[tw: mild gore, foul language]

The heavy weight that covers you shifts, and you resist waking up. It then moves with force, and you groan with pain. You know you don’t want to wake up, but you can’t remember why. Then there is the shuffle of claws in mud. A beat of wings. You open one eye, for the other won’t open, and look up to find a crow picking at the body on top of you.

You yowl, and it caws, flapping up toward a tree. You’re gasping, eyes wild, and you claw your way out from under this half-eaten cat, and you can’t breathe, your heart is thundering.

Your claws sink into the earth muddy with blood as you freeze. You can’t comprehend it, what you see. You can’t breathe in the silence, in the stillness.

Bodies are spread out before you, torn open, their blood collected in puddles. They stare with empty eyes. Some have been picked through by crows. Flies swarm.

The stench. The stench.

You retch on the spot, bile burning your nose as you remember it all at once.

Woken by yowling, by mother. Shouting for Farosh, for Kurama, for Koda. A glimpse of Kurama through the fray. Mother shoving, yowling, run, run! Running the wrong way, running toward Karuma, father. The rogue that catches you first, blocking your path. Mother tackling him away, mother dead with teeth in her throat. The splatter of hot blood across your face, mother’s blood. Running away. Another rogue in front of you, claws coming for your head—

And nothing.

You do not see your brother’s or father’s body as you search the dead. You find burial mounds, you know it must be your mother in one of them. The dirt smells of your brother’s claws, however stale.

“Kurama!” you yowl–supidly, carelessly. “Father! Koda!” Your yowl echoes back through the trees, and the crow in the tree ruffles it’s wings. “Father! Koda!”

Only your echoes answer. You breathe hard, panic rising in your chest. You try to sniff for their scents to follow, but the smell makes you want to vomit again. All you can feel now is mother’s blood on your broken face.

“Come back!” You’re growing desperate. “Come back!” You keep wailing their names, calling for them. You’re so afraid, so afraid, so afraid. They had to be nearby, looking for you! They had to find you, they had to come back. You can only see mother cut down. You can only see her.

Too much time goes by. Your voice has become hoarse. You are weeping when you sit in the mud and slump forward. More time passes. Flies buzz. The smell seeps in. The sun falls. You stay sitting there, growing drowsy, pain throbbing through your cut open face. They have to find you.

"They're all gone, child."

You gasp, and you spin to find a tall, thin tom just behind you, his wispy fur the dark gray of a stormcloud. He stares down at you with yellow eyes that glow. You cower, staring with one widened eye -- the other will only crack open. He tilts his head.

“Those who survived,” he went on in his thin, smooth voice. “They’ve been gone for days. They left you behind.”

Days? You start breathing fast. “They wouldn’t leave me,” you mean to snarl, but whisper instead. You say it again, snapping this time with a thick snarl. "They would never just leave me!"

“They did.”

You stare in mute dread. Something in you knows he’s right. They left her.

“How old are you?” the tom asks.

You are numb. “Five moons.”

He hmphs. You stare at the bodies spread behind him. “Come with me.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just turns and starts walking. "You will go blind if we don't tend that wound."

"What's your name?" you call weakly.

He tosses the name over his shoulder. "Draeth."



You are brought to a small sect of rogues. You questioned if they were the ones who killed your family, but they did not take responsibility. Still, they are all ferocious, you decide, as you are lead to your make-shift nest, tucked in the low branches above Draeth’s own hollow in a tree. They are covered in scars, and they look far stronger than any rogues had a right to be, too well fed. And they look mean, glaring as you walk by, a few growling. Looks from Draeth silence them.

You spend the first week regaining your strength. You are still scared. Still lost and angry. But no one cares that you are a little kit that just lost her family and home. You are a burden, and you can’t be if you want to stay there.

You are in training before your face heals. You have to earn back all the herbs and prey handed to you when you couldn’t contribute to this little band, Draeth tells you. He will train you personally, and make sure the others train you too. Herbs, stealth, combat, hunting, acting, even. The other rogues hate you for his favoritism, his inner circle most of all. They all had to earn their place with him, and they can’t stand that you didn’t.

Your training is intense, and you soon learn why they are all so ferocious and well fed. They are not a family, a community of cats working together. They compete, they are out for themselves, and they challenge each other to be the best and strongest. They stick together only because they are even matches, and loyal to Draeth, who saved each one of them somehow. They steal, they cheat, they kill indiscriminately.

Not unlike the rogues that killed your tribe.

You don’t care.

They refused to call you Yoko from the start. You are Scratch, and you become one of them regardless of how they hate you and hurt you. Draeth keeps you close, starts to call you his daughter. You love him. You want his pride, and you fight for it in spite of the crew fighting to beat you down.

