Username: Goddess Sword
Link to cat(s) or lion(s) involved in prompt: Mitko (Main character),
Beatrix (Minor character)
Note: A non-cat NPC companion to Mitko, Ragin the red fox, makes an appearance as a secondary character in this as well. Additionally, due to the planned timeline of The Wayfarers' overarching story, references are also made to two other cats I have planned for my group but do not yet own; these cats are mentioned in Mitko's thoughts, but do not play major roles within the story and are included to add context and flesh out Mitko's life within the group, and will likely not be appearing in any more detail for the remainder of my promptfills. Although this story does focus primarily on Mitko, his role among The Wayfarers, and why he wound up going through the portal to the realm of this event, I know that only established cats count towards EXP in prompts, and so I have no problem if you choose to alter the level of completion for this prompt to account for these NPCs and unofficial characters!Link to their pride or group: The WayfarersPrompt level completion: Level 5 (1,005 words)
Prompt:The portal opens in the center of your groups home, calling out for a champion, a hero. A representative to fight an enemy beyond any they'd ever seen before. Who could ever make that call? Who answers the cry to action? Does the leader appoint someone, do they battle for the right as a warrior? Do they send the smart or the brave or the healers? What drives your group to make the choice they make and how does this hero rise to the occasion, if they rise at all? Do they fight their fate, or accept it?
You're here now, champion, and no matter what made you step through that portal, you've got a mission.
The pair had been traveling with the other cats for some time now. Truth be told, Mitko hadn't particularly cared for the lot - Still didn't, really. They were all foolish, all nearly unable to fend for themselves, all so filled with quirks so terribly obnoxious that it was hard to stand. One of them insisted on wandering into every town and city they came across to beg for scraps. Another, arguably the only one capable of even contemplating the idea of self-sufficiency, simply called himself Kat... what sort of name was that for a cat?! And the little girl...
Hmph. So insistent she was that she find her human again, as though they would still want her, as though they weren't the very one who had so callously left her to fend for herself in the first place. Ridiculous. What could she possibly expect to gain from this fool's errand? One last hug and a chunk of the salami she loved so much before her formed owner again dumped her on the streets and sent her on her way with a reminder that she was no longer wanted there? Because that, as far as he was concerned, was the absolute best that Beatrix would ever get. And the worst... his fur bristled at the thought, and he shook the idea from his head. No. He knew firsthand that a cat abandoned was a cat better off without their human. Why couldn't she - And the others, for that matter, journeying with her and playing along with the fantasy of a happy reunion - recognize that same simple truth?
All of them, so insistent on fighting for something that would never happen, all so utterly incompetent. They could barely even feed themselves. And now here he was, doing that job not only for himself and his vulpine partner, but for three more horribly irksome mouths as well.
Still, for all his complaining, it wasn't as though he could just leave. No... Ragin, for whatever reason, had taken a shine to the ragtag clowder. Perhaps it was because that fellow with the atrocious name had scared a mouse from its burrow and allowed the fox to keep it, just as he had before. Perhaps he recognized the two girls as former human pets, just as Mitko had been (and, he suspected, as Ragin might have been himself). Or perhaps he was really just excited to have more company. Were foxes social creatures? Mitko supposed they must be. They were rather like dogs.
Whatever the case, Ragin had been all too happy to follow the group on their pointless, foolish quest to find Beatrix's human again, and like it or not (not, most certainly not!), Mitko was now along for the ride. A ride full of cats who couldn't hunt, who couldn't feed themselves without the help of the humans who had scorned them - Scorned him! - and who lacked the most basic of survival instincts... Save perhaps the eldest, who had his own set of problems for the brown cat to contend with.
They were lucky Mitko was fond of the fox; were it not for that, he would have left the cats to starve. It seemed to him to be what they did best.
He snapped the branch of a small sapling in frustration as he trod along with the others.
How absolutely wonderful, he thought,
to be traveling with a group of incompetents.Ragin, at least, seemed to be enjoying himself, dashing through and around and ahead of the group, bouncing to and fro in the long grass of the woods they were traveling through, stopping occasionally to dig furiously at the ground for no particular reason before noticing that the group had gotten ahead of him and sprinting back up to meet them. Mitko sighed. Well, if nothing else, his foxy friend was happy.
It wasn't until the group passed a cluster of rocks, covered in fresh green moss and with a hollow hole where the earth and stone met, rather like a burrow, that the fox's behavior began to bother him. He had bounded over to the formation and started digging at its base, and Mitko groaned. They had eaten recently; there was hardly any need for the fox to go holding them up, hunting for whatever might be residing there now. "Ragin," he called, "enough. Let's go."
The fox's ears twitched. He had clearly heard him... and yet he still kept digging. Mitko huffed, and responded with a chastising "Cht cht" noise. The fox turned from his digging to look up at him and whimpered... then turned right back to where he was pawing at a few seconds earlier and resumed his digging, faster now.
"Oh, for the love of...!" Mitko strode over to where his friend was causing him such trouble, to see what exactly he was so worked up about... and as he reached about the halfway point between where the fox was and where he had been calling for him, Ragin slipped into the hole and vanished.
The others were watching him now, wondering just why the two had stopped the group in their tracks, and, shooting a look of mutual annoyance back at the party, Mitko ran over to investigate the hole beneath the rocks himself, more than ready to drag the fox out by the scruff of his neck should it come to that. It was only when he brushed the grass that obscured the entrance aside that he noticed what his fox companion had earlier.
And it was only then when he realized that Ragin hadn't merely disappeared from his sight down in the burrow, but vanished entirely. He hadn't the slightest idea what his friend had stumbled upon, but it was clearly going to be trouble.
Mitko cursed under his breath and looked back at the rest of the group, who were now plodding over to investigate themselves. "Uhh... I'll be right back!" And he dove into the glittering light between stone and soil after the fox himself.