Prompt: [Write a paragraph about a typical day from the perspective of a cat.] + [“Does this purple shirt make me stand out?” asks the giant one-eyed cat.]
~~
Swish-swish.Your tail dangles idly off the edge of the windowsill, its sheer fluff unable to be contained on the narrow thing. Nevertheless, a windowsill is a windowsill, and no other place is as comfy on a slow, sunny afternoon as this one. This was
your
spot, and your roommate knew it well from the last time he tried setting old junk here. It doesn't belong. You swipe! Clunk! - As a large and hard curvy thing with plants inside falls to the floor. It clearly rankled him - his roommate - as his fur fluffed up and he hissed at you, but you called his bluff. After a few more obstacles were knocked over in the course of a week, your roommate just put the things away permanently. You could finally go back to your sunny days in peace, licking your grass-stained paws clean of last night's hunt.All is well in the Kitty Kingdom.
Meanwhile...
on the other side of the study, the Court Wizard stares into the mirror, repeatedly tugging at his bowtie and repeatedly smoothing his fur with a ritual-like devotion. Not a single fur out of place.
A Wizard who wasn't so fixated on the little details wouldn't have made it as far as you, after all.
[“Does this purple shirt make me stand out?” asks the giant one-eyed cat.]
Even after The Accident a month back, you found himself preoccupied with your own appearance. No, especially because of The Accident.
It cost you much of your reputation and turned you into a cyclops, but you couldn't be a very good Court Wizard if you didn't, well, attend court.
"I put extra care into making sure it does, you know," you clarify to the mirror with the raise of a whisker.
You didn't journey through time and space for nothing, squeezing through gaps under the couch much too small for your... girthy body. The arduous quest produced some of the legendary Threads of Fate, which you'd woven into said fancy dress-shirt you're wearing right now.
Animated pictures dance across the velvety surface. It tells a tale of a Fate currently in progress, of stars burning and dying whilst the Lesser Cats of the forest enroach on the territory of the Kitty Kingdom, winning over hearts, minds, and wills of its subjects. These quadrupedal creatures bat at toys and corpses with equal cuteness as they eat the food of the bipedal cats with little gratitude and littler contribution.
You think that your aloof pet sunning itself on the windowsill might have something to do with the threads you found earlier.
"Not only will it draw attention away from my," you pause, unsure of how to phrase having one large eye in the middle of your face, "...condition. It should hopefully make for a decent icebreaker."
The very existence of Lesser Cats - their stupider animal ancestors - was a hot-button topic in of itself. Even before you get into things like their rapid population increase, their shaky citizenship status, or the ethics of owning a cat.
But!
Anything to liven up those stuffy court sessions.
And you know what? You're not just the Court Wizard. You're a cyclops-cat, and you're pretty ugly. You regularly scare the debonairs that come to escape the reality of ugly cats.
Look at you; you'd already adopted your very own cat from the isolation of it all.
You aren't quitting, but you almost wouldn't mind if you were fired. Better than a slow death at a job where you were forced to bite off more than you could chew under royal, divinely-decreed deadlines.
"Silly me; look at the time." You take a bow to the mirror. "Better not be late to Sunday Court!"
With that, you walk out the door.