“Do you need some help, Poo?” Chalene asked as Pookie slipped again and, with a wild swing of her lanky elbows, knocked a waiter into the curtain covering the booth next to them. Brinkley took the full force of her sharp elbow to his head.

“Oh! There’s no problems!” Pookie lied, her dynamic hand movements matching the expressive bellow of her voice. “No problems at all! I haven’t done anything to uh-” She glanced behind the curtain at Brinkley who was cowering under a layer of spilled gravy.

He quickly shook his head, trying his best to find the right silent body language to make Pookie leave him alone. At this point, he wanted nothing more than to stay hidden from Misty’s sight. 

Pookie did not understand his meaning, “To uh...this very sad looking gentleman who looks like he’s already having a Super Bad Day!” She piped.

Pookie attempted to dab Brinkley’s cape with a napkin and he hastily pushed her off of him. She stumbled out of the curtain and into one of the low hanging lamps. “Let me just—no? OK then! OK!” She relented, stopping the sway of the lacy light fixture with her hands. “Sorry! Really sorry. I’ll just...go over here, aha!”

Brinkley pulled the curtain around him, a single ceramic cherub that adorned it's side fell off and broke on impact with the ground. Misty was surprised that the staff’s reaction to Pookie was not to kick her out of the quaint little tea room, but to instead clean it up as if this was normal routine.

After a moment of quiet, the chatter of the restaurant picked up again as if it had never happened. Pookie leaned over the table and took in the sight of her friends’ plates.

“You two are having a tea party? Without me!?” Pookie brayed. “You know how much I love tea parties!” She plopped herself next to Misty, the heavy pendant around her neck hitting Misty in the forehead. The pendant was golden, and decorated with a few lines across it’s front. No other kingdom cats wore anything like that.

Pookie turned to smile at Misty and weigh her for a little bit, before clownishly turning back to her friends, leaning on her elbows. “And you brought a weird...baby? With you?” Poo asked hesitantly.

“Misty. I’m a real adult. I’m real.” Misty said in a gruff monotone.

“That’s nice!” Pookie answered.

“What are you doing here?” Percy rudely asked, stabbing the remainder of his eggs with his fork.

“Everyone’s acting super WEIRD!” Pookie gasped. “Miranda’s all dodgy about why she was late today, and then Patrick’s disappeared again so the classroom is LOCKED, and when you didn’t show Perce, I figured someone killed ya.” She smiled a cheeky grin.

“Thanks.” He answered blankly. Pookie poured some tea into Percy’s cup before continuing on with her story.

“So then I was like, I should go and save Percy, because, well, youknow, and then as I was going along as I do, I ran into this riot outside and they were like ‘We already did kill Percy!’ and I was like ‘No way they killed Percy! My Percy!?’ And then they said ‘Oh hell, it’s Pookie Billy-Boots Bell, that Ahzrea Mewtza! Run away!’ and I was like, ‘OMG, I’m like a super nice person, why do you have to be like that?’ Which is when I saw your face in the window here and I decided to waltz in cuz you are Super Alive still!”

She reached across the table and clasped Percy’s hand.

“That’s really neat!” Pookie told him. “I’m PROUD of you!”

Percy smiled sarcastically while Chalene was mindlessly grinning through the whole rapid speed story. Chalenes thoughts had left their table the moment Poo had sat down.

Misty grasped at her cup for another sip, it really was tea made out of black pepper. It was a new experience for her. But at least it wasn’t a sewer or a toilet.

“So...about the baby…” Pookie pointed down at where Misty sat so low in the seat that her chin barely made it above the lip of the table. “Chay? Chay!” Chalene perked up, coming back to the present conversation, “Chay, are you and Clovie adopting!?”

Brinkley, having nearly finished the process of removing the gravy from the gold buckle on his cape nearly gasped.

Pookie had no idea she was humiliating herself in front of the damn Fang. He could just see Misty tense up in fury. He could see her claws extend as a warning, a warning that would go unnoticed by the group sitting at that table.

“No, nooooo!” Percy said defensively.

“Oh! How I wish I were!” Chalene smiled at the thought of a little baby in her arms.

“Why?! Why am I so adoptable! I’m a grown woman!” Misty insisted, her eyes flaring red.

