THE light of the protective barrier grew smaller. The distance between Marialite and Sirius grew larger. She could do nothing but look back with dazed, forlorn eyes.
“I-It’s all gonna be okay!” Raven tried to convince her. “There’s no way that monster of a prince is gonna let himself be killed by one little cat.”
Marialite remained silent.
“I’m sure His Majesty will think of something…” he said nervously.
“If you wish to quell that loss of control from the root cause, you must give them something other than raw power…” she murmured.
“What?” Raven eyed her, confused.
“It’s what someone said to me in a dream I just had,” she clarified.
Raven came to a stop and peered into her face. She was smiling despite the deep peril in which they found themselves.
“Let me have a go at stopping that cat,” she said brightly.
“St-Stop it? How?! You can’t defeat something like that just by—”
“Like I said, I’m going to stop it. Not defeat it. We can use these,” she suggested, showing Raven a small drawstring pouch.
“What are they?”
“Flower seeds,” she explained. “Lord Sirius gave them to me.”
“You just…carry ’em around?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, he told me I could use them in case of an emergency if Cornelia tried anything again,” she laughed. “Not that she ever did.”
“Okay, but…use ’em how?” he asked. He was beginning to wonder if the fear of their impending doom was affecting her sanity.
Ignoring Raven’s dubious glances, Marialite dug a hole in the earth in front of her using only her hands. Then, she dropped one of the seeds from the pouch into it.
“Like this,” she said gently, covering the buried seed with her hands and closing her eyes.
In the next moment, her body was enveloped by a beam of light.
✦ ✦ ✦
“WHERE are the reinforcements?!”
“They may be a little while as of yet. We’re dealing with a legendary Phobos cat, after all; it seems they want to draw up some sort of strategy beforehand…”
“We can’t afford to take things slow! Prince Sirius is expending his own life force in order to protect us!”
“We know that! Honestly, we do! But…if anyone acts recklessly when approaching the cat, we’ll only find ourselves in even deeper trouble!”
Arguments began brewing between the soldiers as they hid behind chunks of rubble. The longer the prince stood by himself desperately keeping the rampaging cat under control, the more panicked everyone else grew.
Under normal circumstances, they would be poised right behind Sirius, waiting for the moment his magical energy ran dry in order to get him to safety. However, under the circumstances, even that proved to be difficult; there was a chance their presence would only agitate the Phobos cat. According to the legends, its magical powers could feed on malice and hostility alone. If they positioned themselves as the cat’s enemies, the burden on Sirius would only get worse.
“How are we going to defeat that thing?! We’re not even allowed to attack it!”
“Do we really have no choice but to keep it in a protective bubble until it runs out of energy…?”
“That won’t work. It can convert its magic into life force! It would never get any weaker!”
With no solution to work towards, their agitated voices carried on getting louder and louder, until one soldier stopped them.
“Wait…” he said, looking up at the night sky curiously. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“I just saw something white fall from the sky. Maybe it was snow or something…”
“Snow? It’s far too warm for th—” The soldier was quickly silenced when a small, white flake danced in front of his eyes.
Just as described, white particles were falling down from the sky, one after another. Indeed, it could’ve been flakes of pure white snow, but upon closer inspection, they were tiny fibers of cotton.
When they hit the ground, they immediately dissolved into the earth—then fresh, green verdure appeared in its place. The leaves climbed higher and higher before their very eyes, until they eventually culminated in a flush of small, yellow flowers.
The same flowers sprouted from between the piles of rubble, and within a mere few minutes, the ruins had been transformed into a gorgeous field of yellow flowers.
“What are they?” one soldier marveled.
“They’re called snowleas, apparently.”
The soldiers whipped around to see Raven standing there.
“Just like dandelions, they reproduce by apomixis; each seed is encased in soft, cotton-like fibers, and they sow themselves as they’re blown across the earth,” Raven said wisely, as though he hadn’t just been taught that himself. “We have Marialite to thank for turning this place into a field of snowleas.”
“Saint Marialite did this? But why?”
“The plants have a special effect on felines. Whether the same goes for feline divine beasts, we’re not sure, but—”
“W-Wait a sec! The beast’s acting weird!”
Raven quickly turned to look at the Phobos cat.
The cat—that had been violently thrashing around mere moments before—was now calming down, even yawning as it stretched out its long body. Sirius looked around, conflicted as to whether there was any point in keeping his protective barrier up.
“What’s going on? It seems to be…getting comfortable?” he remarked. That was when he noticed the swathes of soft, yellow flowers covering the ground. He recognized them as snowleas.
Just as he began to work out what had happened, he noticed his beloved fiancée running over to him.
“Lord Sirius!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad you’re unharmed!”
“Lady Marialite?! What’re you doing back h— No, I think that’s quite obvious. I thought these flowers might be your doing.”
“Yeah,” she grinned. “The fragrance of this flower has a narcotic effect on felines, doesn’t it? I remembered what you told me when you gave me the seeds.”
“And that’s why the Phobos cat is suddenly acting so docile…” Sirius realized.
Cornelia was a feline demon. Sirius had provided Marialite with the snowlea seeds in the unlikely event that Cornelia tried to hatch any devious schemes as her maid, but he’d never stopped to consider that they might work on divine beasts, too. With a look of shock on his face, he finally lifted the protective barrier around the Phobos cat.
The cat wobbled, swaying as though it was fighting sleep. Almost imperceptibly, its black coat seemed to change color, too; it seemed to be gradually fading to a gray color.
“What’s…going on? I feel kinda sleepy… Really sleepy…”
Marialite gave a sweet, fond smile when she heard that same young voice, quieter this time.
“That angry voice was you, wasn’t it?” she murmured.
“This human…isn’t scary at all. She’s kind…warm…and smells like flowers. She reminds me of my mother…”
The cat flapped its wings a little, and Marialite caught it in her arms as it floated down towards her. She stroked the top of its round head and spoke to it in a gentle, lilting tone.
“You’ve done a lot of shouting and crying, haven’t you? Of course you’d tire yourself out,” she smiled. “You should take a little nap and rest up, okay? Then, when you wake up…I’ll give you lots of tasty food. I used to do the same thing for someone else just like you.”
“Okay…” the Phobos cat relented, closing its weary eyes. As it did so, its body began to glow, turning its ashen fur into a pure, snow-like white. That wasn’t all, either—its thin, batlike wings were now covered in velvety, white feathers resembling a swan’s.