Unloose

[Myling]

Prologue

The cat didnt know how long it could keep this up. She'd noticed a cycle of "find safe place. nevermind. run from predator. wander for days. find safe place..." occurring nearly constantly. The cat had barely managed to recover any breath before she had to hit the road again. And if a fullgrown cat with her schedule was barely slipping by alive, then she could only begin to imagine all the gruesome ways her kit could die. It needed to find somewhere now. The cat had thought that the thought of her unborn kits would help her toughen up, but instead, she found it made her insides all queasy, as though she was on the edge of a precipice. What would they think of her? The cat wasn't nearly worthy enough to be bestowed with kits. The cat thought so. Would they hate her? Would she hate them? Its claws dug into the doused rock below, the stone getting more and more wet as rain pelted down. Lightning flashed across the dark sky from somewhere in the ocean, the thunderclap carrying all the way to Rhode Island's shores. The cat looked frantically around. Tonight. The kits were coming tonight. She could feel it. Again, the thought felt as though it was grasping her lungs, slowly squeezing the air out of them. Blurry eyes tried to see something, anything the cat could use as shelter....... There! A cave! . The cat was unsure if it really was a cave, but the howling wind wouldn't be any more merciful if she said she needed to find a better place to rest. Now, the small matter of actually getting over there...... The cat began to regret her choice as she leaped from soaked-boulder to soaked-boulder, scraping her pelt and cutting her paw pads up. She didn't want to count how many times she' nearly fallen into the roaring waves below. The cat had this sick, churning feeling at the sight of the rushing waters, but it had to shake that off. She could worry about the water when she was either safe and dry or at the bottom of the sea, very very dead. It felt like a life time, even though it'd only been a few tens of minutes, when her paws touched down on the lip of the cave entrance. The cat stared into the pitch-black cave for a moment. Shaking herself, it took a ste- GAH! The cat jumped back, nearly unbalancing into the crooked rocks no less than two feet below her, as a swarm of bats flew by. At the last moment, she was able to balance herself with the help of a nearby stalagmite. Time to try again. After making sure there were no more flappy-disturbances, the cat entered. It was warmer than it was outside, but still uncomfortably chilly. A chain of flashes from the sky behind her lit up the cave for a few moments. More bats slept peacefully above her, undisturbed, and stalagmites bubbled up from the floor, trying to meet the shorter stalactites above. But weirdest of all; there was a patch of yellow-grass stalks mixed with moss in a cozy spot between two stalactites, quite clearly formed into a nest. Was someone (or something....) living here? The cat cautiously sniffed around the nest, and to her surprise, found no recent scents on it. It occurred to her that she hadn't been met with any scent markers yet, either. How odd. The cat's thoughts were interrupted by an intense, stabbing pain. She bit back a yowl. Oh why oh why now? Another bolt of pain flared along her belly, and she cried out in pain. The cat didn't think it should hurt this much. She collapsed onto the mysterious nest, groaning and writhing in pain. A scent of blood rose through the air. The scent seemed too potent, at least too potent to be normal. Soon, after nearly half an hour, there was quiet, subtle mewling. Her belly still felt like it was being pricked by a thousand needles, but she was pretty sure the kit was there. The cat noticed something immediately, even through her pain. There was only one kit. Just one? The kit looked completely ordinary, nothing special about her. She looked like a cat you'd come across in an alley that barely skimmed your mind before you never saw them again. But the cat already loved the little ball of fluff. The kitten was perfect in her eyes; the best kit she could've ever hoped for. The cat's ear twitched. The pitiful mewling felt like it was fading.... Oh. It was. It was fading. In fact, the feeling throughout her paws, tip of her tail and ears was starting to disappear. The border of her vision was also going sort of fuzzy. The bolt of panic that flared through the cat was like nothing she'd ever felt. She couldn't die! No!
"Oh, i cant die yet! She-she needs me." The cat didn't realize she'd spoken her thoughts aloud. "Oh she's gonna die and it'll be my fault and-and i-i cant cant die not yet.. please.."
Her kit would never know her name. Never know who she was. And worst of all; her kit would die. All because of her.


