Author's note:
I hope you haven't given up hope on this because it's gotten so depressing and slow, but this chapter has some dialogue much longer than "hi" and "bye" and some real action.
And for the Tribe, things are looking up. (And... Review? Please?)
Chapter 12: Among the Mountains
The wind howled. The wind whispered. The wind blew overhead and underfoot. It was always there. And in a world where everyone and everything she knew was disappearing, Raindrop needed something that would never change.
High in the mountains, the wind sang like their freedom, no rules or restrictions, nothing predictable, nothing you could understand, nothing anyone was trying to bend into the Tribe's 'well-organized' life. They were hardly a tribe anymore. They were little more than a knot of cats bound by tradition and acquaintance. And grief.
Raindrop didn't trudge up the slope, her paws dragging, her tail brushing the ground. She bounded. She understood the mountains. And, as far as she could tell, they understood her. As long as they were here, there was hope. For her, anyway. She just hoped the mountains would take them to a sheltered peak or someplace they could stay. Somewhere they could all understand.
The group had finally learned how to hunt consistently in the mountains, and they'd actually gotten good at it. The days became blurs of gray; gray stone, gray peaks, gray skies, gray clouds. Reasonably well-fed, well-rested, and aimless, the group wandered with no real purpose anymore than to stay alive. Then came the day.
It was two days before the fifth full moon of their journey.
When they awoke that morning, something was different.
The wind smelled... damp. But fresh. It smelled of rain. But that was normal.
It was a clear sky above them. Blue with downy white clouds. That wasn't strange.
The birds seemed to be singing. Not cawing or shrieking. But that wasn't unheard of.
The wind smelled fresh. Fresh, damp, new and green, growing, living, life. That was.
They were coming near a forest.
Raindrop led the way as usual, but today the otherfour to-bes were bounding beside her. They were filled with a brimming, happy feeling they didn't dare call hope. The stones seemed to move away beneath their paws with ridiculous ease, and even the old, exhausted guards and prey-hunters moved faster: they didn't want to get their hopes up, but it was hard not to.
"What do you think it is?" asked Fire, glancing over his shoulder at Monkey, who was lagging behind for a drink from a spring.
"What do you think what is?" asked Monkey vaguely, mostly to annoy his friend.
"You know what I mean," replied Fire, exasperated. "It's weird, like the whole spirit has changed, or something. Everyone's excited, but nobody says anything, and the smell... it's like our Jungle was, and the sky's all clear, and the birds are singing instead of, like, screaming and eating us. It smells... so..."
"Green," Monkey finished for him, "yeah, I know. Maybe we're getting close."
"We definitely are," agreed Fire, stopping at an overlookof sweeping green hills and forest, "but to what?"
"Whoa."
Windteller gaped at the dip in the landscape. The trees swished, there were birds fluttering around, and in the distance, a lake glittered diamond-bright.
"It's amazing," Eddy whispered, awestruck.
"Yeah," agreed Fire, "it seriously is." He was swelling with pride at being the first to see what they had been searching for, for so long.
"But..." said Raindrop, who had lagged behind to be sure they all made it, coming up between Eddy and Windteller, "it's... well, it sure isn't a jungle."
"But it's a forest," Fire argued.
"How do you know?" countered Raindrop.
"Well, it's green and full of plants," Fire said exasperatedly. "What else could it be?"
"We don't know," Raindrop mewed solemnly. "We've seen so many strange things on this journey, who's to say this isn't the same? Just a new part of the world we'd never seen?"
"Well..." Fire looked lost.
"It... but... wait, guys," Eddy said slowly, sounding slightly afraid, "am I just crazy, or does this look... well, kind of feel... familiar?"
"You're crazy," Monkey assured him, then stopped to think. "But then again—"
"He's... not... crazy..." said Raindrop, her voice slow and full of terror. "We have been here. I swear... Don't tell me... we did not go in a complete circle."
They all fell silent.
Their hope went out like a candle in a hurricane. "No way," growled Windteller. "There is no way we lost half the Tribe to go in a circle!" His face was screwed up like he wanted to throw himself off the mountain.
"No—it's—that's impossible!" meowed Fire, nearly wailing. "I'll—I'll show you, it's a forest, but it's not the Jungle! I swear! We haven't been here before! Even look!"
