"She didn't know how else to react, Zero..." Rain leaped over a fallen log, Zero following her with an frustrated huff. "She lost the one she loved and felt she couldn't do anything else but blame the one who's most likely...to blame for his death..."
"It wasn't your fault," Zero assured her, glancing over with a frown.
"If it is or isn't is debatable," she murmured with a shrug, "the fact remains that, if it makes her happier, she can blame me all she wants. But in the end, what she wants the most is for her kits to be safe. That's why she's going to come with us."
He frowned, grumbling a little.
"You want the kits to be safe, don't you?"
"Of course I do...it's her I have the problem with."
"I'm sure once she gets over her grief she'll be able to think more clearly," Rain said softly, pausing near a bush, "Blu said he wants to come along with us as well. He doesn't know what else to do." She sat down, looking at her paws. "...I started off with just myself, now I have all of you...it's strange."
Zero brushed her shoulder with his tail as he sat down beside her. "Why is it strange?"
"I'm...not used to this kind of support," she said with a weak, half-laugh. "...I mean, I had friends back at the Tribe, including my brother...but no one was ever able to give open support about anything without fear of retaliation."
"Well...you're not there anymore," Zero said before looking up at the sky. "...But, you're not safe yet. None of us are. We need to leave soon...we've been staying in that burrow for three days now. Predators will surely be catching wind of our fresh kills and will be coming around to investigate...if a fox or badger finds us while we're sleeping, the kits would be doomed."
"Where will we go next?"
"Well, away from the mountains, that's a given. I'm not sure what lies beyond this area, though...it might be more forest or it might give way into Twoleg territory."
Rain paused, having been shuffling through the grass with her paws, and looked at him. "You mentioned them before...are they dangerous?"
"They're not too dangerous, from what I've seen, but I'm not sure how they feel about cats, so it's best to avoid them."
"What do we do if we end up in their territory?" Rain asked worriedly.
"Keep to the shadows and get out as quickly as possible. It's the only thing we can do if that happens."
She gave a small nod. "...When will we leave, then?"
"I'd like to leave within the next few days, if possible. For now, let's go collect the fresh kill we caught and return to the burrow."
She nodded and went back with him to where they had buried their kills. They collected them and then returned to their hideaway, where Blu was sitting watch outside. He relaxed in relief when he saw them approaching. "Thank goodness you're both back...those kits are terrors..."
"Terrors?" Rain smiled at his exhausted sigh.
"They want to play fight non stop! Every five seconds they use me as target practice!"
Rain chuckled, brushing past the young tom and entering the burrow. The moment she entered, she was tackled by a squealing Ami and Angel. "Got you, intruder!" Ami announced gleefully, hoping around on Rain's back as Angel bit her ear and tugged on it, growling.
"Oh nooo! I'm being attacked!" Rain cried, squirming beneath the kits a bit.
"You can't escape! You won't steal our fresh kill!" Ami declared boldly as she bounded around on the she-cat...until her mother came over and plucked her up and off of Rain.
"Don't jump around like that. You might land on her stomach," Marcy said calmly as she sat Ami down beside the much calmer Breeze, who hadn't participated in the play attack.
Rain sat up, Angel rolling off of her with a grunt. "It's alright, Marcy...if they want to play, they can pla-" She was silenced by a glare from the green-eyed cat.
"If they landed on your stomach, they could hurt your kits," the queen told her huffily. "No rough housing with Rain. If you want to play rough, do it with Blu or Zero."
"Not me!" Blu quickly protested as he and Zero entered the burrow together.
"YES YOU!" Ami suddenly cried, charging at him before tackling him, Angel following her lead happily.
Zero rolled his eyes and put the fresh kill down in the center of the burrow, sitting as Rain came up beside him. "Zero thinks we should leave soon," she told Marcy as she got some food.
Marcy glanced up at them, looking uncertain. "Where will we go?"
"We'll just continue to go the way we've been going," Zero explained, "If we keep on a steady path, we'll eventually find the place we're all seeking. Somewhere safe and bountiful in food."
"Or we might just find danger," Marcy countered, narrowing her eyes.
"Of course we'll find danger on our way to find safety. But we will do our best to avoid it and we're a lot safer traveling together than if we were all traveling separately."
Marcy huffed and chose a plump mouse out of the pile of food, lying down and eating.
