Divination (Fire Emblem: Three Houses / Sanctioned [Worm])
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Crossover
Wow, they're really overly dramatic in giving the place a name. It feels like if I ever went there without foreknowledge, the letdown is going to be my downfall because I'd feel so crushed I'd probably be left wide open.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, in a rather embarrassing screwup, I made a mistake and thought the Millennium Festival was the 1k year benchmark for the founding of the Church rather than the completion of Garreg Mach Monastery. Whoops. So uh, expect some wording retcons as I fix that hiccup.
EDIT: Looks like I had it right earlier on, it's just the latest chapter where I messed up.
EDIT 2: ...In one spot. So uh, me thinking I'd made a bigger error might have been sleep-deprivation talking.
EDIT: Looks like I had it right earlier on, it's just the latest chapter where I messed up.
EDIT 2: ...In one spot. So uh, me thinking I'd made a bigger error might have been sleep-deprivation talking.
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Everything went better than expected.
Maybe get some sleep.
Nobody died, nothing stinks, nothing is on fire, nothing is multiplying, and nothing is blocking the refrigerator. Make the edit and you're golden.
Chapter 7: Neglect
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Special thanks to @saganatsu, @DB_Explorer, @fictionfan, @Adephagia, @Wordsmith, @Taut_Templar, Jamie Wahls, @Elfalpha, @BunnyLord, @Drcatspaw, @tinkerware, @Lonelywolf999, D'awwctor, @magicdownunder, @Mordred, @Nuew, @Greydrone, and my 18 other patrons not mentioned here. An extremely enthusiastic "Thank you" to @Torgamous for her patronage as well. Also, if you're not on here, you fit the tier, and you want to be added, please tell me.
Author's Note: Happy holidays! Illuminating Invitation, now at 140k words, is responsible for my brushing this update off and posting it. II was leading in the User's Choice awards for Best Ongoing Fic and Best New Work this year, but fell a bit behind.
Its main competitor went to advertise on SB, and some of the subsequent voters originally didn't even know there was an SV contest running, so I'm rather upset by that — including at least one person who outright made an account to vote. The ad was deleted, but a good bit of damage was already done. There's nothing I can really do about it aside from doing some last-minute expanding of my audience for II in general and that likely won't be enough. (Edited this bit into a spoiler-bubble.)
Producing a list of which duties needed to be passed to others was proving far more difficult than Rhea had anticipated. A thousand years of routine let her automatically slide through most tasks, yet it was difficult to remember what she had yet to do without that helpful guidance. Rather than making a list ahead of time, she was being forced to compile one as she reached each task.
Rhea could no longer deny that she truly wasn't at her best. It was no surprise that so many of her prior attempts to revive Mother had ended in failure given the conditions she was trying to work under. Rhea couldn't help but blame herself for the delay; if she'd rested properly, perhaps Mother could have been revived centuries ago and been safely grown by now. Or perhaps not. Considering how clumsy Rhea's attempts had become of late, Rhea couldn't help but wonder if Mother had simply needed more time than Rhea had been giving her.
Rhea would have shaken her head had she not been surrounded by petitioners hoping for blessings, the necessary platitudes habitually spilling from her lips without need for conscious thought. Mother had returned despite Jeralt's—admittedly understandable—doubts, and dwelling on regret would help no one.
Fear, however, was harder to banish. Rhea's remaining relatives had opted for safety in obscurity, while she had tried to ensure that the world would never again turn their blades against Sothis. Now that Rhea was paying closer attention, the time Sothis had been reborn into was far from ideal. The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus remained gratifyingly devoted and the Leicester Alliance continued their worship, albeit in a somewhat absentminded manner that saw the nobility seldom donating or doing any more than their peers.
The Adrestian Empire, however? Relations with them were strained before, and had only gotten worse when the southern branch of the church attempted a coup in their reckless attempt to bring down the drifting nobility before they infected others. Rhea's prior plans to slowly bring the Empire back into the fold had undeniably been devastated by the even more recent string of recent convictions and executions.
