Private Thread Prize in Seclusion

I don't need them. Not anymore.
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Magdalen stretched herself languidly and glanced around her. The dark, dusty hollow that she was currently calling home set a displeased look on her face. Frequent days of rain and the obnoxiousness of cats she didn’t know, had driven her to seek shelter under the porch of a housefolk’s den. She hated the proximity. Loathed it, even. Yet, what was she to do? She couldn’t break free of this wretched place without meeting the awful clan cats and likely being attacked by them. Nor did she overly want to leave. There was a cat who had passed this way once before that she owed a great deal to. She still hoped he would wander through one day soon.

Regardless of her distaste of her situation, Magdalen had to eat. The prospect of hunting cheered her up as it always reminded her of how far she had come. Only a few moons ago she had still had to scavenge scraps from the housefolks’ garbage. Now, though, she was able to catch something to eat most days. After giving her pelt a quick clean and a shake, Magdalen crept out from under the boards and turned her gaze toward the fence that separated her space from the streets. With a smooth leap, the ginger, gray and white tabico she-cat landed on top of the rickety boards. They tilted and swayed under her weight, and Magdalen had to shift and flex until an equilibrium was found.

Staring down into the street beyond with sharp, yellow eyes, Magdalen searched for signs of dogs, housefolk and other cats. Not seeing any, she took a deep breath, mouth open, to pick up on any scents she could. Carefully she mentally sorted the various smells, discarding her focus from those that were old enough not to cause concern. Then her eyes widened and focused as she realised that she knew the faint tom scent that she picked up. Curiosity had her leaping down from the fence and approaching where it was the strongest. It was that tom who had helped her some time ago. Magdalen looked around, trying to spot him, but he wasn’t in sight. Undeterred, the sleek she-cat sniffed again, mouth open to draw the scent over her tongue and help her focus on it.

Once Magdalen was sure of the direction that the tom had taken, she began to follow at a steady pace. She didn’t want to rush toward him and accidentally startle him. Nor did she want to take too long and risk him moving into land she wasn’t prepared to explore. Magdalen still had no idea how she was going to repay him for saving her life, but she had to take this chance. Maybe they would talk it out and he would have an idea. Steadily, Magdalen followed the scent and moved into areas she had almost never travelled through. Eventually, however, the scent became muddied and disorientated. Magdalen sat down in frustration, she felt like she was close to where he had been or was, but a breeze and other scents were overpowering her ability to track him any further. “Darn it!” the she-cat spat out. She winced as she realised how loud she had been and looked around for any danger. It wasn’t fair that she had come so close.

Survival demands caution, but greatness requires daring
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Part of the outer casing had been pecked away at, but that only made it more satisfying to get to the softer flesh inside. Sighing with pleasure, Kosmo took a bite, finding it convient that it had no fur or scales to rip through. Even if it didn't have delectable offal, it all together tasted something similar to it.

From beyond the fence where he had come there came a sound. Unexpected. A voice it seemed. The words were lost to him but it seemed like it came from a place of frustration. His tongue licked at the outline of his maw as his head lifted curiously. Nostrils strained to tell if it was a familiar scent or not - the outside scents weren't doing him any favors. He'd have to check on them himself.

Stretching his forepaws out, he let the link of meat roll into the grass half hidden and padded up between the branches. From the two panes he could spot a feline figure, a she-cat, and she wasn't a stranger. It had been the cat whom he had staved off infection. A fleeting smile teased along his muzzle as he called out to her, a faceless voice from the fenceline.

"Why don't you come inside." He invited her before moving back from the gap so she may squeeze in.

I don’t need them. Not anymore.
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Magdalen whipped around at the sound of a voice, hackles raising along with her spine as she prepared to defend herself. The moment she saw who had spoken, however, and his words had registered in her mind, she instantly relaxed and she took on a look of surprise and delight. “It’s you! the tabico breathed out. Quickly Magdalen trotted over to where the tom was. Whether he had ever introduced himself had completely slipped her mind. The sleek she-cat had never been fantastic at remembering names, and the fact that the last time they had met she had been feverish from her infection had certainly not helped that.

