The river wove its usual aggravating way under the windowsill every day of every week of every season. Well, not that Felicity knew much about the changing of seasons, being as she was five moons old. Five moons old, young enough to almost get stepped on by the twolegs if they weren't looking, old enough to be able to think like an almost-adult cat. 'Almost' being the key word there.
Felicity's Perch had been so named because Felicity liked to perch there. It was one of the large windowsills that ran the length of the walls, which were rough grey stone. He would sit on the window and look out, at the wheel churning up the water into yellow froth. The darkness sometimes would be impenetrable to even his sensitive eyes, but the gentle rushing of the water would always be there.
"There you are, girl!" said the twoleg voice behind him. He twisted, emitting a plaintive mew . The twoleg was holding a food bowl. Felicity, of course, couldn't understand the twoleg or ask why he'd been given such an inappropriate name.
Felicity leapt from the sill, landing with a thunk on the stained wooden floor. He wove his way through chairs and the spindly legs of a table, to the food bowl that had now been placed beside the door.
His mother was there, too, an elderly cat with a drooping tail. Felicity had been one of her last litter, and now she would drift into retirement, never swimming in the river again and remaining instead on the armchairs dotted around the room.
The cat beside the bowel was alike to Felicity in colour – all white, with a spray of dark red fur creating a plume like tail and a similarly coloured cap on her head. She had deep blue eyes, the blue of a very clear deep pool, which got darker the further you peered into it. Felicity's eyes were bright amber. Both cats had the fine, medium length silky fur characteristic of their breed, the Turkish Van.
"Mum," Felicity asked as soon as his mother finished with the water bowl, "does the wheel ever stop?"
"It stopped once," his mother said, casting him a gauging, level look. "A long time ago, the river ran dry and the wheel ground to a halt." Her eyes grew distant, and Felicity fancied he could see the memories pass over their blue like clouds over the sky. "That was the worst greenleaf for twenty years – my own mother told me that."
Felicity looked blank. He'd been born in early greenleaf, and now that it was leaf-fall, unusually cold and damp, he had to say that greenleaf was anything but a bad season. His memories were full of clear green light, gentle rains and warmth you could curl up in. "Oh yeah," he scoffed, "greenleaf is the best season, how could it dry up a river?"
His mother blinked sharply, banishing the memory clouds. "Watch your tongue around me, kitten," she warned sternly. Felicity ducked his head. His mother could deal a mean blow to the ears when provoked or spoken rudely to. It had earned her the name 'Snapper' from the twolegs, but in general she was just referred to as the 'wheel cat'.
"Yes, mother," Felicity said, ducking his head and inching forwards to inspect the food they'd been given. A mixture of wet and dry. Wet was okay, but dry was hopeless.
"That greenleaf," his mother went on, like there hadn't been an interruption, "you have to imagine it. Heat. Light. It became too hot for a cat to sun herself, and your grandfather even died from the heat. The river sank lower and lower in the absence of rain."
Unfolding in Felicity's mind was a brilliant world, where the cat who fell asleep in a patch of sunlight did not wake up, where the blue of the sky became harsh and hated, taunting his grandmother and grandfather and his mother (who had been very young then) with the memory of the river they no longer had to swim in.
Felicity glanced back at the window, at his perch. "Where does the river come from?"
"The mountains," his mother said knowledgeably.
Felicity scanned the square of sky for mountains, but there were none visible. The thick banks of pearly clouds had once again enveloped the pale blue of the morning sky. He looked back at his mother, who was walking away, her tail dragging on the wooden boards and picking up dust. She leapt onto an armchair and curled up.
He ran after her. "Mum! Where are the mountains."
"Ask later," came the muffled reply. His mother had covered her nose with her sagging tail. Felicity stared crossly at her for a second, then finished his meal and returned to his Perch. Looking down, he could see the dark green-blue rush of water.
Flash.
Felicity blinked and pressed his nose to the pane of glass. Something silver had flashed in the water. There it was again! He saw for the briefest of seconds a silvery elongated body. A fish. Felicity's heart began to pound with excitement. Screw crappy dry meals, fish was what he wanted. The twoleg had opened the window earlier. With the usual lack of forethought commonly displayed by young cats, he leapt.
Balancing on the top of the window, half in and half out, Felicity saw his mother stir. Her eyes travelled from him to the wheel endlessly churning a metre beyond. The pupils dilated with panic. She tried to get up, but her old body failed her and she collapsed back onto the armchair. "No, Felicity!" she yowled.
