where the wild things are || trespassing child

[Harry Styles]

◞━━━━━━━━━━━◟
b u t t e r f l y .
◝━━━━━━━━━━━◜
1.5 moons / lilac point / loner / "speech"​

---

Butterfly frowns at the scent marks. They are strong. And... she's not the best at figuring these out yet, but she sniffs again and thinks that a lot of cats must live here.

The tiny kitten paws at the ground where the scent is strongest. Nothing... happens. A border like this, so clear and so direct, almost scares her.

Almost.

The kitten hops over the line drawn by the marks. She waits, though she isn't sure what for. A gaggle of battle-cats to come lunging out of the bushes, having sensed her presence, gnashing teeth out for blood? That's silly, she admonishes herself. Butterfly is smart and Butterfly is logical and Butterfly is not silly. She has too many responsibilities for that. Behind her on the Thunderpath, a massive twoleg monster roars past, and she doesn't flinch, just stares with kitten-blue eyes into the forest. She waits a few minutes like that.

...well, she hopes they aren't too crazy about keeping prey to themselves. Silly cats should guard their borders better if they're so intent on having them. Butterfly huffs a little huff and pads further in, crouching low to the ground as she does, little nose twitching as she sniffs out prey.

It turns out she is stupidly small, so she is very bad at hunting. She tries to chase a bird and gets halfway up the tree before falling back down with a little thud. Ow.

The itty-bitty little girl gets back up and glares at the tree. Not only are the cats who live here silly, but their prey is silly, too! Silly stupid bird in the silly stupid tree. Why doesn't it know to come down so she can eat it?

​

---

 

[Flycatcher]

Flycatcher is still getting used to implementing of the borders. He is still used to the semi-open borders of the past, with unspoken rules of which group held which territory. Still, despite his struggles with getting used to them, he thinks that in the long run, it will be good for them to exist. They all had their shares of the land, territory that was theirs and theirs alone.

He's on patrol when the unfamiliar scent comes to him, the suddenness of it making him pause. Flycatcher looks around cautiously before padding on ahead, searching for the source of the scent. He expects to find another cat but not a cat as young as the one in front of him. He had hear a little this shortly before he emerged from the bushes, and looks at the kitten and then up at the tree. Had she fallen from the tree? He hopes not, that would be quite a tumble for one as small as she. "Are you lost, little one?" Flycatcher inquires with a kind tone. He approaches the kitten slowly but keeps his distance somewhat, not wanting to frighten her off with his sudden arrival. ​

 

[salamander]

Herbs. Right, she'd joined the patrol to rummage through the forest and find essential medicinal herbs. Except, the weary she-cat knew little of what to look for. Did she just grab anything colorful? Stars. Why in the world did StarClan choose her without imparting the necessary knowledge?

Thankfully, an unfamiliar scent caught the attention of the patrol (as well as the disgraced medicine cat). Wait.. no, it wasn't an unknown scent. Without hesitation, she followed Flycatcher. Fur potentially brushed against his as she moved around the tom.

Her heart sunk. The kitten looked even smaller than Roe when she'd first stumbled upon her. Did the child need milk? Was she hurt? Attentive eyes searched the she-kit for any signs of injury. Unlike Flycatcher, she gingerly crept close.

"Are your parents nearby?" she gently asked despite knowing the answer. Or, at least, presumably knowing the answer given the lack of other smells.

Supposedly, it was a time of peace yet more and more families discarded their children like they were fleas. Though her face remained nonchalant, she internally burned at the thought.​

 

[Harry Styles]

◞━━━━━━━━━━━◟
b u t t e r f l y .
◝━━━━━━━━━━━◜
1.5 moons / lilac point / loner / "speech"​

---

Butterfly tilts her little lilac face.

She smells... something. It's hard to identify, but it smells like... Another cat. Oh. Oh, no. Butterfly's pelt fluffs up in alarm--

And then lowers when she sees who it is. Well, they don't look unfriendly at all. They're certainly not charging out of the bushes gnashing their teeth and thirsting blood. See, she tells herself. That was a silly thing to think. Bullet always tells her no one's gonna give a shit about a scrap like her, and Bullet's always right.

"Hi," she says to the blue-tinted tom, her voice tiny and confident. Her nose wrinkles at his question. "Lost? No. That's silly." Butterfly has never been lost before. She's not even sure what that would mean for her. Don't you need a place to be lost from?

And then another cat approaches, this one more silver-- asking about parents. What is a parent? Again the kitten frowns. She doesn't want to seem silly, so she takes her best guess; perhaps parents are a prey species Butterfly hasn't learned about yet. Of course these cats would want to steal her food. Everyone steals food; that's what Bullet says.

"I left them in my nest," she says, lifting her little nose into the air. "Which is hidden so far away that you'll never ever find it. And I buried them too. You can't have them." She takes a deeeeeep breath and adds, "Kill me if you want."

This is called a bluff. Bullet taught it to her. He's very good at bluffs.

​

---

//she's an orphan from the twolegplace whose main "caregiver" is currently a nasty rogue named bullet. with "caregiver" being as loosely defined as possible. she's been fully weaned (a little too early, so she'll have the associated health problems)

 

[Flycatcher]

Unlike Flycatcher who holds back, the medicine cat does not. Cinderfrost brushed past and gingerly crept close to the young kit, asking after her parents. The young kit more or less laughs in their faces in way of response to their questions. If Cinderfrost looked back, she would see Flycatcher with a puzzled expression on his features, not entirely sure what to make of the situation unfolding in front of them.

The kit is insistent she isn't lost, which, given her stature and young age, Flycatcher highly doubts/ More troubling is what she says about her parents; not so much the words themselves but the implication of what they might mean. She doesn't outright say that they're dead but given the situation that is the direction his thoughts are leading him to. When Butterfly makes a remark about letting them kill her if they wanted, Flycatcher pulls back in surprise, not expecting such a thing to be uttered by the little one. He would never hurt one so young and he worries about the kind of cats she might have met that led her to think that was a possibility or had told her would happen. "We won't harm you," Flycatcher tells her promptly, no longer seeing the point in lingering back, especially with Cinderfrost there too. "We just want to make sure you are alright, that you're safe and unhurt. Do you live nearby or have someone we can take you back to?" He asks in a gentle tone.​

 

[salamander]

This questioning was going grand, wasn't it? Tactics needed to be altered for this peculiar kit.

"We aren't cannibals nor are we killers." Eyes subtly narrowed as she gazed at Flycatcher. Well, perhaps one of them had blood on their paws but they needed to earn the kit's trust: not terrify the poor thing with the fact that the she-cat was the clan's "murderer". Because, of course, only she was called that despite Emberstar being right there.

"It sounds like you're quite the accomplished and tough little warrior." the she-cat humored the child. "You're a fierce one and you look mighty skilled. I'd prefer not to fight you as I'm sure you would be able to inflict quite a bit of damage to us if we were to engage. Don't you think, Flycatcher?" She spoke as if the child could actually harm them. Despite addressing someone the size of her paw, she remained serious as a quiet signal or respect. Sheathed paws raised in a show of "surrender". "We are no threat to your well-being."

Overhead, a chattering bird seemed to laugh down at them. The little bitty kitten had been.. hunting? At least, based on her previous posturing, it could be a solid assumption. "Are you hungry?"

Could a kitten this small even eat meat? She struggled to recall the faces in the nursery. Were any of them producing milk? Well, that could be figured out later - right now they had to convince the young child that they meant no harm. ​