The graveyard was silent. All Starlingpaw could see through the holes in the dead monster's pelt was darkness, lit only by a pale sliver of moon and the tiny pinpricks of her warrior ancestors dancing across Silverpelt.
She had barely slept. The fragile realm of rest she had managed to slip into had been shattered by a rustling sound that she quickly put off to some Clan cat rising to make dirt. Even still, her mind ran amok with visions of DuskClan warriors sliding down into the glen to bite the throats of her sleeping Clanmates, and she hadn't been able to put them aside. Now she lay wide awake, her face half-buried in Birchpaw's patched fur, still bothered by the vivid memories of her prophetic dreams whenever she closed her eyes.
Starlingpaw let out a quiet breath of frustration and slowly pulled away from Birchpaw, nearly falling backward off of the Twoleg perch in the process. The soft surface put her off balance, which did very little to help with her already-clumsy limbs. She managed to make her way to the edge of the cushion and peered over the edge. It was only a tail-length of a drop to the ground of the monster, but she worried if she fell ungracefully (as was her usual style) she would wake the cats and kittens that slept so peacefully nearby.
Claws unsheathed to keep her steady, Starlingpaw took another tentative step forward and tried to judge where she could jump to. She was never very good at bending her legs upon impact to the ground, just like the small kits that dreamed happily a whisker-length away from where she stood, so a simple leap would make a loud noise and shake the monster. She decided the best way to descend was to hook her right-paw claws onto the very edge of the perch and lower the rest of her body down, almost like she had failed to do when entering the graveyard.
She began the maneuver well; her right paw's claws were dug deep into the soft material, facing partly sideways so she didn't snap her wrists trying to lower her body. Next came the part that she had somehow overlooked, which was getting her legs to drop down off of the perch without pulling her foreleg out of its socket. She remembered vaguely some sort of lesson that Honeypool had taught her back in the forest about how to descend trees, where the medicine cat had instructed her to make sure her hindlegs never hung free in the air while her forepaws remained clinging to the bark, or it could jerk her forelegs in an odd direction and permanently damage them.
Starlingpaw wondered why she hadn't just jumped. But her claws were already dug into the perch and one of her hind legs was clinging to its side, so there was no real turning back. She managed to move her other hind leg onto the side of the cushion and realized with annoyance that she was now hanging horizontally in the air, no closer to getting down from the perch than she had been before.
As she hung suspended from the cushion, thinking frantically about a way to get out of her awkward position, a loud thump came from what seemed to be the outside of the monster, and it startled Starlingpaw so much that her hind legs slipped off of the cushion, making her tumble down to the ground with an equally loud noise.
In an instant she saw black-and white ears perk up from the top of the Twoleg perch, and Birchpaw had soon hopped down to see what was the matter. She heard the quiet rustles of other cats rousing themselves from sleep and grumbled quietly about how badly she had done trying to keep their rest undisturbed. It was truly pathetic that she couldn't even get down a tail-length of height without making a sound as loud as a crack of thunder.
"Did something happen? Are you alright?" Birchpaw asked worriedly, the haze of sleep nonexistent in his eyes. Maybe he hadn't been asleep after all.
Starlingpaw shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Did you hear that noise?"
"You mean the sound you made when you fell to the ground?"
"No," she responded, not finding the humor in his words that she normally might have. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks just thinking about how stupid she had been, trying to descend the perch like that. "I mean the one before that. It came from outside."
Birchpaw gave her a quizzical look. "It must have been covered by the sound of your fall."
Starlingpaw flicked her ears in annoyance. "You don't need to keep teasing me, do you?"
He flinched. "Sorry. I didn't mean to. I really didn't hear it."
"Fine," she sighed. "We'll just have to go look for it."
The patched tom shrugged his broad shoulders. "Sure. I couldn't sleep anyway."
The two apprentices walked briskly side-by-side to the exit of the monster, the gaping hole in the side of its corpse that led to the rest of the graveyard. Starlingpaw felt a small drop of comfort at the reassurance of Birchpaw's flank beside hers, her pace quickened by his support.
"So what exactly are we looking for?" Birchpaw asked quietly, his muzzle lowered close to Starlingpaw's ears so she could make out what he was murmuring.
