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When Puss in Boots at last, at last picks up his sword, he does it with a flourish, once more challenging, “Fear me, if you dare!”
It makes Death pause for a moment, motionless but for the twitch of one ear, contemplative. He can’t tell what to make of this shift, unsure what will come of it, but aloud he declares with confidence, “This is gonna be fun.”
As it turns out, he’s not entirely wrong. This cat is different from the one who fought him in that lonely bar, the one who called him bounty hunter. He knows the truth now, and seems to have learned many other things besides. And for all that Death mocked his swordsmanship that first time, it’s not slow nor sloppy nor sad. It had entertained him, and it’s part of why he put so much relish into running him down. No mortal is equal to Death, but if he allows himself to admit it, Puss in Boots may well be the best mortal he’s faced, with that wicked little blade of his.
This, Death thinks, when the cat knocks him over. Good... He glories at the fear that again flares across his face when he advances, sickles extended and starving for blood. But the satisfaction stutters and dies when the cat blocks the blow that should have been the last and goads him with a steady, brave grin, little knife in paw.
Death scowls. This isn’t going how it should.
Again they clash, Death matching his skill to the cat’s so he can have his fun. But he feels more irritation than glee, and he may have even underestimated how far to stoop his skill level because Puss in Boot severs his sickles, taking him aback. This arrogant bastard.
Death catches his next strike and sends him flying, but the cat uses the force to spin through the air, limbs outstretched, just like he did before that last reckless, irreverent death in Del Mar, just like he did in that bar after laughing in his face-!
The memory makes his blood boil and Death at last decides, one instant before he otherwise might have, to stop playing with his food.
With impossible speed, he steps aside, narrowly avoiding the heel of that boot between his eyes, leaving Puss in Boots to crash into the ground with a pained gasp. Finished with this farce, Death doesn’t waste a breath. Faster that the cat can react, faster than anyone could, Death sweeps low, sickle raised high.
And the blade comes down so hard it strikes an expansive spider web of cracks into the wishing star, all radiating out from where the point of the sickle protrudes from the back of Puss in Boots, run through just below the sternum.
A few shrill wails ring out from beyond their circle of flames. Death is so familiar with their like that they don’t register.
The cat stares up at him, unblinking. ...Sorrowful.
“I knew... I could never beat you,” he exhales. “But at least I fought for this life.” He wavers. His lungs don’t refill after he speaks anymore. “The only one- worth...” He fades. He fades.
He dies.
Death feels cool, empty, and- Unsatisfied. Puss in Boots is dead at his feet, the vengeful game he set out on completed, but not in the way he envisioned it. He’d for once allowed himself to ignore the natural order of things for the gratification of killing this arrogant little legend who liked to laugh in his face and wasted eight whole lives in the process. But he didn’t expect that legend to fight for his life like this in the end.
Eyes narrowed, Death hesitates, trying not to wonder if the natural order is always there for a reason, if he has been a fool. What’s done is done. -Even if the life he reaped this time wasn’t his task carried out, but simple, blatant murder.
Death dislodges his sickle from the chip in the star and from the corpse laying upon it, a ribbon of blood tracing it back through the air. He steps back as the flames dissolve and instantly a cat takes their place, dashing in to collapse at Puss in Boots’ side despite Death’s presence. A tiny dog scrambles after her, whining pitifully.
A long silence reigns, like a baited breath, and Death turns to leave.
-
“Kitty! Death is after me!”
She thought it was melodrama; Puss’s usual shtick. Querido Dios, why couldn’t it have been melodrama-! Why?! Why did it have to be-!
Death.
He approaches with a whistle that freezes her blood and Kitty knows in her bones that this is Death. He could be nothing else. And he’s here for Puss.
Even if he hadn’t said anything, that much is made apparent when the wolf pins him in with crimson flames. Even though she herself had accused Puss of running mere minutes ago, bitter with heartbreak even as she couldn’t bring herself to truly hate him, she finds she resents those same accusations said in the wolf’s voice. He calls Puss a coward, mocking the wish clutched in his paws, and even though she too is sick of the way he always runs-!
