Spirit's Journey

CHAPTER 8- Spirit: Diamond Cat

I looked back to see Fallan bouncing around, chasing a butterfly while the barn got smaller in the distance. Her energy hadn't yet been spent, what with the shortened travel today.

Hannah had stayed close to me, staring and asking questions about the kitten in my mouth while I only half-listened. She had struggled a lot at first, clearly not used to being picked up.

We had just left the barn, and would be heading into the thicker trees soon (once again). Relieved to be away from a human-place, I could walk a lot easier now. Prey-scents hit my nostrils, but I kept walking past them and focused on the kitten's warm scent instead.

Eventually I would tell my sister and Hannah about my dreams, but that wouldn't be tonight. They deserved to know, but how would two cheetahs like them react? Most things they took serious included finding their next meal and coming up with the next odd thing to do or say.

"Hannah! Come look at this feather!"

How was I going to explain it to them?

I would just not say anything about the true origins of my reason for taking the kit, for now. The questions kept rolling, this time from both of them, and I tried to answer only the ones I could respond to without lying.

"Did we just save this kit's life, basically?"

"And how are we going to feed it? Its so tiny!" Hannah lowered her head to peer at the tiny kit in awe.

"With prey, obviously. She has teeth."

"What if it still drinks milk? It looks so small still!"

I froze in my tracks from what Hannah had said, almost dropping the kit. She swayed back and forth for a moment, churning her paws and squealing in alarm.

How were we going to feed her? If she drank milk still, we'd have to take her back right away.

And the poor kit was pitifully small and skinny. It might not survive, what with Cold-Paws on the way and the shortage of prey it brought with it.

But I couldn't give the kit up now. I had seen it in my dream, and already could see her in our future. Perhaps that was why the kitten kept being so chatty. Though her meows had no words in them yet, could she be expressing that she was hungry?

I looked around the woods and back behind me, devastatingly realizing that the barn was too far away to be seen. Wind began whistling through the slender trunks, bringing with it a stronger scent of prey.

There was leaves that occasionally floated down from the towering trees, and a cool breeze had begun blowing only a couple of minutes ago. Plus, everything was still damp from last night. The bottom of my pads were covered in mud, while Fallan's were dirty up to half-way the length of her legs. She tumbled down into a ditch suddenly, staining Hannah with a few drops that she immediantly grimaced at.

This kit might not even last tonight, I realized with dread. It was so young and vulnerable. But then, that's how Fallan, Hannah and I had been- and we'd had no help but each other. I sort of felt that the kitten needed us now.

With all of these thoughts now surfacing, I knew that we would have to solve this problem here and now. Without going any further, we would find a solution.

"Wait," I told my sisters through a mouth-full of scruff while lowering my haunches to sit down. Hannah sat and Fallan rolled onto her back as if she were tired from the one hour of distance we'd traveled today.

"Fallan, go fetch a mouse or squirrel or something. Did you guys eat that spare rabbit before I woke up?"

Fallan got up and shuffled her paws in the dirt guiltily, thankfully telling the truth, while Hannah looked away silently.