the tamest blizzard
a holiday short for mossecho
The festival of snows began in less than a quarter-moon, and the forest cats were more restless than usual because last year it hadn't snowed once. They'd carried out the festival as usual, hoping that on one day at least the sky would pour forth its glittering prize, but it never came and essentially the festival of snows that year had been pointless.
This year they were nervous. Most of them expected a dry festival again, although few would admit it. Keeping up appearances was an important part of the forest cats' lives, and so they went on smiling and preparing, hoping for the best but secretly bracing for the worst. It hadn't snowed yet this year, and although that wasn't an unusual thing, they took it as a bad omen and prayed relentlessly to the spirits in the stars that snow would come down this year.
The festival of snows had been in previous years a grand thing, with games and competitions and friendships and prey-sharing and stories. It was the only time of year the forest cats weren't in tensions with each other over prey or territories or whatever skirmish one cat or another could come up with, and so everyone looked forward to it, their anticipation for the next year's festival beginning as soon as the last one ended. Everyone pitched in to prepare the forests for the festival, even the most hostile of the forest cats. It was as if the glory of the gleaming white snow captivated even the most aggressive personality and tamed it.
And then, two years before, there came a tom and his mate to this forest, and the snows could not tame them. They did not help prepare for the festival, and they did not join in the festivities. They hid away in the farthermost corner of the forest and ran out every attempt on the other cats' parts to hunt for the prey-share, despite the unspoken truce of the festival that allowed every territory to become open hunting grounds during the half-moon surrounding it.
For the festival last year they had not been tamed, and with only a few more nights to go, it did not seem like they would be tamed for this one either.
-o-o-o-
The kitten was old enough to survive without his parents but young enough that he shouldn't have had to. He woke up two nights before the festival in a cold nest, his parents nowhere to be seen. Their scent in the den was faint, as if they hadn't been inside the whole night. He peered outside the cave entrance, but the only thing he saw was the gray rays of dawn light alighting on the branches of the trees around him.
A few steps forward took him out into the clearing just in front of his cave, and he called out, "Mother? Father?" He expected them to respond with a "Over here, Blizzard—just scouting out some prey for the festival!" but there was no response, just the echo of his call bouncing through the trees.
Blizzard stared hard into the forest, willing the soft gray fur of his mother or the sleek black fur of his father to appear in the distance, but still there was nothing. So he started forward, following the faintest of scents in a straight line away from where he was standing.
After a while it occurred to him that it would have been a better idea to stay in the den and wait, but when he turned to go back, he didn't recognize any of his surroundings. He had been so intent on finding his mother and father, on following their scent, that he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. He stood there for a moment, mildly panicking, but then he turned back onto the trail and followed it forward, until suddenly it ended and he was standing in the middle of a patch of forest that looked the same in every direction, and he had no guide.
This time the panic wasn't mild, and he whipped around, trying to find the scent trail he'd been following so that he could trace it backward and get back home, but all he found was a few pawsteps of a trail that smelled overwhelmingly of his own scent and ended abruptly, replaced by the earthy smells of the forest.
"Mother? Mother? Father!" His voice became increasing shrill with every word he shrieked, and at the end his fur was bushed out and his tail was pointed straight out behind him, his whole body wracked with fear. With every lack of response, every echo, his heart beat a little harder until he had no choice but to keep moving in the direction he thought led back home, if only so that he could concentrate on his paws for the sole purpose of keeping his panic from rising and rendering him mentally incapacitated. He focused carefully on the crunch of leaves and dead undergrowth beneath his paws and thought about the festival of snows, wondering who would give him a prey-gift and what competitions he would win, if any. He conjured up the face of the tom in the litter that lived in the territory across from his and imagined beating him in the tree-climbing competition with distracting satisfaction.
For a long while he kept his mind occupied with such thoughts, but it was inevitable that eventually he would come back to thinking about his parents and just how lost he was. The sun was already dropping back to the horizon by this time, and Blizzard still didn't recognize any part of his surroundings.
