"Taylor! Hey, open up! I need that favor of yours!"

Feather jolted out of her half-asleep zombie state to see the early dawn light and a cat shadow was figured to be blocking the barn door.

Taylor already had jumped off their haystack and with their paw, hooked the barn door and opened it. A ginger molly was there, flicking her tail impatiently, as if she really had something to do. She yawned a large yawn.

"You're already punctual, huh Taylor?" The ginger molly sniffed, seeming to have a cold of some kind, "Allergies.. ugh."

Taylor looked perceptive and pretty patient to her and simply tilted their head, "Sorry about that, Orchid. You should see Sage for that."

"Yeah, I should but I have other plans for today," Orchid paused, her eyes brightening. "Which brings me to why I came!"

"You needed a favor, right?" Taylor asked, "How can I help?"

"Yeah," Orchid nodded, before going on a long rant, "My idiot of a husband decided not to tell me he was going to Sage for herbs for his headache! So now I scheduled to see my sister across town since he was going to watch the kittens for me. I was wondering if you could watch them until I get back?"

"Oh your kittens? Yeah I can watch them! Will you be back by sundown?" Taylor asked, looking actually excited.

"I should be, although you know how my sister can be.." Orchid said, looking anxious. She then switched the conversation, "They're waiting by the tomato patch so we can—"

Orchid cut off as Feather yawned and walked over, the patch over her eye still there but more faded with it obvious it was covering scars, but she wasn't gonna let that stop her! "What in the world did you sign up for?" Feather asked with bleary eyes.

"Who's she?" Orchid sniffed, not friendly before her eyes widened. "Ohh! Is she your girlfriend? Tell me all the details! Spill the tea, Taylor!"

"What?" Taylor shook their head, alarmed, "Oh no! Feather is just staying with me until she can find a new home, hopefully it'll only be for a week."

"Sure," Orchid grinned a smile, waving her tail as she led the way outside of the barn.

As the three cats got out of the barn, they took a sharp left, walking on a pebbled road led by Orchid. Taylor was just behind as Feather trailed behind, looking at the fences. One had a couple white fluffy clouds with legs and ears and the other had large brown creatures tiredly sleeping in a heap.

"These are the cows and sheep, right?" Feather asked, eyes wide, "that you mentioned yesterday?"

Taylor grinned as they finally arrived at this tomato garden. Poles were stuck in the ground with round red, green and yellow spheres that she guessed were tomatoes, dangling off or them. The dew was still new on the greenery as three kits tumbled across the path.

"Tangle! Give me back Shade's flower, you jerk!"

"It's mine now!"

"No I want it!"

"You can't have it!"

Orchid coughed, getting the kits attention. They skidded to a halt and scattered into a semi-capable line, one with a half-tattered flower in his paw, but all echoing "Yes momma?"

"Mommy has to go visit auntie Terri across town," Orchid said. "Cousin Taylor and their... friend" Orchid said the word tentatively, but grinned. "Are going to be watching you. So I need you all to be good and on your best behavior, okay?"

They nodded, having their heads high as Orchid pulled them all in, licking and cleaning their scruffy fur to seem even half clean as they all squeaked in protest. Once the molly was done, Orchid waved her tail and headed off, saying goodbye to her kits, exchanging "I'll miss you more"s and leaving the five in the tomato garden.

It hadn't even been a minute before Feather started to drift off, very tired. Before she was alerted awake by a kit's voice.

"Who's she, Taylor?" One of the kittens, a brown, grey and white calico toddled over to look at her. She looked barely three months old and still looked very scruffy. Feather's mind went on with how everything in the world could break the young kit, but she tried to push it away.

"It's Feather," she said, feeling a bit less.. jagged. Feather didn't know how to describe it, she just couldn't help being mad at the kit, "I guess I'll be looking over you and your siblings with Taylor! Who may you be?"

The kit ignored Feather's question and looked up at her face, the shadow she made almost making the kitten look like she was about to be attacked by an eagle. I don't like that imagery..

"Ooh! Who gave you that scar?" The kitten blinked, "Oh, right my name is Pebble! I'm the only sensible one here, unlike tramp and flower boy."

"Hey sis! How about don't introduce me as 'tramp,'" Yelped a cream tom with brown splotches, he was a head taller than Pebble on spindly legs, his eyes were a piercing yellow. He then added with pizzaz to Feather. "The name's Tangle!"

Pebble gave a death glare and Tangle did the same. They then went at each other and got into a heap as they wrestled with feeble paws.

Taylor ran over to the kittens and was trying to desolate the situation. "Hey, hey! Pebble! Tangle! Cut it out!"

They didn't stop.

"If you keep this up we're gonna wait right here until your mother comes back and do nothing fun!"

They stopped at that.

The kits seemed to settle down but Taylor had to keep a paw in between them, "Taylor's orders, understand?" Pebble let out a murmur as Tangle snorted annoyance.

Feather laughed, "You two will understand when you're older."

Tangle huffed and Pebble gave a confused glance. Those two sure are a pawful, Feather thought fondly.

Wait...

Feather was confused, weren't there three kits? She got the answer to her question as the third kitten peeked his head from outside of a tomato vine, looking at Feather and walking over. His fur dragged low from his belly as he looked up at Feather.

