Flerae: A Lie Untold

Prologue

Starfish walks in a hurried pace, trying, and failing to get away from her troubled thoughts. She arrives at their home--her home--she corrects. It isn't Sky's home anymore. The mud hut is small, only one room, but it worked for them. Only Ocean and Sky stayed here day round, while Starfish, Coral, and Seaweed lived mostly in the water. The quirks of mating a land cat.

Inside, Ocean, her son, lays asleep, curled up in a tiny ball of fluff. As Starfish enters, his little head lifts up. He blinks back the grogginess that assails him.

"Mom?" he mews, "where's dad?"

Tears threaten to fill her eyes, but she manages to hold them back.

"He's... out flying. He'll be a while," she says.

"Okay," he replies.

His black and white fur strikes a cord in her. His piercing blue eyes remind her too much of Sky's eyes, as they stare sightlessly. 

The memories of the night come back to her.

She rushes through the cabanna trees, their scent filling her nostrils with their alluring aroma. Her paws thud on the sand, sending up plumes behind her. Her breaths come in ragged gasps, as her heart beats heavily inside her. Bu-bum, bu-bum.

The Dark ones were coming closer.

She doesn't glance behind her. She doesn't need to. She listens to Sky as he breathes in wheezing hiccups, scrambling to stay ahead of them. 

The Cursed ones were coming nearer.

Sky screeches as the beasts catch up to him. Starfish halts in her progression, snapping her head around in time to see the dark furred animals surrounding her mate. 

"Sky!"

The monsters...

The monsters flick their gazes at her for a second when the scream escapes her clenched teeth. They return their hungry, insane eyes to Sky, their prey. 

The creatures were hungry.

The animals strike. Sky disappears in a flash beneath their dark silvery pelts. His howls fill the night air, echoing against the leafy prongs of the cabanna trees. Finally, they disperse, licking their bloody maws, as they scurry back into the Endless Forest whence they came. 

Starfish hurries to Sky, where they left him. His black and white fur covered in blood, his piercing blue eyes stare sightlessly into the sky, where he once liked to fly, soaring on his once magnificent wings, which now lay tattered and torn. He could have lived. But he stayed on the ground, unable to leave Starfish to a fate like this one. 

She sits beside him for hours, her head bowed, as she moans and sobs over his remains. She only notices the passage of time as Litha, the largest of the suns rises in the sky, filling Flerae with the bright colors of the morning. 

Starfish forces herself to her paws. She turns her back to Sky, turns tail and walks through the beach and into the lake. She ducks her head down, swimming, enjoying the feeling of the water against her fur, as it washes Sky's blood from her. She returns to the surface, shaking off the wetness. She watches her scaly mer-tail transform once more into hind legs. 

Her thoughts whirl around in her head, always coming back to Sky, to his broken body. Twisted. Unrecognizable. 

She blinks the memories away, turning back to Ocean, who stares at her with a curious expression. She gives him a sad smile, curling up next to him. She begins to groom his fur... his black and white fur. He immediately starts purring... just like Sky would whenever she groomed him. Starfish pulls away from her son, once more blinking back tears. He looks too much like Sky. Looking down at him, she knows that she will never be able to look at him the same. She will only ever see him bloodied and broken, like his father. She waits until he curls back asleep, before leaving. She slinks back into the lake, unable to be around Ocean any longer, swimming to the bottom, towards her other kittens, Coral and Seaweed.