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There are times and places, and then there are times and places. You purrsonally wish your love kitten was a bit better at choosing them. The crowd is growing very hostile, and just to the right you can feel the second love kitten freeze up in absolute terror.
With the barest minimum of stuttering he manages to hiss "H-have you got b-br-brambles between your ears?! You don't say th-that kind of thing up here!"
As your beloved Kranky-Kat continues talking, and you let your life flash before your eyes, because that mob out there has too many parents in it, and not enough children, you decide to reset your memories to a more peaceful time and place.
You rolled through the Chalk on the back of a traveling players caravan. The Chalk isn't your kind of country. It knows the sea. It longs for it in its limestone flesh, and you are a granite pressed Ramtops witch who has discovered that collecting people is almost as good as collecting cats, although it doesn't garner you the respect and dignity that it should. But the problem with cats, you counter, is that cats go out and have adventures on their own, if they're in the mood for it. People always remember to ask you along, and they need you.
Case in point, the tattery young man sitting by the tavern with crooked teeth, and a sign around his neck saying "II wonTT bIITT3 for 2P." You nudge your preacher man, but your preacher man is about to nudge you, and your elbows bang unexpectedly. You look at one another and laugh. That's the value of a good cat, and a good person, and this rail thin kitten is clearly calling out to you, and if he got to the Preacher, too, then this is probably something big and meowmentous.
You consider writing it down, but you're running low on paper now, and probably won't get any more until the Guild of Paper Makers and Bookbinders gets their lead technician out of Lord Winder's Inventive and Fantastical Basement Device of Sharp and Pointy Things. You pick your lute off the bed of the cart, and set up shop as a scribe and newsperson under the midmorning sun. You can hear the players congratulating themselves for having made it out of Witch Country without a visit from Nanny Gripes's terrifying apprentice. The inhabitants of the Chalk are willing to give and get news, have letters written down and read out, ha'penny a letter, and you do good business, while your preacher man sidles up to the boney kitten and begins to talk friendly like.
At first the kid seems interested, but then he puts his hands over his ears, and huddles up around his sign, and you know Kankri's pushed him too far. You yell that the kiddies want to hear one of the fire spitting sermons, and the look that the signed kitty gives you is a one of such mingled gratitude and regret that your heart might break for him.
You use the high commands and exhortations of your preacher man as cover to sidle closer. It's a two person act you've got down pat. Witches can only give help where help is asked, of course. That is time honored tradition. But you've never seen the need to make it too hard to ask for help.
"Here's 2p," you say handing it carefully over. Push too hard, and any stray will run.
Up close he's got burn blisters on his fingers—maybe he was trying to grab some food too quick, or maybe he was playing with fire—and a bright purple bruise on his cheek—he could have fallen on something, or he might have been hit. You're a little worried about the eyes. There's something Elvish there, and your next destination is Copperhead, and not Human Copperhead, either. It's not good to look part elvish around there. But he smiles nervously at you, sweet enough.
"Y-y-you p-p-p-p," he inhales sharply against the consonant, pushing it out into the world, "play?"
You look back at the lute case that was your makeshift table. "Yes. My man there sings. Do you play?"
"Nnno. I mean, y-y-yes. Once. I, I l-l-love music. B-b-but. I. Burned. It."
You look again at the blisters on his fingers, and the elvishness in his eyes, and the statements he has made. You wish you were like Kankri and could see things as they truly were. You can only see the Truth, which is a valuable witching tool, but you've got more than a suspicion that there is a lot of the world eddying in confusion around this man, and you'd like to see it clear.
"Well, we're not playing until tomorrow. But, we'll practice out on the hills in the evening, if you want to come and listen."
From listening it ain't so big a step to getting him to join in. There's a battered old set of pipes which sounds like a breaking saw screaming out rust that you liberated from the players wagon. Three minutes in he's got the sounds of rivers and wind sighing from it. It's not magic, you know. But it should have been. When you concentrate, you can feel the whole of reality pressing should have beens on this kid.
He should have been a wizard, but he was born to one of those girls the Chalk takes care of without talking about it. He should have been a fine city guildsman making instruments and beautiful things, but the Chalk doesn't need that. He should have been the village lunatic, the one no one talked about for starting fires when all that magic-should-have-been pushed through him, but he'd learned a few too many letters, and even had some numbering down, and he tended to forget to bite people. He should have been a wild musician, pulling on the world through that gift of his, but he was too scared to be alone, even if all he got was taunts and rocks, and occasionally local priest kicking at him affectionately.
It's no kind of life, being a should have been, and you promise your kitty with a kiss to his forehead that he could be a traveling minstrel like you and your man, spreading some good fiery words in your wake, but mostly earning money as you can. He stammers and shakes, looking between you and your man, and your man kisses him on the forehead and says it's okay, if he chooses music the magic will leave, pawbably politely. You grin, and point out that's why you can't carry a tune to save your life, and it's why your man can't do much more than See things and get a noise into efurryone's hearts (Sight being one of those gifts that doesn't intrude too much on the world, music being one of those gifts that stays on long after you're gone).
You don't think he'll take the offer, but surprisingly he does, and on the third night, you stand before a crowd and boy but do you awe them. They're singing along and happy and it's all true gravy and this is what the world should be. This is power. No lord ever gets to see this wonderful side of everyone with their laws about poaching and so on, and you'll admit much of this is because your flutist is enough to make grown men weep, if he wants to be. You know you love him. You know your preacher man loves him. You hope he stays with the pair of you and becomes a properly fed happy kitty.
Then, the intermission happens, and your preacher man who's been singing splendidly, and speaking up a Hellfire for the right cause, yells into the happy crowd that you are all on fire and better than cheeses. Which is when the world kinda comes crashing in, and you discover very quickly that they take cheeses very seriously out on the Chalk.
In the morning, you are winded on the side of the road, and glaring in tandem with your Tuna Kitty at your preacher man who is gasping with his hands on his knees over a thistle patch.
A small flock of sheep comes down the road, hurried along by a shepherdess, and you can feel her hat of authority even if you can't see it. She bows to you in passing, and you try to bow from your red faced sitting position, but you can see the smirk she doesn't bother to hide as she lets her sheep loose into the pasture on the other side of the road. Funny place, the Chalk. It's not witch country.
Your preacher man looks up after her. "Why is it, you think, that all witches and strange folk have horns?"
"Somedays, lover boy," you say getting to your tired feet again, "I'd love to see half of what you see."
"And I wish I had your wise mouth. Well, come on. The road's waiting," and he pulls both of you along, heading towards Copperhead, and the next great adventure, or next lost kitten, or pawssibly both.