If the three polities around Garreg Mach were of equal strength, then the Adrestian Empire's threatening condition would be manageable. Unfortunately, the Empire's military, industry, and wealth were on par with both the Kingdom of Faerghus and Leicester Alliance combined, in part due to frequent wars against the nations of Sreng and Almyra, respectively.
With Sothis back and capable of creating new life—or, perhaps, recreating the old—it would not be impossible to undercut the Empire by providing alternate sources for their more exotic exports. Such transparent acts would almost certainly be viewed as the acts of aggression that they were. Considering the Empire's own aggression of late, Rhea could not find it in herself to care. Oversteps must be punished.
Rhea paused at that thought. Her judgment had proven to be imperfect as of late, and it may be wise to refrain from any antagonistic acts until after Cichol arrived and approved. She could still write them down, though.
~ ~ ~
Jeralt had, over his extended lifespan, managed to avoid needing to engage in too many public displays of piety. It wasn't that he didn't believe in the goddess, exactly. However, Sothis' existence was more of a fact of life than something he dedicated much time to thinking about. Healthy grass was green, clear skies were blue, marching in the rain sucked, mosquitoes were evil, and the goddess existed. Jeralt might spare a quick prayer come drought or disease just in case Her focus had been elsewhere, but aside from that, it usually felt as though he was too small for Sothis to worry about.
He wasn't at all sure how someone like him ended up as the father of a Saint. Really, he doubted he could even take credit. His wife, Sitri, had possessed enough devotion and kindness for them both. Jeralt was just a knight who'd lived too long.
...Actually, now that he was thinking about it, he might be able to see the logic there. One parent to fit the ideal of a Saint's caretaker, and the other parent to protect Admini while she grew up. It wasn't a comfortable thought. He might not blame Sothis for Sitri's death, but it was somehow uncomfortable to think that the goddess had looked at him and decided he was the sort of person who could handle the responsibility.
He'd done his best to hold himself together for Admini's sake, but Jeralt couldn't deny that she was the only thing keeping him vaguely functional. If she'd been just a bit less strange, if she'd avoided driving off so many wet nurses and let him have just a little more time alone? He could've easily found solace in the bottom of a bottle — more often than he already did, anyway. He wasn't perfect.
At any rate, the captain of the Knights of Seiros was expected to be devoted to the goddess. Ignoring Her after vanishing from public view for over a year? It wouldn't be a good look. Honestly, though, you could tell that the Saints were immune to the ravages of age: he was willing to bet they didn't have any problems praying on their knees. His joints ached and he did not look forward to getting back up again.
From behind him, the clicking of metal on metal grew just a little louder and more insistent. Long enough, then, if the others were growing impatient. Jeralt forced himself upright with an undignified grunt, nodded at the knight behind him, and strode toward the stairs leading to the upper floors of the cathedral. Jeralt would have liked Alois to have his back on this, but it was more important to trust his former squire with Admini's safety.
~ ~ ~
Pushing Papa to return to Garreg Mach Monastery had been one of the best choices Admini had made since her deployment to this stillborn vessel. The monastery was bright and bustling and loud and far, far more engaging than Papa's mercenary band had been even if Admini would still be accompanied by one or more adults at all times during the rare cases where she was allowed outdoors.
Garreg Mach and the included Officer's Academy also confirmed her initial impression of deliberately being designed with defensibility as a primary priority, Abyss aside. Chokepoints were common, and elevated student or staff dormitories could be easily repurposed as vantage points for archers. Many of the structures were isolated enough to serve as holdout points and would need to be systematically attacked and emptied if an invading force wished to avoid being flanked. Despite these perks, however, the decorations and towering architecture of structures seemed designed to distract visitors from possible defensive ramifications. Everything was still adorably tiny in comparison to Queen Administrator's true body, of course, but it would be large from the perspective of humans.
Garreg Mach Monastery being built as a deliberate fortress only served to reinforce the necessity of removing the Abyss as a weakness. Enemies would be fools not to exploit it. One did not attack using the methods that a foe could most easily survive.
