A/N: Well. Uh.
I just realized how long it's been since I updated.
Hope I can make up for the long wait with this chapter.
Smokepaw's eyes fluttered open, and he blinked uncertainly as convoluted clear structures came into his view. He limply tried to turn away, but the structures followed him, and he realized that they were attached to him, more specifically, his eyelashes. Along with his fur, they were encrusted with them. The wind was howling, and he blinked away the harsh, blinding snowflakes and the binding tendrils of ice and tried to struggle away.
"Keep still," a reassuring voice meowed, and Smokepaw twisted his head around as the snow and rock flew around him.
"Where... what..?" Smokepaw couldn't form words correctly, his mind addled by the cold.
"Hold still!" snarled a different voice. "It's not much farther to the cave, now quit wiggling!"
The gray tom consented, letting his movements still. His bones ached, and his snow-veiled vision began to dim again.
His eyes slowly shut as the battering wind ripped and tore at his fur, and his beleaguered body allowed itself to come to rest.
Smokepaw's eyes slowly blinked open, and the first thing that he noticed was that the ice was missing from his vision. Clearly, it had either melted away or someone had been kind enough to clean it off for him.
The second thing that he noticed was that he was in a dark cavern. Rocky protrusions loomed all around him, fencing in a clear pool of water.
"Where am I?" he asked groggily, trying to stand. His hind leg wouldn't move, and he hazily wondered why. Something about a long fall came to mind, but he dismissed that as absurd. Surely he'd never venture away from the safety of his home?
A tabby face appeared above him. "Ah, you're awake at last."
Memories crashed over Smokepaw, and he remembered everything that had happened to him- the destruction, the journey, the fall.
All of it.
He wanted to yowl in agony, to cry out his pain at the unforgiving stones surrounding him, but instead settled for a much simpler query: "Where am I?"
"You're in the Cave of Pointed Stones, within the camp of the Tribe of Rushing Water. I am Stoneteller, the Tribe's healer." the tom meowed.
Smokepaw struggled into a sitting position and realized there was something over his leg. When he looked more closely, he saw a few sticks and some kind of wound plants around his leg.
First things first. Have to set my priorities straight. "Have you seen a group of cats passing through here?" He tried to collect his thoughts to convey his question to the outsider in a way that he would understand. "A really large group, calling themselves Clans? They should have come through here not too long ago."
A shadow passed over Stoneteller's face, but asides from that his calm, wise expression remained unblemished. "The Clans? You belong to them?"
"Yes, and I need to get back to them as soon as I can." Smokepaw tried to lift himself onto his feet, but the binding left him unable to and he flopped back down. "Please, are they here with you?"
"They were, but I'm afraid your efforts are futile." the aged tabby replied. "They left some time ago."
"What?" yowled Smokepaw. He pushed himself up back again, gritting his teeth against the pain. "I have to go find them! They can't leave without me! They can't!"
"They did." Stoneteller replied. In a dry tone, he added. "Apparently, you weren't as important as you thought you were to them."
Before Smokepaw could object to that, Stoneteller continued, "Anyway, you can't go after them. Your leg will take time to heal, so you'll stay with us until then."
Too tired to argue, Smokepaw sank back down onto his stomach, feeling more lost than ever. For every moment he wasted sitting here, the Clans would move farther away from the desolate mountains and the odds of him ever seeing his family- his mother- again decreased.
I will find a way home, no matter what it takes. affirmed the gray apprentice to himself, the thought filling him with determination. I will see my family again.