Sun Mote Copse I'll be resting my eyes

;-;

A change had come over them all, one that Weejay did not understand.. and yet, she knew it was bad. Bad the way Buzz-Buzz was, or bad the way escaping the den at night was. Bad even, like when she had gotten a thorn stuck in her paw, and no amount of cajoling from her loving parents could offset that first bite of cruel pain.

But this bite was different; Weejay felt a cold mood in the den, one that was not happy or playful or bright. A mood that was tired and exhausted, used up and bare. She was young yet, but not so young to miss the sinking of her mother's chestnut gaze, the sudden gauntness of her features -- even the way Daddy looked at Mommy was different, almost fearful. It stirred fear in her, too.

Mommy was but a ghost, changed beyond repair. Weejay could see that Mommy was there before her, but it was not Mommy, it was someone else; someone sickly and thin and ravaged, drab of fur, with no spark to a gaze that looked as if it had stared too long into suffering. Weejay didn't understand it, what had happened, why wasn't Mommy okay, why couldn't Daddy fix it? He could fix everything? Didn't he care?

Weejay had taken to sleeping just outside the den these lonely nights, knowing in her heart that something bad was still coming. Mommy looked like the way she had seen some flowers, frail and withered -- if the wind was too strong, or she played too rough, would she break her?

Hearing Wildfire call for her, Weejay rose quickly, a beat of her old bounce back in her step until she remembered. Her ears fell to her little skull, and her expression was one of fretful sorrow mixed with longing - she wanted to be close but mostly, she wanted things to go back to they way they had been before. Back to her Mommy strong and beautiful, telling her about birds in the trees, or sharing a meal. Anything but this skeleton before her, that was only lifeless auburn fur (bled of its spark) pitched over thin bones.

She was already crying as she met her mother's sides, feeling overwhelmed with fear and love. The way her Mommy could barely lift her head caused Weejay's throat to constrict suddenly -- a hitching sob started in little Weejay's throat as she crawled towards Wildfire, knowing and not knowing that something was impossibly, irrevocably wrong.