You have been TRICKED.

The mermaid thanks youu for your offering. free snacks for the babies

"Thank you very much for the vomit, your highness," she said, bowing.

Fish out the cat you came down here for

"Milton," I said, vomit still dribbling out of my mouth. "Where's Milton? Fish that cat!"

"Fish a cat?" said the mermaid. "That doesn't make sense at all. It'd be like asking me to fire a water. But don't worry, you're right here, honey. It's okay now," said the mermaid.

I nodded. It made a lot of sense. I was there, and it was okay now.

"Your mother wants to speak to you," said she. "She's gone quite mad recently."

"Ah!" I said, standing up on woozy legs. "Bring me my saxophone."

"What?"

"I simply refuse to speak to my mother without my saxophone and that's final."

"Well, I can't go on dry land..." she lied.

"That's okay, I always keep a back-up in the moat. I can wait." I ran my hand through my hair (matting it with puke) and straightened my wet clothes.

Once I had my horn in hand, I went to the monarchical bedchambers, ironing the clothes I was wearing.

"Fuck!" I said.

"Son?" my mother called out from behind about twenty layers of silk and the smoke of fifty incense candles.

"Ow!" I said.

"Son, is that you?" she said.

"Shit!" I said.

"Is that the voice of my son?" she said.

"Ow!"

"Come closer, my beautiful baby boy..."

"Fuckin' shit!"

"My perfect child..." She reached out for me.

I screamed. I had just touched the iron to my crotch, then dropped it on my foot. "What? What is it?" I said.

"Ah, you play the fool, son, but so can I," she said. I put my reed between my lips and started wailing through her monologue. "I have them all convinced, now, that I'm mad. With the queen mentally unfit to rule, the king on campaign, and the princess missing... Now's the perfect time for the rightful king to take the throne, don't you see? I did it for you! I did it all for you! Aren't you listening?!"

I ceased my onslaught of atonal warbling and adopted a deadly-serious look. "Mother, I have something very important to tell you," I said. "I'm a cat. Meow!"

0.

Prince Milton was far too strong-willed and clever for how stupid he was, and I had completely failed to adjust the flow of his dream. (I believe Iwould require the assistance of an expert, some kind of Subliminal Seducer, if I were to do it and do it right.) None the matter — his simple waking was enough to collapse the waveform so that I could proceed forward. I had time, now, time enough to alter the course of events before Mary arrived in Meadowlands (which, it turns out, is not actually Felus' work at all, but is naturally-occurring.) I would able to make a tenth path, the final draft.

You see, Mary is... incredibly stressed. It's the weight of the crown finally coming to bear on her, it's having died and come back, it's the looming threat of Nothing, it's the death of the woman she loved before they admitted it. She's become much more terse, more brusque, more violent over all her stressors. All this has led Commun not to trust her or even particularly like her.

Now, if she lightened up, they'd get along just great. Mary would take the fingerpaint when offered the first time, and Commun would tell her she was beyond dead, and so, armed with that knowledge, events would play out much differently.

Luckily, destressing someone is exactly my purview (or purr-view, if you will.) But how exactly could I get Mary to relax en route to Meadowlands?