Cattania.

[Yva]

She'd just been singing, and it was an old song, one she'd heard the mistress sing before when she was working in her sanctum. She simply couldn't understand what had been so wrong with it. She was fairly certain she had a lovely singing voice - it was Yva's, after all, she'd modeled it after her like she'd modeled her face after her - but the humans had been so upset, especially that stupid spindly one with the pink creatures wobbling inside of her, making her fat.

Truly, just a song.

So how was it she was tied behind a dreadsteed being dragged face first through the streets of Stormwind? Every cobblestone raking at her face, tearing away her facade and exposing expanses of demonic flesh? Her fingernails dug into the ground, or tried, but a dreadsteed was a powerful creature, and the shadow shackles were so tight around her feet.

No, hooves. Without her glamour, it was hooves.

Pain.

She screamed, screamed as loud as she'd ever screamed before. She hadn't heard her mistress coming. She was sitting by the fountain near the bank singing for all of them, box listeners and locals alike, and then the pressure began. Something snagged around her ankles, winding and coiling, thick ropes of shadow and ice. Fear then, as she peered up, staring into the blazing eyes of her maker turned captor. Yva Darrows was angry. She already looked a fright - there was blood on her hands, some of it dried around her neck - and she was channeling every bit of her rage . . .

Rage that HE wasn't home, not even really rage at her. She suffered for HIS absence.

Every bit of her rage at her. There was a cold smile on the warlock's face as she dug her heels into the horse's bony sides, and then they were off . . . with Cattania dragging behind them like so much meat. Through the city, to the apartments Cattania'd come to think of as her own before the twins had came to town. By the time they reached the front steps of the building, her chest had been flaying wide by the harsh stone paths. Yva reached down and grabbed her hair to pull her up the steps, dragging her with the strength only great fury can fuel. Cat twisted and writhed, pleaded for mercy, but there was no mercy left.

There was only a slamming door and finality.

It started when Yva sat on her back, humming that horrible song - ice and fire and wind - and smearing her face into the carpet.

"You were given freedoms and you abused them. Now those freedoms are gone. You've abused my family."

The dagger started cutting thereafter, working down the lines of her wings until there were no wings, only fel blooded stumps on her back. Screams, screeches, and promises made no difference. Yva made sure to put the severed, leathery flaps by her face, to show her how she'd been maimed. Cat whimpered, trying to buck her mistress off, but it proved a futile effort, especially when the dog was summoned, appearing in a haze of black and purple smoke that reeked of char.

"Flaaaaaadhun," she hissed at him. "You are not needed here."

Shut your mouth, Nothing. I am here to do her bidding, as you ought to have done. Foolish young thing. You have no idea how fortunate you were.

His voice, so dark and low and deep, piped straight into her brain.

"Mistressssss! The dog issss falsssssse. He can sssssspea . . . " Her words were lost as the felhound charged with a snarl, his jaws clamping down on her face.

It was the beginning of a very, very long evening.

And by the end of it, she was no more.

*****

In the Abyss.

Some thought demons could not weep, could not feel, but the thing that was Cattania, that would be Cattania again, knew misery, the likes of which she'd never known before. She was nothing even here - her tongue and wings had been kept on the other plane, her form could not coalesce - and all she could do was wait to be summoned again.

She was fairly sure it would take an enternity or more.

And so she did what her type did best.

She plotted. And she grew angry.

*****

They were pinned on a rack in Dalaran, drying in the afternoon sun. Silver sigils of binding had been painted along the edges, making them beautiful, preventing them from disappearing into the void to join their other parts. Yva'd used clothes pins to keep them spread so they didn't shrivel during the ordeal.

It took five whole days, but by the time she was through, she had a new trophy to put above her mantle, one that - when she looked at it - made her laugh like an overjoyed child.