Well, this is certainly overdue!

I've had a lot of work piling up that I had to tend to, which I have placed into this nice little list:

1. Working hard at my job and saving up $1,000

2. Workshops and lit classes

3. Writing a novel

4. NaNoWriMo

5. WRITING A NOVEL

That's right, readers. I HAVE REWRITTEN MY LOVELY MASTERPIECE. It's really the only original fiction thing I talk about on here, and I've rewritten it like freaking six times. I just entered ABNA and, after a few days of frantic line-editing, am satisfied with it. For now. Soon I'll tear it apart and probably write it again, but for now, I am content.

Anyway, tl;dr, here is the next chapter of Float.

Enjoy~

"Did you ever find your mother?"

Stripes voice cut through the wind in Twist's ears. She had her head ducked down against the wind, her whiskers pressed flat against her face. When she looked over at him, he was watching her, his yellow eyes dull as stones.

"Yes," she answered, looking away. It hurt to look at something like him, something strong but broken. A downed eagle. Something completely isolated from its element. "She's got a new litter of kits."

"So she's doing well." He nodded to himself; she watched him from the corners of her eyes. "Good. It's good that she found peace after what she did."

That's right, Twist thought. He thinks she killed Braiser.

The whole gang had to. That was what Spirit wanted all along.

"Her kits are probably on their own now," she went on. "Anole, the youngest female, is very animated. She holds much of my mother's fire." The last time Twist saw her, Anole wanted to go out adventuring in the moorlands on the far side of Claw territory. Twist, of course, had been for the idea. Spirit, not so much.

"I remember being that way." Despite the low tone of Stripes' voice, his paws were steady as he led Twist down the forgotten, dusty pathways of her memory. The map in her head filled out, marking every dead tree and rock and pit in the rocky ground, making a way for her to find her way. "Youth is something I miss now. That thirst for life. Now I only want..." He trailed off, seeming not even to notice it.

Twist wondered how often Stripes spoke aloud to himself. It must have been the only thing to keep himself from going mad in the middle of this desolation.

They didn't speak for awhile after that. Twist followed him up the thin pathway that curved around the mountain's cleft, barefacedly directed at the screaming wind. It nearly gusted her off her paws a few times but Stripes reached out to steady her with a foreleg that was thicker than nearly her entire body. She skittered away, nervous and unsure of him still, but he said nothing in return.

The Old Stone unraveled in front of her like a knotted vine. It was half-buried beneath still-falling snow, crunching beneath every step she took. It was a thin path, curving like bent whiskers, hemmed in on the sides with dead brush that would be thick thorns in better weather. Berries would cling, fat and red and juicy, and blackbirds would nest here to feast. Twist remembered many times waiting for the stupid birds to dip their heads and hide their eyes before pouncing and stealing the life from their bodies to supply her own. It had been her entire kithood, this place.

A cavern yawned up ahead, tilted slightly upwards where the wind could whistle through. The sound was low, musical. It lifted the hairs on Twist's spine.

Stripes stopped in front of it. His mouth parted a bit as he inhaled, brushing the scent across his tongue. "Stale," he said.

"What?"

"Cat-scent. But it's stale. No one has lived here in a long time." Without waiting for futher comment, he stepped down into the darkness, his gray pelt swallowed up in the shadows.

Twist halted at the front, heart racing like a pinned bird. Her tongue went dry.

Stripes reappeared. "It's okay," he said. "Nobody's here but me and you."

That's how it always was, she thought. Scolding herself for being so sentimental, Twist swallowed past her stuck throat, and stepped down into the cavern.

Ancient water had scraped it from the earth. The walls were smooth as downy feathers, shiny in places, where the river had once coursed. She looked up at it, watching the pattern of stone wave between hues of gray, red, black, brown, white. Every color imaginable. Flecks of shinier stuff, metal or clear stone, reflected what weak moonlight managed to get through the tattered storm clouds.

It was deep. They walked for several long moments, silent as mice, before they reached the end. The passage constricted down to a hole in the wall, big enough for a small cat like her to squeeze through. Wind came in, fresh and clean from the snow. It dusted over her nose and whiskers, making them stick with flakes.

