Chapter 13: Clan Over Kin
So they went. They wandered a whole day, finding little footpaths, winding trails among the boulders. The wind was wild and cool, sweeping across the wide expanses of bare rock as if to wipe away everything on it. Raindrop smiled and faced the wind as it wove through her fur. It was wet and refreshing. Water.
"You know," Fire said to Raindrop, "I think there's water nearby. Like, a river. A big river. Or a big pool."
"It's called a lake, genius," said Monkey.
"Whatever."
"I think you're right," agreed Raindrop. "The wind feels very cool and..." she trailed off, unable to find the right word, but the two toms understood.
"Hey guys! Guys," said Eddy. He sounded upset. "The grown cats are talking about going into the mountains rather than the woods."
"Why the python would they do that?" demanded Raindrop.
"Because the forest is unfamiliar and they don't know what's in it or how to avoid any unknown threats," Eddy quoted angrily. "And Whisper's right there with them! Why?"
Raindrop froze in her tracks, her face screwed up with an emotion Eddy couldn't recognize. Monkey and Fire instantly started conspiring to either rebel, protest in some way, or just mutter mutinously for a while. Eddy watched Raindrop stand still, while the rest of their group drew ahead.
"I'll talk to him," she growled finally, and started running. Eddy loped beside her, still watching his tribemate, whose eyes were narrowed and fixed ahead. There was no question as to who she was going to talk to.
"What are you going to say?" Eddy wanted to know.
"Good question," she replied in a threatening growl as they passed the other to-bes.
"I'll come," he offered.
"Thanks," she grunted, clearing a boulder and reaching the planners. Eddy scrambled up the side rock after her as she drew level with the group.
"Hey. Whisper. Can we talk?" Without waiting for an answer from her brother, Raindrop dragged him away by the scruff. Leader he may have been, but she was still twice his size.
"What the—" Whisper began to object, writhing, but Raindrop's expression was set on 'Merciless'.
Eddy watched her from on top of the boulder, uncertainty pulling at his paws. What if they were supposed to stay in the mountains? There were too many questions. And no answers.
From a few boulders away, the stealthy cats watched as the big skinny to-be watched the two others. He looked lonely, Peregrine decided. She wasn't sure why they were watching this band of loners. They should have been hunting for the rest of the tribe. She was so hungry she would have gladly gone down there and eaten that little to-be the tom on the rock's friend was carrying off. She was too small to be its mother—maybe sister? Curiosity got the better of Peregrine, and slowly she slunk away from the rest of her group of scouts.
They were wrong. There was already enough confusion with no Healer, and adding this little knot of skinny cats who clearly needed help fending themselves to the fray wasn't going to help.
Peregrine didn't believe in prophecies. She didn't believe in spirits or magic or signs and visions and dreams from the stars. She did believe in love, though, and the lonely look on this tom's face was one that she'd recognize anywhere. Peregrine wanted to think that it didn't matter who he was watching, but he was intently watching the she-cat spit her fluffy brother onto the ground and demand answers.
Peregrine decided she wanted answers too, and melted into the boulders' shadows, coming close enough to listen.
"Alright, Whisper. What the flip is this about?"
"Exactly what I was planning on asking you."
"You know exactly what's going on. You'd better tell me why you and the other brilliant grown cats are planning on keeping us in the mountains."
"Nobody said that—"
Eddy listened, his eyes on Raindrop. She seemed to have it under control, she didn't need help. He didn't think.
Suddenly, something moved behind them.
He stiffened. The rock had moved. Rocks didn't move! Ridiculous. But... what if there was going to be an avalanche?
He started towards them, thinking of so many more reasons to go to the forest, when it moved again. Eddy stopped. The rock wasn't moving. There was someone there.
Listening.
He changed his course and slunk through the stones like a snake until he saw it clearly—a lean she-cat who was exactly the same color gray as the rocks. He narrowed his eyes and angled up the rocks, his eyes moving from her to his path every few heartbeats.
She was watching the siblings argue, Whisper justifying himself and Raindrop spitting. Her eyes were a leaf-like green that was bright and deep like a pool of water, and they were shifting across the path towards the boulder he had been standing on, her ears still angled towards the bickerers. An expression of confusion crossed her shadowed face, as if someone had forgotten or tricked her.
Eddy crept stealthily up the rocks until he was just above the green-eyed cat, eyes narrowed. What was she doing? She was sitting in a crevice, her head and upper body on the ledge in front of her, blending almost perfectly. Without thinking, Eddy found himself planning an attack—and then he crouched and pounced.
The lonely tom had gone, and Peregrine couldn't see him anywhere. But the tom's friend and her brother were getting louder.
"This forest is possibly the only chance we have of survival! Why would we pass it up?" the she-cat demanded.
"We know the mountains and we are sure they are a secure place to stay! That forest, on the other hand, could have unidentifiable poisons in it or threats we are not prepared for! The mountains, we understand! We can survive in them! And... Raindrop, I thought you liked the mountains anyway."
She flicked her head back towards them in surprise at the change in the brother's tone. The cat named Raindrop looked taken aback too.
"I—" she paused, staring off. Her brother, Whisper, stared at her.
"Say what you mean," he said. "Then it might make sense." She turned back to him, her expression distant and confused. "For a change," he added.
"I just... Feel like... we need to do what's best for the Tribe. Not for me."
He stared.
"I think... since there's so few of us left—" her voice broke "—then we should all have a say. And not just you guys."
Peregrine was very confused now. So they were a tribe? A pretty skimpy tribe if you asked her. And the 'you guys' part? What? That fluffball was half her size, how was he the boss?
