A thin, scrubby snow lies over Sedgeclan territory, heralding the start of High Dark. Even early in the season, the days are noticeably short. Coniferstar returns from afternoon patrol to find the light already turning gold; the sun a low, dull eye on the horizon.
There is a sound of scuffling in camp; Coniferstar frowns, and creeps around a boulder, his claws unsheathed– only to see Harebolt and Snowstreak sparring– laughing, as they swipe pack and forth across the camp.
Harebolt aims a paw at Snowstreak’s head, claws sheathed, and Snowstreak drops to her belly to roll away, quick as a rabbit– even on her injured leg.
Harebolt laughs, surprised, and drops down onto Snowstreak’s back, pinning her easily– the two go rolling, stirring up a cloud of snow.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Coniferstar says, amused. “It seems like I’ve walked in on quite the battle.”
The two mollies scramble to their paws, at his voice, with matching expressions of embarrassment.
Coniferstar laughs. “You’re not in trouble. I wouldn’t mind a bit of sparring practise myself. I suspect I’ve grown a little out of form.”
“Oh!” Snowstreak brightens. “Would– you like to join in, then? I don’t mind! If you want to.”
Coniferstar feels himself brighten; how pleasant, just to be among clanmates. Among these cats; loyal, and healthy, as few as they still are. If only he can keep them this way. If only–
“Coniferstar?” Snowstreak is looking at him, worry fluffing up her pelt. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to.”
“No.” Coniferstar shakes himself; purrs, appreciatively. “I would be happy to. If you’re sure I’m not interrupting.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Snowstreak’s tail waves, loose and friendly.
“–No,” Harebolt agrees, after a moment.
Coniferstar looks at her, ear twitching. Sees himself reflected, briefly, in her pupils; wide in the dimming light.
He can’t quite read her expression.
“My pleasure, then,” he says, anyway, and drops low, rocking on his haunches in an exaggerated lunge.
Snowstreak mrows with pleasure, and leaps away before he can pounce, Harebolt right on her heels; Coniferstar wonders if he hadn’t been imagining her hesitation, after all.
Harebolt leaves them, later, to their sparring, excusing herself to gather herbs.
Winter is on them, now, in full; its sharp, white teeth close over Sedgeclan with the bite of frost, and ice, and wind. Harebolt hunches her shoulders, walking with her head ducked low. Every breath stings the inside of her nose; it really is a foul day.
In camp, Snowstreak says something, unintelligible, and Coniferstar laughs. Harebolt should be with them, in truth.
But disquiet has been gnawing at her, dug beneath her pelt like fleas. She needs…
Her paws carry her south, walking sideways, braced against the howling wind.
Dry, sandy snow swirls up in drifts, and blows across the tundra without pause, pelting Harebolt in the eyes, and nose.
But still, she walks. The moon rises. A wolf cries, far away; a lonely, mournful noise, unanswered.
She is almost right against the treeline, before she sees it, eyes squinted nearly shut. The tall pines loom up, dark, out of the blowing snow, and Harebolt backpedals, catching now the faint and fading scent of border-marks.
The gravel road winds past, just southeast, twisting from between the trees.
Harebolt pauses, and glances back over her shoulder.
The tundra is a wide and cold expanse, behind her; empty. Harebolt might be the only cat left in the world.
She turns, and pads along the road, hearing Coniferstar’s warning all the time.
But no cars come hissing past; no headlamps split the swirling snow. Whatever danger lurks there, to the south, where Coniferstar had come from– it’s hiding away from the wind, the same as Harebolt should be.
She pauses, as the road twists up towards the twoleg place, sniffing along the shoulder; in the dry, sterile air, scents are strangely dulled– hard to detect.
She lifts her head, to look around– and then, all at once, the wind cuts off; dead still. Harebolt’s ears ring, in the sudden silence. She glances back, uneasy.
The world is still, and dark, and quiet. Blown snow drifts back down to earth, gently now, and settles, soft, over the land.
The smooth surface is interrupted by a clawhook bend in the road; a strange lump.
Harebolt looks at it, for a quiet moment, and then pads forward; her head still bowed, though there’s no wind now, to push against.
Yes– she’s found what she came looking for.
