TW: Vehicular injury, animal injury
"You reek of them again," had been the five inciting words that had left his mouth that day.
On the other side of the mesh, the tortoiseshell, who teased along the length of it in lighter-than-air giddiness, tickled him something smug and fierce with her blue eyes. "I told you they were noble," she'd grinned to him. For once, Requiem had not begrudged the shine of early morning light that caught the porch plastic just wrong, near blinding him to anything that was not pressing herself so conceitedly into it. Her furs clung to the cris-crossing seams in small clumps that he feared would be lost to the familiar pinch of them.
"Mariposa," Requiem drawled in exasperated plea, "See reason, please, before you see stars."
Maybe his delivery left a little to be desired, for his friend had paused her cajoling of his enclosed porch, and Requiem was back to cursing that angled light, for he could not read her expression. With an exasperated huff, the dark burmese sank to the cut wood beneath his paws and lazed onto his side. "When no forest brutes come calling for your aide in their battles against the enemies they create for themselves, don't spear me with another one of your moods, I beg."
He had waved for something resembling order from her, whose mood by now had rapidly dissolved into something pelt-puffing and pin-eared. "A boy can utter disagreements his whole life, but when a girl can't crap sunshine on command, the world darkly mutters about her 'moods'."
"Here is where you're safe, Mary."Requiem's exasperated voice had honed to say. He tried to catch her eyes, but the light would not let him. "Remember that."
On a note not dissimilar had been his last sighting of the tortoiseshell, absconding like the rest of them into something that surely they could not understand. Yes, he'd thought bitterly, how enticing it seemed to struggle for your food and hunt, sleep, and groom over the same gnarly trees that hold your dirt. If only to downplay, or distract, from the very real potential that she, like many, would simply be lost to one of their fights. Be it against starvation, or disease, or predation, or each other. So when his little girl had been settled into her little bed with her little sheets and the littler plush to her bosom still, Requiem had slipped from the foot of her bed, his cadence practiced and even to dissuade his bell collar from jingling her awake. When the door slipped open to allow the dog out, so too did Requiem prowl beyond, his lips tight and his temper building with every step that carried him over unknown textures, down the path, and toward the forest line that had tempted too many of his close ones with the unknown.
-
The tarmac smelled of oil, and the sand suspended in it made it gritty against his cheek. The world tilted threateningly on an unknown axis, so Requiem breathed in, bubbly and metallic. In the throbbing hurt of the circumstances that had accosted him, his attention was arrested by a pebble resting near his ear. Small, and imperfect, and simple, and fuck did he hate it. With every mounting degree of presence that returned to his mind, so too did a new wave of hurt, or gush of warmth, and the knowing that that warmth was time running out.
The bastard time. The bastard warmth. "Fu-huck," the house cat moaned bastardously, the right plane of his face felt as though it had solidified itself in blood and flesh made stone. Heavy like it, too. It had looked like a human car, but when he had seen it, it was a bright flash of yellow light. When he came to, he was prone in this deepening evening with no sight in his right side, and blunting pain in that shoulder, his hip. He had hoped that maybe if he'd remained still, the inevitable sharp pains would not find him, but with the too-wide stutter of his ribcage, they plunged up his body in wakefulness. When he threw his head back along the sharp road in hissing hurt, he found himself taken with his pebble again. Stars, he imagined sending it through that dense-headed she-cat's eye.
"You reek of them again," had been the five inciting words that had left his mouth that day.
On the other side of the mesh, the tortoiseshell, who teased along the length of it in lighter-than-air giddiness, tickled him something smug and fierce with her blue eyes. "I told you they were noble," she'd grinned to him. For once, Requiem had not begrudged the shine of early morning light that caught the porch plastic just wrong, near blinding him to anything that was not pressing herself so conceitedly into it. Her furs clung to the cris-crossing seams in small clumps that he feared would be lost to the familiar pinch of them.
"Mariposa," Requiem drawled in exasperated plea, "See reason, please, before you see stars."
Maybe his delivery left a little to be desired, for his friend had paused her cajoling of his enclosed porch, and Requiem was back to cursing that angled light, for he could not read her expression. With an exasperated huff, the dark burmese sank to the cut wood beneath his paws and lazed onto his side. "When no forest brutes come calling for your aide in their battles against the enemies they create for themselves, don't spear me with another one of your moods, I beg."
He had waved for something resembling order from her, whose mood by now had rapidly dissolved into something pelt-puffing and pin-eared. "A boy can utter disagreements his whole life, but when a girl can't crap sunshine on command, the world darkly mutters about her 'moods'."
"Here is where you're safe, Mary."Requiem's exasperated voice had honed to say. He tried to catch her eyes, but the light would not let him. "Remember that."
On a note not dissimilar had been his last sighting of the tortoiseshell, absconding like the rest of them into something that surely they could not understand. Yes, he'd thought bitterly, how enticing it seemed to struggle for your food and hunt, sleep, and groom over the same gnarly trees that hold your dirt. If only to downplay, or distract, from the very real potential that she, like many, would simply be lost to one of their fights. Be it against starvation, or disease, or predation, or each other. So when his little girl had been settled into her little bed with her little sheets and the littler plush to her bosom still, Requiem had slipped from the foot of her bed, his cadence practiced and even to dissuade his bell collar from jingling her awake. When the door slipped open to allow the dog out, so too did Requiem prowl beyond, his lips tight and his temper building with every step that carried him over unknown textures, down the path, and toward the forest line that had tempted too many of his close ones with the unknown.
-
The tarmac smelled of oil, and the sand suspended in it made it gritty against his cheek. The world tilted threateningly on an unknown axis, so Requiem breathed in, bubbly and metallic. In the throbbing hurt of the circumstances that had accosted him, his attention was arrested by a pebble resting near his ear. Small, and imperfect, and simple, and fuck did he hate it. With every mounting degree of presence that returned to his mind, so too did a new wave of hurt, or gush of warmth, and the knowing that that warmth was time running out.
The bastard time. The bastard warmth. "Fu-huck," the house cat moaned bastardously, the right plane of his face felt as though it had solidified itself in blood and flesh made stone. Heavy like it, too. It had looked like a human car, but when he had seen it, it was a bright flash of yellow light. When he came to, he was prone in this deepening evening with no sight in his right side, and blunting pain in that shoulder, his hip. He had hoped that maybe if he'd remained still, the inevitable sharp pains would not find him, but with the too-wide stutter of his ribcage, they plunged up his body in wakefulness. When he threw his head back along the sharp road in hissing hurt, he found himself taken with his pebble again. Stars, he imagined sending it through that dense-headed she-cat's eye.
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