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It is late at night and you are on the fence of your humans' den. You are looking out, away from your home of comfort and bliss. You are looking to the woods.
You saw something in the woods.
Your humans are calling you. You should really go back inside, where it's safe. Where you are safe.
Yet you wait a little longer. You take your chances as you always have because you thought for a moment, a fraction of a second, that you saw--
There.
A cat. Like you. But far deeper in the woods than you would ever go. Like you, but moving with an elegance you never had. Like you, but under the milk light of the full moon, she looks...
She's beautiful.
She's a little oblivious though. Her black pelt hides her in the shadows well, but the white patches on her chest and face give her away. You, on the other hand, are sparse orange patches on a white pelt and are fully visible in the light.
She doesn't even look towards you. For a moment you wonder how she ever could have survived, so unwary of her surroundings.
You turn your back, going back to your humans and safety and security and love. A cat that far into the woods should not be your business. A cat living in comfort will not be hers.
You turn your back, and miss her staring after you.
***
You're at the fence again. Like the lovesick idiot you are.
The moon is bitten in half, slowly being eaten by the darkness between stars. The light grows dimmer by the night, the warmth of home ever warmer - and you decided to sit out in the cold because you saw a pretty lady in the woods.
Damn it all. Your mother had always called you a fool, but this is a new low even for you.
You peer out into the darkness, your half-lidded eyes threatening to close and lulling you asleep until the day comes. Yet you are still awake. By sheer force of will, perhaps.
Movement.
You snap awake in a second. It was in the corner of your eye, and maybe it was just a bird flying a little too close but you need to check if it was--
There.
A pair of eyes blink at you, blue like the moon and far more beautiful. She's closer to the fence you're sitting on, and looking at you like she just seen the stars for the first time.
For an everlasting moment, you just stare at each other, fascinated. Like you both are alien and new and so very precious.
The stranger blinks, and seems to bristle a little. She stutters a little, scared and unsure but still staring at you like you're something lovely and you almost miss her words.
Lavender? That far from your humans' den?
You point out the patch that's bound to be far more bountiful. It's ever closer to you, just at the boundaries of where you can go, but she'd get more lavender.
She hesitates, but creeps closer like the moon crawls across the sky. It's still some distance from the human den after all, too close and far enough in equal measures.
(She comes close enough, however, for you to find that she has these charming patches of red along her spine.)
She takes the lavender and leaves, calling to you that her clan will be grateful for your generosity. You scoff quietly. Like you would ever give those heretics anything.
You gave the lavender to her.
***
The moon gets eaten to nothing then blinks fully open and eaten to nothing again and again and again. You sit outside often, looking to the shadows under the leaves in hopes of seeing her again to the point that your humans don't call for you anymore. They trust you to go home to their warmth and food and love, and you trust that you'll meet her once more.
You meet her, of course. Under the dim light of the moon, again and again and again.
Lavender and stories and laughter. Your beautiful moon creeps ever closer and you wait as patient as the stars she prays to. You learn about each other and about yourselves and you want nothing more than to have her by your side forever.
Her name is Dappleshade. Her name is as pretty as her eyes, which grow as wide as the full moon when you tell her so.
(Your name is Sweetie, and she prays that she would be lucky enough to see you in the stars where she dreams when she dies.)
You enjoy the scent of herbs more than you thought, and she laughs so charmingly as she pushes you away. She chides that the poultice she smells of smells awful, yet you've never a scent so sweet.
(She comes to love the scent of lavender more and more, so much that the elders start complaining that she smells so strongly of them. She can't help but think of you laughing as you trip her into the patch near your home.)
You learn of intra-clan politics and hate them more and more. Dooming your love to loneliness for something so small and fighting pointless wars for food and borders when they all could have worked together. She's stuck and unable to leave, her bleeding heart not letting her clan wither away without her and you curse the stars she prays to for leaving her so alone.
(She learns what it's like to be a kittypet and cries. A home of comfort and food and love, with her love, waiting for her to join. She's stuck, she can't just leave them all behind - she prays more and more to the stars she wants to leave and can't help but hate herself for it.)
The moons pass by and you steal away the night for yourselves, in laughter and in love with each other.
***
Moons have passed since then. You haven't seen her since.
That night forever ago, the moon was waking. Its eye halfway open as she meets you by your patch of lavender, crying as she dances with you.
An apprentice, she whispers. One that would follow her, find you, leave the clan without a competent healer just because she made the mistake of falling in love. Because she saw the stars in your eyes as more lovely than the ones in the sky.
You forgave her - of course you did! There was nothing she had ever needed to apologise for.
But you felt your heart break everytime you caught her collecting lavender while the sun shines above. Everytime you sat on the fence in the night and she wouldn't come by.
You watched the moon creep along the night, and wished you were with yours.
(Oatpaw thinks, sometimes, that her mentor once loved someone. She can hear Dappleshade crying at night, wishing for someone specific near. She doesn't say anything.
Dappleshade stopped smelling like lavender ages ago and the elders are looking far too pained about it.)
(She hopes they can be together someday.)
***
**
*
After a night spent waiting under a moonless sky, you wake up. Your humans are calling you. You blink slowly, lethargic and tired.
You have not seen your moon for months.
But still, you're curious. You have trained your humans far too well for them to be calling for something dumb. Maybe it's a new toy or something.
You stretch, slow and soaking in the dawn. You trot over, hoping for maybe the nice food.
You find something much better. Someone.
Your moon.
She looks as beautiful as the night you first met her.
With the sunlight gleaming on her dark fur you notice a patch of red just under her jaw. You've never noticed that before, and you rake your eyes over her for any details you must've missed in the dim light of the moon. She stares right back, just as entranced as you.
Your eyes stop at her neck, momentarily stunned at what you see. She has a collar on.
Your humans call her Darling.
You crash into her, purring as she laughs. Your humans are shouting at the both of you, but you can't care. Your moon came back to you and stares like you scattered the stars just for her.
She still smells of lavender, and you fall ever impossibly more in love.
♡
(She wakes up crying, sometimes. She has Sweetie to cuddle her, soothe her tears, love her until forever ends - but it doesn't stop the guilt. Doesn't stop the dreams.
Her ancestors scream at her for leaving. She never would've done anything else)
(Dapplesh-- no, Darling lives for far longer than she ever thought she could. Sweetie is right there with her, her stars and light even through the crushing guilt.
They live together for countless moons. Dancing and purring and laughing under spiteful stars.)
(She never could bring herself to regret leaving.)