Smoothly, Magdalen followed as the tom slipped his way through a gap. She was utterly surprised at the sight that lay before her. SHe found herself unsure if she was in some old, but large garden or in a wild space. Either way her heart sang for the natural beauty of the grass and the tree with its ivy. This was the kind of place she yearned to be and once she had repaid her debt to this tom, she would journey past the clans’ lands and find a place like this for herself.

When they arrived at the tree and it became clear that they weren’t travelling further, Magdalen sat down and neatly wrapped her tail around her paws. For a moment she gazed around the area, soaking in the sense of freedom that wrapped around her like a cosy blanket that she used to snuggle in back in her first home. With a sigh, the multi-coloured she-cat returned her gaze to the tom who had brought her here. “I’m sorry to say that I’ve forgotten your name, if you ever shared it.” Magdalen gave him an apologetic shrug before she continued, “But I haven’t forgotten what you did for me. You saved my life, and I owe you something in return. I haven’t the skills or knowledge to be able to save your life in the way that you saved mine, and I hope you never find yourself in such danger. But…” the she-cat trailed off.

For a moment Magdalen hesitated, thinking quickly over what she planned to stay. Ever since her fever had broken and this tom had left, she had thought about what she would say and do if she were to find him again. Now that that moment had arrived, nervousness prickled her gut. She hoped that she would accept this offer, and with minimal delay as she really did want to get away from the housefolk and their nastiness. “But maybe there is something I could do for you that you would value nearly as much,” she meowed finally and set her yellow gaze upon the tom, watching him calmly, but hopefully.

Survival demands caution, but greatness requires daring
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Kosmo regarded her for a long moment. The abandoned lot seemed to hold its breath around them before Kosmo offered the she-cat a nondefined grin yet it wasn't the sort he'd offer to a stranger.

"Kosmo... You wake from a fever, hunt me down and the first thing you do is try to pay a debt." His low voice humed with approval as well as amusement. With a flick of his tail he crossed back toward the half hidden prize he'd abandoned in the grass. The scent of grilled meat rose immediately as he grabbed the strange furless prey closer with a paw.

"Relax here with me." The invitation came easily to him. The mink tom lowered his belly into the grass and took another bite. After a moment he continued, but there was no need to rush. He listened to the birdsong above where all other noises seemed to dull in his ears.

"I healed you because you needed healing....Though, there are others." he played it casual with an air of mystique he seemed to carry with him as his heavy eyes regarded her. "I'm bringing them together again. Faces from my past...and new faces tired of being alone. The Sky speaks. You'd be welcome among them...Magdolena?" He rolled the sausage beneath his paw. He wasn't too versed in remembering names either, but the first part felt right.

I don’t need them. Not anymore.
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The way the tom watched Magdalen after she had spoken her piece had her unnerved. Subconsciously the she-cat shifted, relaxing her spine and shifting her weight to her paws so that she might dart away should he prove hostile. The tabico really hadn’t counted on the possibility that he mightn’t be friendly given that he had saved her life, and the fact that he had seemed welcoming. Then again, he didn’t seem outright hostile either and the she-cat was left utterly confused.

Magdalen blinked as Kosmo spoke, her confusion deepening until she realised the first word was his name. Once she recognised the approval and amusement in Kosmo’s tone, the sleek she-cat relaxed her posture into one that reflected a calmer way of being. Her initial fears of hostility had faded, but she still felt rather off-kilter with the whole interaction. When Magdalen had thought of Kosmo since her recovery, she had stereotypically imagined some wise tom with a calm demeanour and steady, but maybe serious way of being. Kosmo, however, had a more quirky nature in her experience thus far and the rather inexperienced she-cat found herself baffled about how to react.

