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Malory's littermates were bright, coated in sun stripes and dawn skies. They stood out like the, well, sun. Oranges, red, and yellows, just like their mom. As a kit, she'd been envious of how they stood out, especially against the abandoned two leg nest they had all lived in. Maybe that hadn't been the best thing though. It was that bright eye catching fur that led to them being picked up by two leg kits and carried away. She never saw them again.

Her mother got quiet after her kits were taken from her. Malory had had only had six moons with her siblings before they were swept out of her life, like a distant dream. After the search came up dry, there was no play or chatter, just a silent grieving queen and her tiny shadow.

Through her own efforts and the lackluster teachings of her mother, Malory learned to hunt and gather. Her mother began to get sick and Malory did her best to hunt for them both and provide her mom fresh bedding. The routine settled in as Malory's mother never fully recovered, afflicted with a deep rib shaking cough. Things weren't bad between them, just quiet and always colored by the undertone of loss. Malory always did her best to maintain an optimistic spirit, pointing out the small things to love about each day. She held fast to the naive belief that her littermates would find their way back someday. Even if it was just a way to fight back the anxious sadness that ticked at her, it was better to fight for hope then to let herself be consumed by her grief. Her mother even started to join her some days that she was feeling well enough, sun bathing and sharing tongues and imparting what wisdom she could to her only remaining kit.

After this past leafbare, a particularly bad leafbare, it was again that bright fur that got them in trouble. Malory, if on her own, could hide the sunbursts on her fur among the rusted pipes and steel. Her mother wasn't so easy to hide with her loud hacking coughs and sunshine pelt.

Twolegs came in and they grabbed up her mother, pulling her from where she was trying to hide. The twolegs were deaf to the old queen's cries of blame and misery, just as Malory was deaf to her mother begging her to run. Malory couldn't leave her mother.

Malory doesn't have the clearest memories of what happened next, just that the roar of monsters surrounded her and her mother as they huddled close together, the smells of fear scent and urine pervading her nose and making her eyes water. She does remember how the twolegs tore them away from each other, pulling her mother hissing and spitting away from her last child. Malory had squirmed and called mournfully after her mother, the fresh feeling of loss creeping into her as her mother left her sight. Last time, she'd stayed hidden when the twoleg kits had come, and for that, she lost her brothers and sisters. She had stood beside her mother when the twolegs came for her, and for that, their parting was that much more painful.

Her last memory of her mother was burned into her mind, one of a broken old queen, fighting with every ounce of vigor still left in her bones to get to the only child she still had.

Malory hid the loss away, instead feeding a false hope, even when the cats (prisoners) here informed her on how things worked, how her mother was likely dead, how they'd be dead too if taken through that back passage. Malory lost all sense of time without the moon overhead, but it was long enough for her to grow used to the routine of the place. The dread and loss were greater demons now, tugging insistently at her paws, making her feet drag when she walked, making her voice catch when she tried to speak. She still put forth a hopeful and friendly front, but even she didn't believe it.

The sound of wailing and panic woke her from sleep, jolting her from unconsciousness in seconds. Malory found herself coughing almost immediately, her whole body shaking with the force of them, as her eyes stung and an acrid black sunk into her nostrils like poison. Smoke filled her lungs with every inhale and she tried to rid herself of it with every exhale.

Cats were screaming all around her, and for good reason. The twoleg's holding nest was on fire.

Panic bubbled in her chest and Malory found herself being swept away in the madness with the others. They were trapped and there was a fire. There was no way out of these cages, she'd tried before, they'd all tried. It was snippets of a story she'd heard when she was first testing out her cage that gave her an idea. Apparently, there'd been a cat once, Jupiter, that had gotten out of his cage. He'd gotten in quite a bit of trouble for that with the twolegs, but he'd been in a top shelf cage like her too, maybe, just maybe she could do what he did.

She began throwing herself at the door of her cage, backing up, then throwing herself again. The cage teetered slightly, but it wasn't enough.

It just wasn't enough.

Malory yowled and moaned with the rest of them as she kept ramming her cage front like a feral beast, consumed by the fear. Red and yellow and orange light flared at the edges of her vision and she could hear her littermates coming for her blood, for revenge for not standing with them. They were going to burn her away for it.

Sometime between blood filling her mouth and something snapping with a thick wet snap, the world went spinning. Fire burned in her right arm, tearing into her fevered mind. She was throwing up blood and limp on her side and wailing still rung in her ears, but the pitch was raising now as that fire began to eat fur and flesh in the far reaches of the compound.

Malory's senses were slow to come back, but her body was already dragging itself up and out of the cage's now open door, latch knocked out of place by the fall. She dragged herself to the far reaches of the room. It was painful going, and she paused when she caught a draft a flow of wind and followed it to a desk and just by it, a hole in the wall usually sealed by an invisible barrier but the wind meant it was open.

She didn't hesitate to jump out that exit, pain and stumbling be damned. She was driven by instinct and fear, the soothing balm of her own lies ripped away. She was alone, she knew she was alone. Her mother had been gone for who knows how long, her brothers and sisters lost ages ago. The madness burned away the veil she'd laid over her own eyes and left her but one choice. Survive.

Malory didn't want to think of the death screams that chased after her paws as she ran away as well as she could on a broken leg, she didn't want to think of the smoke that had seeped into her skin that would likely never leave her, or the hope that she had shattered herself for the sake of survival. Ifher mother had still been alive, she wasn't now.

Malory limped as far away as she could. On the edges of tree cover, so far away from her once prison, she turned and watched orange and red and yellow dance against deep blue and black. The nest was no longer visible, but the lights glaring out into the night searching for their escaped prey was.

Sitting there, cut loose from all the ties she'd ever had in life, lost and alone, Malory mourned the loss of her littermates, the loss of her mother, and all those she left to burn away in the fire.

It was as Malory sat vigil there, watching the smoke curl into the sky long after the twoleg's monsters had come and gone and the fire had been slain, that the ThunderClan patrol found her. A stranger on their territory, reeking of smoke and fear and twolegs. The ThunderClanners were patient with her though, familiar with loss and grieving, allowing her to finish her vigil in silence.

Only as dawn set in did she turn to face them, injured, ashamed, and alone, but she set her shoulders and faced them head on, hopeful that perhaps she could find help here.