username: orbiting
cat name: willowflight
gender: female
age: 48 moons
clan: orbitclan
rank: warrior
prompt:
the seasons may change, as will your life
things will come and go like the wind,
and as quickly as you love things, they may melt away from you like snow.
but there is always one thing constant in your ever changing destiny:
night will always become day, and the sun will never cease to rise if only to shine on you,
so thank it by taking it's brilliance with you as you go upon the day it's blessed you with.
Willowflight shuddered. Tonight was colder than usual, and it made her paws numb, the path underneath her buzzing with every step she took. Her breath billowed out from her in shallow clouds and rose into the snowy atmosphere, disappearing into an unforgiving winter sky.
She stumbled through the snow, feeling every step drain her of heat.
Her clan had been without sun for the last 2 moonpassings; the sky had turned grey and rained snow for hours upon end, engulfing the cats of her clan in sheets of freezing snow. The sun was there; hidden behind the cold, sheltered by the winter clouds. No cat had ever recalled seeing a winter as bad as this, and it installed in each cat's heart a fear.
In one cat's heart, however, it gave way to something else: determination.
The cat was a young apprentice named Duskpaw. And Duskpaw, before leaving her camp to face the bold, unforgiving winter, had told her fellow apprentices that she was going to speak to Starclan, and beg for them to give back the sun.
It was a valiant effort. But the cave that held the crystal that allowed cats to speak with their ancestors was a long journey; and left to her own devices, it was obvious the young apprentice would not make it.
Willowflight had been the cat chosen to bring her back.
She'd made it halfway when the chills had become too loud to ignore, stabbing at her skin underneath her fur. Her eyes begged her to close them, shielding them from the cold; and every step became a mile, for her legs had nearly froze.
An apprentice, a cat half her size, with half her fur would not have made it this far.
Each breath was fire. Everything in her told her to turn back. Maybe if she turned back now, she would be able to make it back to her camp.
But she'd come too far. Returning now, without the beloved apprentice by her side, would not only rack her clan but leave her broken in grief. She pressed on.
Like a raven in a snowstorm, the black lump of fur stood out against the field of white it laid on. The fur of the collapsed apprentice blew violently in the breeze. Duskpaw's limbs were sprawled out in all directions, eyes shut.
Willowflight bounded over to her, her limbs begging her to stop or they might rip off;
when she approached the apprentice, the relief to see her flank slowly rising and falling was enough to instill her with enough motivation that she was able to grab the apprentice by the scruff, pulling her from her place in the fallen snow.
Duskpaw voiced no objections. The cat was lifeless underneath her jaw, and Willowflight knew she had very little time.
She dragged the apprentice through the snow, leaving a sad trail from the spot where she'd been found.
How long had she been there, like that? Lying freezing in the unrelenting cold? The night was nearly over, and yet, the cold hadn't ceased but instead grown stronger. Tomorrow's day would be one of the worst they'd ever have to face.
"Come on," Willowflight mewed to the apprentice, if not to herself, "Come on."
The wind picked up more steadily now, bringing it's frost with it. It blasted Willowflight from both sides, and left her staggering, swaying back and forth uneasily.
The clan was still so far away, yet -
She wouldn't make it.
She thought it and knew it to be true, the realization as her legs stopped working and her ears nearly caught fire from the chill, her nerves nearly severed from the sheer calamity of the weather, that even with the dying apprentice in her mouth and a flame of determination in her heart, she would fall into the snow, bringing Duskpaw down with her, and succumb to it, making the spot she laid among the snowflakes her final tomb.
She collapsed after 3 more steps.
A little more, she thought, a little more.
Duskpaw's breathing slowed down to nearly nothing next to her, and Willowflight had a thought, that if she could not save herself she could save her clan's future.
Slowly, and with the last of her strength, she climbed over the apprentice, opening herself up to the harsh wind and wrapping around Duskpaw like a blanket. The warmth from her body fled into the young cat's beneath her, and while Willowflight felt herself fading away, the young apprentice began stirring underneath her.
"The sun," Duskpaw mewed as Willowflight slowly lost her consciousness.
Duskpaw mewed something else, but Willowflight could no longer hear her, her body falling into shock.
She dreamed of flowers blooming underneath a sweltering sun and a clear blue sky, a river flowing full of fish jumping in and out of it, warming their scales; of her clan all together under the sun, taking in it's rays and becoming one under it's sky.
She opened her eyes, and suddenly, it wasn't a dream anymore.
Above Willowflight was a pure blue sky, and in the middle of it, the sun, shining more bright with more flare than ever -
around her, the snow was melting rapidly, giving way to the grass; somewhere in the distance, the lake, once frozen, now began swimming back to life.
She looked around. It seemed the snow was not the only thing melting; her limbs slowly regained their power as they were thawed by the sun, and as she took in a breath, her lungs seemed to be doing the same.
Underneath her, Duskpaw stirred, woken by the sun for the first time in moons.
"They listened," She gasped. "It's back. The sun is back, Willowflight!"
Willowflight found nothing in herself to reply, stuck gazing out at the infinite sky above her, stunning and crystalline blue.
She broke into a smile.
Staring at the sky, her eyes burning under the sun's warmth, she mewed to herself softly, "Thank you."
