the only things that mattered were poetry recitals and the establishment of a short-lived theatrical troupe.

Lydia was talking again, but he didn't pay attention. He wasn't interested in anything that had already been discussed with the Echelon, refusing to be tainted by her and Mironaelk's determination. While they may manage to equip this world's armies with violence, as a poet, he would not. Moreover, neither animal could blame him for refusing involvement. After all, he'd renounced his position as Velvet Paw in the last book, so educating the Echelon on the importance of breath control while reciting imagist verse, rather than how to smash animals' snouts in, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Mironaelk and Lydia would not be pleased, certainly. They may be experts in strategy and violence, respectively, but he was the expert in poetry, and each needed to draw on their strengths. Neither could ask him to be what he was not, nor would he pretend to be. After all, there was no place in this world for pretence. He was a poet and no longer a Velvet Paw, and what he had to offer to the Echelon, provided it involved pleasantries, would be well received and make his refusal even easier to defend.

Numbers were on his side, and he wondered whether he would have made a good politician.

"I wonder whether I would have made a good politician."

Lydia stopped talking to consider this. "I think you'd be good at anything you put your mind to."

"Even though it's become insane?"