Snowstreak trots cheerfully along the eastern border, following the path of the bounding river. Ice is crusted, sharp and silvery, along each bank; but thin enough the water still runs clear, in its deepest parts.
The day is bitterly cold, but Snowstreak hardly feels the chill– it is such a pleasure just to run, and feel her muscles moving smoothly underneath her pelt.
She pauses, where the river bends around a jutting rock, and rubs her cheeks against the stone, huffing with pleasure at the renewed Sedgeclan-Scent she leaves behind. Ours, she thinks, and her purr comes out a steam, in that awful cold.
But– it isn’t just Sedgeclan she’s smelling.
Snowstreak’s pelt prickles, uneasy. Cats, for certain. And no one that she’s met before. Her leg twinges; shaky, suddenly, and weak, though the injury has long since healed.
She could run, now- she should run- but if there really are rogues, trespassing on the territory…
Snowstreak takes a breath, cold air catching in her throat. “Is someone there?”
Her voice hangs there, a solitary thing in the wide, white spread of the tundra.
And then– a mewling, high and plaintive; and the very distinctive sound of one cat hushing another.
“If someone is there, I don’t want to fight!” Snowstreak starts forward again, heart still racing . “But I can! I’m a Sedgeclan warrior- I mean, a warrior of Sedgeclan- and–” she trails off, not certain how to finish the sentence. She wouldn’t have known what that meant- a warrior- before Coniferstar.
Anyway, whoever it is doesn’t answer; even the mewling has gone quiet. But the smell of strange cats is stronger, now, and Snowstreak follows it, her tail quivering. A warrior of Sedgeclan– and that means she has to defend it.
“Please,” comes the answer, soft, and stops Snowstreak mid-stride. “I don’t want a fight, either. Just– don’t come any closer.”
The days are short, and very dim, this time of year; the sun, never very high, sends long, dragging shadows out across the tundra, like the marks left by some massive claw. Snowstreak squints into one of these, her eyes straining against the snow-blue shade.
“Oh,” she says. A scrap of ginger fur– and ten bright eyes, shining back at her from the dark. “There are kits with you.”
The strange she-cat does not respond.
Snowstreak sits, and wraps her tail around her paws. Coniferstar had said something, about this. Some Warrior thing, once.
“I guess,” she says, “you don’t have any reason to believe me? But– if those are kits with you, then– I really promise I won’t fight you. It’s my– uh, duty, to protect them.”
“Your duty?” The stranger says; a molly, with a young, uncertain voice.
Snowstreak nods. She can see, now, as her eyes adjust, a young, ginger molly, and four kits tucked behind her; big enough to be eating whole prey, their eyes fixed on her wide and curious.
“I’m a warrior,” she says, again. “We’re supposed to protect all kits. And– elders, too, I think. But there aren’t any here.”
“Oh.” The stranger studies her, a moment. “Well– we can protect ourselves. I can protect them.”
“But you must be hungry? Hang on–” Snowstreak half-turns, and then looks back. “I mean, wait there. I’ll be right back.”
She dashes off, and returns a moment later with some prey she’d caught, and stashed, earlier that day; a little ground-squirrel, still fat despite the season.
The molly, to her relief, is still there, when she returns.
The kits start to squabble, again, at the smell of blood; even the molly’s eyes gleam, as Snowstreak jogs back into view.
“Here.” She drops the squirrel on the ground between them, and paces back a step, to give them space. “It must be hard, hunting for that many kits. You can have this.”
There is a pause; the molly watches her, fear warring with a naked, open want.
“Oh,” one of her kittens says, his voice high and piping. “Can’t we, mama? Can’t we please?”
Snowstreak nods encouragement; takes another step away, not wanting to crowd them.
After a moment, the molly shuts her eyes. “Alright,” she says, “of course. Thank you– go eat.”
The four kittens scramble up, at once, and dash towards the squirrel. They must be a few moons old, already, lanky with their growthspurts– but thin, where their fluffy, kittish pelts are starting to give way to adult fur. She can see their hips, and shoulderblades, bones too-stark as they bend to share their meal.
“There’s more prey back at our camp,” Snowstreak says, looking at their mother. “We don’t always have enough– but everyone always gets a share. And– they’d eat first. Every day. That’s the rule.”
“The rule,” the stranger echoes. Her muscles are bunched up, visibly, beneath her pelt; ready to spring to her kittens' side, at a moment’s notice. But she hasn’t yet. Surely that was an alright sign? “You said you were… a warrior? I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t either,” Snowstreak says. “At first. Coniferstar- he leads us- he explained it all. It’s… cats living together. By a code. We look after one another. We–”
She doesn’t want to mention starclan, yet; the spirits of the dead, the prophecy that had led their leader to this place. To her. To save her life. She knows how it'll sound.
But there is want, shining in the stranger’s eyes. She swallows, and looks down at her kittens eating– with none of the usual kittish squabbling. Only a silent, ravenous focus– Snowstreak wonders when they’d eaten last.
She says, “I know it sounds strange. It did to us, too. But– Coniferstar says, the… it sounds better when he talks about it. But that– hardship. Um, the tundra. Because it’s hard– it makes us strong. He says– after every frost, a thaw. And– that’s what… we are. I think. The thaw.”
“The thaw,” the stranger says, and looks up to meet Snowstreak’s eyes. “And you believe that?”
Snowstreak holds the molly’s gaze. “I do. He saved my life– my mate and I. Just– let us show you. You can go, if you don’t like it. But I really think it’s– I think it’s something special.”
The kits have taken the squirrel mostly to pieces; quick as owls, at their meal, barely even chewing. One of them- a bright, white-spotted ginger- drops a last, red scrap at his mother’s paws. “You should eat too, mama,” he says, and Snowstreak sees the hunger in the molly’s eyes, as well; sees the rippling of her spine, as she bends her head to snap up the piece of prey.
“Thank you, Mure.” She eats more slowly than her kits; as if trying to stretch the meagre mouthful out. To make it last. When she’s finished, she licks the blood fastidiously from around her mouth; not leaving a single drop.
And then she looks up, to meet Snowstreak’s eyes.
And says, at last, “alright.”
Loner Wormturn joins the clan with her kits.
Wormturn- Female - 39 moons
Former Loner
Loyal
Keen Eye
