How long you leaving
Well dad just don't expect me back this evening
-Runaway, Ed Sheeran
They try to hustle from the basement, but their attempt is mostly a failure. The kits they've picked have only ever encountered the stairs once before, and that was as juveniles, infants, carried by some careless guard. Among them, Khia's the only kit who knows how to tackle the stairs- and she's being herded back into the pen, lost in the plaintive cries of the kits around her. They don't understand, she thinks. In fact, many of them are probably upset because they're stuck here, trapped beneath a house and its rot, while the others get to go outside. Get to taste the sunshine and the air, to flee Tillman's. They're heading for their supposed death, their so-called doom, and and all Khia can feel is sad and empty and faintly furious.
Her brother's there, her stoic brother with his warrior build. It's evident why they picked him, why they picked the brawny ones. The scarred cat and her companion are looking for fighters, fuel for this revolt, not intelligence, not integrity. All they'll need will be taught to them; how to crack a skull, to slice a throat, gut a belly.
The gate is shoved shut with a fairly ominous clink. In a way, it's metaphorical, only she's too mad to figure out what it symbolises. This one's not for sale, Rhydderch said, and they'd accepted it so easily, moved on to their next option. Her blue eyes slid from her pelt like water, and Emory had barely even gazed at her. Dismissable, was what she was, and she doubted she'd even needed Ru's protection in the first place. There's no place in a war for a runt, no pedestal for the weak.
She manages to find Etch in the milling confusion. She's crying for her brothers, but her cry is one of a multitude, the names on her lips two of too many. She's fixated by the golden light spilling down the stairs, and the kits attempting to climb it. Several small dark figures have nearly reached the top, but it's hard to tell if they may be Ruari or Brine, or even Cariad. The adults have reached the brim of their patience, and have begun bodily carting the kits up the stairs, a laborious one at a time.
"Etch," she says, and the little grey she-kit looks at her. Her amber eyes are wide, and it's clear she's just as bewildered as the depleted masses around them. Khia's not much compared to her brothers and their loss. She's blood, but barely, more friend than sister.
"Where are they taking them? Why?" Etch asks. It reminds Khia that their penmates don't know who the strange duo are, or their cause, or the bloodshed it entails. She isn't sure if she should frighten Etch with the truth. She's just like Arrah; soft, docile, compliant. She'll probably end up another queen in another cage, mothering more kits that someone out there, apparently, needs. She's not destined for a fight that's not her own.
"There's going to be a rebellion," Khia tells her, giving in to the side of her that can't resist spilling secrets. "They're buying us to train. They want fighters against this PureClan they talk about."
Etch's eyes widen still. "They're going to die," she squeaks, horrified.
Khia just blinks at her. She hadn't considered that but, no, she doesn't think so. She has blind faith in her brother and it hasn't struck her that there are worse toms than the toms and guards here, that both liberty and lives can be taken at once, as one. She hadn't heard Tethys' cautionary tale and the slaughter it implied.
"Don't be silly," Khia reprimands. "They won't die. They'll all look out for each other, our brothers."
"They are going to die," Etch wails, louder, startling the kits around her, who begin to panic in earnest now.
Khia feels the onset of awkwardness. She's not good with emotions or ardent expression of them. Perhaps she ought to have learned by now, because their lives were not complacent ones. The day they'd been taken from Arrah, she'd sat in silence, eyes averted from the scene Etch and Brine were making. Ruari had offered small reassurances- we'll be fine, she'll be fine, soon we'll have new brothers and sisters- but these endeavours hadn't garnered any improvements at all. Cariad had sat by her side, and Khia had always thought that was the way things would continue. They'd be together, regardless, until one or both of them died. Miss had mangled her plans, and it seemed one of them would be dying sooner than they'd realized.
"Well, not if we rescue them." And it's a crazy idea, a suicidal one perhaps, but Khia's going to try it. She's nothing without her brother, and she'll sit in the darkness and keep being nothing while he fights and dies. When he's dead she'll be less than nothing, just a shape in a cage spawning more shapes, forgetting that she ever dreamed of a life outside walls.