She brushes snow, gently, from the small cat’s skull. There is still patchy fur, clinging to the bones; scraps of black pelt, stark in the silver, winter day.
Harebolt’s breath steams, as she works, carefully unearthing the body; not sure why she’s doing it. Her mind is strangely still, and calm– even her uneasiness is gone. Perhaps the cold has numbed that, too.
She sits back, when she’s done, and looks down on the body of a large black cat, mummified by frost. The resemblance isn't exact; but Harebolt feels the rightness of it. Knows him, the way a rabbit knows to run, or a wolf to hunt.
She sniffs him over, gentle as she would be with a kit. But warped by moons of death, it’s impossible to tell what happened to him; the body half-decayed, and gnawed on, here and there. Harebolt’s not sure what she had been expecting; what she had hoped- or feared- to find.
“Well, Rookpaw." Her voice is very quiet, in the face of that wide and silent night. “I’m listening. What was the message?”
The territory is utterly still, around her. The thin, bright claw of the moon turns all the snow to silver. Stars glitter, like cats’ eyes watching in the dark.
Harebolt shivers, and- without quite knowing why- touches her front paw, gently, to the dead cat’s shoulder. But still; there is no answer.
Sedgeclan has no deputy!
Sedgeclan has no healthy medicine cats
Coniferstar meets a pair of loners named Streak and Bolt. Streak has been badly wounded by another cat. Coniferstar offers them shelter, on the condition they take on clan names.
Mated pair Harebolt and Snowstreak join the clan.
Harebolt- Female - 102 moons
Former Loner
Confident
Lore Keeper & Great Teacher
The year has been unusually harsh; a hard, cold wind races down the open plain, kicking up drifts of dry, icy snow.
Bolt peeks her head from their hollow, eyes squinted almost shut. The blowing snow cuts through her pelt like needles; slices the inside of her nose, as she tries to scent the sterile, freezing air.
But the den at her back is over-warm; even half-outside, Bolt can feel the feverish heat of Streak's pelt. Even in the wind, she can smell the other molly’s sickness; a carrion-scent. Vulture-food.
Bolt glances back at her mate, huddled in a ball around her injured leg. Her mouth is open, panting, her green eyes clouded.
“You need water,” Bolt says; a useless fact, if true.
“I’ll be alright.” Streak’s voice is an awful rasp; almost swallowed up by the tearing, howling wind. “It’s– it’s foul out, Bolt, you can’t. I’ll be fine until the wind lets up.”
“And how long ‘til then?” The wind gusts; Bolt shivers, pelt fluffed against the cold.
From outside the burrow, someone says: “Well. It could be days, at this rate.”
Bolt’s head snaps around, at the strange voice; a dark, marbled tom sits just a hare-leap away, watching her with cool, blue eyes.
She bristles, automatically, baring her teeth– but the stranger seems unperturbed.
“Peace,” he says, voice strangely high, and touched with an accent Bolt can’t place. “I believe we can help one another.”
“We can help ourselves.” Bolt unsheathes her claws, heart pounding. She’s aware of every shift, in the den behind her; Streak slow and stiff with her injury. Helpless even to stand. “Leave us alone. Or–”
But the stranger only dips his head. “I’ll go,” he says, soothingly, “if that’s truly what you want. It’s only–” he scents the air, mouth
opening to show sharp, even teeth. “I thought I smelled infection.”
A shiver goes through Bolt’s fur, that has nothing at all to do with the cold– though the wind howls, still, all around them, as if set to tear her paws from the earth. “It’s just carrion. Our dinner. And we’re not sharing.”
“Is that so.” The stranger studies her, for only a moment more; and then shrugs, seeming to buy her story. Relief buzzes up through Bolt’s stomach, like she’s eaten honeybees. “Well then. I suppose I should go.”
And the stranger turns, as if to leave, stretching his hind legs, languidly. His claws flex sharp as thorns, just for a moment. “A shame,” he says, offhand. “I must have been wrong, about the signs.”
Bolt frowns, but says nothing to encourage him; he doesn’t seem to need it, carrying on: “if you do see a cat named Bolt, struggling with her mate’s infection in this storm– tell them Coniferstar is searching for them. I believe they’re meant to join my clan– and I’ve been sent the knowledge to heal them.”
Bolt freezes, The fur prickling along her spine. “How–” she says, softly.
