p style="text-align: center;"emPrologue/em/p
p style="text-align: center;"em"To some, he was the Wolf Warrior. Others called him Nightwhisper. Most knew him as Death."/em/p
p style="text-align: center;"em-The Legend of the Wolf Warrior, as told to the kits of RiverClan by Mistycloud./em/p
p style="text-align: center;" /p
p style="text-align: left;"The sun lurched its merciless gaze onto the forest undergrowth, burrowing its way into the bodies and minds of every cat who lived there. Each step felt like a thousand in the bask of such heat, and many cats would die of it. The young, the weak, the old- no cat, save for the toughest and healthiest, could survive these conditions./p
p style="text-align: left;"Yet Midnight was not young, or weak, or old, and she was not going to die because of the blazing sun. But she emwould /emdie, and that was enough reasoning for her to ignore the pressing heat, if even for just a few minutes, because some things are more important than death./p
p style="text-align: left;"Her life was gone, nearly as faint as the moisture in the air, but her child's had not even begun to blossom - and the world was trying to rip it from him before it started. Midnight would not let it win, she would not let her baby die. /p
p style="text-align: left;"emHere, /emshe thought decrepitly. Midnight's eyes wandered to her son's, which were barely open themselves. emNo, no, not just yet! /emDesperately she surveyed the forest edge with the last of her strength. Peering down to the fragile kit below her, Midnight gasped with relief when his blue eyes opened wide./p
p style="text-align: left;"emHe's still here,/em Midnight reassured herself. She tried to step forward, but stumbled to the ground weakly, feeling her lungs drown with her own blood. Everything was so faint, so distant... but yet, she still had to fight, to emtry/em./p
p style="text-align: left;"The dark she-cat let out a pitiful yowl into the dry air. Nothing came. She tried again. Silence./p
p style="text-align: left;""Mama?" Midnight flicked her eyes slowly to her kit, who was gleaming in the sunlight that was slowly suffocating the both of them. "I- I'm so tired," he mewed. Whatever heart was left in Midnight's body left her then. They were both going to die, alone in the fringes of the forest's reaches, where no birds sang their songs and no shade was there to bring relief. She stared at the tom, and her thoughts drifted to what could have been./p
p style="text-align: left;"She saw him grow up to meet her size, and when he succeeded it they would both laugh over how mischievous he was as a kit. Some moon, he would find a girl who loved him like she loved him and he would love her the same. emHe would be a warrior, /emshe concluded. emA fighter with the heart of a songbird and the prowess of a wolf./em/p
p style="text-align: left;""Wolf..." Midnight mumbled to no one, her eyes resting into the cloudless sky. "Wolf," she said with renewed vigor. Curiously the kit bowed his head softly to the side. "That's your name, sweetie," she whispered, a weak smile finding her maw. /p
p style="text-align: left;""Mama?" Wolf asked again./p
p style="text-align: left;""I-I'm here, little one."/p
p style="text-align: left;""Are you gonna be okay?"/p
p style="text-align: left;"Midnight sighed and coughed out scarlet blood. She did not answer./p
p style="text-align: left;""I'm right here," she cooed, wrapping her tail around her child. "I'm right here..." her words drifted into the silence of the heat, but yet still her blue eyes glittered like fire. She would never know for sure if Wolf would survive, but.../p
p style="text-align: left;"She knew. A mother knows./p
p style="text-align: left;"And then she was gone./p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
p style="text-align: center;"em"To some, he was the Wolf Warrior. Others called him Nightwhisper. Most knew him as Death."/em/p
p style="text-align: center;"em-The Legend of the Wolf Warrior, as told to the kits of RiverClan by Mistycloud./em/p
p style="text-align: center;" /p
p style="text-align: left;"The sun lurched its merciless gaze onto the forest undergrowth, burrowing its way into the bodies and minds of every cat who lived there. Each step felt like a thousand in the bask of such heat, and many cats would die of it. The young, the weak, the old- no cat, save for the toughest and healthiest, could survive these conditions./p
p style="text-align: left;"Yet Midnight was not young, or weak, or old, and she was not going to die because of the blazing sun. But she emwould /emdie, and that was enough reasoning for her to ignore the pressing heat, if even for just a few minutes, because some things are more important than death./p
p style="text-align: left;"Her life was gone, nearly as faint as the moisture in the air, but her child's had not even begun to blossom - and the world was trying to rip it from him before it started. Midnight would not let it win, she would not let her baby die. /p
p style="text-align: left;"emHere, /emshe thought decrepitly. Midnight's eyes wandered to her son's, which were barely open themselves. emNo, no, not just yet! /emDesperately she surveyed the forest edge with the last of her strength. Peering down to the fragile kit below her, Midnight gasped with relief when his blue eyes opened wide./p
p style="text-align: left;"emHe's still here,/em Midnight reassured herself. She tried to step forward, but stumbled to the ground weakly, feeling her lungs drown with her own blood. Everything was so faint, so distant... but yet, she still had to fight, to emtry/em./p
p style="text-align: left;"The dark she-cat let out a pitiful yowl into the dry air. Nothing came. She tried again. Silence./p
p style="text-align: left;""Mama?" Midnight flicked her eyes slowly to her kit, who was gleaming in the sunlight that was slowly suffocating the both of them. "I- I'm so tired," he mewed. Whatever heart was left in Midnight's body left her then. They were both going to die, alone in the fringes of the forest's reaches, where no birds sang their songs and no shade was there to bring relief. She stared at the tom, and her thoughts drifted to what could have been./p
p style="text-align: left;"She saw him grow up to meet her size, and when he succeeded it they would both laugh over how mischievous he was as a kit. Some moon, he would find a girl who loved him like she loved him and he would love her the same. emHe would be a warrior, /emshe concluded. emA fighter with the heart of a songbird and the prowess of a wolf./em/p
p style="text-align: left;""Wolf..." Midnight mumbled to no one, her eyes resting into the cloudless sky. "Wolf," she said with renewed vigor. Curiously the kit bowed his head softly to the side. "That's your name, sweetie," she whispered, a weak smile finding her maw. /p
p style="text-align: left;""Mama?" Wolf asked again./p
p style="text-align: left;""I-I'm here, little one."/p
p style="text-align: left;""Are you gonna be okay?"/p
p style="text-align: left;"Midnight sighed and coughed out scarlet blood. She did not answer./p
p style="text-align: left;""I'm right here," she cooed, wrapping her tail around her child. "I'm right here..." her words drifted into the silence of the heat, but yet still her blue eyes glittered like fire. She would never know for sure if Wolf would survive, but.../p
p style="text-align: left;"She knew. A mother knows./p
p style="text-align: left;"And then she was gone./p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
