Marlyth looked up for the first time in what seemed like years, a curtain of dirty fur that may once have been ginger hanging over her eyes, blocking out half her vision. Her legs ached, and in the darkness, nothing to see, there was nothing to do but go on. A thin, ragged stray, crawling through pipes.
Somewhere before this, she had worried about a fox attacking.
Down here, she would be lucky to be fox food.
Sighing, she walked until the floor felt at least a little dry beneath her paws, and sat down. She could cry now, if she wanted to, but nothing came. No courageousness to explore new territory, no wishes for her old, safe kittypet life. Not even memories, let alone regrets. Just cold, blank exhaustion. But there could be any cats in here, and she was afraid even more now that she was this weakened. Standing up on shaking legs, she forced herself on.
There was a light at the end of the tunnel.
She could see it, or perhaps it was just her tired eyes beginning to hallucinate. Or perhaps it really was going to end in here - likely enough. A dumb kittypet with dreams and ideas and sickening over-optimism. Stupid to think that if they didn't get her sold, they'd drown her. Even if that had been true, she should have just joined one of the forest clans, or found some sympathetic old twoleg. But for Marlyth, life had always been one big adventure. Unlike now.
She'd once, she thought, been nothing like this. Kind. Pretty. Once long ago she'd hated the idea of anything being killed. Today she wiped out rabbits, birds, whatever without remorse and wasn't even sure if, if they were threatening her, killing another cat would be any different. She was stronger, darker. But still afraid to die – and here was her chance not to.
It was real, so real that her eyes ached, almost as if she could regain the ability to cry. Or laugh. Or sleep. It was raining, too, big warm droplets that washed over her greasy, knotted fur as she clambered out of the pipe. Marlyth felt a little smile tug at her mouth. She'd made it, made it to-
-a dusty old junkyard in the middle of nowhere.
And it was the right place for her to be. The scents of other cats flooded her. She could sleep now, maybe. Find allies – or do what she always does. Work best alone. Attack anything that looked like it was going to kill her, or looked like food. She wasn't Marlyth anymore. She needed something new, something wild. A name for a rouge. A name like… A name like Rain. It was all around her. Sunshine was for kittypets, for cats that liked twolegs – and Rain had never hated anything more than twolegs in her entire life.