But the stranger is already leaving. His long, black-tipped tail swishes behind him, as he walks away, pace leisurely– unbothered, despite the terrible wind.
Bolt swallows, her mouth dry as scoured stone. Behind her, Streak shivers– her teeth chatter, audibly, despite the feverish heat of her pelt.
“Wait!"
The stranger- Coniferstar?- pauses, and glances back over his shoulder.
“You–” Bolt squares her shoulders. “What does that mean. Who sent you?”
The strange tom purrs, and turns around. “Curious after all,” he says. “Well. I’m very glad you asked.”
Cats talk, low, in the camp outside her den. Their voices rise and fall, half-audible under the sounds of wind, and distant waves; the nighttime calling of the owls.
Wormturn is saying, “Boss took him, I know he did–”
And Harebolt comes all-the-way awake with a jolt.
She pushes her way out of the medicine den. All of the other cats of Sedgeclan- even the kittens- are already awake.
“If it was,” Coniferstar says, “then we can find him. We’re not so few, now. We’ll–”
“Find who?” Snowstreak, Coniferstar, and Wormturn all turn to face her. Harebolt resists the inexplicable urge to blanch. “Not– Boss?”
“Pinekit,” Wormturn says, distraught.
“Pine–” Harebolt’s eyes snap to the kittens.
Oh. Not– everyone in the clan is here without her. Three of Wormturn’s kits– speckled Saltkit, ginger Murekit, and pale, broad-shouldered Timberkit- are huddled, blinking, just outside the nursery.
But the darkest ginger kitten– the little tom, with bright, rich amber eyes…
Harebolt’s hackles bristle. “What would Boss want with a kitten?”
“A kit,” Snowstreak corrects, softly, and Wormturn says,
“They’re his,” her voice a low and wretched thing.
Harebolt stares at her. “You’re—”
“What’s important,” Coniferstar says, his voice cutting and clear, “is finding our missing kit. Wormturn can explain the situation after he’s home. Safe.”
Harebolt dips her head. Of course— he’s right.
“We’ll have one warrior with each group— Snowstreak, you take Wormturn. Go south.” Coniferstar looks at Harebolt. “You and I will head north. Our groups will sweep towards each other to the east. I can't imagine he’s gone up the cliffs.”
Snowstreak straightens, importantly. “Yes, Coniferstar.” She glances to Wormturn.
Wormturn, after a moment, nods. She fixes her gaze on her kittens. “Saltkit. Timberkit, Murekit. Babies— stay in camp. Promise you'll stay here until we’re back.”
“I want to help.” Murekit’s voice is still a high, kittenish treble, though he’s starting to look like a real cat; lanky with recent growth. “Ma—”
“No.” Coniferstar shakes his head, firm. “This is one of the rules that comes with being a clan cat. You will stay in camp- safe- and let the Warriors handle their duties.” His tone brooks no argument.
Murekit ducks his head, with a quick, “yes, Coniferstar,” and herds his littermates back towards the nursery.
Coniferstar nods. “Quickly, now,” he says.
And all the cats of Sedgeclan scatter out, into the dark, to search for their missing kit.
Snowstreak hops lightly down the rocky slope. Her paws are tougher, these days, with daily patrolling; Wormturn minces her steps, a little, following, though doesn’t make any noise of complaint.
“We’ll find him,” Snowstreak says, encouragingly. “I know it’s all still… new, for you, but–”
“No–” Wormturn lifts her head, sniffing at the wind. “I know. I just hope we don’t find Boss with him.”
Snowstreak eyes her, as the molly picks up her feet again, trotting purposefully for the border. The wind ruffles up her ginger fur, a fiery mane bristling, for just a moment, up around her face.
“He’s… their father?” Snowstreak ventures. “I knew him. I mean– we did. Me and Harebolt. I never…”
“You wouldn’t have seen me. I wasn't in his… group. Just— he. Ah, visited me. On the side” There is a brief, unpleasant pause. “But I knew about you two. Streak, right? He was– angry. When you left.”
That bare statement hangs, heavy, between them. He was angry.
Yes. He would have been angry. He was an angry cat; it's why she and Harebolt had left, all those moons ago.
Snowstreak looks at Wormturn. Her breath mists in the cold, drawing up a fog between them.
