#tendrilkit

Tendril: argumentative

Myling: LOUD

Racme: dignified

Poppy: high-strung

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(And to describe Poppy more, she's 'girly' in a deranged way. Ex. Poppy: gets clawed horribly. Poppy: omg guys look the blood matches my spots so well!! I should bleed more!!!)

THE BABIES!!

@elementaldeityoffood

Colours they don't obviously get from Shallow, they got from their bio mom

--

Shallowfig’s chest heaved with panic, his mind whirled as his eyes tried desperately to find movement in the undergrowth around his den. Surely his kits couldn’t have gotten too far? He itched to run after them as soon as possible, but Racemekit was still inside, and he didn’t want to leave him alone. What should he do? Stay with his son or go after his three lost kits?

Making up his mind, he dragged branches of the nearest bushes to block the entrance, then darted away–or planned to, but just as he turned around, he saw his kits stumbling on their little legs toward him. He was more relieved than he had ever been, that was certain, but now what made him freeze was who had accompanied them. A face he had not seen since kithood, yet that had always occupied his brain.

Banshee didn’t say anything, apparently just as surprised to see Shallowfig. 

“Daaad! You ‘twigged the ent-ance!” Tendrilkit complained loudly, breaking the silence. Shallowfig wordlessly moved to pull the branches out of the way. 

“These are your kits?” Banshee asked. It was strange hearing her voice after so long, and so different from how Shallowfig long remembered it. He realized that the same could probably be said for Banshee when he answered. 

“Go inside,” Shallowfig told his kits, shooing them in with his tail. “Yes,” He said to Banshee, turning around to sit.

Banshee shuffled her paws. “They were pretty far from home.”

Shallowfig flattened his ears. Was Banshee accusing him of being a bad father? “They slipped away while I was distracted. I was looking for herbs.”

“Oh. Are you a medicine cat now?”

“No, one of my kits is sick,” Shallowfig replied, glancing sorrowfully at his den.

Banshee’s eyes rounded sympathetically. “Is it….bad?”

“I’ve asked everyone I know who works with the ill. They all say it’s benign, but he’s had–whatever it is that he has since before he opened his eyes.”

Banshee paused for a heartbeat, then padded forward. Shallowfig’s fur rose suspiciously, but he allowed Banshee to get close. She came to a stop beside Shallowfig, pressing her pelt comfortably against his. Shallowfig let out a long, heavy breath. “What does their mother say?”

“Nothing. Gone”

He felt Banshee stiffen against him. “I’m so sorry for your lo–”

“Not dead. We were never as close as mates should be. The kits, blessings as they are, were an accident. We decided to break things off before they were born. She would stay until they were weaned, then I’d take them in.”

“Oh..so you’re raising them by yourself?”

“The family offers help,” Shallowfig replied, feeling the rough aches in his shoulders. He wasn’t sure they would ever fully go away. He doubted it.

“Doesn’t seem like enough.”

“No, then again, kits always sneak out.”

Banshee nodded slowly. “Yeah. I slipped from my mother’s nose more than a few times. Of course, you already knew about that.” She smiled fumbly. 

Shallowfig suspected this would come up, still it caught him off guard and he was unable to think of a reply. 

“I even snuck out a lot more than I was supposed to, really. There wasn’t much of a point to it, though. It wasn’t like who I was running to meet waited for me anymore.”

Shallowfig felt mingled feelings of guilt and irritation. They were kits! Couldn’t Banshee let that go? At the same time, Shallowfig had never truly forgotten their friendship either, or the guilt he had held for abandoning it. 

“Yeah,” he chuckled tensely. “I never did apologize for that, did I?”

“I’m more interested in an explanation,” Banshee admitted, sounding awkward. “I just–want to know.”

“I get that,” Shallowfig responded. “My family found out where I was going. They would have found out sooner, but my nephews and nieces were helping me keep the secret. It was fine until they found out….” he trailed off. How should he tell Banshee about her mother?

“Found out?” Banshee prompted.

“They said that your mother was dangerous. That she was the one to…do you remember when I told you about my brother and sister? The ones with the scars?”

“That…! That can’t be right!” Banshee trembled. 

“You told me your mother’s name was Plague, right?”

Once again, Banshee stiffened. She was silent and still for so long that Shallowfig would have thought that she had died from shock if he couldn’t feel her breathing against him. “Dark stars,” she finally exclaimed. “I thought you just grew tired of me–I never would have thought!--I didn’t think you were afraid!”

“It was my brother’s fear more than mine,” Shallowfig explained, heart twitching at the memory. “He wasn’t okay when he heard about us. If we could meet, it meant she wasn’t too far away, and he was really scared. I couldn’t give your family a reason to want to stay as close as you did. I’m sorry.”

Banshee’s eyes met his, glistening with shock and misery and too many things to name. Then she laughed a heavy, beaten sound. “Look at me! Complaining about how we parted as kits when you just told me your own kit was sick. How pathetic!”

“Enough of that!” Shallowfig snapped, rising. 

Banshee smiled. “I see you’re still defensive of friends who speak badly about themselves.”

Shallowfig blinked, then sat back down. “I guess I am.”

Something seemed to cross Banshee’s mind. She rushed to her paws. “I overstayed my welcome,” she realized. “I should go.”

“No!” Shallowfig exclaimed before he could stop himself. “Uh–I mean. Yeah, you probably have a family to get back to, huh?”

Silence. “I don’t.”

“Oh. That’s goo–Uhm. Okay.”

Banshee smiled softly. “Be seeing you.”

“Yeah. Be seeing you.”

–

For a little bit, curled in his nest with his kits clambering on top of him, Shallowfig’s perpetual emptiness was a little lighter, a little more far away, like a rainstorm that had been looming over him had passed, distant enough now for his fur to avoid the rain, but close enough for the cold weather to bite his skin. 

He hadn’t expected to run into Banshee again, nor for their meeting to bring him such warmth. Sure, he had imagined their reunion quite a few times as a kit, and a few more as an apprentice, and, alright, once or twice as a warrior. But they had been kits then. Even if they could be friends now, which still didn’t feel all too likely, it wasn’t like they would be….

“I smell fish!” Tendrilkit’s high-pitched voice broke into his thoughts, and perhaps broke Shallowfig’s ear. 

“Don’t be silly,” Shallowfig yawned. “Come here, you got dirt all over your fur.” He held a squirming Tendrilkit between his paws and resisted the urge to rest his eyes, as he knew he would only fall asleep again. 

More awake now, a scent caught his nose. Fish? Was Tendrilkit right?

“Stay here,” He instructed the four little ones, before going to poke his head out of the den. A pile of minnows on the ground greeted him. Banshee stood just behind them, sharp-smelling herbs dripping from her jaws. She set them down. “I thought maybe you would like some help?”

The corners of Shallowfig’s lips curled upward. He nodded to the inside. “Come in!”

==========================

@elementaldeityoffood

--I like to think that the reason they both felt such strong feelings about their relationship, even in adulthood, is that when they were together, they felt like they could be themselves. Their greatest supporter was the other, they felt the best they could be when they were with each other. 

The exact memories may fade away (some stay), but that feeling stays with you, and with it’s gone, you only wish for it to come back.

--Shallowfig has four kits! One son (Racemekit [ra-seem]), and three she-cats. So far Tendrilkit is the only one I named.