When Kosmo moved away and settled down to eat something, inviting Magdalen to relax, she couldn’t help but pad toward him with a sense of curiosity. It was all so different to how she had imagined this going and she was drawn in. Magdalen couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose as she noticed the sausage that the tom was eating, but she refrained from saying anything. She, herself, had had to seek out such scraps when she was learning to hunt, and she was in no doubt of mind that if she didn’t find somewhere that was plentiful in prey, she would have to resort to eating scraps again, as much as her heart defied such notions.

The quiet lengthened just long enough for the tabico to feel like she ought to say something when Kosmo, himself, spoke. Once more that sense of confusion wrapped Magdalen and a frown grew on her face when Kosmo got her name wrong. “Mag-da-len,” she enunciated with slightly noticeable annoyance. She thought quietly for a moment before speaking. “You say you healed me because I needed it, but why? You must have had some further reason.” Since finding herself living the life of a stray, Magdalen’s experiences told her that no cat did something for nothing. Life was just too tricky to go around helping others without a plan to collect the debts. The she-cat flicked her tail.

“And others? Bringing them together? What? Are you planning to make your own clan or something? Where would such a group even live with those heathens taking all the decent land around? Surely you wouldn’t expect a group to live on scraps like that?” Magdalen nodded at the sausage Kosmo had been eating. “Or do you plan on gathering them from here and journeying?” The tabico tilted her head. Her tone held incredulity and genuine curiosity as opposed to disbelief. She herself had often imagined travelling beyond the clans’ reach once she had repaid this debt. It was the only way she could see herself finding wild land for herself to live on in peace. Yet, a group could maintain peace more easily than one cat so if Kosmo were considering this, she might just accept this offer.

Survival demands caution, but greatness requires daring
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Kosmo's whiskers twitched at her correction and repeated her name, confident as he always was as the syllables fell from him. When the she-cat settled more comfortably into the grass next to him, his forepaw draped over it casually. The edges of his maw turned upwards before he relinquished the 'scrap' as she so called it. It was hard won treasure by his partner and scraps were her favorite.

"There was a time when I was younger and weaker...Cats died around me. Some deserved it. Some didn't. I learned early that knowledge is worth more than claws if you intend to survive longer than your enemies." A faint smile touched his muzzle again, a softness entering them as nostalgia touched them.

"And because healing a stranger costs me very little. Letting one die seems like a waste of life, no?" The words sounded practical rather than sentimental. "Would you like a bite? Of the scrap, I mean?"

Then Magdalen had to speak of the Clans. Something flashed within his mismatched gaze, the nostalgia seething with a brief heat. "There are true hunters among us. Scraps will be a delicasy of the past. We will feast on the bounty of my birth-land; rodent, rabbit, fish, lizard... before the flood it was a beautiful place, and a beautiful place it has become again." His ears perked at the sound of birdsong flitting in the branched above them, but it did little to soothe his soul. "It is south of the boundaries of RiverClan, of which I have an loose alliance with. That land...and it's rich history, is my inheritance. If only my Emperor Grandsire could see what I'm building; a group built on partnership where we can fly together."

His eyes had lifted towards the massive oak branches where a shadow could be seen moving through the leaves, before it hopped down, its glissening feather's belonging to a huge female raven in her prime. She landed delicately for her size, gently onto Kosmo's flank, of which he barely reacted to her weight.

The raven then rounded her beady eyes on the sausage link and snapped it up in one gulp with a hearty croak. "We have something the Clans could never hope to achieve..." He spoke calmy to Magdalen to indicate that the raven was not a threat. An oddity, perhaps, but not a threat.

To them.

I don’t need them. Not anymore.
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Magdalen watched Kosmo closely. She hadn’t had the misfortune of witnessing others die. Not yet anyway. She was sure that once she had spent enough time out here, she would eventually know of cats who had died, but she would have to get to know other cats for that. The tabico dipped her head at the remark that knowledge was worth more than claws. It was something she had been learning since she began to live outside of the care of housefolk. Back then not knowing things mattered little. Food, water, shelter and all came relatively easy. Out here, not knowing something could result in death.