“I… know how he was,” she says, after a moment. “When he was angry. My leg— that was him.”
Wormturn looks, as if by reflex, at the nasty scar just-visible through Snowstreak’s Highdark coat. “I thought so. I’d— heard he killed you. It’s why I wasn’t sure.” She looks away again, scanning the dark, empty land. “That’s when I left— when you… well, not died. But. I didn't want to raise the little ones around someone like that.”
Snowstreak nods, a warmth kindling in her chest, despite the bitter cold. “You won't have to.” She veers sideways, bumping Wormturn’s shoulder with her own. “We’ll find Pinekit. This— I think this is what being in a clan is all about.”
Wormturn swallows, but her shoulders square. “Right,” she says, and picks up the pace.
Harebolt pauses by a desiccated, woody trunk; the spine of some old shrub, flayed bare by the season. She sniffs around the base, carefully, but detects no kitten-scent over the sterile, frigid winter air.
She looks up at Coniferstar; shakes her head.
He huffs, and leads them wordlessly further north, his easy lope eating up the distance.
In the bleak, colourless expanse of the winter tundra, his black coat shines with undertones of blues, rich-dark like raven’s wings.
Harebolt looks away, straining her eyes out into the night, instead. “Boss's cats come out this way, sometimes,” she says, recognizing the place. “But they mostly went south in— uh, Highdark. Like birds.”
“Yes,” Coniferstar says. “This is the place where they attacked Snowstreak, is it not? If they have taken Pinekit—”
“Snowstreak told you that?”
“No,” Coniferstar says, and then— hesitates, just briefly. “That is— I saw it.”
Harebolt stops, dead, turning to stare at him.
Conifer stops, too, after a pace, seeming to realise she’s not following.
“You saw us? Fighting? And you didn't—”
And Snowstreak had so nearly died. Could have been saved so much pain. Harebolt smells, strong as if it’s there before her, the rotting stink of the infected wound. “You—”
“No!” Is Coniferstar’s tail slightly bushed? “Harebolt— of course not. Starclan showed me. That— it's how I knew to find you. I've told you this.”
“–Right.”
Coniferstar makes to start walking again– Harebolt doesn’t.
“Coniferstar,” she says.
He looks at her– really looks. His eyes, that glacial blue, cut into hers.
“Starclan. What– when they talk to you. What’s it like.” She sees, in some hazy space between memory and life, a big, black tomcat, looking on them sadly, in the dark.
Coniferstar tilts his head. “I don’t think now is really the time.”
“Please,” Harebolt says– and hears, a voice from moons ago, Rookpaw say, he’s lying to you.
There is a pause; the winter night is still, and dark, around them, silver-wide.
“Have you seen something?” Coniferstar’s voice is very soft. His pupils are huge and black, ringed by hair-thin iris; so bright it’s nearly white, in the light of the full moon.
Harebolt tries to read the expression on his face. “I don’t know.”
There is another little silence.
Coniferstar says, “Then… Starclan cats. They look just as they did in life. Sometimes with stars, caught in their pelts. But– Harebolt–”
“He was after you,” Harebolt blurts. “I did see him. I– Rookpaw. He said–”
“But,” Coniferstars voice rises, drowning hers. “Not all the cats we see are good. There– Starclan is not the only territory, after life.”
On the point of interrupting him, Harebolt’s mouth snaps shut again. “What?”
“You…” Coniferstar sighs. “Perhaps I should have told you earlier. I hadn’t realised… that the Dark Forest may be trying to reach you.”
“The Dark Forest,” Harebolt echoes. “How– what? How do you know–”
“You don’t.” Coniferstar shakes his head. “You can never know, for certain.” The energy comes back into his eyes; as if he’s hit upon a good idea. The fur on his tail smooths down, again; his shoulders relax. “But if you have another vision– come to me. We can make sense of it, together. Puzzle out what’s true, and… what isn’t.”
“–of course,” Harebolt says, unease turning in her stomach.
“Good.” Coniferstar sighs, as if with relief, and bumps his head against hers. “I’m very glad you told me about this. I would hate– oh, Harebolt, above all things I would hate if the Dark Forest twisted your mind, because I failed to warn you of them.”
