THE COOL AUTUMN grass tickled the kitten's nose as she moved with shocking grace toward her target, narrowing her blue eyes in deep concentration. Her ears were pinned back, and her tail still against the ground. One pawstep after the other, her belly fur brushing the soft earth, she moved ever closer. Her pink tongue ran over her muzzle as she paused, crouched down, waggled her hindquarters ever so slightly, and pounced.

     She drove her tiny claws into the ginger-and-white tail she had claimed as her prey, giggling when she heard a yelp of surprise. The tail belonged to a larger feline, who seemed less than pleased to have claws sinking through his fur.

     "Arch!" The big cat grunted, flicking his tail and sending the tiny kitten rolling away. He rose to his paws and shook out his patched fur of ginger and white, his pale blue eyes holding annoyance and exasperation. "I've told you to knock it off more than once now."

     Arch sat up and shook out her long brown fur. "But I'll never become a good hunter if I don't practice!"

     The older cat sighed and smoothed out his coat. "You will be a good hunter one day, my kitten. But it isn't fair to practice on me. You're tearing up my tail."

     The kitten huffed and glared at her father. "You weren't paying attention. I normally wouldn't be able to sneak up on you. So it's your fault for letting your guard down." She fluffed out her fur.

     Her father narrowed his eyes. "I was eating, and assumed you were doing the same."

     Arch snorted and waved her tail toward the den where she slept with her mother and sister. "Shadow Fox finished feeding us a while ago. She's resting with Jag."

     "Then why aren't you sleeping with them?" The ginger cat demanded. "It's midday. Nap time."

     The kitten dismissively flicked her tail. "I'm a whole month old. Naps are for newborns." She tilted her head up to the sky. "I thought I could practice hunting and impress Jag when she wakes up."

     Her father sat back and twitched his whiskers. "Your sister would be very impressed with you managing to sneak up on me, that’s for sure."

     Arch bounced on her paws gleefully. "Thank you, King!" She chirped, scampering away as she felt her fur warm up at her father's praise. King was a hard cat to earn approval from, especially when it came to hunting. Ever the blunt cat, she usually didn't mind, but even the smallest of praise from him was enough to warm her heart.

     She tumbled into a pile of tree litter and giggled delightedly as the red, gold, and orange leaves fluttered into the air, caught by a light autumn breeze that made her whiskers shiver. Scents filled her nose — warm prey scents as well as smells from the nearby farm where horses and cows left their smelly droppings. The kitten bounded through the undergrowth, her long fur rippling in the chilly breeze.

     The light brown molly skidded to a halt and inhaled the deep, cool scent of the wind, sitting down and closing her eyes. This place was her home, a thick stretch of undergrowth atop a wide hill, covered in oak trees. To one side, a vast expanse of moorland dominated the world, seeming to be like an endless green lake dotted with heather patches. To the other side, looming woods of oak and pine trees surrounded the lake, a huge body of water that was used by humans for many different things. Arch didn't know all about the strange hairless creatures that walked on two legs, but her father had told her what he knew from his time living with them. Shadow Fox, her mother, only spoke nasty comments about them, saying that they were cruel and that both of her daughters should stay well away from those monsters.

     Arch thought they smelled funny.

     She had seen them from a distance, but had never approached. Shadow Fox would punish both her and Jag if she found out her kittens went anywhere near humans like their father did. Arch was curious, because King always went to the ones near the lake for food and came back smelling strange. He always dismissed it as the human's scent, but Arch didn't like it at all. It made her feel sick, and the food he brought back was always hard and tasteless. She and Jag much rather preferred the freshly killed mice and sparrows that their mother brought back.

     Sadly, because Shadow Fox was raising them, she hardly had time to hunt for them. That was King's job, and since he never learned how to catch his own food, he brought back what humans gave him for the kits to eat.

     Arch wished she could hunt. Winter was coming, and then the humans would leave and take their food with them. What would happen? How would they survive? These were all things that Shadow Fox asked, and King always told her not to worry.