You make your first kill when you are nine moons old. It's another she-cat not much older than you. She's hoarding catmint, and catmint is valuable enough to kill for. Hoarding herbs is just one of your gigs, you tell yourself, and she’s stepping on your toes. You pretend you don’t have night terrors about her blood in your teeth and her flesh under your claws. You have no regrets. You are proud, because Draeth is proud, and he is all that matters. He always picks up your shattered pieces, and he makes you into something holy.

Your violence and chaos go unchecked, and your reputation grows as you continue to train. The crew’s hatred grows too. They hurt you, badly. Torment you, even, and Draeth tells you that you must fend for yourself. So you do. You vow to become so great, no one would ever hurt you again.

You are small, even as you grow into an adult, but you are respected. You become a force of nature to anyone who has something you and yours want. You are the loose cannon, you are fierce. You hardly remember what Yoko was like anymore. You look back on that tribe like the memories belong to someone else.

You are Scratch. Draeth’s best, a prime weapon, a fearless predator.

And it stays that way. Well over a year, so many wild moons, you are his perfect specimen. At least it seemed that way.



Your crew is sleeping. You were put on night watch, so you aren’t, but everyone is happily, sleepily, snoozing away. You watch them from your perch in the tree instead of watching for danger – you’re the danger here tonight. You like the thought, gaze sliding over all the limp forms of cats like Quill and Suki. You smirk a little.

It’s when you look at Draeth your smile disappears. The foxhearted piece of shit. How dare he betray you? Your blood has boiled every time you look at him now, ever since you followed him a quarter moon ago. He intends to sell you for territory, like a sack of useless prey to trade. He’s bartered with lesser members of the crew before, but you? His greatest weapon? His own protégé?

How. Dare. He.

You let out a short hmph, and your claws leave score marks in the bark as you dash away into the trees.



You’re running as fast as your legs can carry you through the trees, back toward your crew. A wolf barks somewhere behind you, and you can’t help laughing. You’ve never been chased by wolves before, and you're surprised at how easy it was to rile them.

You make quick turns, trying to stay aware of where they all are. You get closer to home, and your blood is pumping wildly, you’re grinning. You wonder who will survive, if any of them.

You remain quiet as you dash into your little camp, clawing all the way up the tree your nest is in. No one wakes at the thunder of canine paws descending upon them – not until it’s too late.

The wolves crash into the crew’s safest place. Cats yowl awake. The first snarl and bite is made, and it's Quill. You’re glad. Some run. Some fight. No matter what direction they scatter to, a wolf is waiting. Draeth yowls for you like he cares, and he fights. So stupid, to fight a wolf for someone he was going to sell.

You watch, hardly blinking as they are all torn apart and devoured. You’d wanted to use fire, but you couldn't figure out how to make that happen. You'd burn the whole forest if you could.

You tilt your head down at the wolf trying to leap to your branch, but cant quite reach. It is distracted by another cat darting by -- Suki, you think.

Wolves get the job done, you suppose.



You find Draeth not far from the slaughter some time after the wol es moved on. He had been picked up to be carried away, but judging by the half eaten body nearby, someone freed him. Didn’t matter anyways, the idiot was dying.

He is wheezing when you stand over him. He is bleeding too much from punctures in the back of his neck.

“Scratch!” he gasps, and then sputters blood. He has the nerve to look relieved. “You’re.. you’re alright! Please. I can’t feel my body.”

You remain still, and you look over his bloodied form. You meet his eyes with a dead stare and an empty smile. “I’m glad they found you alright.”

“Who?” he coughs. “Who, the.. the wolves? What—” Realization dawns on him at the look on your face. “You… you…”

You crouch down until you are almost nose to nose. “Betrayed you?” you finish for him, then huff a little laugh. “Like you were going to betray me?”

“No,” he wheezes. “No! Scratch, I wasn’t—”

He starts coughing more, groaning, gurgling a little. You start to feel something too close to fear.

“I was going to tell you to kill their leader, I wouldn’t.. just..” He was fading, breath rattling.

Your eyes narrow. “Liar,” you snarl. “You betrayed me! I hate you!”

“No, Scratch, I love you, I–”

You roar and slap your claws down on his already broken neck, and he falls silent. Everything falls silent. Everything in you is silent.

You fucking hate the silence. 



You travel a long time before you find your way here, among the clan cats, like some of the locals called em.

You’re good at getting information. You learn they’re religious nuts, and that they already tried killing each other about it. Weird, but okay. You hear about a tom named Foxglove too, and he’s been helping wayward cats.

Well. Fuck that noise. You aren’t wayward, and you aren’t going to trust just anyone again. Your family left you, Draeth tried to sell you, and you’re done. You’ll make your place here whether any of them like it or not, and you are going to remain yours alone.

They can all burn. Or be eaten. Whichever ends up the easiest at the time.

Pre-Plotting: Scratch is easily Lawless, and closely aligned with Justice. She carries deep anger and pain, but desires no true justice, only whatever is best for herself – which she often feels is the destruction of others.

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