“She’s right.” Percy said, ignoring her eyes and casually putting his hand on her head to cover her glowing irises before Misty did any damage. “I created her with my mind, and no one here will adopt my brain baby!”

“Fine fine! Whatever!” Pookie sniffed. Misty’s eyes shifted back to green and she swatted Percy’s hand away.

The waiter refilled the tea pot as they continued to mingle. Looking at the waiter’s tired eyes, Misty wondered what life he’d have if he were in an alley instead of having some human job in a kitchy restaurant. He surely would have died, she thought to herself.

Percy was also calculating Misty with the same amount of apprehension. He wrapped his arm around Chalene again and eagerly asked. “Clovis has more magic than I do, he hasn’t done anything like this, has he, Chay?”

He pointed back at Misty, whom Percy still swore was some sort of magic abomination he himself created out of air and anxiety.

“I’m afraid not, Percy.” She sighed, booping him on the nose.

“Aha! He’s too busy getting wasted every weekend.” Pookie guffawed as she sipped from Percy’s cup, which was a little too small and delicate in her large hands. “Every day he’s getting a stash from that potion cat, Brewski McFleur, youknow, the blue one.”

“...blue?” Misty asked.

Pookie winked.

“Bad potion turned him blue like a pair of jorts! Kind of like an ‘I am a potion cat’ sticker on his face but eh, being blue isn’t legally punishable by law, I guess.” She cawed.

While Misty had entirely written off Chalene, she was starting to warm up to Pookie Billy-Boots Bell. The girl was crass and awkward, but didn’t hide it behind any mask. It was the type of charisma that felt like they had known each other for a very long time even though they had only known each other minutes.

“Hey! My Boo is doing his best!” Chalene begged, although her looking upset was more funny than it was upsetting; her tiny nose shriveled in between her very round robin egg eyes. “He knows he has a problem! He needs our love and our support!”

Percy coughed and patted her on the head in an overbearing sort of way. She leaned back so she could hide in the shadow of the booth.

“I saw him with Minnie, youknow, the one with the tail?” Pookie suggested, as Chalene responded stiffly.

“I know about Minnie. We have an understanding.”

“Is THAT what you call that?” Pookie grinned.

“I should’ve walked Clovis home early anyway.” Said Chalene, who massaged behind her ears. “Now there’s going to be some article about it on the front page of the paper, Peters already warned me.”

“The editor of the tabloid warns you ahead of time?” Percy muttered, shocked. He was genuinely concerned, but also exhausted by the subject.

“Yes!” Said Chalene, smoothing out the lacy tablecloth with her fingers. “he sends the most LOVELY letters, he’s so well written! Makes his own darling wax seals!”

“BEFORE he publishes slander about you?” Pookie giggled.

“He likes me!” Chalene insisted. “He just...doesn’t like Clovie-boo.”

Misty felt a red flag in the conversation and despite her initial feelings about Chalene, started to empathize with her. The way Chalene’s eyes tilted in shame, the way she tried to make excuses, it was all so familiar to Misty, that it triggered a long locked well of memories.

“Hey, a question about this guy-” Misty began to ask, until a can hit the window of the restaurant with a

THUNK!

The window didn’t break, but the unexpected noise made every customer jump in surprise. The sound of a raucous fight was escalating outside on the little artificial park. All of the little succulents were being toppled in protest.

They were carrying signs that Misty could not read and their voices were blending together like herbs boiled in a hot tea. She could make out some of their words: Tyranny, Extinction, Starving, Scared.

“Hm.” Chalene said, hardly bothered by the sound as the other three of them did not break their gaze from the window.

Brinkly also didn’t break his gaze from the riot. He was not fond of the sign one Healer Sugarbird was holding in his talons, which read “Another Dead Man Walks the Halls.”

Knowing that sign was about himself, he didn’t love being classed as a zombie because, yes he technically seemed dead...but he honestly wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault the bird that healed him fell for his scheme, and he knew things in the Kingdom were bad nowadays...

...But birds were in on the riot, too? Already? He only “died” just a few hours ago!

Yet, there was already a riot because of Percy’s botched assassination, so other people had glommed onto it, joining the royal-child-murdering infidels. It was the same riot Pookie had mentioned earlier, still running through the city. Like an untreated festering illness, it was now right at their door.