"Finding out I could swim came as a surprise.
"I think it would have been useful to know
"while I was drowning,
"floundering in water like black
"tar in my mouth,
"Listening to my friends,
"my siblings
"and my children
"all die."
Chapter 3:: Beast
Snowpaw followed Shadowhisker through the valley. He moved deftly through the bodies, and not once did he step in a puddle of blood. Snowpaw tried to do the same - he'd taught her to move quickly on her paws, light on her toes, to make every fluid moment purposeful. But she wasn't as good at it.
She did not look at the red matting on her paws.
The two of them were the farthest left of all the group - spread out more southeast than south. Darkleaf and Tansypaw were farthest west of them - far enough to Snowpaw to be the size of two black bugs she had to squint to see. But they had found something worth investigating apparently, because they had called the group next to them over, and down the line everyone went to join them.
They were all standing single file, and as Snowpaw got closer she realized that they were standing on the edge of a cliff - she hadn't been able to see it from far away. Shadowhisker picked up the pace and so did she, bouncing lithely over bodies that had over the course of the day become little more than annoying obstacles to them.
Irisfern was standing to Sharpfang's right and Shadowhisker joined them. He was about to say something, but then he looked over the cliff and he lost his breath.
Snowpaw did, too.
It was… Snowpaw couldn't even tell what she was looking at. The cliff dropped down to more land, clear land, empty of the small bodies that littered the place the patrols walked. Instead, there were the bodies of some kind of creature that, even from up on the cliff, were bigger than anything Snowpaw had ever seen. To her, they were like isolated caverns, made of decayed meat and bone, sinew falling like lichen over their entrances.
"What are they?" she whispered.
No one answered. She was sure they had all asked the same question.
She heard pawsteps and looked up. Breezetail, the patrol leader from DewClan, was approaching them.
"Sharpfang, Irisfern," he greeted. He had a thin voice for his thin body, twitchy and tightly wound. From what Snowpaw knew of him, he was an impulsive and brash cat - he had once started a spat with a HeatherClan patrol that sparked a three-moon conflict. She wondered why someone like that was chosen for a quest like this.
Irisfern and Sharpfang looked at him expectantly. There was a sour taste in both their mouths, Snowpaw guessed, along with the hard look in their eyes. She fell back with Jackalpaw and Shadepaw while the warriors spoke.
"Do you see that slope?" Breezetail gestured southeast. "If we walk along the cliff edge, we'll reach it. I think we could be there by nightfall - better down there than up here, I think." He swallowed, and so did everyone else.
But Irisfern's voice was as calm as it ever was. "Yes.. I think we could make it." She looked up at the sun, and so did Snowpaw. It was already starting to set. A chill went through Snowpaw. The thought of spending the night here, completely in darkness…
She looked over at Shadowhisker, and he caught her eye. She didn't see fear in those eyes for even a second - he nodded reassuringly at her, and then his attention was back on Breezetail.
Beside her, Jackalpaw dipped his head to speak close to Shadepaw's ear.
"Those things - they're rotted to the bone."
Shadepaw nodded once. "It's odd."
It was the first time Snowpaw had ever heard him talk. He had a quiet voice, a voice that had an edge to it, although it wasn't rough. Like Shadepaw himself, maybe. She decided not to speak nor give any indication she was listening.
This was skill she had learned in kithood. Her older clanmates often spoke carelessly in front of her when she was younger because she was airheaded and forgetful. She learned a lot, then, just by swatting dustballs near people who didn't have the decency to give her any credit. She heard Cindershadow talk about Irisfern. She heard Adderstar talk about Snowpaw's father. She heard many cats talk about FalconClan - unfavorable things, things that shocked Snowpaw's little kit mind at the time-
Did you hear-
In FalconClan?
Those FalconClan brothers-
It's always them, they really can't get along.
What a shame,
it really is. Really.
They'll kill each other one day-
just a heap of claws and fur.
No, no, I think they'll do it to themselves.
Both jumping over the side of the mountain,
rather than be shown up by the other.
Snowpaw would just pounce on her little dust ball and carry it away.
Jackalpaw gasped suddenly. "Shadepaw, the-" Jackalpaw paused. He shuffled his paws, and when he spoke again, it was quieter. "The Gathering last moon."
"...I remember. But-" Then he looked over the large corpses again and startled.
Snowpaw remembered, too. But not the same thing they did, apparently. Last moon, a group of apprentices snuck down to the shore. One of them did not return.