Starlingpaw shook her head slightly. "I don't know," she responded. "But it didn't sound natural. Something else has to be here. I'm not sure if it's a cat or a badger or…" she trailed off, catching sight of something that made her pulse quicken.
Some sort of flat wooden platform, like a tree's trunk that had been flattened, was propped up nearby against a particularly tall tower of monster innards and Twoleg crowfood. Starlingpaw raced towards it in her wobbly gait, certain that she had seen something.
"Starlingpaw! Wait!" Birchpaw hissed from behind her as she sprinted forward. He caught up with little difficulty, but even still Starlingpaw was maintaining a swift pace. Her legs burned from the effort, but she had to keep going.
"Shh!" she spat back, her tone rough but still low. "I saw something go in there!"
Birchpaw skidded to a halt beside her, and Starlingpaw was inclined to do the same. They were only a few fox-lengths from the odd wooden den now. "What do you mean? Was it a cat?"
Starlingpaw shrugged. "There was a flash of white… fur or something, I don't know. It might be a cat, it might not. But it's something living, and it's putting our Clan in danger!-"
Birchpaw took a step closer to her, brushing his side against hers. "It's probably just Breezefall. Or Blizzardstar, I don't know. There are plenty of white cats in DawnClan."
She shot an uneasy glance at the den. "I don't think so. Why would a DawnClan cat be hiding in Twoleg garbage?"
"I don't know, but it's none of our-"
He was cut off as an unfamiliar cat, her fur as white as moonlight, pushed her way out of the den. She was unaware of the DawnClan cats for a few moments before she turned her eyes upwards, staring straight at Starlingpaw with a wide, icy blue gaze. A jolt of shock shot between both she-cats, and was broken an instant later as the white cat turned on her heels and ran back through the shelter.
Starlingpaw didn't hesitate, taking off to follow the stranger at the fastest speed she could manage. Her paws slipped on the rotting crowfood and leaves that lay scattered across the ground of the glen, and her muscles were screaming at the conscious effort it took to place one paw in front of the other, but she was focused on her target.
Turning sharply around a corner, Starlingpaw saw a small set of white paws disappearing under the corpse of a monster, and darted forward to follow them. She couldn't bend her legs to crawl under the monster, and was approaching the side of it quickly; Starlingpaw was going to slam into the hard hunk of material if she didn't duck down. Thinking quickly, she dropped onto her belly while trying to maintain momentum and slid underneath the monster, the wet ground carrying her nearly all the way underneath the beast. She crawled out into open air with weak legs, already exhausted but determined to catch the intruder.
Starlingpaw pulled herself to her feet and looked wildly around, trying to find where the cat had gone. It had taken her much longer to pass under the monster than she had wished, and now it seemed the stranger had a head start. Judging by the marks on the ground, the intruder had sprinted below the monster in a similar path to Starlingpaw's, but there the tracks ran cold. The apprentice turned to her sense of smell, glad that she was at least able to do one thing she was good at: tracking. She lowered her nose to the ground as well as she could, her head starting the annoying bobble that she so disliked, and quickly caught the odd scent of the cat. It was female, as she had noted earlier, but now Starlingpaw deduced a new layer of her scent that she hadn't noticed before. The cat wasn't Clan, nor was it a rogue or kittypet. There was an unfamiliar, unsettling feel to the smell. It smelled of more open air than Starlingpaw had ever experienced. Who was this cat?
After her short pause to inspect the scent, she set off again, following the smell through a particularly crowded area of the graveyard. Starlingpaw weaved through mountains of monster corpses, the whole time sniffing rapidly for the white cat's scent. She followed it underneath another monster, at which point the scent doubled back on itself and raced back out into the open, looping around piles of trash and monster innards. The intruder must have been trying to throw her off.
Starlingpaw was still confident in her ability to find the cat. She had a good nose, if not strong legs, and as long as the scent was still easy to make out, she could follow it through the detours it made. The trail began to curl around the edge of a monster's body, heading straight for a pile of Twoleg rubbish. Starlingpaw felt a stone of unease settle in her stomach. Sure enough, the strange scent launched itself directly into the pile of rancid crowfood, and there the trail ran cold. Starlingpaw cursed the stranger for their good sense, but she had a small hope that the scent of crowfood might still lead her to the white cat. She lowered her nose to the ground and set off along the scent of decay, but it led nowhere in particular. The smell of rot was too prevalent in the graveyard to tell different trails of it from each other.
