A/N: Review replies:

Lilysplash: Thank you! Have a cookie!

Mary Sue: GOOD.

Honeycloud of RiverClan: Nyan cat, or Nyan troll? And yes, Shade is going through hell. This shall be included in the story.

Shade has a major flaw. Can you find it?

Chapter 2: Night: Orange Fire

Night wasn't high on catnip anymore.

Thank God.

Actually, Night was glad. When high on catnip, he tended to do some very …strange….. things, and it was always awkward afterwards (NO DUH). Especially when he did not remember what he had done. And had to ask Shade, and watch her groan.

But he couldn't help it. Of course, it was his fault for eating the catnip in the first place, but it smelled so darn good. And Night had no resistance for sweet things whatsoever.

And so, stupid things always happened.

The thing is, every time he was high on catnip or anything else, he always seemed to lose contact with his body. One moment he would be chewing on the really tasty catnip, and the next blackness would creep into his vision. He always found himself floating in some darkness he assumed was his mind. But he didn't know that his mind was so large, for all around him all he could see was darkness, with no end whatsoever. All was dark…..

Okay, too epic. Don't overdo it, please. Its just dear little Night getting high on catnip for one too many times. But that's not what's important.

And then a scene would play in front of him.

Not that important, you say. It is, after all, the effect of catnip.

But it was always the same thing, really. At first, Night had thought that it was just a distant memory, but a distant memory didn't wind its way into your mind a million times over. A distant memory didn't appear in every blank space you saw, whether it be the shades of dreaming or the blankness of the mind when doing nothing. A distant memory stayed distant, but this scene just refused to go.

Of course, you're thinking that the scene, whatever it might be, has to be a sign. Of course. A prophecy of some upcoming event, make that major event. I mean, it's reappeared so many times, so of course it has to be important. And I would give you that, except for one thing:

The scene was actually just a rainbow. A really sparkly one.

Yeah, it's probably just the catnip.

But Night felt differently. He just knew it. To him, the rainbow was not a rainbow, but a treasure. After all, it was really pretty (at least, in Night's point of view). He felt that he must see it, over and over. Now, we would call this OCD, short for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And I guess you could call it that, if it was only the… sparkliness of the rainbow that Night obsessed with. But it was not that way. It was just a hunch, really unstable, too, but Night just …knew that there was something significant about it.

Ah yes, now it's really obvious, isn't it?

And even though Night was not the sharpest knife in the drawer (cats have never even heard of those, but nevermind) and instead quite the opposite, he could still realize that something was going on. And to him, there was only one solution: see the rainbow again. And again. And again.

And to do that? Get high on catnip.

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

But, as said earlier, every time Night tried, he lost control of his body. And that was simply too embarrassing, even for Night. Last time, Shade had told him that he had started rolling on the floor and making weird noises, the most distinguishable sounding like "Nyanyanyanyanyanya" and "Nyan cat invasion!" Then he had grabbed a clod of dirt, Shade said, and danced around singing: "I got a jar of dirt! I got a jar of dirt! I got a jar of dirt! And guess what's inside it~!" She had also said something about "waffles" and "potato" and "I Can Has Cheezburger?" but it was hard to tell, for Shade had been banging her head against a tree.

So Night decided to find a better way to see the rainbow. He could see it any time he zoned out all other things (including a Shade who is very pissed off because Night is not paying attention again) and focused on the rainbow. It usually worked.

The key word is usually.

Other times, Night just had a total BRAIN FART and crashed into a tree.

Awkward. And painful. Mostly painful.

But usually it worked. But the more Night observed, the more he could see nothing wrong with the rainbow. No prophecies, no faces of cats long forgotten, no omens of doom (don't we just get so tired of them?). It was, after all, just a rainbow. It could appear in the sky with all its glory and no one would yell: "LOOK!"

So Night came to a conclusion:

"The rainbow is a clue! I must go on a rainbow quest!"

Shade stopped and stared. "Excuse me?"

Ah, whoops. Did I say that out loud?

Yes, yes, you did.

So of course Night has to say it again. "Rainbow quest!"

Shade stared for a minute longer, wondering if the catnip was still in Night's system. It wasn't. It was just Night being Night.

Sigh.

"What makes you think that?" Shade said carefully. She had to convince him that it was a harebrained idea before he decided to chase it into the nonexistent sunset (in other words, wander off again).

"The rainbow! It always appears in my head!"

Night, you shouldn't say it that way. People might think—

"Night, I think there may be something wrong with your brain."

"What's a brain?"

Again, if Shade had a hand, she would be facepalming. Instead, she changed the subject to a more urgent thing.

"Night, are you still holding those red berries? They're poisonous."

-linelinelinelinelinelinelinelinelineline—

The she-cat darted through the forest, alert and wary. A twig snapped, and she jumped, bristling as if she was facing a strong enemy. But it was just a mouse.

She stared longingly at the mouse, but eventually turned away. This was dangerous territory. She could not stop here. Hostility seemed to drench every bit of the unfamiliar forest, down to the very leaves and twigs that rustled ominously. Hostility ran through her, too, a sharp electric pulse jolting through her body, keeping her alert and making every hair on her body stand on end.

Something deep inside her told her that she had to get out. A gut instinct, perhaps. It was all she knew. Her surroundings, the pounding of her heart, so alone, and this deep knowing that she must get out.

Enemy territory. She thought. If only she could remember who the enemy was.

If only she could remember what anything was.

If only.

She remembered everything from a week ago, but before that was nothing more than a cloud of wavering shadows. A void, for all she knew. It seemed as if her mind had been submerged in watery darkness, darkness of oblivion, and had just been pulled out into cold, cold, clarity.

She often tried to remember, but all she came up with was a pawful of slippery shades. Every day, she strained her mind to the limit, but she always felt a barrier of darkness stop her. No. Not a barrier of darkness. A barrier of unknowing.

Unknowing.

She had even forgot her name, until she had seen it roaring across the skies in a fiery sunset. Fire. Her name was Fire. Her name is Fire. There was another part of it, but she could not remember. Fire would be fine for now.

For now.

Fire had seen it, she had remembered her name. She might be oblivious, but Fire was not stupid. A trigger, she thought. A trigger for my memory. There had to be clues, remnants of Fire, marks she had left before all went dark. There had to be.

And Fire would find them.

Fire would find them, and she would regain her memory. Fire would remember it all. And she knew that there was something to remember, she just knew it. There was something before the shadows, something that was now obscured. And Fire would find it.

A quest it be, then.

But for now, she followed the gut instinct that this was enemy territory, and tried hard to leave.

Br patient, my readers. If Fire is mentioned here, she will appear again. And now back we go to our main characters.