And then, suddenly, he reared backward, overwhelmed by scents he wasn't familiar with. Slowly, it dawned on him—he was no longer in his own family's territory, and this clearly wasn't the territory of the nice family that lived next to his. He stepped backward, and then in another direction, and then in a third, but with every step he took he felt as if he were being more tightly suffocated by this strange scent.
From the corner of his eye there was a movement, and then a branch snapped, and he whipped his head to the side. There, framed by a tunnel of arched trees, stood a tom with a pelt like his father's but eyes like a fire, and what little sunlight there was left glinted off slick white fangs.
Blizzard lost control of his panic, and it flared in the wake of this stranger, forcing his paws to turn and whip across the leaves, and then the kit was throwing himself through the undergrowth, launching forward with all the urgency of one who knows he's about to die.
-o-o-o-
Mars had never appreciated the company of other cats, discounting his mate, and kittens he especially disliked. Nasty little creatures, unable to take care of themselves and expecting nature to bend to their needs. Always whining, always needing.
But even more than other cats he disliked trespassers. His borders were clearly marked with scent markers, and he'd lived here for two years, long enough in his opinion for everyone else to know where his borders lie. And yet, here he had a trespasser, and not only that, but his trespasser was a kit.
He saw it crashing loudly through the undergrowth, a fluffy, disproportionate mass of silver and black swirls, yellow eyes set determinedly on the ground. Mars crouched, peering through the foliage, and watched as this trespasser marched deeper into territory that wasn't his own. And then, suddenly, the kit reared back and glanced around, and Mars stood, fur bushed out. The kit's eyes met his own, and they stared each other for a good heartbeat before Mars bared his teeth, and the kit spun on his paws and launched off in the opposite direction.
"Oh, no you don't," Mars muttered under his breath, throwing himself after the kit. "Trespassers do not get away quite so easily."
His paws tore up the dead leaves as he ran, throwing out a spray of burnt orange and glistening brown behind him. The kit was faster than he expected, but he was gaining ground anyway, only a foxlength or two behind him. And then he lunged forward, and the kit's tail whipped across his muzzle, and a second jump brought him crashing down atop the kit's shoulders and crushing it to the ground.
"No! No! Please don't hurt me, it was an accident! Please!" The kit thrashed under his grip, and his claws were digging into its marbled fur, but he didn't let up. "I was just trying to find my mother and father!"
"Well they wouldn't be here. At least, if they had, they'd be dead now."
And here the kit stopped struggling, just letting out a horrified gasp and pulling itself closer to the ground, as if trying to shrink into it.
Mars sighed grandly, finally backing off of the kit. "They were never here, kit. If they're dead, it wasn't by my paws." The kit backed away, eyes wide in terror. "Oh no, I'm not letting you leave. Any cat that crosses onto my territory without my permission does not make it back off."
The kit let out a screech and turned to flee, and Mars made to sink his teeth into its scruff, but a light paw-touch on the tip of his tail made him stop. "Oh, Mars, just let the pathetic scrap of fur go," a voice meowed, and Mars turned to see the soft brown pelt and glistening green eyes of his mate, Fawn. "As much as I'd like to punish the creature, that kind of black mark on my soul is not one I feel worth it."
He didn't want to agree, but Mars found himself nodding to her words. "I suppose so," he growled faintly, then stood and followed Fawn back to the den they shared. He didn't know whether he hoped the kit had run from the territory so that he didn't have to deal with it, or if he hoped the kit was still there so that he could.
-o-o-o-
Blizzard bowled blindly through the undergrowth, sharp thorned branches whipping relentlessly across his face and shoulders. One particularly brutal thorn lodged into the fur above his eye, dragged a good stretch and then broke from the branch it belonged to, staying behind in his brow. A drop of blood beaded from his fur and dripped into his eye, marring his vision.
