Blackfeather Woods young artists have gotta starve

After all this time, Kitsch was still too obstinate to change. 

Being a part of a pack, even a pack as creepy-horrible as Blackfeather Woods, kept her alive. She was not a woman meant to be alone in the world. Life just took so much energy, energy that she did not have, and certainly she would have died by now had she not bobbed from caretaker to caretaker, pack to pack. As much as Kitsch wanted to blame her parents for raising her in such a unknowing fashion, she knew her anger was gravely misdirected — so the kitten channeled her anger inwards, allowing it to stoke hot within her gut and giving her reason to feed her various impulses whenever they arose. 

As it turned out, gomorrah could be quite a lonely place.

Her body’s voracious appetite for poppy had never dulled, especially with a woman as self-indulgent as Kitsch. She was able to find the plant plentiful in the spring and the summer — this was the only one of West’s lessons that really stuck with her — and Kitsch was not excited about the idea of the herb’s winter scarcity. In the back of her mind, the stratchitella girl knew the pack’s pharmacist might be a valuable resource but even so, Kitsch began to create her own stockpile with her crisp autumn findings. Somehow, her supply always seemed to be waning and Kitsch could not make sense of it.

Kitsch stalked about the forest during the dark hours of night. Her small, white form floated between the misted trees as would an eidolon — soundlessly, thoughtlessly drifting with no real direction or goal. Perhaps she had become a ghost of these woods, after all; she didn’t exactly know anyone within the ranks, nor had they every sought her out. It was no matter — being a lovely ghost was quite alright with her. It was not the center of attention that she normally preferred, but with these wolves, Kitsch could appreciate being marginalized.

However, even a lovely ghost needed to eat and the kitten soon found herself seeking the carrion left by others. It was a habit she gave into more than she would like to admit, but she was often left without another choices. Flesh was plentiful, if one was not picky. With ease, she found the meal she sought and ermine girl settled upon the moist forest floor. With the haze of the poppy thick on her mind and a unknown animal’s bone between her forearms, Kitsch lay beneath a willow and ground away at the remains with her molars, a sickly pink peppering her cheeks as if it were blush.