Origin of the game

And they lived happily ever…

The door of the storyteller’s room creaks open, air stirring the vellum under her paws, smearing the ‘a’ as she begins to write ‘after’.

“Trisha, are you writing those stories again?” The freshman Cheshire’s dad stands in the doorway of his wife’s study, the place where this daughter always goes to sulk after a bad day. He knows the dour look of boy trouble, having caused more than his share back in his youth.

“It’s not healthy to obsess that way about someone. Creepers scare the boys away, sweetheart.” He jokes. Gently, he fatherly combs through her hair with his big strong hands. “You should go play outside, get some fresh air. A game is a good way to take your mind off anything that’s bothering you. You know your sister is getting lonely without you. You could give each other company.” The hands turn to stroking her velvety ear. “But I’m always here to listen too if you’d like to talk.” Her old man gives her a hug. But he doesn’t force the issue any further. A good dad knows when to give a hormonal teenager a little space, not too much, but enough not to smother her.

Trisha mumbles and shoos him away. Normally he wouldn’t leave, but he recognizes the change in her posture, the slight creeping grin on her face and the glint in her eye that’s just like her mother with a new idea. She’s growing up so fast. The jokes the young couple used to tell about their twin girls taking so much after their parents seem to grow truer by the day. Trisha has her mother’s wit and his own once naïve soft heart. Vanessa at least was gifted with her mother’s attitude and cynicism instead, something she discovered early on and used to protect her sister from what she sees as bad in the world. Only sometimes it’s not enough, and Trisha winds up here.

 He lingers, just a moment longer to be sure it’s cleverness and not the purple-tinged madness that blessedly grows less with every generation, then closes the door behind him with a soft click.

‘Of course.’ The young Cheshire tells herself. ‘A game, some lighthearted fun, where there are no real stakes, where nothing has to be serious or dire, where no girl has to fear for her heart.’ The twin dips her freshly-clipped writing claw again into the kraken ink as she does for all her stories, an old romantic tradition for a feline monstergirl to write from the soul, older than the Cheshire cat breed itself. She’ll come up with a new game, the best game, a five-fingered game….her game. She’ll make it so much fun, even Ness won’t be able to say no. She swears she’ll get so good at it, she’ll never be caught again.