The coffee machine purred and bubbled on the counter in a well if ecletically furnished 3 bedroom apartment. Japanese zen warred with Goth grunge, all meticulously arranged and well kept. Midori, lithe and elegant in her gold kimono, paced nearby, glancing impatiently at the gurgling machine. A small chime sounded as the purring stopped, provoking a small scoff from the sexy Japanese coed as she hurries to pour the dark blend into a ceramic hello kitty mug. Sipping delicately, she rubs her eyes and sits at the dark wood coffee dining table, staring tiredly into the black fluid.

Claret, black hair teased to razor spikes and dressed to the black on black Gothic nines, slams the front door open and stammers in with a cloud of menthol smoke and heavy liquor in her wake. Midori glared at her for only a moment before resuming her sip and stare vigil over her coffee. Claret, laughing at her own inability to maintain an upright posture, carefully tries to close the door while simulataneously giggling and shushing herself. After she gets it closed, she slowly staggers to the kitchen.

“Hey! You’e awake! If I’d known we’d both be up at 4am I would’ve invited ya’ll come out with me! The Church has an awesome Halloween contest every year, we totally could of won with the good and evil fairy thing that…” Claret staggered over the the coffee maker and roughly managed to pour herself a cup without spilling most of it on the floor. Midori, in a silent huff she perfected years ago working at the Meido Kafe, stands up, walks back to the front door, opens it, removes the keys adorned with radioactive signs and skulls paraphernalia from the deadbolt, then re-closed and re-locked the door. She then put the keys in a small basket by the door and went back to her seat.

“Oh hey, f*** did I do it again? I’m sorry, I don’t get out much anymore so when I do I kinda go a little wooo,” she said as she sloshed her coffee mug above her head and spilling some on her black gothpunk outfit. “Aww, crap!” Claret stumbles to her feet, lurches to the bathroom and comes back with a big black felt towel. She slowly and with unusual caution attempts to clean off the kitchen floor and herself while on her hands and knees, even going so far as to go back and forth between each task at 20 second intervals.

“It’s fine.” Midori almost whispered, sipping again at her coffee. Claret raises her head above the kitchen counter line.

“It’s ‘fine’?! Last week you-whooaaaa” The sudden motion of rising caused Claret’s eyes to roll back into her head for a moment, her head disappearing behind the counter again. Claret’s voice continued, now slightly reverberated as if pressed directly into the tile floor. “Hey, yeah, you um, last week you totally chewed me out for spilling coffee. You did. Like, really.”

“I know,” Midori huffed, “Given our mutual states I do not wish to exert myself pointing out the obvious at this time.” Midori dabbed at her chin with a small white napkin and resumed sipping her coffee.

Claret’s face rose slowly this time, her eyes just above the counter line with one of her heavily drawn in eyebrows cocked up at angle. “What state are you in, little miss gloomy vagina?”

At the moment, a cacophonous scream comes from the far bedroom. Claret starts up with an almost jump and a small scream of her own only to fall back onto the kitchen tile. Only Midori’s eyes react, fixating nervously on the far bedroom door.

“da F*** was that?!” Claret’s panicked voice echoed from behind the counter.

“Erica.”

Claret managed to get completely to her feet with only a minimum of swaying. “Seriously?”

“Yes. I completed the downloaded content on Skyrim around midnight, and as I prepared for bed,” Midori slightly nodded towards the object of her fixation, “that began.”

“Uh, go F***in’ wake her up then, that’ll stop her. Here, I’ll go do it.” Claret began to stumble down the hallway.

“Don’t.” Midori raised her voice only slightly, but it carried an air of command and presence that made Claret turn back to look at her. “Hobbes resides with her, at the moment.”

“Yeah? So? He always sleeps in that room.” Claret gave a ‘wtf’ gesture with her hands.

Midori rose and walked to meet Claret, keeping her voice hushed. “He is in an agitated state. I have never seen him this wound up before. I attempted to wake Eri when her cries became screams and almost lost my feet at the ankle just walking into the room.”

“Woah, what’s got his panties in a twist?” Claret looked at the far bedroom door, stickers and braille labels now evident at her current distance despite the lone kitchen illumination.

“I am uncertain. The only words I was capable of making out were ‘Chosen’ and ‘Winter Knight’.”

“Woah, The Winter Knight? He’s been MIA for years.”

“You know of this person?” Midori’s voice rose slightly as she spoke.

Claret shrugged. “Just rumors. I know a guy that knows a guy, etc etc that used to sell him dope or suck his ****, that sort of thing.”

Midori sighed. “Vulgarity aside, do you believe that this person will come for Erica?” Midori reflexively looked to the ward flame candles, unlit, and relaxed slightly.

“Dunno. Maybe. Erica hasn’t touched Winter at all, though, not that she’s told me anyway. Why would he come here?”

“I again am uncertain.” Midori looked worriedly again at the her best friend’s bedroom door. Another scream resounded through the apartment, followed by quiet sobbing.

“Jesus,” Claret groaned.

“Indeed,” Midori returned.

“Oh! I got an idea!” Claret rushed to her bedroom, stumbling only slightly, and returned with a small bag of heady but pleasant smelling aroma.

“What is that?” Midori asked, eyeing the bag.

“This,” Claret jostled the bag a little, “was going to be a little prank I was gonna play on you later, but it turned out way stronger than I thought so I’ve been trying to water it down a bit. It’s super catnip!” Claret hands the bag to Midori who holds it warily with both hands. “Go over to the balcony, and on my signal, dump it out.”

Midori opened the glass sliding door to the landing and stepped outside while Claret moved to Erica’s bedroom door and braced her.