“A waste of life? Or the insurance of your own?” Magdalen replied in a jaded tone. “If I had died, there would be one less mouth looking for food, leaving you with more to have yourself.” This was the heart of the reason why the pretty she-cat felt so indebted to Kosmo and confused by his actions. Her time as a stray had told her that cats would happily be rid of the extra mouths to ensure they had enough to eat. It was the reason she figured those clan cats to be so territorial. They lived together for mutual protection but to ensure their little groups didn’t break apart they had to fiercely defend their territory to make sure there was enough to eat. It seemed like a system doomed for failure to Magdalen, and yet Kosmo was proposing the same idea and for her to join this new group.

A look of offense unintentionally crossed Magdalen’s face and she sat up straighter. “No thank you,” she replied curtly to Kosmo’s offer of housefolk food. She was trying to distance herself from their hold, to eradicate the memories and reliance on those spiteful creatures. She would only eat such food if she were starving and right now she did not feel even half-starved. As Kosmo spoke of rich hunting, the tabico’s yellow gaze glittered with excitement. It was exactly what she dreamed of. A place to hunt a variety of creatures to fill one’s stomach. Her gaze became more awed at the idea that a cat could befriend any of those clan cats, although his mention of an emperor went completely over her head, having her assume that was his grandsire’s name or something.

Magdalen leaped back as the raven landed. To her shock the bird hadn’t landed near them or swooped and left, but landed onto Kosmo and eaten the scrap he had been picking at. The bewildered she-cat glanced between the two, unease prickling her fur. It didn’t seem natural or normal. Magdalen shuffled nervously, resettling a little further back and more uneasily than she had been. Distrust and confusion glittered in her gaze as she watched the bird, no longer worried about Kosmo, her mind churning with a multitude of thoughts. “A friendship with a raven?” there was no skepticism, in her tone. How could there be with the proof literally before her eyes? But there was a great deal of incomprehension. “I get that ravens can be dangerous… but, well aside from how you came to be on such easy terms with one, how can one help… unless there’s more than one?”

Magdalen tilted her head, gaze flashing toward Kosmo before watching the raven carefully once more. These birds were social, she had seen that. Not to the same degree as their small counterpart, crows, were. Nor they, to certain types of songbird. “I don’t see how a raven, or multiple ravens, could help a group of cats survive more securely than the clans,” the tabico meowed finally. “I don’t understand how the clans haven’t turned on each other or themselves, honestly. Every cat wants to survive. A group needs sufficient food to do that. So what happens to them, to the raven or ravens, and to this group that you’re planning when the prey runs low or goes completely? It has to eventually.” If Magdalen was going to accept this unusual unity and to join it, she wanted to know that she wasn’t going to be killed for a scrap of housefolk food when things got tough.

Survival demands caution, but greatness requires daring
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The offense at the offered sausage earned only a faint smile behind his whiskers. He didn't seem insulted. If anything, the raven certainly preferred it. She had already swallowed the evidence and now sat atop his flank, feathers sleek and glossy. A companion rather than a pest or threat.

When he spoke to her his voice remained calm, blinking over at her slowly. "A fair question....You think like most cats." The statement wasn't meant to be cruel. "You see another mouth and think of less prey. Another hunter and think of more competition. Another stranger and think of what they might take...That's how I used to think."

His chin craned to the side as he felt the pleasant pressure of the raven's beak. Preening the cat gently as she might her own chick or mate, the raven took a moment to solidify her bond before she took to the sky again with a few well placed wing beats. Winds outspread one could see just how massive she was, as large as a sizable red hawk. She took to a nearby branch to scratch her beak back and forth on the wood.

"The Clans have certainly overcome their share of adversity. Droughts pass. Winters end. Prey multiplies... No group is immune to hardship, but the difference between them...and us...is that we have eyes in the sky." Magdalen's gaze had remained fixed on the raven and Kosmo seemed amused by it as he took a moment to swipe his tongue over a front paw.

