R A I N
what a shame we all became
Rain was tired. True, the tumbling bodies in her bulging belly weighed her down, and her weary paws dragged through fallen leaves with each step. But there was something else. Something bone-deep in her that longed for rest. She supposed it was the ache in her heart; the longing for a proper home. She thought she'd had it. She thought she knew what home meant. Glimpses of Jet's bright amber eyes flashed through her mind. She grimaced. I chased him away, she scolded herself. And she believed it, to an extent. On the other paw, her heart had shattered to see how quickly he'd turned on her. The first suggestion of wanting something different had frightened him off. Her request for stability, for a safe home for their kits, had been met with disdain. And so he'd left. He continued to roam, letting his paws take him where they desired. She was left alone, to find a safe space on her own.
She'd tried the Twolegplace first, but it was stinky and noisy and full of potential threats to her kits. Despite falling in with some decently friendly kittypets, this was the opposite of what she'd been hoping for. She knew close proximity to Twolegs meant potentially losing her kits to them. She couldn't risk it. So, over a meal of the strange hard pellets the kittypets shared with her, one of them mentioned the strange groups of wild cats that lived in the woods, just a few days' walk away. They had laws and leaders and protected each other and would probably take her in, if they didn't eat her first. She felt hope spark in her chest for the first time in a moon. Wrapping her tail around her swollen belly, she guessed her kits would arrive in about half a moon. That should give her plenty of time to find these cats and see if she could make a home with them.
She set out the next morning, and had been walking almost nonstop since. She was beyond exhausted, she was hungry, and she needed a good groom, but every vague whiff of catscent on the wind spurred her on. She found herself padding into a pine forest, surrounded by foliage and the sounds of scuttling prey. Beyond the tang of pinesap was a strong catscent. She could have cried from joy. She'd found them. Her pace increased to huge, awkward bounds as the scent grew stronger and stronger until, finally, she was almost overwhelmed by it. It was as if they'd drawn an invisible line along the earth.
"A border?"
she panted. She looked from side to side. The marker seemed arbitrary to her, but what did she know? She lifted a paw to step forward, then hesitated.Suddenly, she found herself second-guessing everything. In her desperation, she hadn't even stopped to ask herself why these cats would take her in. She was another mouth to feed, with more on the way. She could hunt, sure, but not well in her current state. She placed her paw back on the ground, safely on the outside of the boundary. What if Jet had been right? What if they were meant to be loners, meant to be free, to wander? Would her quest for stability put her kits at even more risk, surrounded by strangers in the woods? She felt the gentle kick of kits in her belly and she wanted to wail with indecision. She was so, very tired!
A noise ahead snapped her from her thoughts. She immediately sank back, crouching possessively over her belly as a growl formed in her throat.
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OOC: im so sorry i would ping but idk if we established which characters everyone is using lmao
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KEY:
"speech"
'thoughts'
attempted action
"other character's speech"
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sleek grey she-cat with white paws, tailtip, face, and chin
she/her
loner
15 moons
pregnant!
