SRP — BLADE Timeline: Kithood — I do not remember when I first learned to be quiet. Only that it felt natural. The nursery was warm and full of sound—breath, paws, laughter—but I learned early that the loudest things were rarely the most important. I watched instead. The way tails brushed the floor. The way shadows stretched and shrank as the sun moved. The way some cats took up space, and others learned how to slip between it. I liked the spaces best. They felt safe. They felt right. The world was small then. Soft. Padded with moss and routine. I believed it would always stay that way. I believed claws were only for climbing, and teeth were only for smiling, and nothing sharper than a thorn could exist inside someone like me. I was wrong—but not yet. I remember feathers. Pebbles. Little things no one cared about. I would line them up, not to play, but to test. How straight could I make them? How still? How close could I move without disturbing them? I learned my paws could be precise if I asked them to be. No one taught me that. No one stopped me either. When someone caught me staring, I learned to smile. A soft smile. A harmless one. The kind that makes questions disappear before they’re asked. That lesson came easily, too. At night, when the den slept, I imagined holding something thinner than a feather. Heavier than a pebble. I didn’t know what it was—I only knew how it would feel in my grasp. Balanced. Honest. Purposeful. The thought did not scare me. It felt like remembering something I had always known. Back then, I thought the world was gentle because it had been gentle to me. I did not yet understand that calm is not kindness—it is simply the pause before motion. I did not know about loss, or blood, or the weight of names that come too early. All I knew was this: Some things are born to be held. Some are born to be hidden. And some—quiet, waiting things—are born to be used. I did not know the word for it yet. But the blade was already there. —
Guys... I was supposed to post this forever ago.