"...How about we leave tomorrow?" Rain suggested softly. "We have plenty of fresh kill right now. We'll all eat our fill and get a good nights rest and then set out first thing in the morning."
"...Sounds reasonable," murmured Marcy.
"Very well," Zero agreed quietly.
Rain nodded and went over to where the kits were still attacking Blu. She picked them off of him, smiling at their pouts. "Blu needs to eat. We're leaving tomorrow, so once your mother finishes eating, get your fill and then get some rest."
Ami's eyes brightened and she quickly nodded. "Okay! Angel, come on! Let's practice our fighting skills with Breeze until mommy's ready!" She hurried off, Angel scampering after her.
Rain watched them fondly for a moment before she picked out a rabbit for herself and settled down beside Zero, enjoying the plump, hearty meal. After all, since they were setting out again tomorrow, she knew their next meal might be days away. They all ate in silence, filling themselves to the brim before lying down to rest. Rain watched as Marcy laid down on her side, welcoming the kits to have their fill of milk. She looked to the side, watching Zero lay down beside her, his ears pined towards the kits as they suckled.
"...I'm most worried about them," he said quietly. "They're all very young. I'm concerned they won't make the journey..."
Rain hesitated before closing her eyes. "They're strong..."
"Strength only gets you so far. Wits, speed and endurance are vital as well...I say, if they make it to our next resting point, I need to start teaching them to fight. All of you, actually. You're pretty good at just flinging yourself into a scrap and fighting off of instinct, but you need to learn how to actually fight using your brain, speed and brawn all at once."
"Well, so far you've proved to be a great teacher," Rain told him, smiling, "So I'm sure we're all learn how to fight quite well."
He smiled before yawning, stretching out his front legs. "Let's get some rest."
Dipping her head in agreement, Rain watched as Zero curled up an slowly drifted off to sleep. Blue huddled into a bundle of grass near the entrance, curling his tail around his body and falling into slumber fairly quickly. Marcy groomed each of the kits in turn before turning in as well, the kittens snuffling up at her stomach. She smiled as she looked at each of her companions in turn. This was such a stark difference from nighttime back at the Tribe. Where everyone had to find their own warmth or deal with the biting cold all night. Here, right at this moment, they were all sharing their heat to assure that each one of them was warm and comfortable.
Rain's smile faltered, though, as she thought about her brother and friends back at the Tribe. She hesitated before standing and quietly stepping over her companions, slipping out of the den and out into the moonlight. She leaped on top of the burrow and sat down, craning her head back to look at what she could see of the moon through the trees. It was full, tonight, making the night look much brighter than it otherwise would have.
"Dew..." she meowed softly, "Wave...I hope you're both doing alright..." She sighed and closed her eyes as she left the soft moonlight wash over her. "...Someday, once we mind a safe home...I'll come back for you and the others. I promise. The home we find will always have room for you..."
She opened her eyes again and blinked at the moon and the bright, glistening stars that decorated the night sky. She stayed out in the moonlight for a good while before she sighed and returned to the warm confines of the burrow, lying back down beside Zero an falling asleep.
"Yaaaay! We're leaving, we're leaving!" Squealed Ami, bouncing around like a rabbit, Angel trying to copy her bouncing.
"Weaving, weaving!" Squealed the much younger kit.
"Will you two hold still?" Marcy huffed. "We can't go until I get all of the twigs out of your fur, so if you really want to leave, then sit still and behave like your sister!" She motioned to Moth with her tail, who was sitting calmly off to the side.
Ami froze, Angel bumping into her and falling over with a grunt.
Rain chuckled and gripped the kit's scruff, sitting her upright and nudging her back to Marcy. She turned and left the burrow, stepping out into slightly hazy morning. The air felt slightly damp, promising rain sometime in the near future. She noticed Blu scratching his claws on a nearby tree, stretching out his limbs to get ready for the next leg of their journey.
"Good morning." She looked up to see Zero sitting atop of the burrow.
"Morning," she replied, leaping up beside him. She followed his eyes, which were staring intently into the depths of the forest.
"We have two most likely options for what we'll find," Zero told her after a prolonged silence. "We'll either find more and more forest or a Twoleg city. Hopefully we'll just find forest, but if we find a Twoleg city...we'll have to be extremely careful. The Twolegs I've seen don't take too kindly to cats they don't know. Not to mention there are dogs swarming all over the place."