Jackalpaw spoke quickly, "Do you think-"
The four warriors broke from their conversation, and Jackalpaw immediately fell silent. Snowpaw's ear ticked in frustration.
She could only assume that those two were among the apprenticed that snuck to the shore. Had they seen one of these creatures at the shore? Snowpaw didn't this morning on her way down - none of them did. She waited, standing impatiently, for Shadowhisker to stop talking to Irisfern.
She looked at the setting sun in the west, then behind her, to the slope. It would take them east. She wondered how long they could continue to travel south down there before the possibility of being walled off by another cliff edge. There was none that she could see, but the wall was jagged, uneven. She could only hope that there would be a path as easy to travel as this one.
It was looking out, pondering this, that she was the first one of them to see the cat walking towards them.
"Shadowhisker!" Her urgent voice startled everyone there. She jerked her head in the direction of the cat.
Shadowhisker came to her side quickly. "That's…" He laughed. "We didn't have to look far, I guess. Good catch, Snowpaw."
Snowpaw nodded, accepting the praise with a straight face.
"We shouldn't assume they're a friend," Sharpfang said from behind them.
Shadowhisker waved his tail. "Cynical as always - I know, I know."
Sharpfang had a disapproving look on his face, but Snowpaw knew it wasn't genuine. Sharpfang was the first cat from another clan that Shadowhisker had introduced her to. She remembered that Shadowhisker had tried to boast that he had given Sharpfang the two parallel scars on his muzzle - Sharpfang had twitched his whiskers and called him a lying little fuck.
"Jackalpaw-"
"Tooth."
"-Would you run and get Darkleaf, please?"
"What? Tell Shadepaw! I can stay here."
Snowpaw didn't think she had seen someone - warrior or apprentice - blatantly question a patrol leader before. Not even Cindershadow had the guts to question Adderstar public. Sharpfang looked like he was used to it.
"I'm asking you," he said calmly.
Jackalpaw teeth clacked. He tail flicked when he turned, but he ran to go get Darkleaf.
.o0O0o.
Three days before Snowpaw's apprentice ceremony, she met Shadowhisker. She was too old to be chasing dust balls now, so she was occupying herself - and her nervousness - by watching a beetle lumber through the camp. It was as big as her paws, not hard to spot, so she was barely keeping track of it.
She was thinking about finally pouncing on it when she noticed Shadowhisker coming up beside her. He was looking down at her with his signature look of amused interest, so that Snowpaw eyed him warily as he approached.
"Hello," she said, quietly. Although aloof, Shadowhisker was one of the nice warriors, the ones who made way for her games and gave her friendly nods. Even so, she kept herself to one-word sentences, as with everyone else. It was easier to stay listening if you pretended to have nothing to say.
"Hello," Shadowhisker answered. He settled next to her, and watched her lumbering beetle. "That'll be a fine catch."
Snowpaw shrugged. "It might."
It started to go towards a crack in the ground, where Snowpaw wouldn't be able to follow.
"Will you catch it?" Shadowhisker asked.
Snowpaw watched it scuttle closer and closer to the crack. "...No."
They both watched it get away with its unhurried pace, as if it knew that she wasn't going to hunt it. What stupid prey, that it made its escape so leisurely.
And then Shadowhisker laughed, a joyful little chuckle that offended Snowpaw for some reason. She looked up at him, silently.
"You know a lot more than you let on, don't you?" he asked, giving her an amused look.
And it caught Snowpaw by surprise enough that she didn't even think to lie. She nodded once without even wondering if it was arrogant to agree - it was the first time anyone had noticed her.
Three days later, Shadowhisker became her mentor.
.o0O0o.
The stranger had white fur, marked by black spots that covered his paws and imbalanced the coloration of his face. He was lithe, and smaller than Shadowhisker, though about his age as far as Snowpaw could tell. He walked with his head high, not seeming to be afraid of the twelve cats before him, nor in any hurry despite being measured by the twenty-four eyes of each of them. He stopped a few paces in front of Darkleaf and Irisfern, who had ventured out some paces to meet him. To Snowpaw's understanding, they were the patrol leaders most suited to this - Sharpfang preferred not to speak if he didn't have to, and Breezetail preferred claws to words.
"Good evening," he said to them. He dipped his head.
"Good evening," Darkleaf said. Her voice carried more than his, authority ringing clear.
Head still bowed, the stranger looked between the two of them. His gaze lingered on each of them, and then on each of the rest of them. He was stalling, Snowpaw could tell. Deciding.
