numвer σf catѕ: 3
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Resinstar woke to pale green eyes right up in his face. With a yelp he startled backwards, nearly loosing his grip on worn stone and stopping just short of toppling into the moonpool.
"Oh good you're awake!" Claywhistle chirped, not even attempting to hide his peals of laughter.
"Waterever is the matter? You seem a bit washed up!" Resinstar groaned good naturedly at his friend's puns, shaking sleep and dew out of his coat easily. The whole of the territory seemed brighter in a way- like he could actually
see the life and the potential in each blade of grass. Maybe it was the fact that newleaf had begun and most of the drifts had melted or maybe...
Yarrowkit. Resinstar couldn't help but smile thinking about the young shecat. This must have been what she meant when she had given him her life; the leader really did feel the push to go bounding through the forest and overturn every stone just to see what was underneath. His tail-tip flicked impatiently, eager to get back to his territory,
his territory!!, and explore.
"Dew you think so? I was thinking more excited myself. Come on let's go!" His muscles, cold and stiff from spending the night out in the open, had been yearning to stretch and finally got their wish. Resinstar let out a rippling laugh as he and Claywhistle sprinted down the hill towards the river that would lead them home. Resinstar outpaced his friend and again he let out a cry of pure adrenaline. He whipped his head around to taunt his companion but in doing so, caught his foot on a stone and began to tumble.
"Resinstar!" Sparks of pain flashed through Resinstar, nothing serious but enough to take his breath away. When he finally came to a stop it was mouse-lengths away from the flooded banks of the swollen, angry river.
"I'm okay," he choked out, the laughter ripped from his throat. The faded body of his friend was by him in a moment, eyes wide with worry.
"I'm fine. Really. Just kind of shaken up." Resinstar slowly picked himself up, flattening his bottle-brush tail. It was true what he had said, despite Claywhistle's unconvinced flicking of his tail, Resinstar did feel fine. He didn't even feel bruised or winded after a couple deep breaths. In fact he felt on top of the world.
I bet I could swim that, if I wanted. It doesn't look too bad, Resinstar's mind told him. It scared him, just a little bit, how ready his body was to follow that urge despite how his mind warned him of the danger. He needed to get control of Yarrowkit's, and his own, impulsiveness.
"I know a way farther from the river. My mother and I used it when she took me to the Moonpool one winter and the river was flooded again." Claywhistle urged his friend from the water's edge and Resinstar followed gladly.
While they padded through the thawing woods, Resinstar's mind always finding new ways to be distracted by the world around him, the conversation turned to the leader's visit to Starclan. Resinstar had been almost reluctant to share his dream with Claywhistle, not wanting to
dampen the mood. He may have never seen the place in it's full glory but he could tell by how the old Beechclanners talked, or rather didn't, that something was quite off. Still he did his best to put his experience in a positive light. He went on about the antics of Yarrowkit, Chicorykit, and Snapperkit. How weird it had been to see trees made of stars. But Claywhistle was good at reading him and insistent out the state of his missing clanmates. Had Resinstar seen any of his family? No. Did any Starclan cat know where they were? Again, no. Resinstar's mews grew distressed as he confessed to the state of Starclan, how it seemed frozen, how most of the cats couldn't speak. Claywhistle's paw went to his own muzzle at this and Resinstar realized he had never seen his friend open his mouth all the way, even to laugh. Resinstar rushed through the rest of his tale, hoping that after he had finished maybe they could forget it had ever happened. If the tom was ever to lie he would have done so to tell Claywhistle that everything was fine. But Resinstar wasn't a liar, not even for his best friend.
"It's going to be okay Claywhistle. We'll find your clanmates and we'll help them. Maybe this just means they aren't dead?" Claywhistle smiled at this but it wasn't incredibly convincing.
"Maybe." The rest of the walk was uncomfortably silent, Claywhistle's gaze lost somewhere above the trees.
The shecat knew she couldn't keep running forever. Even though the coming of newleaf made travelling easier, the last remaining drifts of snow were still slushy and difficult for her to manage. And barring that, she was running low on traveling herbs and had no way to hunt for herself. And yet she refused to stop, just as she had refused day after day for nearly half a moon. Stopping meant giving up and giving up meant dying out here on her own or worse, being found and taken back. But now her tiny legs were protesting and she tasted blood, likely from breathing so much of the cold air in. She had to take a break or she wouldn't be able to keep going. The shecat slowed her pace to a trot but refused to fully stop just in case she couldn't get herself moving again.
