Username: nindroidzane
Cat Name: Ivydawn
Gender: Female
Rank: Hunter
Clan: FrostClanAge: 15 moons
Prompt: [ 2,555 words ]
The wind swept past, though it didn't feel alive. Most things in this forest didn't - the trees, stripped of their leaves and their bark peeling in suit; the snow, as dull as her fur without the sparkle the moon should have provided. She'd been lost in these woods a very long time. Or... had she always been here? It was hard to remember when the fog wrapped up your paws and legs until it twisted into your mind, suffocating the thoughts that tried to form. It was funny, in a way; the fog seemed more alive than anything else.She'd had the dream a few times before she realized what it meant. Before she was... told what it meant.
It wasn't the first weird dream she'd had, by any means. She'd had her fair share of giant mice, and falling trees. Lichen told her it was normal, especially at a young age.
But this one had been persistent.
Another cat drifted into her peripheral vision. Small, lithe; probably around her age. Their name rested on the tip of her tongue, but it was too hard to think, and she didn't feel very inclined to remember. The cat moved on, blending and mixing into the trees as though they were nothing more than mist themself. Perhaps they hadn't been.It always came back mostly the same, too. Little details that she'd forget when she awoke the first time would reappear - she felt she could remember more and more each time, and very little of it was new. It felt like something more than just the odd dream about her fur falling out now and again. This dream… it was something
real.
It must have been hours, or maybe only a few seconds, before she stumbled upon a frozen puddle. She couldn't remember if she slipped, or if it caught her eye on the hidden glint of the moon; she didn't remember thinking about it. She remembered looking down into it, her reflection trapped within the ice, barely visible under the faded light. Those eyes weren't her eyes. They were glazed over and painted in white, haunted by something she couldn't possibly know. Or could she just not remember?Lichen hadn't exactly been convinced, at first. Not that she hadn't expected that - it must've sounded utterly ridiculous when she'd proposed travelling up somewhere cold and barren when they had a perfectly fine forest to live in right now.
"You've always lived here." He'd remind her gently, and she'd have to remind him back that, no, technically, she'd only lived here since he'd found her and brought her back
to live here.
And maybe that was a flimsy defense, when truthfully this forest
was the only thing she'd ever known, in the sense that she couldn't remember anything prior to living there.
But this was important. She could feel it deep in her bones, in that way she'd only experienced once before in her short life, and
stars, Lichen, hadn't she been right then?
It begins to seep in. Like the mist slipping deeper and deeper into her fur, realizations slowly melt into her mind. Some of them are borderline incoherent, for realizations, but the message eventually becomes clear: she isn't meant to be here. Slowly, as though her legs are made of tree sap, she backs away from the puddle of ice. The trees seem to lean in, sharper, more sinister. The mist thickens into a deep fog, surrounding her, blinding her, filling her lungs. She needs to get out.It doesn't take very long to convince him, in terms of how poor her reasonings actually were. As well as her plan. And her confidence in either of those, as time began to stretch and their distance covered gets longer and longer.
The air began to cool as well, and she was grateful for her fluffy fur. Maybe it wasn't quite as thick as Lichen's, but she would get by just fine. She was the one who wanted to be here after all. She was the one with a reason to come - a very good one, at that.
This was going to be her
destiny.
…
If only the cold were the only thing standing in the way of that.
It takes hours of panic and struggle to make her way out of the thickest of the fog. Or maybe it only takes a few agonizing minutes. Either way, she needs more than that. She needs to get out of this forest entirely; the nagging feeling scratching at the back of her mind like a trapped mouse seems to agree. The more she thinks about it, the less it feels like a scratch and the more it begins to build into a scream. But no amount of aimless wandering can free her. The forest is endless; dead trees loom at every angle, forever stretching into the horizon. The longer she wanders, the faster she walks, as terribly slow as it may feel, the louder the mouse screams, as though being teased by a cruel cat's claws. She feels a scream bubbling up in her own throat, but nothing comes. The forest digs in its claws. The father north they get, the more vivid her dreams become. She picks up on details she never had before - though, she thinks they may have always been there. Perhaps she just hadn't noticed. Or… perhaps the connection is stronger now. It feels like it gets stronger every night, the closer she gets to… the signal?
It only encourages her further, a skip in her step each new morning. Lichen questioned why she was so excited the first while, but her answers were all similar, and similarly vague, so he'd dropped it when he realized he wasn't getting a clear answer. She didn't let his growing apprehension get her down.
A cat stares at her through the fog, almost a silhouette. At first, with some wild sense of hope, she thinks they're going to lead her out of here, as if every cat in these woods didn't glide by each other with a wordless glance each time they were unfortunate enough to cross paths. But this is certainly more than a glance. The cat stands stock still, staring, staring, staring. She can't make out much more than their shape, and their emotionless moon-like eyes. They look much like her own. The apprehension is contagious. Or maybe she's just feeling unsettled by the increasing intensity of her dreams.
Of her… dream. Singular.
It reoccurs every night now, without fail - sometimes when she blinks for a little too long she swears she finds herself in that forest, wandering, wandering, wandering.
She'd thought it felt real back at home. That was nothing compared to now. It had gotten to the point where she needed several minutes to adjust each morning, to remember who she was and where she was and which one of these realities was the real one. She'd taken to sleeping a bit farther from Lichen, and to waking up much earlier in the morning. This did nothing to quell his worries. She couldn't justify any real way to oppose them.
Still, they pressed on.
