ride or die [open]

Goblin had slept beneath the curls of a gnarled root, body curled tightly in a coil and tucked against the solid mass of tree. He had only been on his own for a handful of weeks now and still found himself unsettled by trivial things; things that hadn’t phased him before when he still had a barn to call home and a family of cats waiting for him. He didn’t understand what had changed to sudden make him fearful of the still of the night and behave like a paranoid kit that he was regularly checking over his shoulder – this was not him! Goblin loved the night, loved the dark, loved the silence! Was it inexperience causing this shift? ’Surely.’ He thought groggily, ’Just you wait, in a another few days you’ll feel right at home.’

And truth be told, he probably would. He already felt different than he had living in the barn with the two-legs close by. He was more primal( going off instincts more than ever) and even felt more in tune with himself and nature; he was free and, though he sometimes missed the comforts of home as well as the companionship, he would never go back. The humility he suffered those moons ago and the beating he took were enough to open his eyes to what cats could be given the opportunity and effort and he wanted that for himself – he wanted to be strong.

Now, the trick was…how?

Goblin had wandered only twenty or so miles north of the farm he was born on and came across a slot of forest with two-leg buildings littered in between. Talk and rumors had led the black and white tom here. The word on the street was large groups of cats called clans made this area their home and they were something to be admired; wholly feral and dependent upon one another in the way they lived, hunted and worked together. While he wasn’t 100% sure he wanted that, he had got to thinking that maybe they could teach them…or at the very least he could watch them as that was really all it took for him to begin mastering something. After all, that was how Goblin grew up and how he learned to hunt on his own.

With a small groan the tom finally peeled back his eyelids and blinked tiredly against the morning sun. He shifted and writhed against the damp ground until his head and shoulders poked out from his little nook, gulping down a fresh breath of air as his mind struggled to de-fog. His senses, slow to start, were able to pick up the scent of another cat. It took some time searching the before his eyes were focused enough to pick out the small shape of a cat nearby the horses pasture.

His first instinct was to run over but, if being on his own had taught him anything, it was safer to be cautious. He slowly moved from his den and gave his back a good stretch before side-winding his way through the sparse brush nearer to where the tom was settled. He didn’t bother to mask his sound or scent too shrewdly, not wanting to sneak up on the tom. He wanted to be noticed…he just didn’t want to be attacked.

After a beat of hesitation Goblin slowly stepped into view and blinked wide-eyed at the black tom, uncertain of what came next. He had encountered a few loners and house pets on his short travel but somehow this seemed different. The ones he had met were all busy, in groups and rather inviting…but here, everything seemed so isolated and he struggled to differenciate friend from foe.

’Won’t know until you try.’ Stupid, stupid inner dialogue was right. He moved his tongue against the roof of his mouth and called out against the crisp morning air, ”Good morning…” He left it at that and instead focused on keeping his body posture calm, unthreatening…yet ready to move should this encounter go awry.