Trust was the sap that bound the clans together, but no one had ever told Ferndance how easy it was for that bond to become messied. She had felt it since the day she had announced her pregnancy, needle-claws pricking the back of her mind, telling her she would not be safe should she give birth within the walls of the camp: Granitepelt’s exile had only proved her right. There would be no care for her young except the care she provided, no shelter except for the fur upon her tail and no food except for what she could afford to hunt. Everyone was a distant memory, paws felt as if they were floating upon the air and could not find grip even if they wanted to. The journey to an abandoned hollow north of the camp was one she had made frequently in her final days before labour, but since the gathering, she had stayed permanently, idling, waiting for the moment to finally arrive. She played her mama’s words in her head, imitating the singsongy voice like a mockingbird under her laborious breath.
She felt the first pang and her teeth sunk into the stick she had prepared, bark coiling off of it like a shedding snake. The taste was inconsequential, she would strip the skin off of a million trees if it meant being able to hide. Pain was not something she knew how to express, and she was not keen on learning it even when all that was watching her was the snow dripping from the withered branches. The wind picked up outside, spirals of snow swirling, threatening to make her eyes water (It was not pain, she told herself. It was not pain). Claws writhed at the crinkled foliage, and when the second pang came, Ferndance realised she would be in for a long night.
And a long night it was. The moon had awoken and rested once more beneath the horizon, the sky alight with the reds and purples of a new dawn. But she was not met with the chortle of birds that day, rather, the singing of mewling kittens.
She looked over her newborns weakly; a she-kit with fur like fire, a tabby that reminded her of dark oak, Pikesplash with russet stripes instead of black, and a she-kitten that looked like Ferndance’s father, with snow flecked upon her cheeks. Four... her heart fluttered with excitement, just as she had hoped - two to be named by her, two to be named by Needledrift. Fern craned her head to the horizon, eyes blinking softly. She wished she had let her mate know where she was going, the forest that empty and bitter despite the quadruplets that lay nestled by her belly, but it had felt necessary. ’They’ll kill them… or kidnap them… my babies, my beautiful babies.’ No one could know where they were apart from them, it would be the only way to keep them safe from ShadowClan. The cinnamon tabby leaned over and licked individual stripes across the top of the kittens’ heads, resting her chin atop the last one, kissed by frost. She could sleep for moons, in spite of the mewls beneath her. The marsh around her began to flutter as she blinked in and out of consciousness. In her head, she went over the names of her little ones as family tradition dictated: Snowkit… Dark-kit… Oakkit… Foxkit…
Foxkit.
Foxkit.
Fox.
Her eyes snapped open to a set of white stalactites coming crashing down towards her kin, her blood. With what strength she had, the cinnamon tabby extended her paw to the sky and struck it upon a russet beast’s open maw, the taste of copper in her mouth as her claws found flesh. The creature recoiled in pain with a yip, its primitive eyes filled with a hatred that set her blood ablaze. She hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the horizon, where had it come from? Guilt wrenched her heart as she realised that it’d likely been attracted by the smell of blood. It was going to kill them because the frozen ground had taken the rest of its food, and when it had its fill, it was going to kill them because it could. Unsheathed claws gripped onto the mulch for dear life as she pulled herself to a crouch, limbs shaking like autumn leaves. ”You will not take them." There was no medicine cat to tell her to rest, there was no leader to command the clan to kill this threat, there was only a mother, the strongest being of all, with a conviction that could make the very mountains rattle.
And it didn’t work, because hunger did not care for the power of the Gods. Its very nature defied them.
The bile rose in her throat as she stepped over her children, their mews desperately filling her thumping ears, as if their voices would pull her back to the relative safety of the hollow. Ferndance had made up her mind a long time ago, she would die to keep her family safe. Mama and Papa never had many rules, but there was one that had stuck with her beyond borders: ‘you don’t fuck with family’. Nature had broken its peace with her and she would fight back against it with all that she had left. A yowl escaped her as she threatened the canine once more with a swipe of an alabaster paw, the creature lurching back before she could score claws down its legs and it retaliated with a snap of teeth that sounded like thunder clapping in her ears. She shuffled back again, almost kicking the newborns further down the den.
The forest had taken more strength than she could offer, even to save her sons and daughters. Her hind legs buckled underneath her and it seemed to be only the vehement hisses and wild swings of forepaws that kept the fox from advancing past her. It was only a matter of time before they stopped too, and Ferndance’s stomach writhed as she prepared for the beast’s coup de grace.