"Take a deep breath," urged the tabby besides her. The small shecat shot the starry figure a glare. It was easy enough to Sorrelstar to say that when she didn't actually have to breathe. But she recognized the logic in the statement.
"I know. I'm trying," she panted.
"But that won't fix the fact that I'm hungry. I haven't been able to find any burnet either." "So are you just going to give up?" The shecat's eyes flashed at her faded companion's challenge.
"Of course not! You've been with me since I left that place, one would think you would know me better than that." Her yellow eyes flashed with indignity. She was not a quitter even under circumstances like these.
"So what are you going to do?" "I'm going to figure something out. I can't keep running with no plan besides following you. I need something more permanent." "Good," Sorrelstar purred kindly,
"Any ideas what that's going to be?" "Well..." For the first time in a long time, the small cat sat and allowed herself to think. It felt good to actually rest for once and her muscles sighed contentedly. Soon they would be complaining once more, louder than if she hadn't rested them to begin with, but until then the shecat appreciated the momentary reprieve.
"You said you had a clan in this territory, and that they could help me." "Had," Sorrelstar corrected, a tad mournfully,
"I don't know what may had happened while I was...out. There may be no one left." The shecat nodded. She knew this already, and yet she had to hope for the best.
"Time to find out then, you ready?" Sorrelstar dipped her head and the pair set out on their trek once again.
The shecat was back to wading through piles of slush when she spotted him, an orange-red tabby with his head thrown back as if he was laughing with himself. As he grew closer she could see his ears prick as if listening to someone. He said something to the air and then turned to see her, his tail waving in greeting. He stood towering over her before she had time to blink, having covered the distance with his long legs easily.
"Why hey there," he mewed, smiling.
"Cold day it may be but seeing you just warms my heart." The tom gave a her a wink but she just stared at him blankly.
"What're you getting at here?" "You, me, a nice mouse and- Oh come off it Claywhistle! I am not scaring her away!" The tom glared at empty space behind him.
"My face would scare any cat away? Well excuse you." Even though the bickering seemed good natured, the shecat couldn't look past the fact that it seemed like the tom was arguing with himself. She started to glance around for a way to escape this crazy cat when Sorrelstar breathed,
"Did he say Claywhistle?" Her faded face was filled with such a sudden flood of hope that her solid companion stopped scheming ways to escape. She repeated Sorrelstar's question out loud and now it was the tom's turn to be confused.
"Yes? Do you know him?" The shecat stopped just short of saying that no she didn't know him, but the ghost that only she could see did. Instead she narrowed her eyes and began to put two and two together.
"Were you...were you talking to Claywhistle? Is he invisible?" The tom nodded.
"Usually I'd save something like that for the second date but yep. He's my ghost. Why, do you have one too?" Despite the flirty overtones of his admittance, the tom seemed extremely excited at the concept of meeting another cat with a ghost haunting them. The shecat turned to look at Sorrelstar, who was winding around the tom as if looking for Claywhistle.
"My son," she murmured, her voice choked and breaking,
"My son. He's here." The shecat watched silently as the old leader held her paw up to the orange tabby's face, passing right through his fur and getting no reaction.
"Yes. Her name's Sorrelstar." Immediately the tom's ears pricked with recognition and he started purring rapidly to himself- no, to Claywhistle, the shecat corrected herself.
"Claywhistle's mother. He told her..." The tom seemed to be radiating joy and hope on behalf of his invisible friend.
"He's crying but...but he's so happy Sorrelstar. He's so happy you're okay." "So is she," the shecat mumbled on behalf of her ghost,
"So so much." The two living cats let their counterparts catch up, translating for them when they did more than shed happy tears. The shecat was growing a little impatient. It was clear that Sorrelstar wouldn't want to leave her son but the short shecat needed an actual plan to stay alive. She cleared her throat in the middle of a lull in conversation between the two ghosts.
"So, tom cat, do you run a clan or something?" The tom blinked, then realizing it was the shecat speaking for himself laughed and mewed,
"I'm sorry. I totally forgot to introduce myself. I'm Resinstar, but you can call me anything you'd like." Resinstar winked again, flashing her a grin.
"Is idiot included on that list?" the shecat groused but chuckled quietly to herself as her remark seemed to throw Resinstar off for a moment before he laughed.
"Good one. But yes I'm the leader of Clayclan. Are you interested in joining?" "Yes actually. Sorrelstar doesn't want to go and I don't have anywhere else to go. I might not be able to hunt but I'm good with herbs." She nudged the bundle of leaves she had dropped by her paws earlier. It wasn't a huge supply but it was a start. And with a clan to base herself in and newleaf almost in full bloom, she had no doubt she could build up her supplied easily.