     The young kitten blinked and shook out her fur as a breeze ruffled it. She turned and headed back into the underbrush, not wanting to worry her mother or father by being out of sight for so long. The rules of their small family were simple and easy to follow. Don't leave the den at night, don't wander off, and don't leave the tangle of bushes that was their 'territory' as her mother called it. According to Shadow, beyond the bushes was a vast expanse of land that belonged to feral wild cats who shared the land around the lake. Apparently they weren't too keen on sharing the land with a family of strays.

     She had questioned many times before why the cats who lived around them didn't attack, but these questions seemed to make both Shadow Fox and King highly uncomfortable, so she had stopped mentioning it. According to her parents, both she and Jag were safer under the cover of thick bushes that kept them out of sight from the wild cats, and it was best to keep them that way.

     Arch stretched out, flexing her back and stretching her front paws forward as the midday sun tickled her thick brown pelt. Shadow and Jag would be finishing up their resting soon and would be wondering where she had gone off to on her own. She flicked her tail in exasperation at how overprotective Shadow Fox could be at times, despite Arch being an entire moon old. Jag might have been content to stay in the den all day and sleep, but her sister wanted to explore.

     She turned away from the beautiful scenery of the moorland and forest, plunging back into the undergrowth. The branches caught in her long fur, tangling up in her coat. After a few moments of shuffling through the bushes, she emerged into the clearing they called home, finding her mother, Shadow Fox, sitting outside of their den, her thick dark brown pelt sticking up every which way as it caught in the afternoon sunlight. Next to her was King, Arch’s father, with his ginger and white coat smoothed down and neat since he had groomed before Shadow woke up. Sitting in between them was her sister, Jag, who was older by a few moments, and looked identical to Arch save for a little less white on her pale, dusty brown tabby coat. They shared the same strange gray-blue eyes, the same thick, fluffy coat, and the same adventurous spirit. They were two sides of the same coin, bonded closer than most siblings as their mother always teased.

     Sprinting forward, Arch met Jag and bumped noses with her, purring happily as she inhaled her sister’s scent. "Have a nice nap?"

    "Not long enough." Jag plopped down on the mossy ground, her fluffy tail swishing back and forth as she tilted her head and stared at her sister. "Cold without you."

     Arch flicked her ears and rolled her eyes. "I wasn't tired. King was showing me some hunting techniques."

     Shadow Fox turned her bright amber eyes on her daughters. "He can hunt?" She sniffed in distaste. "Shocker."

     King flattened back his ears and glared at Shadow. "I can hunt. I just don't see a reason to waste energy doing so when we can easily get food from the upright walkers."

     "The uprights shouldn't be a source of food." Shadow Fox bristled. "They're dangerous to our family."

     "Just because a few of them imprisoned you doesn't mean all of them are cruel." King argued, narrowing his gray-blue eyes. "I lived with them my whole life — I know how they are. Not all of them are as black as you paint them. You just met the wrong kind."

     "There is no wrong kind. All uprights are the same," Shadow Fox growled. "I know they are — I've seen their cruelty up close."

     Arch shared a glance with her sister, one of exasperation and annoyance. Shadow Fox and King always fought about these matters, and it was starting to make her pelt crawl as though infested with fire ants. Slowly, she backed away from the bickering adults and flicked her tail at Jag. "Come on. Let's wait in the den for them to cool off."

     Jag nodded, "Finally, we can take a longer nap!"

     The younger sister scoffed, shoving her littermate with her shoulder and chuckling. "You always want to nap. Why don't we do something else?"

     "Like what? Run away?" Jag teased, not even stumbling when her sister roughly nudged her. "Mom and dad would kill us for sure!"

     Arch scoffed. "Not run away. Like, tell scary stories, or maybe go try hunting on our own near the den?"

     Her sister thought about that for a long moment. "Okay, sure! Let's try hunting later when mom and dad are away looking for food."

     She nodded. "That's a great idea!"

     The two giggled, looking once more back at their bickering parents, before together they moved into the shadows of the fern shelter they called home.