The Farm something in the wind // open

[harefoot]

Harefoot is sitting right outside the barn, his tail wrapped neatly around himself and covering his paws. He's staring into a shallow puddle which had formed after last nights rain, and has yet to sink back into the earth. His own face stares back at him, then distorts as a wind makes gentle ripples in the waters surface. The sight makes him shiver, and he looks away, out over the moorland that stretches out seemingly endlessly in front of them. But he knows that just beyond the last hill, the land slopes down into a valley where a large tree grows. Strange noises have been travelling on the wind, and even stranger smells. Strange cats have long been gathering at the root of the tree, growing in number season by season. Harefoot himself had never gone close, but some of the other's who lived in the barn had seen them in the plains, searching for prey or perhaps something more undefinable– like a home. The big tree was no place for a cat to live, let alone so many of them.

The wind picks up again, coming in from the south and bearing with it an uneasy chill that settles in Harefoot's bones. He shivers, ears flicking off something that isn't there, then looks up at the sky. The clouds are hanging low, growing heavy with rain once more. They should hunt soon, before it comes back and drives all the prey underground.

 

[MUSTARD]

the winds don't lie. when they begin to pick up something, you have to listen. they've noticed the cats in the distance, lingering closer and closer, for reasons unknown. were they here to pluck them off, one by one? mustard doesn't see a reason why, the barncats are a lazy bunch who live off the kindness of mice. the feline notices harefoot pondering intensely by a shallow puddle, and bounds over.

"do you think they're a kind bunch?" they muse outloud, flashing a mouth full of teeth. "it gets quite boring around here."

✸

 

[harefoot]

Harefoot blinks, trying to hide the surprise on his face as someone speaks to him. He'd been too focused on everything else to notice that somebody had joined him at the puddle, and he looks over his shoulder to see Mustard looking at him curiously. He looks back for a few moments, then looks back over the moor in the direction of the big tree. He was never quick to speak, but the other barncats had grown used to this by now.

He considers the question– what sort of cats are they? He's not sure. He knows only what the wind carries, and that is trouble.

"I think," he starts slowly, "that their definition of kindness is probably quite different from ours, and that that would make it hard to judge whether or not they are kind. What one cat finds cruel, another cat may find merciful."