**Doeheart**
She didn't know how long it'd been now, that she'd been stuck in the dark, damp earthy tunnels. He was not holding her physically hostage, per say, but she knew better than to wander off through tunnels she knew nothing about, had no way to navigate. She only knew that significant time had passed by the heaviness in her belly, Aldermane's kits. She'd gone for a walk some time into her pregnancy and never got the chance to return to her beloved clan and her cherished kits and her newfound love in Aldermane. The thought of the family that she left behind made her heart hurt more than she thought she could bear, rivaled only by the panic that set in when she thought about the life the kits in her belly were destined for. She still knew so little about the tom who'd abducted her right off the beach. He fed her and he was gentle, but he spoke little and was standoffish. Were her kits destined for a life under ground? Away from the sun and the water she so loved? She longed for the sun and the wind, the water running through her long fur. She hadn't groomed herself in so many days, finding little motivation to do so, yet her coat, while dirty and lacking the luster it once had, was still free of mats or tangles. It crossed her mind that the rough, scarred tom may have been grooming her where he could while she slept but the thought sent discomforting shivers down her spine.
What does he want from me?
The Tom
**TRIGGER WARNING: Abusive Relationships
He carried his mice back up the small incline to the top of the rock pile where the most direct entrance to his den opened. He stopped and looked back over the town behind him. It'd been the other entrance that he'd left that day a moon or so ago when he'd found a pregnant queen wandering by herself down the beach. He'd heard of the clans but had never seen any, until that day. He didn't know what it was about her but there was something that so obviously declared clan, like she was so used to the comforts and safety of being one part of something larger than herself, she'd been nearly careless, drifting too far away from her safety zone. And there had been something else...the way her belly had rounded outward, the ginger way she walked. She had the look of so many pets he'd seen but she was definitely no pet. A sudden urge had overtaken him. The furless ones, the ones who walked on two paws and wore skins that were not their own, they'd taken something from him, so many moons ago. He couldn't place exactly what it was but he'd felt different ever since they'd trapped him and then dumped him out again, with a couple fresh scars. He was different, off, not himself, but his lifelong urge for a family had never left. He'd tried for a while but it never happened, it never worked out. As attempt after attempt failed, his temper grew with every mate until they left him, abandoned him in the night, one after another. Until he stopped trying altogether. He was incapable, he knew that now. Incapable of love, of producing, of caring...until he saw
her... In that one sighting he knew he could turn everything around. He could make her love him and he could have a family, a family of his own, if not by his own blood, at least they'd be all his. It was a rare opportunity and he could take it in no other way but fate or destiny or some sort of higher power playing in his favor for the first time in his painful, disappointing life. So, without thinking, he leapt. With the unconscious queen, he made his slow way back to his hideout and there she'd been ever since, where he was able to take care of her. She hadn't even tried to escape and she was kind, gentle, timid. Every passing day the anticipation grew as her belly grew larger. They were almost here, he could feel it. Taking in a deep breath, he turned back and dipped his head down to walk the familiar steps through the maze of tunnels and back into the warren he'd left the queen. He dipped his head towards her and dropped a mouse in front of her before backing up a step and lying down to eat his own mouse. His single remaining green eye watched her as she crouched down and took a single, small bite from the mouse before cringing and backing away. He stood to his paws immediately, taking a concerned step forward. When she opened her mouth, she emitted a small cry, the first sound he'd heard from her since the first couple days of her pleading and questioning. He swallowed, wanting to ask her what was wrong but his throat was itchy and dry from disuse and he was nervous about what he'd sound like if he tried to speak so he just continued to step closer, even as she retreated, deeper with each convulsion that wracked her sleek body.
**Doeheart**
**TRIGGER WARNING: Birthing
The smell of mouse reached her before she saw the tom returning. It made her stomach roll mildly. Mouse was all she ever ate anymore, he never brought back any fish or anything of the sort, always mice. She was growing sick of the rodents which she'd never even cared for to begin with. When he set it down in front of her, she reached out for a small nibble. Her appetite had left her the moment she smelled the mouse but she knew she must eat for the sake of the health of the kits in her belly. But as soon as she took a bite, a strong contraction ripped through her belly and she recoiled from the mouse as though it had been the cause, although she knew exactly what was happening and that panicked her even more.
