#pinou

[paranatellonta]

Recipe for Disaster

You were sent on a mission that seemed simple on paper, but infiltrating such a place of suspicion and constant vigilance required you to choose the most intricate armour. Even in such an innocuous, fluffy shape, you only made it to the vault to steal the weapon plans after many months.

Now you’re pressed against the mulch in the garden outside the vault, hidden behind the arsenal you’ve camouflaged as plants. Large anemone and Turkish sage leaves shield you, while fern rockets and sage bud grenades point at anyone who might come close, but you’ve lost all taste for such violence. Has pretending to be these humans’ cute pet for so long really made you that soft inside? Have you forgotten everything you learned about the cruelty of Earth?

But then again, you have also learned that these weapon plans you were supposed to steal, this Recipe for Disaster, is in fact a recipe for a dessert that tends to make a mess of custard, chocolate, and puff pastry when you pick it up and bite it the wrong way. That the people on this world send one another virtual strawberries when they live too far apart to share real ones. That when the enemy comes to trust you, they will let you nap on their belly, even when you haven’t been able to hide your claws and teeth.

You were made for war, but here, in the golden sunlight of this garden, you have found peace.

—

[Image description: Behind two different green plants with large leaves and a fern, an orange cat is lying down on the mulch-covered ground with its head resting on its front paws. Behind it is a privet hedge.]

[bullshitsfreshfriday]

@torrieblake

[to-the-pine]

My day

[petit-pinou]

[paranatellonta]

Not a Day for Adventures

“Do you want to play a game?” Mr Cube asked. The question was directed at his friend Pinou: a large orange cat who was currently lying on his side on the sofa.

“No.”

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Cubesie, I love you dearly, but do you never get tired?”

Mr Cube sat with that for a while. Pinou still hadn’t looked at him and continued to stare at the white wall of the living room as if it held all the answers. Mr Cube knew it didn’t, actually.

There were no answers to the sorrow Pinou was feeling.

“Do you want me to just sit here with you?” Mr Cube asked eventually, and that earned him the smallest of nods.

—

[Image description: Photo of a cat lying on a blanket, its gaze turned away from the small wooden cubebot sitting next to its head.]

—

This is the twelfth Mr Cube adventure here on Paranatellonta. [Click here] to read the older ones.

[paranatellonta]

Master of the Kitchen

The sleepy orange cat dreams of a kitchen in which he makes the rules. Not only is he allowed to jump onto the countertop: as the chef, he’s expected to. He leans over a large bowl of cream, sticks his whiskers in—and whisks. Bits of whipped cream fly all around the kitchen, startling the cat, and when he moves his head to look up, the flick of his whiskers lobs even more cream out of the bowl and after those earlier droplets seeking freedom. The dollops flock together into a fluffy cloud and drift out of the window. But the cat isn’t intent on letting his ingredients escape, so he jumps, making his whiskers rotate rapidly, propelling him into his pursuit.

For miles and miles he flies high up in the sky, ever so close to catching the cream cloud but never quite reaching it—and then, just when he’s right below it, ready to pounce, it starts to rain. The cat shivers and shakes, the falling cream disturbing the rotations of his whiskers, and involuntarily he descends, yet by the time he’s landed in the high grass of a meadow, he’s managed to pull a small drinking bowl from the tangles of his fur, and he catches most of the creamy precipitation.

It’ll be a long walk home, but once there, he’ll be able to knead his dough and make his biscuits. They really are the best in the world, even when he’s fast asleep.

—

[Image description: Close-up photo of the face of an orange cat, with its eyes closed.]

[paranatellonta]

The Flower Prince

She only noticed the Spy several hours after he’d positioned himself outside her window. He didn’t mind being caught. His instructions from the Faerie Realm were clear: find out if the One truly is worthy of the Flower Prince’s favour.

And she was. The way she cared for her plants, her pets, and even unknown birds that happened to drop by! Not to mention the fact that when she noticed a Spy watching her this closely, her reaction was to smile at him, rather than chasing him off. She was as confident in her kindness as she should be.

The Flower Prince would be delighted. His blessings would make her radiant flowers thrive long into the cold season, and the Spy would show her an entryway into the Realm, where she could come and go as she pleased, while plenty of gifts would be bestowed on her.

Sure, the Spy chuckled to himself, the Prince would always have offered her a present to compensate for the breach of privacy—but had she not been this friendly, he might have chosen one much less to her liking.

—

[Image description: An orange cat sits on a table just outside the window, looking straight into the camera with a stern expression. Both inside and outside, radiant plants are all around it.]

[paranatellonta]

Crucial Mischief

It wasn’t always easy for a small demon to look out at the world and see what sort of mischief it needed. Some days it was so much more tempting to crawl back under the warm blanket that was supposed to ward off your kind, to dream of light and all the other things you were not.

But it wasn’t helpful, was it? A demon like you was supposed to have ambitions, to get things done.

So you peered out of the window, eyes squinting against the last sunlight. Any honest analysis would conclude that what this sharp world really needed was some softness, but how could a demon fit into that?

Perhaps… perhaps there was a way. After all, it was very demonic to make everyone worship and adore you—to make them dote on you and catch simply all their love. And if your fur happened to be extremely soft, and the best way to prove their devotion was for them to pet you, well… This might well work, you thought, and slipped into the night.

—

[Image description: The photo shows the black shape of a cat’s head, its fur and whiskers catching the light and outlining the contour. In the background, light falls in between the curtains, showing a hint of a white wall and the wooden bars of a bed.]