Early in Miranda’s career she was full of good intentions. She excelled at her classes with optomistic curiousity, she still wore the tie die sweaters that made Patrick laugh, and she still believed in a unified future that would save their dying nation. She always kept Peters' tabloid in her pocket, referencing it as she mapped out Avurns future with meticulous binders of research and preparation.

With one of her hands firmly grasping his own, Patrick and she were going to do it the right way. They were going to bring a new golden age, like the time of the Achart.

On her list of things to fix was the rotting infrastructure around the Himalayan camps. The feline engineers who decided to make the Outskirts their home needed her as much as she needed them, surely. 

So, she sent an invitation to their captain, a rotund ball of fur who had a very sweet smile on his lips and eyes that portrayed an absence of thought between his ears.

“Thank you for coming, Romo” Miranda said in between sips from a gilded teacup. Romo’s cup was a small saucer, since he insisted on going four legged.

Cats didn’t have any laws against nudity, but it was strange to allow oneself to be so vulnerable and small well into adulthood. But Himalayans had different priorities than most cats. They truly didn’t care what other people thought, even if it was a threat.

Although he had the convenience of a well painted china dish, Romo still left his flavored broth untouched. That the fat Himalayan left his food to cool was sign enough that his smile was merely painted on.

That false smile, every human’s favorite trait in cat breeding. Over the years of perfecting Himalayan smiles, humans never realized they were instead making a breed of cat so intelligent it wasn’t clear if they were genius or insane.

“Of course!” Romo insisted with a voice clear as a bell, “Dear Miranda Hanshicock, We are so excited to have received your letter! Every day is a step towards Anava, and we will join together and embrace, and recognize that the voices of the Deepness are the voices of our own quiet ears!”

The word “Anava” rolled across Miranda’s mind, as something she had heard before, but had a hard time pinning the definition of. It was related to a spell, but it was not in itself a spell. It was simply a nonsense word to her, much like the machinations that ran the Himalayan trains and computers.

“You don't often send us a letter, and you do not often treat us so kindly!” He said jubilantly, an edge to his words.

“Yes” She answered, trying to embrace their cryptic culture, “I’m different than the Laquems were-”

“We should remind you, however, that the big reason that we left North Sector is because we do not own property anymore.” Romo frowned, chewing at the grit between his paw pads.

“I think you are worried." He continued with a smile. "Worried that we are going to try and spring a whole other country on you—a whole new set of problems! That would worry a ruler like yourself!”

Miranda put down the cup, matching his smile with her own. “I’m not...ruling anyone.” She muttered between her teeth. “No one sits on the throne.”

“Do not worry yourself, my favorite un-crowned Queen, we have no plans of leaving Avurn.” Romo sighed, “We are Anava, we rejoice in Anava, and we accept that the failures of Avurn are how we learn to truly acknowledge the lizards that you and I are.”

“There are no lizards in Avurn.” She explained patiently. “And what happened in past between the Laquems and yourselves won’t be repeated. Avurn needs your talents. We need your trains.”

Romo sneezed into his paw, his eyes hiding a laugh.

“You do not need to live in the freezing outskirts with no electricity and no one to protect you.” Miranda insisted.

Romo again, did not reply, and only tilted his head in defiance.

“A hallway could collapse and none of us would even know!” She suggested, earnestly placing a hand on his tiny paw. “If you die, so does Avurn’s only current contact with Earth. Our only lifeline to a steady source of food and water!”

Romo lifted up his chubby paws and shushed her until she stopped. He started talking in a cool whisper, his smile starting to show teeth.

“Do not worry about a hallway collapse! We are on the job! We live for the job! I dream of the numbers, and I can see them in my head. I can see the rate at which Avurn crumbles, I know the day that the last light in the Center will fail us. I know it because I'm very good at math.”

Her hands clenched at her waistband.

“Do not worry.” Romo grinned “We are on it, and you do not need to send out anyone to make sure that we will be. Because you can't.” His voice was truly dark now, his hair bristling.

“We live out there where you can't touch us and you can't bother us,” he growled, that smirk still stamped to his face, “and we will cross paths every day as neighbors. But, I cannot move into your home Miranda, because we cats are bad roommates, we turn into lizards and do magics instead of maths.

“And if you dare contact me again about moving our Himalayan homes from the outskirts..." He continued, "I will tell you that number, that day, to the hour, to the minute, that the last light will be snuffed out and the air will freeze to ice.

“You should trust me more.” He said firmly as he stood up and gave a stiff little bow before walking out the door. “Anavi, Miss. Miranda.”

“Avi.” She whispered the feline farewell hoarsely, long after the door had shut.

***

Now that Miranda was walking directly into Himalayan territory, she was trying not to recall that unfortunate memory. But, it was hard not to, since Romo had been kind enough to send a notice that he swooped up Misty earlier that day.

It did not say as much in the letter he sent, but Miranda could read between the lines. They could easily hold Misty hostage if they wanted to. They could hold the entire kingdom hostage and they would not even care.

