private EXIT LEFT, NOW \ early weaning

[REDFLOWER]

Wounds litter her dirty, ragged tortoiseshell pelt, and though she feels every one of them stinging her to her bones, she strides back to the den she shares with her kits with her head held high. A rat, its naked ribs exposed to the leaf-fall air, dangles from her jaws. It has just enough meat on it for two crying, hungry kittens — and it was hard-won. She'd fought the Twolegplace rogue for their scrap and it had been a matter of life or death. But she'd been trained as a warrior of ThunderClan, and even after moons of hardship, she'd been able to drive the riffraff away from her youngling's morsel.

In truth, she knows they still need her milk, but that chapter has concluded early for Scarkit and Rosekit. There is no more milk to give. They had kneaded her belly fruitlessly for what seemed like hours earlier this morning, and Redflower could give them no more. She had been feeling the needles of their milkteeth for some time now beginning to harden...

It was time to sharpen them on bone, now. It was time to whet their taste for blood.

"Kits! Come." She hovers outside the den, tasting the air for predators, for other cats. She's satisfied that there is nothing, nothing but the wasteland they purge away in. Redflower drops the rat at the mouth of the makeshift hole and begins to purr. It's a broken, sputtering sound, one her kittens do not hear often, but today — well, today is momentous, today spells victory and life for them all.

"I nearly killed the cat who caught this. For you, my loves." It's ugly. It's scent is unappetizing, even to her, who'd grown fat on forest-rich prey in her youth. Its mouth is frozen in a horrific yellow-toothed snarl; its tail is bare of flesh, thick and ropey.

But her kits will not die of starvation. They will eat what meat is available to them. They will grow strong on the scraps their mother scavenges for them.

"You need to strip the fur from the flesh. Take your first bite, now." Some of the warmth leaves her voice as she speaks to them. Scarkit and Rosekit are bigger now, almost too-big for their hole in the ground, nearly a moon old. Their aimless mewls have become littered with words.

Now they must take another important step — they must taste their first prey. They must relish the strength sacrifice has given them.

"When I was a kit," she murmurs, "we had mouse. Birds. Fat, juicy squirrels. It is Flamestar who keeps this from you now." her voice is dull as she says it, but her eyes spark with amber fire. "But we cannot take the good food back if we do not eat the bad food first, okay?"

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: @SCARKIT @Rosekit ❀
• 
• Redkit . Redpaw . Redflower, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 17 moons old, ages realistically on the 15th.
  — mentored by NPC ; mentoring n/a ; previously mentored n/a
  — exiled rogue; formerly a thunderclan warrior. npc x npc, gen 1.
  — formerly mated to skyclaw.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh tortoiseshell with low white and pale yellow eyes. bright, spiteful, impressionable.

​

 

[Rosekit ❀]

.·:*¨༺ ❀ ༻¨*:·. The sensation in Rosekit's belly is strange and throbbing, the emptiness between her ribcage has had the girl squirming the entire time her mother had been gone, it was uncomfortable, and it make her skin itch. Rosekit was hungry, and when her mothers call prompts milky-blue eyes upwards, the young kitten is eager to get herself nestled at the crook of her mothers belly and try to eat again.

Redflower calls them out of the den, and Rosekit spares not even a glance towards Scarkit, everytime she tries to help her littermate with anything, she only ever slows both of them down. Rosekit got around much faster without Scarkit, and the kitten liked it better that way.

Ambling towards the sound of their mothers tattered call, the bleak weather sends a shiver down Rosekit's spine, and disappointment wells in her chest when round hues fall to the thing Redflower has brought back with her. Something she nearly killed someone else for, "Why?" Is the tortoiseshells initial squeak, though her mind is quick to move onto other things when Redflower continues on. Rosekit's paws grow hot with dislike, "want.. milk." The kitten insists, though one feeble look to her mother would be enough to tell Rosekit that milk wasn't coming, not ever.

Reluctantly, the daughter obeys, softly-rounded teeth sinking into the coarse fur of the creature. Obeying Redflower is a bit of a struggle at first as the kitten struggles to gnaw the pelt free from the skin. When she finally does, Rosekit opts to close her eyes as she forces her teeth to sink into the skin with a abrupt force, learning from her time with the fur that a soft approach wouldn't be enough to give Redflower what she wanted.