But Etch is happier now, beaming. She exclaims, "That's brilliant!" None of the whimpering kits around her share her escalating enthusiasm, or even register it. "We'll be free and they'll be free, and we'll be free together!"
The fawn kit eyes the guards through the wire mesh fence. "Keep your voice down," she warns, but it doesn't seem to matter because they're still nudging cargo up the steps. She watches one kit after another, wondering if they're Cariad, wondering if he already misses her. They eventually manage the Herculean task of getting the kits up the staircase, and the door swings shut- nearly, but not quite. It's always left ajar, because to the cats of the house, a closed door may as well be a locked one. On Khia's list of advantages, this is just another one.
Something approaches the pair, and Khia hisses at it. It only takes one nark to ruin her sketchy plan. Khia has a belligerent reputation, and it does her a few favours, but now it seems effectively useless. If it's not deterrent enough then she supposes nothing is.
"You're going to escape?" it asks; it's a tom-kit, Khia realizes. He comes into view, and while he's taller than her, he's hardly tall enough to loom. He's a faint cream in the gloom, and the most eminent thing about him is the sharp kink in the tail that hangs over his back. She's seen him before in passing; naturally, they've never spoken to each other.
"What's it to you?" Khia asks with an edge of hostility. Please don't tell, she thinks. I only want my brother.
"Do you want to come?" Etch chips in. Khia's tail twitches. There's a hundred things she wants to say to her cousin, and none of them are polite. No, he doesn't want to come, he wants to tattle on us to the guards and get himself a reward. He's looking out for his stomach, not a way out.
When he says yes, yes he needs to come, Khia is hardly convinced. "Why?" she snaps.
"They took my brother, Thaddeus. Do you know him?" the cream tabby asks, peering at her hopefully.
"No," Khia answered shortly. He shrugs like it's no big deal- a sentiment she agrees with, in fact. "So who are you, anyway?"
"Oh," he says, as if she's expected to know his name already. "I'm Gideon. Kalligeneia and Oeric." It's something of a custom in the pits, to announce your heritage alongside your name. You can never tell if you have a surprise sibling, a relation no one informed you of. It's less helpful Khia, because more often than not she's never heard of these queens and she hates all of the toms, regardless.
"Etch," introduces the small dappled kit. "Arrah and Rhydderch. And that's Khia." She says her name because she knows Khia won't. They were raised together, after all, and it's clear to her that Khia wants nothing to do with this cheerful tom and his kinked tail.
"What, no parents?" Gideon asks. He's peering at her again, and it's irritating. It's additionally rankling to hear his callous addressal of her parents- or rather, the lack of them. He's probably just surprised to meet a cat that can't trace every inch of their lineage back to the Bayard, but it's a wound that's still raw for Khia.
"They were street royalty," Khia says snippily. "They were assassinated and my brother and I were lucky to escape with our lives. I expect we stand to inherit a large territory bordering the river."
Gideon just blinks, and she's not sure if he's eating up her lies or about to call her out on it. "Wow," he mumbles at last. "Tragic."
"I still have nightmares," she replies dryly, glancing at Etch. She's fighting to hide a smile.
"Anyway," Khia announces, "you're not going with us. It's an exclusive escapade for two. Find your own way out." Etch begins to whinge at this, but Khia silences her with a look. It may be dangerous, omitting this stranger- he might run to the guards and rat them out. That would be disastrous. But it would be more dangerous to let him accompany them, where he's just one more unknown among a multitude. He'd have no clue about life outside a basement, and she's not about to try to feed a mouth that won't contribute.
