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I take in all the scents, all the herbs and the animals in our private little piece of the forest. I can hear a small heartbeat pounding, hidden in the fallen leaves. I crouch down instantly, stalking quietly towards the noise, making sure my pawsteps are utterly silent. I prepare to pounce, already able to taste the mouse on my lips, when a voice rings out. “Hey, Bramblethorn!” I jump, and the mouse scurries away faster than I can chase it down. It's Mint Nose! Are there any leaf bits in my fur? There aren’t, right?! Oh, yeah… there goes my dinner… mouse-dung.

“Hello, Mint Nose. How are you this morning?”

“I’m great! Willow Branch is taking me and Shadow Heart with her to hunt today! How are you?”

I angle my ears toward the spot where the nice, plump mouse sat eating a walnut. I just sigh. “Well, I was about to catch a mouse…” I pause, whirling around. Through the strong scent of the thyme, I smell something else. Sparrow! I launch myself into the nearest thyme bush and feel my teeth sink into the throat of the delicious bird just as it takes flight. I exit the bush the way I came in and place the sparrow on the ground. “…and now I’ve caught a sparrow. Would you like to share it?”

“No, you should really give it to Raincloud, you know he’s not feeling well…”

I nudge the sparrow toward her. “It’s fine, Mint Nose. I’ve caught plenty more prey already, I’ll just bring that back. Share this with me.”

She hesitates for a moment and then takes a bite out of the sparrow. I start plucking out the feathers.

“What are you doing that for?” she mumbles around another bite of meat.

“Arrows need feathers. Writing needs feathers.”

“What do we need arrows for? We don’t have bows! Just eat some sparrow with me.”

Under my breath, I mutter, “An arbalest would be better than a bow…”

“Yes, it would, if we had a castle. We do not. Eat.”

I tuck into the sparrow. It’s delicious, as I know it would be. It's a sparrow, which is delicious. Science fact. I wish it was cooked, though. I’ve gotten quite good at making very exquisite dishes. Speaking of, some thyme would be nice with this…

“Mint Nose?”

Her eyes shine in a way that makes me nervous, for whatever reason. “What is it, Bramblethorn?”

“Would you mind carrying some thyme back to the den for me? I’m sure I could treat Raincloud’s sickness with it. And make sure you wrap it in an oak leaf, I'll need that too.”

She smiles. “Of course!”

She pads over to the bush, pulling off a few leaves of thyme, before collecting another leaf from the oaks above our heads and wrapping it all up. We finish off the sparrow together, I bury the bones, and nuzzle her softly. "I'll be with you in a bit. I just need to go collect my other prey."

“Okay, bye!” she calls to me as she leaves. By the way her voice is muffled, I’d say she didn’t put down the bundle before talking. She never seems to be able to remember little things like that when she’s around me.

Now... I just need to catch the prey I said I have. Hmm... you know what I wish I had?

A bow.

Then I could just snipe the squirrels off the trees.

They'd already be on a stick so we could have roasted squirrel. Maybe with wild onion?

Soon enough, I return to our den, dragging a squirrel and a rabbit slightly larger than myself. "How," Tumbling Weed asks, staring in awe, "did you catch that thing?"

"I dropped on its back from a tree."

"Cool..."

I gaze around the den. I see Willow Branch, Mint Nose and Shadow Heart have already left. Raincloud sits in the corner, a sullen expression on his face. Springing Rabbit is trying to get Dusk Stripe to play and failing miserably. I hear her say "You're no fun sometimes!" as I walk by. In the very back corner, Ice Shard and Setting Sun are curled around each other, napping.

I see Mint Nose's herb bundle lying on a little wooden pallet. "Hello, everyone. Could anyone help me a bit?"

Setting Sun and Ice Shard both wake up. They see the rabbit. They see the herbs. And they get to their feet. "Stew today, is it?" Ice Shard yawns as she stretches out. "I'll get some water in the pot to boil."

"And I'll grab the other herbs," Setting Sun adds. "What do you reckon we'll need?"

