❅ I'm alone now. Lost. Cold. I don't want to die out here! ❅
Won't someone please help me?
----
The rogue was alone. She'd found shelter, a warm place to stay, and almost enough food to stop her stomach from rumbling through the night. Despite it, though, she was restless. So much change.. so much upheaval had taken place since the humans had abruptly left, abandoning their dwellings and the animals they'd once called companions. The loneliness didn't bother her, of course. She was never one of the housecats, so keen to curl up on a humans lap and be hand-fed anything they could ever want for.
Survival was in her blood and surviving alone had always been a part of that.
Yet, as Asphalt listened to the cacophony of warring beasts above the tunnel system she'd staked out for her own, she couldn't help but to consider that there was- there had to be- a better way to survive. How many were suffering because they knew no better? Because they'd never had anyone to teach them how to cling to survival against all odds? How to scrape by when fate owed you nothing? If only they'd listen to her. It seemed like everyone she tried to help saw her as a threat. Imposing, maybe, in her tall stature and scarred appearance. She'd seen her fair share of violence, certainly, but it was never her intention.
Maybe, it was an ironic twist of fate that filled her paws with restlessness that night, urging her to surface and find a perch to admire the way the starlight glittered on the snow. Though she'd never admit it, perhaps it was even if a divine paw of her long-forgotten ancestors that guided her path towards the empty outskirts of the city where the snow lay in an undisturbed blanket across the horizon. As she walked, clouds began to cover the sky above, obscuring the moon and letting loose flurries of snow that quickly turned into a blizzard. She was undeterred, urged forward by her own stubborn force of will if nothing else.
Just as she'd settled her form comfortably along the beam of an old fence, a soft pitiful mewling broke the heavy silence of the night. The loner had never had kittens of her own, it was a sound that any cat would recognize, the cries of a kit in trouble.
There was no time to waste. If there was a lost kit out in the weather, it was certainly in danger of succumbing to elements, if not to the hungry beasts that prowled in the night.
"Hello? I'm here, I'll help you!", she called out, voice raising in desperation as she struggled to pinpoint the source of the cries through the howling fury of the worsening weather. Soon, a shape revealed itself. A tiny scrap of fur steeling itself against the gale and struggling towards you.
"I've got you! Hold on!", the loner called out, leaping through the snowdrifts to reach the child's side, "Easy, easy." She lowered her voice, hoping to calm the poor kitten as she scruffed him. It was a wonder he wasn't frozen, as patchy as his fur seemed to be. How long had he been out here? Where were his parents?
There was no time to go searching. She had a warm enough den that'd work just fine until she could figure out where he belonged.
Without another word spoken, she turned and leapt through the snow towards home, no longer alone.