He kept running, although it began to seem like the farther he went, the deeper into the tom's territory he got. His scent got stronger with every pawstep, until Blizzard felt he was choked with it. He found he couldn't keep running with the scent clogging his airway, and after a few more moments of trying he finally slowed to a stop.
The forest was dark around him, and what little of his surroundings he could see clearly he didn't recognize. He stumbled around the area he stood in for a moment, his vision blurry with exhaustion and his legs weak from running, and he found nothing familiar. Even the type of trees in this part of the forest were different. The trees in his family's territory were a mix of evergreens and maples and oaks, but here it was mostly ancient, twisted oaks, some low to the ground and some tall and sprawling, all of them with branches stretching far in all directions, crooked and dark and menacing.
The longer he stood there, the more clear reality became: he was going to have to stay here in the tom's territory for the night and pray to the spirits above that he wasn't found out. Maybe tomorrow he'd be less disoriented. He could only hope as much, but for right now the reigning issue was finding somewhere to sleep—and he wasn't entirely sure he could even do that much, as weary as he was.
After a long time of stumbling around half-blindly and half-consciously, he finally collapsed into a dip in the ground hidden by a heavy thicket and the roots of an ancient tree, and he fell away into sleep.
-o-o-o-
When he awoke at some point during the night—or maybe it was morning; he could hardly tell through his exhaustion and the thickness of his hiding place and the forest around it—he heard shuffling a little ways beyond where he lay, and he nudged his head out from the thicket.
The tom that had tried to capture him slipped into a spot of darkness only a foxlength away and did not come back out.
Blizzard shoved deeper into the thicket and crouched there, shivering, for the rest of the night.
-o-o-o-
Mars opened his eyes into darkness. The mouth of the little cave was awash in golden light, but inside the cave it was still dark, and Mars relished it for a few more short moments before he pushed himself to his paws. Fawn still lay sleeping in her nest, and Mars didn't wake her up. He thought he'd go hunting by himself and let Fawn sleep in, so he left the den, his nose tilted toward the ground and his pawsteps light.
-o-o-o-
He returned with a fat rabbit in his mouth and Fawn, who had awoken later and joined him, by his side. The night crawled across the forest floor, wrapping the cave and the trees and the two cats in shadows.
He had almost reached the cave when he caught a whiff of something that wasn't supposed to be there.
-o-o-o-
Blizzard heard the growl before he saw the tom. At first he thought it was his stomach—he had never felt such hunger in his life, and by this point in the day he was sure he was going to die of starvation. He would have gone hunting by now, or left the territory at the very least, except that he had no idea how to hunt and the hunger was too overwhelming for him to imagine trying to crawl across the territory, too distracting to try to find his way out.
He pushed deeper into the thicket, but he could hear the tom approaching and the she-cat's curious "What is it?" and knew he was going to die.
The thicket exploded open, a branch of thorns whipping across Blizzard's face and leaving behind two burning scratches behind. The tom's face burst through, all blazing eyes and glistening teeth, and Blizzard threw himself backward with all the strength he had left. He fell through several more thicket bushes, the thorns catching in his fur, and then he rolled to a stop against the rotting half-log of a fallen tree, and he couldn't find the strength again to move.
"Well, well," the tom hissed. "If it isn't the little ratbag I found trespassing on my territory last night." His voice grated against Blizzard's ears, and he cringed away, but the movement was all he could muster. He slumped back against the log and let out a whimper, squeezing his eyes shut against the sight. "And still on my territory! I would have thought I scared you off. I suppose I'll have to take the next step."
"I don't know how to get home!" Blizzard squeaked, desperately, but the tom let out a snarl and then there were teeth on the back of his neck.
-o-o-o-
Mars jerked back in surprise. "…Fawn? What are you doing?"
She lifted up the little scrap of a kitten and spoke around his scruff. "I told you, dear. I don't want any black marks on my soul."
