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The warrior on guard duty that night watched the forest alertly. He swore he’d heard something in the underbrush, the padding of paws against pine needles, the heavy breathing of a laboring cat. He smelled the scent of a stranger nearby. His ears swiveled this way and that, then suddenly swiveled to the left and stayed there, his head turning to mimic the movement. Through the sounds of the night, he heard a faint cry, no more than two fox-lengths away. He stood and crept silently towards the sound. The mewling got louder as he got closer. He pushed aside a fern and looked down...
“And there you were,” Quietspirit purred, smiling down at the Bengal kit watching him as her tail switched back and forth, her different-colored eyes glued to his green ones. She’d heard this story a million times, but she waited for him to continue. Quietspirit told stories the same way he did everything; slowly and quietly. After taking a pause to yawn, the large tom went on...
The tortoiseshell crouched down and sniffed at the tiny bundle of spotted pelt. “Hi,” he whispered, as the kit turned towards his warmth. “StarClan you’re young,” he murmured, his brow creasing in concern. “Your eyes aren’t even open yet. What are you doing out here in the dark alone?” He sat up, the kit complaining as she lost him in her deaf, blind world. He stared into the woods, straining his eyes to pick something out, but he didn’t see or hear anyone. He leaned down again and sniffed at the kit as she grabbed at his nose with a little paw. “Ow,” he chuckled as her claws nicked his skin. He smelled the same scent of strange cat on the kit. Somebody had left her here. His ears flattened and his whiskers drooped. “Poor thing,” he whispered sympathetically, licking the kit’s forehead. The kit lifted her muzzle and bit his mouth. “Ouch!” the tom gasped. “Sharp fangs for such a little one,” he muttered, lifting his paw to wipe the blood from his jaw. The kit mewed and his face softened as he leaned down to touch his nose to hers. “Fang?” he purred. “You like that?” She reached up her paw to bat at his face. He laughed. “Fangkit it is, then.” He yawned, and she mimicked him. “C’mon, Fangkit,” he whispered, picking her up by the scruff. “Let’s get you inside.”
“Then I brought you to Genjistar,” he meowed softly, “and after you bit him too, he agreed that your name would be Fangkit, and you would be raised among the other kits in the nursery.” He blinked as he came back to reality, and looked down at the kit, who was fidgeting and frowning. He tilted his head. “What is it, Fangkit?” But he knew what it was. She looked up at him and asked the same thing she always asked.
“Who left me?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t know.”
She stared at the ground, frustrated and desperate to understand. “But... Why? Why would they...”
Quietspirit sighed. He knew what she was asking. Why did they abandon me? They’d had this exchange so many times. It was getting old. He hated not having the answers. “I don’t know,” he murmured. She lowered her head to the ground and didn’t speak for a moment. When she whispered, he almost didn’t hear it.
“Did they... not want me? What did I do wrong?”
His heart shattered.
“Oh,” he whispered. “Oh, Fang.” He lay down in front of her and tilted her chin up with his nose. She looked confused and lost and sick and hurt and sad and angry. So angry. Quietspirit didn’t understand anger. It didn’t make sense to him. All he knew was that anger was a symptom of pain. It killed him that his young friend was in pain. “I want you.”
She scowled. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pity me,” she spat.
“I don’t. You’re too strong to pity.” She glared at the ground.
“Hey,” he whispered. She didn’t respond. He scooted forward and curled around her. He started grooming her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she grumbled.
“I know.” He didn’t stop. She turned and buried her face in his pelt.
“Sappy,” she muttered. “Soft.”
“Yeah.”
They stayed like that for a while, the tom grooming her, the kit burrowing into his side. Quietspirit thought she had fallen asleep and was about to join her when she broke the silence. Her mew was muffled by his thick fur.
“Quiet?”
“Fang?”
“You’d never... I mean, you – You won’t... Oh, forget it. Never mind.”
He closed his eyes and lay his head on her and purred, quiet and low and as comfortingly as he knew how.
“No,” he purred. “I’ll never leave you, Fang. I promise.”
Fangkit’s purr was so different from Quietspirit’s. His was deep and slow and smooth and warm and sweet, like honey, and so soft and quiet you could barely hear it, but it vibrated so intensely that it made no difference. Hers was louder and higher-pitched, more like a shriek than a purr, rough and harsh and fast, almost violent. Like she was trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. Or as if she was afraid she’d never have the chance to do it again.
“Mouse-brain,” she purred.
He smiled, slow and lazy.
“Yup.”