Main Author: ExplosionsAreFun and One Twinkle in a Million both worked on this.
"Smolder! Are you sleeping in until sun-high?" Red's voice called into the apprentice's den.
The said apprentice could hear noisy wind whistling through the cave and outside of it as well. His ears pricked but otherwise didn't budge; he was sleepy! Last night had been his first real rest ever since the hawk, what with his numerous wounds and headaches from the constant cold.
"Oh, you lazy furball," Red muttered, walking into the den and prodding him with her paw. "Up, I say!" Smolder's mentor nosed his flank, pushing him up.
Smolder collapsed back down immediately, letting out a snore. he felt sharp thorns dig into his pelt and he yelped as Red's claws pricked his skin. "I'm awake, I'm awake!"
"That's what I thought," Red purred sweetly. "Now eat something and meet me at the entrance of the cave. Nothing too heavy. A sparrow will do."
Smolder yawned, his pink gums and yellow-white fangs showing. He stretched, clumsy with sleep —knocking over a few nests in the process— and stumbled out blearily. The waking effect of the claws had lasted for less than a painful heartbeat.
He padded over to the caught-prey pile and took a sparrow, as his mentor had suggested. He ate slowly, almost falling asleep more than once. When he was done, he stood up, tried, and failed, to shake the remaining sleep off of him.
When he finally felt like it, he padded over to the entrance of the cave, and then followed his mentor out of camp.
"Okay, today I'm going to teach you the— Hey! I thought you were awake!"
Smolder was curled up on a rock. "I am, I'm just resting for a bit."
"Oh, I'll show you resting!" Red pounced on him, pushing him off the rock and making him scramble so he didn't fall off the mountain.
"I could've died!"
"But you didn't, so let's go look around the territory in case those rogues are back. We don't wa-" She was cut off by the wind suddenly intensifying. Their fur was buffeted and blown around, and the wind didn't seem to stop.
"We should go back, this wind is too strong!" Smolder said.
"Nonsense, it's just a little breeze; you'll see worse in your lifetime. Let's go!" Red turned and began walking. Smolder had no choice but to follow.
As they walked around the territory, the wind only got stronger and stronger until they had to shout to hear each other, and they were walking side-by-side. Smolder felt his belly begin to ache and his paws begin to grow weary. He couldn't take this apparent "breeze" much longer. He had opened his mouth to ask to return when suddenly a snowflake fell on his nose. His muzzle was most likely frozen, because the cold white dot seemed to stay there for a long time before melting. More snowflakes fell around him, and he could barely resist the urge the jump around and catch them. Smolder forgot about his desire to go back to the camp. Or at least, for a little bit.
The snowfall slowly got heavier and heavier until Smolder felt like he was going to freeze; not just his nose but his whole outside and inside. The winds blew harder than ever, pulling and pushing up snow already on the ground, hitting his fur so hard it felt like it would rip. Smolder could only see Red beside him, everything else hidden in the endless white. No horizon. No rocks. No sky. Nothing except frost and fear.
Red shouted something he couldn't make out, and she started running. He followed her, desperate not to lose sight of her. She ran around in circles, trying to find the camp, until Smolder located a rock by bumping into it. He went and sat under it, Red following. The snow wasn't directly falling on them anymore, but both mentor and apprentice were iced over from head to tail.
Red stayed there, jaw set, as the snow flurried —no, raged— down, unwilling to admit her mistake in bringing the two of them out. After all this, you still won't apologize? Smolder bit back the words. That was his trainer's only fault; she was as stubborn as a weed that refused to pull, as stubborn as one of those rabbits that would look you in the eye fearlessly as you hunted it.
"We should try and get back," was all she said after a long silence, broken only by the howling wind and pit-pattering of snow that gradually turned into sleet. "The blizzard seems to be thinning out."
"The blizzard?"
"Yes."
Smolder sighed and followed his mentor out from their shelter. At first it seemed that she was right, but then the storm hit back again with full force, almost knocking the to-be over. Soon it was just as bad as it had been before. Ultimately, he was unable to see anything but the blurred form of Red beside him. Every noise was drowned out by the constant shrieking of wind and snow.
"Red!" He cried out his mentor's name but the blizzard swept his words away from the she-cat's ears. Her form was slowly moving away from him, and despite his attempts he couldn't catch up.
He tried to struggled onward, but every step he took dragged out more and more of his energy, and soon he collapsed in the snow surrounded by the endless, inescapable cold.
He found himself back in Stoneteller's den —again— with warmth, oh, this amazing feeling of warmth, surrounding him on all sides and Starling at the entrance blocking something that was trying to get through. Smolder sat up, catching drifts of a tense conversation:
"As I said before, Red, you are not permitted to visit our patient at this current moment. I'll remind you that I am Stoneteller's apprentice," she added hastily as the sound of unsheathed claws scraping stone.
"And I'm a cave-guard," the cat at the entrance —obviously his mentor— retorted. "I could snap you like a twig." That's just like Red, Smolder thought, exasperated, before he slumped back down into his nest. Weariness took over once again, and he found himself lapsing into another silent dream.