It was very quiet.
The air was quiet. The trees were quiet. There was no chirping of crickets even though the air was moist and warm, and despite the swaying of the grass and the bushes in the field, there was no sound of a breeze as there would be in any normal place.
This field was not filled with brown patches of grass, or dusty dirt. There were no breaks in the long ocean of vibrant green grass, and it seemed to go on forever. The field went on further then the eye could see, a seemingly longer distance then the moon is from the forest. And this was a peculiar thing, because here there was no moon.
And no stars. The sky was a simple black- not navy blue and not light blue. It was just black, a vast area that could hardly count as a sky at all. During the day time, of course, there would be a blue sky. Clearer and purer then any blue a cat had ever seen in their life. It was sometimes filled with puffy white clouds and sometimes filled with wispy little white clouds and sometimes there were no clouds at all. And the sun could be seen in day- it illuminated this place like any other.
But there were never stars, never a moon. Because this was high above where most cats lived- above where the moon and the stars were hung in the sky, yet not going as far as above the sun. The reason there was clouds was because clouds can go on forever, appearing and disappearing endlessly.
A cat was in the middle of the field- and it was standing on a boulder, a big gray boulder. It was just a silhouette as it sat there, head tilted up towards the black sky, looking at something that wasn't there. But upon closer inspection, the cat wasn't just a dark shape at all. In fact, it was the opposite. Stars were spotted in its light brown and white fur, and even though that fur was not long the stars still stayed, glittering whenever the cat shifted its position. Its eyes, a mixture of light green and light blue, appeared to be two round, shimmering stars in themselves, as they were much shinier then normal cat eyes. All in all, this cat was a very bright cat- it lit up the entire boulder it was sitting on when turned just the right way, glowing stars hitting the rock and bouncing back to make everything around him seem to shimmer.
Another cat was near. The cat on the boulder sensed this, and turned its head downwards, looking around him. Both of his ears were pricked, the good ear and the ear that was only half there, edges torn and ripped. His tail was the same way, patches of fur missing here and there from battles long past.
The new cat walked towards the boulder, and he and the boulder-cat locked eyes, green-blue to straight dark green. This new cat was similar to the boulder-cat- not because their fur or build was the same, because it wasn't. The new cat had fiery orange fur and a white chest, and he was larger then the boulder-cat- but his fur and eyes were just as starry.
When the orange cat was just a bit away from the boulder, close enough to leap up and hoist himself onto it, he spoke in his rough voice. "Tornstar."
A simple greeting. Tornstar nodded at the orange cat and the orange cat sprung onto the boulder to sit beside Tornstar, who was once again looking at the sky.
This was strange, because there was nothing there at all. Down below, in the normal forest, it was a common thing to observe the sky, watching the moon and the stars. But since the sky was black here, there was nothing to see. The orange cat seemed to find this strange too, for he next asked, "What are you looking at, Tornstar?"
Tornstar straightened his head out again and stared right ahead. "I have a feeling," he meowed, fur very slightly rippling in a motion that was the same as how the grass was rippling. The fiery orange cat tipped his head sideways, thinking about what Tornstar had said.
Before the orange cat could ask questions, Tornstar continued, in his voice that was smoother but slightly higher then the orange cat's voice. "It is not a good feeling, Torchfur. I am sensing something, down in the forest and the swamp and the plains, for all three of the clans."
Torchfur was surprised, because Tornstar was previously the leader of only one clan. Usually, he had feelings only about his own old clan- and the other cats that lived up here, who were too numerous to ever imagine counting, had feelings about their own clans. And sometimes a prophecy came to them, and they had to pass it on to their old clanmates.
"There is no prophecy," Tornstar said, not giving Torchfur a chance to speak yet. "No prophecy, only darkness. Darker then this sky right now, as it always is at night."
"But what does this mean for our clan?" For Torchfur was once the deputy of the same clan Tornstar had led.
The brown and white tom cat resumed his act of watching the dark sky. He did not reply for a matter of time, and Torchfur waited impatiently for his response.
Finally, Tornstar blinked. "I can not tell. I can only know that it means bad things, terrible things, for moons to come." This was such a vague response that it was of no use- he could not share these words a cat still living in the clans, for it would only confuse them and worry them. There must be a worded prophecy that one of these cats above came up with, to warn and tell cats below of times to come. But if Tornstar only felt darkness, there were no words in which he could possibly put to that.
The two cats sat there, for a long time. Down in the forest below, it was now day time and enough time had passed that it should be day time up where Tornstar, Torchfur, and all the other departed cats were. But this was not how this land worked- sometimes it was night and sometimes it was day, and occasionally in between the two. Nothing was set in stone- the very field in which Tornstar and Torchfur were sitting in was not to be found the next day, or maybe even ever again. Here, everything went on forever until the place of darkness- and that place of darkness, which no cats except for the truly evil ones walked in, was so far away that it was sometimes doubted that it was in existence.
