I looked back to see Fallan bouncing around, chasing a butterfly while the barn got smaller in the distance. Her energy hadn't yet been spent, what with the shortened travel today.

Hannah had stayed close to me, staring and asking questions about the kitten in my mouth while I only half-listened. She had struggled a lot at first, clearly not used to being picked up.

We had just left the barn, and would be heading into the thicker trees soon (once again). Relieved to be away from a human-place, I could walk a lot easier now. Prey-scents hit my nostrils, but I kept walking past them and focused on the kitten's warm scent instead.

Eventually I would tell my sister and Hannah about my dreams, but that wouldn't be tonight. They deserved to know, but how would two cheetahs like them react? Most things they took serious included finding their next meal and coming up with the next odd thing to do or say.

"Hannah! Come look at this feather!"

How was I going to explain it to them?

I would just not say anything about the true origins of my reason for taking the kit, for now. The questions kept rolling, this time from both of them, and I tried to answer only the ones I could respond to without lying.

"Did we just save this kit's life, basically?"

"And how are we going to feed it? Its so tiny!" Hannah lowered her head to peer at the tiny kit in awe.

"With prey, obviously. She has teeth."

"What if it still drinks milk? It looks so small still!"

I froze in my tracks from what Hannah had said, almost dropping the kit. She swayed back and forth for a moment, churning her paws and squealing in alarm.

How were we going to feed her? If she drank milk still, we'd have to take her back right away.

And the poor kit was pitifully small and skinny. It might not survive, what with Cold-Paws on the way and the shortage of prey it brought with it.

But I couldn't give the kit up now. I had seen it in my dream, and already could see her in our future. Perhaps that was why the kitten kept being so chatty. Though her meows had no words in them yet, could she be expressing that she was hungry?

I looked around the woods and back behind me, devastatingly realizing that the barn was too far away to be seen. Wind began whistling through the slender trunks, bringing with it a stronger scent of prey.

There was leaves that occasionally floated down from the towering trees, and a cool breeze had begun blowing only a couple of minutes ago. Plus, everything was still damp from last night. The bottom of my pads were covered in mud, while Fallan's were dirty up to half-way the length of her legs. She tumbled down into a ditch suddenly, staining Hannah with a few drops that she immediantly grimaced at.

This kit might not even last tonight, I realized with dread. It was so young and vulnerable. But then, that's how Fallan, Hannah and I had been- and we'd had no help but each other. I sort of felt that the kitten needed us now.

With all of these thoughts now surfacing, I knew that we would have to solve this problem here and now. Without going any further, we would find a solution.

"Wait," I told my sisters through a mouth-full of scruff while lowering my haunches to sit down. Hannah sat and Fallan rolled onto her back as if she were tired from the one hour of distance we'd traveled today.

"Fallan, go fetch a mouse or squirrel or something. Did you guys eat that spare rabbit before I woke up?"

Fallan got up and shuffled her paws in the dirt guiltily, thankfully telling the truth, while Hannah looked away silently.

"Yeah.."

"Okay, that's fine." I tried not to sound mad and succeeded, because that really didn't concern me right now. Plus I had a kit in my mouth, so though my stomach was faintly rumbling I couldn't bring myself to think about food.

Hannah reached her paw over to the kit and closer to my mouth to try and touch it as Fallan raced away, but the diamond-cat shrunk back.

I dropped her softly on the ground and began licking her dusty fur. The kitten turned her head to peer up at me with wide, curious blue eyes, and began to purr as I groomed the scraps of dried grass from her fur.

Between licks I idly spoke to Hannah.

"Here's the plan; we're going to head deeper into the woods and sleep somewhere to see if the kit can survive the night. If it doesn't eat solid food yet, I don't know what to do. We'll solve that problem if it comes," I said grimly, mostly to myself.

"Be sure to keep the kit warm tonight. We'll head out again tommorow if everything goes as planned. But first..."

I took a deep breath, thankful that Fallan was not here.

"The kit will travel with us to Cheetah Pride. We will raise her and give her a name. She will be one of our pride."

Hannah stared at me blankly, and I asked, "got that?" so that the silence didn't drag out. Hannah was better at reading my tones and facial expressions that Fallan, and I trusted her to be more understanding.

She nodded and looked towards the ground, a new light in her eyes.

"I'm glad we saved her. There must have been no cat feeding her there," Hannah commented. I agreed with her silently, hoping that the cat indeed didn't have to go back to the barn.

I continued my licking, looking away and hoping this was a sign for her not to ask anymore questions. The white cat and the stress of thinking about my dream had put my mind on edge.

The kit would have to get use to my scent if it were to stay with us, I knew, still licking her fluffy fur. No matter how long I groomed her, she seemed discontent and stared off into the trees. Fluffy, downy fur smoothed down, the kitten stood up and took a tottering step towards me.

