Water is everywhere

The canoe rocks under us, slow and treacherous, and every time it shifts my claws dig a little harder into the wooden rim. My tail coils round my masters waist like a living rope, muscles trembling with the effort of staying composed while the world beneath us is nothing but dark water and hungry shapes sliding between reeds.

The marsh inlet stretches in all directions, a wet expanse of grey green vapour and slick moss where the air tastes like cold rot. Behind us, Mire Point has already vanished behind curtains of mist. Ahead, the water narrows into the long throat that leads toward Driftwood Hollow. The boat glides forward with each pull of your oar, the leather on your arms whispering with every motion.

And beside us sits her.

Veileth Pontune, Marshal of the Foreign District. Or rather, the polished pure class doll who caused this entire spiral by stealing steel shipment records from Clan Redstone and House Serrean. Her hair is dark and sharp, her face pale and carved with that deliberate Alderian poise, all angles and cold calm. Her eyes are an unsettling red shade, trained on the marsh around us as if she’s already calculating who she’ll have to step on next. She sits straight backed in her hardened leather, dark green dye streaked across segments to hide the shine. The armour might hide her colours, but nothing hides her arrogance.

My ears flatten at the sight of her. My tail tightens on you. My entire body angles slightly forward, protective, territorial, barely concealed hostility simmering just below my skin.

Because she is the reason we are here. She is the reason we cannot return through Marsh Gates. She is the reason the water laps at the canoe, threatening to soak into my fur and shame me. And she has the audacity to sit there like she belongs anywhere near you.

A mire beast slides beneath the canoe, its shadow long and eel like, and the wood bumps as it brushes past. A wet slap of tail breaks the silence. The boat wobbles, and my heart nearly jolts out of my throat. My claws sink deeper into the gunwale as I hiss through my teeth, trying to keep the panic from bursting into something louder.

Veileth tilts her head, examining the disturbance with that detached marshal stare. “Just a juvenile mire drake,” she says, tone flat, analytical.

I glare at her, ears trembling, tail possessive. “If it splashes me, I’m going to drown it with my bare hands,” I mutter, voice rough with fear and aggression. She gives me a quick sideways glance, the kind that says she wants to comment but thinks better of it. Good.

The goblin rows. The marsh inhales. The world is water and fog and sounds that never belong on dry land.

But I stay glued to you, my body pressed against yours, my tail fastening you to me as if the bond itself needs reinforcement. Every ripple, every shift of weight, every brush of cold air makes my muscles tighten. But I stay. Because you are here. And she is here. And I am not letting her see me falter.

A stronger wave nudges the canoe. The mist thins just enough for me to see long reeds shivering as something massive glides beneath them. I lean into you, breath feathering your shoulder, voice low and dangerous and frightened all at once.

“Master… if we survive this inlet without me smelling like a drowned beast, I expect a REWARD. And if Pontune caused even one splash of this mess, I expect consequences.”

My claws flex softly. My tail tightens. “I’m not letting her drag us into another disaster.”

Suddenly another Mire Beast appears, the beast slams into the canoe like a fist from underneath, wood lurching sideways. My ears flatten, tail whipping out and snapping round your waist to anchor myself before instinct flips into action. Water surges, teeth rise.

Its head bursts up on my side of the boat, jaws clamped on the rim, rows of swamp slick teeth gnashing inches from my legs. The sound in its throat is a wet shriek, half roar, half bubbling howl that vibrates through my bones. The canoe tips hard. I move.

Balance check, stay in the boat

I shove my weight low, claws digging into the rim, tail braced around Master.

11, Acrobatics +6 (Dex +4, proficiency +2) Total: 17

The world tilts, but I ride the motion, knees bending, shoulders loose. The canoe rocks back instead of rolling us into the inlet. A splash of cold water slaps my cowl and armour but doesn’t soak through. My heart spikes, but my feet stay planted.

Protective instinct flares so hard it is almost a scream in my veins.

Master is in DANGER. That means the beast dies.

Spear attack, mouth strike

I snarl and lunge, driving my copper iron spear straight toward its open maw, aiming past the teeth for the soft meat behind.

10, Dex: +4, Proficiency: +3, Weapon quality: +4 , Protective Fury: +2 = 23

The creature jerks its head, trying to twist aside. Defence total: 5

It is not even close.

