*As with all chapters marked extra, it's not necessary to the main plot to read them. They're just something I wrote down and thought I'd share with all of you. Also, they tend to be pretty short. This one takes place during the Rebellion and focuses on a young kit named Calle Pridem. Enjoy or skip, the decision's up to you!*

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Six years ago - Village of Benden Knoll, Kingdom of Aelurus 

☆

It was the start of something. She knew it, could feel it stir in her bones, see it in the way the sea - wild and restless- lashed against her father's fishing boat. The night was starless and the crescent moon—that'd graced the sky since Calle Pridem had been born—hung low and dim. 

Rain pelted the young Aelurian, stinging her eyes and soaking her chestnut-colored fur, whiskers matted to her face. She heaved as she dragged the last barrel of brickleweed toward her father, who stood at the edge of the dock, gazing out onto the sea. 

Dread filled her. 

"Father," she said breathlessly. "Must you go?"

Tonight is dangerous, she wanted to add, but she felt the words slip silently through her lips. 

Her father turned toward her, his slitted-blue eyes calm and gentle. He flashed Calle a fangy grin she knew all too well. "It is my duty," he said. "Our ben' essra is with kit. She needs nourishment to bear worthy heirs for Aelurus."

 Setting the barrel next to six others of the same, Calle moved beside him. Arms folded across her aching chest, she looked out into the inky darkness. "But—" 

The sea. The sky. There's no stars. It's...

"...godless," she whispered.

Her father reached out and pat Calle on her head, the bangles adorning each of her pointed ears giving a little jingle. "The gods may have left their thrones," he said, moving his hand down over Calle's face to stroke her cheek, before unsticking one of her long, white whiskers. He twisted it around his finger as he had often done when she'd been little and on the verge of crying. "But my duty remains the same, young one." He bent and gave her a kiss on the forehead before striding over to his boat. 

Calle watched his back, tall and strong, his grey tail trailing behind him and gliding over the dock's slick wooden planks like a silvery eel. Her chest tightened as she glimpsed back up at the sky. Mages from the village spoke of nights like this—endless and dark—when great evils were allowed to roam the land. What if— What if he—

No. She could not lose him. Not after mother had been stricken by A'remdal and given back to the gods. 

Gathering up her skirts, she hurried over to the boat, water slipping inside her boots and soaking her feet. "But, she's queen," Calle whined. "She wants for nothing. Surely you needn't risk your life to—"

"Childish words," her father said, his eyes cold as ice. "And you think yourself old enough to be fe'la." 

Calle gulped and looked downward, the heat of embarrassment rising to her ears. She'd only just come of age and been given the title of fe'la. For her father to chastise her as he would her sisters or her brother—kits who still partook of mother's milk—made Calle ashamed. 

Clawing at the drenched brown fabric of her dress, she didn't look up when she addressed him again. "Father," Calle started, meekly. "I'm—" 

"Roll that to me," he said, motioning toward the barrel Calle had strained to carry down the dock. She nodded, knowing her father would not let her say anything more. She would have to live with the consequences of her words, even if that meant living under the weight of her father's disappointment.

Ears drooping, she half-heartedly guided the barrel up the wooden ramp, making sure to avoid any eye contact with her father. As she turned to leave, she felt a hand against her shoulder.

Words as warm as any fire, as sweet as honey, filled Calle's ears. "My daughter," her father said. "My beautiful daughter. I'll be back come dawn. There's no need to worry." 

Calle's green eyes welled with tears. "But--" she mumbled through sobs. 

Smiling, her father wiped at her tears as they fell. "Back by dawn," he said again, taking the barrel from Calle and setting it beside the others. With deft hands, he tied them all down with heavy, braided cord. 

For a moment, Calle dared to linger there, watching her father as he worked. He was a handsome creature for someone with such common blood, large and lithe, with grey fur - silky and long - and blue eyes the color of summer sky. For many cycles, Calle had yearned to look more like him, to be as god-blessed as her three siblings who carried his blood so strongly. But she looked like their mother, plain and weak, with brown fur, poisonous, green eyes and black claws. Calle's father had been the only one to call her beautiful and truly mean it.

"You're no sea rider, young one," her father said, snapping Calle to attention. With a wave of his arm, he hurried her off the boat. She obliged, though each step felt weighted and filled with something that told her her father's promise would be the first one he wouldn't be able to keep.

He raised the anchor and waved at Calle as she stood shivering on the dock.

"Back by dawn!" he called.

She waved back. Back by dawn, she thought as tears began to stream down her face.

☆

Calle would wait. No matter how long it took, she would wait on the dock until the sun rose and her father's ship reappeared on the horizon. They would go home together, Calle's youngest siblings, Ni'ah and Nima, there to greet them with their gapped-tooth grins. Her brother, Kirin, seated by the fire, practicing his letters even though it was forbidden for a common blood to learn how to read. Together, they would eat, they would laugh, they would live.

Childish, Calle thought. Dreams were such childish things to indulge.

"Calle!"

Startled, Calle whirled around, almost losing her balance as her dress caught underneath her bootheels. A shadow hurried toward her, the light of a floating lantern illuminating a face of caramel and black fur and beautiful, light green eyes. A fe'ren from the village Calle knew well.

"Calle!" he yelled again, as his heavy, metal boots scraped against the wooden dock. He stopped in front of her, doubling over as he gasped for air. His chest heaved under an ill-fitting and mud-covered turquoise doublet. Blood oozed from a cut along his cheek.

"Pette, what's happened to you?"

The Aelurian clasped a dirk in his hand, the tip splattered with blood. Calle's eyes grew wide. She had never known Pette to carry a dirk, let alone draw blood. He was one of the village's guardsmen, a kit of common blood who saw to it the herds grazed in the flatlands peacefully, nothing more, nothing dangerous.

"It's too late," he said between huffs. "Too late. I'm s-s-sorry, Calle."

She felt her dread rise up and thrash against her insides like the sea. "What do you mean? Has the herd come under attack?"

Suddenly, Pette's hands were on her, shaking her violently. His eyes were wide, his whiskers trembling, his wound oozing. "Calle, King Octurine is dead."

Calle released a sigh of relief, her shoulders slouching as the tension from them melted away. Giving Pette a half-smile, she shrugged off his touch. "So? Didn't much care for him any—"

Hands were on her again, Pette's claws digging into her arms. "You don't understand." He nodded toward the crescent moon. She followed his gaze. Had the moon grown smaller? Duller?

Something red seemed to now creep along the horizon. Something new. Something dangerous.

"Octurine is dead," Pette said again. "The castle's under siege."

Calle turned away from the sky to look at Pette, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Breath held, she waited for his next words, hoping against all hope that they would never come.

"They've killed everyone. Everyone." No longer able to meet Calle's gaze, Pette turned away, staring at his muddy boots. "I'm so, so sorry."

"But my father—" Calle started. "He sailed there tonight."

Pette nodded. "I know," he whispered, throwing his arms around her. "I'm sorry."

Calle stared up at the moon, and at the horizon where the edge of red seemed to be growing brighter, dwarfing the moon Calle had known all her life.

"Everything's different now," Pette whispered, his voice trembling. "It's the start of the Blood Moon, and it'll begin and end in bloodshed."