- Jun 27, 2023
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“Wheat! Wheat, wake up!”
“C’mon, up! Up! That goes for everyone else, too!”
Those were the words that greeted her every morning. Practically since she’d stopped nursing, the girl had been on the schedule of busybodies: her parents. Amber eyes opened unwillingly, staring at two cats silhouetted by a sun that was barely over the horizon. Around her, the Somali lookalike’s siblings had also begun to stir.
Their family numbered ten in total, counting Wheat and her parents. Three sisters, four brothers, and constant noise was her company. “But I don’t wannnaa-!” wailed Rye, and the molly couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the futility of his resistance. “Well, do you want to starve?” The voice of her mother, Millet, echoed rhetorically. “Come now, we need all of you to help your sister learn to hunt! The quicker she pulls her weight, the less work the rest of you will have to do. Remember: family looks after family, no matter what.”
Yes, it was Wheat’s third moon alive, which in her family meant it was time to start earning her keep. The tiny she-cat ignored the slight jab from her mother, too excited by the prospect of heading outside their cramped hollow for the first time.
Though she was too immature to know it now, during her future travels Wheat would conclude that her parents were by no means bad people. There would be memories of Millet teaching the eventually-elegant cat how to groom herself, or her father Barley batting her lightly in games of tag. Unfortunately, those rare moments were all surrounded by the constant struggle to keep eight growing kits fed, making them ruthlessly pragmatic by necessity.
For now, though, all that occupied Wheat’s mind was a sense of annoyance as her attempts to explore were soon thwarted by the work which would become her life. She’d always been fascinated by the tales her siblings told of the plains and the creatures that inhabited it, like the mysterious King Rabbit, but now that the tiny cat was finally outside, all anyone wanted to talk about was hunting stances and scent trails. “I’m bored.” Wheat bluntly interrupted her sister, Farro, as she was trying to explain how to catch a squirrel.
Farro flinched at the remark, much more timid than her counterpart, before breaking into a panic as Wheat wandered a few fox-lengths away and sat amongst some flowers. “Um, I d-don’t think you’re supposed to d-do that…” The meek voice was laughed away, the exploratory she-cat confident in her abilities to step over her older sister. “It’s the outside, I can do whatever I want! That’s what makes it so nice.” The Somali lookalike had a flower in her jaw now, content to experience the taste of an unknown object like a true child before a darkly disappointed voice sounded above her.
“That doesn’t look like prey.”
Barley, her father, stepped out of the shrubbery, admonishing his lazy daughter and her shy sibling. “You were supposed to teach her, but I guess you’re not good enough yet. Family looks after family, no matter what.” He grumbled before picking an annoyed Wheat up by the scruff and carrying her away to a different part of the forest for training. “Even if it means picking up the slack.”
For the rest of the day, Wheat was under the tutelage of Barley, much to her chagrin. With Rye or Farro the loner knew she could slip away with little effort, but her father was a different beast entirely. She had wanted to spend the time running as far as little legs would take her, exploring the streams and hills and gulleys the rest of her family talked about so casually. Now, she was taking stances and diving after mice that seemed able to disappear at will.
Wheat caught nothing her first day, and dinner was light on account of Barley having to give up time to teach his insubordinate daughter. That left the breadwinning to one adult cat and seven substantially less-skilled lackeys. Her parents weren’t so harsh as to punish Wheat with an empty stomach, instead opting to eat whatever scraps were left once the children were done filling their bellies. Still, the sound of growling stomachs filled the she-cat with no small amount of guilt.
Wheat didn’t catch anything the second day, or the third. However, the Somali lookalike had gotten more serious with her training, taking to her family’s lessons more readily. If asked, she would explain her desire to feed everyone and make sure her parents could have full bellies every night. What Wheat wouldn’t say is that she was lying.
Well, she was half-lying. The girl did feel genuine guilt over her lack of skill, but the desire to get better was not fully altruistic. While she had (reluctantly) stopped wandering off, Wheat was still infatuated with the world around her. She must have had ten or twenty missed catches just from a pretty patch of flowers or a hill off in the distance distracting amber eyes. Barley would never let her off the leash if she was still struggling, but if the Somali lookalike became skilled enough, then she could explore alone and still come back with enough to skirt by.
It was the fourth day when she finally caught something, and the snow began to fall.
While Wheat was congratulated on the former, amber eyes were much more focused on the latter. The loner had never seen snow before, and immediately she decided that the phenomenon was more important than any amount of prey. The way it slowly layered the plains around them was entrancing, and Wheat was practically mute for the rest of the night. She was so focused on the forthcoming blanket that she paid no heed to the nervous conversations between siblings and parents, afraid of leafbare’s lean times.
“If I catch something, can I play in the snow?” The question woke Oats, the oldest sister, at the crack of dawn a week later. “Wha~?” At the end of a bleary gaze, Wheatpaw was grinning. She knew her sister loved acting like she was in charge, and giving her the chance to bark out orders would likely meet with more success than if the exploratory cat had asked Millet or Barley. “Two - no, three - three things. Then you can play. Leafbare is no joke, after all. We all need to do our-“ It took the half-awake cat a moment to realize that Wheat had left after the word ‘three’.
No one saw her until dusk.
The day spent alone was one of the best she’d known in her short life. There was so much silence, broken only by the sound of snow crunching underpaw. It felt strange, in the hollow there was always the ambiance of some side conversation or someone wailing, but out here it was like autumn-colored ears could finally take a break. She went far afield and explored to her heart’s content, following now frozen streams and scampering over snow-covered rocks. She decided to break her agreement with Oats ever so slightly, deciding to work as she played instead of the latter strictly following the former.