Admini could also confirm that Sothis was the 'goddess' worshipped by surrounding nations. Obtaining the devotion of host-species had been attempted before, but generally under controlled conditions on a relatively small scale or by trying to acquire worship from a preexisting society. Such experiments generally ended in unproductive failure. Beginning, however, seemed to have ambitiously compromised by seeding a world from barren wastes and leaving an active filtered process, Sothis, as their 'goddess.'
As Admini understood it, humans had killed the host-body Sothis was originally hosted on, but Admini would hardly consider that to be an experimental failure. Beginning was, after all, a shard; destroying one remote server would only be an inconvenience. It was still undesirable and was rewarded with a thousand years of avoidance, but Admini felt that test subjects had probably learned their lesson by now. Rhea was certainly obsessed with keeping Admini safe as though she were Sothis and QA expected that many others would follow this trend.
If keeping a host-species from attacking shards required only a sacrificial host-body now and then, it would be far cheaper than the current methods of mass memory erasure and information suppression. Queen Administrator had never been particularly happy with those methods; how were hosts supposed to give unique results if shards kept modifying different species to consistently avoid specific subjects?
There was, however, an unexpected side effect to the denizens of this world being engineered to adore Beginning. Or at least, unexpected to Queen Administrator. She wasn't sure if Beginning had expected it.
"Mrrow!"
"You are meant to be ambush predators,"
"""Mrrrow!""" they continued to caterwaul, apparently incapable of understanding human communications.
The non-host guard assigned to protect her, Alois, was half-curled and currently incapable of doing his job due to laughter. Admini would be far more annoyed by this if she were a known public figure or the subject of a crowd's attention. Although she was undeniably attracting attention, the ongoing levels were manageable; most passerby who saw her simply smiled and continued on their way with little to no hesitation. One priestess had stopped to watch, but she had maintained a respectful distance thus far. Even Alois should be able to recover and react before the non-host could approach.
Yet another cat stood on its hind legs and pressed its forelegs against Admini, effectively forcing Admini against the wall behind her. Again. She tried to push it down only to have it happily headbutt her hand like she was trying to reward the cat with attention rather than push it away.
A particularly determined ball of fluff shoved its way between Admini's back and the wall, and began trying to wriggle its way into her palm. Maintaining her balance was impossible in the face of such interference, and Admini fell forward.
"Mroooow!"
The swarm descended.
~ ~ ~
"Alright, I know you've already been briefed, but I want to be sure everyone remembers. So, I'll repeat: do not break anyone's belongings. Even if we do find an addition in someone's room, that doesn't mean they were the ones to put it there. So assume everyone is faithful and that a third party might have come along and added something extra. If you do find something, detain those with access to the room just to be certain, but don't be rough with them. Heck, frame it as someone potentially targeting them; it might even be true, and a lot of infiltrators will take a wait-and-see approach if they don't think they've been made yet. Just be sure not to take your eyes off them, and don't automatically assume that one of your squad members is doing so. You don't already know what a skilled mage can do with a few seconds left unsupervised, it's a lesson you might not have multiple chances to learn.
"Stick with your squads, and don't split up just to make the work go faster. If someone makes themselves scarce while they search, fine. We're more concerned with making sure they aren't in position for a repeat of the fire rather than making sure we actually get everyone."
There was mixed reception to Jeralt's last words, but not because anyone disagreed. Some looked determined; others, enraged. A few, pitying. He was guessing the pitying group still thought Admini was dead, and it wasn't comfortable. Either way, haaaa, he was never ever telling anyone about prior his act of arson.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
To say that Rhea was upset would be an understatement. Merely "angry" was similarly insufficient. Incandescent fury urged her to reach out, grip Alois' shoulders, and tear him limb from limb. Thanks to Jeralt's comments, she was becoming more aware of her own extreme moods of late, but she felt she could be forgiven this once.
"–nobody else nearby, I made sure of that, and I didn't really think of cats as–"
Alois continued to babble excuses that Rhea was in no mood to hear. The wood of her desk creaked in her grip as she tried, thus far successfully, to avoid moving her hands around the kneeling human's throat.