"Fire, no!" yelped Monkey, but it was too late.
Fire leapt towards the forest below them, over the lip of the stone they were standing on. But there wasn't any stone beneath that.
With a cry, he tumbled over the edge.
"Fire!" howled Monkey, diving for the edge. Raindrop, who was rather experienced in these situations, lunged over, paws out as the other twostood stunned.
Her claws slashed the empty air below the cliff, and she let out an angry, helpless yowl. But Monkey yelled something garbled that sounded like "Yes!" and "Fire!" and "Help!" all at once. She twisted over to help him, her unsheathed claws swatting the air, her head facing at the sky. Her paw found a mass of twisting fur, and she sank her claws into it.
Monkey reached his other paw down to adjust his grip on Fire's scruff, who was flailing in terror. "Stop spazzing!" he yelled angrily as Raindrop rolled over to get a better hold on the fallen to-be. She beckoned impatiently at Windteller and Eddy, who hadtrouble keeping their heads in these situations, to help.
Together, they managed to heave him back up over the ledge. By then, their other tribemates had arrived, amazed by the sight of the forest.
"And so then I said... whoa," Rock was saying, stopping in the middle of the footpath to gape at the view. The to-bes were in a heap by the edge, still gasping for breath after their quick adventure.
"What happened to you guys?" demanded Mist. "Was there a panther attack or something?"
"Something like that," Raindrop said.
"...the best way to get down there will be to go around the long way, since there is no trail for the cliffs. But that's fine, we're in no hurry. We'll get there when we do. It'll be good to be somewhere familiar," Leafteller said. Rock nodded, sitting on her left, and Windteller smiled from her right.
"But..." Fire began uncomfortably, "what's... its weird, everyone says they feel familiar about this place... like the woods and the lake and stuff, so... what if we... went in a big, pointless circle?"
The grown cats all turned to look at him in stunned surprise.
He bent his head in embarrassment. "Nobody else said anything...?" he muttered, glancing at the other to-bes. They returned his stare blankly.
"That," said Leafteller, "would be a catastrophe. To say the least." She beckoned with her tail to the other prey-hunters and guards to follow her into the gathering darkness to discuss this theory.
"Hmph," Monkey muttered irritably. "They always act so superior and experienced like they know what they're talking about and we don't. But you guys saw that: they really don't have a plan. They think they're so smart,butwould it kill anybody to have some new ideas in their all-powerful conference of fate?"
"What do you mean they don't have a plan?" asked Windteller indignatnly. "Of course we do!"
Monkey looked gravely at him. "Maybe I should be healer, not you." Windteller swelled indignantly, but Monkey cut across him. "Couldn't you see the way they gaped at us when Fire said 'what if it was a circle'? They don't know what to think about that. All they can plan ahead to is breakfast tomorrow! They want to sound like they have a plan now, but a kit could've come up with that one! 'hey, guys, lets wander around the long way since there's a big cliff in the middle of the shortcut!' I mean come on!"
"I thought of that plan!" yelped Windteller, deeply offended.
"What are you suggesting, rebellion?" demanded Raindrop.
"Well anything is better than this!" argued Monkey.
The rest of the to-bes gaped at him.
"That's... you're... no..." Windteller spluttered.
"That's not true,"mewed Raindrop scathingly, feeling unusually touchy. She wasn't going to pretend that she wasn't completely and entirely at home here. "We could be starving. It could be freezing. It could be raining. We could be lost. There could be no forest. It could be winter. Fire could've fallen off that cliff.
"We could all be dead." Raindrop added scornfully. "And you could use your brain. That'd be a lot worse for the rest of us, wouldn't it?"
The moon rose slowly over their group of laughing cats, not too far out of kithood, a small oasis in a dark world all around them.
A little way away from them stood a cluster of anxious cats, wondering what they could do to move forward in the dark world that crushed them from all sides.
And a ways away from them, not as far as one would expect, stood a knot of anxious cats, fearing for their lives and their futures, and the unfulfilled prophecy that had been their leader's parting words.
And the one, same whispering wind wove among them, whispering comfort and to have strength, and bringing with it a scent that made one group raise their heads in hope.
Theyare coming.
