oneshot HEARD THE STREETS ARE GOLD THERE ✦ DEVELOPMENT

[Joykit]

Joykit stirred. That was the first thing she noticed—how she woke on her own, not to hunger gnawing at her belly, not to the cold creeping into her bones, not to a noise that sent her heart pounding before she was even fully awake. Just… stirred.

Her eyes cracked open, expecting the dull ache of exhaustion, the familiar weight behind them that meant she hadn't slept enough. It wasn't there. Nothing was there. Her mind wasn't racing, her body wasn't tense, and she didn't feel like curling tighter against a threat that wasn't there. She was —Rested. She blinked. Slowly, like she had all the time in the world, because for once, she did. The feeling was strange—almost unsettling in its unfamiliarity. She had never woken like this before. Sleep had always been something to snatch where she could, between the moments where she needed to be alert. Even in the first couple of days here, in a nest that wasn't hers but had been given without question, sleep had been shallow. She had waited for something to go wrong.

But nothing had.

She pushed herself up, shifting in the nest—not the rough bundle she had made before, but a real one, redone for her by more experienced paws, thick and soft and whole. The air smelled of reeds and moss and the faint, lingering warmth of other cats. The den was quiet, except for the slow, steady breaths of those still asleep. No sharp wind howling, no distant rustling that set her fur on end. No reason to be on edge.

She sat there, breathing it in.

This was the safety her mother had promised her.

The thought clicked into place like a stone settling in a riverbed. It wasn't something she had let herself believe before—not truly. She had waited for kindness to turn fleeting, for security to vanish as quickly as it had come. But it hadn't. She was still here.

Her claws flexed into the moss, her breath slow and steady. There was no hunger gnawing at her, no aches from sleeping poorly. No rush to her movements, no instant need to check the exits. She could rest. She had rested.

And for the first time, with a stray tear stubbornly wiped away, she believed maybe they hadn't been lying when they said that she could stay.

( °❀.ೃ࿔* ) just miss what it was

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  JOYKIT KIT; SHE / HER ; RUE X UNKNOWN ; SIBLING TO LIGHT & HOPE
  

  Joykit is a fiercely independent and passionate she-kit, born into a harsh world where survival is a constant battle. Abandoned by her mother on the border of RiverClan, she is determined to carve her own path, driven by a competitive spirit and a need to prove herself. Proud and quick-tempered, Joy's journey will be shaped by her struggle to stand strong in a world that doesn't always show mercy.

  ✦ Unskilled kit