The night was silent. The air was still, the leaves still, and the sky overcast and murky. A mass of wet cloud covered the stars, trapping the heat of the day against the ground, and leaving anything living covered in icy sweat. But they were few and far between. The land, even the dark silhouettes of the trees, were gone in the dark of the moon. The blackness was complete.
By the forest edge, the reeds around a pool shifted, allowing something passage onto the flat area that marked the edge of the water. It stopped, its gaze looking deep into the dark water. The surface was not moved by a ripple. It was still, untouched by wind, light, or flesh in the night. The watcher was also still. Movement in the stillness would bring the attentions of others. Others, whose stirring would bring things the watcher did not want to find, seekers moving in gloom. The gaze on the water did not shift, it stayed. It waited.
The night grew darker, a seeping blackness which penetrated the thickest hide, and the strongest mind. It drenched the land in a flow of nocturne space, thick and clammy against the life in the marshes. Nothing stirred.
The watcher grew weary, as heat and mist invaded its thoughts. Reflexes slowed, as the nervous system slowly shut down in the night.
A single ripple disturbed the stillness of the pool.
The watcher blinked, its gaze for a moment veiling the thin wave crossing the water, towards it. It was time.
The watcher turned to the north, seeing the just-visible shape in the night. The black spot against the darkness. Mothermouth. The watcher slowly stood up, and padded silently into the reeds, its footsteps making no sound, muffled and choked by the dark. It did not take long to reach the blackest part of the night. The cave in the rocks, the square entrance to a darker place. The watcher stopped, letting the beats of its heart slow. None could stand before Mothermouth without feeling the icy fear, only worsening the sickly heat of the night. But the watcher could not wait. At last, it padded into the blackness, feeling the hard stone beneath it. There was nothing to be seen. The keenest eye could not penetrate the gloom here. Only memory took the one to tread this path to its destination. The watcher moved forward, not allowing its mind to panic. Not allowing the instinctive terror of the unknown to grip, calling the mindless fear. No. There would be a chance to run later. Perhaps.
For what time the watcher travelled, it did not know. The air grew colder, leaving behind the hot night as it descended into the darker depths of the world. The panic was close now, barely held in check as memory failed and the watcher brushed against the narrowing walls of the cave. It knew it would be soon now. But the rising fear milked eternity.
At least, the watcher felt the space widen, and saw a blaze of light which pained the eyes adjusted to the dark. Shaking in the cold, the watcher moved into the chamber, letting its vision clear. It was a vast crystal in the center of the chamber, its glow throwing deep shadows of the watcher against the walls. Its shape was finally made clear. A cat, huge for its kind, covered in dark fur. Its amber eyes widened. The energy was wrong here. Its destination was beyond the light, at the farthest point of the cave. The cat padded around the edge of the chamber, shunning the light. Reaching the far side, it stood at the entrance to its own destiny, its long shadow looming against the dark stone of the passage. It curved out of sight, and what lay at the end the cat did not know.
It entered, and was swallowed again by the darkness. The air grew even colder, as its paws skidded against the down turned slope of rock. A chill beyond that of the night pierced the cat. There was something old here. Very old. Perhaps older then the rocks on which the cat stood. The ancient entity stirred, feeling another being in its domain. Fear grew in the cat as it felt cold thought touch him, the power awakening. The cat felt it consider it.
At last it reached the end of the passage, reaching another chamber. The air still, musty, and damp. It looked forward, and saw what it had come for. A shadow, blacker than the darkness it stood in, shifted. It warped, growing larger at the end of the cave. At last a huge form towered over the watcher, its shape vaguely catlike. It had been a cat once. Now it was something else.
The cat crouched low, staying still and silent. The shadow watched it, letting its gaze remain still over the cat. Terror mounted.
At last, it spoke. "So, you have come." The voice was sibilant and empty, timeless. "You took my sign. You accepted the path."
The cat was silent. The shadow continued. "I am The Cat of the Dark Forest. The Fifth, enemy of Starclan. I am here… I believe you know why I am here."
The cat did. It still said nothing.
"I have a task for you. Do it well, and I will be pleased."
The cat waited.
"Fire must always die back, shadow replacing light, surely?"
The cat still waited.
"Speak!"
More terror pierced the watcher. "Y-yes, my lord."
"Then go! Let the flames fall back into the void. Leave me."
The cat was puzzled. It has not received its task yet.
"And if the fire burns, you will enter the void instead." The cat felt an icy touch, a deep shocking pain that pierced, seared, and chilled it to the bone. The cat's eyes shut, feeling waves of dark energy shaking through its body. It was done. "You see?"
"Yes, my lord," replied the cat. The evil pulsed in the cat, forming dark and ugly thoughts from dreams in black abyss of unconscious. It was growing, growing, a shadow rising above the cat, the light fading… forever. And the terror finally escaped the grip of sanity, taking control, and consuming the cat in mindless fear. It turned, and blindly ran, through the lit chamber and through the darkness, the endless suffocating darkness, onward further, away from the shadow in the depths. At last the cat burst out of Mothermouth, to lie, spent, in the grass.
And the clouds opened, pouring an endless downpour of water into the still night. Now the wind grew, sweeping the grass, rattling the drenched trees, and blowing over the fur of the cat, who rose to its paws. Thunder boomed, and the spears of pure energy, lightning, danced in the night. The flashes illuminated the land, waves of rain pounded into the ground, fires lit as the lightening struck terra firma. All was struck by the primordial fist of chaos.
Tigerclaw smiled.