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Jay’s Wing is his name.
His name is Jay’s Wing.
It has been for seasons, so long that he barely can acknowledge that there was a time that it wasn’t his name. It was similar, that much he knew, but he couldn’t fully remember the difference.
No one else knew, he’d been sure to keep quiet, but he found that he started to forget too. They were so kind to him, helping him adjust and teaching him their language, letting him into their colony despite his strangeness. He took on their names, their system so he could make them more comfortable, to be honorable to them.
He didn’t know why the concept was so important to him; honor he means. When he’d tried to tell Dove’s Wing why, he found he couldn’t quite remember or figure it out himself. It just was important to him, and the other cats were kind enough to allow him to continue following these rules he didn’t even remember learning.
Jay’s Wing, of course, had learned new things as well. The way the colony spoke, worked and loved. It felt foreign at first, but as they treated him with kindness, he found himself melting into the warmth it brought.
If you were to ask him if he wanted to remember who he had been, he would tell you that he didn’t feel the need to. He was happy here, with Dove’s Wing, Half Moon, Stone Song and the others. They were his home, his comfort. They helped him, so he helped them.
Every time he wondered about his origin, he would remember the love he had for all of them and it would help distract him. He was loved here, and no one had ever come looking for him, so best to not think about it.
Though, as time passed, and the dreams he had got worse, Jay’s Wing began to feel it all slipping away.
He brought up strange things, his mouth almost moving on its own. His vision would go dim, leaving him scared in darkness with no explanation at all. Sometimes he would lose track of things altogether, finding that things had changed with no memory of it being so.
That was why, when he found himself in darkness again after he thought he was with Half Moon, he let out a grumble of frustration. The darkness persisted, but his sense of smell and hearing guided him, telling him this place was familiar. He padded forward slowly, whiskers twitching to stop himself from slamming into trees or rocks.
For some reason, it was as if Jay's Wing knew exactly where he was going, pawstep after pawstep.
There were voices, suddenly. He was able to recognize them, but not fully. One smelled like a different type of home, but he couldn’t really understand their garbling speech.
“.... Hello…?”
The voices went silent at his weak calling, and he found his legs trembling underneath him in what felt like… fear.
Smells coming closer, garbling rising, Jay’s Wing tripped and collapsed, lying with wheezing breaths on the grass. Why was he so out of breath? Had he really been walking for that long?
A paw was laid gently on his side, and he focused on breathing, not recognizing any of their words in his exhausted state. There was one word that was repeated, but he didn’t know its meaning or significance, only that it was likely in reference to him.
Jayfeather.
It didn’t feel right, but he wasn’t in the mood to complain, or in the position to.
As they hauled him onto a large cat's back, shambling further into the wood, Jay’s Wing let himself sink into the darkness, waiting to swallow him whole.