When she approached, the cat still didn't move. They didn't walk away, but they didn't move a muscle at all, either; no twitch, no fumble, and seemingly not even a breath. She felt she couldn't breathe either, once she got close enough. Recognition shot through the thickness in her mind like a lightning bolt, and she wished she could turn tail and run until her legs gave out. She cried out to his still unmoving figure. Unfamiliar eyes gazed blankly back. The first time she saw him in her dream, she wanted to call the whole thing off. She didn't - they'd probably come too far for that by now. But it was still the most terrifying thing she'd ever felt, and she knew in her heart if they kept going on like this she'd only see him again and again each night, like a hollow shell of the cat who'd just wished her a good night's sleep coming back to tease her and haunt her and snatch anything good that may have come from it.
And she was right, of course. She was wrong about hopefully getting used to it after a few nights, though. Maybe she would never get used to it.
Maybe this wasn't the destiny she'd hoped for, after all.
…
Maybe this had been a warning.
He walks off through the fog after ages and ages of yelling and tears. She stays rooted to the spot for a long while after, as though she's grown in with the trees. But she can't stay forever. Not when he's here. Not when he's like that. Maybe it was the motivation she needed. She only realizes after walking and walking, the opposite direction that he'd gone, that her mind is kind of clear, and her legs don't feel so slow, and she can maybe make out more light between peeling branches. She begins to run. They haven't seen anything but snow for days now. It brings a tingling to her paws - it's mostly brought on by cold and anxiety, but she tells herself it's excitement, just to feel anything but dread. They're almost there. This is what they walked all this way for.
It's finally going to be worth it.
When the light hits her eyes, she fears she's gone blind. When it turns out she hasn't, she can't believe them, anyway. She's out of the forest. She can't tell if the sun or moon is beaming into her face, and the snow is almost blinding, but there's no fog. The trees are behind her. The mist has only just begun to clear from her mind when the cat at the edge of the trees calls to her, frantic. When she turns, her shoulders sag with relief, despite the panic in those words she can't quite discern. Her eyes meet teal and yellow, and she can only wonder if the blinding lights returned the colour to her own. Lichen confronts her one day, when she's feeling particularly tense. He noticed that she's been distant. That she hasn't shared a peep about her dreams in moons - the dreams that she used to ramble on about, down to the finest detail. The dreams that they'd come all this way for.
She tries to brush him off, but it's not that easy. He's always been a worrier. He's always just wanted what's best for her.
She forces herself to relax - flatten her fur, loosen her shoulders. When she offers to go talk about it over a hunt, he almost refuses, she can see it on his face. But he crooks a smile - Lichen never could resist a hunt, especially when they're doing it together. It can only be more true now that they haven't done one in days. Maybe in a moon. Maybe even two.
They both know they won't be talking about anything over the hunt. They eat their meal in an almost comfortable silence.
The world is on fire. It's covered in snow, blinding, freezing snow, and yet flames flicker and crackle around them, threatening to burn everything to the ground. Flames lick at the dry branches of the forest, but nothing catches; she can't tell if perhaps the forest just isn't real, or if something much worse has been going on. Her gut knows the answer, but her mind refuses to accept it; she tells herself it's just a forest. The pretty eyed cat is still yelling at her, but she doesn't understand a word of what she's saying, whether she's angry or just desperate. Whichever it is, her yelling grows more intense as the flames lick closer. The trees don't catch. The snow remains undisturbed. She can only watch as the fire takes the only thing it can, and the screams fall silent. She jolts awake with a start. Whether that be from her nightly terror dream or the argument coming from close by, she's not sure. But the argument is fresh and new, and she needs to shake off the remnants of crackling and popping from her ears, so she goes to investigate the source.
Lichen is arguing with some tom over a small pile of prey. A grey she-cat sits close by, looking quite bored with the whole thing.
She isn't surprised he didn't wake her for this, and she's not too bothered by it, either. Lichen was never a fan of confrontation, and he tried to keep her out of it, too, as much as he could.
Not that they usually ran into many other cats. She's surprised they ran into any at all up here, let alone two of them.
She's only just begun piecing together their argument (something about prey stealing; Lichen would never do that) when another set of pawsteps approaches - no, another
two sets. She almost doesn't hear them coming. They don't fumble through, sinking in and crunching along like Lichen does. And herself, to a certain degree - Lichen hasn't been walking through dream snow for the past few moons.
When she turns to see if these two look like they're going to try getting in on the fight, her breath catches in her throat.
A cat her age, and another older one, looking a little annoyed at the spat still going on to her right. She ignores this older cat completely.
Her eyes meet curious teal and yellow. They linger for a moment, before the she-cat starts, waving awkwardly with a front paw and smiling with teeth that don't seem to fit quite in her mouth.
Her heart is trying to leap through her chest. She's not as old here - she can't be much older than herself. But those eyes are unmistakable. Her voice, when she abandons her little greeting to address the other cat - apparently her mother - is just a bit too high, but shrieks ring in her ears all the same.
Trying to appear nonchalant, she gazes around the horizon, craning her neck and squinting as far as she can.
Bare branches stretch out from beyond hills of snow, reaching out to her as though they've been waiting all this time, biding their time.
She can feel those eyes boring into the back of her head as her fur rises, but she can't bring herself to turn and act casual, to sheathe her claws and return to Lichen's side, to settle an argument over a few insignificant scraps of prey.
Her destiny - it wasn't the nonsensical ramblings of her heart, hoping for some sort of excitement, some sort of purpose.
It was real.
It was
real, and that was oh so horribly wrong.
…
Ivy's dreams that night were different. The forest swarmed with the cats she'd met that day. Those teal and yellow eyes - she could put a face to them now, a real one. She could put a
name to them.
And when she woke, she almost wished she hadn't. Because at least in her dream, none of this was real.
It was sickening to think that in this world, someday... it was going to be.
