#cat parents also get standoffish right before the trials to try and spare themselves the heartbreak of child death

[proheromidoriyashouto]

after the disastrous Tournament of Betrayal, Cat Witchers raise their surprise kids on the Path by themselves for a few years before returning to the Dyn Marv Caravan, you know, Just In Case Anybody Gets Anymore Wise Ideas.

this means when they're on a hunt, they need to stash their kitten somewhere with nobody to watch them, but due to their school's reputation, no where is really safe enough to do so.

surprise kids can be little. just wee babes or toddlers depending on when the bio parents think it best to sever ties for their own sakes.

leave a baby in a town? chased out with pitchforks under suspicion for stealing the wee thing in the first place. left to wait with the horse? bandits could find a young mutant to kill or sell off to parts unknown.

so Cats have to literally hide their kittens on the Path. put the Horse one place, kid some other place that isn't too far from Horse place but also isn't so close to camp that a passerby might happen upon the vulnerable little thing. also, have to take monsters into consideration.

and there's the age of the child to consider. babies will scream for anything and are entirely defenseless. toddlers know how to walk and want to play and absolutely will forget complicated instructions within moments. proper kids, especially Destined-Cats, are curious and bratty and will do whatever they want sometimes.

so Cats-with-Kittens work out truces. shared places to keep their wards while they go out and earn coin. a neutral Clowder-den. usually between former members of the same cohorts. kitten-caches.

your pre-teen watches my wee one and vice-versa and we all go our separate ways when the respective jobs are done. young Cats socialize and learn who to trust, and their parents can get down to the less than honorable work that keeps them fed and supplied with the Wolves on the Warpath.

but sometimes the kitten-cache has to move before the Witchers come back. so the Cats have to call for their young ones in code to be sure that they stay where they've gone to avoid being found by enemies first.

so Cats chirp. like Cheetahs. nearly-bird calls, but no Witcher would mistake a reply they get for anything less than their kitten.

popular for a while, older kittens wrap a cloak fashioned from wolverine hides around themselves and curl up around smaller charges in tall grass. some climb trees and slip the babies into abandoned owl nests while they wait in camouflaged hammocks. one absolute rascal of a boy escaped a fiend by slipping into a hibernating grizzly's den and hiding his two toddlers in with her cubs.

it's generally shit being a Witcher, especially a Cat, for a long, long while. but at least, for brief instances, you were a child who someone cared enough about to protect from all the monsters of the world. and you knew that if you called, someone would come calling back for you.