The Colony 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘦 ◈ [ 𝘚𝘏𝘈𝘙𝘗𝘌𝘕𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘊𝘓𝘈𝘞𝘚 ]

[Smoky.]

The cold season creeps in like a trespasser. At the edges of the day and under the moonlit sky, each breath draws into the lungs on a gasp of ice, to emerge as steam and silver mist. Smoky is certain he's glimpsed a snowflake or two, when the air is still and silent enough. And that is cause for concern, isn't it? There is already more than enough existential weight hanging in these woods. What better could Leaf-bare bring? He peers into the slate-grey glower of the morning sky, ears flattened and brows dipped in a severe scowl.

Smoky loiters in the forest's shadowed outermost limits. He drags his claws across an oak's trunk, making slow, gouging strikes into its bark. The dessicated skin of the tree had no life nor water left in it; it flakes under his touch, the bark falling in light crumbs to the earth as he kneads and catches his claws against it. Sharpening them to a vicious point, an impatient tension clenched in his shoulders.

They are weapons without purpose for now. Should the colony continue down its current path of collapse, though, that may not remain the case.

 

[snowfern]

Snowbank's steps were quiet as she padded through the forest, slowly approaching the outskirts in her search of prey. She was in a light mood, for the circumstances, having woken up on the right side of the nest after accidentally sleeping through the day. She was uncertain about the colony's wellbeing, but the way she saw it was that the best way she could help was to keep her head up and keep looking for prey.

It was this mindset that had her pausing in her steps as if frozen, one paw still raised, when she scented the telltale smell of a vole upwind of her. She crept around a nearby dead bush, pressing low to the ground and willing her tail to be still. When the vole came into sight beyond, she hesitated for a brief moment, gauging the distance, before pouncing with practiced precision. Orange and red leaves, silvery in the moonlight, scattered all around her rather loudly as she landed, pinning the vole and quickly killing it. She didn't notice there was another cat nearby until she looked back up, vole in her jaws, and jumped slightly, laying eyes on Smoky only a few foxlengths in front of her.

Dropping the vole to her paws, she couldn't help the way her ears tilted back reservedly as she spoke in her usual quiet tone, "...My apologies, I didn't realize there was anyone else out this late."

 

[TOWERING OAK]

⋆˚𖣂° HAS THE MEMORY GONE, ARE YOU FEELING NUMB?

It is oddly morbid to watch someone gouge paths into the flesh of one's namesake, isn't it. It could mean nothing of course. Within the nature of their kind these habits were functional to survival, keeping up with the health of what made them perfect predators to lurk about in the shadows for prey.

Prey that was becoming far more scarce with each rise and fall of the sun, growing more and more distant behind it's comfortable blanket of could. Hiding itself to hibernate with the rest of the forest soon. Towering Oak swallowed dryly, trying not to imagine those claws in his neck.

"Late?" The warm hued feline turned his eyes onto Snowbank in his redirection, amused. "It's hardly dawn, Snowbank. Were you up all moonhigh?" He wouldn't be surprised to hear that hunger had been keeping the company of the colony awake in uncomfortable agony. Not knowing when the pangs within their bellies would be satiated, if just for a short time to rest.

𖣂────────────── ─── info ─── ─────────────𖣂

•  
• 
  founding colonist
  gnc afab [he/him]
  taken
  unfortunate fodder
  
• 
  
  

 

[Smoky.]

His neck and jaw unclench. Hinging on a look of wry tolerance, the silver tabby flickers his attention over the thicket to where the foliage has come alive with sound and movement. Then to his flank where Snowbank had parked herself, all sleek white fluff and meek rose gaze. A vole drops to the forest floor between her paws in a curl of withered and bloodied fur. She's jumpy, faltering in her speech, eyes blinking at him like she'd made a mistake in the interception. It brings a ridge to his brow, a repulsed scrunch that further lends to his sharpened features; expression caught somewhere between grim and coarse.

"Why apologise?" he retorts in turn, glowering. His teeth flash behind the breadth of his lips in an instinctive, cutting leer. He shakes off the subtle vexation in his fur, claws unhooking from the gnarled oak, and pivots his body toward the approaching Snowbank and Towering Oak. Tail swinging for balance, his haunches totter forward as he regards them in a scornful stalemate. "Anyone's entitled to hunt here. No need to act like I'm above you for... whatever reason," he assures her, his posture neither wilting nor vying for dominance, but set in a straight-backed stance that threatens little and all at once.

Towering Oak is prompt in pointing out what Smoky had hardly cared to notice before—the misassessment of the sky's state. It results in a singular dry chuckle from the broad tom. "See that, Snowbank? Your whole day's thrown outta whack." But time is of little importance to those who merely bide in its wake. His impasse grows tighter, almost churlish, though never bordering on hostility. "I'm just out here in the early mornin', sharpenin' my claws. If you two had a brain to share between yourselves, you'd be doing the same. They're all you have to keep yourselves safe."

And so, upon those words does he veer back around, tearing deep slices into the old oak's weathered wood. Everything around him is deteriorating into the cold season. Skeletal, helpless and vulnerable to the change. Too frail to handle what Leaf-bare might bring. Nature and the colony, both. Not him, though. Not yet.