Snow Kittens [Vitarrun / Sookaphiel and co.]

Someone is prodding him insistently. A nose, or maybe a paw, digging uncomfortably into his soft side. In his ear, a voice registers. "Belly! Belly, wake up!" He is not awake. He doesn't understand at all what's going on. Confused and groggy, he feebly kicks his legs. The voice - Dove's voice - hisses quietly in annoyance. "Get UP!"

The prickle of nubby milk teeth and drool collecting on his ear is still not enough to get the kit up. Sounding a little resigned, another voice comments, "He's really out. I don't think he's waking up." There's a response from Dove, but the words are muffled by her mouthful of Belly's ear. He tries to flick it away, but she retains her grip, and starts gnawing.

He's slowly starting to take note of what's going on. As he wriggles and furrows his brow, Zuzu pipes up. "Let him be, Dove. We're missing it!" The impatient thump of her paws on the packed dirt towards the entrance to the den. "And be quiet, guys, or you'll wake Papa and Mamas!" Dove, still latched onto an ear, makes a muted grunting sound in reply. 

"Did you already try to wake the others?" Seraph again, whispering to the she-kits. Dove makes no audible reply. Belly grumbles at the harsh tug.

"Yeah," Zuzu speaks for her, "but they didn't care. Damie and Ajay said its too cold out, and Alty tried to hit me." She sounds terribly disgruntled by this last fact. Belly can almost imagine her indignation. "Rossi's already outside. And we're missing out!"

Finally, finally, Belly musters the effort to open an eye. His vision is blocked by a wall of soft gray-white fur, which he of course immediately tries to push away from. The tug on his ear reminds him why he hadn't moved before. "Whasshappenning?" He mumbles, trying to lift his head without tearing his ear off. "Why'd you wake me up? What're you doin'?"

Belly usually sleeps at the center of the den, Vitani and Sooka to the back walls, and Warrun near the entrance to guard them. Tonight though, his sire seems to have deemed them safe enough, and is curled up around his mate. Head resting on the soft moss, still angled to ensure he can leap to the defense at any time. The kittens still sleeping, Ajay, Damie, and Altair, have migrated towards the back wall, and the comforting flanks of the adults. Belly is alone in the middle of the den.

Well, maybe not. Larka is laying half over him, one paw pressing don't on his head, although she has relinquished his abused ear. Given that she's still only about half his size, despite being nearly a moon older, it's not much of a hindrance, but it is uncomfortable. He shakes his head, and looks up to Seraph. The other large tom-kit is standing over them, the much smaller and quieter Nascha at his side. Zuzu is looking up and outside, ears perked, tail high and quivering slightly. 

"Something's happening outside," Seraph explains. "I dunno what it is. Rossifur came in and woke me 'n Nascha up, and then he left."

Dove is bouncing to her feet, fur at maximum puff in her excitement. "I saw it! I saw it! He woke me up first, and I went out and I saw it!" As the one sleeping closest to the edge, it makes sense for her to have been woken first. Seraph getting up would probably have woken Nascha, and Zuzu is a light sleeper. She and Dove, of course, would not pass up a chance to hassle the other kits into wakefulness. Right now, she's stepping all over Belly's tail, probably intentionally. 

"It's so COOL!" She finishes, and there's a collective 'Shhhh!' from the three other already awake kits. 

"C'mon, Belly," urges Seraph. "I wanna see it too!" And next to him, Nascha nods, her eyes glowing. 

Between them, they manage to hustle Belly out of his nest, with a few cuffs from Dove to wake him up further. Together, the five of them trail up the short tunnel, and one by one, pad outside. 

The cold is the first thing that Belly notices. It is considerably better at waking him up than even the efforts of his siblings together, and it sends his eyes flying wide open.

The second thing he notices is Rossifur. He's already out there, like Zuzu said, and his pelt seems to be coated in a fine layer of white dust or sand. A substance that, upon further investigation, seems to be falling from the sky in white, fluffy clumps. There's a slightly thicker layer of the stuff on the ground, which Rossifur is carelessly flinging about and stomping down as he tries to bite the flakes out of the air. 

"Don't eat it!" hisses Zuzu from over on Belly's left, sounding equal parts horrified and exasperated. 

Rossifur laughs, and calls something in reply, but Belly is too busy gazing out across the clearing with wide eyes. "What is it?" he whispers, as if speaking too loud will break the miraculous silence brought on by this strange rain. 

"I don't know," Seraph meows beside him, sounding utterly awed. Quieter, he repeats, "What is it?"as if posing the question to the world at large. 

Nascha, staring up into the blindingly pale dawn sky, murmurs, "It's beautiful..." And all of them, even Rossifur, have to agree with that. 

He joins them under the protective overhang of the oak tree, and for a while they all just sit there, watching. Soon, a shuffling from the tunnel behind them heralds the arrival of Warrun. He squeezes out, shaking moss and dirt from his fur, and comes to sit with them. He doesn't seem to want to scold them, and though they all remain wary for a few moments, the serene look on his face reassures them.

"Snow," he says after a few moments. "When it's very cold, instead of raining, it snows." This revelation is followed by a few echoed murmurs of the word, as the kits try it out on their tongues. 

"So it's just frozen water, like when the puddles get hard?" asks Rossifur, shooting a smug look at Zuzu.

"Exactly. Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but you got the gist of it." On Warrun's other side, Zuzu is wrinkling her nose in an exaggerated mockery of her littermate. He sticks out his tongue, and Warrun bats him gently. "Stop that. Look at the snow instead."

So they do. The rest of the family joins them after a bit, first Vitani, presumably woken by the sudden draft in her nest from Warrun's exit, and shortly, the other three kits, with River at the rear. The newcomers sit for a bit, until Rossifur gives into his impatience and bounds back into the clearing, followed closely by Altair. They chase the snowflakes, and then Altair flings a pawful of snow at the line of kits by the den. It explodes into a puff of flakes between Dove and Zuzu, and with a chorus of shrieks, they join the boys. Laughing, Warrun joins into the fray, and soon they're all jumping and rolling in the snow together. 

Finally, cold, wet, and exhausted, they all trail back into the den, shaking off snow and half-heartedly growling at each other when careless bits splatter them. The nests are cold now, and damp, but they press together with the adults surrounding them, and fall asleep together, in one big pile. As it warms, their bodies steam lightly. Outside, it snows.