1
Two cats crouched in a forest, the cold night biting into their fluffed up fur. The ginger cat was exhausted, slouched over and breathing heavily. The bright lights from twoleg place just pierced through the trees, giving the area a dream-like look.
"What's wrong with her?" the pair of cats leaned over two mewling kits, one male and one female, newly born. The she-kit was strange, exactly half of her body pure black, and the other half orange with black patches. The line even ran down her face, splitting it into orange and black.
"The group won't accept this," the father, a black cat called Coal, whispered. "River will throw her out, maybe kill her. We'll all be outcasts. We can't live like that, Fire."
The ginger she-cat shifted uncomfortably. "I know, Coal," Fire whispered. "But we can't kill her. She's our kit." The she-kit wailed pitifully.
"What can we do?" he asked, pulling the kits close to him.
Fire, to the objections of Coal, had decided to have her kits in the woods next to the Tribe's territory. The Tribe, which inhabited twoleg place, didn't take well to new kits, and barely supported the family. Many queens left the Tribe with their family temporarily, and returned when their kits were stronger. Fire had followed in their pawsteps, fortunately for her kits. River, the Tribe's leader, also hated any cats out of the ordinary, like Fire's new she-kit.
"We will raise them here," Fire mewed uncertainly. "Then we will figure out what to do."
"You are running from fate, Fire," Coal growled. "River will find out, and we will all be thrown out. This will ruin our lives, Fire."
"Our kits will have no lives if we don't do this," Fire growled. She pulled the kits away from Coal. "This kit will be Burn," she murmured, almost to herself, licking the small black tom. "And this kit…" Fire trailed off. "She'll be Illusion."
"This will not end well," Coal growled, tearing up the frost-covered earth angrily. "This will ruin all of our lives. I will have nothing to do with that kit." He stormed away angrily, leaving Fire, alone with the two mewling kits.
Despite her exhaustion, Fire carried Illusion and Burn through the forest, farther and farther away from the Tribe and the twoleg place, until she reached a familiar place she herself was raised. Stubborn bushes grew thickly at the top and sparsely at the bottom, what Fire considered the perfect place to hide kits. A Thunderpath was nearby, and even horseplace was past that, and the constant roar of the monsters or clattering hooves of horses drowned out any noise the kits made.
Squirming through the roots, Fire lay down her two precious kits in the heart of the undergrowth and wrapped herself around them until they fell quiet.
"You'll be ok," Fire whispered quietly. "I will protect you."
Milk, a light cream she-cat smirked as she followed Fire's scent. Unable to have a family of her own, Milk's position was to bring back any cats that had strayed from the Tribe, usually bringing them to their death sentence. Most of these cats were queens, or their families, normally with kits or carrying them. Fire fell right under that category.
The bright orange she-cat hadn't even tried to hide her scent, and didn't cover up her tracks either. It took Milk no time to discover the undergrowth of bushes, and the scents led right to it.
Crawling through the bushes, Milk found a kit, drenched in Fire's scent and still warm from her body. She didn't notice Illusion, cradled between two roots.
"Gotcha," Milk breathed almost silently, grabbing Burn and racing the poor kit to his death.