"I'm sorry they're mean." he mewed. "I'm Shade and I really like flowers... What's your favorite thing?" Shade mewed, he was a dark grey with white splotches on his nose with a red flower in his ear to compliment his quiet blue eyes.

"I don't know what my favorite thing is yet.." Feather answered, being honest and really wishing she had anything to say.

Shade's eyes darted away, looking anxious. That made her worried.

Had she said something wrong?

"Okay, kids, who wants to raid the flower garden?" Taylor asked, in a loud announcing voice.

"I'm taking them all!" Tangle laughed, running ahead.

"Leave some for me!" Pebble squeaked, her squeal high enough to break glass (and Feather's ears).

Shade followed, excited but trailing behind the others.

As they made it to another part of the farm, towards another garden, and Feather was still worried about Shade, had she really been that terrible, or frightening?

Taylor seemed to finally notice that Feather was there and looked over, "Is something bothering you?"

"No." Feather tried, but the lie felt hollow as Taylor seemed to bear into her soul. "Not really. Maybe... yeah."

"Is it about the kits? They can be a pawful! I can say from experience. Being their 'in-law' gets perks of being able to watch them a lot. It's hard to keep them from fighting but.. they're siblings, it's what they do!"

"But what if.. one of them hates you?"

Taylor looked confused, "Why would Tangle, Pebble or Shade hate you?"

"If there's a way to interact with kittens, I forgot it." Feather started, trying to hide her frustration. She didn't do a good job at that. "I just... hate this. I can't be normal, I can't interact with anyone. I don't know who I am or what I want to be. I feel like I should know everything like this and be able to be comfortable in who I am." She explained, "But I'm not. I can't. I'm a kitten in my own mind and I can't do anything!

"How would anyone else do in this situation?" Taylor asked, breaking the short silence that had formed.

"Terribly." Feather muttered.

"And you? You're still here and you're doing the best you can do in this situation! I think you should at least be proud of that." Taylor added. "On finding who you are.. It's hard to do. So I would try not to focus on where you were and focus on where you are now."

Feather hadn't thought of that... would anyone else be half as capable in her paws?

As she was going over these thoughts, the smell of sweet honey and nectar hit her nose. Pebble, Tangle and Shade were already bounding around and finding flowers they liked. It was beautiful. In a perfect, mundane way. For a while, she forgot she had a perfect life she had lost—that she was so eager to get back to.

Right now she was Feather.

And that's all she needed to be.

Feather curled up by a fence on a warm rock as the sun drifted across the sky. By the time she had woken up, it was a little past midday as she yawned.

Taylor was showing the kits how to weave flowers into beautiful flower crowns. Tangle had a crown of mistletoe with a big sunflower by his ear. Pebble had a crown of lilacs with larger gardenias and lilies braided into her fur on her neck, back and tail. Taylor themself had a chrysanthemum in their ear and nettle draped around their neck.

Feather was surprised at how many flowers she could name and how many there were in the garden. There was no big, dramatic memory, just a collage of her diligently collecting flowers for older elders, younger kits or an older Clover.

Feather smiled at these memories and watched from afar.

"Ms. Feather!"

Feather looked around to see Shade dawdling over with Pebble. Shade had a crown of daises and was holding another flower crown on his tail, although with how he was waving it in his curled tail, she couldn't tell what flowers they were.

"Oh, Shade, Pebble, what are you doing over here?" Feather asked, a bit nervous.

"You said you didn't have a favorite thing... Do you like flowers at least?" Shade asked.

"Well Shade saw you looked lonely and sad all by yourself so.. we asked Taylor what flowers you liked! To make something!" Pebble started.

Shade continued. "Taylor said they didn't know. So I remembered Antie Terri had told us all about what flowers meant. Tangle didn't find it interesting and I think Pebble forgot."

Pebble blew a raspberry as Shade held up the flower crown, full of yellow, orange and red flowers.

"The yellow ones are yellow pansies, Antie said that it means 'thinking of you', because I know you look pretty lonely. The orange ones are gerbera, they're cheerful, or at least that's what she said. And the red-pink ones mean 'I can't live without you'." Shade ended, "I don't know you much but I hope we can be friends?"

Feather was speechless as the crown was placed on crookedly on her forehead.

"I... thank you." Feather smiled.

"Oh no, am I making you cry? I'm sorry-" Shade started, before being interrupted by Pebble.

"No no! It's good she's crying, it means she likes it!" Pebble said, reassuring her brother.

Feather hugged the two kittens as they squeaked, clearly alarmed but Feather was just happy. "Thanks, you two are going to be great cats."

"We are great cats!" Tangle butted in, "I want a hug too!"

Feather giggled and realized that maybe finding her memories were her first priority. She was happy here as the sun beamed brightly above them.

- 8/3/22

(WOAH. 2000+ words! And day three of my marathon! See, I can write character arcs— see, I am more used to writing episodes— /hj

This has been really fun! I hope ya'll have been enjoying these! Maybe I can get longer chapters but maybe it could be short again, who knows?

Only time will tell— til next time! May the sun keep shining!)