The night was cold.
It was dark and lonely, and the only things that could be heard was the howling of the wind hitting the rocks and the low hooting of an owl in the distance. The moonlight swept unfiltered through the camp, dim and illuminating the ground, which was hard from moons of continuously being treaded on.
The night was long.
It stretched on, and if it had not been for the many times that she had woken up to toss herself over, Russetpaw would not have even noticed. Russetpaw woke up slowly for the tenth time it felt, yawning and stretching. She stood up and shivered, then lay back down and curled into a tight ball. She sat up again, ears alert. She felt the absence of a warm body next to her own and this concerned her. Where was Riverpaw?
She reluctantly padded out of the warmth of her den and into the chilled clearing in search of her littermate. She found the small tom crouched in the moonlight by the even smaller stream that ran along the rocks encasing the camp. He sat in one of the ditches they used to keep the water from flooding the camp when it rained.
"Riverpaw," she called, drawing out his name sleepily. "What're you doing out here alone? We should be sleeping."
He didn't look up, but stared at the water pooling around his feet.
"Your feet are getting all wet, let's go back to our den," she said, nudging him with her side.
Finally, he looked up. Russetpaw shivered, but not from the obvious cold surrounding them both. She shivered from the cold resonating within his blue eyes. He looked worried, but also dazed and unfocused. The only thing she could use to describe the look in his eyes wholly was 'starry.'
She almost jumped when he started to speak; he had been staring at her for so long. "Russetpaw," he said softly. "Something bad is coming. Something horrible. It's a...a..."
Russetpaw swallowed. "A what?"
"A catastrophe."
He looked back at the water.
"I know it….I saw it in the sky."
"In the sky? But you're staring at the ground, Riverpaw." Russetpaw sat down next to him. Clearly he wasn't going to escape to the warmth of their den any time soon.
"All the water in the world is connected. Even the water in the sky," he said even quieter.
Russetpaw looked bewildered. She raised her head to the stars, trying to see if it was raining. It had rained the previous night, causing most of the territory to be reduced to mud, but it hadn't since. "Water in the sky?" she shook her head. "N-Nevermind. Riverpaw, what was it about this catastrophe that was coming?"
Riverpaw sneezed. He stood up and stretched, looking over at Russetpaw sleepily. "What catastrophe?" he asked in a bored tone. "What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
Russetpaw blinked. "Y-Yes, but you were just-!"
He bumped her in the side with his haunches as he made his way to the apprentice den.. Causing her to lose her balance and nearly fall over. "C'mon, let's go back to sleep."
She looked confused. "But! Oh, alright," she said grumpily. She ran up to walk besides him. "But if this gets us all killed, it's your fault for not telling me." He ducked his head into the stone of the den and flicked his tail, motioning her to follow him. She ducked her head too, but her foot caught in a wound vine that had been creeping down the stone entrance for weeks now. She shook her leg in an attempt to throw it off, but it stuck hard to her. She reached down and took the vine between her teeth, then pulled on it hard. It released her foot, but the vine has been attached to a huge pile of vines entangling a mound of dirt. But, since it had been raining, the mound was softer and more dense, and as she pulled on the vine the whole thing came tumbling down.
"Aah!"
The mound of earth hit her squarely on her back, knocking her to the ground and splattering her with mud. She stood up after a dazed moment and shook the cold weight off her shoulders. Her once soft, red and brown fur was now wet and dripping with discolored muck and twisting vines.
"Ah! This is...This is a-" She felt too horrified to even finish speaking. She grimaced at her fur, thinking about how long this would take to wash out until she heard laughter.
"A catastrophe?" Riverpaw laughed out, finishing her sentence. He rolled on the ground outside the apprentice's den, shaking with laughter.
Russetpaw squinted her eyes and swished her tail irritably on the ground. "I guess-hey! Did you know this was going to happen?" she asked, but he was giggling his way into the den.
She chased after him, growling lightly. "Hey! Riverpaw! Answer me!"
Any previous worry was gone. If that was the only horrible catastrophe that was going to occur, then the two apprentices would sleep peacefully tonight.