Twist twitched her nose to shake them off, then turned to face the main cavern.

It was long and deep but not particularly high. She imagined if Declan or Lightfoot reared up onto their hind legs and stretched, they could brush their toes on the ceiling. But what it lacked in height, it made up for in warmth. Already the temperature had climbed, shaking the shivers from Twist's spine. Her breath didn't cloud in front of her.

Perfect, she thought. Just as she remembered. She and Stripes had spent many nights here, hiding from the rest of the gang, playing hunting games. It had been their hidden place, their secret.

Now it would be home to another secret.

Stripes had sat down heavily in the center of the place, breathing hard. The flecks in the wall created enough light for her to see the channels of his face, deep like grooves, where the bones stuck out sharply from his skin. She could count the ribs down his sides. The lay of his fur was dull and unkempt, not thick like it should be, this deep into the cold-season.

"Are you all right?" she asked him, for politeness' sake. She already knew the answer.

He laughed, a low hollow sound, more a cough than anything. "Hard eating up here when you hunt alone," he said. "I don't know how we did it when we were younger."

Twist pursed her lips. "When did you eat last?"

"I don't know. A few days ago. I found some dead thing and ate as much as I could stomach."

A war was rising up in her. Her group was waiting for her to return, Declan and Hazel especially. But Stripes was here dying before her eyes.

She gritted her teeth. Sympathy was a pain sometimes.

"Wait here," she said.

Stripes looked up, surprised, but didn't protest. He collapsed onto the ground, curling tight in on himself. Twist turned her back on him and went back out into the storm.

When she returned, a sparse shrew in tow, Stripes' surprise grew more apparent. He half-rose to his feet but she tossed it down to him and said, "Eat. Your reward for helping me."

He fell on it like he was an inch from starvation. Perhaps he was. Within moments, the shrew was nothing but bone and sinew, and even that Stripes picked clean, breaking the bones open for the dark marrow inside, eating every scrap of the chewy tendons and ligaments, until the only piece left in whole was the skull.

Twist, wordless, returned outside.

It took longer but she managed to find a young rabbit, separated from its warren. It was fat and pure white: prepared for the cold-season. After making sure it was properly old enough, Twist broke its spine and returned to Stripes.

As he ate, she told him the story of the Sliders and the Claws, because something had to fill the awful silence. She told him why they'd come to the mountains. She told him about Hazel and Audrey and Snit, and how Braiser had come back like a fresh infection on an old wound. She told him how the Rogue had twisted his own children into puppets of war, and how hard it was to break them of their old habits.

And she told him about Declan.

Stripes looked up at that. "You have a mate?"

A warm flush rose into her throat, making her heart beat quicker. "Yes," she said.

"You love him?"

"If it were his life against my own, I would choose him."

He blinked. Out of anybody, he would understand what that kind of declaration meant. The old gang's style had burned into her blood, true enough, but she had burned it right back out.

"Do you have kits?"

"Hazel is as good as a daughter to me. She's all I need."

"Despite the fact she's not blood?"

Twist looked away uneasily. "There's more to life than blood relation. I find that her distance from myself in that area is a good thing. I'm not something that should continue. My bloodline. I've seen what my blood can do and I have no wish to bring that down upon a litter of kits."

"You give yourself too little credit," he said. The rabbit was bones at his paws. He'd eaten every bit of it, too, and now a bit of life had come back into his pitted eyes.

Twist hummed. "Perhaps."

In this way, they were kits again. Young and innocent. Talking secrets to each other in dark places. This was the Stripes she could remember, not fondly but not too far off. The Stripes that dominated her memory was the one who claimed no one would ever care for again.

And despite their conversations this night, Twist could not separate those two cats from her mind.

She rose to her feet. "I have to go to them now. They're waiting for me."

Stripes said, "Of course. I understand." It sounded off, rehearsed. "Thank you for the meal. I don't...I don't deserve kindness. But I appreciate it."

"If there's one thing I've learned in my time apart from the gang, it's that there's always some cat willing to show kindness if the other will receive it." Declan's face burned in her mind, but the burn was sweet. Aching. In the way she ached for him now, parted from him.