"Dogs?"
"They're like wolves, but they let Twolegs touch them and live in their homes. But their blood lust for us remains. All the more reason I want to teach all of you how to fight properly."
She gave a small nod. "But we won't stop again until we find a safe place to do so, right?"
"Right." He leaned his head back as a quiet rumble came from overhead. "It's going to rain soon...we should get going." He leaped off of the burrow, sticking his head into it to let Marcy and the kits know it was time to go.
"Blu, ready to go?" Rain called over to the young tom, who looked up in surprise.
He gave a small grimace an shrugged. "I-I guess..."
"What's wrong?"
He looked down, shuffling his paws a bit. "J-just nervous...I-I mean, we don't know what we'll find...w-what if we find something dangerous? Or what if something bad happens?"
She approached him and licked his ear gently. "It'll be okay. We're a lot safer since we're traveling together. You'll be safe, I promise."
He gave a small nod, though he didn't seem too reassured. Rain waited with him until Zero came out of the burrow with Marcy and the kits. "Ready to get going?" The tom asked, Marcy sweeping her tail to make sure the kits stayed close to her.
"Yes," Rain sat up, Blu standing with her. "Which way?"
"North. My mother always used to tell me, when in doubt, follow the North Star. It will always lead you somewhere."
Breeze leaned her head back, staring at the sky for a moment before looking curiously at him. "But it's day time. I don't see any stars."
"But at night, you can see the North star in the sky, right over the horizon," Zero indicated the distant line of trees with his tail. "So, that's north."
"Ooh...can you show me which star is the North star tonight?"
He nodded and flicked his tail. "Alright...let's get going."
Zero led the way as they set out once more. Blu walked behind him, Marcy and Rain following at the back an keeping their eyes on the kits. Rain's eyes flicked here and there as they walked, observing any noticeable landmarks that they passed. They could be useful if they got turned around and got lost. She was guessing that it was about mid new-leaf. She had heard about the changing seasons from some of the elders back at the Tribe, but she had never seen them herself. She had heard, though, that new-leaf was when the flowers and trees were only just waking up from their slumber during leaf-bare.
The trees around them were plush with fresh green leaves, a few unopened flowers decorating their spherical bodies. She heard and even spotted a few birds fluttering around, a few landing here and there in the trees, singing their songs to one another and gathering up materials to build their nests.
"Hey, Rain?" She looked down to see Ami smiling up at her as they walked. "When are your kittens coming?"
Rain blinked and gave a small smile. "It will still be awhile, sweetie."
"But your belly's already getting kinda big!"
"She'll be quite a bit bigger by the time the kits are ready to come," Marcy told her daughter calmly. She looked at Rain, eyes flicking over her stomach. "Just looking at you, I'd say you are about one moon into your pregnancy. You have another moon and then some to go still."
Rain nodded. "I knew I wasn't too far along...I'm hoping we find the place we're looking for before they're born."
"That would be ideal," Marcy replied quietly.
"I want our new home to have lots and lots of trees!" Ami effused. "A-and rivers! Rivers with all kinds of pretty stones and shells in them! And lots and lots of food that's nice and fat!"
"You've got to be careful when there's bountiful prey," Zero said, stopping and turning to the little kit. "Otherwise YOU might get fat."
"I won't get fat!" she gasped, glaring at him.
"You never know. In fact, you're looking a little round already," he gave her a light nudge with his paw, making her squeak and fall over, rolling on the ground back to her mother.
"You're surprisingly good with kits," Marcy observed calmly.
Zero froze and looked at them for a moment before clearing his throat and turning away, resuming walking.
Rain chuckled, watching Marcy put Ami back on her paws. "Don't make him feel embarrassed about how he handles kits."
"You wouldn't expect a cat that looks like him to be so good with them," Marcy said, shrugging. "That's all I meant."
"He can't help how he looks. We should be glad that he IS the way he is, otherwise neither of us would probably be here, as well as the kits."
Marcy said nothing, focusing her attention on the kittens instead.
