#fressiakit

“I don’t understand,” Emberdawn held back a sob as she held little Fressiakit between her paws. They knew that Dark Kits, as many were beginning to call them, would need more care than all living kits put together, and neither mother nor father left their side in the den that had been added next to Ivyspots’ and Scaleears, separated for privacy between families. Theirs was still in the works, and was for now covered mostly in leaves than dirt. 

Lightkit, Molekit, Ashkit, and Frostkit stayed with them, excited to have new sisters and a brother, perhaps too young to understand the danger. It was them that suggested the names. Lightkit named Doekit, after hearing Gorseheart’s story of his mother, Doesong. Frostkit named Jaykit, after Emberdawn’s father, Ashkit had named Proteakit after the colour of the flower, which sort of matched her pelt if you squinted, and Molekit named Fressiakit after the plant, which suited her more than he might think.

Fressiakit…. Were they doing something wrong? They kept them warm but not hot, fed them as much as they could, showered them with attention. 

Her littermates were doing well, all things considered, but for some reason Fressiakit wasn’t growing like they were. Where their skin flattened out their wrinkles, hers seemed as rubbery and creased as ever. Where their fur glossened, hers stuck in sticky, sweaty clumps in spite of the countless groomings they gave her

Ivyspots and Scaleears checked in on her from time to time, as did former medicine cats, but all were at a loss. 

“We’ll just keep loving her,” Gorseheart suggested hopelessly, not for the first time. Emberdawn nudged her to her belly, coaxing her to drink, but Fressiakit only emitted a weak, hardly audible wail before curling up and sleeping fitfully.

Applefoot had wondered aloud how likely it was that all kits in a litter born in such a situation would survive, to which Gorseheart had tore at his ear for. Now, as angry as the thoughtless comment had made him, he couldn’t stop it from sinking into his mind.

“We’ll love her,” he repeated, shoving the thought away forcefully. “We’ll love all of them. That will be enough.”

He prayed that he was right, but deep down he knew how cruel the Stars could be.

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Emberdawn couldn’t breathe, heaving so hard she thought that her guts would climb out through her mouth. Her mate tried to hold her against him, chin atop her head, but she kept moving and he kept having to adjust, not that either of them really noticed.

Another kit. 

Another one of their kits was dead. 

Fressiakit had passed only two moons prior, and they had held her for so long that her form was seconds way from fading completely before they were finally able to tear themselves away long enough to give her a proper burial. Now they had lost their only son, little Jaykit. 

Another sob rocked Emberdawn’s body. 

Her precious little kits. She grieved for them equally, but she had prepared herself, ever impossibly, for her daughter’s inevitable death after she didn’t grow like her siblings, and couldn’t eat. Jaykit, on the other hand, had fallen quickly and unexpectedly. He was as fit as the remaining kits, fur soft and fuzzy, skin turning less and less blackened with every day. And then, for whatever reason, it stopped, and he was dead within the days.

Fressiakit had died before her parents could ever know her, and Jaykit faded right when they were beginning to know him.

Gorseheart didn’t speak, only held her and their two remaining kits. Emberdawn was grateful for it. What words of comfort was there to say? When kits die, they go to Starclan and live happily. What happens to kits born in Darkness, in something that is already an afterlife to two cats who are already dead? Do they even have something after, or are they just….

…gone?

Emberdawn emitted a long wail before she could stop herself. The kits, too young to understand but distressed by the noise, wailed with her. 

Emberdawn curled her paws tighter around the little bundle still in her embrace, running her tongue as gentle as imaginable, as though he could still feel it. As though it still mattered. He was just learning to walk, to speak. Now the only things he had ever said and will ever say were ‘da.’ 

After an eternity, Gorseheart finally spoke, and his question sent shivers down Emberdawn’s spine, but she knew it was one that needed to be addressed.

“What should we tell the kits?”

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He’s talking about the adoptive kits, who are older and will therefore need to be told about the deaths. The two remaining Dark Kits would still be too young to understand.

good question! I imagine their parents would suggest tough-sounding names to help in protecting them, so

hmmmmm