Kitty still longs for Puss to stop running, yet she can understand at least a little, now, why he’s running from this. From Death.
The wolf frightens her.
It’s a fear she forgets as her heart soars, realizing she’s already gotten her wish. “I’m done running,” Puss declares in that rough voice she can’t help but love. The map, the wish she thought he betrayed her for, drifts to the ground, discarded, as he kicks his sword up into his grasp. “Fear me, if you dare!”
Heavy and cold in her gut, the dread returns as she watches their silhouettes duel through the flames, Perrito staring nervously from her side. Puss is the best swordsman she’s ever met, a match to her own capabilities, but Death pushes him to fight at his very limit. He holds his own until the wolf redoubles his efforts, leaving him reeling. Kitty sucks in a terrified breath as the sickle swings towards his middle, because no, it can’t, he can’t-!
The joy she feels at the gatito blade protecting her dear Puss is immeasurable. It gives her hope. Hope that mounts as he lunges at Death. Hope that blooms when he strikes his weapons in twain.
Hope that dies with a scream that wrenches from her chest when she sees Puss hit the ground and the sickle that follows an instant later.
He jerks once when the blow falls, then does not move again. “PUSS!” she screams, Perrito yowling with her. There’s an agonizing, drawn out beat where she can’t reach him, feeling the scalding heat of the flames even from a foot away.
Then they dissipate and Kitty’s moving faster than she knew she could, throwing herself at Puss’s side. Heart hammering in her throat, paws shaking as they tear off her mask, she frantically checks all over for any response, checks his heart, his breathing. But he’s so horribly, utterly still, that hole in his middle like a lodestone. Her ear on his chest hears no beat, her paw over his muzzle feels no breath. Everything reeks of blood.
He’s dead. The inside of her head fills with ringing.
Kitty can feel tears roll down her face, but every piece of her has gone numb. Her mind swims with a daze of memories of the past days, watching Puss change and changing alongside him, falling in love all over again. She sees in her mind’s eye his brilliant eyes and warm smile, his arrogance giving way to sincerity and devotion. She stares blankly down at his sword that’s rolled just beyond his limp grasp, the sword he picked up after dropping the map, earning her tender, vulnerable trust.
Paradoxically, she finds herself wishing that Puss had made that selfish wish, just so that at least he would still be with them...
The fractures in the wishing star slowly fill with scarlet, jarring against the brilliant blue, the sanguine delineations spreading ever wider as Puss’s blood seeps through the crevices.
“Perro,” Kitty intones, voice cold as ice and sharp as steel. “Bring me the wish.”
Death freezes in his tracks. The dog looks between them both for a moment, then takes off behind her. Distantly, she hears, “But, Goldi-”
“No. I don’t need it. D-definitely not like this.”
She ignores them.
“What makes you think I’ll allow that?” Death asks her, looking back to fix one blood red eye upon her.
In a flash, Kitty is on her feet, more steady than she believed she could be with such anguish in her heart, but she feels stronger than a mountain. She stands over Puss’s body, one boot planted behind him and the other lunged out before him and she levels her sword directly at Death. The wolf turns to face her. “Puss in Boots is dead and no wish will change that.”
“I don’t understand,” Kitty hisses out, heavy and grieved. Death cocks his head. “Why?! Did he cheat you? Did the great Puss in Boots escape Death itself when he was meant to die?” Even as she utters the taunt, she doubts if even he could have accomplished such a thing, but what else could explain this macabre confrontation?
“No one ever escapes me when the time comes, gatita. He certainly never did,” the wolf sneers.
“Then why?!” she screams, words reverberating through the silence. “Why would you murder him before his time? How dare you?!”
He does not answer.
Behind her, Kitty hears the patter of Perrito’s steps approaching once more. “You cannot have him,” she informs Death, guarding her Puss with a will stronger than iron, ears pinned back and tail lashing. “Not like this.”
So fast she didn’t even see him move, Death closes the distance between them, his fangs so close she feels his breath hot on her face, his sickle below her jaw a hair’s breadth from her throat. Her heart leaps but she yields not even an inch. Perrito halts just inside her peripherals, alarmed, but then comes closer with the map in his mouth, gravely determined. “I won’t let you,” Death growls from deep in his chest. “You won’t cheat me of-” He cuts himself off.
