Stars #1800 form

[nindroidzane]

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Username: nindroidzane
Cat Name: Dolly -> Dahliasong
Platypus name: Twig
Gender: Female
Platypus Gender: Male
Rank: Warrior
Clan: FluxClan
Age: 32 moons

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[nindroidzane]

The fire was the beginning of the end for Dolly's old life.

She had never exactly been fond of the show cat lifestyle, anyways - although teasing from the local strays often made her defend it. They thought she couldn't hold her own in a fight, just because her housefolk liked to dress her up in pretty bows and twinkling bells? Her claws itched to strike their muzzles whenever those comments arose. It would be so easy. They were just scrawny little things, all talk - and her claws were in prime condition.

The only thing between those mangy cats and her claws was her mother.

And her mother didn't approve of her darling little kitten talking to street cats, whether she was kicking their tails or otherwise.

In fact, there was probably nothing Dolly's mother would've liked less than her kicking anyone's tail. It just wasn't 'how a proper show cat behaves.'

So it'd figured that her housefolk would've picked the most rough and tumble kit from her litter to train in her pawsteps. The two of them hadn't gotten along since even her nursing days - too many claws before her eyes were even open.

There was no chance she'd be allowed to fight for any reason. So her threats were all talk - empty hisses and waving of her claws. The strays caught on soon enough, and felt they were free to tease and tease - and, in a sense, they were. There was nothing Dolly could do to stop them. Not unless she wanted to be disowned by her mother - or her housefolk, if her mother's talk of scars ruining her show chances held any truth.

And although she was still sure she could beat any of those street cats any day, it wasn’t as if she really knew how to fight. Everything she did know was self-taught, and she admittedly wasn’t a very experienced teacher. Most of what she’d learned was through observation, replication, and practice - some of which came from street fights, maybe, but mostly through the ‘nature documentaries’ her housefolk seemed to have playing at all hours of the day. As well as all hours of the night, if they forgot to turn it off (which they did quite frequently).

The most helpful ones were the feline ones, of course - maybe she wasn’t a lion herself, but copying their moves certainly wasn’t too difficult. But not every documentary was about cats, and she’d quickly learned to stop relying on them playing often enough to learn anything. Instead, she’d turned to learning whatever fighting techniques the animal of the day had to teach her. Some of them were impossible - she was particularly disappointed she couldn’t paralyze like a spider or constrict like a snake. But there were many things that weren’t, and she'd memorized and practiced them through most of her kithood and beyond. Could those street cats rear like a horse or wrestle like a bear? She didn’t think so.

And yet it was all useless. She’d never be able to show off her skills, not with her mother always breathing down the ribbons on her neck. And she had a hunch her mother would be around for a very long time yet.

Little did Dolly know, it was her who wouldn’t be around much longer.

[nindroidzane]

The fire started in the parking lot.

They hadn’t evacuated, of course, though Dolly doubted that was because the show runners hadn’t noticed. They usually noticed her sneaking off to roll in the sprigs of grass that grew between the pavement well enough.

She and the rest of the cats had been sitting all in a row, fur perfectly groomed and bows tied just right. Her mother had been there as well. The look in her eyes was venom, as though Dolly would suddenly go rogue and scratch the judge's face off. Maybe that wasn't such an unrealistic thought, though.

Either way, she never would've gotten a chance. It took until half the building was ablaze until any fire alarms went off - no interruption is a good interruption and all that. It was a horrible noise, and the humans scattered almost as quickly as the cats did.

Through haze and smoke, she saw a few of them come for their cats. She saw her housefolk scoop up her mother and run for the exit. She wasn't… entirely surprised, although it did sting a bit when they didn’t return for her.

Flames licked at her fur as she headed towards her secret exit, but she managed to avoid the worst of them. Getting out really wasn't a problem, so long as she wasn't blocked by the fire - she'd snuck out of here countless times.

And, contrary to her usual luck, her small crack in the wall was clear as day - minus the billowing smoke. Her eyes were stinging when she stepped out into the light, and her shoulder felt singed. But given the circumstances… she felt pretty lucky.

Although she was still very upset with her housefolk. Maybe she wouldn't have been if they hadn't gone looking for her mother - it still would've been selfish, but it would've made sense, too. But to just grab one of them, and leave the other to burn?

To leave her to burn?

She could see them now; they were standing by the tree line, her mother huddled close in one of their arms. Were they worrying about her right now, as they stared into the flames eating away at the building? Or were they just hoping the pageant could still be resumed?

Dolly decided, even before she'd turned to leave, that she'd rather never know the answer than go back and find out the wrong one was true.

And so she took to the forest.

[nindroidzane]

It wasn't like she'd never stepped paw out there before. There were plenty of days she'd been fed up with sitting at home with her mother, but she didn't want to put up with the local strays' teasing. The woods were a lovely place to sit beneath a tree and listen to the birds sing, or the wind rush gently beneath her fur.

But it felt much different today. Dolly couldn't tell if the way the trees loomed down towards her was comforting or frightening, but she supposed she would have to get used to it - at least for now.

It was the walking that got to her, eventually. Although the new sounds and smells of the forest were exciting, and the birdsong sounded much more clear than on her shows, she was getting exhausted. This was probably the longest she'd walked in one stretch her entire life. Not to mention the stinging the fire had left in her shoulder.

But where to sleep? She'd certainly never slept away from home; despite her gripes with being a showcat, she had to admit that she loved her warm, soft bed. Animals just sleeping on the bare ground never looked comfortable, exactly, no matter what they scraped together for a nest.