They walked for a long time, traveling through the forest of trees that all seemed like endless copies of one another. It was slightly disorienting, but Zero kept them on track, stopping every now and then to sniff at the wind, watch the shadows or check the moss on boulders to make sure they were still traveling north. Rain and Marcy took turns carrying the kits when they complained about their paws hurting from walking for so long. Eventually they put the tiny Angel on Zero's back, letting her curl up between his broad shoulders to rest. The other two wanted to do the same, but Marcy assured them they were too big to ride on the tom. So they were carried instead.
As night began to fall, all of them instinctively bunched closer together. A small flinch from Blu came every time they heard a rustling in the trees or a deep, echoing call from a nearby owl. "C-...c-can we s-stop somewhere f-for the night...?" Blu eventually asked.
"It's not safe," Zero replied. "I've seen nowhere where we can stop. We don't want to sleep out in the open, especially with the kits. An owl could swoop in and grab them at any moment."
Marcy leaned her head back, watching the sky nervously. "I've never seen an owl before...how big are they?"
"They vary...some are too small to be a bother, but some are larger than three cats put together."
"WHAT!?" Ami squeaked, her eyes widening, "How is something bigger than three cats put together!?"
"There are a lot of animals out there that are a lot bigger than many cats together," Rain told her quietly, "The wolves in the mountains were huge...they were easily larger than about ten cats, maybe even more."
"And there are animals called horses," Zero added, "I've seen Twolegs riding them before. They HUGE four-legged creatures with short fur on their bodies an longer fur on their heads and tail. They don't have paws, either. They have rock-like things for feet."
"Rocks on their feet?" Breeze's green eyes turned round. "W-what if they stepped on you?"
"You'd be as flat as the ground. They're large creatures and sound incredibly heavy."
"T-that sounds cool...but terrifying," Ami said, glancing over her shoulder as if she thought one of the animals was going to run up to her and squash her.
"Speaking of large animals..." Rain spoke up, looking at Zero, "Have you seen eagles before? We saw them all the time at the Tribe."
"Oh yes. I almost got picked up by one when I was younger."
"W-what's an eagle?" Blu asked.
"Large birds," Rain murmured, "Like owls, but bigger...and less dangerous, because they're noisy when they fly. Owls are silent." She saw Marcy look around apprehensively, searching for any of the silent predators that might be approaching.
"It's alright," she told the she-cat softly. "Any owls around will be less-likely to bother the kits since we're with them. They don't like to mess with older cats. A few owls tried to take kits from the Tribe a few times, but when their mothers came out, they flew away."
"...For running away, you sure do talk a lot about your Tribe," Marcy said after a long pause.
Rain stopped in her tracks, the others stopping as well and looking at her. Her eyes flicked to each of them for a moment before she looked down at her paws, silent. She soon lifted her head and looked around, in the direction of the mountains.
"...Do you miss your Tribe?" Zero asked quietly.
Rain was silent for a long time before she sat down, lowering her eyes. "...I don't miss the life...I don't miss a lot of the cats...but I do miss my friends and my brother. I worry about them...who knows what's happening to them there? Who knows if Shard is hurting them because of me?" She grimaced, flattening her ears against her head. "I just...I-I don't regret running away, but..."
"Why don't we go back and help your friends?" Breeze asked.
Rain looked at her an gave a small smile. "It wouldn't be that easy, sweetie...the leader of my Tribe is very powerful and has many strong cats at his beck and call..." She sighed and shook herself off. "I-I'm sorry," she murmured, standing. "I'm slowing us down...it's okay, I'll get over it."
Zero frowned and stepped closer. "Rain, you can't 'get over' worrying about your family and friends. And there's nothing wrong with it, either. Maybe someday we can-"
He was interrupted by a loud, terrifying screech that split the air like a knife. Marcy's eyes widened and she quickly gathered up the kits, hiding them beneath her. Blu dropped to the ground, eyes wide, shaking in horror.
"Owl," growled Zero, stretching his head up and looking for the predator.
Rain looked for it as well...but instead of seeing the creature, her ears picked up another high-pitched sound. She listened for a moment before gasping, drawing everyone's attention. "I hear kits crying!"
"What!?" Marcy stood in shock. "Kits!? Where!? The owl might be after them!"
"This way!" Rain turned and bolted off into the forest, her ears focused on the distant crying of young kits. Somewhere overhead, another eerie screech from an owl came...and, following it, a terrified, heartbroken wail.
"BREEZE!"