The moon shone proudly above the thickly leaved woodlands flanking the glistening lake. Protruding light bounced off the body of water's elegant surface, casting a brilliant light that even reached hundreds of feet into the open, starry band of the sky.
Suddenly, breaking the silence of the night, a whir of machined noise sounded. A twirling wooden blue box hurtled through the night sky, wisps of transparent gas hardly visible as the box streaked through the sky. Almost as instantly as the box had appeared, it vanished as it fell down to earth's wooded surface.
The doors to the box opened with an eerily quick screech, and a tall, thin man leaned out to take a look down. His brown eyes widened impressively as the surface of the lake became clearer and clearer, and hesitantly, he darted back into the main control room of the apparent Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, or TARDIS, if you'd fancy an alias.
The blue box shook with a terrible groan. The man inside had swung the wooden doors shut, stuck a grayish beam of some sort in his teeth, and was weirdly holding onto the control table with both his hands and feet. With a triumphant yell, the tall man leaped from the control panel and let the box itself tumble down quickly, yet safely, to the earth's surface. The insides of the TARDIS trembled and quaked; a few parts of the coral-like desktop managed to crumble from their posts, tumbling down to the floor of the machine. Disappointedly the man once again placed his large hands on the controls, flipped a few random switches, and pulled back a small lever, which amusingly took much effort.
"Allons-y!" Came the wily cry, followed by a few grunts as the TARDIS fell down onto the earth's surface. It fell down through many great oak branches, breaking any sort of natural plant in its way. No windows broke in the TARDIS' fall from the skies, but strangely, the insides of the time traveling machine seemed to teem with paranormal light. In some sort of daze the man rose to his feet, dusting his hands off, before quickly crumbling down to the cold floor of the room. In an imperative manner, the lights in the room dimmed respectfully, and all was silent.
The being came to hours later. The lights in the TARDIS had returned, though only faintly, and the pale gray light of dawn shone through the clean windows of the box. Grumbling to himself in an inaudible fashion he wearily rose his hand up to his head to scratch his wild, soft brown hair, but found nothing but a soft path of fur. Instantly he has up on his feet-err, paws-and rushed towards the nearest mirror. Funny, I remembered being taller than this, he thought as he scoured the room for a reflective object.
In a matter of minutes he had found a reflecting mirror that was at his height. The former human was shocked to see his strong-jawed bone structure had vanished, and was replaced by a neatly shaped cheek adorned with brown, striped fur, and a muzzle instead of a flat human face. "I'm a cat!" He exclaimed with an almost child-like amusement, and in morbid curiosity turned aside to take a peek at the rest of his body. He was evidently a tabby cat, hence the many mottled black stripes that laced over his brown coat, and a long, whippy tail poked out from behind his hindquarters.
"Blimey, I don't think I've ever been a felidae before," the feline said in daft mirth. "I've only recalled looking human; never any other sort of alien or animal or parasi-oh, you know what I mean, don't you, reflection?" The tabby tom crowed to the mirror, his pale amber eyes gleaming in glee. "I think we should take a look outside - where there's forest, there's wildlife."
It took some time before the bold cat had managed to open the doors to the TARDIS. It took long enough trying to find the right button to press on the control panel without accidentally hitting another with his clumsy hind-paws, which he still felt aloof upon, dawdling over himself every other heartbeat. When he stepped out of the blue box's ajar wooden doors, he was temporarily blinded by the proud sunlight which was drawling down from above the foliage.
Merrily the cat strode down and leaped onto the trampled sprouts of red bracken and crushed brush. He without hesitation lifted his head up and took a large whiff of the forest. "No human's stepped here for a long while!" He said in astonishment, peering around the undergrowth with interested manners. "But there are lots of animals here," he concluded, his fuzzy brow furrowing in thoughtfulness.
He began to stalk through the undergrowth, his brown tabby pelt blending in perfectly with the many patches of thorny brambles and shaggy hazel bushes. After what seemed like only mere heartbeats he found the scent of a vole. In fear of interfering with the wildlife here, and giving them a surprise by leaping up to them and questioning them as their predator, a felidae, he decided to call out to the vole.
"Little vole?" He called almost sheepishly, his neat ears flicking in delight; he was speaking to a vole! "I know you're there," he called a bit more softly, soothing his accented tone so that it was comfortable and welcoming to any critter. He stood still for a bit before continuing. "I'm the Doctor, and I mean no harm to you, I just want to ask you a few questions." The Doctor tried again. A crestfallen expression fell upon the feline's features.
Impatiently he shuffled his dark paws over the messy forest floor, unable to control the constant twitching of his black-tipped tail, and uncontrollable to the incomputable wincing of his pale amber eyes. Just as the Doctor was about to turn tail and leave, a small, fuzzy brown head popped out from the undergrowth. Its beady brown eyes narrowed slightly at the Doctor, as if it were considering running from its predator.
Before the vole was able to lunge back into its hiding spot, the Doctor spotted it. "Oh, hello! I'm the Doctor. I somehow crashed here on my time machine and turned into a cat - so I mean you no harm!" He said in a warm tone of voice, his eyes sparkling in honesty. The little critter seemed to buy his act of warmth and leaped out of the bracken, its tiny, plump body blending in well with the foliage behind it.
"You're not like the other killers around here," the vole squeaked. The Doctor silently yelled to himself in delight when the vole opened its mouth to chatter back; he really was communicating with a rodent! But, at the vole's last words, he stopped his delighted venting. "Killers?" He asked, his broad head tilting to the side. "There are cats that scourge this forest. They kill innocent animals and bring their bodies back to their camp to gloat over their victory," the rodent's tone was painfully sour, causing the Doctor to flinch very slightly. "Maybe I can get a word to them?" he tried, flashing a hopeful look towards his conversational vole.
"You can try," groaned the vole. "They send out parties of variously-colored cats at dawn, when the sun shines highest, and nightfall. You can try to coax them then," said the morsel. Thoughtfully the Doctor let his sandy tongue press against his upper layer of teeth, now fangs, and raised himself to his flat paws. "I'll try!" he chirped, letting his wiry tail lift up into the air. The Doctor swung around and threw a comment over his shoulder, "Keep your eyes peeled. I don't want to see you dead before I get to even see these killers."
The Doctor had roused around the forest for a few hours now - no sign of feline activity. He had heard a few voices every so often, presumably the little morsels hiding in the brush, trying to take cover as the Doctor strode by them. Distinctively he didn't like roaming around and finding nothing. His patience was being driven from him. In spite of his driven patience, every time he felt the need to return to his TARDIS, he was intrigued by the beauty of the hanging vines roping from the oak trees, or perhaps persuaded to stay on track as he saw pretty patches of jasmine or stinging nettle bouncing up from the soil.
The Doctor was leaping up a slope dappled with patches of bright green bushes and shrubs, skirting the edges of mighty red oak trees. This forest was a beauty, truly, and had the Doctor trapped in a normal paradox; not one of time vortexes and endless catapulting through various dimensional universes. Just as he was about to leap over a fallen, mossy sorrel tree, he heard a growl from behind him. "Who are you, and what are you doing on ThunderClan territory?"
Dun-dun-dun. This is my first FanFiction, and one of my first stories. I don't write often, so it may be a little bit rusty and under-experienced. But, I tried! Doctor Who and Warriors are my favorite fandoms, and I decided to combine them both to make me feel good; and hopefully make my readers feel good, too! I'm also sorry that this chapter is rather short, I promise the next chapter will be longer!