The cat had thought she'd live a long, happy life, and then die a lovely death surrounded by loved ones. She'd imagined her whole life many times as a kit, exploring worlds where she came across a tom, and they instantly fell for each other. Where she had pretty little ragdoll kits with brown spots along they're flank. Where she was happy in life, and happy when she passed away. Certainly not dying in birth while feeling like the world was about to collapse and then light on fire. Because of her. The cat whimpered. Everything was going blurry. She couldn't stop it, no matter how much she tried. She'd lost too much blood already. Her entire life - much too short - flashed through her mind, before slipping away, leaving only a cooling, lifeless corpse behind.

Chapter One

Hoshi knew from the moment she was born; the world was a very cruel place. It threw death and sorrow and merciless predators at you, all at mach 5 speed. The 12-month old had never thought that it would all be easier if you had someone with you, until 6 months ago. Saudade was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her, the well-mannered, runty kit nearly always managing to cheer her up if she was feeling down. The older cat had her ears swerved towards her sister (at least, thats what Saudade felt like to Hoshi - a sibling), who was watching with polite, curious eyes as Hoshi trailed after a mouse's scent trail, teaching Saudade how to track a prey's smell.
"Hoshi," Saudade said quietly. "How do i find a scent in the first place?"
Hoshi swished her tail in the tall grass for a moment. "Er, I'd say keep on looking around - crouched - until you find something, i guess." She said slowly. Hoshi often worried if she wasn't good enough for Saudade. She needed to be perfect for the little kitten. If she wasn't, Hoshi wasn't sure what she'd do. Maybe scream for an hour and then crawl into a hole for the rest of eternity.
Saudade nodded, smiling like she'd just smelled saffron for the first time (Hoshi very much planned on showing her one of the saffron fields that humans grew, harboring one of the most pleasant scents Hoshi had ever smelled).
After a while of following the scent, through greenery and trees and the other hundred scents, Hoshi saw the tiny rodent, nibbling peacefully on a seed. Overgrown grass whacked both the cat's faces as one of them stalked closer. Hoshi began readying herself to pounce. The wood mouse seemed awfully cute, almost too cute to kill. But Saudade needed to learn to hunt for when she set out on her own (Hoshi dreaded that thought with every fiber of her being). The mouse ate obliviously to the feline hidden in the shadowy undergrowth, the oak beside it towering far above. Acorns were scattered among brown-red-orange leaves, illuminated by the beams of sunlight leaking through the dense canopy above.
Hoshi waited until just the right moment, before she pounced. The mouse let out a shrill squeak as she burst out, - very very unfavorable; now every single animal within about 50 miles knew they were there - managing to scramble a bit away before Hoshi landed on it. She swiftly bit down onto it's neck, hopefully ending it's life quickly.
Despite how her bulk might suggest otherwise, Hoshi had never been very good at hunting.
Sighing, she turned around to make sure Saudade saw everything, and felt an immense wave of guilt as she saw her horror-stricken face. Hoshi guessed, actually, knew, Saudade had never seen another cat hunt. She must've assumed Hoshi brought home mice that had died on their own. After quickly cleaning off the blood on her maw, Hoshi carried the still-warm, lifeless body of the rodent back to Saudade. She thought about letting her carry the carcass to get used to seeing dead things, but immediately decided against it. Hoshi had thought killing prey was gruesome too, at first. Saudade would get over it eventually.
Her sister scrambled after her, still very surprised.
"Uhm." Saudade meowed, "What? You kill the mice?"
Hoshi gulped. "W-Well, actua- uhm. Yes." She sighed, "I have to kill the mice, and all the other things."
"But why!?" The kitten burst out, in a voice uncharacteristically loud. "Can't you just find an already-dead one??"
A determined expression creased her brow. She wasn't going to let that slide, not until Hoshi gave her a reason to kill innocent, inanely cute animals.
"Its extremely hard to find fresh prey that's died on its own, and because cats can't eat old prey," Hoshi explained carefully. Hopefully Saudade wouldn't go through the "Trying to eat plants" phase she'd had, "We have to kill our own prey."
Saudade still looked indignant, but not as indignant as she had been a few moments ago. The outbursts she sometimes had worried Hoshi. This one was quite a bit on the small side. What if she ran away? What if she acted rash and got herself hurt? What if she managed to get herself back into Twolegplace? Whenever she thought about those possibilities, What if one day she actually means it? was a thought that always appeared. She hated it. Hated it hated it hated it. Hoshi wanted to light it on fire and drown it and then bury that thought and never think about it again.

[wip]