LEAVE MY STUFF BY THE STAIRS ✦ ABANDONED KIT

[Joykit]

The world has always been cruel. Joy knows this, even though she is only two moons old. She has known it since the moment she first felt the biting wind against her fur, since the first time her belly ached with a hunger that never truly went away. She has always been cold, always been hungry. Her siblings had been, too—until they weren't. Until they stopped moving, stopped breathing. Until it was just her and Mama.

And now, even that is changing.

She doesn't know where they are. She has never been here before. The air is thick with strange scents, full of water and earth and something she can't place. The trees are taller than the ones she's used to, their roots twisting in and out of the damp ground. A river rumbles somewhere nearby, its voice deep and endless, and for the first time, Joy feels something like fear. She presses herself against Mama's leg, her thin body trembling. Mama is just as bony as she is—maybe even bonier—but she is warm, and warmth is a rare thing. Joy soaks in as much of it as she can, tucking herself against her mother's side, trying to stop the way her teeth chatter.

Mama doesn't lean down to comfort her. Instead, she shifts, looking around, ears flicking at every distant sound. Joy frowns. She knows that look. It's the same one Mama gets when she's about to run. "Listen to me, Joy." Her mother's voice is quiet, firm. The way it always is when she means something. Joy blinks up at her. "I am." Mama's eyes flick toward the trees again, scanning the shadows between them, before she finally looks down at her daughter. "You have to stay here."

Joy stiffens. Stay here? "But…" The words don't come out right. She doesn't know what she's trying to say, only that she doesn't like this. She doesn't understand this. Mama's tail flicks behind her. She exhales sharply, like this is hard for her, like she doesn't want to say it. But she does. "This is a good place," she says. But there's something wrong with her voice. It's too light. Too forced. Joy swallows. "I don't understand." "These cats, they live in groups," Mama continues. "They have food, shelter. They take care of their own."

Joy's stomach twists. Her legs feel unsteady beneath her. Something sharp is curling in her chest, something bad, but she doesn't know how to stop it. She shakes her head. "No," she whispers. "No, Mama, I'll be good—I'll be strong—I'll—"

"Joy."

Her mother's voice is sharp. Final. It slices through her words, leaving them to bleed out in the cold air. Mama exhales again, slower this time. Her tail flicks once more before she speaks again, quieter now. "I can't take care of you anymore," she says, and her voice cracks. Joy flinches. Mama has never sounded like that before. "I tried," she continues, "but—I can't. You have to stay. You have to survive." Her breath comes in quick, shallow bursts. She doesn't understand. She doesn't understand. Why is this happening? Why now? Why here? She forces herself to move, to take a small, shaky step backward, just far enough to meet her mother's gaze. Mama isn't looking at her anymore. Not really. Her blue eyes are distant, dull with exhaustion, with something else—something Joy doesn't have a name for.

And then, suddenly, Mama leans down, pressing her nose to the top of Joy's head. The warmth lasts only a second and despite herself, she finds herself leaning into the touch, her heart fluttering with hope. Hope that Mama might change her mind, might take her with her after all. But then Mama turns and she walks away. Joy doesn't move. She doesn't blink. Her mother's thin frame vanishes into the trees, swallowed by shadow. The wind howls through the branches. The river rushes in the distance. Her heartbeat thrums in her ears.

She is alone. Cold. Hungry. Abandoned. The world has always been cruel. And now, it has proven it again.

// @splashdance

( °❀.ೃ࿔* ) just miss what it was

• 
• 
  JOY LONER; SHE / HER ; RUE X UNKNOWN ; SIBLING TO LIGHT & HOPE
  

  Joy 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

 

[splashdance]

Splashdance hurries along, her paws growing heavier with each step. It's difficult to be cared for, she finds, when the condition requires containment and restriction. She would bleed for these cats who so desperately want to shackle her to a den of willow leaves and feathers - who want her to rest and wait for her litter, to spend the time it takes to care for them and herself in the aftermath. They only intend to give her the best shot at survival, the stress of the past bringing taut shoulders into sagging positions. She cannot, will not blame them, ever. But it's hard. The grass hasn't turned green yet. Don't they understand that?

