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It was pouring Chewsday when the Queen first felt it.
There was something in the air, something hairy and bewhiskered and piliferous. Queen Elizabeth II, also known as Lilibet or the Queen of (????), looked behind her old back to check. There was ice coming down her back, like the trickle of an ice cube along her spine. But then again, it was probably because she was ninety something years old.
There was nothing there.
She stared at the long, dark, and spinning hallway of Buckingham Palace for a long and drawn moment before tearing her eyes away. Perhaps she was getting too old for this.
Sighing, Queen Elizabeth continued to go down the hall. Her royal palace guard dudes or servants or something opened the doors for her because she was much too frail and important to open them herself.
What is going on today? she thought in her British accent. There was no clear explanation for how she felt, other than that it felt too… bristly in the back of her throat. As if she had something stuck in her chest, like an apple or something fuzzier.
A cat meowed faintly behind her.
Queen Elizabeth turned sharply, much to the surprise of her royal palace guard dudes or servants or whatever. Again, there was nothing there.
“Do we have cats in the castle?” she asked the closest man next to her.
“Cats?” he echoed. “No, just the royal corgis, your Majesty.” (Or something that people say to the Queen).
“I see,” she mumbled under her breath. She rubbed her hands together and continued to walk down the hallway, and into her bedroom for a good afternoon’s rest of waving and sitting down and other things that monarchs do that we are all too lazy and mortal to research and understand.
Queen Elizabeth took off her gloves, shaking off the sweatiness on them from the long day she had. Her royal corgis WAIT WERE THEY CORGIS nevermind they are took off yapping around her ankles. She pet them idly while she looked longingly at the giant portrait of her late husband and distant relative, Philip.
“Oh, Philip,” she cried. “What am I ever to do?”
She was too embarrassed and poised to admit that she had felt something akin to the pressuring aura of today for almost two weeks. There was nothing wrong, per se; if anything, everything was going right for her. Or something, I don’t keep up with the monarchs and their status actually.
The point is, she felt as if there was something watching her at every corner. Lurking. Staring. Watching her every move from the dark, biding their time to do something that she couldn't even fathom.
There was also the possibility of the depletion of old age. Maybe she was seeing things because her time was fast approaching, or overdue.
Queen Elizabeth shook her head. That was no way to think! She was the Queen of England, she could do anything that she could put her mind to. If she had a serial stalker, they would surely find their demise sooner or later.
That being said, she got ready for her beauty sleep. Her royal palace guard dudes or servants or something like that cooked her food, brushed her teeth, bathed, and dried her hair for her. Her silky nightclothes instantly made her sleepy. There was nothing more she had to do than read her favorite novels by 16th century politicians because that’s boring and I think monarchs are boring probably.
Still, after half an hour had dutifully passed, Queen Elizabeth could not find it in herself to feel sleepy. Not at all.
She took a candlelight and lamp from her bedside and put on her bunny slippers to make her way through the corridors of Ham Palace. The rain that had plagued the morning was coming down harder outside of the castle windows. It was raining so hard that she could hardly see more than a foot away, though her poor eyesight could also contribute to such things.
It was also probably why she nearly slipped on something on the floor.
She took a step backwards in shock, looking down at the item presented before her. It was round and hairy, with a pool of water underneath it to suggest that it was not at all dry.
“A hairball?” she thought out loud. She wrinkled her nose. So a stray cat had gotten into the castle. No matter— she simply just had to get one of the guards to find it and toss it out by the scruff of the neck, and there would no longer be any dilly dallying around while she was trying to get a midnight snack.
“Oh, Philip,” she cried once more, side stepping away from the hairball. “I miss your guidance! I wish more than anything you could tell me how to deal with these pussy cats. You knew exactly how to with mine.”
Finally, she made it to the royal kitchen. Faintly, she can hear the sounds of one of her grandchildren blasting music from that wretched game they always played, something that was similar with the word “honk” and that it apparently cultivated three different generations of games. She muted them in her ears, something that was easy to do with the decaying state of her ears and the old earwax still muddled into them.
She fixed herself a nice ham sandwich to eat. She sat on one of the chairs in the kitchen (dining room???) and munched on it contentedly. After this, she would surely feel sleepy enough to get a good night’s rest and face another day of royal duties and chores and responsibilities.
Her sandwich fell to the ground.
Queen Elizabeth the Second, the longest serving monarch in British history, had fallen and choked due to a ham sandwich.
Choking, she held onto her throat with one hand and wildly reached for her glass of water. She gulped it down as best as she could, but sputtered when it refused to go down. Her throat felt stuck! There was something slimy and gross stuck there, and it was not at all like the mustard and ham and cheese and beans and other things British people put on their food taste like.
She hacked and coughed and wheezed, hard, until she fell from the chair. She was flailing, her vision was turning black at the corners, and there was nothing more she could do but sit and stare at the ceiling with her arms desperately reaching for the heavens she probably could not get to.
There was a meow beside her.
Queen Elizabeth turned her head to find a cat, one who tilted her head at her as if they were amused.
“You wretched cat!” she yelled through her wheezes. She hacked again, choking on whatever thing had been stuck in her throat.
She waved at the cat, hoping it went away so that she didn’t die with this brown grey ambiguously colored cat as her only witness. She wanted peace when she died, so that she could be found in the everlasting embrace of her late father, mother, and husband and cousin.
“How does it feel, Elizabeth?” the cat spoke.
Shocked, Elizabeth momentarily stopped choking to stare.
“My name is Can,” the cat said again, smoothly and with the voice of a devil. It sat down right in front of her, and he made no attempts to aid her in her time of need. “Your time is up, Elizabeth. I am here to speed up the process, to make your attempts at extending your reign futile and fruitless. There is nothing that you can do anymore, Elizabeth.”
“But… why?” she croaked. “How?”
“It’s quite simple!” she said cheerfully. Can’s tail swished happily behind her. “I threw up a hairball in your food. Not only are you choking on my finest hairball that I’ve been collecting for more than four months now, but you are also choking on a hairball injected lethally with a poison that will ensure you leave this realm.”
“What did I ever do to you, cat?” Queen Elizabeth cried. “I have never met you in my life!”
“My name is Can, you wrinkled twat. And au contraire,” Can said with a thoughtful look. They were making a sweet little :3 face at her while she continued to choke to death. “I know you. In another life, you will know me with the parallel legacy of yours. I will rule with my subjects loving me overwhelmingly, with my friends at my side and cats ruling the world. The Honkai will be serving me, in fact. Something that you could never do.”
“The fucking what?”
“Goodbye, Elizabeth,” Can continued, a touch of sympathy in his voice. “And may God save the queen— while I, the new King Can, will inherit the legacy you have made just for me. I have waited for this moment for far too long. Checkmate.”
As Queen Elizabeth’s vision faded into nothingness, she looked into the eyes of Can, the almighty cat that would now rule the world with an iron fist and their many deadly hairballs.
"You..." she said with her dying breath, "really did Honkai my impact."