---White---

---Fluffy’s perspective---

I wake up and open my eyes.

[Smol cousin] is resting against my belly and I feel [long cousin] at my back.

The fire we were next to has stopped glowing while we slept.

On [Home], fire was dangerous.

Sometimes, it would spread from the [bright horizon] and destroy forests and fields! If I smelled fire, if I saw smoke, I would run in the other direction as fast and as far as I could!

This fire was so safe that I slept by it!… It never occurred to me that fire could do anything besides hurt, until after I met [Daddy].

Right now, the [horizon] is perfect.

Not so bright that it hurts my eyes, not so dark it’s difficult to see.

It won’t last, I know!

[Daddy]’s [kin] like [homes] where the [horizon] moves around them while they stay still!

It’s very scary but I got used to it on [Hot].

I get up, stretch my front legs and yawn.

I hear a skittering noise and open my eyes to see [smol cousin] staring at my mouth, looking startled, his strange feet, with too many claws (that are always out since he can’t put them away, like I can), scratching over the [tree ground], not gripping.

I find it very funny that [smol cousin] was frightened by my teeth so I decide to tease him a bit.

I lunge towards him, biting the air.

He jumps back as his [talk box] [growls] “Skerri, Fluffy! Skerriskerriskerri!”

I recognise my name but, since I didn’t want to have my own [talk box], that’s all I understand of the [meaning growling].

His pose, on the other paw, tells me everything I need to know, I pounce on him and we begin playing.

[Long cousin] is woken up by the noise and quickly joins in.

A few minutes of play later and I am tired out.

I leave the playing and let [cousins] keep going without me.

I slink away and to the steps and up to where my nose tells me [Daddy] is.

I reach the up place and sniff for where to go next. I go that way.

I find the [cave mouth] that I can smell [Mummy] and [Daddy] on the other side of.

It doesn’t open for me the way [Daddy]’s [cave mouth] on [star cave] does.

Lifting up my front paws while keeping my back and middle ones on the ground, I paw at the [tree] of the [cave mouth].

It still doesn’t open.

Then, I notice a [branch]… it comes about a toe width out from one side of the [cave mouth]. It’s a little above where [Daddy’s] [kin]’s top [paws] are.

I reach out a paw and play with the [branch].

After a moment it makes a *k’chrk* sound and the [cave mouth] swings open.

I push my way inside and pad quietly, through the [cave], to the [nest] where [Mummy] and [Daddy] sleep.

I rear up and put my weight on [Daddy]’s chest.

He groans but his eyes stay closed.

He [growls] “Fluffy… itso erli! Plizlet mislip uh littuw longuh! Pliz!”

I don’t think he wants to wake up…

Too bad!

I want attention!

I bap him in the face making him grunt… His eyes still don’t open, though.

A few more baps, a few more grunts. Still no luck.

I lick his face and immediately realise I’ve fallen into a trap as his strong limbs close around the back of my neck and he begins pulling me onto the bed!

I yowl in complaint but he only does that tapping [growl] that his [kin] do when they think something is funny.

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Obviously, if I wanted to, I could stop him pulling me onto the bed… on the other paw… snuggles?

[Daddy] pulls me into the place between him and [Mummy].

His hands stroke through the fur of my belly…

I had energy until a few seconds ago but now I’m going back to sleep!

[Daddy]’s [paws] scritch so well!

[Mummy] hugs my back and strokes me with her four top [paws].

I purr as my eyes close and I begin dozing between [Mummy] and [Daddy].

Some time passes before I’m stirred by [Mummy] [growling] “Ruum, ope enwindoes!” sleepily.

One of the walls begins opening, letting in the [bright] outside.

I open my eyes and my whole body immediately goes tense!

This is bad! This is so bad!!!

I roll off of the bed, ignoring [Daddy’s] protests as I roll over him.

I go to the sheets of [stone water] and look through them to the land outside.

It hurts my eyes to look at!

It’s cloudy and yet, the [bright] in my eyes is painful.

This is so bad! [Grandmothers] have to leave their [home cave]!!!

I turn to the idiots still lying in bed, not having noticed the decay outside, and yowl loudly at them, thumping the [stone water].

Luckily, [Daddy] gets up and comes over to me.

I thump the [stone water] again to draw his attention to the ruined land outside!

What I thought was white stone on the mountains was, obviously, actually rot! Overnight it has spread down to where we are and covered every patch of ground and every tree!

I’ve never seen rot spread so fast or so completely overwhelm a land!

[Daddy] looks out of the [stone water] at the ruined land and, instead of the face and [growl] of dismay that I expect, he makes a slightly surprised face and [growls] “Hei, Toon! Eets snohed ovanait!”

“Ða tsnaiss…” she [growls] back, feebly, in response.

They’re usually so clever! Why are they being so stupid about this!?

For the first time, I raise all four of my forelimbs off the ground and stamp down.

[Daddy] looks shocked but then turns to [Mummy] and says “Toon… kud Ah boro yer trass lay tah?”

She digs for a moment before her paw finds something which, barely opening her eye to see where to throw it, she hurls across the room.