She spat in anger, ready to turn back, when just then a loud clang brought her attention to a ginormous monster colored yellow like a dandelion, faded slightly over the seasons since its death. There was a small white cat climbing frantically into the monster, apparently dislodging a monster part on her way in, which must have caused the metallic noise to ring out. Starlingpaw sent up a quick thanks to StarClan for her good luck and leaped forward at once, chasing down the stranger with the last pricks of strength left in her muscles. She stumbled once or twice on her way to the large monster, but the ground was clear enough where she was that her claws allowed her enough purchase to stay stable on her paws. In a few long moments she had cleared the stretch of empty ground and took an awkward flying jump towards the yellowish beast's corpse, landing halfway in its opening and having to scramble upwards with her back legs to get inside.
The interior of the monster was dark and gloomy, but unnaturally warm. Starlingpaw had no time for caution, though, and raced forward into the belly of the beast. To her left was a long strip of empty area, flanked on both sides by Twoleg perches similar to the ones in the monster that the queens had slept in. Walking slowly down the strip was the white cat, her back turned to Starlingpaw. Apparently the stranger hadn't heard the apprentice enter, something Starlingpaw was eternally grateful for. The sable apprentice launched herself down the clear space, her paws slipping slightly on the floor of the monster. Starlingpaw had gained too much momentum and now she was rocketing towards the intruder with no way to slow down. She collided into the back of the stranger an instant later, quickly scrambling to gain the upper paw, and managed to pin the she-cat to the floor of the monster.
Making no sound, the white cat struggled slightly, but was remarkably calm about being attacked. Starlingpaw took no notice, and instead shoved her face into the stranger's, baring her fangs and spitting.
"What were you doing in our Clan's home?" the sable she-cat growled, unsure of what else to refer to the graveyard as. For the time being, it was DawnClan's home, but it was a prison too. She didn't think that the stranger needed to know that.
The she-cat didn't respond, but stared into Starlingpaw's eyes with her own. The bright blue gaze was so unnaturally familiar to the apprentice, but she couldn't place why.
"Come on! Answer me!" Starlingpaw hissed, her voice rising with frustration. She had fought hard for answers, and she wanted them now. "You can't just invade our territory and expect to get off free! Who are you?"
"I'd like to ask you the same thing," came a low, gruff voice from behind her. Starlingpaw started suddenly, whipping her head around to see who had spoken. In that instant, the white she-cat managed to slip out from underneath Starlingpaw's grip, and, taking advantage of her opponent's distraction, threw herself at the apprentice.
Starlingpaw felt her skull hit hard against the ground of the monster, and her head spun as she stared up at the greyish canopy of the monster's corpse. From the corners of her vision she saw the dark shadows of cats emerge from the Twoleg perches, one of them larger than the rest and all the more intimidating.
The large cat stepped closer until her face was directly over Starlingpaw's. The apprentice made out very little of her appearance in the low light, but she could see the ragged long grey fur of the she-cat and the sheen of her olive-green eyes. The throbbing pain in her head kept her from calling out, but she hoped beyond hope that Birchpaw had managed to follow her and she wouldn't need to make a cry for help anyway.
"You'll regret hurting my daughter, you mindless Clan warrior," the large cat growled, lowering her muzzle so it was only a mouse-length away from Starlingpaw's.
"I'm not a warrior, but thanks," Starlingpaw managed to croak out, her head clearing slightly from the impact. "Who… are you?"
The cat's eyes narrowed. "No friend of yours."
With that, the grey she-cat lowered her teeth to Starlingpaw's throat and prepared to bite down. She could feel the sharp fangs against her thin, shining, sable fur, and remembered as her life flashed before her eyes what the white-cat had reminded her of. Holding her paws over the stranger's throat felt oddly similar to her vision of Blizzardstar's death, only that her paws were actually her own. There was some… trait in common between the two sights, in reality and in dreams, but Starlingpaw had no idea what it was. She only wished she had had the time to actually dig her claws into the intruder's neck as the vision had shown her paws doing, so that she might not be a tail-length away from death now. Perhaps it was her time, but Starlingpaw wasn't ready to die. She had to figure out what the prophecy meant, had to pass it on to her Clanmates to keep away the infinite dusk. And she wanted to see Birchpaw, at least one last time.
