Bunnykit was quite the oddity from day one. Found abandoned, tinier than any runt, with a fur finer than snow and just as sensitive to the sunlight and eyes the color of blood frozen beneath ice...She was a ghost with solid mass. A spirit walking among them.
And Flaxensun loved her too much for words to describe.
Perhaps it had started out of obligation - seeing the girl nestled among his own kittens, the protective instincts of a father could not be dismayed. Soon, though, it grew into something more. Seeing Bunnykit take on the world, never minding her afflictions or differences. The way she laughed, the way she explored. He loved her smile and her pouts, how she overcame her anxieties and befriended everyone with an eagerness enviable even to the most extroverted of cats.
She was his daughter.
"A hawk!" Flaxensun's voice is calm, urgent but not panicked. The second he heard the hawk's predatory screech, his sights were skyward, watching the behemoth bird circle. He bared his fangs, before turning to all those in the clearing, "Everyone you know the drill, get inside - apprentices you especially. Don't think just because your bigger the hawk won't target you" He watches everyone run, dragging each other to safety.
He's making his way towards the prey pile, joining a couple warriors in trying to hide the hard earned food from the scavenger above his head.
He doesn't even consider that one of his little ones is out.
He doesn't consider looking for them - so stupid was he to assume they'd been taught the drill and went inside the second they heard the noise.
But that's just the thing - they never heard it. And his kittens, his precious miracles, they're so stubbornly curious.
So it's not he who first lets out a howl of fear, screaming a name that chilled him to the bone.
"Run Bunnykit!" and Flaxensun is whirling around, spotting his snowflake baby girl as she squeezes her sensitive eyes against the sun. As her glowing white fur is suddenly overshadowed and -
"NO!" the cry tears from his lungs, leaving his throat burned and ragged but the pain is far away. Time slows. He's running but he's in a nightmare - he's running in place, no matter how fast he tries to pump his muscles. Molasses, mud, the most unrelenting of tree sap pulls his paws down. And all he can see is Bunnykit, her little eyes closed - don't look baby! Don't look! he begs.
And then his paws pull free and time resumes and -
And she's gone.
"NO! NO!" his cries don't reach his ears - they're whispers compared to the reverberating sound of his little one's cries. He runs, he leaps into the air. Claws unsheathed, claws out stretched. Desperation and adrenaline working as best they can but it's just not enough. His paw catches only air, the cloud that is his kit forcefully returned to the sky she came from.
Too soon. Too SOON! She's not ready - HE'S not ready!
Flaxensun falls to the floor, his instinct's to land on his paws betray him as he collapses instead on his stomach. His eyes never leave the fragile cotton ball in the beast's talons, growing even smaller than she already was into the deep blue.
Dizzily, he wonders if her eyes are still closed. Don't look. Don't look.
"W-we need - I need a patrol! " he chokes out, struggling to rise, to blink away the blurriness of panic and tears. "We can track down it's nest - we can catch it before it - WE CAN CATCH IT!" he roars, whirling around to face the cats who stare, helpless and realistic. Flaxensun would've been one of them, somberly watching a father try his damndest to not break apart at the loss of his kit. Flaxensun as a bystander would shake his head for that poor, foolish man screaming hysterically for a futile search party. Bystander Flax might've even walked out and patted the sobbing father's shoulder, taking on the responsibility of dishing out the truth
There's nothing we can do.
But he's not a bystander. He refuses to be! He can't just sit back and not do anything - that's his girl! "THAT'S MY GIRL!" he screams, snarling at those who aren't quick enough to volunteer their services, reminding them of who she was, how precious she was not just to Flaxen but to the clan itself. She was a rarity, special not for her disabilities but her ability to overcome them! Bunnykit, bunnystar - his baby. "WE NEED TO SAVE HER "
Please!
"Speech"