PROMPT 8Username: QueenOfWyrms
Clan:
GroveclanWord count: 554
Prompt:
A chill breeze whispered through the trees, setting the leaves ashiver. Within the camp even the kits slept, none waking to see the beauty of the starlight night. No guard watched the entrance, for there was nothing yet they had come to fear. Behind ivy drapery in a hollow of stone, one cat stirred; now-familiar callings dragging her from a deep sleep in the warm embrace of her mate. Her eyes opened, if had had looked they would have seen naught but the stars in her gaze. Across the grassy clearing, a sweet keen awakened another who slept alone in an long-gone predator's den, shielded from the cold of the night by a blanket of leaves. The two each arose, one disentangling herself from her lover, the other sweeping aside stray herbs that awaited organization on the morrow; her gaze, too, reflected only Starpelt. They stepped in unison, padding out of their dens and into the moonlit night. The two mollies walked out of camp, slow and steady as if in a trance. The lull of the stars had called them, and as their sacred duty they would answer. To the north they moved, heading further out, and soon they began to climb further up. They had reached the first step of the Moon Ridge. At the fullest face of the moon, the light washed over the Ridge in it's full glory. One, as is the right of the medicine cat, stopped on the first ridge, turning towards the moon and closing her eyes, waiting for her leader to be in place. The other molly, the leader, climbed her way to the ninth step, the journey representing her nine lives, with each lost, for age or battle or sickness, she would earn a lower step. She too turned to face the moon, it's light shining into her eyes. Gently, softly, slowly, she closed them.
In an instant, the night around them warmed and they looked on at a great crowd of familiar and unfamiliar cats--Starclan. In the foremost position stood Glacierdust, the Guide. He greeted them each in turn, and they spoke of happenings in the last moon. The two living mollies of those matters which they knew in the living world, and Glacierdust of those that could only be seen from the gaze of the stars. When they were done, and all to speak of was spoken of, the gathered cats around them stepped forward and they all lifted their voices in song; the song was one of heart, of the moon, of the stars, of life, of death, of all that comes after. Throughout the song, the cats began to fade, the oldest and wanest first and then the younger until only the Guide remained. Some would never return, having moved on to a place of green pastures and rivers of milk and honey. The rest they would see again, for a time. Only the Guide was eternal, and even he would join them when the very last cat breathed his very last breath.
For now, the two mollies gave their good-byes to Glacierdust and he to them. Their eyes opened and they returned to the living world. Carefully, they made their way back to the camp as false dawn lit the horizon, rested as though they had spent the time asleep.