[Milestone1] Into the World

Splash, despite his name, did not enter the world loudly.

No, quite the opposite really.

He was quiet when he was born, his mother frantic as she tried to get him to squeak, to wiggle…

It took minutes before he finally pawed at her in protest, a quiet mewl finally pulling out of his tiny lungs.

The river flowed nearby, occasionally splashing up and threatening to soak the little family.

That was how he got his name.

Splash, for the river that flowed so close to the bush that gave her shelter to bring him into the world.

She had entered the bush alone.

When she left hours later, she carried his tiny form in her mouth and left nature to reclaim what was left behind.

If Splash was honest, he had never known what the meaning of home was. He had known belonging, in the way he followed his mother and her instructions from the time he was old enough to do so, in the way she always came back to find him after she hunted.

But home was… a foreign concept, despite how carefully she guarded him from the worst parts of the world.

As he grew, playing with her tail and sticks and dry stalks of tall grass, they roamed the world, never staying in one place more than a night or two.

He never thought much of it.

As long as they had each other, he mused as the sunlight faded from the world once more and they took residence in a bramble thicket that luckily had a space just big enough for them to curl up in, that was all they would ever need.

As long as the sun rose and fell, their world would go on. Of that, the tiny little kit had absolute faith in as he yawned and curled into his mother’s fur.