Outside Pinkies Pleasure Palace, Chief street was a dark dead river, lit here and there by the aging arc sodium's that lined it. Pricetown was asleep, but these days Pricetown never slept too deeply. There's was too much to worry about, too much to do, and there was a fight brewing. Cousin emerged from the alley beside Pinkies and approached the side door where he knew Minx would be waiting. He was disappointed to find that she wasn't, but all the same excited to see that she hadn't forgot about him. Minx had been out, and she had left him something. A bowl of heavenly scraps and a little something extra. The extra, the peyote, eased his mind and gave him respite from the many voices, sharpening them into one voice. One soothing voice to ease the aches of his psychically battered brain. With the scraps down and the drugs doing their work, he rested on the step and listened. The voice spoke to him amidst the sound of the distant Howling Tower, graced him with what wisdom he could understand. It was the voice of the vortex, the song of the cyclone, and 'she' had brought it. 'She' was even then sitting in a room high above him, working on the final touches of a gift for a far away friend. Cousin knew that it would see use long before that friend got to see it, but that would be fine all the same. It was being made to be used.
Then he heard it, the thing he had truly come to hear. The humming. It lilted down to him from on high, just as he knew it would. The discordant sing song nothing tune of the inventors humming while she worked. If the peyote soothed Cousins mind, then it was the humming that rubbed the balm of it into every crease of his brain. Catnip created and when Catnip created, others followed suit. Cousin could never look at her though, even if he liked the music she made, Catnip was just too... Brilliant. She made cousin nervous with her strange nature. No one else saw it, but then again no one else had cousins gift. Cousin could see. Cousin knew. He let the ballad of invention wash over him, and let the foreign images play out in his head. A tiny lady with spots, a man in a suit of armor, a train, a farm, a terrifying girl with several arms, chocolate, and so many more faces and things. Beneath it all, deep down, there was the machine. The roiling mass of gears and cogs and steam and boilers. There was a shifting maze of sparks and wires and all manner of invention. The great engine, a young God. More interestingly, there was another younger God present. It flitted formless and weightless, but not presenceless, from place to place. A small thing filled with power. Filled with potential. The song of Catnip was the song of this other.
The door next to him creaked open and bumped him, only shaking him from his musings a little until he heard the voice.
"Hey! Finally decided to show up you old Coy? I see you found what I left for you. Silly old dog." Minx said, splitting the quiet night with her gentle voice. Cousin rolled his head over to look up at her and grinned langorously. The coyote blinked slowly at the images fleeing from his ken in favor of the image above him. She scratched his ear and he rolled over to expose an unusually well kept belly ready to be rubbed. The humming was soothing and the images were enlightening, but the ministrations of his favorite human were just divine. No coyote had ever known such pleasure as the ear scratches or belly rubs of a favored human.
"I see a field of roses in bloom..." He said. Minx hadn't asked for a horoscope, but it seemed he was going to give one anyway. "I see trees of green, a faraway place. An engine which screams and the loss of all hope. Trials begin, blood will flow, resolve will be tested. Victory precipitates a dizzying fall. The outsider stirs, his siblings wait beyond. First will come the Void Star, the council will call him soon. Plague strider will stop him and be reshaped in her despair. My vision dims, and thus the mirror of prophecy is darkened."
Cousin lay were he was for a long time watching Minx with his clouded eyes, and she watched him right back while she sorted through what he'd told her. The prophecy wasn't meant for her but it wasn't really meant for the person it was for either. A general horoscope then? Minx scratched the top of his head again and his eyes cleared. Soon he was grinning up at her with his daffy dogs grin, and asking if there would be anymore food or peyote of, god forbid, "smash." Above, Catnip's humming went on uninterrupted, her work nearly at its end and soon to face all the trials it's future owner would put it through himself.