The HABIT's House

HABIT soon led them back to the house, to find Dread standing outside with Firebrand. Dread was fluffed up in anger, eyes narrowed and teeth bared. Firebrand grew bigger suddenly, his shadow stretching and long black claws slipping out. At first HABIT was going to bash into them to stop a battle, but realized they were training when Dread leapt and only tackled the tom, not biting his throat. He took this as a chance for Asher to observe. "Watch, Asher! Watch!" He said quickly and sat the kit down. Firebrand slipped sideway, rolling Dread over in a movement like lightning. Dread kicked her hind legs and bucked him off, lunging and clipping his shoulder with a light slice of her claws, only allowing them to slip through his bushy brown pelt. He stretched out a leg as she dashed by, tripping her and causing her to land with an, "OOMPH!", on her muzzle. He pinned her paws behind her and held the squirming young shecat under him. "He's hurting her, he's hurting her!!" Asher gasped. "No, no he isn't" HABIT reassured with a laugh. Dread seeing her father, struggled heavily and got free, rounding with huge force and slamming her front paws across Firebrand's muzzle, sending him spiraling back with surprise.

Vaermina happily followed HABIT back towards the house, the squirrel hanging limply from her jaws. When they came upon Dread and Firebrand, she didn't know what was going on until Asher was instructed to watch. She couldn't believe how unobservant that she had been. This was obviously a spar. She sat down and watched the two.

Dread took this opportunity to slip under him and pummel his belly, legs, and chest with blows that Firebrand wasn't prepared for. He staggered until he finally dropped, flattening the smaller cat under him. Dread squirmed and got free, leaping a distance away. He stood and braced himself as she nearly leapt forward again. They rolled around for a moment in a flurry of legs and tail, and as HABIT watched, he wasn't aware of Asher moving closer through the tall grass, until he was dangerously close. Firebrand banked sharply, going to clip Dread's side, but she went to slam against him. This movement caused Firebrand's claws to slip all the way into her flesh, and Firebrand's leap made him move so his claws went all the way from shoulder to hip across her side, skin, pelt, and flesh tearing as blood spurted from the wound. Dread let out an agony-laden screech as her blood pelted the ground and spattered across the unfortunate Asher. He yelled and sprinted back to HABIT and Vaermina, but HABIT had lunged forward with a gasp. "FIREBRAND! WHAT THE FLYING FUCK!!" He had angrily snarled, rounding on the Tom with his eyes blazing like icy fire and his fur fluffed. His lips curled, his claws unsheathing, he became unaware of Asher staring at him with wide eyes. He became unaware of anything but Firebrand, to be honest. "WHAT DID YOU DO!?" He roared, his paws tracing themselves over the extremely deep and diagonal gashes running from Dread's shoulder to hip. Blood welled and trickled into the grass as Dread moaned and groaned to express her pain. "LOOK AT HER!!" He yowled, a paw slamming across Firebrand's muzzle. "LOOK!" He yowled louder as Firebrand looked away, guilty at his mistake.

Vaermina watched the spar intently, not noticing Asher's small white form creeping towards the fight. She grasped as she saw the blood, but stayed behind as HABIT leaped forward to deal with the mess further up ahead. She noticed Asher staring at his father as he dealt with Firebrand and quickly padded forward, picking him up by the scruff and carrying him over to a shaded spot. She finally set him down and began trying to get the metallic blood off of his pelt.

Thick and purple, Dreads blood was like a pool surrounding her. ¨FIREBRAND YOU CARELESS BASTARD, IVE TOLD YOU HUNDEREDS OF TIMES! SHES SMALLER THAN YOU!! NO CLAWS!" he raged on further. Asher tried to smudge off the purple blood that was sprayed across him, confused. ¨Why is it purple??" he kept squeaking ¨But, blood is red!!¨. ¨Im sorry..!¨ Firebrand broke in, trying to defend himself by saying ¨It was an accident--¨ ¨NO! IT WAS A MISTAKE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED IF YOU WOULD HAVE FUCKING LISTENED TO ME!¨ HABIT swiped a paw and snagged Firebrand's right ear, slicing it and causing white blood to trickle from his ear. Odd...Collective blood is white?

Looking at the blood, Vaermina wasn't sure that it would be okay to lick off. So she simply ran her paw down Asher, squeezing out what was thickest. "It's purple because Dread is different from most cats." she answered after hearing the kit's squeaks. She wasn't paying attention to what was happening with Firebrand and HABIT at the moment, mostly just trying to calm Asher down.

"Why is he hurting him? Why did Firebrand hurt her?" Asher kept questioning, a whirl of confusion swarming from him like a faucet that couldn't be turned off to stop the stream. "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!" HABIT snarled, swiping his claws mutliple times in a threat that caused Firebrand to sink back, morph invisible, and disappear. "No no no...! Dread? Oh, fuck! Dread!!" He turned to her, stooping down and applying pressure to her wound. "Shit, shit! Vaermina! Take Asher inside then help me get her up!" He called, holding his cool, but looking worried from his eyes.

Vaermina turned around and nodded to HABIT, picking up and sprinting Asher to the house without answering his questions. Once she had sat him down gently and given him a quick lick on the head she dashed back outside and stood beside HABIT, waiting for her orders on what to do to get her up.

