The forest was quiet, and the earth lied still. The rising sun filtered through a thick layer of fog and cast an ominous, pale gray light across the land. With every step Mouseheart laid down a tentative paw, slowly making her way past the charred rocks that bordered the river bank. The stream was well within Shadow Clan territory, but their warriors hadn't patrolled the grounds since the fire-something which Mouseheart took to mean that said territory was developing into neutral grounds between the two clans.
Although it was a crisp morning, the Thunder Clan warrior's nostrils stung with the lingering scent of smoke that rose from the ashen debris beneath her paws. "Where have you gone?" she whispered, hoping for a reply but expecting none. With no surprise but a tinge of disappointment, she received the latter. Mouseheart sat down among the ruins of the trees with a sigh and strained her ears for some sound of life. Everything west of the Thunder Clan camp was dead, and the tabby warrior longed for nothing more than to hear the familiar cries of the starlings and scuffles in the undergrowth at dawn.
She closed her weary eyes in an attempt to embrace the silence. The only noise came from the churning of the stream waters passing over the rocks and into the lake. The sound of the quasi-rapids was gentle at first, but paired with the prominent stench of smoke rising up from the ground, Mouseheart was thrust back into her memories of that night.
Sparks shot up out of the glowing embers which were trapped in the mud and slowly fading. Each spark would singe her paws and it took all of Mouseheart's will to keep from darting to the river. There was no way that she would be able to move, she had to protect the kits-the limp scraps of fur gasping beside their mother in a nest of ash and mud.
Silentrose, the queen who had began kitting under the stress of evacuating from the fire, made a feeble attempt to run her tongue over the tiny bodies trying to burrow into her belly. The beautiful queen was exhausted, her amber eyes no more weary slits. Her cries for help were useless. The rest of their clan was out of ear shot and a cumbersome, desperate feeling filled Mouseheart from tail to nose as she paced around the queen and her kits with no medicinal knowledge or means of helping the situation.
The smoke lied heavy in her lungs and her chest tightened, and just she was about collapse hopelessly onto the river bank she heard his meow. Calm and level and soothing, it seemed as natural as the crackle of the trees as they burned. "Lick the kits," he commanded. And she did. And soon they squealed.
Mouseheart gazed up at the black tom, who had appeared so suddenly it was as if he had risen from out of the ashes that blanketed the earth. He sat tall with his tail neatly wrapped around his paws, his golden eyes reflecting the ravenous flames. For a brief moment his gaze flickered to the sky and Mouseheart stood, frozen beside her clanmates and gasped for air as the rain began to fall.
"This isn't the end," the tom meowed simply.
Mouseheart narrowed her eyes as the kits squealed, surprised by the thick drops of rain which lightly washed the mud from their plastered coats.
"The end of what?" the she-cat questioned, her throat burning with every word.
The tom gave away nothing more; instead he vaguely repeated his reply, "this is not the end" as he watched the forest burn.
A crow shrieked a good morning to the sleepy world and Mouseheart leapt to her feet in surprise. Her heart spiked with the fear of eminent danger before falling back into a normal rhythm as she realized her only company was a greasy, chatty bird perched upon a brittle branch. Mouseheart tried to shake the mysterious black tom from her thoughts as she padded back to camp. It was foolish to think that you would ever see him again, she reminded herself while trying to suppress the disappointment of having spent yet another dawn alone by the Shadow Clan stream.
The path back to the Thunder Clan camp was without color. The forest, which had been on the cusp of beautifully blooming beneath the warmth of New-Leaf transformed into a monotone sea of charcoal in less than a night. Mouseheart slipped beneath what little bramble remained beside the Warrior's den. The fire had eaten away at the thicket that had surrounded the den and she easily maneuvered through the undergrowth and back into camp discretely.
The pale gray light of dawn was being replaced by more vibrant shades of yellow as the sun began to break over the horizon. Mouseheart swayed a bit as she made her way over to the center of the camp, feigning sleepiness as her fellow clanmates began to wander from the comfort of their make-shift nests.
Dusthawk, a tomcat with a coat of brown patches, yawned a lazy "good morning" her way before he snatched a vole from the fresh-kill pile and padded into nursery to visit his kits. Mouseheart's gaze followed the plump vole that hung limply from the warrior's mouth, blood trickling down its side. Her whiskers twitched with curiosity.
