Morning Princess

Although Shade had made Mia a bed in the wardrobe with old clothes on tuesday night, the orange cat was still quite unhappy early wednesday morning.

After Shade let her out in the morning, she barely paid him any attention. Even when Shade warmed some goat milk, soaked cat food in it, and placed it in Mia's special bowl, she merely gave a reserved meow and waited until Shade returned to his seat before strolling over with feigned dignity.

Shade had never imagined he would see such humanlike behavior from a cat.

Sitting at the table, Shade carefully peeled a boiled egg, then, under Mia's wary gaze, shifted from his seat to the cat eating on the tabletop.

He split the still-hot white egg in half, steam even rising from the yellow yolk.

Mia glanced toward Room Two, then widened her eyes at the egg yolk in Shade's hand and tilted her head.

"Meow?"

"Want some?"

Shade asked. The cat blinked and gave a gentle cry.

"Meow~"

Thus, Mia got an extra treat for breakfast, and Shade regained his cat's affection.

Did it need to be pointed out that it was—

"Yes, it's Miss Mia's cat. I know."

Pulling Mia's bowl closer, Shade petted the well-behaved cat before returning to his seat and unfolding the newspaper to read the report on this year's Tobesk autumn harvest statistics. It seemed to be a bountiful year; grain production around Tobesk had been quite good.

Ding-dong~

The cat, goat milk clinging to her face, looked toward the staircase as the doorbell rang downstairs. Shade stroked her to reassure her, then rose in surprise and looked down through the living room window. An unfamiliar carriage was parked outside his home.

"Oh, a client came to my door today?"

Shade was delighted, but then frowned