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He doesn’t know where he’s going. Not that he’d really known where he was going before now. It's a forest, it’s just trees, trees and more trees. Edwin is gone, will be gone, should stay gone. Edwin isn’t going to listen to him again, won’t even have the chance because he’s going to keep wandering the forest, he’s going to go looking for Charles and Crystal and Esther’s going to finally get her revenge.
And it’ll all be Monty’s fault, because Monty liked him, but Monty existed because of Esther, for Esther, to serve Esther and betraying her, betraying her had never been an option. You didn’t betray your creator, your mother .
So instead Monty had swallowed down the embarrassment, that gaping horror in his chest that had stuck around after the swing set, and brought them to the forest. He’d set everything up just the way Esther liked it. Had walked them deeper and deeper, had separated them so it would be easier when the time came. Only it had been Edwin, Edwin with his kindness and his pretty eyes and that strange way he carried himself that should have made him aloof but gave him a certain charm that Monty loved.
He slows down, stumbles over a hole in the ground that he can’t make out. Some animals burrow, something that’s still small, still wild. Still free. His shoulder bounces off of a tree, the bark is rough under his hands, digging into tender flesh as he swallows back the sob that threatens to rip its way out of his throat.
He'd been standing there, watching him and suddenly he just hadn’t been able to do it. Not anymore.
Edwin had apologized. He’d apologized and all of that anger, all that hurt had just melted away.
He hates this, here and now. All of it, every second of the last month since Esther had opened the door to little Becky Aspen selling girl scout cookies on her porch and decided she’d make a nice meal for the Snake. Hates it here in this forest where he’s stuck , no wings to lift him into the air and all of these horrible feelings trapped in his chest. Bouncing off of each other until he’s drowning in the anger only for it to be swallowed up by a creeping sort of despair. A snake twining its way through his lungs.
The Cat King had ruined everything, everything Monty had left after he had ruined it the first time. Everything between him and Edwin. Monty isn’t anything to him anymore, not if Edwin is smart. At best, he’ll be forgotten. The memory of him abandoned. At worst, he’ll be an enemy. An active threat for them to ward off.
It had all been so much simpler before. When he’d only been able to dream about it all, clawing at the barest sense of emotions from the bond that Esther had forged between them. Now, want clogged his lungs, wound its way around his throat like a noose. Before he had only ever wanted one thing, to please Esther.
Now, he wanted . Craved, dreamed of things he had never even thought of in all the years he’d spent at her beck and call.
He trips, lands hard on his knees before he can catch himself. He’s probably torn these pants by now, stumbling over roots and through the brush. He doesn’t have the lantern anymore, nothing to light the way. Edwin probably needs it more anyways. The monster they were hunting won’t hurt him , but it’ll unmake them . She hadn’t told him that. She hadn’t told him what it did to ghosts. And now it had killed some, innocent ghosts, ghosts that hadn’t even done anything to her. That sick feeling rises in his stomach again, wraps a stranglehold around his throat as he stops.
Stands.
Pants.
Feels the way his chest heaves with each breath. The shake of his hands, the pressure of nails biting into skin when he curls them into fists. He has no feathers, no talons, no wings .
And the forest seems so much larger now, in the dark with no one else to talk to and the memory of it all. The heat of a body, a hand wrapped around his jaw, lips pressed harsh and warm against his and then gone again in an instant. Replaced with golden eyes slitted black.
Cat’s eyes.
Cat’s eyes that had slid past him, turned away as if he was nothing in an instant. All for Edwin, all to tell Edwin everything Monty had done. He’d laid it all out, nice and neat with a little bow. Smiled at him as he’d ruined everything .
That damned cat. Esther had always hated him, so Monty had always hated him. That was how it worked. He wasn’t really supposed to do more than that, he was a witches familiar, a living breathing expansion of her will. His creator. A familiar didn’t need to think much more than that.
“Don’t tell me you were really going to do it.” The purr comes from his left, from just behind him. A breadth from his shoulder, lips almost brushing his ear. There’s a light now, hanging directly above them both.
That fucking chandelier. Suspended above them as if held aloft by invisible strings.
A hand glides down his side as he spins, and the cat disappears in a flash of purple. A whisper of laughter and the soft crunch of leaves as he reappears a few feet further away. He’s smiling, a strange tilt to it as his eyes sweep over Monty once more. From head to foot, taking in the ruined knees of his jeans and the tears streaking his face.
“Do what?” It's out before he can think about it. The question is simple enough. But the Cat King’s head is cocked to the side, eyes intent on Monty’s own with a strange sort of focus.
It's unnerving, itching at the part of his brain that still recognizes the gait of a predator.
Was he really going to do it? Walk Edwin to his doom? To a fate worse than death even? Worse even than hell?
No. He wasn’t. He’d already realized he couldn't do it, even before the cat had interrupted.
“Crawl your way back to her.” The words are almost gentle, though the illusion of kindness is easily broken when Monty meets his eyes again. He doesn’t look kind, he looks almost apathetic about it all. Disinterested. Disappointed.
Monty laughs, a gasping sort of thing that claws its way out of his throat until he’s almost choking on it. The tears are gathering in his eyes again, though whether they’re tears of rage or pain he isn’t really sure. Emotions had never been so complicated when he’d been a bird.
“Where else can I go? You ruined everything Edwin-”
A flash of purple cuts him off, a finger tipping his chin up until his eyes are locked on the Cat King’s. There’s barely a breath of space between them, as the Cat King stands, waits, watches, head tipping slowly to the side until a tongue darts out across his lips.