I smile gratefully. "Some wild onion. And some coriander."

"I'm on it, Bramblethorn." He gives his mate a quick lick behind the ear and rushes into one of our other rooms, while Ice Shard, aided by Dusk Stripe and Springing Rabbit, lifts up our only pot and starts carrying it outside, to the stream.

I walk over to where Raincloud sits. His sullen look is now replaced by a soft smile. "You remembered rabbit's my favorite."

"Yes, I did. I'm putting thyme and oak leaves in the soup, and you'd better make sure you scarf them down. It'll make you feel a lot better."

"Okay, okay... they're much better in stew anyway, I suppose..."

Soon enough, Ice Shard, Dusk Stripe and Springing Rabbit return, straining to carry the pot full of water. I head outside to meet them, and light up our campfire. Luckily, it was Tumbling Weed and Shadow Heart's duty yesterday to find firewood. I boil the water, skin the rabbit, set it into the water, and leave it to sit and boil for a while.

After ten more minutes, Willow Branch, Mint Nose and Shadow Heart return carrying three mice and a single robin. "Mmm..." Willow Branch meows. "That smells delicious. Rabbit, dear?"

I nod in assent. "I'm putting Raincloud's herbs in there, too."

"Oh!" Mint Nose shouts. "I found some parsley!" Beaming as brightly as I've ever seen any cat do, she hands me a clump of leaves and stems.

"Thank you. These are actually really good with rabbit. Not so much with mouse... we wouldn't still happen to have any bread, would we?"

Willow Branch's smile fades slightly. "I'm sorry, Bramblethorn. The bit of grain we do have hasn't grown back enough to harvest yet."

"Ah. Well, that's unfortunate. Anyway, did you find anything else? Scraps of metal, or...?"

"No, but we found some very nice fabric. If we get it washed up, we could use it for a bandage if one of us gets a bad cut."

My ears, drooped from no wheat and no scrap, perk up again. "I need that. Thanks. I've run out of bandages, you see."

You're probably wondering how everything works around here. How our den looks, how much land we have, and so on, so forth.

We live in a nicely sized cave with three chambers. One is lower down and has a more stable temperature than the other, so we keep our herbs and perishable foods down there.

In the second room, we keep our tools and the like. Dishes, crop harvesting tools, and one singular axe. I especially enjoy it in there.

In the main chambers are all our nests, our storage for things like books or for foods we'll eat within the day, and of course, my singular potato plant. I love my potato plant. One day, I'll make a baked potato with squirrel, and it will be delicious.

Outside, we have around three acres of forest to ourselves. We're just outside a city, and no one else usually comes here- usually, cats will walk along the highway to get in or out- so we're unbothered. We have a little wheat crop and a stream to drink from and get extra water from.

We also have a little clearing where we practice fighting sometimes, just in case.

It's a nice little life.

After a couple of hours, the stew finishes, and everyone brings out a bowl of their own. I ladle it into each of their bowls, seemingly in a regular fashion, but I take care to sneak an extra piece of rabbit meat into Mint Nose's bowl and to add extra thyme to Raincloud's.

The hope is that neither one will notice anything amiss.

We share conversations as we eat our stew, sat around the fire. Mint Nose sits beside me, telling me everything about her hunting trip. I listen raptly. Ice Shard and Setting Sun are together, Willow Branch with Dusk Stripe and Springing Rabbit, and Raincloud beside Tumbling Weed and Shadow Heart.

Suddenly, a strange thing catches my eye; a flash of orange among the green, before it vanishes again. “Hey!” I yowl.

At first, its scent being hidden, and not knowing its size, I believe it may be a fox, but before I can process this, a voice shouts back, “You can see me? No… I forgot the mud today...”

“Well, I can’t now, seeing as you're behind a shrub, but I could.”

“Well, I’m sorry.” The ginger tomcat steps into the cold light of sunset, scrawny and clearly underfed. “But I happen to need a place to stay.”