midnight city (c)

As light struggled to break through an unrelenting cloud cover, looking so thick and almost soft in the barely present glow of the sun; several voices cut through the quiet, most notably that of a queen begging her children to silence themselves before they woke every single cat from here to their old home. Grumbling in frustration and desperate for more sleep, Grebedance had placed her raccoon pelt over her children. There was a fleeting hope that for a moment it would provide silence, and if she was incredibly lucky, they would go back to sleep. Unfortunately as the wriggling continued, she knew it to be pointless, sitting up with a sigh and removing the pelt off of them with a paw.

“Well, come on then. Outside we go!” Using her teeth and tail, she repositioned the pelt onto her small frame, before guiding the kits out into the open.

Stumbling forward on unstable legs, a small silver and white kit lurched towards the leaving source of warmth she was just stripped from. "Mama, wait! Little paws!", the soft pitched request was barely above a whisper in volume as footing was finally found, only for the fluffy mass of energy to trip over another small mass of warmth.

In her haste to resettle herself on her feet, Grebedance's words finally broke through the haze of activity. "Wa... outside? Mama, it's cold! And scary! I'll be quieter I promise, it was Jaykit causing all the noise!" Gulping theatrically, Minnowkit quickly dashed the rest of the distance to her mothers side, hoping equally that her brother did not hear her, and her mother believed her.

A darker shadow drifts behind Grebedance and Minnowkit; mottled by unsteady steps and all the worldly uncertainties associated with the newly-developed gift of sight and sound, little nose pointedly turned up in overwhelm. Gray and sullen as the winter world tended to be, Jaykit's youth-soft gaze was shaded with the bright touch of anticipation. Though, perhaps having the gift of fully-developed ears would cause more trouble than absolute worth for poor Grebedance. An indignant squawk accompanied Minnowkit's accusatory denial, a bristly little rising of fur lifting between his slim shoulders and hips.

"Nuh-uhhh," Jaykit protested, promptly attempting to stomp on his littermate's tail in retaliation, "wasn' me- I'm sneaky like a heron. It was you, 'cause all you do is snore. Louder than mama!" Absolutely not true, but he had a point to make!

Bristling at her brother, Minnowkit quickly tucked her tail closer to her body, stumbling back a few steps to avoid the pouncing kit in front of her. Scrunching her nose up in confusion, she glared at him. "Snore? I don't snore! And even if I did, nothing is louder than you!" Shaking her shoulders back slightly, the little kit put her nose up towards the roof of the den, mimicking the air of superiority she had seen other queens pull when troublesome kits or warriors talked to them.

"You don't even know what a he-herony is! So you can't be as quiet as one." Another exaggerated shake of her shoulders and pelt, as if shaking off his ridiculous statements, "And even if this herony thing was quiet, I would be the quiet one, not you. Because you're the reason why we have to go outside and make me cold." Glancing down at her brother, Minnowkit finished her pompous statement with a quick flick of her tail against his nose before dashing towards the entrance of the den.

“Oh, good morning, good morning!”

A loud, energetic purr preceded Harebounce as she trotted toward the three, giving both of her new grandkittens a lick over their little foreheads regardless of their current squabble. They were just so cute! Just the sight of them on this Leafbare day really defrosted her heart. The hare-pelted grandmother brushed against her daughter’s flank, still purring all the while. “Good morning, Wug. They’ve got a lot energy today, don’t they?” A warm laugh rose in her chest at their conversation and she moved to groom Grebedance behind the ears as she always did. An old habit she didn’t care to break. No matter how old either of them got, Wug would always, always be her kit.

“Furnace was like this too when he was their age, you know. I had to keep a close eye on him or else he would end up in some predicament or another. One time I couldn’t find him for an hour and it turned out he’d fell in a puddle and gotten covered in mud. I thought he was some sort of frog from his mewing before he turned around and I saw his face! I was relieved to find him then, but remembering the look on his little face still makes me laugh.” Harebounce’s eyes followed Minnowkit and Jaykit with great affection as she spoke, recollecting times long gone. It was the inherent things to a kit’s personality, perhaps, that drew out memories of those long gone.