“Of what?!” Kitty roars. “Of a life you cheated in the first place?!”
Death stares at her expressionlessly. She holds her ground, acutely aware of the blade tickling her fur. She never lowers her sword from his heart, if indeed he has one. For long, uncounted moments, the only sound is the faint stirring wind as the star slowly rises.
Then the wolf retreats, returning the sickles to his hips, stepping back. “So be it,” he states. “If the star gives Puss in Boots his life back, then he may have it.” His eyes narrow coldly. “For however long it lasts.”
He turns and strides away, and Kitty finally breathes again.
Perrito comes up to them, pushing the map hurriedly at her. He’s shivering and despair swims in his wide, blue eyes, but he looks up at Kitty with pleading hope. Her ribs wring a wounded breath from her lungs and she returns to kneeling at Puss’s side. “Do you think...” Perrito murmurs, voice quivering. “Do you think the star can bring Puss back?”
The thought of trying to answer that makes her stomach knot painfully tight. She says only, “If it can, it will.” She looks down at the map, the words appearing before her and the irony strikes her that she’s making the wish she intended to from the beginning, only in a way she never imagined. She’s wishing for someone she trusts- not in someone new the star would make for her, nor in someone old the star would change for her, but in someone dear she found true trust in, no magic required.
It’s that now she needs him back, now that he’s been stolen from her.
Kitty looks down at Puss, his eyes a dull mockery of their once gleaming emerald as they stare sightlessly at the heavens and she allows herself to cry for a moment. Then she tightens her grip on the map and reads. “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” The iridescence of the star whirls below them. She draws in a deep breath, thick with the threat of tears.
“I wish for Puss to live once more!”
Death, who had walked to the very edge of the star, huffs out a single breath, then vanishes.
The whirlpool of colors converge directly below Puss’s prone form and the wishing star shudders. Like a wilting flower, the vibrancy begins to leech from the outer edges, the points of the star starting to drop down, all of the star’s energy and shape leading up towards Puss now. Kitty clings to him. To her left, she hears the bears cry out in alarm, their claws scraping in a vain attempt to grasp the surface. “No, no- We’re gonna fall!” Baby yelps.
“Wait, quit squirming!” Goldi snaps. “Go with it! This way we can get back to the ground.” Kitty spares a glance to see the group slide inelegantly down to one of the points then fall down, hopefully not too far. The slant is so severe now even Kitty can feel it, though Puss stays perfectly level.
In a sudden instant, Perrito loses his grip and falls away with a yelp. Kitty finally tears her eyes from Puss to snatch his paw lightning quick and keep him safe, his weight making her strain even more to hold onto Puss, to stay at his side. She meets Perrito’s eyes and the fear and intensity in them.
“Kitty!” he cries, tremulous but determined. “The star is still rising!” The dog is right, she sees. “We have to drop down before it’s too far up. We could die!” She looks between him and Puss in horror. How could he ask for something like that, how could he ask her to leave him? But Perrito’s gaze stays steady and grounding. “We have to trust the star to do its work,” he tells her.
A long moment passes where they stare at each other, then Kitty blinks the tears from her eyes and nods once. With one more look back at Puss, she releases her grip on him and steers them as best she can down to the nearest point. They drop from there and Kitty knows Perrito was right; any longer and the fall would have likely been too far for the puppy, even if Kitty herself could have managed.
With wide eyes, they watch as the wishing star begins to crumble apart from the outside in, breaking into fine, glittering shards as all its power condenses into one blindingly bright pinpoint of light in the center. It holds there for a heartbeat, Kitty’s anxious anticipation filling her with dizziness and nausea, then it rises up and the last piece of the star breaks away with a silent sigh.
In the absence of the wishing star’s glory, the night is startlingly black, but her sharp eyes still manage to pick out Puss’s shape against the sky. Thank God he doesn’t simply drop- he does fall, but gradually, as if carefully lowered down, and by the time his back meets the ground in the middle of the crater, Kitty is only a few paces from him, Perrito not far behind.
