Challenge #01140-C043: The Trouble With Kittens

(Let's just ignore the timescales and consider an alternate dimension where everything is the same but they exist at the same time)

Paris, home of the Miraculous Ladybug, Chat Noir... and now, Maestro Francoeur.

Or, if you haven't encountered that show yet, Maestro Francoeur and regular black cats -- Gallifreya

[AN: O man... I so dearly want to get my hands on Miracuous Ladybug... but all the regular channels seem to have dried up of late. Someone, somewhere, has been really clever. If anyone wants to hook me up, let me know.]

Life with Francoeur was never simple, and never routine. He could be relied upon to sing like an angel, and play any instrument that crossed his path, but on his time off...

He tended to find trouble. Often, before it was lost.

This trouble started small, of course. So small that nobody noticed. The sight of Francoeur holding something carefully in one pair of his hands hardly merited any attention at all. Raoul would later get the blame for not noticing.

Food was always plentiful in L'Oisseau Rare, so nobody noticed some of it seemingly vanishing without a trace.

What was noticed, eventually, after months of small, strange things that were ignored because of the resident seven-foot-flea... was the smell.

Carlotta was determined to track it down. It smelled like back-alley male impatience behind a much less classy establishment than her own Cabaret. She wanted to find those responsible and, if she had her way, burn them at the stake.

She tracked it down to the basement labyrinth that Francoeur had taken over and made into his home. And found the aforementioned flea in the middle of a living blanket of black cats and kittens.

"Francoeur," Carlotta sighed.

"Joli chat," murmured Francoeur.

He was taught about litter trays very quickly.

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