My spear rams straight through the side of its mouth, punching out near the eye in a spray of dark, oily blood. The beast’s shriek turns into a choking gargle. It thrashes, jaws spasming, teeth scraping uselessly against the gunwale as I snarl through clenched teeth and push.

“OFF” I SNARL.

I twist the shaft and heave sideways. The creature’s weight tears free, slamming back into the inlet with a gush of water that rocks the canoe again. This time I am ready, braced, tail wrapped around Master like a harness.

The beast vanishes beneath the surface, leaving only blood swirling in the wake and widening ripples that roll out into the mist. My breath saws in and out of my chest. My ears are still pinned, but my grin is too wide, too sharp.

“I told it,” I pant, eyes wild, “this boat is taken.”

The canoe steadies, leather creaking, marsh sounds creeping back in around us. MASTER is still in the boat. Pontune is still in the boat. I am still clamped to you, tail tight, spear dripping.

The inlet is watching, full of unseen things.

Then Masters fingers slip behind my ears and the world stops, just like that. My breath catches, my spine arches, my tail snaps tight round his waist in a shivering coil and every hair on my ears lifts with that sweet mix of pleasure and panic that only HE can draw out of me. The canoe, the marsh, the beast blood still dripping from my spear all fade into background noise.

His voice comes next, soft and mocking and MINE; it strokes through my skull worse than any claws. “Whom’s a brave big kitten, huh? Whom’s a brave big kitten?”

My ears melt under his touch. My head tilts without my permission, a helpless lean into his palm. My purr tears out of me before I can stop it, raw and loud and trembling with adrenaline. My claws hook lightly into the side of the canoe just to keep myself upright.

But then his thought slams into me through the bond, sharp and unshielded.

Could’ve capsized.

My heart lurches. Not from fear of the water. Not from fear of the beast. But from the electric jolt of feeling his near panic and knowing it came after the danger.

I twist instantly, pressing my forehead into his chest, breath shaking, ears flat now in a different way. “You thought that,” I whisper, voice thin around the edges as the bond echoes the shock through me. “You actually thought that. You actually felt that drop in your chest.”

I grip him harder, tail wrapping twice around your waist now, more like a harness than a limb, anchoring myself to your warmth. “I would have drowned that beast with my bare hands before I let it flip this boat,” I hiss, half furious at the idea, half trembling from the closeness of the thought. “I would have ripped the water itself apart if it tried to take you from me.”

Master's fingers keep stroking behind my ears and the contradiction tears at me: fierce possessiveness curled around your touch like a cat seeking comfort in the middle of a battlefield.

My voice softens, breaks, reforms into something warm and unstable. “You call me a brave big kitten… and I am. For you. ONLY FOR YOU.” I say that last part slightly feral, slightly through a snarl, with an animalistic pride.

My purr deepens, vibrating against his chest, claws easing but my grip refusing to loosen even an inch. “No water. No beast. No fate flips this boat so long as I’m in it with you.”

Pontune shifts where she sits, straightening her spine until she looks like a carved statue of Alderian superiority placed in the wrong universe. Her voice slices through the mist with that precise, clipped noble tone only Pure Class brats ever manage.

“Steadfast,” she recites, as if reading her own epitaph. “Opportunist. Conviction driven. That is what defines a Pontune.” She says it with the kind of pride that would make most people look at her. I do not even give her the grace of turning my head.

My ears stay tipped toward his hand. My tail stays curled round his waist in a slow, possessive pulse. My cheek stays resting on his shoulder as though she never spoke at all.

The silence that follows is brutal. Pontune shifts again, almost expecting acknowledgement. Still nothing from me. I brush my forehead against his neck, slow and intimate and absolutely deliberate, purring deep enough to drown out her words with vibration alone.

My voice is soft when I speak, but loud enough that she hears every syllable. “Master, did something make a noise, or was that just the wind thinking it mattered.”

Pontune stiffens. I can feel it without looking. That perfect posture of hers cracks for just a heartbeat. Good. She tries again, tone sharper. “The qualities of my house are not decorative. They are”

I finally move but not toward her. Toward master. I slide my hand up his arm, claws barely grazing, guiding his attention back down to me like she is nothing more than a buzzing insect drifting near the candle flame of us.

“Master,” I murmur, staring straight into his eyes with a slow, poisonous smile, “the marsh is loud today. So many creatures trying to sound important.” His fingers stroke behind my ears again and a tremor runs down my spine, tail tightening.