She pauses when a new scent catches to her nose. Something roils in her gut, adjacent to fear and tentative worry. Blue eyes flutter over her shoulders, anticipating that someone has followed her after her pitiful outburst. But she is alone. Alone with whatever prowls in the distance. She can hear voices but can hardly parse the words from the winds, only that there is one older and one younger. Perhaps a parent and a child... She wavers a step, leaning away from the border that surely has stopped their travel. Splashdance knows she cannot handle an all-out brawl right now - even she is not foolish enough to tempt it. However before she can fully retreat, she hears pawsteps echoing away. Only one set, as opposed to the two voices she heard prior.

Her chest lurches as she follows instinct, pushing through sparse undergrowth. Eventually it breaks to a little sunbeam of a child, small and near skeletal. Splashdance blinks at the youth, her own spinning and whirling in her belly. They must feel the thunderous pound of her heart, feel how uncertain and lost she feels - and much more how much empathy has stolen those worries from the child herself. She eventually pinches her brows together and tilts her eyes up towards the still, leafless foliage around them. The lead warrior intends to find whoever abandoned the kitten, shouting out a, "Hey - hey!" rather aimlessly. She stomps forward with the wrath of a slighted queen, finding no familiarity in the easily grasped role. Whoever left the puddle of light by the border is either long gone or does not intend to return.

Splashdance has heard of tales like this many times before. Never has she considered that she would be the soul that would find a lost one.

She pauses a step or two away from the child, looking down at frail ribs and gaunt features. StarClan, is this your doing? Would they harvest loner kits to ensure Clan queens are pushed sooner to the nursery? Splashdance cannot think of a single other cat that would entertain retiring for moons more, especially when she is already with one paw in that dreaded den. She looks, and looks, and says nothing for perhaps too long. Eventually, she tries.

"Hi there," a beat passes between her words. Her jaw clenches, "I'm Splashdance. Do you... do you have a name?" Must she name the tot, too? If she did, what would she gift the sandlot of a child? Sandkit for the riverbanks or Lostkit for her discarded beginnings? Her mother's tongue spurs in her mouth greedily, and she bites on its edges while she waits.
​

 

[Joykit]

Joy's tiny form trembles beneath the weight of her sorrow, each breath she takes coming in sharp gasps, Her blue eyes, wide and innocent, hold an unspoken pain far too heavy for a kit so young. When the stranger parts the reeds she opens her mouth to speak but no words come out as she watches her walk right past her, calling out for someone Joy already knows is not coming back. She steps a little closer to this stranger, her frail body shaking with every movement, she feels like she could collapse from the hunger and the grief - the ace in her chest all-consuming.

Her voice, when it finally comes back to her, is soft and quivering, barely a whisper against the cold wind. "My Mama... she left me here," her voice cracks, chest tightening as if speaking the truth aloud somehow made it worse. Her legs wobble beneath her, and she briefly looks down, struggling to hold herself together. She doesn't want to cry, to show how broken she feels when she had just promised her mother she would be strong, but the tears have already begun to fall, trailing down her face like snow melt.

"She said there'd be food here. Said I'd be safe." Her voice trembles with the weight of the promise her mother had made - a promise that meant nothing to her, really. She didn't care about food or shelter, she just wanted her mother to come back. Her small body shakes harder as the reality of being left behind settles in. Her mother had disappeared without a word, without a second glance, leaving her here in a world that was unfamiliar to her.

Her paws shift uneasily on the ground as she takes a ragged breath. She raises her watery gaze to meet Splashdance's eyes, though it's hard to focus through the blur of her tears. Her throat feels tight, her voice barely escaping her mouth. "I'm Joy," she manages to say, the name leaving her lips with an odd sense of finality. It's the only thing she has left to claim as her own. She doesn't know what it means yet, doesn't understand the significance, but it's hers. The promise of safety and love her mother had once made to her is gone, but at least she still has her name.

Her chest heaves with a sob, and she curls her body inwards, trying to make herself smaller, as if that might somehow protect her from the overwhelming sadness that threatens to swallow her whole. "Why did she leave me?" Her voice breaks, the question lingering in the air as her body shakes with hurt.

( °❀.ೃ࿔* ) just miss what it was

• 
• 
  JOY LONER; SHE / HER ; RUE X UNKNOWN ; SIBLING TO LIGHT & HOPE
  

  Joy 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

 

[splashdance]

"My Mama..." Splashdance hears the blood rushing through her ears as the child talks, her lip quivering and her frame somehow shrinking smaller and smaller. The molly, now long gone through the tall grasses and reeds, had to make a difficult decision... And for a moment, Splashdance imagines the pain of losing a child. Or, rather, of willingly hoisting the youth onto better prepared paws, drafting the lost branch to a new tree. Does the stranger pray? Will she look to the stars for guidance after this? Is it a sin to do what it takes to save an innocent? Is it brave?