Tears welled at her eyes as drops of blood beaded up at her throat. She took her last breath and waited for the end to come.
Instead she was hit with a large weight as the teeth were jerked away from her and the large cat was knocked forwards, nearly crushing Starlingpaw underneath the mass of fur and claws.
As if StarClan had heard her last thoughts, Birchpaw had come to her rescue. The large tom grappled with the grey she-cat, utilizing his large frame in a rare moment of bravery, and Starlingpaw resolved to never be on the receiving side of the apprentice's ragged claws. Like his sibling, he was a formidable fighter, but unlike Ravenwing, Birchpaw didn't find himself in the midst of battle often.
Starlingpaw threw herself into the fray, her body still screaming in pain from the long chase she had engaged in, and managed to tear out a few clawfuls of fur from the writhing mass of the large she-cat that Birchpaw had managed to pin down. But in the heat of the moment, Starlingpaw had forgotten a vital detail.
From the Twoleg perches on either side of her descended a flood of unfamiliar cats, easily surrounding the two fierce apprentices with their sheer number. Starlingpaw counted about ten of them in all, no match for a Clan but an impossible challenge for two measly apprentices.
A bulky-looking tom darted out from the crowd of newcomers and made a grave mistake. He clamped his jaws down on Birchpaw's scruff, attempting to pull him off of the grey she-cat. Birchpaw let out an ear-shattering howl and launched himself into the air, breaking the tom's grip with excessive ease, and scrambled for the small sliver of open space between the cats. Starlingpaw, who had been swiping at the crowd of cats from a distance, rushed immediately to his aid, pushing through the stranger cats quickly enough that none of them had enough time to process their movements. Birchpaw was running faster than Starlingpaw could manage, but at the very least none of the strange cats took off after him. Once they had passed the rows of perches and turned sharply to leave the monster, Starlingpaw cast a quick glance back at the gathering of cats. The grey she-cat had turned her back to the apprentices, instead bending over the white she-cat with what appeared to be worry. The other cats stared angrily at the escaping Clan cats, but made no move to follow them. Starlingpaw was confused as to why, but was grateful nonetheless.
They made it out of the large monster just in time. Birchpaw's legs were beginning to stiffen, so Starlingpaw could tell an attack was descending upon him.
Both cats collapsed once they managed to run a tree-length or so away from the vehicle, Birchpaw from panic and Starlingpaw from sheer exhaustion. She didn't know if she'd be able to move for hours, and her entire body screamed at her in pain. The adrenaline from the fight was wearing off, and her legs became stiff and tight, the pain grew sharper, but Birchpaw was in trouble.
Starlingpaw crawled over to him, dragging herself across the ground with aching paws.
"Birchpaw?"
There was no response. His eyes were shut tight, his head low to the ground. He sat in a low crouch, his tail puffed out like a raccoon's. Starlingpaw moved to lay right beside him, her head equal with his, wishing she had a full tail to wrap around him.
She pressed her muzzle against the side of his, feeling the race of his pulse through her short fur. Birchpaw jolted slightly, his muscles stiffening at her touch.
"Shh. It's okay. It's just me, Starlingpaw," she meowed softly, nuzzling the side of his face with her nose. She tried to make her scent prevalent, pressing her face against his, until he calmed down slightly.
"I don't know if you can hear me or not," Starlingpaw said, figuring that her speech might help calm him too. She couldn't stand the sight of Birchpaw upset, especially when she could do something about it. Anything she could do to keep Birchpaw out of the dangerous place in his mind that he was taken to, she would do. She began to groom his fur as she spoke, rambling about whatever she could think of to provide a familiar noise. "Maybe you do hear me, but you forget once you wake up. I don't know. I'm… I'm really sorry. If I hadn't chased after her, you wouldn't have had to fight, and…" Starlingpaw glanced at the spurts of blood that were beginning to congeal around Birchpaw's scruff. She didn't think it was a good idea to clean them, in case the touch sent Birchpaw further into his attack. "You wouldn't have gotten injured. It's my fault."
