I was in the garden, not doing any harm, nothing mischievous, for once. The cat was asleep in the house and the garden was all for us. I said 'us', because I was with three of my brothers and sisters. We were not playing - we were already too old for that - but we were just in the garden, recognising the ground. The garden is for everybody, you'd think. Well, wrong guess. We were under bushes - we liked bushes, we always found plenty of things under them - when we heard voices. Immediately we all froze. It was out of question to attract attention! But we could still listen. There were two voices, feminine. One of them, I knew it; it was the voice of the nice girl who sometimes took care of us. Nothing to worry on her side, she wouldn't betray us. The other voice was unknown, but it sounded kind. What saddened me was that the voice of the girl was sniffing. She obviously had been crying. I couldn't do anything for her: nobody ever listened to us, no matter what we said. We could have said the wisest thing in the world that nobody would have cared. Anyway, it seemed the woman with her was consoling her. Good. She sounded better than the others in the house, who were always angry. The sniffs became less frequent and the girl's voice was quite incredulous. The other woman was speaking with more and more animation now. It was all good but we were beginning to have cramp. It would have been nice from them to go inside the house to finish their conversation. But no, they stayed outside, in the garden. Sparks appeared in my vision field. I was surprised. Was the other woman creating fireworks to cheer up the girl? If yes, how was she doing this? I was both intrigued and impressed. Something huge suddenly appeared in front of us and, terrified, we squeaked and crawled back. Immediately they looked at us. "They'll be perfect!" said the woman. Perfect? Perfect for what, exactly? I was beginning to be more than frightened. "Come on here, little ones," she called. Coming? Ah, certainly not! I didn't go where I didn't know what was expecting me. But the girl held out sweets for us and she had her sweet smile, a smile that was telling us that we had nothing to fear. For once I didn't really trust her, but my brother - always the greedy one - ran ahead. There was a sudden spray of sparks and I blinked. Where was my brother? My sisters snuggled behind me, terrified. "Come out if you want to see your friend," offered the woman. We looked at each other. "We can't let him down," said my youngest sister. "True," approved the other one, "but that's no reason for going there trustingly." "We don't really have the choice," I said. "What do you plan to do? Attack them?" I was more than bitter; I should have thought they would try to lure us outside and that my brother would fall for the bait. "Alright, let's go," I said, biting my lower lip in frustration. We all came out at the same time and I expected a spray of sparks to fall on us. I felt those sparks were not quite normal and I didn't trust it. It happened exactly as I was expecting it. Rainbow sparks fell on me and I felt as if I was transported elsewhere and that vision around me was totally distorted. When the twirl around me stopped I felt bigger, mightier than I had ever felt. I looked around me; the world that I had always found so huge was now a lot smaller. The girl exclaimed: "It's wonderful!" Her voice didn't sound as loud as before. I looked down at the ground; suddenly it seemed so very far from me. And what were those things? Hooves? I squeaked and tried to escape. My squeak didn't sound right either. Nothing sounded right. What had they done to me? I couldn't escape; I was tied to a strange golden thing, which was, as I realised, the very thing that had frightened us so a bit earlier. What was going to happen next? I was soon to know. "Bring him to me," the older woman said to the girl. She obeyed swiftly and, o terror, came back with the cat. The beast had a twisted smile when seeing us tied to the thing. I tried to calm down my siblings. "Do not worry; we are big now." They realised I was right. The cat was smaller than we were! I even snorted at the beast, for once we were mightier than he was. But the older woman waved something she had in hand and the cat meowed like in agony. We shivered; the sound was horrible! We shivered even more when realising what had happened: the cat was now a man and he approached us with his twisted smile, a whip in hand. "Ready to run!" I shouted. My siblings and I had always been good to run in perfect harmony. This time made no exception, even with the fear we felt. But the older woman seemed to know exactly what we were going to do and she stopped us, her hand on the thing she had put in my mouth. I tried to bite her - I usually was good at that, it helped a lot to get free sometimes - but my teeth weren't as before. I tried then to break free; anything, but remaining where I was when that... cat, human, whatever he was now, was coming near me! The sound my feet were doing on the cobblestones as I was struggling was deafening. "No, no, calm down; you'll run soon enough," said the woman, her voice disapproving. But I wouldn't listen and my siblings were as terrified as I was. It was probably a fine spectacle! "Maybe... I shouldn't have chosen... the cat," said the woman breathlessly, struggling to get us down. "The cat won't hurt you, little ones," said gently the girl, coming near me. I tried to bite her and almost succeeded this time. She retreated just in time to avoid my teeth to close on her arm. "This one is strong and hardheaded," noticed the woman. Hardheaded! I would have seen her at my place! "Alright, alright!" she exclaimed. "I promise you that you'll be safe from the cat as long as you'll be under this shape! Is it enough for you to calm down?" "Can we trust her?" asked my youngest sister. "No!" I replied savagely. "She's but lying for having her ways! Do not listen to her!" "Do we have the choice?" objected my other sister. "What else horrible can she come up with?" She was right! I calmed down immediately. "That's better," approved the woman. I glared at her; I longed to bite her so that she would lose her condescending tone. "Go on, little one," she said at the girl, who climbed in the golden thing behind us. Suddenly the hand on the thing in my mouth wasn't here anymore to hold me back and I jumped forward. My siblings followed me immediately and we ran like crazy. But the thing behind us was still with us and no matter how fast we ran, we couldn't lose it. The thing in my mouth pulled back; I pushed forward. It pulled back harder, hurting. I refused to stop, still leading my siblings. But I had to, for this thing hurt so bad that pain was immobilising me. The thing behind us opened and the girl came down from it. "Wait for me, please," she whispered to us and she hurried to the great building in front of which we had stopped. Seething with rage we had to wait, for the cat was turning constantly around us, smiling his twisted smile, as if the situation was amusing to him. The girl was later, running almost as fast as we had for coming here. She climbed hastily in the thing and we jumped forward again, but the thing in my mouth directed me toward the place we came from. After all, I didn't care where we were going as long as it was away, far away! Alas! I thought we would be free as soon as we would reach the garden, but the girl put us in a cage and explained with a sorry voice that she needed us again. She tortured us again two nights like the first one and then released us. Believe me, I didn't appreciate this 'adventure', not a single least! So when my granddaughter tells me that people are saying we were the girl's pets, that she cared for us and that we lived in a cage all the time, I feel my blood running wild in my veins! Worse, I heard a version like what we were free in the house, but we were her friends and she was giving us clothes! Clothes! Honestly! So, you can trust me on that, Cinderella will never belong to the tale I will tell to my great grandchildren. This girl didn't know how to treat properly mice. We didn't do anything to her and she tortured us three nights in a row! As for the woman, who was her fairy godmother, as they said, well, let me tell you that fairies have no idea either how to treat mice. Transforming them like she did to us without even asking our advice and then, putting a cat behind us so we would run come close to pure spite! Being transformed into - how do they say? - a horse is a traumatising experience for a mouse! Beware of humans and fairies, I say to my children, grandchildren and I will say it also to my great grandchildren. Clothes! Frankly! Where do humans find ideas such like this? Why not offering a truce to the cat, while you're at it?

All texts © Azrael 2002.
Parure Deva Lake, by Moyra/Mystic PC. Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.