“Me too,” Harebolt says, glad he’s too close to read her face. “If– I was getting lied to. I wouldn't like that, either.”
Coniferstar pulls back, at last, eyes glowing. “I’m glad,” he says, again, and shakes himself. “Let’s find Pinekit. I’m sure that together, we won’t have any trouble.”
“Pinekit!”
Snowstreak swivels, at Wormturn’s voice— loud, in the still dawn.
Their search has stretched on very long, the sky shading into hazy, muddy greys; a fog rising as the earth begins to warm.
It’s hard to make out much, in the mist; the uncertain light.
Except the trees, beyond their southern border; dark outlines, looming.
And a small, flame-bright shape, growing larger as it weaves between the trunks.
“Mama!” The shape calls, voice high.
“Pinekit!” Wormturn takes a step towards him— Snowstreak stops her, bodily.
“We don't go south,” she says. Where they touch, she can feel Wormturn trembling. “It’s— forbidden, Wormturn. It’s not allowed.”
And anyway, Pinekit is still moving towards them, faster the closer he gets, as if the sight of his mother is lending him new strength.
Wormturn doesn’t try to move, again, but strains towards him, leaning forward on her paws. Her eyes are hungry, watching him.
His shape resolves out of the mist just moments before he barrels into Wormturn’s chest, gangly with adolescence— but his pelt, fluffed up in alarm, looking soft as a kit’s.
“Mama,” he says, again.
Snowstreak steps back, giving the two space.
Wormturn licks the top of her kit’s head, her eyes squeezing shut with joy. A purr rumbles in her chest. “Pinekit,” she says, achingly soft. “Are you okay, baby? Is your papa around? He didn’t hurt you?”
Pinekit shakes his head; his amber eyes shine huge; confused. “Why would papa be here?”
Wormturn looks down at him. “Pinekit– why else would you leave camp? He didn’t come to get you?”
“No, mama. I just…” he looks back, towards the dark woods, looming through the fog. “I couldn't sleep, was all, and the others are always sleeping, all the time, and I thought—”
“Kits aren't allowed to leave the camp,” Snowstreak says. She follows Pinekit’s gaze, back south towards the forest.
Trees make black cutouts in the fog; the startling line where they begin, like fur bristling up beside a nasty scar. Forbidden territory.
The others say something; Snowstreak doesn’t quite hear them, somehow.
She shuts her eyes. In the dark space inside her head, she sees a young, black tom; hardly older than Pinekit, now. He’s splayed out, in her memory, beside the thunderpath. A snowflake, drifting, melts on his glassy, open eye; he does not blink to clear it.
Dead.
Young, and dead, when she and Coniferstar find him, on his aborted crossing from the south. Frost glitters on his pooling blood. His body lies mangled– twisted, like a piece of prey toyed with by a kittypet. His mouth is open, red– his teeth are bared. He–
“Snowstreak?” Wormturn says.
Snowstreak shakes herself, the memory falling away; an unease lingering, prickly, in her pawpads. “Yes. I’m sorry. We’ll–” She looks up, at the trees again. “Coniferstar will want to know, though. Where he was.”
And so he does.
When they return to camp, the story spilling out from Pinepaw’s mouth, unwary, Coniferstar ducks his head.
“The southern territories,” he says, softly.
His small clan is gathered all around him; the kits are drooping, with exhaustion, but perk up to listen to him speak.
Coniferstar hesitates, and then leaps up onto a tumbled, flat-topped boulder in the centre of their camp. As he jumps, the wind catches him, ruffling his fur where it howls above the stone walls all around them.
“Cats of Sedgeclan.” His voice is grave. “Gather near. Today, we have faced a trial, and through the perseverance of our clanmates- and the will of Starclan- we have come through unscathed. Snowstreak, Wormturn– I commend you, for returning Pinekit to our camp.”
Snowstreak straightens, a warmth kindling in her chest; like she’s swallowed down a hot, fresh piece of prey.
“But,” her leader carries on, “Our good news, this morning, comes with ill. Pinekit– is it true you ventured past the southern boundary?”
Pinekit steps forward; a red and shining little scrap, in the bleak grey morning. He looks up at their leader. Nods, mutely.
Coniferstar sighs. “And you know-” he lifts his head, to survey his gathered clan. “You all know- that the southern territory is forbidden.”
