A Ruthless Clan

Broken Peace

Groups of big and colorful cars lined a big flat stone some rumbled by, and others seemed to be sleeping Twolegs walked busily in groups, some younger ones running towards colorful structures with bright lights and music, others were walking along a rocky ocean coast or sitting together to eat, Lula padded swiftly between two sleeping cars, ignoring the excited squeals from small Twoleg kits that spotted her passing by. She carried a still warm chicken leg in her jaws that she'd managed to persuade a young Twoleg to give her, it unbalanced her a little but not enough for her to drop it as she trotted across a field lined with small stone paths. 

The Twolegs here liked to call this odd place a park, and from what Lula had observed, it seemed to be more for twoleg kits who had tired out their parents, or for young adult twolegs to spend time with their mates. 

Twolegs were odd creatures, but very easy to fool for food, all Lula had to do was roll around a bit, purr, and she'd get more chicken than she could eat. While she continued through the field and down one of the stone paths, a group of familiar voices echoed from a pile of old wood and flowering bushes and Lula turned in the direction of the noise.

"There's so many Twolegs here today, and they've scared every last bit of prey away for miles." Flint complained, his tail tip twitched side to side in irritation.

"I already feel famished, I hope some nice Twolegs come by soon, there hasn't been many of 'em around lately." Hummingbird, Flint's mate sighed, she was inside an opening in the pile of wood, curled up protectively around four small kits, they'd been born just a day ago and she desperately needed a good meal.

Lula padded up to the group of park cats that were huddled around relaxing in the late afternoon sun, each cat looked at her in amazement as they saw the warm mouth-watering prize she was carrying.

"Someone got extra lucky today!" Arlo chuckled as Lula stopped beside Hummingbird and placed the chicken leg in front of her.

"I got extra today, and I figured you'd be starving by now." Lula purred.

"Thank you!" Hummingbird replied as she quickly dug into the juicy chicken leg in front of her.

"That was good timing, any longer and I think she would've eaten one of us!" Strawberry teased.

"It's not fun to be hungry, especially when you have kits to feed." Basil pointed out.

Lula knew what it could be like to be hungry, but she couldn't imagine how hard and scary it was to be hungry and to be responsible for kits at the same time.

"So, have you picked their names yet?" Lula asked curiously once Hummingbird had finished eating.

Hummingbird nodded and touched her paw gently to a tabby she-kit with the same colors as her father.

"This is Poppy."

She moved her paw to the next kit who was an orange and white tabby tomkit "This is Flicker."

The little tomkit swiped his front paws in the air and lifted his shaky little head to let out a tiny hiss, earning amused chuckles from the others.

"He's a fighter already." Spruce smiled.

Hummingbird moved her paw over to her all white she-kit "This is Snowflake."

"And this is Ash." She said as she moved her paw to her last kit.

"They're all wonderful names, it's been such a long time since there's been kits around the park, it's hard to believe Bug is all grown up now." Strawberry sighed.

"He's only 15 moons, he isn't quite that grown up." Tulip pointed out.

"Yes, but he wanders much more often now than he did as a kit, I just worry for him sometimes, outside the park isn't very safe." Strawberry answered.