~ Prologue ~
"It's so cold... I-I can't feel my paws."
Her pitiful squeak received no response.
The tiny kit, barely three moons old, hung in her mother's jaws. Her littermate marched alongside them, struggling to keep up with their mother's long strides through the thick snow.
Leaf-bare had its full grasp on the world, and its icy claws dug into the forest with bone-chilling force. Snow piled up on trees, turning the leafless branches white and powdering the dark green needles of pines. It fluttered through the air and landed silently on the ground below, already nearly a tail-length high. As it fell, an eerie silence enveloped the forest.
The mother's golden tabby fur turned white as snow continued to fall on her back. Tiny drops of water, remnants of the frigid stream she had drunk from earlier, clung to the ends of her whiskers. They glistened as she held her head high, trying to support the weight of her smallest kit and keep track of the bigger one struggling through the snow behind her. As they froze in the chilling air, the water droplets slowly lost their watery shine and turned to hard ice.
The silence was broken again by the she-kit's cry. "M-Mother! I'm cold!"
This time her mother stopped and dug a small hollow into the snow. She set the she-kit into the snowy crater then turned around for her second kit, who had fallen behind. The larger kit tried to leap forward to reach her mother, but she slipped and fell face-first into the powder. The tabby picked her up and set her next to her sister. The smaller of the two she-kits shivered violently, her eyes half-shut.
"I can't keep you," the mother said, her tone indifferent. "But you will be safe here. Cats will find you, they will take care of you." With no emotion in her eyes, she lowered her head and touched her nose to the smaller kit's shivering flank. "Be good."
Without another word, their mother turned around and padded away through the falling curtain of snow.
The biggest kit tried to catch up, but the tabby broke into a sprint, leaping effortlessly through the icy forest. Confusion clouded the she-kit's eyes. She let out a pitiful wail, a plea for her mother to return. But her mother did not spare the kits another glance.
"Mama! Come back!" Her desperate wails rang out through the still air. "Don't leave us!"
Their mother either could not hear or did not care. Her image faded into the falling snow with every heartbeat, with every desperate mewl. Each of her strides kicked up flurries that obscured the kit's view even further. Soon all that could be seen was her silhouette in the distance. Then that faded too until she was nothing more than a shadow of a memory, frozen into her kits' hearts.
AN: Look! I'm writing a story that isn't a parody!
This is pretty amazing for me considering that 90% of the story ideas I conceive usually crash and burn, never to be posted here on FFN. But this time I actually have a plot planned out, and I really want to write this. This story is about to be born. I hope you're ready.
Yes, I realize the prologue is extremely short... There was just not much to say here. But this will definitely NOT be an indicator to how long the actual chapters will be. I plan to have them at least the length of Specialized's chapters (2k+ words), and they will most likely be even longer.
Also, I might not get around to updating this for quite awhile (because of school and life), but once I do start updating, it will hopefully be on a somewhat regular schedule. Hopefully.
So prepare your butts, because here we go. Pale as Snow...