Hunter's Woods Writing Prompts

   On the other side, scrambling up from the rocky alcove that hid the portal from view, they ran, as fast as their little legs could carry them. Blood pounded in their ears (Ears. Four ears. Why did they have four ears?) as they tore through the woods, fleeing towards anywhere, anywhere but that other world they had been brought into, where cats and lions watched them ceaselessly with expectation in their eyes. Until at last they grew tired, began to slow their pace, and allowed themselves to look around, slowly adjusting to their strange new sight (Was that really a second head? Fully functional, even. How in the worlds would this work?). Trees, tall, covered in needles and leaves, some beginning to yellow as summer faded, surrounded them, and in the soft earth...
   Tracks. Fresh ones. Pawprints, those of cats, enough for a whole clowder... and another, which they couldn't quite identify. Not that it mattered, really. Like it or not, they were a kitten again (They were a kitten again. Nine times, nine times they'd been a kitten, and they remembered them all now. Their fur bristled, and they tried to shake off the thoughts. Too many questions, too many memories, too complicated. It would have to wait, it all would have to wait.), and no amount of wishing was going to change that now. Whatever they were now, they were still only a child. One who wouldn't survive on their own. And so, with a deep breath (Two noses and mouths. Did both breathe, could both speak? No. Not the time to worry about such matters.), their best attempt to calm their nerves, they set off in the direction of the others.

   If the adrenaline coursing through their veins had lessened at any point in their journey, the hormone had begun to surge in full force when they found the cats (and fox, as it turned out) that they were looking for. A good half a dozen heads or so turned to look at them, and...
   "Hey there, little guy! What are you doing out here in the woods?" she asked them, approaching with a curious, friendly look on her face.
   They wanted to cry.
   "Beatrix-" No, no, no. No. What happened? "-this cat, they're..."
   The cream-colored cat ignored the green one (Green? Green cats? The only place they'd seen green cats, ever, was... Oh, gods, she was from beyond the portal. Two of them, even, as they blinked quickly between the younger cat and the group. No escape.) and padded up next to them, smiling. "I like your tree," she said.
   "Beatrix," the green cat again said, more of a hiss this time, stepping up next to her, "this kitten, they're..." She examined them for a moment, the tension they held, then whispered something into Beatrix's ear.
   Beatrix, for her part, laughed. "Well, yeah, I kind of figured that!" was her response. Then she turned again to face them. "You're not from around here, are you?" she asked. "Do you need a place to stay? Or, well." She turned to look at the other cats and fox that comprised their group. "We don't really stay, if that makes sense. But if you need some cats to stay with-"
   If there was one thing they were certain of, if they were truly a deity now... it was that they were going to make whatever beings were in charge of fate suffer if they ever crossed paths. For doing this to them, for whatever had brought this upon them both. But still, they nodded. "Yes," they said in two different voices. They fought not to wince at the sounds. Unnatural, almost echoing in their ears, unlike any voice they'd had or even heard before. "Yes, I- Can I? Come with you?"
   Beatrix's smile widened. "Yeah, of course!" Her tail flicked. "What should we call you? Do you have a name?"
   A name? They hadn't even considered that. Names, names... they'd had names in the past, sometimes. (A quiet argument broke out as they thought. "Beatrix, really! Surely Their Grace should be given the deference they deserve, surely you can allow them that-" "They're a little kid, Melia, we can't just call them Your Grace or whatever all the time! They're still a person." "They're a god!" "They're a kitten.") Not every time, no, there were lives they'd lived so alone, and so comfortable in that fact, that they'd never even had a need for one. But they'd had ones before. What were they...?
   Beatrix seemed to take their silence for a no. "Hmm... What do you think of Berkeley?" she asked, smacking Melia in the snout with the tip of her tail before she could object any further. "Get it? Cuz it sounds like bark, like on trees, and you've got that little tree on your back and all? Plus, it starts with B, like mine!"
   She seemed so proud of the suggestion. And while the irony of the situation, her naming them, was not lost on them, and while the name only emphasized something about them they would have given anything to ignore... they couldn't just let her down. So even as Melia again began to object, they too opened their mouths.
   "I... I like Berkeley," they said. "I'll be- You can call me Berkeley."
   Besides.
   It was easier than having to process and explain everything else right now, anyway.