1x1 between Alpha* and Daisy!

[Alpha*]

FallenRains is fighting two of the Mera, pelt dyed black from sand and blood, it's only those too blue eyes that give away who he is. Spotting Rolyuk as he creeps up on Ice his tail tip twitches. Yelling wouldn't be heard above the sounds of battle. If he hadn't listened-

If he hadn't paid mind -

If he wasn't gif-cursed --

Ice would have no chance. He'd never have met Ice. The Tribe would not survive.

And he can see they are winning... the Tribe is winning. Unless Rolyuk and the Butterfly succeed. It hinges on Ice. "No." Is gasped.

--

Bowen stands near - fights near - the new stoneteller, Snowbird. Kipsa could, no doubt, tend herself - though he keeps an eye on her. But when he turns his dark head golden eyes catch the one he'd met in the forest all that time ago. And he sees blue eyes - he lurches forward, breath coming out in short pants - "Blue eyes!" He calls out voice loud over the noise, but before he can call a warning a group of the Mera swarm him and he's too busy.

--

FallenRains leaps over the cats, weaves through them, not particularly giving care to the fact that the waterfall is so close and sand shifts his paws closer to it. If the dead cry out in his ears he pays them no mind. He wouldn't fail, not again.

They can't take from him. Not today. They promised.

The blue eyed warrior hooks his paws around Rolyuk and his mate as they leap for Ice - knocking them out of the air and into the waterfall below. Ne doesnt see if their twisted claws had made contact with his mates shoulders - only that his mate wasnt dragged over the ledge too. Only that his mate is safe. One cats' claws scrabble at his haunches, down his back leg, the other is already gone. Dropped far below. Fallen holds on to the ledge, slipping, dragging furrows into the stone that's been softened by centuries of water and wind and wear. His blue eyes squeeze shut in pain.

[i]*He is safe. Let go. The ice will no longer bleed for you.... because of you.*[/i] is whispered, and this time he does hear. *You did it. It's okay. The Tribe of Mountain Snows, of Rushing Waters and Pointed Stone will survive. You did it. They won.* the dead reassure him as he slips almost to the bottom of the ledge.

"Ice." He opens his eyes and stares up at Ice from Frozen River. He said he wouldn't go without a goodbye. He promised. Ears twitch, hearing as the short battle comes to an end. There isn't a way for his mate to reach him, no way for him to climb back up, not with one of the Meras leaders attached to his flank. "Ice!" I have to say goodbye.

[Lemon Tea Rain]

Ice was too caught up in fighting, in surviving, to listen to the various shouts and cries around him. As soon as one cat backed away another appeared, in an exhausting flood that kept him occupied. He couldn't slow down, he was sure that if he did he wouldn't pick up the pace again.

Suddenly, the cat he is fighting backs away, gaze locked somewhere behind Ice as they disappeared in to the crowd. Ice's breath caught in his throat as he felt the ripping of his pelt, before he swung around to catch the tail end of three cats disappearing down the waterfall. He spat at another cat who approached from his left, only for them to suddenly retreat - the whole swarm of them, fleeing as quickly as they came. He finally had a moment to breathe again. I'm alive.

As soon as they began to retreat, Kipsa was quick literally herding the ones she knew like cubs who'd strayed too far in a natural disaster. Bowen and by extension Snowbird accounted for, briefly pushed closer together by her pushing them towards eachother and then standing close beside them, she let out two low rumbles of counting in her native tongue. Numbers, the specific tones usually reserved for mothers counting cubs, for siblings counting eachother - for family doing a headcount. Not the numeral language for counting prey, nor typical acquaintances. She didn't respond to any questions, instead letting out a low sub-concsious hum as her gaze searched the cave for Ice and Fallenrains.

In the now almost deafeningly quiet space, Ice could hear his mate calling out to him over the ledge. "Fallenrains?" He glanced around once, twice, before finally looking down and staring horrified at the predicament below. "No, don't- hold on! Stay there, stay there," he begged, as though Fallen could defy gravity itself if he asked desperately enough. With Fallenrains holding on and that wretched creature of a feline grasping on to his haunches for dear life, there was no way for Ice to leap down and catch him safely - the ledge would crumble away with any more weight.