Jessalynn intercepted the kit, and began grooming Asher with swift swipes of her tongue until he was mostly clean, a tint of purple where it was. "You and your father's fur stains so easily, come on, don't look!" Jessalynn cooed as Asher kept trying to peer over her shoulder at the commotion. "We'll have to use a different method for this... Come, Asher" Jessalynn said softly, her tail leading him up the stairs and out of sight. HABIT went on the other side of Dread, and lifted her with his shoulder. "Help me bring her in" he said, keeping his position and waiting.

Vaermina lifted the other side of Dread, and slowly began walking towards the house, trying to keep herself even so Dread bounce as little as possible.

Dread kept groaning, blood trickling as they padded and got her into the house. HABIT let her sink to the floor, and bounded upstairs, returning with a needle and a ball of heavy thread.

Vaermina sat beside Dread as HABIT ran upstairs, wrapping her tail around her paw. She was doing her best to comfort her and keep her calm, shed lose less blood that way. She heard HABIT's pawsteps as he came back down and simply stayed silent.

HABIT sat down, and thread attached to needle, placed the tool carefully between his teeth in order to get a good grip. As he bent forward and pushed in the needle on one side of one of the gashes, he muttered something about this going to take forever, and then something else about wishing he were human in order to do this, both of which he sadly couldn't do anything about. Using his paws and teeth, he slowly stitched up the first claw mark. Dread began to twitch and wiggle from the pain. HABIT abruptly reached and grabbed for something heavy, finding the end of a hammer and nonchalantly slamming it against her temple and instantly knocking her out before turning back to his work without even a word.

Vaermina watched HABIT work in silence, her tail was now sat around her. She had let go of Dread's paw once she was knocked out.

Soon, it was finished, and HABIT let out a loud sigh of relief as the pent up tension released. "Sorry, I had to, I didn't want to hurt her more then she was already" he said and turned to Vaermina

"I understand." she said with a slight dip of her head. "It was probably safer to keep her still anyway." Vaermina yawned, in spite of her earlier nap, the events of the previous few hours had made her quite tired, not to mention hungry. She figured that if HABIT didn't have anything that he wanted her to do, she would eat her squirrel and try to sleep until morning.

"Go ahead up to your room, oh and there will be someone there, please be sure not to wake him." HABIT said quietly, "I'll take care of Dread"

Vaermina nodded once then started padding towards the stairs. Though she was curious about the presumed stranger that would be in her room, she would follow HABIT's orders and not wake him. Especially if he had taken the time to tell her not to do so. She lightly pushed herself through the door, only a small squeak emitting from it's hinges as she slipped inside the room and looked around.

An all dark brown tom lay on his side in the middle of her room. He had ragged fur that looked like it hadn't been groomed in a while. He looked all brown, but on the other side of his face there was a white spot around his right eye. A sudden voice echoed softly, HABIT's. "Don't let him out of the room when he awakens.... Don't reveal anything I've told you that was confidential..." His voice crackled around the room before the door suddenly pushed her in and closed, locking her in the room with the mysterious cat. Downstairs, HABIT carefully made a bed for Dread, knowing he couldn't move her, and allowed the events to unfold upstairs

Vaermina kept a close eye on the tom as HABIT spoke to her. "Don't let him out, and don't tell him anything useful? Sounds easy enough.." she whispered once he was done talking and the door had closed behind her. She wasn't sure that she was comfortable going to sleep while there was a possibly dangerous stranger in the room, so she decided to just quietly eat her squirrel and watch, hoping that the smell of it's blood didn't awaken the tom. She slunk under a dresser in the room and began to eat, she felt safer under the dresser, crammed in the corner. It was certainly harder to be spotted there than standing in front of the door like an idiot.

After a while, enough time to finish the squirrel, the tom stirred carefully. It took him a moment, but he finally came to the waking word. When he opened his eyes, he had amber-hazel eyes that were wide in confusion and fear. It was obvious that this tom was, in fact, just a tom. To her, at least. He looked around, before something came softly through his lips. "No....Not here...Not here again....!" as he ran to the door and slammed his shoulder against it. "Let me OUT!" he called. "HABIT! Let me OUT!" he demanded, but at the end his voice cracked to show his fear, and he faltered. He backed up slowly, fur fluffed up and ears flattened against is broad head. "No no no this can't be happening this can't...I shouldn't..." he trailed off.

Vaermina had just began to slink towards the trash can to get rid of the rest of the squirrel carcass when the tom woke up. She froze in her tracks as he leaped from the bed and hysterically began banging on the door and shouting for HABIT to let him out, though she eventually just rolled her eyes and and slunk over to the trash can, silently disposing of the rest of the squirrel, then quickly disappearing under the dresser again.

He looked around, having been in a similar situation. He jumped on the bed and moved the blankets around, searching. He hopped down and ran to the closet door, sticking a paw under it and pulling it open. He stuck his head it, seeing a note and scooping it up with a paw. "'She won't hurt you'?" he read out loud, confused. It was in that moment, he realized, he was being watched. crumpling up the purple note he hopped to the opposite side of the room from Vaermina, and crouched in the corner. "H...Hello...?"

She watched as the tom began searching around the room, not really sure what he was looking for until he pulled a note from the closet and read it aloud. She let out a barely audible giggle as he backed into a corner. "The note says the truth, I won't hurt you." she said as she poked her head out from under the dresser.

"How do I know I can trust that? Who are you?" He called nervously, crammed in the corner