The cream tabby tom is silent as they move away. Khia feels his eyes on them as she teaches Etch, in a voice no louder than a whisper, how to climb the wire fence, one paw after another. It's a pastime that becomes easier with practice- Khia has mastered it now- but it's a luxury Etch can't afford. They must move fast if they hope to trail the group of kits and their keepers. But Etch adjusts to climbing with aplomb. She's small and lithe and practically a featherweight, and has already learnt to hook her claws around the wire for gripping. She's less confident when it comes to jumping down from the wooden frame that supports the fence, but Khia goes first and tells her she can aim for her if a soft landing is what she wants.
She misses entirely, if she was aiming for Khia, but she lands soundlessly. It becomes a fraction more difficult here; it's essential not to wake the guards, who have already resumed their interrupted naps. Khia scurries to the foot of the stairs, close to the ground, beckoning for Etch to follow. The grey she-kit isn't used to moving fast nor having such a wide space to run across, but she sticks close.
"They're so big," she whispers, eyeing the steps.
"Do what I do," Khia instructs, with a final glance at the guards. One is snoring already. It's probably Tubal, who's never been one to do anything quietly. She jumps onto the first step and keeps her tail out for balance. Etch follows with a little prompting. Khia admires her determination, and thinks maybe that her cousin also fears a life of nothing without her brothers. They've been condemned to a life at Tillman's, but it's a sentence neither wants. They jump from one step to the other, scaling them much quicker than the kits before them. Their scent is still lukewarm on the worn wood, and Khia hates to think what the impromptu conversation with Gideon has cost them.
The door is ajar, just as it always is, but Etch stops before it like it's some impossible obstacle. Rolling her eyes, Khia nudges it open with her nose. It's delicate, because the hinges are rusted, just like any in this damned house, and the last thing they want to to alert someone to their jailbreak attempt. There's no way, really, to pull it closed after they slip through, so they leave it as it is, sinking back into the fetid stink of the old house.
"Khia," Etch whispers, a pleading note in her voice. "Can we visit Arrah and say goodbye?"
She pauses. She doesn't want to break her cousin's heart by saying no, and she wants to see her adoptive mother too, to get the farewell that was foregone the day they were abruptly shoved into the basement.
"Okay," she acquiesces.
It's not difficult, to remember the way to the bathroom. This may be because Khia traverses it daily, to watch if not to speak. She doesn't feel it's her place, to talk to Arrah, when she's not really her mother, when her real children miss her so much. Etch trots at her heels, and she seems happy. If all she needed to recover from her earlier devastation was the promise of escape and Arrah, Khia would've offered it before all of the wailing started.
Guards don't frequent this area and from memory, none inhabit the chilled room where Arrah lives. The two sneak in nonetheless. All manner of cages line the walls. Some are authentic cages and crates, lined with slim metal or wooden bars. Others are boxes; one is a bin. One black she-cat nests inside what the guards dub the shower- a medley of glass and dirty white tiles that protrudes from the wall. Arrah is lucky enough to have a real cage, filled with one blanket, several old towels and scraps of paper. It bodes well to carry the favour of Ru.
Arrah is on the ground level, and the space within her cage is murky and dark. The two kits stop before it, and Etch presses her face to the bars. Together they call her name. The response is immediate; Arrah surges forward to press licks to her daughter's head, whatever she can reach between the thin black metal lines the seperate them. Her affection is frantic. She turns to Khia as soon as Etch is sufficiently clean, and begins the same process.
"My babies," she whispers brokenly, but this is to herself, for herself. "How did you get up here?"
"We snuck up," Etch says proudly, and Khia regrets not bringing her here before.
Arrah beams at them, but she's staring past them, seeking her sons. "You're so clever," she praises. "Where are the others? Are they well?" The pretty queen frowns at the subdued look the two exchange. "What? What's happened?"
"They were sold," Khia explains, because Etch is clearly not about to shoulder this responsibility. "The three of them were sold with a lot of the others to these two cats who want to start a rebellion against PureClan." Though she says its name with a semblance of meaning, she still has no idea who these cats are. Arrah clearly does, because she gasps in horror in much the same fashion as Etch did.
"Oh, no. They're going to be killed!"