“Ready?” Claret whispered loudly. Midori nodded.

“Now!” Claret threw open the door to Erica’s bedroom at the same time that Midori spilled the entire contents of the small cloth bag into a planter full of small leaved plants. A furry bolt of lightning streaked thru the house and descended on the small planter like a tornado of razor blades. Midori quickly stepped back inside and shut the glass door.

Both Midori and Claret watched as the razor tornado gradually slowed down and finally stopped, leaving an unusually large house cat lying sedately admits a carnage of broken pottery and minced greens.

Claret and Midori stood side by side, looking at the aftermath thru the glass balcony door. “Was that my Salvia divinorum?” Claret asked.

“The mint? Yes. I’ll buy you a new one.”

Claret sighed and tapped on the glass. “Hobbes?” The cat looked up, his eyes dilated almost the entire width of his eyes.

“Yeeeees?” Hobbes voice sounded relaxed and calm.

Claret bent down a little to see him better, cupping her eyes with her hands. “What’s happened?”

“Whaaat do you mean?” Hobbes liked his fur nonchalantly.

Claret huffed. “The Winter Knight? Someone’s been Chosen, or something?”

Hobbes grinned a cheshire grin. “Oooh yes! I saw it, I saw it on the lake. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. The White rock lake, just outside the Lady of the Lake’s abode. I go there sometimes, you know, for the gossip. And the food. The fish are horrible but the mice are actually-”

“You saw what, Hobbes?” Claret’s frustration began to rise as the adrenaline of the moment began to fade.

“OOohh, yeeees… I saw the consummation of the New Winter Knight!” Hobbes’ grin stretched past his ears. “Such power, bestowed on a mortal. A waste if you ask me, but intoxicating to behold nonetheless.”

Midori spoke up, arms crossed beneath her ample endowments. “Is that why you were so… feral… earlier?”

“On the nose, little shujenga! You have been learning well.”

“It has nothing to do with that! You saw something intense and you adopted a sympathetic behavior! Basic psychology! Claret does the same thing every time she watches The Craft!” Midori practically shouted at Hobbes thru the glass door, pointing at Claret.

Claret turned to Midori mouth agape in shock. “I do not!”

Midori turned full on towards Claret, calm demeanor lost in the moment. “You do so!”

Claret reared up on her toes to match Midori’s height, sticking her finger in Midori’s face. “Look here you little-”

“Hey!” a voice from behind the two yelling women called out. Both turned sharply towards the hallway to see Erica in her flannel PJ’s slowly walking towards the kitchen. “The neighbors will call the police if you keep that racket up long enough.”

Claret and Midori both moved to Erica, moving to either elbow and escorting her to a dining room chair. Claret then checked over Erica in equal parts medicinal and older sisterly style, while Midori quickly cleaned up the leftover coffee and coffee soaked towel on the kitchen floor.

“Hey, what’s going on, you guys?” Erica’s voice was haggard, worn out, and mildly petulant at Claret’s rough treatment.

Claret put her face directly in front of Erica’s. “What do you know about the Winter Knight?”

Erica leaned her head back away from Claret’s. “Um nothing? Aside from the stories and that there is one, why?”

Claret pulled her face away slightly. “Is that why you were screaming? Where you dreaming about the Winter Knight coming to get you?”

Erica pushed Claret away from her with gentle firmness. “Claret, you’re drunk, that’s ridiculous.”

Claret grabbed hold of Erica’s hands. “Then why were you screaming?”

Erica’s voice rose in frustration. “Because of the nightmares, ok?! I was having nightmares! Blood and Chaos and horrible horrible agony but no Winter and definitely no Winter Knight, ok?!”

Claret backed off, and Midori walked over with a fresh cup of coffee. Midori allowed a moment of silence to pass while Erica sipped. “We were worried about you, Eri-san.” Midori tried to keep her voice calm and concerned without letting her fatigue come across as paranoid or patronizing. “You have been crying and screaming in your sleep for hours. I tried to wake you but Hobbes was extremely agitated and more than usually violent. Which is saying something, I feel.”

“Oh,” the frustration vanished from Erica’s voice, replaced by mild chagrin. “Yeah he gets like that sometimes when I have nightmares. Something about our deal plus my wonky magicky screamy voice sometimes makes him a little… uh… jumpy?”

“You mean actively psychotic instead of calmly sociopathic?” Midori added.

“Uh, yeah. That. Sorry, i probably should have told you, but I thought I had my nightmares licked. Especially the Blood ones. Guess it’s back to Dr. Scott’s dream therapy for me, huh?” Erica laughed a little to herself.

“Iiii’mmm soooorry too, by the by,” came a distant purring voice from the balcony. There was a moment of silence from the Dining room as all three girls turned and tilted their heads in an unspoken ‘really?’ gesture.

“Fiiine, I’m not sorry, I just wanted to participate.” Hobbes muttered as he resumed his eternal grooming. “But mark my words, humans, Big things are on Winter’s Horizon. Big Things…”

Erica spoke up, curiosity already getting the better of her. “Why is that, Hobbes?”

“A new Winter Knight has been Chosen! And by the looks of him and from what I hear on the by, he may be the strongest in a thousand years. And definitely the most interesting.”

Several moments of silence past while the girls waited for him to continue, but Hobbes continued to preen.

“Hobbes!” Erica shouted.

“What?!” Hobbes said in startled surprise.

“Are you gonna tell us who the new Winter Knight is, or just leave us all here in suspense?” Erica half-yelled in exasperation.

The cheshire grin widened again past his ears, and then continued licking.