The kit opened his eyes wide in surprise and shivered violently. "Besides," Fawn continued, "he says he doesn't know how to get home. And honestly that's a good enough excuse for still being here, in my opinion. There aren't any markers pointing out of the territory."
Mars just stared, his jaw a bit slack. He thought Fawn's actions were uncharacteristic of her, and he was having trouble wrapping his mind around her words. "He trespassed, Fawn. I doubt he even tried to leave, daft rat. And you think we should just… gently guide him to the border and bid him good night?" He cocked his head and squinted at her. "Are you feeling well?"
Fawn huffed. "Normally, Mars, I would agree with you. If we were talking about a full-grown cat here, I'd be happy to assist you in punishing the trespasser. But this is a kitten. Do you really think he's here to cause trouble?"
"Yes," Mars hissed. "It's a kitten's business to cause trouble. It's the only thing the nasty buggers know how to do!"
There was a long moment during which neither cat spoke. And then Fawn turned away, flicking her tail dismissively. "I'll be back later, Mars," she threw flatly over her shoulder.
The black tom stood there, his fur half-bushed out and his expression incredulous, watching his mate walk away from him.
-o-o-o-
Blizzard didn't dare speak, for fear of annoying the she-cat—Fawn? Wasn't that what the tom had said?—and causing her to change her mind.
He dangled from her teeth, both terrified and grateful, utterly relieved.
He'd thought he was going to die. But by the grace of the spirits above, he hadn't.
Suddenly the scents and surroundings around him changed, the warm scent of the forest and prey and his own parents' markers filtering through the air, the trees changing from dark and twisted trees to tall ones with bright green leaves, dappled with moonlight. "Is this your home?" Fawn asked, her voice cutting through the silence that had built up.
"Yes," Blizzard said quietly, slightly dazed with the knowledge that he had been this close to his death. The she-cat sat him down beneath a low-branched tree and sat back, observing him for a moment. He shied away, hiding his face behind his tail. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry I trespassed on your territory," he told her meekly.
Fawn tilted her head curiously and stood again, laying a tail on his shoulder. "Why were you on our territory?" she asked after a moment.
"I…I…" He sniffed once, staring down at his paws, and tried to push down the grief that came over him upon the question. "I was looking for my parents." His voice came out abnormally weak and breathy, like his words were an extended sigh. "I woke up a few nights ago and they weren't there, and I went looking for them, and then I got lost." He shrank into himself, more and more certain after all of this time that his parents were not just missing, but dead.
Fawn watched him, her expression sympathetic, and after a while Blizzard asked, "Why did you save me?"
She didn't answer right away. She turned and stared off into the forest with misty eyes for a long moment, and then her shoulders dropped and she looked back over at Blizzard. "You remind me of someone," she said at last. There was another long pause, and Blizzard thought that was going to be it, but then: "There was a tom before Mars." Blizzard looked up; he thought Mars must be the she-cat's mate, the one who had tried twice to kill him. "Much more lively," Fawn continued, sighing. "Actually, he was quite a stark contrast from Mars. We were going to be mates, almost." She closed her eyes. "And then he went and died, and I had to find a way to move on."
Blizzard looked up at this she-cat, and saw the hardness that lined her face, obscuring the pain that she hid beneath her cold mask. And then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared, and Blizzard was left with the impression that he had seen something he shouldn't have.
"You look like him, is all," Fawn admitted. "I couldn't bear to see Mars kill someone who looked so much like him…" She sighed again. "And then, you're just a kit. Killing a kit is beyond a cruelty I can muster." The she-cat shrugged and stood up, turning away from Blizzard again. "Anyway. I need to go back."
Blizzard opened his mouth to speak, but by the time "But—" came from his throat she was already gone.
-o-o-o-
"What was that?" snarled Mars as Fawn slinked into their den.
Fawn stared at him for a moment, and Mars bared his teeth at her for a moment before sighing and lying back down in his nest.
"If you want to kill kittens, you need to do it when I'm not around."