“Coniferstar–” Wormturn steps forward, brushing Snowstreak’s shoulder as she passes. “He’s young. And new to this. He didn’t–”
Coniferstar raises his tail; Wormturn falls silent.
There is a pause; the whole camp seems to hold its breath.
“I understand.” He dips his head; sadness in his bright, winter eyes. “But the south… the dangers there. They are of greater weight than any one cat. Even a brave, young kit of Sedgeclan.”
He blinks at Pinekit, warm. The young cat straightens, chin lifting.
Coniferstar goes on; “I have learned, today, of something very grave. Harebolt told me of a vision. Harebolt?”
Snowstreak turns, surprised. She didn’t mention it to me. But of course– of course she would go to Coniferstar first. Of course; that’s right, and good.
But Harebolt looks stricken; her pelt, that dappled grey and gold, lifts, slowly, as if blown by some private wind. “–Yes,” she says, “But…”
“It’s alright.” Coniferstar looks at her, steadily; straight on. Snowstreak’s pelt prickles– a tight, sour sort of feeling in her stomach, like she’s watching her mother fuss over another kit. Strange. “Tell us, Harebolt. You aren’t in any trouble.”
Harebolt looks around; meets Snowstreak’s eyes, for a moment, through the crowd of other cats, all staring at her. Snowstreak nods, encouraging.
Harebolt holds her gaze, as she speaks; as if talking only to Snowstreak. “Yeah,” she says. “Alright. It was just. A cat. He said he was looking for Coniferstar.” A beat; Harebolt’s lovely, familiar blue eyes bore into Snowstreak’s. “He– said he was lying. Coniferstar, I think. The kits weren’t here yet, so. I don’t know what other he it could have been.”
“Well, of course he isn’t lying!” Snowstreak looks up to Coniferstar. “Of course you aren’t.”
He nods to her, blinking gratitude. “No. But there are forces which would like you to believe I am.” His eyes lift from Snowstreak’s- a cold loss, which she tries not to feel- to rake the entire clan. “Forces from the south. If I’m right– the cat we found, on the southern border, is the same who visited Harebolt. Dark forces– from the Dark Forest.”
Snowstreak, uncertain, looks around– the other cats look as lost as she does.
Except for Harebolt. She seems to shrink, inside her pelt, watching Coniferstar speak.
Coniferstar shuts his eyes, as if saying something difficult. “I am sorry. Wormturn– Pinekit. You are brave clanmates– good cats. But the safety of the clan must come before any one cat. If there’s any chance young Pinekit has been… touched, by the Dark Forest…”
“Coniferstar!” Harebolt’s pelt is bristling, now; on all four paws, she glares up at their leader. “He’s a kit! What are you going to do? For this? He wasn’t–”
Coniferstar doesn’t reply right away. He looks–
He looks at Snowstreak. There is a light of expectation, in his eye.
She swallows, understanding. Turns, to meet Harebolt’s eyes. She has to handle this. “I think– Coniferstar is right. Our– the clan has to come first.”
Harebolt’s eyes widen; a flash of hurt, in them, that Snowstreak thinks only she could notice. But it clears, swiftly. Her tail lashes. “Wouldn’t Boss say that? The gang comes first. We could’ve been safe with them, but–”
“Coniferstar is not like Boss!” Snowstreak shoots to her paws, outraged. “How could you say that? He would never– Wormturn! You know!”
The ginger molly startles, being called on. She looks at Snowstreak, and then up at Coniferstar. Swallows, once or twice. “I– Boss wouldn’t have taken the kits in. Or Snowstreak. When you were hurt.” She nods at Snowstreak, blinking. “But–”
“But he’s your kit,” Harebolt interjects. “And he didn’t know. What– what’s even the risk, here, that he’s… possessed? And then what are you gonna do? Coniferstar?” She turns her blazing eyes up at him. “Kill him? Exile him? A kit? In winter like this?”
“Highdark,” Snowstreak corrects, automatically.
Harebolt turns to look at her; hurt and shock and disgust all twisting up her face. “Right now?” Her voice is a whisper– but in the dead, icy silence of the camp, it falls, like a stone from a very great height, and seems almost to echo.
There is a long, long pause.