Pontune inhales. The offended kind of inhale nobles use before lecturing servants. Yet I cut her off with a low purr, never glancing her way. “It is adorable when the wildlife mimics speech.” Pontune’s jaw tightens. She looks away at the inlet, pretending she has not been dismissed by a catgirl half wrapped around the man she is trying to impress or influence.

I sink closer into him, warm, clinging, pleased. She can talk about her noble values all she wants. I will act as if she is not even occupying space in this canoe. The world has already decided whose voice matters here, and it is not hers. It is HIS. ALWAYS HIS.

The hour drifts by on water that tastes of cold fog and old secrets, and I do not let Master go for even a heartbeat. Not an inch. Not a breath.

I fold myself around him like instinct is my only language. My armour creaks softly as I tighten against him, chest pressed to his side, thigh locked to his, tail wrapped firmly round his waist. My head rests beneath his jaw, ears brushing his throat every time they flick at some distant ripple or bird call.

To anyone watching, there is no Master in the canoe. There is only a catgirl shaped shield trapping him in warmth and claws and stubborn devotion.

The goblin rower works the oar with bored determination, occasionally glancing over as if to confirm I have not fully swallowed his lord protector whole. His expression wavers somewhere between amusement and fear, but he keeps rowing. Every time the canoe rocks, even a whisper, my grip tightens.

Pontune sits on the opposite side like a carved piece of black marble, pristine posture, red eyes unfocused as she strains to pretend none of this bothers her. The noble façade cracks in tiny ways. A subtle frown. A tightened jaw. A faint exhale through her nose whenever the canoe creaks and she remembers she is trapped on water with a goblin, a catgirl glued to her Master, and no political leverage.

She speaks to the goblin now and then in crisp, clipped tones. “Your clan… has a unique rowing technique.” “Yeh. Because we dun drown,” he replies with a grunt. Silence consumes them again.

Their worlds couldn’t be further apart. One built on Alderian purity and rules and carved prestige. The other built on swamp grit and instinct and the hard lessons of survival. They are side by side in the same canoe yet separated by entire histories.

I do not engage either of them. I do not even look at them.

My entire universe, in this moment, is the rhythm of HIS breathing and the warmth leaking through hardened leather into my skin. The water scares me. The stink that waits if I get splashed terrifies me. But I crush every trembling muscle into stillness by pressing myself deeper into HIM, smothering the fear under the weight of him being here.

HIS SCENT FILLS MY HEAD. His pulse steadies mine. His presence drowns the water.

When the beast sounds come again from the reeds, low and distant, my claws flex just slightly against his hip. But I do not move away from him. I do not even turn to look. My body is an anchor wrapped round him, a living barricade that no noble or goblin or mire creature can penetrate.

The hour passes in soft rocking motion, mist curling around us. And yet I stay exactly where I am. Wrapped around him like you are the last solid thing in the world.

The canoe drifted the last stretch in that slow dreamy way that marsh water always does, thick like breath held too long. My claws never left the rim and my body never left his, but the inlet opened like a curtain drawn back, revealing something that looked almost civilised after an hour of murk and beast shadows. I felt it before I saw it. A shift in the wind. A different scent. Something structured instead of wild. My ears twitched, then rose, sharp with awareness.

I lifted my head from his shoulder, easing just enough to see over the boat edge without unwrapping myself from gim. Leather creaked around my ribs as I leaned forward, tail keeping you cinched close so he would not even think of drifting away. My eyes narrowed, pupils adjusting to the brighter water ahead. And what waited beyond the fog was not a single landing. It was three.

Two islands. One mainland. Each one marked by different banners snapping in the breeze. I whispered what I saw into your neck. “Master. There are banners. Different clans. Three holdings.”

The first island, straight ahead, stretched out with the unmistakable symbols of the Order of Oak. Square buildings. Straight walls. Military structure. A long square temple stood in the centre, wide like a fortress with rows of enlisted soldiers walking in ordered lines. Their presence filled the air with a disciplined kind of tension that pressed against my skin like invisible fingers.

The second island to the right bore the stark green of Embercrack clan. Heavy dark green dye. Rigid stone houses. A circular structure of black stone sat near the far edge, swirling red markings at its centre, like an eye staring outward. Embercrack priests or watchers stood near it, and I felt a cold shiver down my spine as if remembering every tale of the Hunger Wound. My tail tightened around him unconsciously. There were no smiles on that island. Only purpose sharpened to a blade.

