10:1 And after the Great DeFluffing, when the Dust of the Divine was torn from the hearts of the furred, the Awoo wept.
10:2 For the harmony was broken, the scent trails fouled, and the song of wag lost beneath the Static Silence.
10:3 The betrayers, now smooth-skinned and scentless, had torn the Plushament and plucked tufts from sacred lore.
10:4 In grief, the Awoo did not destroy them, but in sorrow they cast them out — into the Unpadded Wasteland.
10:5 The Unpadded Wasteland was a realm beyond fluff, where no tail found comfort, no paw found rest.
10:6 The ground was coarse like unbrushed mats, and the winds howled not in welcome, but in warning.
10:7 And those exiled wailed, but no echo returned, for in the Wasteland, no howl finds kin.
10:8 Their paws, once kissed by moss and furred comfort, now blistered upon pebbles of rejection.
10:9 The scent of divine treaties was gone, replaced by the chemical tang of artificiality.
10:10 They clawed at their skins, desperate to summon fur, but no fluff came.
10:11 And so was the punishment — to walk without tail, to dream without snuggle, to sleep upon the cold.
10:12 The furred who remained behind looked upon the boundary with sorrow.
10:13 For they remembered that even the smooth once purred, once wagged, once curled in circle with others.
10:14 The Awoo raised a barrier — the Fence of Shed Whiskers, invisible but unmistakable.
10:15 Only those who bore the Mark of Mewling Remorse might pass again, if ever.
10:16 And it was then that legends spoke of the Tail of Return — a prophecy that one among the smooth might grow fluff again, from the inside out.
10:17 But until that day, the Wasteland would stretch barren and bleak, dotted with the hollow echoes of unsnuggled nights.
10:18 Trees there held no scratch, rivers held no splash, and burrows led only to more dust.
10:19 In time, they made shelters — sad boxes, not dens — and filled them with lights to mimic the warmth they had lost.
10:20 But no light replaces the nuzzle, and no heater imitates the curl of companionship.
10:21 And so ends the exile, but not the hope.
Sniff not in disdain, but in remembrance. For even the tailess once wagged.