"But they're such—"
"I don't care what you think of them, Mars. They're kittens! Helpless, young kittens, with half the knowledge we have—"
"Exactly! That's exactly—!"
"Because they aren't even capable of it! I'd understand if they had the ability to know what we know but they don't! How can you judge someone on something they can't help? Aren't you supposed to be the logical one here?"
Mars didn't have any response to this. As much as it pained him to acknowledge it—and stars if he'd ever admit it—Fawn did have the edges of a point. He knew his dislike of kittens was unreasonable, and couldn't truly put a paw on why his hatred was so vehement.
"You're just angry that I don't want kittens."
Fawn reared back, and Mars knew immediately he shouldn't have said it. But he didn't try to take it back; he just stared at her, anger pushing down any feelings of guilt.
"I'm angry," Fawn said coolly, her fur lying flat again, "because you're being irrational." She turned on her heel and padded back out of the den, and Mars watched his mate walk away for the second time that night.
-o-o-o-
She slept outside, in the thicket where the kit had hidden, and Mars didn't try to convince her to come back. He knew even if he did she wouldn't concede, so he left her alone and slept in a cold nest in a cold den, with only the faint starlight for company.
In the morning he stepped out of the den and peered at his mate, who was still sleeping, for a long moment. She looked so much younger when she slept, so much less like the Fawn he used to know.
He turned away, sighing and looking off into the trees, before heading off toward the border to remark them and perhaps find some prey along the way. He scented a rabbit, which surprised him so deep into winter, and he crouched a few treelengths from the border, nose to the ground and tail straight out behind him. Creeping forward, he followed the scent through the trees and into a small clearing, where a rabbit stood on its hind legs, looking around as if it were lost. It twitched its nose up into the air as Mars put one of his paws down, and for a moment he thought he had been discovered and that he had lost the rabbit. But then it put its muzzle down again and glanced around, and Mars took the moment to lunge forward, burying his teeth in the rabbit's fur.
The black tom stood up with his prize swinging in his jaws. Satisfied now, he felt more like going back to the den and going back to sleep, but he wanted to get the borders done first at the very least, so he turned toward the edge of the forest and started forward.
Then there was a crunch of leaves and the soft whoosh of fur against a bush, and Mars whipped his head up to meet eyes with the kit.
The rabbit dropped from his mouth and he jerked up. "You! Again!" For a moment, he didn't know whether he was going to leap forward and deal with this kit for good or bash his head into the trunk of the tree next to him. He sighed instead, glaring up at the sky. "I don't even… why are you still here? Just… why?"
The kit didn't even bother to try to run away again. He just shrunk back and buried his chin in his chest fur, mumbling out, "I was trying to find something to eat."
"On my territory?" Mars shook his head and sighed again. Suddenly he found he didn't have the energy to even be angry, and he just stared tiredly at the kit.
"I didn't mean to come back," the kit meowed. "I was following a rabbit smell and didn't realize I had come back again." He was still staring at the ground, ears flat against his skull but otherwise not showing any signs of fear. Mars had the thought that the kit was under the impression that Fawn would protect him—but Fawn wasn't here now, was she?
"I see," Mars said. "Let me make a deal with you. You leave my territory now and never return, and I won't kill you. How does that sound?"
The kit look taken aback for a moment, but recovered quickly. "But I'm really hungry…"
Mars scoffed. "And what do you expect me to do about it?"
"I was, um, wondering if maybe I could… have a bite of your rabbit?"
"My rabbit? My rabbit?" He started laughing, a forced, overly loud laugh, but the kit was completely serious. He stared up at Mars with such a despondent look that the black tom cut his laughter short and stared hardly into the kit's yellow eyes. "I nearly kill you twice, and you have the gall to ask me for a bite of my catch. I hardly know how to react to this, you little scrap." And Mars almost laughed again, because it was hilariously unreal. At the same time, he had to give it to the kit—even he himself wouldn't have considered asking for a bigger tom's prey after trespassing on his territory three times. The kit had guts, something a lot of cats didn't have any longer, it seemed.
