[A Red Herring has necessary iodine]

Atticus meant to sit for just a moment in the comfy Gothic looking red chair in little Valec’s room.

…Next thing he knew, Viking and Zahir were standing over him and trying to remove a red pickled herring from the mouth of a statue.

Before Atticus could object- a small cat wedged himself between the other Sufi and the golden statue.

“STOP! THAT FISH PROVIDES NECESSARY IODINE-!” It was tiny, musical Matty with his white socks again, and little grey scarf.

“I have your tickets. Flights aren’t safe atm, but I got a contract on a Carnival cruise for most of us. Leave the fish. Please.”

Atticus [in this frequency] was still somewhat put together in his smart green shirt, tie, and pinstripe suit. He reached into his pinstripe jacket pocket to remove a stack of nametags and helpfully wrote “Mihr” on one of them, then placed it neatly beneath his pocket to remind himself & others.

“Where am I going?” he asked, knowing, once again, he was to be excluded from the rest of the group.

“South African radio party boat filled with all the folk musicians and fiddle playing Afrikaner operators you cry over once a week, lately.”

“Why on Earth would I ever-”

“They play Zef after midnight until wake-up,” Matty replied.

“That was not my question, but now I am looking forward to the random radio boat during wartime. How big is the antenna?”

“Jy krap met ’n kort stokkie aan ’n groot leeu se bal,” Matty replied.

“I have no idea what you just said,” replied Mihr.

“Don’t ask. Don’t tell,” replied Matty.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

The Carnival cruise, Matty failed to mention, was for furries.

Mostly from New Jersey.

First, there were no dragons allowed on the stairs. No one would explain why.

Matty was given the finest room as Kitty Secret Intelligence Service Supervisor, but his cover job was playing his guitar for an hour for the furries, who were not convinced he was not “covering” Muse.

Zahir & Viking ended up working on the ship’s chapel, right below the 24/7 Sparkledog Rave, and shared a closet-sized room next to the laundry.

They had no showers, but they could take a ride in one of the Kenmore washers up to twice a day and get free fur softener for the dry cycle.

[They were cautioned to only use luke-warm water and only the gentle cycle on the spin dryer to prevent unnecessary floofing.]

Matty got daily access to the fursuiters’ spa, which includes free catnip oil massage, veterinary care, and even claw clipping by a man dressed like a fancy parakeet.

The chaplains were provided the very worst meal plan of “Autism Buffet,” which consisted of five flavours of Takis, dinosaur nuggets, pizza rolls, hot pockets, salad dressing, and your choice of Mexican Pepsi, orange crush, apple juice, or weirdly specific bottled water.

Matty got a special pass to eat beside them but could not share his salmon and fiddlehead fern with caviar with his friends, or he would get kicked off the ship.

No greater modesty existed before the displaced cat-Pirs of the Mango Madrassa than witnessing human beings in full fursuits.

The real difficulty was they did not expect to be performing polygamous Muslim weddings where the genders of up to five participants were fully unknown.

This was international waters. The furries argued fiqh both Hanafi and Shafi’i. Cruise administration threatened to throw them both overboard if the chapel charter of nondiscrimination was broken.

Furry marriages on a Carnival Cruise may not be always enduring, but they were highly profitable.

Was ‘Spankypants’ male or female? ‘Mr. Fluff’ clearly had breasts, and ‘Big Tail Bertha’ was over 7ft tall, had the voice of a lumberjack, and dressed like an aggressive cow. Why was ‘ZeitenFart’ the ring-tailed cat divorced six times? Was it zulm to allow them to marry ‘Sparklehoof’…?

They were all Muslim. They ate halal, studied Qur’an, and it would be zulm to ask them to remove their coverings, as many indicated they were indeed fully naked under their fan-cooled, but still sweltering, fursuits.

No marriage was gay or straight. All the participants believed Zahir & Viking just had very expensive ears rather than being naturally cats, and no one knew them outside of being the cat chaplains on their cruise ship

[who were desperately praying to Allah that performing furry Nikkah could not be used as blackmail later]

…and the very worst thing of all was when they discovered why Matty sent their friend with the South Afrikaners.

Marchosias taught the furry community Islam, and Matty was protecting him.

Not only was there a Marchosias themed book club where canid-shaped furries exchanged rare writings by the idiot writing these stories, there was a sparkle-dog dance club, and an entire “Furries on Ice” tribute to Mango and Antony learning how to love.

The plot made little sense and there was glitter everywhere, yet the pyrotechnics made up for it during the scenes with the unnecessary trapeze act, leading to the fictional reveal of the abiding love of Arthur Schopenhauer for al-Ghazali.

Rose petals fell from the ceiling to the sound of a nightcore rendition of “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron.

But also.

The shockwave of the bombing of the giant needle way back in the United Kittydom rocked the entire ship.

The Mango Madrassa cats no longer worried about “blackmail.”

Mihr, in his riddler suit, still on the boat of South Afrikaners, simply woke up Elsweyr in Alaraf after the shockwave, as per usual, after falling asleep during The Kiffness playing cat music on deck.

[He was already used to sleeping through other people’s crises.]

While the only survivor at ground zero of the United Kittydom was encased in lead, with a mouth already filled with the protection of the red herring and all its essential iodine.