Stripes' mouth curved wryly. "I feel like you're an entirely different cat, Twist. Hardened. A purer kind of element."

She shrugged again. "I feel like you've grown philosophical in your old age, Stripes."

Another hollow laugh. A shout from across a vast cavity of empty space. "Any cat will grow philosophical if you leave him out beneath the stars for long enough." But he stood all the same, something new in him. "Goodbye, Twist. I'm not selfish enough to say I hope we'll meet again. I'm not that foolish."

But Twist didn't laugh at his self-deprecation. "If you ever need somewhere warm to sleep, you know where to go. I'll make sure everyone takes care of you."

Stripes inclined his head, slightly at first, then deeper. A subordinate to a leader. Twist was stunned.

"I'll remember that. You remember me."

And then he was gone, out of the den, leaving behind just his smell and the memory of his words in Twist's head: echoing, echoing, echoing.

XXXXXXXX

"So this is it, huh?" Declan looked around appreciatively. "It's nice. Warm. Low."

Lightfoot, however, hadn't been so accommodating. "Stars above," she spat crossly. "We move from one Warren to another! Does any cat here actually want to live in caves?"

Twist rolled her eyes.

It was too late to go out and find supplies for nests, so they just made do with the dusty stone floor. They curled in piles, back-to-back, paws crossing paws, tails flopping everywhere. The air rose to a comfortable temperature, still a little chill. Flakes drifted in through the hole in the wall.

Lying down facing it, staring up at the stormy sky, Twist couldn't shake the boding dread in her chest. I should have made him stay, she thought, her mind on Stripes. I should never have let him go back out into the storm.

Declan's shoulders were warm against hers as he shuffled, uneasy in sleep, as he tended to be. Awake late into the night, Twist realized this was his night every night. Restless. Nightmares chasing him.

She turned and leaned over him, looking down at his face. It was pinched, his lips curled, his eyes jammed closed. As she watched, he twitched, a tiny sound escaping him. Don't.

Pain clenched in her lungs, sharper than the bite of the cold.

Her nose found his cheek in the darkness. Beneath her touch, he awoke, starting at first. Then he relaxed into her, a great breath leaving his lungs at once.

"Braiser," he said. It was all that needed to be said. Twist's father walked in more dreams than hers.

Declan turned until he was facing her. Twist snuggled into his chest, her cheek in the thick white fur there, her paw draped across his back.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. All around her was the sleeping sounds of her gang, the ones who she'd sworn to protect. That should have put her at ease but nerves bit at her, chewing uncertainty into her mind.

He breathed in slowly, taking in her scent. "Me too."

Twist closed her eyes tight. "I love you."

Declan rested his chin on top of her head and said nothing, but the beat of his heart, quick and leaping, soothed her worries. At least for now.

They lay there together, not sleeping, but dozing, until the sun rose the next morning.

"All right," Twist yowled, feeling refreshed by last night's silent confessions. "Everybody up. Today's lesson: living in the mountains. Part one."

"Of what?" Hazel said blearily, her eyes half-closed. She blinked quickly, yawning widely. At her side, where Twist expected to see Streak and dreaded to see Kale, was Lightfoot. Across the pile of rousing cats, they lay on opposite sides; Streak next to Max and Marco, and Kale alone on the outside, isolated from every cat near him. Twist found herself cruelly pleased to see how tired and cold he looked, his fur ruffled up.

"What?"

"Part one of what?"

Twist thought for a moment. "Of many," she answered at last.

Hazel groaned, falling back on Lightfoot's flank.

Lightfoot, far from looking annoyed, looked thoughtful. "Are you going to teach us?"

Ignoring the slight burr of condescension in her voice, Twist said, "Yes."

"And how is this different from normal life?"

"It's normal life, plus mountains. Now stop giving me that look and get up. We'll have a nice walk around the area and then we'll hunt. After that, we're going to collect nest material and find a water source."

"But it's cold outside," Felix said, shivering beneath his gray tabby coat that was still too thin. He had weaker blood, pet stock. Out of everybody, he would have the most trouble, Twist thought.

But she didn't have any sympathy for him. "Then go back down the mountains and get killed by Blackjack. I don't really care either way. One fewer whiny mouth seems like a pretty good deal to me."

