- Feb 17, 2023
- 49
- 3
- 8
// cw: dog attacks, mentions of death and injuries, general panic
Wobbling legs carry brown tabbied fur and stinging shoulder pain away from the danger that consumed the child's home in the form of gnashing teeth and loud barking - in fallen parents and a missing sibling.
What had been a perfect morning in the kit's short life had turned to tragedy so quick, quicker than Sparrow could make her escape from the old barn through a kit-sized hole in the fence that guarded it. Her and Ma and Kestrel, laying in sunbeams that filtered their way through the worn-down rafters of the old barn as Da went out to hunt. It should have stayed that way. Perfect, blissful. Until --
Until everything blurred into crimson.
Sparrow ran the fastest she'd ever done. Away from the home she'd known and to plains she'd only seen from a distance - an unknown means of safety from the beast confined within the fence's perimeter. The girl is uncertain of how long she's been running, or how much further she needs to go to insure her safety.
And she doesn't know, really, where she is. Doesn't know, and everything's all so new and she's bleeding like her Ma and Kestrel had been and, and, and --
She's scared.
Scared, and tired. Sparrow doesn't know how much longer she can walk. If Ma were here, she'd picked her up by the scruff of her neck ages ago, carried her the rest of the way. But, she's not, and she never will be ever again. The kit hiccups out a cry as exhaustion finally gives way, as she finds herself needing to settle amidst muddy grass and try to clean the wounds on her shoulder herself.
Ma would have done this too.