Khia shakes her head and wonders where her aunt and cousin have mislaid their faith. "They aren't," she insists stubbornly. "We're going to rescue them."
Her aunt melts against the bars, and Etch huddles against her, as close as she can get. "Be careful, girls. Those cats are dangerous. You stay away from them and make sure your brothers are safe."
"Of course," Etch replies, because this is obvious. They're going to rescue them, aren't they?
"And Khia," Arrah adds, green eyes serious. "You ought to know something."
She twitches her whiskers at her aunt, curious now.
"Your mother...and your father, I suppose, belong to PureClan. They're a part of this cultish group."
Khia gapes in disbelief. Her parents are some fearsome forest cats? Her brother is being sent to kill their parents? "That's not possible," she says. "They're not some terrible murderers."
"I can't account for what they've done," Arrah whispers hollowly. "Just know Sablefrost loves you very much."
She doesn't acknowledge this. She's reeling, stunned. Her mother is the cat Miss and her kind hate. Her father is one of those they want to kill. What have they done? What kind of blood soaks her lineage? How is she supposed to rescue Cariad now- who is she even supposed to rescue, with the knowledge that soon a rebellion and its mastermind intend to take her parents' lives?
"I can see you're upset," Arrah soothes gently. "She gave you up because it was the only choice she had. We're from different worlds, but this is the one she knew you'd be safest in."
"Shut up!" Khia squeaks. Her voice is high-pitched in her shock and confusion. "It doesn't matter, anyway. We should be leaving now." She pokes Etch with a paws- it's not shaking, she's not shaking- and jerks her head towards the doorway.
"Bye Arrah," Etch says, touching noses with her mother through the cage bars. "We'll miss you."
"Goodbye and be safe," Arrah murmurs, eyes heavy and sad as she looks first at her daughter and then to Khia. "I know you'll be just fine." The tremor in her voice belies her words. If she doesn't believe it herself, how is Khia supposed to?
They trek towards the door. It's much harder to move now; she's somehow lethargic, suspended by the revelation of her parentage. The dirt and scraps on the floor don't help, but they shouldn't matter because Khia learned to ignore their presence a long time ago. It seems she's forgetting what she knew in the face of something much larger than she ever could've anticipated.
"We have to say goodbye to Rhydderch too," Khia tells her companion. The idea of leaving Rhydderch without a word of farewell seems impossible. He's the only father she's ever had, marauding murderers excluded. Perhaps he can shed some light on her mother, her father. Maybe he can tell her if what Arrah said was true.
"Okay," the grey kit agrees.
It doesn't take much to find him. Ru is always moving, always talking to someone in that loud silver voice of his. Right now, he's in the kitchen, discussing food supplies with Skah. It's an odd topic of discussion for the sleek, brutish white cat, and it's clearly boring; he sits, flicking his tail as Rhydderch one-sidedly debates the merits of kibble over meat. The she-kits slink into the shadow cast by the humming refrigerator, then progress to hiding beneath the old, stained oven.
"Fascinating, dear brother, but I do believe Skylla is due for an appointment. We'll pick up this conversation at a later date," Skah interrupts, getting to his snowy white paws, looking down at Rhydderch through mismatched eyes. Ru nods up at him before Skah sweeps from the room. Khia sees him rolling his brilliant blue-and-green eyes before he disappears from site.
"Ru!" Khia hisses from beneath the oven. His ears swivel, and he turns to look at her in bemusement as she wriggles out from underneath the appliance. Etch doesn't follow.
"Hey, Spots," he greets, ducking to rub his head against hers. "What are you doing out again?"
"I'm leaving," she tells him bluntly. He frowns down at her.
"Leaving what?" he asks.
"Tillman's. I need to rescue my brother, no thanks to you." He picks up on her sour tone immediately.
"You're doing no such thing," he retorts crisply. "I didn't save you from those vultures to let you go running into their clutches. You are staying here, and you will not dispute it."