Snowstreak and Harebolt look at one another, across the camp. Harebolt’s pelt settles flat, by slow degrees. Her eyes are wide, and almost glow, as the sun at last breaks over the horizon. Snowstreak hears herself breathing, in the quiet. The distance, across their small camp clearing, feels suddenly very great.
Finally- finally- Coniferstar speaks. “Possession is precisely what I’m concerned about. Corruption. Infiltration. The dark influences that dwell in the south- and the Dark Forest- can creep into any cat. And it only takes one, to bring the whole clan down around our ears.”
Wormturn makes a small and wounded noise. Presses close to Pinekit- wide-eyed and silent, in the midst of all this tumult.
“But,” Coniferstar nods to Harebolt. “I am not so monstrous as that. And after all– your kits, Wormturn, were born in Highsun, were they not? Who can be surprised, that the corruption of the warmth, and sun, touches more easily their minds? We cannot blame any cat, for the circumstances of their birth.”
There is a little pause; and then Wormturn starts, seeming to realise Coniferstar is waiting on an answer. “Yes,” she says. “In the longest days. I wouldn’t have run, if– it not. But I thought we could survive. It was warm. And there was prey.”
“Prudent of you.” Coniferstar nods. “I am glad, to have a cat so thoughtful in our clan. And not unsensible– it would be hard indeed, for a kit to survive with the days as dark as this. We are closest to Starclan, in this time of long nights– but that doesn’t put prey in young mouths.”
Wormturn nods. Relaxes, a little, where she sits still pressed into her kit’s shoulder. “He won’t leave again, Coniferstar– you won’t, Pinekit.”
He shakes his head, mutely.
Coniferstar sighs. “He might. No matter what he says. I am sorry to say it– the risk of corruption still threatens Sedgeclan. I propose– an exile deferred. Let Pinekit train with us, until he earns his warrior name. Until he knows to hunt, and fight, as well as any clan cat might. Only then will he be asked to leave.”
Wormturn takes a sharp breath in; Snowstreak looks at her.
The rest of the clan does, too. After a beat– she dips her head, her eyes screwed tight with pain. “Thank you, Coniferstar.”
And maybe only Snowstreak hears it; a low noise. A note of disbelief.
Harebolt, sitting all alone across the clearing. Saying, softly, “Thank you?”
Streak- no, Snowstreak- Harebolt has to keep reminding herself of their new names- is curled in the hollow, her breathing more even than it had been a moon ago.
The camp is dug out beneath a series of tumbled boulders, tucked up against the side of a bare, clean rockface; the side of a hill split open like preybones, exposing the stripey stone below.
Harebolt imagines what could have possibly broken open the earth like that. The sound it must have made, when the ground split- when all that stone came crashing down and breaking apart below. She shivers, her pelt fluffing.
But the fallen rocks are all furred with lichen, now, and the sharp edges worn soft by scouring tundra wind; the disaster must have happened a long time ago. And the fallen boulders make for good windbreaks. The burrows dug beneath them are unlovely, but dry, and they warm up quickly with bodyheat. Sedgegrass grows, struggling in the summer- the Highsun, she reminds herself- taller than a cat’s shoulder, obscuring them from prying eyes.
Harebolt watches Snowstreak sleep, in the rocky hollow that makes up the medicine den. Leans forward to press her nose to her mate’s pawpad; still warm to the touch.
“Good,” Coniferstar says, creeping up behind her in his strange, silent way. Harebolt manages not to startle. “Is she still feverish?”
“Only a little.”
“She’s a strong cat.” Coniferstar looks down at Snowstreak, his striking, blue eyes thoughtful. “And you’ve done what you can for her; you’re learning very quickly.”
Harebolt blinks, grateful. Snowstreak’s bite-wound did look better than it had, the wound carefully cleaned and dressed, the awful carrion smell now only a memory. She shrugs. “I’ve got a good teacher.”
Coniferstar laughs, softly. Pads forward to look Snowstreak over himself. “Not so, Harebolt. I only pass on what is passed to me.”
Harebolt can’t disguise her sceptical expression; Coniferstar catches it. “I know you don’t believe, yet; that’s perfectly alright. Your paws walk the path, regardless. But Starclan put us here, for a reason; you, and your mate, and I. I hope you will see that, someday.”