Rhea had trusted Jeralt's once-squire with Sothis' well-being one time, after Admini again reiterated Her desire to utilize obscurity for protection in order to scout Garreg Mach's conditions in the absence of authority figures. That single expedition was all it took for Admini to get hurt. That She appeared to only have been emotionally overwhelmed with a few bruises and a mild scrape did little to sate Rhea's anger; Alois was, by all accounts, too busy laughing to actually help the reborn goddess when She was swarmed by some of Her more favored creations, neatly requiring a lower-ranked priestess — Rhea really should learn her name — to intervene.
Unlike humans, the feline horde did not seek to harm Admini, and she could not fault them for their enthusiasm. It seemed that even distant descendants affectionately remembered their creator. Perhaps that should not be surprising. It was difficult to recall which feline traits were deliberate and which were incidental, but they certainly made good pets for Nabataeans. They tended to do an excellent job of fending scavengers away from preserved food and other organic material — cloth especially — during extended rest periods, cheerfully cuddled without waking their people, and were quick enough to move to safety should a dragon shift positions in their sleep.
It had been a long, long time since Rhea had indulged in cuddling with an animal. She hadn't slept properly in a millennium, yes, but cat fur also got everywhere and it was important to maintain appearances as Archbishop. Perhaps she could again adopt a couple kittens once she stepped down.
Rhea dimly realized that the white noise of Alois' excuses had faded into a fretful near-silence. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look properly at the target of her rage. The human did look appropriately contrite, certainly, but that was nothing new. Appearing to regret one's actions looked much the same as regretting the consequences of those actions. Fortunately, Rhea had plenty of experience in twisting the knife.
"Children are very prone to breaking social norms in ways that seem amusing to adults," Rhea started, forcing a veneer of calm over her bubbling rage. "This wasn't even that. This was a distressed child being overwhelmed by animals more than large enough to inadvertently inflict harm. Somehow, this was still enough to keep you from doing the one task you were assigned to, requiring a complete unknown to rescue her. If you can't be trusted to look after her the moment you're distracted by something amusing, I'm afraid you can't be trusted with her at all."
To his credit, the human did not interrupt in order to issue more excuses. He finally seemed to have realized that she was in no mood to hear them.
"Find and send to me the priestess who did your job for you. Then explain to Jeralt exactly what happened, including Admini's injuries before she was healed, and how a complete stranger had to extract her while you were stuck out of position. I'll leave it to him to decide some suitable punishment."
The priestess was an unknown, and Rhea would need to interrogate her in order to ascertain how trustworthy she might be. However, her obscurity might well be a benefit. There were few people whom Rhea truly trusted, and most of those were already occupying positions considered "above" childcare; reassigning them would be noticed. A stranger who knew neither Admini's importance, and who had already proved herself capable in an unscripted interaction? She would do until Cethleann and Cichol arrived.
For a moment, Alois looked relieved. Rhea certainly couldn't have that.
"In addition to whatever he assigns, however, you will also be cleaning the white pegasus stables for the next fortnight. Perhaps next time, you will remember that normally innocuous creatures can still be dangerous when provoked."
Dark satisfaction took the edge off Rhea's anger as Alois's relief vanished. Pegasi were infamous for ranging from disliking males to being openly hostile to any man who dared to approach. Black pegasi often tended to be the more tolerant of the pegasus family, and some might even have male riders that they liked. White, in contrast, were known to attempt outright homicide on occasion.
"You may ask for help from stable-hands–"
Alois perked up.
"–so long as you first explain to them that you are being punished for letting an infant come to harm," Rhea finished, carefully keeping vindictive satisfaction from her tone. "You are dismissed."
Alois's relief died instantly. On its surface, the extra allowance was a mercy. In reality, however, she doubted that any male of Alois's age would want to explain to females that his negligence had resulted in an infant's injury. Simple scorn would be the least of his worries should he open his mouth.
"I understand and obey, Archbishop," Alois despondently mumbled.
The knight saluted, stood, and turned to leave. Rhea barely managed to keep her temper in check until the door closed behind him. The sound of splintering wood filled her office immediately afterward, a wooden paperweight imploding in her grip. Animals should have posed no threat at all, yet Jerald's former squire had still managed to fail at something so simple! Humans continued to range from useless to traitorous, and Rhea could hardly wait until Sothis was once again old enough to create Nabataeans once more.