"Sure, ratbag. Take the whole thing. I wouldn't want it after you took a bite out of it." And he picked up the rabbit and threw it over at the kit, then walked away, calling, "Now get off my territory," and wondering about what he had just done.
-o-o-o-
Blizzard could hardly believe it. The whole rabbit, and he didn't even have to catch it.
But more than that, it was that Mars had given it to him. That Mars hadn't killed him, or even tried. He hadn't even looked angry.
Blizzard dug into the rabbit, savoring its flavor and thanking the winter spirits for his luck. The only consolation in his life now that his parents were gone—he winced at just the thought of them, pausing in his chewing for a moment to experience the excruciating pain that came over him—now that he was all alone.
When he finished, he curled up just on the inside of his own territory's border and rested. He didn't want to test Mars sudden goodwill, or whatever it had been, but he knew that if he tried to find his way back to his own den that he would get lost again, and he couldn't imagine that, even if he found any prey, he could catch his food. He had to hope the next cat who found him would be Fawn, and if it wasn't…well, there wasn't much to live for now anyway, with no parents and nowhere to go.
He tucked his nose into his tail, satisfied from the food but from nothing else, and watched the sun go down again without his parents.
-o-o-o-
"You… what?"
As Mars had walked home that afternoon, he had realized why he'd given the kit his rabbit: Fawn. It always came back to Fawn with him, it seemed. If nothing else, he cared about her. And he didn't like her being angry at him. It made him feel like he was losing the only thing he ever had. Which was true.
He remembered being lost and alone, no parents or friends or siblings to speak of—or, at least, not by then. They'd left him; every member of his family had hated him, cruelly and with no reason. One day he'd awoken and they were gone, a fresh trail out of the den and far from the territory. He remembered trying to follow it and ending up nearly lost, until he turned and went home and never saw his family again. He'd never figured out what he'd done wrong.
He'd made it on his own for a good while when he met Fawn, as broken as he was, and he clung to her like she was the key to forever.
So he didn't like her being angry with him, and the longer it went on the more worried he was that she would leave him. Because that's what everyone else had done, right?
And so he helped the pathetic kit, subconsciously knowing that it would ease Fawn's anger. He told her what he'd done when he got back, with enough genuine reluctance in his voice for it to still sound characteristic of him. She was more shocked than he'd expected, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"I can't believe you actually gave him the rabbit!" She stared at him, looked away, and looked back again. "Are you joking?" she accused.
"What? No! I really did. I didn't want to, and I don't know what came over me, but I really did."
"I can't believe it." She was watching him with a look of utter astonishment and awe and something that looked a little like relief. But there was a smile on her face, and that's all he needed.
She came back into the cave that night, and they watched the sun set through the den mouth, and everything was okay.
-o-o-o-
"It's the second day of the festival of snows," Fawn told him the next morning.
For a long moment he was utterly lost, but then it came to him. "That silly celebration the other forest cats always hold?"
Fawn looked contemplative. "I think it's kind of charming, actually."
"Psh. Sharing prey and challenging each other to games. Seems silly to me. They should be hunting for themselves and keeping their borders up, in my opinion."
"Don't you ever just want to take a break, though? From all the hostility, and being so antisocial?"
The she-cat was staring off into space in a strange way, and Mars began to be concerned that he hadn't eased her anger at all last night. "I… not really. No. I'm fine here with you and our own territory."
Fawn didn't reply, and longer they sat there in silence, the more Mars realized it wasn't true. Not that he wasn't fine with Fawn and his home—he was, and he could stay here forever without any bother. But he did get sick of the hostility sometimes, and being antisocial. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to just talk with other cats, to make friends.
But something always held him back. Worry, he supposed, anxiety. Insecurity—what if they didn't like him? What if they hated him, like everyone else in his life, discounting Fawn, ever had? And the worry made him angry, because why couldn't he just be like other cats and not care?