She rushes to him with a hoarse cry of his name and she’s never seen a more wonderful sight than those green eyes shifting to meet hers.
Kitty scans him all over with trembling paws and a scrutinizing stare. His chest rises and falls in a sharp staccato. He blinks as his eyes dart all around them. Puss is alive.
A sob of pure joy bursts from her.
The fur of his middle is still dark and matted with tacky, terrifying blood, but the open wound at the center has been replaced by an ethereal light. Two inches long and near an inch wide, the hole in Puss’s chest is now filled with the same opalescent brilliance of the star. A lingering mark of a magic so strong it healed the dead.
Kitty refrains from touching the spot despite the way it snags at her attention. She still burns with fear for him and his wellbeing and wouldn’t dare risk hurting him. Assured, now, that her wish was truly granted, Kitty cradles his face between her paws and calls his name softly. Perrito gently nudges his nose against his paw which tenses and jerks. He doesn’t seem entirely aware of their presence.
Puss’s chest heaves frantically and his pupils are as thin as a claw scratch. He shakes all over like a wind torn leaf and scrabbles at the ground with aborted movements and Kitty feels like crying all over again. Perrito sets his head down on Puss’s chest and Kitty follows his lead, grasping his shoulders gently. The little dog murmurs soothing things to him as they try to steady Puss in Boots, only just dragged back to the land of the living.
Kitty doesn’t know if it takes one minute or ten, but Puss starts to breathe a bit deeper and his eyes land on them with recognition. “Everything’s alright, Puss, you’re okay.” Perrito’s voice is somehow so calm despite everything and Kitty decides he makes a good therapy dog. “You’re back with us. We’re here for you.”
“Sí, my dear. Please, what can we do? What- How do you feel?” The question feels foolishly, hopelessly inadequate in the face of all that happened, but she can find no other words.
Puss turns onto his side with a shudder, eyes wild. “Cold- it’s cold, it’s cold...” he gasps. He feels warm to her touch; not enough time had passed for- for his body to go cold. But Kitty can’t fathom how it could feel to die then be brought back to life and not for a moment does she consider teasing or debating his assertion.
She pulls his cape tight around him instead. Fighting to master the terrified tension in her paws, she tries to rub warmth into his arms with careful pressure. Perrito bundles himself even closer to Puss. She feels so helpless watching Puss struggle with nothing else she can do- But if this is all she can do for him, she vows not to leave his side for an instant.
At some point- time has lost its meaning to Kitty- Goldi and the bears appear beside them. “Oh my God,” Goldi rasps in an undertone. “It actually worked. He’s back.” Kitty’s lip trembles and she fights back the stinging in her eyes. Louder this time, directed at them, Goldi calls, “We can help you bring him back up out of the crater.”
Kitty throws her a sharp glare, needled by the desperate instinct to keep Puss safe and away from them-! But she eases back at the shocked sorrow on each of their faces and the earnest compassion shining in Goldi’s eyes.
“We should get back up over the edge, at least,” Perrito agrees softly. Kitty concedes with a sigh. She could get him up herself, but not without jostling him far more than she wants. The strength and size of the bears would carry him much more steadily. And Puss would be better off somewhere other than the cold, barren dirt of the crater.
They lift his blood stained form onto Mama’s back, Kitty never straying from his side, then together the seven of them climb from the empty wound in the earth where the wishing star landed long ago.
They lower him once more in the verdant grass at the base of a tree where he curls. It makes him seem... small in a way Kitty’s never seen before. Puss still shivers miserably, and she hears his teeth chatter once or twice, but his breathing starts to even out, still labored, yet recovering. Goldi and the bears give them space, then there’s nothing for Kitty and Perrito to do but wait for their friend, offering whatever comfort they can.
It takes time for the cold grip of death to pass, the stars slowly revolving overhead as Puss in Boots recovers from his own demise, but it does pass in the end. Kitty and Perrito keep watch as he gradually returns to himself, eventually offering clipped replies to their concerned murmuring, assuring them he’s alright.
