sensitive topics GO UP IN FLAMES — intro

[SPARROWBREEZE]

// 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.
​

 

[Badgermoon]

Badgermoon was more than overdue for a solo patrol - it helped to clear his head, kept him sharp, and ensured he was apprised of what was happening on WindClan land. Therefore when the sun rose and coaxed him up and out of the dip in the snow in which he slept he had given his coat a cursory groom and set off, departing the hollow which made up the camp in a flash of black-and-white fur. The leaf-bare sky was wide, blue, and perhaps painfully bright, and he trotted happily beneath it, breathing the cold air with gusto. It was as he crested a small hill that he caught the scent of blood, hay, and the unmistakable reek of dogs, and he stiffened at once, yellow eyes narrowing. It was not sharp enough to indicate a dog on the territory, he decided - but it was there, clinging, cloying. Someone must be carrying it on their pelt.

The broad-shouldered tom began to descend with careful steps, flicking his gaze over every possible place where someone could be hidden, before at last he spotted a brownish-reddish blur among the winter-battered grass. A kit. on the one hand, it was a relief; no combat would need to happen today, it seemed. On the other hand ... "Little one." Badgermoon called out to Sparrow, approaching her slowly. Surely the little thing was terrified - by the look of her, she'd survived something gruesome. A little barn kit, I expect. "My name is Badgermoon. What happened to you?" his voice was gentle but probing as he reclined into a sitting position a few tail-lengths away from the wounded kitten.​

 

[icebreath]

TAGS — The smell of blood and fear wafting down from the nearby surface is quick to grab Icepaw's attention. Is SkyClan finally striking back? Did they bring RiverClan? ThunderClan as well, even? Her heartbeat speeds up as she mentally maps out the underground path back to camp so she can run home and alert everyone... though her reflexive panic begins subsiding when it occurs to her that she can't hear anything. No hissing and caterwauling, no tearing flesh. Had she missed the battle? Have their enemies turned tail? The silence persists the closer they slink toward the mouth of a burrow, squinting against the sunlight that filters in. She can't smell a patrol's worth of cats.

Then they hear Badgermoon's gentle voice. With a furrowed brow, they tentatively peer out from the burrow, already narrowed eyes turning to slits as they adjust to the brightness. There's her deputy, and... a kit! She emerges and pads over with pricked ears, glancing back and forth between both cats as she waits for an answer to his question, though it's not long before her gaze turns outward to make sure nothing's pursuing the little one.​

 

[WEASELCLAW]

Weaselclaw follows Badgermoon, tasting the air that is redolent with the stench of a trespasser and the spillage of feline blood. The tabby's ears are pricked, muscles tensed as he prepares to drive yet another outsider from their territory, but the stranger is tiny. Blood ruffles her tabby-and-white fur, fear darkens her golden eyes.

He shakes his head at the state of her. Hardly bigger than one of his own kits. "Where's your mother?" He asks her. His voice is not unkind, but he can't keep the gruffness from it.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

​

 

[SPARROWBREEZE]

She isn't alone for much longer in her sorrow-filled pause in running.

"Little one," a voice speaks between the kit's weeping. It startles her, causes her to cower back into the grass. Danger, more danger. Sparrow had more than her fill of it, today.

But, amber eyes soon catch sight of black and white fur. Badgermoon, he calls himself. Ma taught Sparrow not to talk to strangers, but Ma isn't here anymore, and she doesn't have much of a choice, as the large cat asks her what happened. A pair of mismatched paws shift beneath her, the movement causing a further sting at her shoulder.

"Dog," she says quietly, sniffling. "Big dog. Doesn't like cats." Ma had also taught her to stay away from it. She tried her best, she thinks.

And then, another arrives. And another. Sparrow cowers further.

Some of these cats carry their own wounds, she notices, as she looks at the trio with wide eyes. Tattered ears, scars. "Did... Did it get you too?" She didn't think it could get out, but... what else would have given the strange cats such wounds? What if she hadn't outrun the dog, after all?

Her mother. She's asked about the whereabouts of her mother. Her gaze drops to her paws at the thought of her mother's lifeless form. "Gone."
​

 

[Badgermoon]

Badgermoon was aware of two of his Clanmates materializing beside him, Icepaw and Weaselclaw - two cats he trusted and liked, viewed as friends. Both of them relatively cool-headed, too, which was good, considering that this little she-cat looked terribly frightened. And for good reason, by the sound of it - a dog had gotten her and her family, it would seem. "I'm sorry to hear that. There are no dogs here. You're safe." he attempted to move a little closer, offering one speckled paw for Sparrow to sniff or brush against or huddle beneath, if she so chose. "What's your name, little one?" surely she had a name, right? As he waited for a response, the gears turned in his mind: a barn cat wasn't exactly a kittypet, right? And this was just a kit ... they had enough queen in the nursery to support another little mouth to feed, didn't they? It was almost the end of leaf-bare...surely they could make a bit of room.

His gaze softened as he studied the small white-splashed tabby, and he gave a little smile, decision made. He wondered if the dog which had taken this kitten's mother was at all related to the ones which had killed the leader of ThunderClan, and he wondered for a moment if there was any moral imperative for him to share this information with the forest-dwellers. "Would you like to come with us back to our home? We have food and somewhere safe you can rest, and someone who can help make you hurt less."​

 

[SPARROWBREEZE]

The kit finds a sense of safety in Badgermoon's words. There are no dogs here, he promises, extending a paw out. She takes a shaky pawstep forward, amber gaze inspecting it. She's safe here, she's told, and Sparrow thinks she can trust this stranger. She thinks Ma would like him. Would've.

A name, he asks for. Yes, she's got one of those.

"Sparrow," she squeaks out, with a sniffle, "Like... Like the bird." A fact she'd only learned the other day, that she and her brother were both named after birds. Sparrow's never actually seen a sparrow, or even a kestrel, but she thinks it's neat either way.

And, this Badgermoon, he asks if she'd want to go back to the strange cats' home. Is there another barn, nearby, that these cats lived in? She tries to peer past them and into the distance, but doesn't see a semblance of a barn at all. "Is your barn far away?" she asks. It must be, if she can't even see it. She probably won't be able to see her old home, from the strange cats' home.

Sparrow would rather go back to her own home, to curl up in her nest with Ma and Da and Kestrel, but, it's not safe there anymore. Riddled with crimson - the kit cannot go back and face the aftermath of it all. Her family wouldn't be there to greet her, if she goes back.

A promise of food and a place to sleep, someone to make the red on her own fur go away. Sparrow is starting to get hungry, and the fatigue of running so far is starting to creep in. She'll be safe there.

After a moment, the kit finally nods. "Okay, I... I'll go."
​