“And you think she’ll still welcome you back with open arms? Her little loyal familiar? She’ll kill you birdie.”
There’s a strange sort of horror in his words now. A distant rage in his eyes as he watches Monty, eyes searching his face for something. It's like being pinned in place, like that night Esther held him down and carved into him until he’d taken the form she needed.
He swallows it all down, the grief, the rage, the distant horrible want that had gotten him here in the first place. Jerks away from the finger under his chin and the warmth of the Cat King in front of him, stumbling back a few steps until he’s just out of reach. It leaves a tingling sensation where they’d touched, a distant ache beneath his skin.
“No thanks to you.”
The words trip their way out of his mouth. Stumble over each other as he blinks back the tears. But the Cat King just laughs, that distant look still in his eyes as he turns away.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. She was going to kill you either way. Your little witch doesn’t keep her toys around once they’ve outlived their usefulness.”
Monty stops in his tracks and furrows his brow. Esther cared for him, in her own ways yes, but she cared. He was hers, her familiar. Something born of something else and bound to her, soul and mind. He was hers, it was all he really was.
And a witch didn’t throw away their familiar.
“No, she isn’t like that. Not to me.”
“Oh the poor sweet familiar.” The Cat King sneers back, stalks half a step towards him, hands curled like claws at his side. His eyes are wide, molten gold that almost seems to glow in the light above them. “Did you think you were her first? Oh come on now crow, you’re hardly in her top ten.”
He’s purring again. Smirk firmly in place as he stops, one hand reaching up, gently brushing Monty’s hair back with one finger.
“Esther-”
He’s cut off before he can finish. A vicious snarling sound tearing its way free of the Cat. He doesn’t quite lunge, a flash of purple and the weight of a body at his back. The Cat King’s hooking his chin over Monty’s shoulder before he can pull away.
He’s warm against Monty’s side, solid.
Practically purring into his ear.
“Consumes. Desires more than she can ever have. And so she takes what she thinks will fulfill that desire.”
He doesn’t stop, twirls away with the same flash of purple and into the space three feet to his left. Stalking around him in a slow circle as he continues.
“She created you to use you. Just as she does all her little pets, you exist for as long as you amuse her, as long as she can get something from you. And the moment your death serves a purpose, she’ll get rid of you and move on to the next.”
He makes it a full circle, those molten eyes never leaving Monty as he stalks closer. And slowly, oh so slowly, raises a hand.
Two fingers tip Monty’s chin up once again.
“Don’t you understand, little bird? You could be so much more. Are you truly going to squander it all to die at her hand?”
“Why? Why would you help me? You ruined everything?”
“I admit, I had my own scores to settle. But little bird, don’t you want to live ?” Those fingers, warm against his skin, slide along the line of his jaw. The Cat King cupping Monty’s cheek with one hand as he leans closer. Their breath mingling in the space between them. “Come on little bird, isn’t freedom worth something here?”
“Yes.” It's a whisper. A breath.
And in an instant, the cat’s eyes light up. Molten and beautiful, their faces only inches apart and the cat steps back. Sweeps his hands up as the world twists around them and Monty lands sprawled on the plush pillows of a bed.
“Welcome to my territory.”
The warehouse, Monty knows where the warehouse is. Sometimes, Esther had sent him to watch the cats. To judge if the Cat King had noticed something or other, or if he might be up to anything that could interfere with her plans.
He could get home from here. Quickly even, it wasn’t even that long of a walk.
But it was warm, and the pillows he’d been unceremoniously dropped on were soft beneath his hands. A mattress in the middle of a semi-abandoned warehouse had no right being so comfortable. Especially when it belonged to the Cat King.
“What do you want from me?”
The King barely twitches.
“From you? Nothing.” Those golden eyes on him once again, the path they take leaving goosebumps rising on his skin. “Your presence is more than enough little bird.”
Esther would be mad. When she realized he’d failed, when she realized the Cat King had interfered. She’d be furious, and he wouldn’t even be there to help. His fingers twitched, curling and uncurling in an unconscious tick he hadn’t been able to kick despite Esther’s tutting.
“Only for now. For a bit. Until I can figure something else out.”
The Cat King only hums back, an indulgent smile dragging at his lips.
“Of course, little bird. But my territory only goes so far, and my protection only means so much. Don’t test it.”
Monty nods seriously. Swallows down his nerves as the Cat King turns away.
He’d said there were others. That Esther had taken familiars before she’d found Monty a decade ago and decided to keep him. That she’d used them just as she used Monty. But if she was his creator, his mother in all the ways he knew then they were his too in a way. Siblings he’d never met, never even heard of.
“Can you tell me about them? The others?”
Across from him, only feet from the door the cat stops. Stills.
“Is that really what you want, little bird?”
His voice is soft, hoarse with something Monty thinks might be grief.
Monty matches him as well as he can. “No one deserves to be forgotten.”
The King turns then, watches Monty for what feels like minutes but can only be a few heartbeats and nods. There’s grief hidden in molten eyes, pupils slitted black. Exhaustion in the line of his jaw, the tilt of his head.
The Cat King is older than Monty, much older. Older maybe even than Esther. It makes him wonder, what the King has seen, what he’s survived to be here saving Monty from the dark.
“If you’ll listen, little bird, I'll tell you.”