[Alpha*]

His eyes light up at the sight of his mate; "you're safe. " Is breathed, as if he'd doubted it - how could he with the dead standing nearby whispering that they'd he'd won? He puts more effort into holding onto the ledge, but his claws continue to slip downwards. "I love you. " Is cried out loud, it's the first time he's really said so. It's always been a purr, a lick, the odd human word 'ditto' or 'I feel the same'...

His mate is ordering him, "I see, I hear, I obey -" that creature who's talons (for they are far more twisted than claws aught to be) are imbedded in his legs, lets out a cackle of mad laughter. As if the whole vile thing were funny of all things. And FallenRains wants nothing more than to obey the order his friend and mate has given him. Wants nothing more than to listen and not loose. He wants to do the impossible, just one more time.

Please. Haven't I given enough?

"I love you." Is said again, voice rough and desperate. "Ice, I really do." And his words hiccup with absolute terror and the knowledge of finality, they break his hearts. "I don't want to go." But he can see - even if Ice from Frozen River doesn't - how close his strained claws are to the end of the rough stone. He can feel the chasm pulling his hanging form; "Please-" as if the other high above him could stop what is coming, stop the inevitability, stop it, death.

"It's okay," he hears himself say, voice echoing in his own ears, even as he rushes to say the words (watching his beloved, and not his claws as the stone crumbles and he looses his precarious hold one nail at a time,) "its okay Ice, really. Be happy, okay? I lo--"

And he falls.

Falls into the foaming water and cutting ice. Falls into darkness and cold and pain and nothingness that fills his ears his nose ---

[Lemon Tea Rain]

Ice's fur rose from tail-tip to nose, eyes as wide as saucers. Throughout the entire battle, he hadn't looked nearly as panicked as he did in that moment. Fallenrain's words echo in his ears, the sense of finality they bring buzzing angrily and threatening to drown out any coherent thought. "Fallenrains, please-"

And he fell. He fell and he fell, until Ice could no longer see him, his body numb and suddenly moving of its own accord. A path picked recklessly down the cliffside, never truly checking if each ledge was comfortable with his weight, only focusing on down

"Fallenrains!" Ice cried, leaping headfirst in to bright white waters that he was in no way equipped to deal with, not with fur as thick as his. "FALLEN!" He scrambled and kicked off the pebble-laden bottom, searching and searching until at last - something furry, something.. warm..

Before he could truly register anything, Kipsa was dragging him out of the water by the scruff, having witnessed him disappear down the waterfall. He clung on to whatever - whoever - it was he had grabbed ahold of, writhing away from Kipsa and opening his eyes to find Fallenrain firmly grasped in his paws. Don't be dead, please stars don't be dead!

[Alpha*]

"Wake up!" He demands to the still form of himself, "Wake up! Come on!" But stubbornly the drenched form doesn't stir. So, he changes tactics, "Ice I'm right here! I'm here! Don't go! I'm here! I didn't break my promise. I haven't gone! Ice!" He shouts, as if Ice could see and hear him without the sigil. As if he were still real. "I'm still here!"

"--Rains,... Fallen." The silver spectre turns from the saddening scene at the sound of his name, reluctantly. "FallenRains. "

"What?" His voice is sad, "What more do you want from me?" Is asked, too sad to even glower, the defiance he'd always harbored replaced by defeat. "You've taken everything from me, time after time. What more can I give?" His voice trembles, "Why don't I get to be happy? Why don't I get to live? I've served you all! Faithfully. Served for years! What more is there that you want from me?!" The words end in screaming- and he miserably turns away from the other dead to the two felines and his own corpse, color leaching from his eyes, turning them almost white. "I've done everything you asked --"

There are more of the dead around now; in groups or not. Forming circles and semi-circles with their forms. Some are large cats - lynx, lion... - others are small, as he is, - young and old - "We still have work for you to do." They say, as if he wants anything else to do with them.

