“Someday,” Miranda began, and cleared her throat with a bob of her long neck as water splashed into her face from the stone ceiling. “Someday, you’re going to have to explain how we ended up here.”

“In the dungeons?” Greystone was far too cheerful about his assessment of their location.

“My father’s dungeons, hiding from a rampaging murderer and a diplomatic riot, yes.” She dusted off her forearms, leaving claw marks in the gold stickiness that smeared her limbs now that the damp had seeped its way through her scales. A violent sneeze erupted with a snort of flame. “Oh, I’m ever so sorry. I’m unused to grand events after my tenure in the countryside.”

A chuffed laugh was as close to a snort as the shapeshifting snow leopard ever got. “All right, princess. I see your protocol training is still there.”

“We have some work to do if we want to catch the killer,” Miranda said with a reluctant settling of her shoulders. “Like getting out of here. Now, about that explanation?”

“Well, first there was the gentleman with the feathered hat who smelled like gooseberry wine.” Greystone curled into a C-shape with all four paws overlapping primly, clearly proud of himself.

She hissed in spite of herself. “Too easy to hide poisons.”

“Which everyone knows, so the security trolls were already alerted and following him.” The cat twisted his head around and stared at the wall for a moment. “So I shifted to following the woman in the enormous dress that looked like a cake. The yellow one.”

Her tongue was glued to her fangs. “Queen Elderian from Avenia? You followed the ruling monarch of our greatest ally under suspicion of murdering my father?”

“She had stabby sticks in her hair,” Greystone muttered. “The King is dead. An invading army appeared from nowhere within our borders. Your brother is terrified to be King, and I’m worried his councilors will try to overthrow him before he’s even crowned. And we have no leads on what happened, other than a few indications it will happen again.”

She didn’t relax but dipped her head apologetically. The diamonds on her tiara glinted in the dim lantern light. “You’re right.” Miranda wrapped her tail around Greystone and leaned gently against her smaller friend. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“I always am,” he said smugly. “Now, if I may continue?”

Miranda gazed at the scattered straw beneath her claws and blew it out of the way. “It’s a good thing you’re cuddly, you know. Trouble, but darned cuddly.”

“Language, princess, tut tut.” He stretched out a paw and extended his own retractable claws. “And I’ll have you know I’m darned adorable.”

***

This week, Cedar Sanderson prompted me with: Cuddly, but trouble.

Find version two here, because conversation skewed this in a better direction.

My prompt went to nother Mike: The aftermath of playing fetch with a fish.