"Raindrop... I voted mountains because you seemed much happier here, much happier than in the forest. In the Jungle you were always in a bad mood, but here you help everyone and lead the way instead of lagging. I'd love the familiarity of leaves and trees that we can climb in and prey we understand, but I don't mind it and I like it when you're happy. And you don't keep snarling at us."
His sister stared at him. She seemed to have lost the ability to speak. "I think that you... need to..." Inspiration seemed to strike her and she snapped at her brother— "Whisper, you have no idea how much I appreciate the gesture, but great chimpanzees why? Why? If you think the forest is better, then that's where the tribe should go! I'm not more important than all these other cats you're going to lead someday! You already told us Leafteller was on her last life! For python's sake, if you're going to lead it you have to get yourself together! No emotional baggage! No looking back! Future and the present, that's all a leader needs to worry about!
"And I'm not going to be around to give you pep talks forever! You're gonna have nine lives, you have to get it together! What's best for the tribe and nothing else! If the tribe has to eat me for dinner, then you will not stop them, you understand?! Look at me! I've been head of the to-bes because they're all scared and because I only worry when I have to and I decide decisively! I stick to it! And I don't choose by my sibling temper meter!"
It was Whisper's turn to stare.
Peregrine decided she rather liked this Raindrop character.
Not only that, but—
He landed on top of her with a muffled shriek and had her pinned down before she could protest. "What are you doing here?" Eddy demanded, his claws at her neck.
"Whhaa?" she said in a strangled 'please—give—me—air' kind of voice.
"Why are you spying on them?" he wanted to know.
"Just—curious—" she gasped. "Please—can't—breathe—"
"Oh, sorry," Eddy said quickly, getting up. He still hulked himself over her, fluffing his fur out as far as possible to let her breathe and still seem threatening,. She gasped the air back into her lungs, sitting slowly up.
"I'm... part of another tribe," she explained breathlessly. "I'm Peregrine's Shadow on Icy Stone. Peregrine."
"Eddies of Rushing River," he replied, dipping his head. "Eddy."
"Where are you guys from? Not the mountains."
"Really, really far away," he replied. "In this huge forest where all the trees are so high that the leaves are as big as me and you can hardly see the ground from camp. And there are giant snakes and a gigantic river and huge cats, and a waterfall, and it rains all the time—"
"Like a Sharpclaw?" she said eagerly. "I was just a kit when it came, but in our tribe there was a giant cat who came and ate us. We have a big waterfall too. That's where we live."
"In water?" Eddy recoiled. His namesake had nothing to do with him.
"No, behind it."
"Oh," he replied. There was a pause. "Do you know anything about the woods over there?" he pointed his tail hopefully towards them.
"Oh, not really," Peregrine answered. "The cats who saved us from Sharpclaw went there after they stayed with us for a little while. But they weren't tribe cats."
"There are already cats in there?" Eddy's heart sank.
"Were you going there?"
"Weren't you listening to them?"
"Yeah... but it seems weird for a tribe cat to live in the woods."
"It seems weirder to us for tribes to live in mountains," Eddy countered.
"Either way, it still—" Peregrine began, but a low birdcall interrupted her. "Oh, shoot, I have to go. Bye. Good luck to your tribe." She was standing up, and Eddy followed suit. "Ours has issues too, a prophecy and everything. I should tell my—"
"A prophecy? So do we! What are you—"
"I have to go, seriously," she said, looking regretful as another birdcall came. "I'd love to talk, but..."
"What? Do you speak bird or something?" asked Eddy.
"No, that's the returning call for me, I gotta go. The prey-hunters all use it to call the group back together. You guys don't have one? Are you a prey-hunter or cave-guard?" Peregrine asked, glancing back as she began to clamber out of the little crevice.
"Hunter," he replied. "We don't have any calls, no."
"Well, it was good to meet you," she said, "Your friend Raindrop sure seems energetic, and—" she reached the top and stood up, looking down at him, "—I wish you luck in your quest. Bye."
"Bye," replied Eddy, and Peregrine bounded off, her tail waving.
"So Whisper convinced them to try the woods?"
"With a little help from Eddy," Raindrop confirmed, lying down on a rock that was still a bit warm from the long-gone sunlight. "He says he thinks he saw cats down there and that maybe we could ask them about the woods."
"What, you don't believe him?" Monkey said shrewdly with a nod towards the sleeping lump of fur that was their friend, dozing in the shadows of a gigantic boulder. Whisper was asleep next to him, and night fell around them.
"I don't know," replied Raindrop. "He seemed... weird."
"Are you saying he made up the cat story to convince Whisper to convince them to let us down there?" demanded Monkey.
"No," replied Raindrop irritably, "I'm saying that in the first place, Whisper was already convinced by me—I yelled at him about tribe before kin and then he told me he only voted mountains because I liked them, and he wanted to go to the forest, and then Eddy's story was just further argument for our side."
"But you don't believe him."
"Well, let's face it," she replied, "Eddy's never been a very good liar."
"Definitely true," amended Monkey, "He's way too mellow to be convincing."
"Yeah," agreed Raindrop and Fire. There was a long, peaceful pause.
"The forest must be further down than it looks," said Fire doubtfully, "'cause it looks really small."
"Maybe it is small," said Monkey.
"Or young," put in Raindrop.
"That too."
"Or both," suggested Fire.
"Possible," agreed Monkey. "Maybe around here trees are different than in the Jungle."
"Yeah," said Raindrop with a slight purr, "Like everything else."
