An owl hooted, its lonely call echoing through the gloomy forest. Tanglestar sighed, padding along a well-tread path. She needed to think, and she needed time to think. There were only two days before she would leave to find the tom who had stolen the stone. In order to do that though, Tanglestar needed a plan. She had no clue who the tom was, never less where he lived, with a clan or otherwise.
Tanglestar realized what a crazy task she had set herself up to. She knew nothing of this cat, but she was going to track him down anyways.
"Impossible," Tanglestar muttered, leaping on top of a fallen log.
As she jumped off the log, an idea occurred to the leader. What if she went back to the cave where she first encountered the tom? He might still be hanging around, or maybe he lived near there as a loner with the she-cat who was with him? It was a possibility.
A loner. The thought struck Tanglestar. It sounded… great. If she were a loner, there wouldn't be any responsibilities, and she wouldn't have to worry about protecting her clan. She could be free, almost as she had been as a warrior. Why did she have to be forced to surrender that free? The day that it happened was still crystal clear.
It was new leaf, and the forests were full of prey. Tanglestar was returning from a successful hunting patrol, only to find a chaotic camp with cats yowling in confusion. She remembered scanning the clearing for Miststar, but couldn't find the she-cat. Desperate to figure out what was going on, Tanglestar tried to get a word out of one of the younger warriors skittering around camp. The best answer she got was that the leader, deputy, and several other cats had just… disappeared. As Tanglestar had searched the camp, she realized her mom had been one of those cats. The shock had barely set in when the clan managed to pull themselves together and decide that Tanglestar and her sister should lead the clan. The rest was a blur.
"…good job… maybe…" Tanglestar shook herself out of her daze and pricked her ears. Voices? She paused in mid-stride, straining to hear more.
"…anything else…do?"
Creeping through the undergrowth, Tanglestar peered through a bush, and saw the figures of three cats standing in the moonlight, on the sandy river shore. Two of the cats were smaller than the third, and as Tanglestar took a closer look, she recognized the two cats as Dapplepaw and Duskpaw!
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and read the next chapter next week!