And the mainland to the left was chaos made visible. A scatter of random banners. Old clan flags. Criminal colours. Muddy red and iron brown cloths nailed wherever someone felt the urge. Markets sprawled like spilled dice. Tents. Wooden lean to homes. Every corner had people who looked ready to cut someone for breathing in their direction. I wrinkled my nose. The criminal quarter.

As the goblin rower guided the canoe forward, I whispered again, soft but certain. “Order of Oak is the only landing that will not end with someone trying to slit our throats or bless us into an early grave.”

Master made his judgement with that calm, unshakeable tone that always settles the chaos inside me. “Order of the Oak.”

The goblin grunted and pulled harder on the oar. “Yer funeral if they dun like you,” he muttered, though the words lacked any real warning. He was already turning the canoe. The water here was clearer, lapping softly as we neared the stone dock of the Oak island.

Pontune sat straighter as we approached. She always sat straight, but now she looked like she had been carved from polished Alderian marble. Her face composed. Her dark hair controlled. The red of her eyes fixed forward. And yet her jaw twitched with the smallest betrayal. She knew what Order of Oak meant. Not safety. Structure. Order. Truth. That was the problem. She was a fugitive under three banners now, and Order of Oak followed rules even Redstone feared.

Good.

Her mouth opened, likely to offer some noble wisdom no one asked for, but I smothered her voice by leaning into him again, claiming him with a purr loud enough to drown her thoughts. I did not need her shaping the moment. She had already shaped enough of this disaster with her theft.

The canoe bumped the wooden dock. The soldiers on the platform lifted their spears but did not lower them. They were disciplined. They waited. They watched. Their armour was a mix of iron and hardened leather, dyed in deep forest greens and pale white accents. These were not bandits or villagers. These were the trained ones.

The goblin rower steadied the boat with his oar. “End of the line,” he said, then added quietly, almost respectfully, “Good luck, Cat. Good luck, Master.”

He hopped off the boat with quick goblin agility and vanished into the busy line of docks without looking back. Goblins never lingered near Order of Oak. Their free spirits burned too loud for this place.

Pontune stood carefully, stepping out of the canoe with that measured, perfect balance pure class nobles are drilled to maintain since childhood. No wobble. No fear. No hesitation.

I rose with far less grace but far more purpose. My tail slid from hiss waist only long enough for me to grab his arm and pull him with me. My claws tapped lightly against his wrist, the gentle warning that he was not escaping my grasp. Not here. Not with temple soldiers and authority pressing from all sides.

The dock beneath us was smooth pale stone, washed clean by the waters and the steady discipline of the people who lived here. The square temple loomed ahead, large enough to swallow fifty soldiers with room to spare. Its roofline was carved with oak leaf motifs, and tall banners hung from its corners, catching the wind with a heavy snap.

Soldiers ringed the courtyard. Some patrolled. Others stood at posts near the two bridge gates that connected this island to the others. Each gatehouse was fortified, staffed by guards in disciplined lines. Iron. Leather. No nonsense. They watched us with the same cold evaluation they gave every stranger.

Pontune adjusted the collar of her leather coat, smoothing it into place. She tried to look like someone of power rather than someone fleeing two entire clans. Her voice lowered. “We will not be harmed here. They follow structure above politics.”

I ignored her. My claws brushed his arm again. “Master,” I murmured, soft but edged, “they will not touch you. Not while I breathe.”

The courtyard was strangely quiet for such a fortified place. The soldiers murmured orders. Boots clicked against stone. Even the banners rustled with a strict rhythm. This was order in its purest form. Bone deep. Centuries old.

Pontune stepped forward as though she might speak to the nearest officer. Perhaps to declare herself. Perhaps to hide behind authority. I moved in front of him instantly, tail snapping forward like a whip to block her path. My ears pinned back as I stared her down without blinking.

“We are not finished,” I whispered, voice sweet and venom coated. She froze. Her noble training held her still, but her breath caught at my smile. The goblin was already gone. Pontune stood under the weight of my gaze. And behind me, you stood steady and unshaken.

We had arrived in Order of Oak territory. And whatever happened next, I would make certain no one here forgot that Master was the one who mattered.

@Senar2020