But she supposed this was a fair trade-off, if she was going to leave home forever. A little more freedom for a little less comfort? A little more loneliness for a little less abandonment?

She was sure she would survive.

Scanning the area briefly, Dolly settled for sleeping in a nest of reeds by the lake - it seemed peaceful enough there for a nice nap, and the reeds were already roughly in the shape of a nest. Maybe a little prickly, but her fur was thick enough to manage.

She wasn't sure quite when she actually dozed off, but it must have been hours before she was awoken again. An angry chattering sound filled the air, and Dolly lifted her head sleepily to see where it was coming from.

When she'd finally realized it was coming from up in the trees (after shaking the sleep from her fur), she figured it was just some strange bird - until she looked up. Hanging from the tree, suspended not far up from the ground, was a very odd, very angry looking little creature. One she'd seen on her housefolks' shows!

The name didn't come back to her until she'd trotted up close to the creature, who was suspended in the air by a rope, for some reason. A platypus! She never thought she'd see one of these in real life.

The platypus chittered angrily into her face, even trying to bite her with its beak. She cast a sideways look back at her reeds; maybe there'd been a reason they had already looked so nest-like.

Fortunately, she was out of reach of the platypus' flailing and attacks. She could leave right now if she wanted to. Maybe it would prefer that; she wouldn't want a stranger sitting in her bed back home while she was strung up to watch.

But she couldn't just leave it like this, could she? There was no way it was going to get down on its own, that she could see, and she had a feeling that whatever human left this rope here didn't exactly have the best intentions. She knew what they were like.

And that knot in the rope looked awfully similar to her bows…

With a small frown of resolution, Dolly shook out her fur, her bells jingling. She could probably untie that; she'd untied plenty of knots back at home. If the platypus stopped moving, she could get it down just fine.

"Hey!" She snapped, earning a strange little hiss from the creature.

Reaching up carefully, and sitting back on her haunches, she leaned around the platypus to tug at the rope with one claw.

"Do you want me to get you down?"

The platypus eyed her for a long moment. Dolly was very aware of the spike on its leg, the one right next to her own foreleg. Perhaps not her brightest move - it was full of venom like a snake. She hadn't forgotten that, and she was quite sure the platypus hadn't, either.

Fortunately, it seemed to understand what she was trying to do, and finally quit its struggling. Heaving a small sigh of relief, Dolly shifted into a more comfortable position and got to work.

Admittedly, the rope was much more difficult to untangle than any bow she'd ever worn. Although it frayed against her claws, the knot itself held tight, no matter how she plucked and twisted at it.

But she didn't give up. She could tell it was loosening. And bit by bit it did give way, until finally the platypus had collapsed practically onto her head, sending them both tumbling into the grass.

The platypus got to its feet, looking dizzy. It looked at her, gave a small, much less aggressive, chirp, then skittered off to its nest of reeds. At least it had said thank you, she supposed.

Dolly looked up at the sky - it was already dark (which hadn't helped with the knot-picking), but her earlier nap in the stolen nest kept her from feeling very tired at all. She supposed it wouldn't hurt to keep trekking through the forest under the cover of night. She still wasn't quite sure where she was going, so it wasn't like she was in a rush. And anyhow… what else would she do out here?

[nindroidzane]

Walking through the darkness, all alone in the woods, was much scarier than Dolly had given it credit for. However scary she'd thought the looming trees were before was now increased tenfold, and she could've sworn she'd seen the same bat swoop down at her more than once. And the sounds… she couldn't even put a name to most of them. All she knew was that they made her fur prickle.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst had to be when she'd finally run into other cats.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

She heard the snicker before she even knew they were there, and she whipped around, bells tinkling under the cold glare of the trees.

A cat - three cats stood before her, each scraggly and thin and decorated in a unique array of scars. They almost reminded her of the strays back home.

But the strays had never had murder in their eyes.

"Leave me alone," She hissed, puffing out her fur. She was already pretty big, probably bigger than any of them, and she still knew all those fighting techniques from-

The first cat, the one who had spoken, launched himself at her before she could even finish her thoughts.

She screeched as claws raked down her ear, over her face. She struggled to regain her footing, to use any of the moves she had taught herself.

But she was no teacher. She was inexperienced; she'd never been in a real fight.

Experience was apparent in this cat, with every strike he made, every claw that ran deep beneath her fur. And yet she tried to fight back, even when her legs felt weak and her vision went red.

When the attacks suddenly stopped, punctuated by a splitting screech, she thought she'd finally made a lucky blow.

But when her vision finally cleared, albeit only in one eye, she found two of her assailants long gone. And one of them laid before her, still as stone - a platypus sitting pointedly by his side.

After a moment of processing, Dolly gasped. This was the cat who had attacked her. And she hadn't defeated him at all. The platypus. The venom.

It had… saved her.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for her eye. But she had gained a new friend - Twig had remained by her side ever since the attack, and she felt they'd grown very close. Even if he was a platypus.

Life got a little easier, the longer she stayed out in the forest. She no longer trusted her fighting skills, but she picked up hunting quite quickly, even with her jingling bells. Which she could have taken off at any time, of course. But they felt… important. A symbol of where she'd come from; defiance in the face of anybody who thought they meant she couldn't possibly survive out here.

And, well… she'd grown to quite like how her tattered bows and glittering bells looked in the reflections of rain puddles and ponds. It was a comforting reminder - whatever happened, no matter where she went, she would still always be the same old Dolly.