How is day-old prey still bleeding? She pondered, nearly jumping out of her fur when a meow came from behind her.
"I caught it this morning," the new comer explained. Before she had time to turn and face him, Thistlenose padded up beside his old friend. "This morning…" Mouseheart echoed, distracted from a night of no sleep.
The gray and white tom let out of mrrw of amusement and flicked the she-cat's ear with the tip of his tail before plucking a newly caught starling from the dust. "Yes, this morning. I pulled a one-cat dawn patrol, seeing as the rest of the clan needs to rest as much as they can. Then again, I can't take all of the credit for all of the fresh-kill; you must have already given what you caught to Scarredleaf since you were up and about so early too."
Mouseheart blinked in surprise. His words had been muffled by the scrawny silver bird that rested gently between his jaws but the message had been clear. He reinforced it with a wink of an eye. "Oh, yes…there wasn't much to catch since most of the prey was scared off along with the fire…"
The dust-colored she-cat had failed to realize that Thistlenose's apprentice, Jaggedpaw, had been sleepily swaying not far from them, his ears pricked to pick up any chatter. "Jaggedpaw," the tabby tom's mentor called, "take this to Scarredleaf, will you?"
Thistlenose gently set the bird on the ground and nudged it closer to his apprentice with his paw. "I thought you said she had already eaten," the tabby replied gruffly. "This is just in case she hasn't had her fill. We don't want grumpy elders with empty bellies now, do we?"
"No," Jaggedpaw mumbled, his eyes filled with defeat as he scooped the starling up into his jaws and made his way over to the medicine den, where the sole elder of Thunder Clan resided.
"I'd had a feeling he could hear us," Thistlenose commented lightly.
Mouseheart knew he wasn't finished. She peered around the camp, on the lookout for any other roaming cats while she waited for her friend to continue his prying. "You look exhausted…have you been sneaking out every night since the fire?"
"No," she replied quietly, "only twice."
The first night the tabby had sat vigil for the cats that they had lost to the flames. Thistlenose gave her a long, sideways glance, "three nights since the fire, three nights of no sleep…how can you be expected to help rebuild the camp when you can hardly keep on your paws?"
Mouseheart let out a quiet sigh, "I know, I know…it's just…"
"Just what?" Thistlenose replied gently, his questioned far from an accusation, "what do you expect to find out there?"
Mouseheart opened her mouth to answer but the sound did not come. It was something she herself did not know. Excellent question, she thought warily. In the moment that it took for her to collect her thoughts, Thistlenose's blue eyes widened with a new realization. His meow dropped to a volume a little about a whisper, "who do you expect to find?"
The sun was beginning to break through the thin cloud layer and Mouseheart met her friend's gaze with ease. "Nothing, no one. There is no someone anywhere out there for me to find."
"I'm not going to judge you, you know that," Thistlenose pressed, but Mouseheart held her ground, "of course I do, which is why I will always tell you the truth. I just hope...that maybe the more time I spend in the forest the more it will start to feel like home again. Our old home."
The tom's stare locked onto her for a moment as he assessed the truth behind her words. Mouseheart knew, above all others, he would not dare breathe a word of her morning disappearances to anyone else in the camp. After all, she stood beside him as he crept from the apprentice's den in the silent hours of the night; she guarded his secrets as a mother would her kits. The gray and white warrior sighed and finally broke his gaze away, just in time to see Jaggedpaw returning from the medicine den.
Thistlenose's pale eyes, the color of a robin's egg, softened with sympathy as he brushed past Mouseheart. "Get some sleep, will you?" he meowed, concerned, and she nodded while watching his pad off to join his apprentice.
Mouseheart stood in the dust for a moment, catching a glimpse of the tortoiseshell coat of the Thunder Clan leader as she emerged from her den. Staying true to Thistlenose's request, she turned around and slowly made her way back into the warrior's den.
The den had been drastically reduced by the fire and the small space was empty. Dried moss lied in scattered patches along the soot-covered ground and Mouseheart, too exhausted to care, walked circles around a tattered nest until her head felt light with dizziness. She curled up tightly among the debris, with the fur of her tail lightly touching the tip of her nose.
Mouseheart allowed her mind to calm as she closed her eyes, embracing the darkness and the stench of smoke which seemed to have stained her nostrils. The tabby she-cat let out a sigh of contentment as she drifted to sleep.
Then she dreamt of golden eyes.