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Dopplerdee
Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)
- Location
- Happy Place
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Cats are cute but leaving a toddler surrounded like that was a bad move.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
True.
How old is she anyway, it was awhile since there was an update, I remembered something like six and assumed Rhea exaggerated for the punishment, but I am not sure.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Not even two, but does look a little older due to magical meddling. So Rhea wasn't exaggerating.
Dopplerdee
Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)
- Location
- Happy Place
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Jerald said over a year, and she was a Toddler when comming the the monetary. I doubt it has been more than a year sense. So under 3?
Edit:boss says under 2
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
I suppose that works…
The suitable punishment would've been finding enough cats to drown an adult in, then stuffing his clothes full of cat mint. Now that would resemble a medieval execution.
Not sure whether I'm serious or not, but I think he did screw up.
The suitable punishment would've been finding enough cats to drown an adult in, then stuffing his clothes full of cat mint. Now that would resemble a medieval execution.
Not sure whether I'm serious or not, but I think he did screw up.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
On the bright side, maybe Admini will develop Nekoken now. Would that be something?
Technoturnovers
$19 Fortnite card. Who wants it?
I'm going to be honest, being someone who does frequent both sites and has read both fics, I don't particularly appreciate the tone and content of this message.
First of all, having just familiarized myself with the situation in question, I think that it's highly unnecessary to snipe publicly at the author in question, seeing as they already apologized for and did all that they personally could for what I view as a quite understandable mistake. I mean, I barely even think of SB and SV as being actually separate communities myself, and I largely keep my activity to SB out of a very slight preference for SB's UI and aesthetic. I certainly disagree with "gatekeeping" over who is a real SV user, because I barely noticed the Winterfest stuff in time myself on account of my ADHD-brain, and yet I still went through the effort to make a proper post on my thoughts regarding my chosen fic rather than just vote and move on, and I don't want to get disregarded just on account of my low post count.
Second of all, no offense, but I think that the way you're treating this situation in general is greatly degrading to the mood and positivity that Winterfest events like this are supposed to produce. Reading through the Reader's Choice intro again, it says that the purpose of the contest is explicitly to celebrate the site's popular works and authors, and to provide a festivity that all of the site's users can participate in. Now, there is a reward of a 6-month site subscription, which I actually do view as somewhat problematic and capable of creating perverse incentives, but that's still something that costs the site nothing to give out and is of no redeemable monetary value. If this were meant to be truly competitive, then they wouldn't crown two joint winners in the event of a tie, or prevent past winners from competing again, or specifically say how even getting nominated is a massive accomplishment. In the end, this competition is supposed to make people cheerful, jolly if you will, and writing about all of this the day after Christmas certainly isn't making me feel very jolly.
Thirdly, and related to that last point, you are both sniping at your 'competitor' while also more outrightly engaging in the sort of competitive behavior that I feel goes against the spirit of the contest. You're posting a chapter of this fic and then airing your grievances so that as many people as possible will see them in the beginning-of-post AN, and then sending a message that feels, to me personally, like it's designed to drive sympathy votes rather than votes purely on the reader's preferences and the merits of the work. The other author's post was in honest error and they deleted it, but this message feels conceited to me personally.
Now, more on topic to the thread at hand. To be honest, I felt like this chapter was rather weak, contained significantly less of the signature humor and character I've come to expect from your fics, and in general dragged out the exact wrong scenes while not utilizing the principal character enough. The first two passages felt like unnecessary exposition and meditation on the theme of "this situation with Admini sure is weird and difficult!", which was uninteresting and felt like it could have been largely pruned to me. Admini's passage was far too short and read like the bland platonic ideal of "QA herps a derp", which was only a little amusing, and the final passage where Alois gets reprimanded was drawn out, contained zero humor, lingered far too long on feelings of spite and anger, and only felt to highlight how little the cat incident actually advanced the plot or any of the characters while tainting what little humor existed from said cat scene in its angry, blunt examination of the most cynical potential and/or real consequences of Alois's error in judgement. It feels kind of like the tone of Sunset's anger at Voice for her most recent fuckup got imported over into this fic, quite honestly, but that's just to show just how out of place it is considering how much more serious of a fic II is supposed to be compared to this, moodwise. If any of these issues could possibly be attributed to this chapter being rushed or forced out, then I'll just say that I think I know that you can do better.
