Delilah

Background

A beautiful, tough she-cat from The Stones who leaves for Thrushfur's barn after she decides she does not want to go to the Twolegs to help raise her kits according to Stones custom. Delilah would raise two young kits who she named Lynx and Bear, and adopt a third, named Dog after the stillborn runt of her litter. She hoped that naming her children after the most powerful beings she knew would offer them some small protection in this dangerous world.

At some point after joining StoneClan, Delilah was maimed while saving a kitten from farm machinery. Presumed dead by her clan, she was discovered by humans and taken to the vet, who amputated her crushed foreleg and nursed her back to health after the surgery. Delilah, still suspicious of Twolegs from her time with The Stones, was the image of an aggressive feral cat and spat and hissed her way back to the forest. Upon her return to Patchpelt Thicket, Delilah chose to commit herself to protecting and caring for the clan's kits full-time, becoming a Kit Guard under Thrushfur's training.  Even with only one front leg, the sight of Delilah's formidable paw bearing down on one's skull would be enough to deter any predator. Soon afterward, she and Whistlingwren raised their first litter of children together.

They're going to be special.

Pebble already knew about the party that The Stones had thrown after finding a whole bag of warm burgers last moon. After all, she had been there. Delilah had even told her about the fling--with the dapper rogue, under the moonlight. But what Delilah had been hiding until now was... “I’m pregnant.”

Her friend nodded and went, “Okay, okay, cool, let’s go to Granite. He’ll help you get the kits into a home.”

Delilah’s stomach tightened. I don’t want... The momentary discomfort disappeared from her face and was replaced with what she hoped was a tough but flippant smirk. “I don’t want my kits to have the soft life of a kittypet. They’re going to be special. They’re my kits, after all. I’m tough. I can raise them right.”

Her friend’s face softened. “Oh, Delilah…” She gazed around, as if for support, but it was only the two of them. “Look, tell you what. We can go to talk to Granite. No--you don’t have to commit to anything. Let’s just ask him what to do.”

They both know that this was how things were done in The Stones. The Twolegplace streets were hard, even for an adult cat with her wits about her, and food was scarcer than ever. Twolegs happily took mother cats in, giving them warm food and shelter until the kits were weaned, and then releasing them back to the streets with a tipped ear and an almost supernatural resistance to illness. These tipped Queens were some of the toughest and most respected rogues around. Only... sometimes the kits wouldn’t come home with them. A lot of the time they would! Granite himself was one such kit, rehomed down the block and easily able to slip out the door. But sometimes the Twolegs would take them far, far away, and if the rogue gang ever saw them again, they were… changed. Soft, like true kittypets. Happy in their warm kitten-homes. These cats would never come home.

Delilah... Delilah was a tough molly. She never imagined motherhood for herself. If anything, she would joke about dropping them off at the Twolegs’ and bringing home some tough little scraps who she would teach to chase dogs. But now, she wasn’t sure. She could feel the warm little creatures curled beneath her heart, and she found she liked the sensation.

She didn’t tell any of this to Pebble. It wasn’t her style.
---
They were back at The Stones’ hangout now, striding up to Granite’s court. The small tortie tom flicked his ears and prompted, “Well? Pebble tells me that you’re expecting. But she also tells me that you don’t want my help finding a kit-home. Why not?”

Delilah’s face contorted back into that silly nauseous expression. “My--my ears are too beautiful to be cut!” she blurted. Oh, mouse droppings, she cursed in her head. That was even stupider than what she had told Pebble before.

“What?”

Relationships

Whistlingwren is the talented, thoughtful daughter of the cat who helped deliver Delilah's kits. The two grew close over the long, sleepless nights of being confined to neighboring nests in the loft. Whistlingwren admires Delilah's strength and determination, and Delilah appreciates Whistlingwren's company filling the silence. Delilah loves Whistlingwren's sharp wit and sense of humor.

Thrushfur, the local midwife, became somewhat of a mentor to Delilah in their time together. As the former rogue discovered her fascination with motherhood, Thrushfur seized the opportunity to pass on her knowledge of midwifery and kit-rearing.

Granite and Delilah kept a cool distance while they were in The Stones together, but Granite views Delilah's decision to strike out into the wild, almost meeting her death, all to raise her kittens in a barn as a threat to The Stones' ideological way of life. The rogue gang's rules are implemented for one reason: to keep the current population of street cats fed. Twolegs keeping some kittens as Kittypets and neutering the rest is part of that system, in Granite's mind.

Trivia

• Delilah hides her missing ear with a dahlia bloom.

Links

• August 29 2021: Adoption