- Sep 30, 2023
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( ⁀➷ ) The child is a fragile thing, as all children are.
All soft tissue and downy fur, tangles groomed carefully by its mother, a bundle of fuzz and filmy innocence, eyes glassy and not yet fully aware of itself or the world it inhabits. Not unbothered, as a child should be, but wary, sharpened young. Two full moons it has witnessed, and the world has only grown colder.
It is a thing born of the dying leaves, its arrival heralding the cold to come. Its mother had done her best, of course, to keep that chill away from her smallest daughter, but Baying Hound is a mother neither soft nor fragile. She is a creature of gnashing teeth and calloused paws, anger wielded like a weapon. A creature of survival, befit the name she was granted by her mother before. Baying Hound's mother was not so kind as herself, but the child knows nothing of that. The child only knows its mother's sad eyes and rasping tongue, her snarling rage at a world seemingly desperate to do nothing but take her children away.
It's not Baying Hound's fault, really. Her vigilance is cracked by tiredness, and one cat can only do so much. It was her stubborn independence, a solitude born of fear and bitterness, that let disaster take her child. A need for food called her paws elsewhere, and unwatched children have a particular talent for tragedy.
But still Baying Hound lingers, even as for as she is now, for the child remembers what she taught it. As all kits do, it knows how to imitate. Bared teeth like its mother, a fear beneath its skin whose source it could not place.
It did little to help, but at least the child can say it met the spectre of death with unsheathed claws.
The coming of the hungry seasons bring fear to all; Baying Hound felt it, and the clans feel it too. The rotting leaves serve as omen of death, starvation. The older beasts know to hunger before the pains have fully set in. The owl had flown far from its nest in search of food. The child had not ran, not searched for its mother, but snarled as it stood protectively before its siblings.
Baying Hound will return to a nest absent one child. She will assume it dead, and she will be justified in doing so. She will mourn, and she will grow a little colder with the dying of the leaves.
But the child is a surprisingly resilient thing.
Talons dig into its back, bone-deep pain like a child should never know. Blood drips a trail from open wounds as the beast shifts its grasp to cage the unruly, yowling thing in its claws. The child will not die quietly, and it screeches its protest for the whole forest to hear, pain fear anger blending into a gutteral howl louder than a tiny thing like itself should be capable of. Though it cannot fight, cannot save itself, it can still make itself known.
Fallow, the child's name is. A soft name, the gentle color of its fur before the points began to set in. A name already grown distant as its pelt darkens into a deep and earthy brown. Fallow likes her name, likes the soft feel of it as it rolls across her tongue. She is not old enough to name the fear of no one but her mother remembering it, of her siblings knowing her name only as a distant memory.
She is far from home now, far from the old abandoned fox burrow her small family took refuge in. In the territory of the cats her mother bristled her fur at, sneered and distrusted and fought. Fallow knows none of this. She only knows the dizzying feeling of being aloft, the unfamiliarity of the ground below. She only knows the fear and the pain and the want for freedom.
Fallow writhes and screams, and the owl's grip slips.
The crashing to the ground is nearly as unpleasant as the feeling of claws beneath skin. A dull and blunt pain, but a pain nonethless. She falls clumsily, unexpectedly, crashing down on paws that cannot catch themself, fire lancing up her body from her paws. Her chin hits the ground, and the screeching stops with an abrupt thump, a whoosh of air leaving the tiny body as she lays, motionless.
Her breaths are shaky. Her body is pained. But she is free, and she is alive. She'd laugh, if she had the strength for it. A pyrrhic victory. Maybe it'd make her mother proud. She'd like to pretend that, pretend it wouldn't just bring more sadness to her eyes.
But she cannot move. Her bloodsoaked body is too pained, a new and just as unwelcome form of restraint. Fur once downy has become a red mess of mats, any trace of fallow drowned in deep crimson. The small body shakes, eyes peering skyward. She cannot rest yet. The beast lingers, circles. Its shadow blots the sun from her eyes.
Fallow digs her claws into the ground, unable to draw to her feet, and stares down the death that careens downwards to meet her yet again.
All soft tissue and downy fur, tangles groomed carefully by its mother, a bundle of fuzz and filmy innocence, eyes glassy and not yet fully aware of itself or the world it inhabits. Not unbothered, as a child should be, but wary, sharpened young. Two full moons it has witnessed, and the world has only grown colder.
