- Oct 10, 2022
- 147
- 65
- 28
She did not envy the poor spotted soul bearing the crown of the marshlands, she pondered if there were spots on his heart as well. It was a burden no cat should carry alone and not one so already heavily weighted down upon by grief and youthful naivety; it was tragic. Life was often riddled with tragedies. True happy endings came only after so many broken stories ended without. One did not often see the shattered trails of failings that lingered around happiness, that each path was oft rife with struggle and suffering for just a whiff of divinity. It was a story similar to hers, why she had come out treading through soft earth seeped wet with tears and trees that bowed mournfully before her path in welcome.
Halfshade, once called Cat (short for Catherine), had taken to her new home with a degree of confidence bordering arrogance but never quite crossing over to it. If things needed doing, she did so. If duties must be upheld she volunteered. It was not enough to simple exist for a cat like her, she had to be heard, to be present; part of the everflowing stream and not just a stone sunk beneath the water.
Tensions were high now, things had happened, it reminded her of the concrete forests of two-leg place where her old nest and kin still remained in tattered remnants of their once glorious kingdom. It often took only one fool to knock the scales aside, to send one end rising and the other plummeting far down below the depths to drown. My kingdom, ruins and waste. She'd been asked to lead once sharpened blades withdraw from a porceleain throat. Leader of what? War and conflict? A better cat might have stayed to try, to pull them back from their madness into on cohesive heartbeat once more; but she had been young and the responsibility too much. She'd seen the chaos spread like sickness, it was all beyond the means of one cat alone to fight.
The blue torbie stretched out in the camp, plush form a bright burst of sunlight on one side and the cool expanse of night on the other as she wriggled in place and scratched her back idly on the ground with her paws tucked up close. It had been a favorable hunting trip that morning so she was taking advantage of the warmth of the day to bask briefly before the next patrol was called.
"I wonder if someone else would take my patrol today...I really rather hunt. Hm."