At length, Puss leverages himself to sit upright, a worried but unnecessary paw from Kitty hovering at his shoulder. He stays stooped for several long moments, the brim of his hat hiding his eyes, but she knows with certainty that Puss is staring at the starlight filled remnant of Death’s killing blow. After a devastating, all too overwhelming sense of impossibility swept her away from the moment the wolf stabbed him, unforgiving reality finally reasserts its weight on all their shoulders.
“Kitty...” Puss lifts one paw to barely brush, so feather light, over the mark in his middle. He lifts his head to stare at her, his gaze heavy with exhaustion and something that might be awe. Then his expression twists and he drags in a harsh breath. “You had to give up your wish for me...”
The words stop Kitty in her tracks, tripping her like an unexpected blow. Her jaw shuts with a click. She was so ready for him to thank her fiercely and joyously, to relish in being alive with her. Her tongue was already waiting with, You’re welcome, of course I wouldn’t let you die, I’m so glad you’re alright. “I’m so sorry,” is what he says instead as Kitty gapes in shock, and she registers then the guilt and remorse painted across his face.
Oh, Puss...
She grips his paws tight in her own and she will not stand for this look in his eyes- filled with despair even as he refuses to avert his gaze from her. “Puss, escúchame, I didn’t give up anything.” The words come out a whisper, but she says them with force. “I wouldn’t have wished for anything different. I already found someone I can trust, someone I wouldn’t trade for all the world.” Puss’s eyes glow, stunned and ardent. “And there was nothing I wanted more than to have him at my side again.”
With a shudder, he wilts, the guilt washing away. “Gracias. Gracias Kitty.” He gives her a look so fond she yearns to keep it in her heart forever. But it doesn’t last, broken off by his tense glance over one shoulder, then the other. Unease gnaws at him, and Kitty doesn’t have to wonder at its cause.
“The wolf is gone,” she informs him. She balks at referring to him as Death right now, so soon after- “He said he’d let you have the life the star would give you.” She refuses to repeat the wolf’s final threat. It’s self evident anyway.
The reassurance makes Puss unwind, but the distress doesn’t entirely leave him. Kitty can tell this has left a mark on him that can’t simply be erased by Death giving up the chase, something less physical than the small, glowing mark on his chest. Puss rubs at the spot absently, as though a phantom sensation lingers there. “I didn’t expect to escape that encounter with my life...” he mutters, then releases an abrupt, half hearted laugh. “Which I suppose I technically didn’t.”
“Is that why you wanted nine lives again?” Perrito asks him tentatively, and Puss meets his eye with open, gentle acceptance. “Because Death was after you?”
Puss sighs heavily, gathering himself. “It was more selfish than self preservation alone,” he admits, gaze flashing to Kitty for an instant. His one true love, she called it, and that was true not so long ago. But now... “I wanted to be the legendary Puss in Boots again, but then I realized there was a life worth more to me than that one, a life I couldn’t wish for because it was already right in front of me.” Kitty can’t keep the smile from her face, her heart as weightless as a bird on the wing. “It’s a life I must fight for, one I’ll never stop fighting for.”
Kitty wraps her arm around him, pulling them tightly together. “And you won’t be fighting alone,” she declares, the sound wavering with so much emotion and love.
“Right!” Perrito barks, tucking himself between them where they make room for him, without evening thinking. “We weren’t gonna let you go when we could do something about it! That’s what friends are for!” Puss tosses his head back, his hat feather bobbing, and laughs rich and heartfelt. “We couldn’t go on adventures without you, after all!”
“Adventures, hmm?” Puss purrs, arching a brow at the puppy. “Is that your plan for our little team?”
“Team friendship, right?”
“We’re workshopping that,” Puss and Kitty interject in unison.
Kitty grins and squeezes Puss’s shoulder. “Well, did you have other plans for this life you’ve fought so hard for?” There’s levity in her voice, but genuine care also. It matters to her to know how Puss in Boots wants to live his life now, no longer just a legend, but someone more than that.
Puss caresses his paw over her cheek and Kitty’s heart skips a beat. “As long as it’s a life spent with you,” he ruffles the top of Perrito’s head affectionately, “both of you, there’s nothing more I could wish for.”