Her paws itch as her gaze holds to the kitten. She isn't sure she could be that brave. She thinks of Ferndance, willingly hiding her disappearance, and the pain the other must have. She thinks of Iciclefang, who must've feared this sort of separation. Food. Safety. It seems like an easy decision if such is promised, but if she were actually standing in that molly's paws, she isn't sure she could make that decision. She supposes motherhood is full of hard choices...

It's a cold, cold prickle in the back od her neck, now, as the little sunspot reveals her name. Joy, and it is as if her name tells a story in itself. Her throat clenches with unspoken grief, a fear that cannot loose itself from her frame, even as she presses to commit. "Joy?" She echoes with a tremor in her words. She leans down, her muzzle leaning towards the child and offering a moment of warmth. "That's a kind name, I think. Names can hold a lot of meaning," she muses, as if prolonging this moment will save her from unraveling right then.

But Joy is hungry. StarClan has spoken. Splashdance grasps the tethers of her mind and reigns in what sanity tries to escape her. It's almost easy to forget her own struggles when the child suffers her own. "Mamas have to make hard decisions sometimes..." the expecting mother only sounds her own thoughts, as if it'll be enough to quiet the sorrows for both of them. She lets out a shuddering sigh, clenching her jaw again. What more can she say to the kit, without dredging up feelings of guilt and remorse? Her ears pin back.

"Have you tried fish yet, Joy?" she aims to distract. For both of them. Her tail loops around the child and she motions with her muzzle away, "I'm very skilled at hunting... you won't go hungry with me, I promise." Her paws will be anchored away from the river. Can she even make that promise? Her chest hurts. "Come along. I'll catch you something, and we can go curl up in a bed of feathers and moss..." She waits, her ears standing tall again as she tries to exhibit her normal, jovial personality for the child.
​

 

[Joykit]

Joy's tear filled eyes stay locked on Splashdance, her tiny body trembling as the older molly's voice washes over her. Her words, soft and full of understanding, don't quite register at first. There's too much confusion, too much pain still tangled up inside her chest. But when the kind she-cat speaks of "Mamas" and "hard decisions" her chest tightens in a strange way. Hadn't her mother said something like that before? She can't remember. The words wrap around her like a blanket.

The mention of fish, which she assumed must be a type of food, catches her attention. Her stomach grumbles loudly in response, but still she hesitates. It feels too good, too convenient, to be true, to trust someone like this, to believe that food, warmth and safety might be just a heartbeat away. Her whole life has been hunger and cold - living off the scraps that her mother was only just barely able to provide. She doesn't quite know how to let go of that.

"Fish?" she echoes with a sniffle. Her voice is small, tentative, barely a whisper against the wind. She shifts uncomfortably, unsure whether to believe the promise or not. Her instincts tell her to stay wary.

But then her stomach growls again, louder and more insistent this time. She flinches at the sound. "Will you really… feed me?" the question is quiet, fragile, the question of a kit used to never having enough - of a kit used to going days without. Tinged with a deep fear that has lodged its way inside her chest. She wants to believe, really, but everything in her past has taught her not to.

Joy looks down for a moment, struggling to not cry, the ache of abandonment still sits heavy inside her chest and claws at her throat. Her body trembles again, not just from hunger but from the weight of trust she's not sure she's ready to give again so soon. "Ive never had a fish before" she admits softly, her gaze flickering away for a moment "But uh I would like to try it… please" Manners, Joy she can practically hear Mamas voice in her head telling her to always be polite as she wipes her nose against the back of her forepaw.

She steps forward slowly, cautiously, feeling both a need for warmth and the fear that it could be pulled away from her again. There's a hesitation, a fear of being let down again, but something about Splashdance's gaze makes her want to take the chance.

Her voice cracks slightly, almost too soft to hear but she forces the words out anyways "And you… you won't leave me too, right?" The question stings as it leaves her lips, but she needs to ask. She doesn't know if she can stand to be hurt like that again, but her gaze holds on Splashdance, pleading without words.

But for the first time, something like hope flickers inside her — a tiny spark, fragile but there.

( °❀.ೃ࿔* ) just miss what it was

• 
• 
  JOY LONER; SHE / HER ; RUE X UNKNOWN ; SIBLING TO LIGHT & HOPE
  

  Joy 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