Felix shut up very quickly after that, sharing a look with Cascade.

Oh good, Twist thought, annoyed. Group up and form a club, why don't you?

Outside, it was cold, admittedly. Snow had fallen even thicker but the tilted mouth of the Old Stone had kept most of it out. It laid upon itself thickly, closing in the mouth. Twist shoved her shoulders up against the ceiling of snow but it wouldn't budge.

Gravel came along and nudged her out of the way. "Let me show you how it's done," he said smugly, heaving upwards.

The snow didn't budge.

Gravel frowned and tried again, his face contorting with the effort. He sagged back down, thumping his paws irritatedly up against the snow.

"So that's how it's done, is it?" Adder asked snidely.

Gravel whipped around. "Come over here, young'un, and I'll show you how it's done."

"Enough." Lightfoot, having roused herself from Hazel's clinging body, pushed past them all. With a coil of her haunches, she launched herself upwards, punching through the snow and out onto the path above. "That's how it's done, toms." Her voice sounded muffled.

Gravel, his frown even more severe, said nothing more as he clambered out onto the snow.

Once the entire group had assembled, some more willing than others, Twist led them around the Old Stone. Daylight made it seem less severe; some of the plant life had survived, albeit crusted with snow.

Streak, who'd been melancholy and sullen, padded up to a clump of it and pawed away the ice. "Tansy," he said. "Good for coughs."

Twist was surprised. "How do you know that?"

He shrugged with one shoulder. In the distance behind him, Hazel and Kale were bounding through the snow together, matching pawprints; Twist felt a curious pang of dislike about the entire affair. "Flint taught me some," he said. "When I was, er...in camp."

In camp waiting for Hazel to be finished with her punishment, Twist thought. Streak had been bettering himself while Hazel had been sulking. "I didn't know you'd done that."

"I didn't tell anybody. I thought it was something to do just to pass the time. I didn't think that it would work out like this."

Twist glanced over his shoulder again. Kale and Hazel weren't speaking, just looking at each other. Undeniable love was in Hazel's eyes.

It made Twist feel old, old as the seasons. Just yesterday, Hazel had been blind, deaf kit in her paws. Now she was in love.

"Do you think you made the right choice in coming here?" Twist asked.

Streak looked up at her, misery in his eyes.

He's told her. A shiver went down her spine. He's told her he loves her.

Of course Twist had known. She'd known Hazel's whole life. Ever since the first time Streak saw Hazel, she knew. She's beautiful, he'd said, still young, still innocent. All big eyes and paws he hadn't grown into. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Can I ask you something, Twist?"

"Of course." She turned to him, sitting close, the way she'd done when she'd been appointed his guardian, so long ago.

And Streak hunched forward, his head below hers, like he was still a kit. "Do you think that some cats are meant for each other?"

The question stuck in her brain. "Yes," she said, thinking of her mother and Teddy, of herself and Declan. "I do."

"But what if one cat thinks something differently than the other? What if they don't...feel the same way?"

Or if they love someone else, she thought. Kale was laughing, whisking the tip of his tail across Hazel's nose playfully, unintentionally interrupting Lightfoot's lecture about sure footing; she stomped over to him for a scolding.

Twist looked back to Streak,who was watching her with his breath held, hope in every tensed inch of him.

She sighed. She wanted to give him a better answer. "I don't know, Streak. Sometimes there's no helping what happens."

Streak's jaw tensed. "There can be," he said. "I know there's a way to—" He stopped himself, his eyes narrowing. "There has to be."

Twist drew him close, giving him an affectionate lick across his ears.

He leaned his head against her shoulder, his eyes fixed burning on the ground. "This hurts," he said.

I know, she thought, but she didn't say it aloud. She just drew him closer, her tail around his back, and watched her gang prepare for a silent war.

Huh. Without Word - my subscription ran out - and without knowing how long my chapters are while I'm writing, they seem to turn out...shorter. Weird. This is only a 3k, which is like 2k under what I usually write, but this felt like a nice reintroduction to the fic. I am pleased with it. :3

Now I shall go eat fried chicken and ice cream. Er, not together. But close enough. XD

R&R~

Shadow