Harebolt huffs. “It wasn’t your spirits that saved Snowstreak. It was a living cat.” She nudges Coniferstar’s shoulder. “He’s the one I believe in.”
Confierstar purrs, and nudges her back, his pelt thick and soft. “And he believes in you, Harebolt.” He pauses, and then his eyes seem to kindle with an inner light, as if hitting on some clever point– or struck by a joyful memory. “After this suffering– this frost, a great thaw will come– this is what Starlclan has shown to me. This is- it will be- the way of our clan; hold on to that.”
Harebolt huffs. “I’m sure I will.” But her voice has no real bite, in it. Whatever else there was to say about Coniferstar; he had saved Snowstreak’s life. Surely Harebolt can stand a little strangeness, in exchange for that.
Sedgeclan has no deputy!
Sedgeclan has no medicine cat!
On patrol, Coniferstar encounters a band of rogues, and flees.
Coniferstar - Male - 23 moons
Leader - Remaining lives: 9
Charismatic
Clever & a great hunter
Another long day on the tundra; Coniferstar looks up at the strange, bright sun. Eerie, how long it dallies in the sky.
The dawn had come very early; the dusk, he knows, will linger late. It must be almost High Sun; the tundra has exploded with life, plants taking full advantage of the too-short growing season, kits trailing prey-beasts from their burrows.
Coniferstar opens his mouth to taste the air; a fat, unwary groundsquirrel, just a rabbitleap away, snuffles at some grasseed. A meal and then some.
Coniferstar takes a slow step forward– and then his head pops up, at just the same time as the ground squirrel’s does.
It dashes for cover, and Coniferstar makes no move to catch it.
The wind had changed; and it carries, now, the scent of blood, and the yowling, hissing sounds of cats at war.
Downwind of the terrible racket, they wouldn’t smell Coniferstar coming- even if they weren’t preoccupied. He swivels, and stalks uphill, towards the noise.
The fight is already breaking up, as Coniferstar crests a small hill, and spies the cats facing off below.
Nearest him, a cat in marbled grey and gold stands, bristling and spitting, guard over another. The cat beneath her, cowering, is smaller; ginger, with blood matted a shocking, vibrant red into her fur.
Opposite them, a gang of rouges- and they must be rouges, thin and rough and ragged- lash their tails, claws still unsheathed. Four of them, to the two mollies. The tom in the lead, lean and ginger, has a deep scratch across his brow, and keeps blinking, hard, to clear the oozing blood from his eye.
Coniferstar purrs in private approval; one of the mollies must have landed a good hit, even as outnumbered as they are.
“I see you around again, Bolt, you’re getting worse than that.” The skinny tom's voice is a vicious, rasping hiss. “You ran off– you did. I never wanna catch you slinking back.”
The tortoiseshell- Bolt, Coniferstar supposes- doesn’t flinch. “We were just passing through, Boss.” Her voice is only slightly tight. “Trust me. I didn’t want to see you again, either.”
The ginger tom hisses, crouching as if to spring, and Bolt stiffens to meet him, her claws unsheathing. The injured molly tucks herself into a tighter ball, eyes squeezing shut, as though bracing for a blow–
but one of the other rogues presses himself between them, his tail bushed. “Boss, please– she ain’t worth the trouble, you know that. Ain’t that enough?” He gestures to the oozing bite-wound on the huddled ginger molly.
Bolt’s eyes narrow; so do the big rogues’- ‘Boss’.
He lifts his chin. “You’re right. Dirty sorta wound, that. You’d better find someone to clean it out.”
Bolt does flinch, now– only a little. Medicine cats must be hard to find, out here.
Coniferstar watches, thinking, as the two groups break apart.
Only once the rogues are gone does Bolt turn, and help the other molly to her feet. They speak, too quietly to hear, heads bowed close together. And then, hissing with pain, the ginger molly leans against Bolt’s shoulder, and the two of them go limping away, in the opposite direction of the rogues.
Coniferstar trails them, through the grasses, until they stop to shelter in a burrow; abandoned by some rabbit, no doubt, long ago.
Very interesting.
Coniferstar studies the burrow, for a long time, marking the place; until his growling stomach herds him back to the hunt.
But maybe he’d be back– the ginger rogue was right. That wound would have to be cleaned out; or infection might set in.
