Chapter Text
Serafina sat by the pond, her lips were tinged blue from the berries she had been mindlessly eating all morning, as Waysa got the fire going. It was a warm summers eve, the first bits of chill could be felt as she dipped her fingers into the water, watching small circles form from her touch. Wildflowers still grew around her, she chewed on a bit of a sweet yellow flower she had found the morning of, the nectar dripping down her throat and making everything smell like early summer again.
She could hear bugs trilling in the distance, not seen but heard, nightbirds calling out to their flocks as they made their way past the forest and into places beyond their comprehension, the splash of the waters as fish began swimming to and fro. Her keen catamount hearing could hear a group of humans slowly settle down for the night, they'd be up again in the morning, moving like they always did, but she heard them tying up their animals, hushing their children, dousing their fires and climbing into their canine protected beds for the night.
Serafina, on the other hand, was just getting started.
The rabbit she had caught earlier was long since skinned and eaten, but they would go on the hunt later for more food and supplies. The rabbit was merely a starting snack of sorts, but what they had gotten out of it helped greatly. She would use its bones later to make herself a new flute, or just chew on for the marrow that lay inside of it. Maybe she could use it to decorate her coat, but she had already stolen a couple bear claws from her mother for that very purpose. The pelt- she would either trade or turn into gloves of a sort. Although she still wore the clothes of the warmer months, a shirt-dress made of hides her mother had skinned, and leather sandals that were easy to run in, she needed to make a coat soon, and she couldn't just take down a full grown bear herself. Maybe she could ask some of the humans to trap it for her, in exchange for the pelt...
Winter was coming, she needed all the warmth she could get, but for now, she was content with just having it as something to hold during long nights or days when she couldn't sleep. She gently poked Waysa, trying to get his attention, however he seemed solely focused on the fire.
He stared into the fire, mindlessly playing with strands of his hair, between intervals of fanning the fire, and feeding with dry sticks they had gathered hours before together. She had braided it earlier, decorated it with some red poppies she had found, even weaved in a couple grass strands for more color. Her mother had reprimanded her, saying that she should be preparing instead of 'acting like a child'. She ignored her, of course, like with most things her mother said to her. Serafina was well prepared, she was a strong hunter, she was good at foraging, and although she lacked in finding shelter, Waysa could make up for that.
And she was right. Even though it was their first night alone together, alone without a clan or a home, she thought they were doing pretty well. Before they knew it- and she chewed on her fist thinking of this- they'd have a clan of their own. There had to be some people, or some small group that they could join, right?
Sure, her eyesight faltered sometimes, and Waysa had a lame leg that he sometimes had to drag around, but they would be accepted at least somewhere. They had to be, clanless catamounts died in the cold with no one to bury them.
Serafina saw the bones of a poor fellow when she was merely eight, her mother had made everyone stop and pointed at the bones, warning her daughter that- "This could someday be you", and constantly reminded her of it whenever she resisted training, learning, leaving her mothers classes to run through the forests with Waysa.
But they were doing just fine, even if they were on their own. Generations of catamounts had done it before them, a pair were always sent away to create new clans, and most of them were successful. Look at her mother, she had been left to fend for herself, and she had survived. When Serafina was a child her mother used to force her to practice what it would be like, by leaving her on her own for hours at a time, or making her falter at the back of the clan whenever they were traveling somewhere.
She hadn't doubted herself once, even when she heard their tribe moving away from them into the thicker parts of the forest, leaving them all alone for the first time. All thanks to her mother, even though it hurt a bit when she didn't turn back to say goodbye. It was like she was happy to be rid of her, Serafina was often left alone as a child, but it was because her mother was preparing her.
Right?
Shaking those thoughts off, she turned her attention back to the pond, the cattails and grass tickling her nose as she turned over to her stomach, her feet kicking up in the air. Gently, she traced her face, trying to match it to her reflection, like she did every night.
The night sky was reflected in the waters, but she could still see traces of herself in the disturbed liquid, two eyes, a nose, a mouth that was still slightly stained. Black, stringy hair, the light of the fire helped her make out familiar ruddy brown skin, whenever she smiled bright white canines were reflected back at her like fallen stars. She squinted, trying to make out more of herself, but the water was so dark it was just another version of the darkness that surrounded them.
The fire helped, it was nice and warm, sparks flying as Waysa controlled it, finally she heard him lay back and sigh, a comfortable silence settling in between them. She crawled away from the pool, laying next to him, the smell of woodsmoke slowly beginning to air.
On a mess of animal fur and roughly woven blankets, Serafina lounged on her back, counting every star in the sky she could find.
Her left hand helped her point at each of the little white dots, the right on Waysa's heart, as if always making sure he was alive and safe next to her. She could feel the cracked skin of his left hand gently holding her wrist, each bump like the ridge of a craggy mountain. His eyes trailed away from her, instead looking at the glowing fireflies that had begun to appear in the little cove, his fingers reaching out and always trying to brush them. Waysa was always more down to earth than Serafina was, while she could spend her entire day with her head up in the clouds, he'd always be there to pull her back down.
Even as he gently pinched her, trying to get her attention, she resisted. The moon was almost but not quite full, the drunken glow pulling Serafina in until her pupils were bright with the reflection of it. Out of the corner of her eye, his face was gently lit with the on and off flash of the insects, one of them even landing on his face, flashing, then fluttering off again.
Realizing that she wasn't going to give in, he sighed, and started playing with his hair as Serafina staring up at the moon, simply enamoured by its presence. It was always there, every night, like a deity that smiled upon her, a guardian of the night, the silent sentinel that kept the world just lit enough for her. Like moths to a fire, she was always drawn in.
When she was a girl, dragging herself just behind the clan, her mother's hardened gaze always set on her, the moon was her companion. In the years before Waysa's family joined the group, before midnight romps through the forest were common, when she lay alone on her pelt, her mothers back turned from her, she always saw another mother in the moon.
It wasn't until a cloud covered it, and Waysa was already up in panther form waiting for her by the now-doused fire, when she got up. She glanced up at the sky once more, just making sure it hadn't left her yet, before switching into her panther form and chasing after Waysa.