Username: bmkmb
Cat Name: Micornakit
Gender: male
Rank: warbler [kitten]
Clan: CaladiumClan
Age: 3 moons
Prompt: chickens: names, friends, guardians, mothers
“Mamaaaa!” the kit hollered, tumbling after her, and Araucanaflight winced at the high-pitched noise.
She whipped around at the young feline and glowered, “Look, tocotũ: I’m not your mother. Now go find your real parents.”
The seriema strangled an irritated snarl when the kitten whimpered, rolling her eyes so hard that they could’ve popped out of her sockets. All it had taken was one trip, one excursion to the barn—her birthplace—and now she had a little baby following her around for who-knew-what-reason. This was why she’d left and never returned. Too many strange things happened around the barn.
“Araucana!” the kit cried.
Araucanaflight froze, daring another glance at the kit. “What?” she hissed. How in seven skies had it known her name? What, the thing was a mind reader now?
“Araucana!” the kit repeated gleefully. “Hens!” He scrambled towards the fence, sneaking under the open space and purred.
Despite herself, Araucanaflight chased after him, leaping over the gate. She was greeted by… chickens. A lot of chickens, wandering around aimlessly and occasionally pecking at the ground.
The kit noticed her lurking and grinned at her. “Araucana,” he said.
“The… chickens,” Araucanaflight began. “They’re called araucana?”
“Mm,” the kit hummed, which the resident seriema assumed was an affirmative. She let out a startled laugh. She was named after chickens… who knew? Her parents had never told, and the clan cats… well, they wouldn’t know about this.
“Alright. My prefix isn’t some random, made-up word. I’m named after chickens.” The raptor pursed her lips. “Though chickens… it’s like naming a kitten after a mouse,” Araucanaflight sighed. It made it seem like she was a coward—a chicken.
“Hey, kit,” Araucanaflight called. “Who do you live with?”
“Araucana!” he replied cheerfully.
“You live with the hens?” At the nod, the seriema exclaimed, “Who feeds you?”
“Uh…”
“Can you hunt?”
The kit shook his head reluctantly.
“Do you have a name?”
The kit looked away.
“Do you want a name?”
The kitten opened his maw, then dashed away. A flash of annoyance sparked through Araucanaflight. Oh, no, after that conversation, she wasn’t letting the stray out of her sight. They raced around the barn, and the kitten ducked under another fence, grinning at… more chickens, curse the stars; what was up with him and chickens?
“Look mama,” the kit said. “Micorna,” he stated, motioning towards the black-feather rooster. “Call me Micorna.”
Araucanaflight nearly objected to the usage of ‘mama’ again, then thought better of it. It... wasn’t that bad, really. Almost nice, even if it was probably because she was the first she-cat the kit had seen in a while. But if she was going to be the kit’s surrogate mother, they need to make arrangements.
“Micornakit,” she called him. “You really like chickens, don’t you?”
He nodded vigorously.
“Okay. We’re going to take a trip into the forest. I’ll teach you to hunt, and you tell me everything about chickens that you know. Does that sound fair to you?”
The tomkit continued nodding. “Yeah!” he agreed, and he began speaking immediately, rambling on and on about corn and feathers and all the varieties of chicken out there (who knew there were so many).
Araucanaflight fought the smile trying to slip onto her maw. She was going to bring Micorna home. She was going to teach him to hunt, teach him about clan life and that fun stuff. After all, they’d both been named after chickens, both been left at the same barn… for all she knew, they might’ve been distantly related. Birds of the same feather flocked together, and Micorna might’ve been part of her flock… whether that turned out to be true or not, he was Araucanaflight’s responsibility now.
(The smile won.)
(He’d called her ‘mama.’)