This time the speaker is a cat with soft cream spots and paws - she looks almost real, if you could ignore that you have to NOT look too close, else you can see right through her "There is much to do. Many to save. Prophecy to thwart, others to fulfill. " But her yellow eyes are soft and warm, "There is still time. Still callings."

"He doesn't want that anymore; Do you, Fell?" A she-cat steps forward, with reddish fur and bright green eyes, three tiny balls of fluff wrestling at her ankles when she stops. "You never wanted that."

"Bird I-"

She shakes her head, "Shh, it's okay. I only wanted you to be happy." Her green eyes loose the warmth they held when they move to the encompassing dead; "I loved you too. I still do. "

FallenRains cracks the teeniest of smiles at his once-mate and then the kits he never got to know. "I loved you too. Part of me still does. But Ice--"

"Enough! You Will listen now. " interupts a tabby and black he-cat whose eyes are not quite blue. This cat you can't see the grass and stone around him, through him. Like he swallows the things nearest, his shadows long and hungry. I see, i hear, i obey. Thinks the silver pelted ghost, voice and will stolen from him; but his ears half pin. "We will send you back... if .... you continue to serve us." Says the cat who is far larger - some unnatural hybrid of bobcat and his own kind? - "Will you continue, Far Traveler, Ghost, Wander, Broken Plain Keeper, Fell, FallenRains, Father, Brother, Son, Mate, FalseOmen?"

He casts a look at Ice from Frozen River and Kipsa, and nods. "Yes. Anything. Please."

"Then beware of HIM. You must leave the mountains, go to the desert two Mountain ranges further North. Their water will go, and sand will swallow, the fires rage and the wind block the sun..."

---

The cat gasps awake, claws still unsheithed, eyes wild and unseeing. But he doesn't rise, he can't. "I didn't say goodbye. " Is all he can say, and then he's coughing up black, fridgid water.

[Lemon Tea Rain]

Kipsa listened absently as Ice pleaded and begged for his mate to wake up, her vision blurring with the forms of the dead. Most were as they usually showed in her eyes - blurry forms she couldn't make out, nor did she truly want to. No doubt they were there for Fallenrains... Just the thought was enough to tug her gaze away again, to pretend she couldn't see them at all.

~~

Ice was huddled close to Fallenrains, begging between breaths as he groomed his soaked fur. He'd seen before, when a kit had nearly drowned, a mother lick the fur backwards to awaken it - he had no idea whether it would work, but no choice but to hope.

"Fallenrains!" His mate gasped awake, unmoving but breathing and talking and alive! "Fallenrains.." He was almost suprised to hear his own voice come out in a sob, but in truth he didn't care - Fallenrains was alive, and that was all that mattered now. "Kipsa, we need - he needs help-"
Kipsa cut him off, already picking her way back up the ledge to get herbs and help.

[Alpha*]

FallenRains finishes coughing up the water from his lungs, and then he gasps greedily at the air until the burn in his abused lungs begins to abate. "Ice." Is said at last, not admitting anything. "I'm sorry. I tried to obey. I'm so sorry- " as if the other was angered by his inability to hold on when so much was against him. Weighing him down.

He shivers, and begins to beg. "Please don't go. I'm sorry. I tried, I tried to hold on. Please Ice."

[Lemon Tea Rain]

"Fallenrains I just care that you're alive" Ice cut him off, curling his soaked body around the Tom. "that you're going to be okay. I've got you, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere... I promise." With that he quietened down, grooming the water from Fallenrain's fur and listening to Snowbird - stoneteller - delegate from above.

[Alpha*]

Fallen tries to groom the water from his mates' fur; but tired he lays his head on his back.

(Ts? Can you start?)

[Lemon Tea Rain]

Ice had stayed awake most of the remaining night, seemingly worried that should he fall asleep Fallenrains would disappear, or worse. He only got light moments of dozing, and gave up entirely on sleep the moment any sunlight began to filter in to the cave. At last, the next morning was upon them.