My Kingdom For A Stray

Chapter Five

Chat ran.

He didn't know for how long he had been running, nor how far he had gotten. He just knew he was in danger.

Even as the castle and the garden grounds fell away far behind him, obscured by the looming trees that now encompassed him, Chat Noir felt uneasy. At first the forest was bright. The sunlight was filtering down freely through the canopy and hitting the soft undergrowth below. Chat could hear the deer prance away from the noise his feet made and the rabbits, mice, or other little critters poked their little heads out from their dens, watching the knight curiously until he passed. Chat Noir slowed to a walk as the tall castle, which once had been his home, disappears behind the forest.

His shoulder had a numb kind of pain. It throbbed, but it oddly felt...distant. Like it wasn't really Chat's shoulder he was feeling as he walked. Must be from shock, the rogue told himself. Finally, Chat Noir stops. Holding his shoulder in one hand, he looks around himself. Where was he? This couldn't be where Mari was. All the clues to where she had been taken to would still be at the castle. What was he doing way out here, getting himself lost in the woods?!

With a huff of annoyance, Chat Noir turns back towards the direction of the castle. It would be dangerous, but if it meant saving Marinette... Then Chat would do whatever it took. Just as Chat Noir took his first step, he froze. A cold chill ran down his spine as he had heard a voice. A familiar voice, call a single word.

'Kitty...?'

Chat Noir whirled around, his eyes wide. All he could hear was the thundering of his heart in his eardrums. He knew that voice as it had echoed inside his skull. He knew that voice better than anyone. And it came again.

'Kitty...where...where are you...?'

The shiver ran down his back once more. The voice sounded weak, scared...pained. "Marinette!!" Chat Noir cried out fearfully, his head turning this way and that frantically for the source of the voice. "Marinette, I'm right here!! Where are you?!" he calls out desperately. But there was no one.

'Kitty...please...Chat...i...I need you...'

The voice was getting weaker. More scared. On the verge of tears from pain. "Marinette!!" Chat screams, on the verge of tears of his own. She sounded so close! But where the hell was she?! His eyes darted frantically around the underbrush of the forest, trying to see if anyone was there...but he was alone. That was, until something flew out from the bushes, and across the path Chat had been walking.

A butterfly, wings white as snow.

Chat Noir's eyes were glued on the tiny insect as it fluttered over to the knight, gracefully gliding around the crown of his head before it set off down the path...giggling? Yes. Giggling...the same kind of giggling the cat would hear as he played their game with the princess.

Marinette...

"W-wait!" called out Chat as the butterfly began to flutter away, taking the sweet sound of laughing bells with it. Whatever evil enchantment was over this butterfly, it had something to do with his lost Lady. "Come back! Come back I say! Don't leave me!" he calls out, his feet quickening their pace to try and catch up with the bug. But it sped up faster, just barely staying in sight of the masked rogue. Soon Chat Noir was racing once more, despite the throbbing pain in his shoulder as he tried to keep up with the insect. Every now and then Chat would loose sight of it, his hope fleeing as well, only for another peal of laughter to yank him back into the right direction. Bushes and small sapplings snap and break as Chat Noir forces his way through them, desprately trying to follow the butterfly along a trail that was not there. As Chat travels like this, crashing through the underbrush, he doesn't even notice the forest around him darkening, thickening, the deer and critters and sounds of merry birds slowly morphing into glowing eyes that peer in the dark and the sounds of crows that mourn. His mind was consumed by the laughter the white butterfly taunts him with. The pleading cries of the girl he loved, which had most likely come from that same insect, also tear and eat away at his heart and gut. Marinette...Marinette... oh gosh...she was so close. Chat could feel it in his bones!