[Daddy] snatches it from the air, letting me see that it’s a [talk box].

He brings it to the side of my head and puts it in front of my ear.

I feel the unpleasant [shakes] of the thing attaching itself to me.

Once I’ve recovered I turn to [Daddy] and [growl] “Rot! Corruption! Running away! Not staying! Bad! BAD! BAD!”

I hate how stupid this thing makes me sound!

“Calm down, Fluffy!” [growls] [Daddy], baring his teeth, kindly “It’s just [snow]!”

“[Snow]?” I [growl], suspiciously.

“Yeah, [snow]… you know what rain is?”

I give an irritated chuff “Of course knowing rain!”

He gives a calm nod “So [snow] is like rain but very cold! It falls on your planet but not on the parts where your [species] live. When water gets cold it goes solid… when that happens in a cloud, it turns into a powder.”

I struggle to understand the ideas that the [talk box] is forcing into my mind.

Solid water? Like the [stone water]? Powdered water? This happens on [Home]?

Then I remember “This being what you named white [kin child]?”

“Yeah!… I mean a [snowflake] is just a very small piece of snow but yeah!”

I give up trying to understand it and just [growl] “Safe being? Not needing fleeing?”

He bares his teeth “Perfectly safe, sweetheart!… Juuust so long as you don’t get lost in it!”

I nod my head the way his [kin] do “OK… trusting!”

I turn my head to him to let him take back [Mummy]’s [talk box].

He flicks it across the room so fast that it [chirps] through the air.

Her [paw] shoots up to catch it… I didn’t even see her eye open, that time!

---at breakfast---

[Thunder grandmother] and [graceful grandmother] are making those disks of mashed seeds that [Daddy]’s [kin] like to eat so much, when they wake up.

*Boom**Boom**Boom**Boom* is the sound that [thunder grandmother] makes as she takes four steps from the [food fire] to the raised eating place to deliver [seed disks]. [Daddy], [Mummy] and [strong auntie] all move quietly, like me. [Thunder grandmother] moves like she’s trying to scare off every prey for a day’s walk, in any direction!

I pull off a mouthful of flesh from my meal, [smol cousin] greedily munches his dry pellets and [long cousin] swallows down a whole fish.

“Soh, Ai woz finkin ovlettin Fluffy awt to plei inva snow… eniob jek shuns?” [growls] [Daddy] looking around at the others.

“Noh! Ai Þink ðats a greit aidia!… Akshua li… Ai maitgett awr wuhlf, Hati, soh ollðappets kan plei togeða!” [growls] back [thunder grandmother] before bringing two of the toes on her top [paw] to her mouth and, somehow, making a loud shrieking sound that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from her throat.

“Hati!” she shouts.

In the distant caverns of this [home cave], I hear paws that sound a lot like [smol cousin]’s on the [tree ground], only… the one on these paws sounds heavier than [smol cousin]…

The paws come to the [cave] we’re in and, as soon as they enter, [smol cousin] stops eating.

He jumps up to put himself in the way of this one who looks like she is of his [kin]… sort of… She looks like his [kin] the way that [strong auntie] and [Daddy] are the same [kin], close but different.

“Byu tiful! Byu tiful Ledi!!!” [growls] [smol cousin], his tail flailing wildly through the air.

His [almost kin] looks him up and down before [growling] “Pritti boi…” her tail wagging slowly.

The two of them draw up to eachothers’ sides and circle with their noses at eachothers’ behinds.

I remember [smol cousin] trying to smell me like that when we first met. I was not impressed!

These two are very friendly.

“Aivgot mai aion yu, yangman! Wir ghests hir!” says [smol cousin]’s [mummy], [pale auntie] (who was [strong auntie] until stronger [auntie] arrived!).

[Thunder grandmother] rumbles “Letðem havðer fan! Aim shor Ail faind tay kersfor haafwuhlf pappiz in mai kongregay shon!” happily.

[Pale auntie] looks to [thunder grandmother] and says “Ollrait! Doent komplane, lay tah(!)”

After eating, [Daddy] takes me to a [cave mouth] made of [stone water].

[Fighting grandfather] and [pale aunt] are leading [long cousin] and [smol cousin].

[Daddy] pushes open the [cave mouth] and [smol cousin] and [new cousin] are instantly off, bounding through the [white], in play.

Both of them look like the [white] is their [home]…

[Long cousin] follows, after some hesitation. It’s obvious this is not as familiar to him as it is to the other two.

After a few moments, though, he’s playing happily.

“Goh onn, Fluffy!” says [Daddy], baring his teeth in encouragement.

Uncertainly, I walk to the [white] and reach out a paw…

I press the paw into the [white] and immediately pull it back because I feel its [death cold]!

That’s the cold of having gone far too far over the [dark horizon]! Much further than I’ve ever gone!

I understand what [Daddy] meant by it being dangerous to get lost in!

I see the print my paw left in the [white]… I look to my [cousins] and then to [Daddy] still looking encouraging.

Trustingly, I lunge forward and begin to play in the [white].

It’s cold… but very fun!