He snapped himself out of his thoughts, wondering at the unusual amount of reflection he had done over the last few days.
"Let's take a walk," he suggested after a moment. He wanted to clear his mind, and he also didn't want to leave Fawn.
"Do you think the kit is still around?" Fawn asked, standing to follow him.
Mars narrowed his eyes. "I hope not. I don't think I can be charitable a second time."
"Oh, Mars. He's just a kit, with no parents. He's not going to survive on his own."
"First, when did you get so… nice? And second, that's not my business. The kit isn't my responsibility to take care of."
"I didn't get 'nice.' I'm being reasonable. Besides, I always had a soft spot for kittens."
"You did? I never knew that."
"How would you? We never had kits."
Mars reeled back a little, the words a blow to his chest. "I didn't… know that you really wanted them. I thought when you talked about them you weren't serious."
"Well." Fawn shrugged. "I was serious. But it's not a big deal, Mars. Don't get worked up over it."
They reached the border of their territory and had to turn and walk alongside it. "I'm going to look for this kit," Fawn told him. "And you aren't going to attack him."
"If he's on my territory again…"
But they walked a good ways without seeing or scenting anything. "Good riddance," Mars said at last.
"He'll die, Mars. He doesn't know how to hunt." There was actual concern in Fawn's voice, and Mars looked over to see her face clouded with worry. She glanced at him, pleading.
"Fawn." He glared at her, but she kept up the plea in her eyes, and he groaned. "Fine. Fine."
Fawn gave him such a look of relief and triumph that he couldn't hold his anger. He let out an incredulous laugh. "I can't believe I'm doing this for you."
They crept farther along the border, toward where Mars had caught the rabbit the day before, and then the now-familiar scent hit his nose.
The fur along the back of his neck rose instinctively, but Fawn laid her tail on his back, whispering, "He isn't on our territory, Mars. He's on his own." He let his fur lie flat again and padded forward a few more steps.
And there the kit was, a little ball of fluff curled up just inside of his side of the border, tail wrapped over nose and eyes shut tightly. "He's asleep," Fawn whispered. She took a few soft steps forward and leaned down next to his ear. "Blizzard, wake up. It's me, Fawn."
-o-o-o-
Blizzard's eyes shot open and he found himself looking into the glittering green eyes of Fawn, and was immediately filled with complete and utter relief. And then he blinked and leaned back to take in the time of day and saw Mars standing just behind her, looking slightly annoyed and slightly resigned.
"H-hi," he squeaked.
Fawn smiled and leaned back. "We're here to bring you back to our den."
"What?" Blizzard and Mars exclaimed in unison. Mars jerked his head up and continued, "Wait, we didn't—" but Fawn slapped her tail across Mars' mouth and glared at him from the corner of her eyes, her smile perfectly in place nonetheless.
"I'm going to teach you how to hunt," Fawn told Blizzard, turning her now-softened gaze back toward him. "You'll stay with me until you know how, okay?"
Blizzard looked up into Fawn's eyes and saw that she was being entirely genuine, and he nodded and pushed himself to his paws. "Okay," he said, and paused, contemplating. "Thank you," he said after a moment, to both of them, first nodding at Fawn and then, hiding reluctance, at Mars.
-o-o-o-
The rest of the day was spent teaching Blizzard how to hunt. Fawn showed him the hunting crouch, and he did not quickly get the hang of it, which embarrassed him in front of this so-nice she-cat and this tom who disliked him.
Finally, at sunset, he found himself in a shaky, imperfect crouch, and Fawn declared it enough, so they went back to the den, where two squirrels waited from Mars short hunting break. When they finished, Blizzard curled up beside the wall and Mars curled up at the back of the den and Fawn curled up somewhere in between them. He waited a few moments, then ventured a question he had little faith in: "Um… could we, maybe, uh…" He cleared his throat and tried again; both Fawn and Mars were looking at him, Fawn with curiosity and Mars with faint annoyance and a large amount of exhaustion. "Could we go to the, um, festival of snows tomorrow? Before we miss all of it…" his voice trailed off as a look of disgust crossed Mars face.
