Mittens was one of a batch of six kittens, a fairly large family in cat terms but not unreasonably so. Two of the kittens had been sleek and black, like their mother, Waterloo. One had been white, stocky and fluffy, like their father, Trafalgar. The other three had inherited fur that was a patchwork of black and white, one of them with a mostly white face except for an amusing black blotch on her nose, one of them having inherited the amount of fur of both her parents combined to create something that looked like a feather duster possessed by a hyperactive poltergeist. Mittens was one of the black kittens. As far as anyone could tell, he had been named Mittens because of his complete lack of mittens. The only parts of him that weren't black were his eyes, an emerald green that glowed eerily at night when he was out hunting mice through the forest, his soft pink paw pads speckled black, and the tip of his nose and ears where his fur had thinned out slightly to give them a tinge of pink.

His name had been given to him by one Sir Randolph, Paladin of Spatula, Head Templar Knight of the Casandoran Temple to Spatula. Randolph's previous title had been that of Captain of the Third Irregulars of the Ludicrously Heavily Armoured Knights, so called because their armour was slightly less ludicrously heavy than the regular divisions, meaning that they could move without the clockwork contraption that required constant magic energy poured into it, which had gotten awkward when they ran out of mages. After the Defeat-Goddess Spatula had appeared to them and miraculously sped their retreat from a doomed campaign, even allowing them to return home in time to aid the evacuees of the now demon-infested city, the entire division had converted to the Spatulate faith and devoted themselves to the life of a Temple Knight Order. The decision reportedly had nothing to do with the fact that the Ludicrously Heavily Armoured Knights had fired them all for failing their mission, or that the Spatulate faith did not forbid drinking as long as it didn't get out of hand, or wenching as long as you weren't in one of the Orders dedicated to purity and innocence and the wenches didn't mind being wenched.

The main duty of the Temple Knights, as dictated by High Priestess Tracy, was to look after the Sacred Animals. Waterloo, as a cat of pure blackness, the colour of the Goddess Spatula's raven-feathered, bloodstained wings and luscious flowing black hair that shined like obsidian, had been the original Sacred Animal. Trafalgar had been the Third Irregulars' mascot and source of moral support, a stray cat who followed them around everywhere whether they liked it or not, and had not stopped following them around when they changed vocation. After the two cats had kittens, the event was declared a holy miracle by Tracy, who knew that her pure and divinely innocent Sacred Cat would never do the usual things that led to cats having kittens, and therefore it must have been an Immaculate Conception. The six Sacred Kittens were treated as the greatest portent in the Spatulate Holy Calendar, which admittedly didn't have much going on in it, they were all declared the highest-ranking in the order and it was the duty of the Paladins to care for them as they would an incarnation of the Goddess herself.

Which was awkward when they kept escaping all the time.

Despite Tracy's attempts, the Sacred Kittens had yet to perform any divine miracles, and reacted to being fed sacred herbs only by throwing up violently. They did, however, have the same uncanny ability to slink into the shadows and dart unseen into the night as any other cats, resulting in many a Paladin's Holy Quest to Rescue the Sacred Animal, only to find them curled up on the lap of the High Priest of the Infernal Judge of the Underworld who Casts the Guilty into Flaming Pits, a cranky old man who had a soft spot for kittens and had been secretly feeding them for several weeks now. The exploits of Mittens and his siblings had formed as many holy alliances as they had started minor holy wars in the Temple District of the bustling trade city of Casandora. Mittens was always the most adventurous, though, as well as the quickest to learn new tricks and craftiest at not being caught by the humans who ran clanking after them, calling their names at the tops of their voices.

Mittens had also learnt his fair share of magic. Not only had he been around a lot of Temples of deities devoted to scholarly learning and the mystic arts, narrowly evading more than one attempt to kidnap him and turn him into a Familiar, he had also discovered the other world of magic, the world that humans didn't know about. It was a world that had its own deities and legendary heroes and great wizards who had their dedications scratched or sprayed into the monuments of the humans as well as the trees and rocks, or performed in the great narration of the subtle positioning and slow movements of all the neighbourhood cats. This was the private world belonging only to cats. This was where Mittens learned about hunting and stealing, about his place in the hierarchy of cats, with a politics that made an Imperial High Court look crude and unsophisticated, about how to vie for a higher status, and about the magic of the shadows and the other worlds within them. Mittens turned out to be a powerful mage, especially in the art of creating portals to those other worlds. His adventures had begun to leave his siblings behind while he found new friends.

In the void of shadow between the worlds, he met his first Warpcat, and found out that he was taking his first steps towards becoming one.

The Warpcat was the most majestic beast Mittens had ever seen, truly a Prince among cats. The size of a panther, with the same sleek black fur, his features were more like that of another green-eyed black cat, except his eyes blazed with flame in the wild, roaring darkness of the Void. From his strong-muscled back protruded a set of raven's wings on which he flew freely through the chaos in the gaps from world to world. Behind his long feathery whiskers, a collection of tentacle-like fronds lined his jaw. They waved lazily around him, feeling the vibrations of the ether and the small, primitive creatures that flitted about them, weaving through dimensions Mittens couldn't see so that they appeared to phase in and out of existence. His eyes painted patterns with their trails as he told Mittens of the outer expanse of the Universe, of the many kinds of cats there, of great warrior-Warpcats with golden fur who were masters of shape-changing and knew the secret of magical nuts from a frozen wasteland, of the disappearing Cheshire Cats, the cats who lived in the dreamlands of Ulthar and those who had the powers of deities, and the legendary cats of Schrodinger who could exist in multiple places and states of being at once using their glamours and mirage. So Mittens understood that he, too, had powers beyond those of a mundane feline and that it was his duty to travel the Universe until he understood his full potential.

He had already been wandering for a long time before he met Surtur in the volcanic cave. He had been out into the depths of space, traveled through time and into the boundless lands of dream, seen worlds unused and prototype, even sneaked into the lands beyond death. He had still only met a couple of deities, though, and certainly no Godslayers, who mostly kept to themselves unless spurred into action in situations such as Surt's. He had met Spatula once, but she never told him the story of how she first met the Fire Giant. It had been rather an embarrassing story and a disaster all round, as many of her stories tended to turn into, so she didn't see the point of telling a visitor who probably didn't need to know. Instead, she gave him a few tips about what exactly he was supposed to do if he wanted to pretend to represent the deity he was apparently hallowed to. After a brief meeting, where they enjoyed a nice picnic with tea, cakes and daintily cut sandwiches under the crumbling arches of an Empire that burned in front of their eyes, they agreed that Mittens really wasn't good at representing her. He found the whole thing rather depressing and overly fatalistic, whereas he felt he was only just beginning a life that was going to many places. Spatula promised to make an excuse for him to Tracy so she would leave him alone on his clearly very personal quest.

Unfluffykins the Pure White Kitten with the Miraculous Healing Purr became the next most sacred kitten in the litter, and eventually took over responsibility for the Temple when the Paladins were summoned away on a holy crusade. Everyone was happy except the tax collectors, who the kittens never took any notice of.