Something thick fills her small jaws as she pries her chunk of meat free from bone, prompting a surprised, half-choke. The flavor is much better than that of her mothers milk, but her teeth feel nearly useless, taking too long to shred the meat down while blood sloppily dribbles down her chin.

Finally, with a concluding gulp. Rosekit shuffles away from the meal, her head shaking. The taste wasn't worth the way her jaw now aches. "I don't like." One last final push to get Rosekit's way, just one more.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎┌── CAN'T SEE THE KNIFE WHEN ⋅ ✰ ⋅ YOU'RE TOO CLOSE ──┐‎

• 

• 
  ROSEKIT ♥ she/they, loner-born kit, 0 moons.
  ⭃ dark, silky furred tortoiseshell she-kit with brown sugar hues.
  ⭃ Redflower xx Skyclaw ⤔ sibling to Scarkit
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by Noor ↛ @toyangel on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

​

 

[SCARKIT]

The world is cold and dark without their mother. Scarkit curls up in the space she leaves behind, quietly next to her squirming sibling, until her voice rings out and calls them to life once more. Self-assured Rosekit springs up with fervor, and Scarkit trails after her sister like a shadow.

Redflower stands only a breath outside the den, haloed in cold gray light. She drops a...thing. It's ugly and giant—nearly as big as Scarkit herself—with blunt, yellow fangs that look like they'd hurt. Their mother preens about how she caught the thing. For us. But why?

"Hungry, Ma..." Scarkit confesses in a whisper. Round kitten-blue eyes peer up at Redflower as she stands haloed in misty light. Tall, and impervious, and the only one capable of curing the miserable ache in their bellies. Redflower points them to the rat, and Rosekit takes the first bite.

I don't like, says her sister. Scarkit stares at the wound carved into the rat's flank. It's not milk. Scarkit leans forward, tries to take a bite with nearly useless teeth. There's no satisfying rip or tear or flavor, and tiny, frantic bites yield little food at all, but still Scarkit eats.

Redflower fills her ears with things she doesn't fully understand. Stories of things better than someone else's alley-scraps. It means little now, but seedlings of doubt begin to take root in the back of her brain. Flamestar's fault.

Dutifully, Scarkit gnaws away at dinner, and gives little indication that she heard much at all.
​

 

[REDFLOWER]

Redflower waits impatiently for her kits to tumble from their nest and into the cooling evening. They amble toward her without energy, without enthusiasm, their eyes dull with hunger their mother can no longer satiate. Her order to tear from the rat is met with immediate resistance from Rosekit in particular; her secondborn is willful, moreso than the eldest. "Why? Want... milk." The queen's whiskers twitch, and she delivers, deadpan, "There is no more milk. This is what you will drink, now."

Her amber eyes flicker like candlelight toward Scarkit. Despite her darker coat, she is the more insipid of the two, and despite her weak protest of hunger, she begins to sink her teeth into the rat as directed. It's clear neither of her daughters have much of a taste for their first piece of prey, and Redflower's heart is sick that this has to be their introduction.

She remembers her first bite of fresh-kill; her father had brought it home for her after a long day of patrols, and it had been fat, plump, plucked of its feathers just for her and her siblings. She'd gorged herself on it; it had been warm and tender, and their mother had licked the debris from their pelts and sang to them until they wore themselves back into their nests.

Her own kits get cold, mealy gristle. Her children, Skyclaw's children, royalty, are fed things not even a dog should eat. It makes her flesh simmer beneath her ragged fur.

"Someday, you will have your pick of everything the forest has to offer," she promises in a low voice. "But for now, eat, my darlings. Eat, and grow stronger." It's all any of them can do — for now.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Redkit . Redpaw . Redflower, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 18 moons old, ages realistically on the 15th.
  — mentored by NPC ; mentoring n/a ; previously mentored n/a
  — exiled rogue; formerly a thunderclan warrior. npc x npc, gen 1.
  — formerly mated to skyclaw.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh tortoiseshell with low white and pale yellow eyes. bright, spiteful, impressionable.

​