Despite it being the middle of greenleaf, the night air was cold to the point of sharpness, and the sky bled dark gray clouds where the ice had cut across its surface. In the shadow of a thorn bush, a snow-furred feline sat watching the movement of the forest below. Like a fearsome bird of prey, he perched on his hilltop vantage point, unaffected by the frigid air. When a sheer wind swept through his fur and stole the leaves from several trees, the tom merely shook his pelt and braced against the cold.
"Well aren't you mysterious, sitting out here all by yourself. What are you even looking at? Don't pretend you can actually see what's going on down there." A voice scoffed in the background before its owner, a dark tabby cat with playful green eyes, emerged through the grass.
The white cat let out a soft sigh before glancing over his shoulder as the tabby joined him. In the darkness of the shrouded moon, they looked almost identical in shape and size. Even their voices contained the same low and eery tone.
"If there's nothing to see out here, then why did you come?" Castor, the white tom, murmured.
"Pure boredom, of course. And Dawn's snoring." The tabby chuckled back, before sucking in a sharp gasp as another breeze swept by and nearly knocked him off his paws. "Great Starclan, you've been out here in this wind?! Wasp was right. You really do have bees for brains."
Castor shook a loose blade of windblown grass from his head. In the nighttime calm, he could hear his brother's heartbeat like that of a mouse; fragile and frantic. The tom was nervous.
"Worried about tomorrow?" Castor quipped, smirking when his unexpected question made his striped littermate jump.
"Worried? Why would I be—" The tabby paused, frowned, then shook his head and laughed. "Sharp as always… Are you saying you aren't? I've lost track of how many seasons it's been since we last saw the clans."
"Four and a half, to be exact." The white tom answered.
The tabby stared at him before clicking his tongue in exasperation. "How very like you to know that."
"Don't be jealous, Flux. It's not attractive." Castor meowed, but he did not stop to listen to his brother's indignant reply, for he had picked up on the presence of another.
Wanting to wrap things up with his littermate quickly, he went on. "Anyways, there's no need to be nervous. If you're fearful that the clans won't be willing to forgive our past crimes, don't be. We only need the acceptance of one of the four, after all. Once they see that forgiveness is to their advantage, step one will be complete." He paused, thoughtful, before continuing. "Of course, I can only hope that this is why you're worrying, and not because you're still doubting the choices we made in the past…" Piercing blue eyes directed themselves at Flux, and the tabby shrank beneath his brother's gaze.
"No. No, of course not." Flux swallowed, before asserting more confidently, "I'm just excited to finally put an end to everything once and for all."
Castor smiled and nodded. "Good, that's the spirit."
Then the thorn bush rustled, and a golden she-cat emerged, fur lighting up under the moonlight as the clouds began to break. Her sudden appearance caused Flux, who had not detected her presence, to puff up in alarm, only for the tom to exhale in relief once he recognized the newcomer.
"You two aren't the only ones looking to right wrongs from the past." The she-cat remarked evenly.
"Dawn! Are you trying to scare the pelt off of me?! Where are your manners, sneaking up on an innocent body like that?" Flux scowled, embarrassed at being caught off-guard.
Dawn flicked one perfect golden ear before sniffing dismissively at the riled tom. "Your brother noticed my presence, so why didn't you? Honestly, are you two really related?"
"We had different fathers." Castor replied grimly, and Dawn cast him a glance of sympathy that Flux guffawed at.
"Alright, well, if you two have had your fun, I'll be going to sleep now. Seeing as Dawn won't be keeping me awake with that awful snoring that she calls 'breathing'." The dark tabby huffed, rising to his paws and making a big show of exiting the scene.
Castor chuckled, but once his brother had traveled out of earshot, his gaze turned serious and he leveled with the golden she-cat.
"It's not your turn for watch duty tonight, so what is it? Is it because Wasp is on-guard?"
His intuition set the she-cat on edge, and her tail-tip twitched with mild irritation.
"Why are you so nosy? Maybe I just couldn't sleep. I'm not the only one who can't. Tomorrow's a big day." She growled, although she knew she didn't have to tell Castor that, of all cats.
The white tom shrugged, unmoved by the other's temper.
"As I was saying before you changed the subject," he stared at her pointedly, "if you're having trouble sleeping because Wasp isn't with you, I already told him I'd take his shift once the clouds broke. If you don't want him noticing that you stayed up waiting for him, you ought to go to your nest now."
Castor's words had a visible effect on the she-cat, for she puffed up in a mixture of alarm and embarrassment, green eyes wide with denial.
"What are you talking about?! Who-who says I need Wasp to fall asleep? I'm a full grown cat, I can sleep on my own just fine! Who are you to go off saying this and that like you know me?! Huh?!" She spat, all the while transitioning between expressions of anger and joy, humiliation and gratitude.
After her exclamation, there was a pause in the conversation where Castor merely looked at the she-cat. Dawn bit her tongue, glowering at the tom, before finally giving the slightest, subtlest nod.
"But… if you insist, I mean. I might as well." Quickly, the golden tabby turned tail, skin burning red beneath her thick pelt. "And if you expect me to thank you, don't! And I don't like Wasp, either! So don't push it, you nosy heap of snow!"
She vanished into the shadows, and Castor flicked his whiskers in amusement. I never said you liked him, he thought quietly.
Now alone once more, the tom took a second to enjoy the frozen silence of night even as his thoughts whispered about the long-awaited plan that would finally come into effect once the sun rose. Flux was not the only one who'd been excited. Castor's blood was racing beneath his serene complexion. Come morning, he and the others would set off down the hill and into the forest in pursuit of a goal that he had spent his entire life preparing for.
Closing his eyes, Castor pictured those first steps down through the trees and onto the path of fate. When he opened them again, he rose and started towards where Wasp was sitting guard. The black and white tom had been more than happy to accept Castor's unusually generous offer, oblivious to the tom's true intentions. The white feline was not so amicable as to commit random acts of kindness, nor was he known for his tendency to hand out favors. He merely wished to observe the rising dawn, the coming of day when the sun would ascend from the ruins of the earth up into the glorious sky, bleeding its light across the sanguine horizon.
He could practically taste it now. The sky would drip with iron roses, and what a red sky it would be.