It is a thing born of the dying leaves, its arrival heralding the cold to come. Its mother had done her best, of course, to keep that chill away from her smallest daughter, but Baying Hound is a mother neither soft nor fragile. She is a creature of gnashing teeth and calloused paws, anger wielded like a weapon. A creature of survival, befit the name she was granted by her mother before. Baying Hound's mother was not so kind as herself, but the child knows nothing of that. The child only knows its mother's sad eyes and rasping tongue, her snarling rage at a world seemingly desperate to do nothing but take her children away.
It's not Baying Hound's fault, really. Her vigilance is cracked by tiredness, and one cat can only do so much. It was her stubborn independence, a solitude born of fear and bitterness, that let disaster take her child. A need for food called her paws elsewhere, and unwatched children have a particular talent for tragedy.
But still Baying Hound lingers, even as for as she is now, for the child remembers what she taught it. As all kits do, it knows how to imitate. Bared teeth like its mother, a fear beneath its skin whose source it could not place.
It did little to help, but at least the child can say it met the spectre of death with unsheathed claws.
The coming of the hungry seasons bring fear to all; Baying Hound felt it, and the clans feel it too. The rotting leaves serve as omen of death, starvation. The older beasts know to hunger before the pains have fully set in. The owl had flown far from its nest in search of food. The child had not ran, not searched for its mother, but snarled as it stood protectively before its siblings.
Baying Hound will return to a nest absent one child. She will assume it dead, and she will be justified in doing so. She will mourn, and she will grow a little colder with the dying of the leaves.
But the child is a surprisingly resilient thing.
Talons dig into its back, bone-deep pain like a child should never know. Blood drips a trail from open wounds as the beast shifts its grasp to cage the unruly, yowling thing in its claws. The child will not die quietly, and it screeches its protest for the whole forest to hear, pain fear anger blending into a gutteral howl louder than a tiny thing like itself should be capable of. Though it cannot fight, cannot save itself, it can still make itself known.
Fallow, the child's name is. A soft name, the gentle color of its fur before the points began to set in. A name already grown distant as its pelt darkens into a deep and earthy brown. Fallow likes her name, likes the soft feel of it as it rolls across her tongue. She is not old enough to name the fear of no one but her mother remembering it, of her siblings knowing her name only as a distant memory.
She is far from home now, far from the old abandoned fox burrow her small family took refuge in. In the territory of the cats her mother bristled her fur at, sneered and distrusted and fought. Fallow knows none of this. She only knows the dizzying feeling of being aloft, the unfamiliarity of the ground below. She only knows the fear and the pain and the want for freedom.
Fallow writhes and screams, and the owl's grip slips.
The crashing to the ground is nearly as unpleasant as the feeling of claws beneath skin. A dull and blunt pain, but a pain nonethless. She falls clumsily, unexpectedly, crashing down on paws that cannot catch themself, fire lancing up her body from her paws. Her chin hits the ground, and the screeching stops with an abrupt thump, a whoosh of air leaving the tiny body as she lays, motionless.
Her breaths are shaky. Her body is pained. But she is free, and she is alive. She'd laugh, if she had the strength for it. A pyrrhic victory. Maybe it'd make her mother proud. She'd like to pretend that, pretend it wouldn't just bring more sadness to her eyes.
But she cannot move. Her bloodsoaked body is too pained, a new and just as unwelcome form of restraint. Fur once downy has become a red mess of mats, any trace of fallow drowned in deep crimson. The small body shakes, eyes peering skyward. She cannot rest yet. The beast lingers, circles. Its shadow blots the sun from her eyes.
Fallow digs her claws into the ground, unable to draw to her feet, and stares down the death that careens downwards to meet her yet again.
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// tldr; rogue kit got yoinked by an owl and dropped in tc territory. the kit is badly injured & the owl is swooping in to re-grab her :0
feel free to powerplay the owl!! anyone can be the one to drive it off <3
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ˏˋ ° • *⁀➷ FALLOW. FUTURE THUNDERCLAN KIT. SHE / HER & IT / ITS.
2 MOONS & AGES ON THE 1ST. PENNED BY SATURNID.
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