Not now, not here...please... She didn't know if ever would be an ideal time or if ever she'd be free of this dreadful place but now was certainly not it, but the kits weren't waiting.
Tears streamed from her amber eyes but through them she could see the scarred grey tom moving closer to her, even as she scooted away from him at each painful contraction. She didn't want him near her or her kits, she needed Aldermane. Against all of her wishes in that moment, the first of the kits slid out onto the dank earth and everything seemed to still. The tom left her thoughts as she turned to look at the small dark brown bundle behind her. Her heart instantly skipped, sending a lump through her throat.
Aldermane... She licked the kit tentatively then vigorously to get him cleaned and reactive. He was strong and took quickly to her belly.
Alderkit. She was overcome by another rippling convulsion moving through her belly. She clenched her teeth against the tingling pain until another kit popped out. Turning quickly, forgetting her circumstances and wrapping herself entirely in the kitting of hers and Aldermane's kits, she found another kit with Aldermane's dark brown coloring but this one was swirled with white.
Birchkit. The convulsion began again, but they were becoming easier, faster. Another kit followed her brother, a brown and orange she-kit, almost half the size of her two brothers before her,
Meadowkit. And then a fourth contraction hit her and a fourth kit slipped out beside the she-kit, another she-kit with swirls of varying browns and tabby stripes marking her pelt,
Hazelkit. The two she-kits began wriggling and fussing to join their brothers suckling at her belly. And then another contraction hit her, harder than the previous two. Her claws slid out and scraped into the soft dirt beneath her. She let out a small squeak through her gritted teeth though she tried to hold back her cries. With one final flare of pain, a fifth kit, the largest of the litter, slid out where the previous four had been. Doeheart panted but sat up to lick her newest and final kit until he was dry. His pelt was long and purely white, the only of the litter with no brown.
Wood... She nearly jumped when a rough, quiet voice broke the silence, shattering the reverie she'd cocooned herself in,
"Claw." Her heartbeat quickened and anger swelled in her. He was
naming her kit, hers and
Aldermane's kit. Her amber eyes, usually so soft, turned on him hard and angry. But the tom's single green eye was stuck on the fluffy white tom-kit.
"These are my kits."
His eye broke away from the kit and, even in the low dark lighting, she could see a gentle firmness. There was no reasoning with a tom like that.
"You are my family, these our kits. I've a right to name my kit."
The insanity of it all made Doeheart's stomach churn sickeningly.
Our kits...Our...His... She shook her head but no words came out.
His eye turned back toward the kits, all of the kits.
"What are we name the others?"
Her mouth was dry and her mind was spinning too fast to think. She sucked in a helpless sob and resigned herself. What was she to do but to try to keep alive the piece of Aldermane that was in each of these kits. She swallowed hard, pointing to each in turn she quietly meowed,
"I was thinking Alderkit...Birchkit...Meadowkit...and that one could be Hazelkit. And then...Clawkit?"
The grey tom cocked his head curiously, looking down at the kits.
"Kit...Why? We don't know already that they are kit? Why must it be named?"
She swallowed again forcibly past the lump in her throat.
"It's normal...in the clan. They are named kit until they earn their apprentice name." Her throat was growing sore from the force of the words past the sorrow blocking her mind and throat.
He shook his head resolutely and Doeheart felt her heart and hope crash.
"We are not clan. It's only us, just our family. Alder, Birch, Meadow, Hazel, Claw. I agree." With that he turned and moved back to his abandoned mouse after moving her hardly touched mouse back in front of her. She could feel his green eye watching her as he took sloppy bites of the mouse. She tried desperately to move him from her mind and focus on the kits suckling healthily at her belly,
Aldermane's kits, clan kits, Riverclan kits. Aldermane's...Oh, please don't forget about me...
Villain's Lair