Then, he straightened. "My name is Finlay," he said. "Please forgive my intrusion on you - I was very interested to see any living cat besides myself."
Snowpaw looked up at Shadowhisker. She knew that they were all hoping they'd find another group like themselves, but what if he was the only one?
Darkleaf's head tilted in acknowledgement. "I am Darkleaf of MistClan, and this is Irisfern of HeatherClan." Snowpaw wondered if she'd reveal that Irisfern was not clanborn. "We were sent by our clan leaders to find signs of life after the water suddenly dried."
Finlay nodded. "That's why I left my home, too." He offered up a relieved smile. "It's good fortune that we found each other, then!"
"Indeed." Darkleaf's whiskers twitched. "And where is your home?"
Finlay looked east, to the cliff and the large corpses. "There are meadows to the east, about a three days' walk from here."
Meadows! Snowpaw glanced at Irisfern, looking selfishly for any sort of recognition in her. But she was still, like Darkleaf, sitting with her usual calmness but for the intensity of her gaze.
Finlay continued, "I…" He suddenly swallowed, looking first to the ground and then to Darkleaf again, and Snowpaw sensed that he was making another decision. "We - my brothers and I - set out… about a week past."
At this, Darkleaf tilted her head almost fully sideways. "Your brothers…?" she asked coaxingly, if not gently.
"Yes, that's why I came here. To-to warn you." Finlay gathered his breath in the space between his voice and everyone's either pensive or shocked gasp. The sunset ran red now, bathing the visitor in its light as his voice darkened. "Darkleaf, Irisfern and others, please listen. There are wolves here. They are unlike any wolves I have ever seen. They come out only at night - all black, eyes all red. They possess a hunger which no living beast should. They…" He shuddered suddenly, and seemed to think better of his sentence. "I beg you to leave," he said instead, and his voice really was like a plea. Snowpaw found herself shuddering, too, her legs weak. She pressed herself into Shadowhisker's flank. His stillness was a comfort, even if it was abnormal.
Darkleaf's polite expression, at this news, had melted into a frown, limp features giving way to a snarl. She whipped around and leveled Sunfleck in particular with this glare, while Irisfern did not take her eyes of Finlay.
"Where," Irisfern began, the first time she had spoken, "do you suggest we go?"
Finlay seemed confused by her question, only looking level at her.
"The sun is dying," Irisfern continued. Her voice was different from Darkleaf's, a robin's trill to her eagle call. "and our home is a day's walk from here. You alone of your brothers have managed to survive a week in this place. Have you come only to warn us, or give us advice?" She bowed her head to him, then, an apology to Snowpaw's eyes.
Finlay faltered again, having flinched at the mention of his brothers. "I have survived by luck alone, I'm afraid," he said quietly. It was as good of an apology as Irisfern had given, and given to each of the twelve cats before him.
Darkleaf actually did snarl then, as much at newcomer Finlay as the situation itself. She said something, then, but Snowpaw did not hear it, or perhaps forgot it, even as more voices joined hers.
Shadepaw's quiet voice cut clear through the clamor.
"They sent us here to kill us."
Snowpaw hadn't noticed before then that he was beside her. Still pressed feebly into Shadowhisker's side, she met Shadepaw's eyes from the comfort of her mentor's fur.
Shadepaw was looking straight at her, little blue eyes glinting in Sharpfang's shadow.
Snowpaw had nothing to say, although she might've thought of something if she didn't believe him. As it was, she finally realized the truth of her - of their - situation. Chosen without mercy, sent out with scant even a farewell, and abandoned in this arena. She had been wondering what the criteria for the choosing was - because they had to be chosen for a reason, right?
They sent us here to kill us.
Still not having found her voice, Snowpaw nodded once to Shadepaw. And then, strength leaving her once again, she closed her eyes and leaned back into Shadowhisker. He acknowledged her this time.
"Hey, hey." He reached down and laid his muzzle on her forehead, twisting in a protective way around her. "We'll be fine, little one, I promise."
She said nothing.
Cindershadow's hatred for Irisfern chose her. Adderstar's hatred for Snowpaw's father chose her. But Shadowhisker? Easy-going, competent Shadowhisker, mentored by the well-respected Darkpool?
Snowpaw shut her eyes tighter, trying not to think that he was chosen only because she was.
And then she wondered about Shadepaw, Sharpfang and Jackalpaw, and then the rest of the cats here. She could think of nothing - besides Sunfleck's obvious disgraced status as an ex-medicine cat. But even that was… cruel.
