ORIGIN

She listened, her breathing quick and loud, frowning, staring at her paws that were wrong, at that glittering sharp yellow stone that shouldn't even be there. Blackfeather...were they another cat? One that talked to plants? She glanced around at the grass and ferns nearby, her frown deepening. How did one talk to plants? Was that even possible?

She shivered involuntarily when Dovefeather said she looked drowned, the mental picture rising to her mind unbidden, of herself floating, unbreathing, in water. She shook her head - she didn't want to think about it.

Then she watched Dovefeather as she described what she looked like, still frowning. Torn ears, messy black fur, weird paws. Her heart sank to her toes. She really was sick. But...hearing that she had paws like someone else - another cat named Booker? - was...hopeful. And she almost smiled, shyly, sheepishly, when she heard what her eyes looked like. If nothing else, that was nice.

Her stomach grumbled as the image of fruit came to her mind. She could almost smell it, as if it were a memory of hers, and her mouth watered. "F-fruit." She said quietly. "Hmm."

She closed her eyes for a moment, taking this all in. She was weird, different, wrong, sick. But she had some good about her. She wasn't all bad. And as her sister had said....maybe it would prove a strength later on. Her expression cleared. She would...accept this, try to fix it, and be glad of what she had, like her sister said. This was no hoax, this was reality, and she wouldn't let it get her down. With a long sigh, she opened her big eyes again and looked straight at Dovefeather, calm.

"Thank you, Do-dovefeather."

Her stomach rumbled again, loud in the silence under the All Mother.

@Dovefeather

She watched, her mouth open, as small glistening lights appeared out of nowhere, and she tried to reach for words that she simply didn't have yet to describe them with. Instead, she leaned back and watched them come to life, letting out a small and quiet sound of awe.

They swarmed to her fur like little friends, and she let out a bubbling laugh, twisting to see them all, lifting her paws up to see the ones that tucked away under her arms, grinning, and she looked up at her sister with the widest, happiest eyes, seeing the light surrounding her glinting and reflecting off of her sister's pearly teeth in her soft smile. It was....the word came slowly but surely....magical.

Where did this come from? She wondered, joy at this moment hardly dimmed by her curiosity. Why did this show up now, of all times?

She listened to the sister's prayer, and wondered if it might be their mother giving them both this. The she-child smiled at that, and it warmed her chest in a funny way. She felt happy and okay.

"I....thank you, sister." She whispered, nodding her head to Dovefeather. It seemed she was leaving, and she didn't know how quite to feel about that, but...this meant she could explore, right? Maybe find....fruit? Her stomach agreed with this idea.

"I hope....I'll see our other s-sisters, someday." She said. "And you t-too, Dovefeather."

@Dovefeather

Dovefeather left, and the she-child stood there, watching the little wisps of light dissipate, feeling the loss of company. Her tummy felt all funny, hungry and sad and happy all at once, so she took a deep breath and looked one more time at the All Mother up above. She nodded once, then made her way to explore the forest.

She saw all sorts of things as she walked. She smelled the rich loamy soil she was so near to, liked the feel of the moss under her feet, the sight of the ferns and plants that reached out and touched her half-slick fur. She looked up almost the entire time as she walked, dizzy with the amazing height of the trees up above. At one point, she heard scurrying in the bushes and saw flashes of white and brown fur.

After a while of walking, enraptured with the beauty of everything around her, she spotted rather low-hanging tree with green things hanging from the branches, and her stomach rumbled just looking at it. Were those things fruit?

With her wrong paws, climbing up the tree was a cake walk. She grabbed one of the hanging things, but it slipped from her hand because of its weight, and fell to ground below, cracking open with a slick splat.

When she climbed down and tasted the yellow flesh inside, and made a long, raspy sound of happiness and quickly devoured everything inside the hard shell of it, licking her fingers after she was done happily.

She sat at the base of the tree for a while after her sweet meal, satisfied. She thought back to what Dovefeather had said, that her weird paws would be both good and bad...and though they were twisted and wrong, they were incredibly helpful! She could climb with them, grab things, pry things open when she wanted more of the fruit, she could pluck a piece of grass with no problem so she could chew on it absentmindedly.

Maybe having these weird hands...they were hands, weren't they? Maybe they weren't so bad.

She leaned her head back against the tree bark and looked up to the light filtering through the tree leaves. Maybe being like this...wasn't so bad after all.

[end thread]