Of course now that the summary is written I’ve found room for a prequel, which I haven’t fleshed out as much, but at least the characters are almost fully formed.  Then I was looking for something else and found a random txt file and inside was this weird snippet of dialogue:

What A Cat Knows About War 1671

The only difference between me and the cat outside my window is that I am slightly warmer.  Past the calico, snow takes the color away from the landscape. In a few minutes the men’s vehicles will take the color away from even the snow, turning the fields into a muddy plain.  The cat is still staring at me, mouthing a silent meow.

“Do you realize your breakfast is getting cold?”

“Sorry,” I mumble, broken from my thoughts.

“That cat is staring at me again.”

“It’s probably hungry.”

“I’ve seen enough mice around here to feed an army.”

“Maybe they are.”

“What?”

“Feeding the army,” I said with a piece of toast in my mouth.

I don’t know why it’s in first person but it really reminds me of what I want for the main character in the prequel and if I don’t actually count this dialogue in my word count it’s not entirely cheating right?

Also the year in the title was, I think, completely random, but I looked it up and it’s the year the Ottoman Empire declared war on Poland, who knew (or cared probably)? The story takes place in alt!Earth so it doesn’t really matter what year there was a war, but there is indeed a war.