Her kits feeble complaints did no more than tickle her ears at first, wholly forgetting (if not completely unaware) of the fact their little bodies were not capable of insulating heat like hers was, and that they severely lacked one thing that kept her warmer than the rest of- their own animal pelts. Instead of making the decision to keep them indoors, encourage them to play to warm up, even draw them closer to her warmth; Grebedance’s mind drifted towards thoughts of what their pelts would be. The word heron rose in the air as the kits squabbled, to which she mumbled something about how difficult it would be to make a pelt of a bird into one for her children - not that she was opposed, recalling the goose she skinned for… who was it now?

The faint whines of her children faded as her own mother appeared, capturing her attention once more. The bicoloured molly purred in greeting, rubbing her cheek against her mother as she was groomed like a kit herself, gaze drifting towards them with a soft glow behind them illuminated by what little light broke through cloud cover. As Harebounce retold a tale of her brother, a sharp pang rippled through Grebedance as she was briefly caught in the memory of the tom and how little time they had spent together in spite of being kin as sickness had ripped majority of her younger life away. Shaking her head to clear it, she managed a small smile instead.

“I wonder what these two are capable of,” The queen’s gaze was full of affection, despite the almost somber tone tinging her words. It seemed for a brief moment, the most fleeting of moments, she was aware of them as their own living beings - but as soon as the thought appeared it was gone, leaving her brain bare as she waited for the inevitable sibling argument to resume.

Distracted slightly with sassing her brother, Minnowkit quickly skidded to a stop before her grandmother, scrunching her face slightly as her tough tongue swiped up her already-chaotic fur. "G'morning gramma! Do you know what a herony is? Jaykit thinks he's as quiet as one and I bet it stomps through the reeds and underbrushes like ...like.. like a really loud warrior!" The question ended in a breathless squeak as Minnowkit's rant ran out of steam, realizing she didn't quite know much about other animals to find a good comparison to just how loud her brother obviously is.

"Also, also! Do you have any stories of mama when she was a kit and apprentice? Or when you were? I'm so excited to be an apprentice and do big-kit things, and grow up like you two! Please please pleeaasseee?" Topic switching as quickly as only a kit could do, Minnowkit quickly bounded back up to her feet and started excitedly tapping back and forth with the chance of stories about her family. She had noticed things in her young time, that mama had a pelt to keep them warm at nice but the other queens didn't, that gramma had one too even though her kits were big now. The innocence of childhood still shined brightly in the young kit's eyes as she looked up to them, expectantly.

Hmph!

An audible pap! pap! pap! dusted the chilly afternoon evening, petulant pawstrikes resonating sharply against the frigid ground, Jaykit pointedly lashing out in pursuit of Minnowkit's now purposefully-removed-tail. His rapidly cooling breath, puffed out in falsified exertion in an attempt for attention, left the delicate whiskers and fuzz framing his little face speckled in flashy remnants of quickly-melting frost, glinting sharply in the muted light. The odd sensation of faint frost dusting his face was almost enough to distract him. Almost. "I know what a heron is!" Jaykit smugly asserts, partial truth obscured in the poorly disguised attempt of further provocation, "'cause 'm just like one!"

The allure of further instigating dwindled, however, at the arrival of Harebounce, youth-soft features scrunching up in idle curiosity at the interruption provided by his grandmother. Though, pacifying as the combined presence of his mother and grandmother often happened to be, it wasn't enough to keep the young tom idle for long. Scampering about in an irregular, poor attempt at a circle, Jaykit narrowly avoided colliding with Minnowkit at several instances- though, somehow, also managing to bump into every other thing in immediate proximity. "I wanna know too!"