After a very long time, another cat approached. This cat was much smaller then either of the two sitting on the boulder, and she had a very different scent to her. While Tornstar and Torchfur smelled like pine and wood, this cat smelled like stones and grass. She was significantly more graceful in jumping onto the boulder then Torchfur had been, and her fur was longer as well. As there were in the pelts of Tornstar and Torchfur, the same many stars were scattered and buried in her gray and white pelt.
"Greetings," she meowed right away, as she was not one for silence. Her voice possessed the knowledge and wisdom of cats much moons older then she- but as her body was not aging up here, her still slightly developing mind seemed out of place for her body, because once a cat was not a kit anymore, up here they would act like a warrior even if they were not one.
Tornstar returned the greeting with a nod of his head, and Torchfur said, "Hello, Flurrypaw. What brings you here?"
Of course, nothing brought Flurrypaw there- she had simply been walking in the grass, feeling but not hearing the breeze, when she had seen the two perched upon the rock and felt compelled to go and chat, or say hello, or just nod as she passed. And she had chosen to come and chat.
All three were now looking at the sky. Tornstar's face held a mixture of concern and confusion- and it could be concluded, possibly, that this was because he did not know why he felt darkness for the clans ahead. Flurrypaw felt something inside her as well, and had already recognized what the emotion was instantly.
"Do either of you feel the way the air is tonight?" she asked simply, and both Tornstar and Torchfur strangely knew what she meant. Tornstar twitched his one ear in great surprise.
"Yes, in fact, I do," he meowed, raising his eyebrows at Flurrypaw. Usually when there was a strong feeling in the sky, or a prophecy carries on the wind, more then one cat up here felt it, and it was always a relief to know that another cat was sharing in similar worries and confusion- and Tornstar had been both worried and confused. The darkness and ominous feeling had started to frighten him, because it hadn't let up or ceased at all since it started.
But Flurrypaw's next words clouded Tornstar's mind, making him feel worse then he had before. "It's simply beautiful," she commented, "full of love."
"What?" Tornstar could hardly believe his one-and-a-half ears, certain he must have heard wrong, somehow. This fear and anger and darkness he'd been feeling was hardly mistakable for love, and he wondered how any cat could feel something so opposite when the darkness was this strong.
"Yes," Flurrypaw continued, "it's very much love-feeling. I do believe that soon there will be cats falling in love within the clans below us. It's wonderful, I do wonder who it is."
This couldn't be right- because if Flurrypaw was certain that she felt love coming, and Tornstar was certain that he felt bad things like anger and deception, which feelings were right?
They all fell into silence, trying to make sense of what these mixed emotion-prophecies meant, and it stayed that way for many heartbeats.
The sky was just starting to lighten up, just a little bit. The black sky was now navy blue and there was the tiniest bit of the sun protruding from the far-off horizon. A sliver of light among the star-studded cats.
A fourth scent washed over the boulder, apart from the scents of the three cats already there. This scent was not rocky, grassy, or even of pine and trees. It was the strangest scent of the three to Tornstar and Torchfur- but completely normal to the cat who it was coming from. The scent was a combination of fish and wetlands, like ponds and marshes. It belonged to a beautiful she-cat. Her fur was long and since it was a pure-white, instead of appearing spotted with stars it positively glowed, and one's eye could only catch the actual star-sparkle if this white cat turned just the right way.
She was a little bit smaller then Flurrypaw, and tiny in comparison to Torchfur. Her blue eyes found the three cats on the boulder and she climbed up to join them, making room for herself and swishing her tail back and forth.
Tornstar greeted her first, followed by murmuring of hello from Torchfur and Flurrypaw. "Greetings, Frostpaw."
She dipped her head at the older cat. "Tornstar, Torchfur, Flurrypaw. I came to ask if you felt what is in the air tonight. Not a prophecy of words, but of feelings- the kind we cannot pass on to our cats that are living."
Tornstar's heart leapt in excitement- for maybe Frostpaw would feel the darkness too. But the hope sank as quickly as it had arisen- he had been sure that Flurrypaw's feelings were the same as his own, and they had not been. What was he to say that Frostpaw's own thoughts could be different from love and darkness altogether?
"I feel something, too," Flurrypaw informed Frostpaw. "It is love and hope and dreams for the future."
Tornstar couldn't help but add his own words. "I feel things too, but they are not the same as Flurrypaw's at all. I feel darkness, hate, revenge, and danger."
"What is this to mean for the clans?" Torchfur wondered aloud.
"I'm not sure," Frostpaw replied, "but what I feel is indecision. The cross between being loyal and respectful and doing what it right, opposed to the feelings of not caring any longer."
As the cats sat on the boulder, now four of them, they all were thinking different things, trying to come up with a reason as to why all of these mixed emotion-prophecies were hung in the air on that night. But by the time the sun was fully visible in the sky, low and sending out rays of light, painting the sky brilliant colors of pink, and blue, and orange, they had all come to the very same basic conclusion as to what they meant.
The time ahead for the clans would be very hard indeed.
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