"What would Sablefrost say?" she taunts. She doesn't know the answer, only intends to antagonise this infuriating tom with her name. He snarls as her name reaches his ears.
"Your mother would want you to be safe and it's perfectly safe right here," Rhydderch grinds out. "And I'm going to have a word with Arrah."
"I'm leaving and you can't stop me!" Khia shrills. "You don't own me. No one owns me. I'm not a part of Tillman's and I'm not the Bayard's property."
"You are so," Rhydderch snaps back. "You lost the right to be you the moment your mother gave you up to me! You are not leaving and you will not casually dismiss the requests your mother made to me to ensure your safety. I, for one, don't wish her fury upon me."
"I'm leaving," Khia repeats, and starts to head for the door, hoping Etch would follow. But Rhydderch's teeth are close around her scruff and he hauls her into the air, none too gently. He leaves the kitchen, and when he swings her into a stack of empty boxes, Khia can't be sure if it was entirely accidental. They enter a dark room, one she's never been in before. There are no stacks of anything in here, just a Twoleg nest and a rocking chair by the window. Someone sits in the rocking chair, an old man with a dirty white beard and liver spots on his bald head. His eyes are closed, and the chair moves to the slow rhythm of his breathing. She hasn't seen him before but instinctively she knows it's Tillman. Tillman, infamous and obscure, napping serenely in a wooden padded chair.
She can only stare at him.
Then Rhydderch carts her off to one side, dumping her in a small plastic cage with slits in its grey sides for breathing. The russet tom swings the door closed, locking her away like just another queen. He looks down at her, and she can see a mix of disappointment and rage in them. As if he expected her to live happily ever after in this prison with damp walls and its hundreds of hostages, both dead and alive.
"You are safe," he tells her slowly, steadily, "right here." And he disappears without a further word.
…
Khia's not completely reliant. Of course she knows there is a way out; of course she's tried it. It took several days of planning, and watching, and the desperation she couldn't forget. She didn't want to leave her brother behind, but he'd leave the basement one day; Khia knew all she'd ever amount to at the Bayard's would be being another queen in another cage. No one wants she-kits; no one decent.
One morning she left her brother with a sloppy lick on his cheek, and snuck up the stairs in the quiet stealthy way she has adopted. Khia skirted the guards and cages and toms alike, gave the snoring cat by the door a narrowed glance. Then she was through the flap, breathing in air, filled with smog as it was, that was ten times clearer than the dim gloom of the house. She took one step down a path, overgrown with weeds and sporting more cracks than a tabby had stripes.
She made it to the end of the path before she realized moving one inch further was a sudden impossibility.
She couldn't do it. She couldn't leave, and she hated herself for it. Hated that her bravado was nothing without her brother. Rhydderch found her ten minutes later, and took her back without a word.
Now, she thinks she'll never leave. She thinks her one attempt will be her only, her one chance her last. She'll sit rotting in this cage, hating Rhydderch and his guts, with Tillman's content snores as her only companion. She doesn't know where Etch is, hasn't got a clue. Rhydderch probably found her, took her back to where she belonged. Back where it's dark, a harsher blackness than the kind in this room. Here, it filters through a tattered curtain, and she's currently fixated on a patch of sun illuminating a small circle of carpet.
I hate you, Ru, she thinks. I'm going to kill you. But she won't, even if it is fault that Cariad's destined to die. Her brother's going to die because of that pigheaded, ignorant, entitled, conceited megalomaniac… She drifts away in her insults, calling Rhydderch first one obscenity and then another. When a shadow falls across her cage she jumps, certain it's Rhydderch back, certain he's suddenly developed some telepathic ability, certain he's very ticked off about a few offensive thoughts.
It's not Rhydderch. It's a small cheerful face, and a kinked tail hangs jauntily above it. His blue eyes are wide, and he's grinning at her.
"Gideon?" she gasps, then promptly remembers she's supposed to treat him with hostility and disdain. She doesn't need him screwing around in her life.