She had hoped that her words would bring Birchpaw out of his memories, but he didn't seem to be improving. His muscles were still unnaturally tense, his breathing heavy and his pulse rapid. Starlingpaw felt a twinge of fear. She didn't know what else she could do.
Her gaze was brought back to the blood at his scruff. Maybe that was the problem.
Starlingpaw brought her muzzle closer to the extra skin at the base of Birchpaw's neck that all cats had. There were four new teeth marks, unnaturally jagged, probably from when Birchpaw had launched the tom off of him with his fangs still embedded in his skin, all of them bleeding an ugly dark red. Starlingpaw worried that the wound had become infected by something on the strange tom's teeth. Had Birchpaw's opponent eaten crowfood or Twoleg rubbish, and now the disgusting bacteria had transferred into this wound? Starlingpaw didn't like the thought of touching Birchpaw's scruff, but she similarly didn't like the idea of it getting infected.
With a quick inhale, Starlingpaw drew a few brief licks across the wound, the blood introducing a rancid taste to her mouth. She recoiled at the dank, tangy taste, but resolved to finish cleaning it. Birchpaw hadn't reacted adversely, so she figured it was safe.
Starlingpaw set to grooming the wound, placing one of her paws on the opposite side of Birchpaw's body to give her easier access to the area around the base of his neck. More blood had begun to bubble out of the wound, less dark and clumpy than the stuff she had seen before. She took this to mean that the wound was clean, and once the blood stopped flowing so freely, she allowed it to congeal. Throughout the process Birchpaw's shoulders seemed to relax slightly, and to her great relief, he eventually turned his head to the side, his eyes weakly latching onto hers.
"Hey," he meowed hoarsely.
Starlingpaw purred uncontrollably, briefly pressing her muzzle into the side of Birchpaw's face. She pulled back, still awkwardly positioned over the top of his shoulders. "I'm glad you're…" she struggled to come up with a word for a moment, but Birchpaw cut her off by turning slightly onto his back to press his muzzle against hers. Starlingpaw felt a warm glow flow through her and nearly forgot about the near-death experience she had had not long ago.
"Thank you," Birchpaw said simply. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Same here," she purred with a laugh. "Thanks for saving my life back there. Sorry again."
He shook his head slightly, his whiskers brushing up against her face in the movement. "Don't worry. It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known that there was a whole monster full of… whatever those cats are."
Starlingpaw shrugged, pulling back slightly. "Still, you wouldn't have gotten hurt if-"
Birchpaw flicked his tail against the back of her hind legs. "The wound probably would have gotten infected if you hadn't cleaned it. I think we're even, okay?"
She nodded and pressed her nose against his forehead, to which he smiled and raised his muzzle up against her throat, his soft fur brushing along hers. The feeling of comfort and safety that now wrapped around her felt impossible in the dire circumstances she and her Clan had landed in. But kinship, connection, and dare she say love persisted throughout.
"Starlingpaw!" came a familiar call from nearby. The sable apprentice had barely noticed the sound of footsteps in her closeness to Birchpaw, but now she pulled away from the tom to see a ginger she-cat–along with her mate following farther behind–approaching them.
"Oh, Tawnystripe. I didn't know you had followed us," Starlingpaw meowed, wishing that the she-cat warrior had reached the apprentices while they were still in need of help.
"I guess I shouldn't have," Tawnystripe remarked with her signature self-confidence. "It looks like I might be interrupting something."
Starlingpaw felt her face flush and awkwardly positioned herself beside Birchpaw instead of standing over him. "Um. No. You weren't."
The ginger she-cat laughed. "Okay, sure, I believe you. But what was all the commotion for, then, if not-"
"Tawnystripe, try not to kill them with embarrassment, okay?" Mosspetal remarked with a smile as she reached the spot that her mate sat beside a scruffy tuft of grass. "I apologize for her. I'm surprised she's allowed to be a parent. Really, Birchpaw and Starlingpaw, what happened?"
Starlingpaw took a deep breath and got to her paws, casting a distrustful glance at the large yellow monster not far behind her. Birchpaw remained lying on the ground, his legs still shaky from his attack. "It's kind of a long story."
Tawnystripe shrugged, settling beside Mosspetal and wrapping her tail around the calico she-cat. "We have all night to listen."