While Miranda's thoughts dwelled on preventing a seige, Ahzila was cursing about the smell.

"Can't believe I'm risking death twice today! First Earth, and now the Outskirts?" Ahzila hissed. "Don’t have to be a local to know this place is stinky and dangerous! She should have taken the chance and gone back home!”

“I don’t think the Himalayans took kindly to one of their trains getting hijacked.” Miranda reminded her. “Not too many children running around with one ear. She wouldn’t make it farther than the ticket booth.”

They walked along the passage that lined the train tracks that went from North Sector to South Sector. It was far enough from the Center that a smell of decay offset the cold whiff of steel. 

Occasionally a train would swish by their path, and a gust of oil and gas would filter through her coat; A sign of life in this otherwise desolate place.

Vents in the ceiling blew down purified air that cleaned the train's vapors only so much. Ahzila wanted to hate the rattling air vents, but it was only this maze of dilapidated infrastructure that kept them from being slowly poisoned to death.

Himalayans kept the path and the air vents maintained so they could go to and from their barracks out in the furthest corner of North Sector. If it weren’t for them, these tracks would have been long lost to time.

There was another smell present, too. It had probably been hours since Misty had wandered through here, but the air still reeked of her. 

The stray had an odd smell, it was like the rain of Earth. And soon, that smell was going to be in Ahzila’s apartment and seeped into all of her couches like a strong tea.

“You know I’m not a Mom.” Ahzila complained, “And you should have asked me, just asked first! Before you got all the paperwork together!”

“Ahzila, she is fully grown. You know how Earth cats are. You don’t have to worry about anything but keeping her alive and letting her live with you.” Miranda said.

“And how do you think she’ll react to it? It’s a kidnapping!” Ahzila insisted, pulling the wide lapel of her jacket higher on her chin so she could filter the stale air.

“You saw what she did.” Miranda put her hands on her hips. Their eyes were locked in a way that made Ahzila turn her head to avoid the glare. A train whizzed by, sending grit into her face.

“It was spooky, but it’s just some party trick. Not enough to condemn her to a lifetime sentence.” Ahzila suggested.

“Some trick we haven’t seen since the time of the Achart.” Miranda reminded her. The low light of the path illuminated her eyes more than her fur. “How does she know it? And how does her stray friend know a spell that can pull a train? Do you know a spell that can pull a train?”

“Potion cat nonsense.” Ahzila was so upset, she growled as she spoke. “The only Earth cats that use magic are potion cats and they don’t use spoken spells. So, I don’t understand it either. But maybe some of her pack ancestors wrote some stuff down and passed it down over 100 years?”

Miranda massaged the point between her eyes. Ahzila was always difficult, but Miranda never expected her to still be this difficult after a court sentence specified that Ahzila was to obey Miranda’s every word.

“Think, Ahzila! Do you not understand how short the lifespan is of a stray cat?” Miranda lectured, with a large wave of her arm. “They don’t speak the old language, read the old language, or write in any language, how are they going to pass down magic spells if they don’t believe in magic in the first place!?”

“Fine, fine. I get it, it’s weird!” Ahzila admitted. “Forgive me for thinking we should not get involved and just be glad the rest of her weird cryptic stray family is dead. What more can they do!?”

“If Laquems were to get a hold of her who knows what would happen?” Miranda’s voice escalated to match Ahzila’s, a girl who was too young to really remember the time of the Laquems. “She can possess minds with a glance!”

Miranda stubbornly turned back to the path, reaching out to touch the wall as she hopped over a large crack in the cement floor.

“...I don’t think she knows anything.” Ahzila whined as she also jumped the crack. “I think you’re just looking for some tool you can use.”

“And what if I am?” Miranda answered. “Avurn is not hanging on by a thread, it has already snapped. Any advantage we can get to survive, we will take it.”

They passed by a few halogen lights that flickered in their bulbs, sending them into full darkness with a 

SNAP.

There are elements familiar to the planet Earth, like water and air and fire. But in Avurn, darkness was a whole element unto itself. 

When in darkness, there was no gravitational spin that kept Avurn suspended in a star’s warmth and light. There was no fire deep Avurn that erupted with magma and life. Instead, it was icy darkness that was thick like a bog and quiet as snow. Darkness that had malice and sentience.

Even a cat’s senses felt dulled by it's overbearing presence. Their keen eyes made out nothing, their whiskers sensed no vibrations or magnetic force of the Earth. Instead it was a feeling of vertigo.

It lasted only milliseconds, but it was enough time in that horrible dark to make Ahzila jump in response.

“We’re too far from the Center! It’s freezing, the lights barely function, like...what’s even out here? What if we get stranded!?” She insisted.

There were rumors about the Outskirts. People died out here, disappeared, went mad. Avurn’s lifeline was in the warmth that came from the lights and the air that came from the vents. Out in the Skirts, there were places where the lights and the air turned off entirely. Places that were dead.

But Misty didn’t know any of that, and she was walking straight into the Skirts without any clue of the danger she was in.