"The only and one!" he replies brightly, waving that warped tail at her. He's obscenely happy for a tom whose brother was just hauled away to an apparent certain doom.
"What are you doing here?" she asks suspiciously, convinced his appearance is somehow a trick. Ru is testing her, or the guards are.
"I followed you, and then I found Etch over there." He attempts to point at her cousin with his tail, but it just flops to one side. Khia gets the point anyway, and spots the dappled she-kit standing behind him. She's smiling softly, but there's something in her eyes, as if the episode with Rhydderch has scared her, just a little.
"Well, great. Can you two get me out?"
Gideon rolls his eyes at her. "Can we?" he parrots. "Maybe if you say please."
She bares her teeth at the pale tabby. He is just so unlikeable. He smirks at her.
"Please," she spits, and he grins triumphantly.
"Stand back," he instructs, puffing out his chest importantly. Khia envies this Thaddeus, who must be so relieved right now to be free of the merry menace. First, Gideon attempts to hit the door. open. He cuffs the lock with first one paw and then both. Khia and Etch watch, unimpressed. Gideon hmms, as if the door's reluctance to open is somehow an interesting development. He then proceeds to bite the lock, as though he thinks gnawing on it will be somehow beneficial. His final idea seems a little bit better, but she's dubious it will work. He grips the small cage door with his claws and tugs, and then resorts to biting it once again. He manages to swing it open and recover his poise in one breath.
"It wasn't locked," he tells her, still grinning.
She supposes gratitude is in order, so she mumbles a thank you in his general direction. Those two small words require a lot of effort, and Khia just hopes she won't need to repeat the process any time soon in the immediate future.
"I figure we could try the window," Gideon tells her, nodding at the ragged curtains. They're moving with some kind of air current, as though the window behind it is open. She nods at him, because actually, this is pretty smart. This had better not go to his head, because his inflated chest was big enough already.
"Fine, sounds good," Khia says, wincing. I have to thank him and agree with him in the space of one minute? Eugh.
Gideon beams at her. "After you, your Majesty."
As I sit here at 4:10 a.m., I'm simultaneously quite proud of myself and quite tired. This is the longest chapter in the Poison arc (Poison arc? I don't know. The series thing.) to date, even if it is only by like 20 words or something. I also pretty much wrote allll of it in one night. It's also the quickest I've updated in a very long time, considering the month-long gaps it normally takes me to write a fully functional chapter.
Also, eee, isn't Gideon so cute? His last line is a throwback to when Khia told him her parents were street royalty. He reminds me so much of a young, non-widower Strongclaw.
I'm not sure if any of you feel shocked and slightly betrayed by Ru's words and actions in the chapter, but remember, he does actually care about Khia and knows how dangerous it is out there, and how liable she is to be swept up into the revenge campaign. Poor sweet Arrah, all locked away and missing her babies.
I know I didn't leave an AN for the last chapter, which was the first time ever. I had a cold (still have it actually) and it was 3 a.m., so I didn't bother. Brighteyes, you got my reference! For those who don't know, Tiberius and Caligula were Roman emperors. Each were pretty horrible in their own way, I suppose, and Caligula was downright tyrannical. Drusilla was one of his sisters, who died. Caligula was accused of having incestual relation with all of his sisters actually. Pretty icky. Tiberius had a sex island. Enough said. Look him up at your own peril.
As for this dark and mysterious stranger, who is he? Is he of any consequence at all? What's Cariad doing now? Is Khia going to find him, and then what would they do? Who knows? I don't.
Anyway, I suppose it's time to wrap up this AN. I'd love to hear your reviews and your thoughts, and perhaps some answers to the above question. I apologise for any mistakes, which are wholeheartedly my own as this chapter is completely un-beta'd. I also wrote in the small hours of the morning, so who knows what typos I've made. I'll fix them eventually, I guess. Also kudos to anyone who noticed a passage in there was one of my drabbles.