Fawn started to speak, but her mate cut her off: "No," he said decisively, in a way that left no room for argument, and he turned his head toward the wall of the den and covered it with his tail.
Blizzard was left staring at the ground for a moment, shoulders drooping. But then he felt himself grow angry, and he jerked his head back up and stared straight at the black tom.
"Mars?"
The tom lifted his head but didn't turn toward Blizzard.
"Why do you have to be so mean?"
-o-o-o-
"Get your stupid face away from me."
"B-but… I just want to play. Please?"
"No way! You're always annoying when we play, and I don't want you!"
"Please! No one ever plays with me anymore!"
"That's because no one likes you, Mars! Now go away!"
"But—!"
"Mom! Mars won't leave me alone!"
The glare. The glare his mother gave him then. He would always remember it.
"Leave your brother alone, scrap. Go."
"But Mom, he won't—"
"Shut it! Shut it and go over there, where no one has to see you."
-o-o-o-
"Mom?"
"What do you want now, you little ratbag?"
"Why do you have to be so mean?"
-o-o-o-
Mars felt like he'd been punched in the chest.
He whipped his head around to stare Blizzard in the eyes, and realized how much this kit was a reflection of his childhood. Cruelty, lost parents. Here he was, acting the same way toward this kit as his family had acted toward him. For little reason except because of his own insecurity, the insecurity that his family had instilled in him.
"Why do you have to be so mean?"
Mars looked at this kit who reflected himself, and he told him his story.
-o-o-o-
Blizzard felt like he'd grown several seasons older in only the past few days.
When he slept, his mind was empty, a welcome reprieve from what he'd learned and what he'd lost.
When he awoke, a single word cut through his sleepy haze, repeated over and over in near hysteria, in voices that were neither Fawn's nor Mars'.
"Blizzard? Blizzard!"
-o-o-o-
He had almost thought he'd never hear those voices again. He'd thought they were gone forever, and yet, here they were, calling his name at the top of their lungs.
"Mom! Dad!" He shot upward, then out of the den, with Fawn and Mars sleepily following him.
And there they were, in complementing black and gray fur, their brows creased with sleeplessness and terror. Except now their brows were smoothing out, because they had seen Blizzard, and the expression filling their faces was the purest relief.
He rushed toward them, and they rushed toward him, and it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
-o-o-o-
Mars had never seen this kind of love.
Motherly, fatherly love, love he had never received—love he'd never even knew existed, except now it was right here in front of him, and seeing it was almost enough. It was almost enough, seeing these parents' joy, to make up for the love he had never received from his own family.
He watched them for a long time, standing next to Fawn, as Blizzard's parents explained where they had been: "There was a fox," the mother said, wincing. "We were chasing it off, but we ended up several territories over, and your father was very injured." The father turned slightly, and a collage of scars crisscrossed his side. "We had to stay that morning and get help, but when I came to find you in the afternoon you were gone."
"I went to look for you," Blizzard told them, and the mother smiled down at him.
"Brave little kit. I'm so glad you're safe."
The father looked up from where the mother was nuzzling Blizzard between the ears and locked eyes with Mars. "Thank you," he meowed, his expression all gratitude. "Thank you for keeping our kit safe."
And the mother looked up again, still smiling, and asked, "Would you like to join us at the festival of snows tonight? I think you two deserve to be a part of the prey-share, after what you've done for us."
Fawn answered for Mars, telling them yes and thank you and we'd love to. And the family turned away, and Mars turned to Fawn, and he whispered, "I want kits. I want to love them, to show them the love I never received."
And so they went to the festival of snows for the first time.
-o-o-o-
The winter spirits were satisfied, and on the fourth day of the festival of snows, it snowed a blizzard.