Post by Deleted on May 18, 2010 15:25:28 GMT -8
He had been traveling for days now, it felt. His paw pads were raw and bleeding, and every so often he would stop and drag his tongue over them in an attempt to stem the flow, but it mostly did not do any good. His heart was heavy with grief for the death of his beloved brother. Why had Jose insisted they travel through the territory of those hostile dogs? And now, Jose was gone.
The dogs had given him some rather terrible wounds indeed. There were several bites on his back legs, his left hind ending up the worst, causing him to limp. His tortoiseshell pelt was caked with dried blood, his blood and of the dogs who had attacked them. But he was out of the Twolegplace now, and the forest laid in front of him. He would never again return to the alleyways. Never.
As the sun began to rise, Miles finally set his rear down, lowering himself gingerly and wincing in pain. He had to rest. He had been walking in the direction of a star on the horizon, shining more brightly than the rest. 'Jose?' It was as if his brother was guiding him to the place where he would be safe. Jose had always tried to make it so he felt safe, except when they traveled through that terrible territory. He watched the star, until the sun's light out shined that of the star, and it faded.
The stocky tortoiseshell tom twisted around to lick at the wound he could reach, but there were so many he couldn't. Miles would have to find a stream somewhere, or a shallow river, where he could clean his wounds and wash the rest of the blood off. 'How far must I travel?' He thought, clambering slowly to his paws, and began to continue his trek.
He traveled all day, stopping several more times, until the sun dipped below the horizon and the Guiding Bright-Star. Miles was exhausted. He had managed to catch a rather old mouse, and had lapped the drops of fallen rain from a puddle, but he had not slept. He could not stop to sleep... not yet.
Finally, he reached a place where the branches of the trees around and above him turned to vines and touched the forest floor underneath his paws. He did not know the name of these trees, but he supposed he would learn them eventually. Miles wandered through them, admiring their beauty, until he came upon one with a burrow built in between its roots, sheltered and safe. 'This... this will do.'
There was one last thing he had to do. The tortoiseshell tom-cat stepped out of his new home, and sat down. 'This is for you, dear brother...' He thought, and pointed his nose up at the moon. And then, he let loose a howl like no other, a howl that sounded so much like a dog's, though it still had a slight feline burr to it. That was what he believed himself to be; he was raised with a family of dogs, and he was as much of a dog as they were. He howled at the moon for his lost brother, his howl voicing his grief and lost, and the ghostly, un-feline sound echoing through the trees whose branches turned to vines, which touched the forest floor.
