Mourning in Silence

[Ashley[l0ckd0wn]]

Hush-heart woke as dawn's early light filtered into the nusery through the brambles. It was dreadfull cold. What was worse, she realized that there was something even colder curled up to her belly. Nudging Littlekit, Hush-heart found with a wave of grief that the tiny kit had died during the night. The icy weather had finally proved to be too much for her little son. Though Hush-heart was deeply grieved, she had been expecting this for a short while now, though she hadn't wanted to admit it to any cat.
A shadow fell over her from the nursery entrace. A tomcat stood there, watching her. Hush-heart's eyes glowed with affection and sadness as she gazed at her kits' father.
The pretty she-cat delicately picked up Littlekit's body and passed it to her mate, whose eyes betrayed nothing.
No words were needed. They had both known their son's fate, as most other cats had too, probably. Before he took the frozen body, the tom gave his mate a gentle, affectionate lick between her ears. Then he took his song gingerly between his jaws and padded quickly off to bury him.

Spiritkit woke slowly, feeling rather cold on one side, where Littlekit had been when he fell asleep.
"Mom, where's Littlekit?" he mewed, shivering and snuggling up next to her.
Hush-heart's gaze fell over him, holding unimaginable pain and sympathy for the unsuspecting kit.
Alarm flared in Spiritkit's eyes as he asked again, this time more urgently, "Mom, where's Littlekit? He's not...." but slowly, sadly, Hush-heart nodded her head before he finished his sentence.
"No..."

[Fernstorm]

Pearlpool had peeked out under her eyelids and saw what had happened.... She quickly curled her kit's back up to her side.

[~:.Silent.Step.:~]

Silentstep woke up to an unknown source of sound. As she poked open her eye, she saw the small form of Spiritkit, wide eyed, and seemingly in shock. Grief was strewn accross his face, and suddenly, she knew what was wrong.
Littlekit had been sick, with an unkown cause, so it was nearly impossible to treat him. Now, his time had come, and he had died.
Lifting her head, she looked into the eyes of HushHeart. Her condolence was spoken without words, and she drew Fernkit in closer to her body.