Warriors™️ FanFic #1: CrescentSwirl's Pride

Moon 3

Moon 3

The wind felt especially harsh today, and the strong breeze ruffled through his thin fur, uncombing all grooming progress his mother started for him in the nursery. Leaf-bare, or Winter, as some cats called it, was a rough time, always, but this year especially seemed hostile on the moor. Dried, crumbling leaves danced as if they were summer butterflies, mocking the cats by displaying their carefreeness. Almost as if they actually were the little winged insects, MoonKit jumped after them, flailing his paws and giggling as he captured and disintegrated the previous season's leaf litter.

"Momma, look, I caught something!" he exclaimed, eyes bright as he pinned down a leaf's brown stem.

"Hold on, dear." she murmured back softly, investigating the fresh-kill pile to look for actual sources of sustenance. "Let me get you something to eat."

OwlKit shifted nervously next to him, just a bit more attentive to their mother's concerns. Taking a look herself, she stated quietly that the pile was empty. What was to be done?

"Kits, I'll go hunt now, okay?" cooed KestrelFace, her chest's fur keeping them warm as she shielded them from the increasingly intense wind. Her brow was wracked with worry, however— who'd watch after her little ones in the camp? There weren't other queens up for that task, especially not in this environment. The apprentices hadn't been properly padding the dens, and thus the nursery was cold. Her mate wasn't present, to say the least, and KestrelFace was worried that they'd be easy pickings for gossip and intimidation. Especially OwlKit— she saw a lot more than her two months would imply, and her apparent nervous character was clear to all those around her.

"Momma, will we come with you?"

Closing her eyes, the queen clenched her teeth a bit, deeply regretting her words before she even spoke them. "Sure," she said, "Come with me."

Moonkit jumped with glee, ecstatic. He had never left the camp, but had heard stories from his older cousin PaintedPearl about the lands outside the ridges that formed his whole world. He knew his older sister OrangePaw would sometimes bring prey for their family from the moor as well, so he knew it had to be a good place.

The two kits followed their mother outside the camp, as silent as they could be. MoonKit was walking behind their mother confidently, but OwlKit was more conservative, next to KestrelFace, invisible in the grass as she crouched beside her mother.

One thing that the three had forgotten to account for was the wind, its gusts not broken by the camp's ridges any longer; they tormented MoonKit's pelt, batting him from side to side as he walked himself just a few fox-lengths outside. It took a lot of his focus, and even more of his little kitten strength, to keep trying to follow his sister and mother. How foolish he was, to not learn by imitation and crouch!

The continued up the slope out of camp, until the moor evened out in its topography. The wind screeched, billowing from the direction of the gorge and tearing through his eardrums. As harsh as it was, MoonKit loved its biting sharpness, endowing him an odd serenity as he walked alone on the plains.

Was he walking alone?!

He looked around, carefully, panic surging in his chest, pumping his heart till it felt like a vibration. Where was he? His eyes darted in all directions. Had he just walked out of camp? It was no longer visible to him, in any direction. Nothing was familiar in this grass. Everything went from comforting to  suspiciously hostile, as he dashed from one supposed landmark to another. He saw a fallen tree, but it wasn't the fallen tree in camp. What he thought to be a den was just an abandoned dugout of some sort. 

"Momma?!" his voice quivered, the cold penetrating him all the way to the bone as he timidly called out to the moor. "Momma?"

"MOMMA!" he screeched, raising his voice as much as he could. He had never screamed so loudly before and it frightened him, his call blending into the wind's shrill like a feeder stream into a river.