She took a single, deep breath and opened her eyes. Meeting Shadowhisker's eyes briefly, she nodded, and he gave her an approving look. There was no sense hiding in her mentor's fur. It was not him alone that would save her - this she had learned early. She had to rely on her own cleverness, too.
"The wolves come every other night," came Finlay's shuddering voice. The newcomer was suddenly backed against the edge of the cliff in the middle of a semicircle of fear. "They will come tonight."
His words, like an omen, hung in the air as the last of the sun disappeared.
Although Snowpaw's first instinct was to panic, they were not yet in complete darkness. Twilight's grey light gave them some mercy still.
Sharpfang's voice was quick through the sudden silence. "When do they come?" he asked, standing in front of Finlay.
"When the night is truly dark; we have some time yet." But Finlay's voice was short and uncertain. Snowpaw wondered if he was regretting spending the time to warn them.
"How many?" Sharpfang asked.
"Three, but… when they howl, more answer from the distance."
"Can we fight them?"
Finlay's throat jumped, and he shook his head. "Asher and Jester tried…" He suddenly looked behind him, and then back at Sharpfang, then to Darkleaf.
"Down there," he said. There was urgency in his voice now, companion to fear. "Down there, there's… not as much to eat, and… they might follow, but-" He jumped on the tips of his paws, suddenly leading them along the edge of the path. Sharpfang and Darkleaf exchanged a glance, then followed.
"We have to hurry, though," Finlay said.
"We can run," Darkleaf said.
Immediately, Finlay set off at a run along the cliff's edge, aiming for the southeastern slope, and the clan cats followed.
Snowpaw kept pace with some difficulty, having to pay more and more attention to where her paws landed as it got darker and darker. She ran behind Irisfern, and tried to match her steps, but Irisfern had a longer stride than her.
The first howl threw her off with such intensity that Shadowhisker grasped her by the scruff to keep her from falling.
To call it a howl felt ridiculous. Snowpaw had heard wolves howl before, and she had seen wolves before, albeit vaguely and from a distance. But this… It was am impossible noise, both deep enough to feel in her paws and shrill enough to hurt her ears. She risked tripping again to look up the rise, where the noise came from.
Her stomach lurched. As Finlay had said - Snowpaw hadn't realized until just then that she had been hoping he was a liar - there were three wolves. They were not colored black, so much as fluid pools of darkness - darker than the night itself, that Snowpaw could see them clearly against the starless sky. She felt more than saw the gleam of their eyes. Predator eyes.
Snowpaw felt bad for her prey when she killed it, and so she always tried to kill it before it even knew it was being hunted.
Right then, she was not shown the same courtesy.
The wolves ran after them.
"Shit!" This close to Darkleaf, Snowpaw heard her breathless curse. "We can't outrun them!"
Sharpfang growled from behind Snowpaw, next to Shadowhisker. "We-we have to fight!"
"No!" Finlay shouted. His voice was high with desperation and breathlessness. "We- You can't!"
Darkleaf growled. "You run on ahead if you like." She skittered to a stop. Quick reaction times were the only thing keeping everyone else from running into each other as they did the same. Finlay looked back, faltered once, and then ran ahead.
Another howl tore through the air, and Snowpaw suddenly felt the weight of exactly how stranded they were.
"Listen-" Darkleaf gasped for air, cutting herself off. "The edge- we could- they might fall off."
"We might, too," said Shadowhisker.
"Then don't," Darkleaf all but yelled.
Irisfern spoke up, her robin trill wavering. "Split into three. Quick-"
They all did, each group a mismatch of clans. Snowpaw spared a single glance to see that the three around her were Irisfern, Jackalpaw and Wolfpaw of DewClan. Shadowhisker was with Sharpfang, Darkleaf and Shadepaw.
That was all the time they had. Bodies of darkness, cruel red eyes and ivory white teeth were upon them.
so I didn't mean to wait a month to update jfjfgjgh i am so sorry, work's just been busy (and I moved into a new apartment!) but i really really hope i get to the next one soon because i have been so excited for this next part !
also REDWAV5, Omg hi! It's so exciting seeing a demons cry fan here lol kjdfhef i was actually like lowkey thinking no one here would remember it! This is actually cool because the original of this story was written before demons cry, and Shadepaw and Sharpfang were like my prototype for Rockpaw and Hawkstripe (now Addi and Owen in song of the crow), so they are so important to me actually
in any case goodbye everyone! see you next update 3