StarClan split the velvet curtain of the sky, and the ensuing light shattered the world.
Fire burned despite the downpour of water from the heavens. The Two-Legs vessel was cast in all directions to be shredded by the gnashing teeth of the ocean. Into the hungry foam, Heronpaw fell.
Lavenderstar had told her that StarClan would return for everyone one day, be it in their dreams or through the hooked claw of another cat. It was a good thing, to be reunited with your loved ones. Heronpaw was so young, she could not imagine this happening to her quite yet.
Striking the churning water, she thought of Lavenderstar, she thought of her brother and sister in Starclan.
Were they scared, too?
Heronpaw was not allowed the luxury of fear for more than a breath. Adrenaline jolted through her and her paws scrambled for purchase in the murky darkness. She was suspended in the void of the sea, weightless and sinking all at once. Above her, the sickly pallor of the full moon, and beneath her, glimmering StarClan.
She felt their paws grazing hers. She could hear her name, spoken so far away and so warbled that it could have been a dream.
Heronpaw wanted it to be a dream. Yet, dreams did not involve drowning kits, and there was one entering the tide but a whiskers distance away from her.
Longkit.
She knew little of him, as he was less than a moon old and far too young to ever interact with, yet he was sinking like a leaden weight. The sunny orange of his fur was the only thing she had noticed, so jarring a sight against the void. Heronpaw cycled her paws in a frenzy, breaching the water’s surface.
She sucked in frigid air that stung her lungs, but did not linger. Heronpaw descended back into the depths, snatching Longkit in her jaws. He did not fight back. Distantly, Heronpaw thought that he was so small and warm compared to the ocean.
Heronpaw resurfaced a second time, sputtering pathetically for air through her nose as she gripped Longkit by his scruff. Only when Heronpaw dug her claws into the safety of driftwood did the kit react, mewling pathetically. Heronpaw collapsed beside him on their makeshift raft, fur flattened with salt water.
“It’s okay,” She repeated as a desperate litany, to either herself or the kit. “It’s okay, we’re okay, we’re okay.”
Heronpaw pulled Longkit ever closer to her, shutting her eyes to drown out the sound of Starclan’s claws tracing along the underside of the driftwood.