"Predators. Storms. Patrols. Prey. And she's only one. No cat...No. Not even a human would threaten a group of cats protected by an entire flock...Hm." He paused briefly, tasting the words he had spoken. He seemed pleased. Smiling over at her, Kosmo's grin teased upwards. "If prey disappears, we'll move. If danger comes near we'll know before it arrives

He chuckled lightly, hoping she wouldn't take it personally. It took both confidence and knowledge to accumulate the skills he possessed, if she was skeptical he didn't blame her. "I don't promise paradise...But I intend to build something stronger than mere survival. Something worth inheriting. As I have inherited"

I don’t need them. Not anymore.
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Magdalen blinked at Kosmo at his statement in return to hers. He used to think that way but he didn’t explain what changed his mind. From the she-cat’s perspective it was only logical, but did it have to be? Surely it did. Eventually the prey stopped running so well and what happened then? When there’s too many mouths wanting food, cats fought. She had seen it time and time again since she had been forced from her once cosy life.

The tabico she-cat’s thoughts were interrupted by the way Kosmo seemed to genuinely enjoy the raven’s attention. All she could think about was how the bird could deliver such a nasty blow to his head or face if she had the desire to. Magdalen shifted uneasily. Her instincts were screaming at her to attack the bird for food or to drive it off, but she owed Kosmo a debt and it was plain to see that any aggression toward the raven would deepen that debt or even encourage his own hostility. Looking at the tom again confirmed the striped ginger and white she-cat’s theory that she would never win a fight here, especially not if the bird got involved. Her stomach twisted and mild regret at having sought Kosmo out rose in her heart.

Magdalen knew she was borrowing trouble. Nothing had gone amiss in this interaction so far, it was only her own misgiving about playing friends with a bird, something she saw as both food and threat. Kosmo spoke of the clans adversities and how eyes in the sky would be a benefit to them. It seemed clear that he believed she would join him. As he mentioned that there was indeed an entire flock, the tabico’s misgivings grew deeper. It just didn’t feel right, but she needed some form of safety and his ideas weren’t entirely foolish. Yet, how could a flock of ravens tell them of the troubles they spotted? And how certain could they be that these ravens would even recognise things dangerous to cats and not them as something to warn of? Magdalen opened her mouth to voice these thoughts and then closed it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know all the ins and outs of this.

The mottled she-cat allowed silence to linger as Kosmo finished speaking, thinking carefully. “I have inherited nothing. I think my mother left me at the mercy of a housefolk when I was young, but I barely remember anything before living with that housefolk. So I care not for inheritance,” she meowed plainly. “But I do care about survival. I am aware that living alone poses risks, but so does living with others. I can’t see how your birds will help any cat, but I owe you a debt for saving my life. Magdalen paused, hesitant to voice her decision but knowing she would have to. “As such, I will help you build this… dream, until such a time as I see that debt repaid. Maybe I will choose to remain after that, maybe I won’t. We will see what the future holds.

Survival demands caution, but greatness requires daring
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Kosmo's gaze lingered on her, not with scrutiny, but with the satisfaction of a decent conversation partner. Maybe something more. At last, a slow smile curved across his muzzle. "You speak as though debts have an end...Perhaps they do. I won't ask you to believe in her today..."

He rose from the grass in one fluid motion, giving his pelt a leisurely shake before glancing up toward the oak. Above them, the raven shifted upon her branch but otherwise did little to attract attention. "Belief alone can be a poor foundation if one doesn't see. I plan to show you, but it also doesn't hurt to have that belief...that hope."

Inheritance wasn't something he through around lightly. His history was fraught with expectation and danger, but he wanted to achieve his goals. There was wasn't any rule to say that she couldn't build hers alongside his. "You've inherited your choices in what sort of cat you'll become."

His angled face took in her composure, her uncertainties coming to light, but he smiled at her, tail giving an easy wave as he took a moment to smooth down the fur against his shoulder before continuing with an easy candor. "All cats deserve a safe place to find belonging...And, if one day, you decide our paths no longer run together, I'll wish you the best."

Only the possibility hung between them as soft as the grass at their feet. "Now...Allow me to celebrate our reunion with some fresh prey. Let's head...home."