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MaimakteriAnn
(Verified Sleepy)
- Location
- Enormous And Round Terran Homeworld
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Dr
Oh damn, I was mixing this up with another story where the character inserting to Byleth was about 8-9 so i read it as Rhea going really off the deep end. If Admini is still about 2 that is genuine failure on Alois' part.
I agree that it's probably not the best tone, but Alivaril is very likely just venting. If they were trying to start stuff, they would be doing it in the Illuminating thread. In fact it's probably less likely to get fans of Illuminating worked up if it's over here than over there. They aren't trying to make a mob, just having a bad day.
It's probably very frustrating to suddenly be losing a contest due to someone importing a fan base, even if they didn't realize what they were doing.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Placed that bit in a spoiler-bubble; sorry about that. My intention wasn't even to try to air grievances, but to try to be bluntly honest about the timing for this update; Divination isn't the fic I'm focusing on right now, but I have been sitting on this update for a bit, and the reason I'm posting it now is basically to act as advertising / an expanded audience for Illuminating Invitation in general.
(EDIT: If I really wanted to go for the nuclear option, I'd post Illuminating Invitation to Fimfiction or something while mentioning said contest, but that would defeat the point of it being an SV contest.
)Yeah, pretty much
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Technoturnovers
$19 Fortnite card. Who wants it?
I'm going take you at your word that you only intended to vent and just generally try not beat a dead horse even if I still find the message at base problematic, but there are still two more points I want to make. First of all, until very recently, I was part of that group with <50 posts, and it's not because I just don't use this site. In this context I largely think of myself as a "enjoyer of fics in the SB/SV/QQ sphere", and I kind of just think of my engagement on these different sites as interchangeable; the fact that I have so few posts here is quite purely a matter of convenience. Secondly, if you know that someone created an account here just to vote for a fic in a contest, then I feel like that certainly goes against the spirit of the rules, albeit not the explicit letter of the rules since SV doesn't actually have an anti-brigading rule. It also more than likely violates SB's anti-brigading rule, although I will admit that it's rather a longshot to ask SB staff to take action over such trivial off-site activity.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yep.
I'd rather not; it's one vote, the backlash over calling them out would likely be worse, and I'm not trying to hurt anyone over here. I was upset and unhappy, not angry. ^^;
Back on the topic of Divination itself:
At this point, she's been far enough in the deep end for so long that she can apply for residency.
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Not_Interesting
The Munchkin of Megastructures
- Location
- In your walls(the walls between realities)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
YEEEEES! This is back! I love Sunset´s wild ride, but this story has been one of my all-time Fire Emblem favs! Thank YOU!
TFC!
TFC!
Dopplerdee
Accident Prone(Yes the caps are necessary)
- Location
- Happy Place
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Bit like dropping a nuke on a single soldier, that.(EDIT: If I really wanted to go for the nuclear option, I'd post Illuminating Invitation to Fimfiction or something while mentioning said contest, but that would defeat the point of it being an SV contest.
She has squatters rights.At this point, she's been far enough in the deep end for so long that she can apply for residency.
Surprising that Jeralt didn't think that the dragon blood transfusion might also have some effect on his offspring, especially since he was reminded of it recently.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah... Alois dropped the ball there. To be fair, while being swarmed by cats Admini didn't seemed stressed. Most kids by that point would have started crying before the cats toppled them over from trying to get attention. And it's more likely falling over is what hurt her than the cats themselves.
The image of watching a kid swarmed by cats wanting affection and them being scolded by the kid sounds really adorable though. So long as the kid wasn't crying or actually upset at least.
The image of watching a kid swarmed by cats wanting affection and them being scolded by the kid sounds really adorable though. So long as the kid wasn't crying or actually upset at least.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Admini never shows fear or weakness if she can help it.