Felicity looked back, saw the panic on his mother's face. Then several unlucky things happened at once – he'd turned to look too fast, and that caused him to overbalance. He fell from the window – and into the river, landing with a splash in the darkest and deepest section. Although, with a load of luck, he'd missed the wheel and was now being borne away from it.
The river was not like the swimming pool the twolegs kept in their back garden. That was clear and clean and stationary. This was like a living entity, pushing and pushing him. Long before he grew short of breath, the river had whipped him completely out of sight of his house, the large barn and the back garden.
Felicity was pushed onto his side, his legs and tail devoid of strength and bent like broken sticks. His mouth gaped in a silent scream. His eyes remained open – he saw waterweed rushing past, forests of fallen branches and the silver flash and ripple of fish. The coldness of the water bit him to the bone.
He'd just begun to regain his bearings and was paddling strongly when something struck him from behind with crippling force, spinning him around. Something else hit him hard, this time on the front right paw. He yowled silently into the water as his paw became limp.
Now he was being battered, struck from every angle. He had actually drifted into a shallow section of the river, out of which protruded a multitude of hard rocks.
He would have been sucked right past RiverClan territory had it not been for the warrior in the water, teaching his apprentice to swim. Felicity bowelled into the apprentice, taking her with him. The warrior yowled and leapt in after them.
By now, the river had waned from a mad, chaotic torrent and to a shallow, gentle curve of water that bordered the avalanche of bounders known as sunningrocks and RiverClan territory. The warrior, a brindled tom, paddled strongly and seized his apprentice, a small black she-cat, by the scruff of the neck and hurled her from the water and onto the rocks. Then he went back for Felicity.
A minute later, the warrior was standing over them both. He knew he was in enemy territory, but he couldn't risk carrying the unconscious adolescent cats across the river without first reviving them. Praying that a ThunderClan patrol was far away, he began to lick the pelt of his apprentice strongly.
His prayers weren't answered, and a yowl sounded from the forest. The warrior's head snapped up and he saw two warriors, each with the characteristic forest-coloured shaggy pelts of ThunderClan cats, charge for him.
"You'd better have a good reason, Driftpool," the she-cat hissed at the RiverClan warrior. She was small and skinny, but her frame contained wiry strength. Her fur was fiery ginger.
"Quit, Robinsong," the older male ThunderClan warrior said sharply. "Can't you see he's trying to save these apprentices?"
"That's their excuse," Robinsong said aggressively.
Driftpool resumed his frantic licking of his apprentice. Moorpaw wasn't looking too well, her emerald eyes open and partly rolled back. The male ThunderClan warrior stepped forwards and began to lick Felicity's pelt, grimacing at the taste of the river on the Turkish Van's fur.
"I haven't seen this one before," he said between licks.
"Neither have I," Driftpool said, rasping his tongue over Moorpaw's throat. "A loner, probably. Never seen him before, but he was swimming well before the rock hit him."
Robinsong began to patrol the area, circling the two toms indignantly.
"Paw's broken," the ThunderClan tom said quietly, nudging Felicity's limp paw. "He's young, you can't just leave him."
"He's probably just a loner's son," Driftpool said, now pressing down on Moorpaw's back with his paw. Suddenly the black apprentice exploded into a volley of coughs and sneezes. He released her, and she scrambled to her feet, head low, and began to retch up the river water onto the rocks. Once she noticed the warriors from the rival Clan, she froze and backed into her mentor.
"It's okay," Driftpool reassured her, "they're helping and we're not invading."
Felicity began to cough, his sides heaving. He couldn't scramble to his paws, because one was broken and his back was aching. He just lay and rasped painfully. He felt painfully confused, not sure at all what had happened.
"Mum!" he rasped.
"What?" Robinsong asked, all pretences of indifference done. "Mum?"
Felicity lost consciousness, amber eyes sliding shut. There was silence.
"I'm taking him home with me," Driftpool said shortly. "He needs a medicine cat's help." He looked across at the ThunderClan tom. "Carry him for me, will you?"
The tom nodded and scooped up Felicity. The bright ginger tail trailed over the ground as the tom reached the bank of the river and leapt in with a splash. Deaf to the prideful arguments of his apprentice, he picked Moorpaw up and followed the ThunderClan tom.
Robinsong remained on the bank, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Just for the briefest of seconds she'd been sure that the scent of twolegs clung to the pelt of the mysterious cat. But that was silly. A kittypet, out for a swim? The cat had been well built, with wide shoulders and powerful back legs. She didn't know that this was on account of the days spent swimming in the twolegs' pool. After one last, narrowed gaze, she sat and waited for her companion. Kittypet or not, the tom was far too helpful for warrior life.