"What do we name her?" Hannah asked.

Oh... What were we going to name her?

I stared down at the little bundle of fur, realizing that the sooner we could call her something the better. Without a name she seemed displaced, like the white mother-cat had made her out to be. Well, never again.

She was a rather weird-colored feline, even for a human-cat, but that didn't bother me.

Her markings were pretty and all seemed to perfect that odd, white diamond-shape on her little head. This kit had bright blue eyes, and started to close them as I licked her more. Her fur had grey, orange and white. The orange bit made of soft tabby markings. Of the white parts made up her paws, chest, and half of her tail.

"Diamond," I said simply. It sounded perfect for her, not too complicated or new. She would be defined as something strong but eye-catching at the same time.

"We will name her Diamond." I let myself picture this cat as a grown-up, fighting by our sides and greeting Hannah as if she were an old friend.

"Good name," Hannah said as if she were in awe, and I was left to wonder what was up with her as she stared at the young cat.

"Do you think it talks yet?" Fallan's muffled mew sounded out from behind a cluster of trees as she emerged with a mouse swinging from her jaws.

"Good job," I meowed without answering her question. So far, I was guessing that the runt kitten couldn't speak yet. Most kits didn't learn it right off of their first days, and this kit hadn't been correctly socialized.

I moved my tail in front of Hannah's face to stop her from staring at Diamond and bent down to smell her.

She didn't look like she talked yet, because she was so young. Plus she'd made only kit-noises so far.

Or maybe she could, but didn't speak because we were weird stranger-cats. Did she think that?

I slipped my muzzle under her back legs and lifted her up a few feet off the ground gently. She squirmed and meowed in slightly unnerved fear but didn't say anything.

Fallan nodded in understanding, then started up cheerfully.

"What do I do with this?" She dropped the prey on the ground and lied down, licking her lips with it in front of her paws.

I resisted the urge to tell her no, she could not eat it, but trusted her to know that my eyes held a warning that said enough.

"She's going to see if the kitten will eat it," Hannah spoke out loud what I was thinking, and addressed Fallan in an almost amused tone. The two bent forward eagerly, clearly focused on seeing whether our new pride-member would eat the prey Fallan had caught.

I pawed the dead mouse over to Diamond, feeling devastated as she sniffed it then drew back, wide-eyed.

"So much for that," I mumbled. Was fear or change causing the kitten to loose her instincts? The mouse wasn't much smaller than her, and probably smelled strange compared to the scent of dusty barn mice.

"Hannah, explain what we're planning to Fallan while I see if this kitten will eat."

She twitched her ears in reply as if she wished she hadn't been given the duty to tell Fallan what I'd told her. Well, sorry for Hannah, but I didn't really want to hear all of what Fallan had to say about my plans. Anything she said would be complaining or questions that I didn't have the time to hear, anyways.

Hannah seemed to sense that I needed space and full attention from Diamond because she left Fallan towards a flat area of ferns.

I nosed the dead mouse towards the kit once more, trying to look happy and nice because maybe that would help.

It didn't. She backed up and pressed herself to the ground, closing her eyes at the smell.

My anger erupted, and I let it show, even though it wouldn't do anybody any good and I knew this.

What would it take for this kit to eat!? They were supposed to have instincts. I didn't remember how old I'd been when I'd gotten weaned, but soon after I had been ripped out of my nest into a frost-filled, prey-empty world. Surviving on your own held little chance of survival, but with more numbers came more of a chance. Diamond's chance could be ruined all because she wasn't taking a liking to prey.

I was growing impatient, as Diamond meowed in distress everytime I shoved it closer.

What was so hard about this? Did she not know it was prey, or did she just not like mice, or could she not eat it with her tiny teeth?

If she wouldn't have anything to do with prey, then she wouldn't be able to come with us, and that meant backtracking all the way back to the barn where all of the human-cats and kittens were waiting. Where the flat-faced cat was waiting.

My dream had shown her with us in a field, so that meant that we were on our way to somewhere with a field, right? Or that along the way, we would come to a field, and she had to be there. And that she had to come, along with the other dark-haired cat (wherever it was), and be apart of my pride somehow. Diamond was some part, some piece, of this journey.

So she had to eat prey, and she had to learn how as soon as possible.

I was considering prying open the kitten's jaws and coaxing it down her throat when I heard a rustling coming from behind me. Forcing her to try it seemed better than letting this get nowhere until I heard the bracken crunching.

Hannah and Fallan ceased their talking immediantly, meaning that it wasn't them who was making the noise. Suddenly paw-steps could be heard advancing rapidly from somewhere in the undergrowth.

I spun around immediantly in fear, snarling as a creature jumped out of an overgrown bush and landed right in front of me.