Salmon

## Personality

Salmon is a quiet and withdrawn cat, often preferring to stay alone rather than hang around the other cats of the colony. He enjoys learning about plants and berries, and carves his findings in the rock mini-cave he squeezes himself into when he wants to be alone. He is one of the only cats small enough to squeeze through, even fully grown.

## Rough Beginnings

Eryx's second litter had only one kitten, who was very small and under-confident. Due to her emotional distress, she abandoned him and left him in the labyrinth forest to live out what remained of his life without her. He despairs about this abandonment, and waits for her until he can no longer wait.

## Venturing Out

After thirst drives him forward, Salmon starts his journey through the labyrinth. At first, he can find no one. Even if he screams, the forest seems oddly quiet to him. It makes him feel alone and terrified. It takes him what feels like another day to find someone else in the forest: an adult grey cat, who attacks him at first after being startled awake by Salmon. Upon seeing that the kitten is just that, a kitten, Azurite backs off of him and apologizes. Another kitten runs over to them and greets the abandoned boy, saying her name is Eudialyte. They ask him for his name, to which he says he never got one.

The three cats travel together through the forest and try to think of a name for him, bonding and growing closer over the time that they share. After helping him over a stream, Azurite says they should name him Salmon. Even though he hated the name, it stuck.

Salmon continues to travel with them and grows to think of them as the only important people in his life.

## Mistrust

Eudialyte thinks she sees something in the forest and, quick to scare, darts off ahead of the other two. Because of the forest, Azurite calls her to stop, but she's too scared to listen. She runs nearly out of sight, and Azurite starts to follow. Salmon tries to follow as well, but while running he trips over a root and twists his paw. Azurite stops and looks back at him, then at Eudialyte, faced with the choice no one should have to make: follow her into the forest, leaving Salmon behind, or let her run until she is forever lost. Right as he takes a step towards Eudialyte, as if to abandon Salmon for her, she runs into the leg of another adult cat. Thankfully this stops her, and Azurite is able to approach and calm her down, but not before Salmon sees the choice he would have made.

Now realizing his position with Azurite, Salmon looks down at his paw and wonders what could have been.

## The Colony

Upon stopping Eudialyte from running, the cat named Wisteria tells Azurite that there are several cats that live together in this clearing, and they have lived together for generations.  He introduces them to a series of cats, including the other kittens in the colony.

Though a tiny bit older, Mantis, along with his sister Pebble, instantly want to befriend the newcomers. They show both Eudialyte and Salmon around, though Salmon seems annoyed the entire time and doesn't want the tour. Unfazed, Mantis introduces him to the rest of the colony anyway, and eventually he sees that Salmon's paw is hurt. Mantis calls over a very large cat named Hypericum to look at it, to which she says it's not a large injury and he should recover if he rests and cares for it.

## Life With the Others

Salmon finds himself missing the time he spent with just Azurite and Eudialyte, but now can't find himself seeing a future with them. He hides away from most of the colony for the majority of the day, and often talks to himself and sleeps. He isn't social at all, and even when approached he seems unwilling to make friends with any of them. Though he has feelings developing for Eudialyte, seeing how friendly she is with both Mantis and Pebble repulses him. He finds himself jealous, but unable to express it, and ultimately isolates himself from her near completely.

No longer intrigued by others and what they have to offer him, Salmon loses his interest in life. Depressed and sullen, he refuses to walk very far on his injured paw and mostly makes snide comments or passive aggressive remarks to cope with his unhappiness.

## The Screams

The colony is petrified of the forest beyond the small clearing they have hollowed out for themselves, and often has guards awake at all times to watch out for what lurks in the forest. Cats like Basalt are seen to almost never sleep, and what little sleep they get is filled with fits of anxiety. Salmon doesn't understand their fear and often dismisses it, until the screams from the edge of the clearing alert him to trouble. Several cats fought off what could only be described as a large dog from the clearing, leaving two dead cats in the center - an adult holding his child - and a mother screaming into the air. At once, the soul song captivates Salmon, and ever since then he has found himself obsessed. It is clear that the dog did not kill them.

The dog, if it even was a dog, was merely a distraction to the tragedy.

The next murder happens not too long after that one, and like last time the scream produces a soul song that entrances Salmon. Now completely enthralled by this phenomenon, he takes to his cave to brainstorm why, how, and what he can do to make it happen again.

Scratching the things he's seen into his cave, Salmon starts to wonder how to make this soul song happen on a whim. It is the only thing that he wants to see to the end, and so he starts on his very long journey.

## Foxglove

Salmon finds some foxglove at the edge of the clearing, something that had never gown there before. He has heard of it of course, from the older cats that had come to the colony and settled down, but he has never seen it himself. He quickly digs it up and carries it back to his small cave, dragging it inside with him. Excited by this, and knowing that this is a plant that could very easily kill whomever he feeds it to, Salmon starts his scheming.

At first, he starts to wonder if he should use it on Azurite. After all, he holds resentment for Azurite for being willing to abandon him. On top of that, Azurite has been seeing the tall cat Hypericum, and this continues to bother Salmon's sense of rejection. He almost feels Azurite isn't good enough for it at the end, and instead turns his attention towards someone who drew out more emotions in him than anyone else. Someone that he thought maybe could cause him to sing, under the right conditions. But it was too early to kill her directly. What if it doesn't work? Salmon has to test it first. And who better to test it on?

Mantis is the first victim of Salmon's poison. He consumes a bird stuffed with foxglove, and instantly the poison takes hold. He dies just a few seconds after, and Eudialyte starts crying and singing. This surprises Salmon, since Mantis' siblings aren't the ones doing so, but it's all the same to him. He got what he wanted: results.

The next victim of Salmon's spree is Azurite and Hypericum's first litter together. While they only have two kittens, Salmon drops that down to one. The kitten was found just a few moments later, and of course Hypericum's screams turn into her song.

Giddy from his success, Salmon goes on to kill Hypericum and earn Azurite's song. Eventually Basalt's kittens are both taken as well for his song. Now having seen so many songs from so many different tragedies, Salmon is ready to start his experiment on the one most likely to give him his desired result. As he fixes his sights on Eudialyte, he feels excitement for the song he is sure he will produce from her death.