Still, she did fulfill her quota, with a tiny rabbit (that she was quite certain was not the King) and two voles dangling precariously from her jaws as the sun was starting its descent. She was tired beyond belief, and hadn’t eaten all day, but there was still one thing that kept her outside:
the horizon.
The snow had made it seem more dream-like, with the hills breaking the flatness looking like they’d come from a storybook. What was it like over there? Were there fantastical creatures, like her siblings had described? Was there different prey? She sat in silence, taking in the questions for so long that only the feeling of autumn paws going numb from cold was enough to bring her out of it. With a smile, Wheat resolved to explore even more tomorrow before heading back to the hollow she called home.
So long in the silence made the sudden cacophony as the she-cat stepped inside that much more painful. Barley and Millet had been reading Oats the riot act as her siblings looked on and argued in the fading light, but all the noise was suddenly focused on Wheat. It was a mix of admonishment and relief, angry growls and grateful sighs. The she-cat said nothing, amber eyes losing a bit of their sparkle as she deposited her bounty and dragged herself to bed.
She was never allowed that much free reign after that, parents threatening some nebulous punishment if Wheat ever scared them like that again. The next few weeks were spent close to home, hunting dwindling prey in snow that the constant chatter of her siblings seemed to make dreary. “Do you think the King Rabbit will come out today? If we catch it, we’ll be full until Newleaf!”
“What do you mean ‘we’? I’m gonna catch it, and you’ll just sit on your paws like usual while I do the work.”
The ensuing argument between her brothers, Rice and Teff, only served to annoy her. Could they talk about nothing else but hunting? “Where does the King Rabbit live?” Wheat asked idly while sniffing the ground for scents, not yet smart enough to stop believing in the hopeful fairy tales propagated by their parents. The question earned a confused look from her brothers. “Who cares? Probably a big burrow, or something. What matters is what it tastes like!”
“It probably just tastes like rabbit, right? It’s just really big.”
“Nuh uh, I bet it tastes way better, that’s why it’s the king!”
“It’s the king because it’s the biggest, stupid!”
Accepting that she’d been forgotten, amber eyes once again turned towards the horizon and tried to find solace, but her brothers’ intensifying argument and eventual scuffle ruined whatever peace she could’ve had.
Wheat could feel the monotony draining her as time passed. Every day was the same: hunting, dinner, and sleep. While the workload lessened slightly as the weather let up, there was still no allowances made for exploring. The worst part of Wheat’s schedule was undoubtedly when she had to return to the hollow. The occupants weren’t what bothered her, it was the location. Walking down and watching the infinite plains disappear as confining earthen walls overtook them always filled the feline with sadness.
Things continued like that until Wheat turned four moons old, and the realization that this would be the rest of her life struck her while she was ‘celebrating’ with her brother Spelt and sister Corn (which was a codeword for catching even more prey).
“Do you think we’ll ever meet other cats?” she asked while they were walking back to the hollow, a hint of desperation in a voice muffled by a vole. The casual responses her siblings gave almost made her drop it.
“Maybe? I don’t really care either way.”
“Eh, probably not. Besides, I don’t want extra mouths to feed.”
That was it? They didn’t care? Prey was more important? Wheat was growing angry with panic as autumn paws drew closer to her prison. Would she ever reach the horizon that was always in view? Or would she be stuck here, scraping by until the end? The thought weighed heavily on her mind, and over the next few days she began to entertain a possibility previously reserved for dreams more and more. Still, she didn’t want to disappear without a trace.
Wheat and Farro were trying to scent prey together when the words left her, blunt as the day she’d started hunting. “I’m going to leave.”
Farro blinked at her, trying to make sense of the situation. “Um, w-well okay, but remember we’re not s-supposed to go beyond this point, so m-make sure you’re walking back towards the hollow…”
“No, I mean I’m going to leave. The hollow, these plains, all of it.”
Wheat expected resistance, that’s why she’d picked the most cowardly of her siblings to tell. Amber eyes studied Farro as the older sibling took in what she was saying, and the loner was surprised to see not sadness or worry, but deep concentration and thought painted on the other’s face. There were a few confused seconds before a knowing smile spread across autumn features. “You’re wondering how this will affect the hunt, aren’t you?” It seemed her parents’ pragmatism had rubbed off on all their children, Wheat included.
Farro let out a series of surprised stammers before hanging her head. “…Y-Yes. It’s just…isn’t this selfish of you? Leaving all of us like this. Mom and Dad say family have a responsibility to look after each other, right?”
“Yes, I’m selfish. I want to see what’s out there, and I’m willing to leave you all to do it.” There was no point in trying to justify her actions, but Wheat also wasn’t willing to tell her sister just how miserable she’d been the past moon. An autumn pelt pressed itself against her sibling’s, and wheat tried to console her with the cold practicality of their progenitors. “With me gone there’ll be one less hunter, but also one less mouth to feed. It should all work out.”
There was a slow nod from Farro, accepting the simple logic before asking another question. “But why would you tell me this? You know Mom and Dad won’t let you go.”
At that, Wheat would tilt her head. “I love you all, you’re my family. I didn’t want to sneak out in the night and have you think I died or something!” A wily grin spread across conniving features as she continued, “And I know for a fact you won’t be fast enough to run back and tell them before I’m long gone in the snow.” It wasn’t meant as an insult, and Farro didn’t take it as such. It was all part of the pragmatism that plagued these plains, and Wheat was more than willing to utilize it if it meant getting away.
“Just tell them I said I’ll be alright, okay? They’ll be mad at you for a bit, but they know there was nothing you could do to stop me.” Clearly, the she-cat wasn’t much for goodbyes. She stepped into a gully, officially starting her journey, when Farro called out her final question. “Will you come back?”
Wheat didn’t answer.
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