Yellowfang stares at the scene in front of her. A twoleg woman lies on the ground, unmoving. It shocks Yellowfang to see that the milky, glazed look in her eyes. Like my son when I killed him, she thinks.

Wikipedia: We are in Egypt, August the 12th, 30BC.

Yellowfang: *yowls in alarm* Are those adders slithering over there?!

Wikipedia: Actually, they are asps. The dead woman is Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt. She committed suicide because Octavian's  army was winning against her own forces.

Yellowfang: Her Clan was losing, so the cowardly leader decided to join twoleg StarClan. What a poltroon.

Wikipedia: What I am about to tell you is very largely based off of an extract from a twoleg website called Shmoop, and an extract from Mark Antony's Biography by Plutarch, a Greek philosopher and biographer.

Cleopatra had ordered Charmian and Iras, her servants, to dress her in her finest robes, with all the royal ornaments. Another servant brought her a basket of figs that contained asps—poisonous snakes also known as the Egyptian Cobra.

Charmian and Iras are kissed goodbye, and Iras falls, dead. Cleopatra herself takes an asp from the basket and lets it bite her twice, and promptly perishes. 

Yellowfang: Wait wait wait wait wait. Why is nothing happening? She's just lying there, still. *flicks tail towards the dead queen* Aren't twolegs going to realise and come in and carry her to bury her? 

Wikipedia: Please do not interrupt me when I am talking. The time machine does have the ability to pause time temporarily too, you ignorant simpleton. I'll just read the original passage from 'Parallel Lives' out to you.

'The messengers came at full speed, and found the guards apprehensive of nothing; but on opening the doors, they saw her stone-dead, lying upon a bed of gold, set out in all her royal ornaments. Iras, one of her women, lay dying at her feet, and Charmion, just ready to fall, scarce able to hold up her head, was adjusting her mistress's . And when one that came in said angrily, "Was this well done of your lady, Charmion?" "Extremely well," she answered, "and as became the descendant of so many kings"; and as she said this, she fell down dead by the bedside.'

Yellowfang: Well then.

Time machine: *beeps in warning*

Wikipedia: Look, it looks like the popular suggestion that Cleopatra committed suicide by asp bites is true. If only twolegs knew of me. I'd be famous. And trapped in a science lab. Oh, and unless you want to be watching funeral planning for the next few weeks, let us leave.

The two cats leap into the time machine one after the other.

Written by Saph! 🍩✨