The rock in the clearing was just as perfect as Fang expected.

No, it was better.

As Fang jumped up onto the black stone dais, it felt warm beneath his paws in the way that roads did for a while after the sun went down. The surface of the stone was etched with countless minute symbols that provided a nice texture against his feet as Fang padded over to the center of the expanse. There were occasional splotches of moss or lichen growing on the stone, but there was plenty of bare rock, and the area in the very center was completely unblemished. Fang circled once, then he loafed, settling down onto his paws to test the sunning spot. It was good. Plenty of open air to sense any coming predators or prey, the unobstructed sky above it for maximal sun exposure, and the stone here even felt a little bit warmer than at the edge.

Experimental napping done, Fang realized that while the center was certainly the best location for serious relaxation, it was not currently graced by the sun's rays. He eyed the western pillar with its flat top bathed in warm sunlight and rose from his loaf. He strode toward the pillar and inspected it. It was tall, almost as tall as the trees of the forest around it, and wrapped thickly with woody vines. Fang stretched up and sunk his claws into the vines, raking downward to sharpen his claws and mark the pillar as his. He suspected that the vines were softer than Alice's wooden fence; rather than light scratches over their surface, his claws left notable furrows in the bark. Satisfied that he would have enough grip, Fang leapt up onto the side of the pillar and shimmied his way up. It was a bit of a climb with no slope or branches to assist, but that sunlight called to him, just demanding to be basked in.

Finally, Fang reached the top, and after a short time spent scrabbling for purchase on the flat stone top, his claws hooked one of the grooves of the carvings this stone was covered with and he pulled himself up. He proudly circled his newly claimed, 2-foot-square territory once with his tail raised as a conqueror's flag, then loafed once again. The early morning air still had a bit of bite to it, and this high up there was a bit of a breeze. The sun was well worth it though, warming Fang from his whiskers to the tip of his tail. Fang closed his eyes and drank it in. As he drifted off to sleep, he happily noticed the sunshine inside him reacting with the sunshine outside, warming him from inside and out as he drifted off into the light, alert sleep of cats.

When Fang woke, the sun was nearing its zenith, and Fang's back felt nice and toasty. The morning chill was gone as well, so Fang rose and stretched, pacing another lap around the flat black capstone, and gave himself a quick grooming to make sure his fur was all in place. Satisfied that all was right with the world, Fang sat down in the noonday sun and flopped onto his side, belly facing the sun, and head fully inverted. His chin pointed to the sky as he rubbed his scent glands on the rock. He liked this new sunning spot, and it belonged to him now. Once he was satisfied that any cat who came across this spot would know it belonged to a bigger and better cat, Fang drifted back to sleep.

This time his sleep was more fitful, and he woke several times to adjust his posture for optimal sunning. Fang was something of a stellar energy connoisseur; he knew how to get maximal enjoyment from the sun no matter the angle. However, this black stone carved with squiggles presented a new problem; Fang had to get the most out of not only the sun but also the slight trickle of sun-but-not-quite-sun coming to him through the rock. This was a good problem to have though, and Fang was quite happy to spend the rest of the day wrestling with this new dilemma. At least until the sun dipped down behind the trees and cast his pillar into shadow.

Fang stood up and looked around, wondering what had obstructed his sun. The tips of his ears peeked up into the light as he did so, and Fang gleefully realized it was almost sunset once again. There was still light on the middle of the dais and the far pillar would still have sun for a while longer, but he could already hear the rustle of nocturnal critters coming to life, along with diurnal life preparing for sleep. However, as he prepared to descend and hunt to his heart's content, Fang realized that someone had moved him to a much higher, unclimbable pillar. After all, he had climbed the other pillar, and there was definitely no way he could climb so high on such a vertical surface, let alone climb down. This was clearly the work of that damnable sunshine-tasting bird that got away. He knew he should have chased down the flashy bastard when he had the chance.

As Fang cursed his imagined assailant, he meowed loudly out at the forest, demanding that one of his unreasonably tall human pets emerge from the forest and act as a platform for him to descend. When the sun had descended enough that only the far pillar still had sun, Fang decided that his demands were going unanswered, and mentally cursed the world for refusing to conform to his will. Eventually, Fang decided that he had to find his own way down. Climbing was clearly out, simply impossible. Jumping was possible, but the pillar was very high, and the rock was hard, there was a good chance he would hurt himself. Blinking down was also possible, but as Fang prepared to do so, nearly all of the sunshine inside him roiled and heated up. The jump down would take just about all of the light within him, and with the sun going down, it would be a cold and miserable night without that internal warmth buoying his spirits. Not to mention he would need his sunshine to hunt in case he found the bird that stuck him here. He would not let this slight go unpunished! He would feast on that prankster bird's entrails!

Fang descended into another spate of vowing revenge on his Avian foe, along with cursing the universe for refusing to answer his demands. Once he emerged, he grudgingly decided he could jump partway and teleport the rest of the distance. As he prepared to blink halfway down the pillar, he noticed that much less than half his sunlight was roiling and hot. Fang was by no means a mathematician, but his magnificent feline brain was more than capable of comprehending the concept of something being divided into two equal parts. He had shared many a mouse with the female cats of his neighborhood, and they could get quite upset if the part he gave them was smaller than the part he took for himself. For cats, throwing a hissy fit involved quite a bit of actual hissing, and usually ended with bloody claws one way or another. Fang had aimed far enough down the column to neatly divide the distance in half but had saved more than half of his sunshine.

Slowly, a thought began to form in Fang's burgeoning kitty brain, something more complex than anything he had thought before. More sunlight in him was good. Spending less sunlight was good. Teleporting a shorter distance spent less sunlight of course, just like running a shorter distance made him less tired. But it also spent less sunlight than less so… Shorter was better than longer. Fang experimented with where he aimed his blink as his synapses strained to form this connection, driven by a strange certainty that this was important. Aiming half the distance again showed the same result, less than half the sunlight was going to be used. Aiming for the other side of the platform barely took any sunshine at all, and when he aimed to blink just a step forward, the amount was so tiny he didn't even notice it in time to stop himself from blinking the tiny distance into the middle of the platform. Finally, Fang's mind, through sheer brute force and willpower, formed the concept of multiplication. If he blinked twice, he would spend less sunshine to travel than if he blinked once across the whole distance!

Eager to put his new revelation to the test, Fang blinked out into the air below the pillar, going half of halfway to the ground. After a split second to adjust to falling and pick his new target, Fang teleported the same distance downward again, before falling the rest of the way and expertly absorbing the impact. He noted with great satisfaction that much less than half his sunshine was dimmed. He was, without doubt, an incredible genius. Unfortunately, thoughts about large numbers such as 'three' were firmly outside the grasp of this incredible feline genius, and so the entirety of his newfound wisdom was that blinking twice over a distance was better than blinking once. A small improvement, but Fang was a small cat.

It was well into the evening now, and prime time for hunting, so armed with his new revelation, Fang stalked out into the grass. It was killing time.