Boxes. They were everywhere. All of the human's toys had been hidden away, perhaps because Leo had played with them one too many times. The other cats didn't care. To them, it was a playground. Endless boxes to play in, push over, and hide inside.

But to Aries, it was a battleground. He would not let Leo push him off of a box, ever again! He had dignity. He was much better than that flea-ridden, show-off named-

"Leo!" Cancer hissed. Leo was climbing. He went up and up, to the tallest stack of boxes, until it almost looked like his fur brushed the ceiling.
"I'm the king of the world!" Leo said. Aries scoffed. Leo was too full of himself.

"Careful!" Cancer warned, her eyes wide with worry.

Leo rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to fall!" He assured her, sitting down with his bushy golden tail wrapped around his paws. "It's cool up here!"

"Oh, really?" Aries demanded. He hopped up on a box. "You think you're the only one who can climb, huh?"

Leo nodded confidently. "Careful, Aries, you might get a boo-boo!" He mocked. Aries flattened his ears and focused on climbing. He hooked his claws in the soft cardboard, pulling himself up, and up, and up...

He was almost at the top. Leo leaned over him, a smug look plastered on his face. As Aries got to the final box, Leo grabbed his paws and flung him off. Then Aries was falling, down, down, down...

Crash. He landed on a box. The top caved right in, sending Aries crashing into the contents inside.

"You saved our toys!" Cancer squealed. Aries shook his head, scrambling out of the box. Inside, the human had tucked some nice, human pelts that Cancer liked to sleep on.

Cancer dashed over and peered into the box. Then she sighed, "Oh. It's just pelts."

"It's fine. Human won't punish us with the toys in the box for long!" Leo promised.

As he spoke, the human appeared from upstairs. He stopped to pet Cancer for a moment, then grabbed Leo and lifted him off the box. He picked up the box that Aries had broken and carried it away.

"Hey, where are you going with that?" Aries demanded, following him. Human brought the box outside, ignoring him. The human didn't seem to understand talking. Simple creature.

Once the box was safely loaded in the monster, Human returned to get more boxes. "Our toys!" Aries cried, "Where are you going?"

"What a pitiful dumb creature." Leo meowed. "It doesn't understand anything!"

"Human is a he, not an it." Cancer corrected softly. "I'm sure he'll bring back some new toys for us, right, Aries?"

Aries snorted. "Sure."

Human came back, taking more boxes with him. He brought them back out to the monster and stuffed their toys away. He repeated the process several times, until Aries got bored of watching.

He padded away to find a good box to sleep on. He didn't mind the toys being boxed up anyway; he wasn't fond of toys. He preferred the outdoors, where he could run and be free without the human telling him what to do. He fell asleep, dreaming of being a wildcat.