"Claywhistle tells me you'd make a good medicine cat. So, new clan member of mine, what's your name? Or can I call you sweetie?" The shecat snorted and then thought. Honestly she had been distancing herself mentally from a name for a while. She knew it made no logical sense but Danny carried too many memories and Feverfew was what she was trying to run away from.
"What about Driftstep?" All the shecat could think of was just how many stupid piles of snow she had been wading through the past few days. Resinstar smiled at her.
"Sounds great Driftstep. Welcome aboard."Sirocco hadn't expected the day to end with his exile when he first woke up that morning, but then again no one really does. And if anyone did worry about exile on a regular basis the tom was very sorry for them. For someone who had just been told they could never go back to their old home, Sirocco was surprisingly chipper. It was a beautiful growth-time day and the great deal of internalized suffering that the grey tom possessed was not going to get in the way of his smelling the flowers and greeting each passing stray. He was Sirocco, the great cat of the trade winds! It was not in his nature to let his agony show, he was not self-interested, he was humble! And extremely proud of this. So Sirocco the great had hopped onto the back of one of the trucks loading at the docks and prepared himself for his next adventure. What he had not prepared for however, was waking up with another cat by his side. A grey cat, older and far paler than he, was winding his way around the bed of the truck. His tail was a bottle brush and with every pothole hit he hissed violently despite not seeming to move.
"When did you get here?" Sirocco mewed, trying to keep any note of accusation out of his voice. The other tom whirled around to face him, his face alight with surprise.
"I- You can see me?" "Apparently," purred Sirocco.
"You look lost, can I help you?" The tom twitched as the truck hit another bump in the road.
"I-I'm not sure. I was in the forest and then something happened... Malloweyes...nnn." The tom scrunched his eyes closed, whether trying to remember or to forget Sirocco didn't know.
"Something happened. I think I died? And then just darkness. Salmoncress, Dunpond- what season is it?" The tom's mew had grown increasingly distressed as he spoke and Sirocco had to take a step back to take it all in.
"You're dead?" He gasped,
"But you're here!" The dead tom, the ghost, shrugged helplessly.
"I don't know. I just have to get back to Beechclan and hope everyone else is alright." Sirocco felt his heart go out to this tom. Ghost or not no one should be separated from their home.
"I'll help you," he offered.
"I don't have anywhere else to go. And it sounds like this is important to you." The nervous tom's muzzle broke into a smile of utter relief.
"Really? Oh thank you so much. I'm Stormripple." "Sirocco. Now let's see if we can find Beechclan."Thanks to Stormripple's unnatural lock onto his home forest and Sirocco's knack for predicting what direction a vehicle was heading, the pair managed to truck hop their way from sea to forest. It took them nearly a moon but both Sirocco and Stormripple were unmovable when they had their mind set on a goal. So days and days later they found themselves standing in a crooked beech forest, quivering with excitement and trying not to cry.
"This is the place," Stormripple whispered, as if he was afraid of speaking any louder.
"We're home." The tom led Sirocco past the flooded stream, to the place where he had proposed to his mates, and- holding his breath- to Beechclan camp. It was deserted. Even the scents were stale and overlain by that of other cats.
"They aren't here. No one's here." Sirocco tried to think of something comforting to say to his friend. That they would keep searching, or that maybe it was the wrong forest. But neither of those sentiments felt natural on his tongue. But maybe,
"Hey Stormripple-" "See I told you I scented a new cat. No I'm not smelly- you are!" Sirocco was interrupted by the arrival of an orange tabby tom.
"Oh hello!" The tom called.
"I'm Resinstar of Clayclan and you are...single? Hopefully?" Sirocco twitched his whiskers in amusement.
"Sirocco. And not interested, sorry. But maybe you can help me? I'm looking for Beechclan?" Resinstar sighed as if he was expecting that response, then turning to the air besides him mewed,
"Shush you. I'm a catch- Oh sorry not you Sirocco. I was talking to...um long story actually. Beechclan isn't here anymore but I lead Clayclan. Do you happen to have an invisible cat following you around too?" Taken aback by Resinstar's quick pinpointing of the situation Sirocco nodded.
"Why don't you come with me to camp? Driftstep, Claywhistle, Sorrelstar, and I can fill you in." After exchanging glances with Stormripple Sirocco agreed and followed the tom into the trees. He got the feeling that his life was probably going to be very weird from there on in.
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「Resinstar and Gustpond go hunting
Driftstep looks for herbs」
