"This whole time, I was afraid of hurting you. Now I'm not sure if I can keep up."
Mira had wagged her stumpy tail, gently rubbing Farstrider's panting belly. He had slowly slid from her back to not injure her. And she had shaken her thighs of loose fur and had turned to meet her lover's satisfied brown eyes.
"Are you okay?" Mira said. "I didn't push you too hard, did I?"
"Can't be worse than this, right." Farstrider had playfully motioned to his bandaged shoulder. "And I don't mind—of course I don't mind."
"It is a lot, though, for these last few days. I've spent many rotations in the Ammit District and had a lot of time to think. About this."
Farstrider's tail dropped slightly. "Hopefully good things?"
Mira licked his cheek. "Great things. But I'd rather not talk about it tonight. We will before we leave, I promise."
He paused. Mira was sure he had nodded before realizing they could barely see each other. "Whenever you're ready, I'll be here."
Farstrider and Mira stumbled in the dark looking for the door. The passion was replaced with kit-like giggles as they bumped into each other. Finally, a pair of sliding doors opened and let white light flood the den filled with random but organized twoleg objects. What little heat they'd managed to fill it with dissipated, leaving the unnatural coldness of the hall. As always, Farstrider left first. But halfway down the hall, he turned and met her eyes.
"Mira?"
"Yes?" she responded gently.
"I hope, one of these days, we don't have to leave each other. That every day can be like this—oh, of course not with as much, um…"
Mira burst out laughing, but settled quick to let him know she understood what he really meant. "Me too. Maybe sooner rather than later."
Farstrider's long tail shook gleefully. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment longer before he left, grooming parts of his fur as he marched around the hallway's left corner. Mira did the same with her fur when she left. The entire twoleg nest was made of a series of tube-like hallways and boxy dens. Lights lined the edges of the high ceiling and floors, emitting a warm glow as they changed to a dim orange. See-through walls let her see the pounding rain wash over its outside edges and flood the soil. The whole structure was raised for such an occasion. But being stranded didn't seem so bad this time.
At the intersection, Mira turned right and into an identical hallway. Every so often the weather beat the outside loud enough for her to hear. It neither startled nor frightened her. At another intersection, she went straight ahead and arrived at a pair of doors much narrower than the storage den's. They slid open and revealed dark walls lined with dormant cylinder-shaped drones nested in perfectly shaped shelves. A blue hue drenched everything, contrasted by a single or dual red light on each drone's shelf. A center pillar took up most of the space, but had doors on all sides to let the drones in and out at some point. One drone did just that, entering the pillar briefly before emerging with a yellow ring and some unknown task. The doors parted fast and only long enough to let it slip through.
"It's a lot cooler in here than usual," Mira said to nothing. "I liked the way it was a few days ago."
After a few moments of silence, a click emanated from the visible chatter holes on the high ceiling. Soothing heat began radiating from the dormant drones. Mira curled next to the empty shelf the drone had just emerged from and purred.
"Something has to cool your unquenchable libido." Proxima's voice was low, but her accent came through clearly. "Chimera or not, it is dangerous for a cat your age to be this sexually active."
"I'm only a hundred rotations young," Mira chuckled casually. "We're just happy to see each other. It's been a whole rotation since the last time, and we haven't gotten so much time together… ever, actually."
"You barely knew his name then."
"Yeah, now I can't even remember how long we've been together," Mira chuckled again. "It feels like we started when we met all that time ago."
"What makes now any different? He is still a drifter."
"Oh, he's so much more than that." Mira rolled onto her back and pretended the red lights along the walls were stars. "He always knows just what to say and I feel like we can tell each other anything. I guess that's why I love him so much."
"Do you, now?" The shifting of several red lights snapped Mira from her thoughts, reminding her Proxima was watching. "Is that what this is?"
Mira rolled over and covered her mouth briefly. But there was no shame or embarrassment to keep inside. She imagined every flower field, every sunny day, everything she'd ever seen with Farstrider at some point. All the caves and twoleg nests she had passed and thought could be theirs to settle. Even when thinking of his own task of finding as many cats as possible and spreading Star Covenant knowledge, she was by his side.
"Yeah. I guess that's what this is," Mira sighed. "I guess I'm hopeless, right?"
"It is not too late to leave him." Proxima said. "The floodwaters will recede enough to travel tomorrow. He will not be able to track us through them."
"What a shame, too. I'll have to find an identical-looking cat—short fur is really handsome on a tom—who also knows as much about StarClan as him. Oh, and he also needs the missing scent glands like him. I might like a little mystery to a tom, too. Any suggestions—"
"I am not joking." Proxima's accent was thicker now. "He is a distraction."
"Sometimes I wish he was more intrusive. Really, I do."
"I am not joking."
"So I get some time off. What's wrong with that?"
"I believe he is pulling you away from our goals."
"There was a flood. He almost drowned! What if he did? Neither of us want to be alone without experiencing something like this."
"You have me." Proxima briefly let up on her anger.
"It's not the same and you know it." Mira began pacing around the column. "Sure, he's distracting. Is it so bad we both forget what we have to do, even for just a bit?"
Mira cleared her throat after several moments of silently pacing around the pillar. Proxima hadn't said a word, though the persistent hum coming through the chatter holes meant she was still there. But even this wasn't enough to break her good mood. She thought of the perfect words to say to Farstrider and marched towards the exit, giving an irritated glance at the nearest drone. She nearly bumped into the doors when they didn't part automatically.
"Before you go to him, there is something you should know." Absolute certainty returned to Proxima's voice. "It concerns your physiology."
"You already said I was too old to mate," Mira growled. "And I don't feel like sleeping anymore. Please open the door."
"As a chimera who carries all feline blood types and mutations, it is important you know the risks it can pose to others." Proxima aimed the shelves' red lights towards her. "Especially concerning an unborn litter of kittens."
The fur on Mira's neck spiked. "Whatever you have to say right now, I don't want to hear it. Open the door."
"The very blood that will keep you healthy and disease-free for life may be poison to an unborn litter. Your files stated you may have trouble carrying a litter to term due to 'breeding instability,' which I have looked over more thoroughly."
"What are you trying to say?" Mira's claws tapped the floor as she tried letting her fantasies take hold, impatiently waiting for the door to open. "Because I don't want to hear it."
"Your chimeric trait was not designed to be passed onto others—it was even developed before mine. There are also no medical drones on Skhul Terra capable of unassisted genetic modification. Therefore, if your litter does not naturally mutate to accommodate your unique physiology, they will be attacked by your immune system. And, since your blood is not natural, it is unlikely they will take to the trait. Your file states the odds of a naturally occurring litter are approximately one in seventy-two million, three-hundred and—"
"I don't need your twoleg numbers or whatever you're saying. Just open the doors!"
"Your blood may have killed a profound number of litters without ever knowing."
"Why!? Why do you have to keep taking and insisting I…!" The doors slid open, but she didn't go through them immediately. The ugly side of Proxima's words reached her. Because, in all the time they had spent traveling, she hardly knew her to lie. No matter how much she wanted the fantasy to return, Proxima's words were true and she knew it. "Why did you have to tell me that?"
"I thought you should know before you tell Farstrider how you feel about him. I believe he should know, too—" Mira half-heartedly spat a hiss and stormed out the den. "It is better this way, anyway. You are needed here."
Mira had not looked back, but the fur on the back of her neck had softened. She had marched down the see-through hallways, surrounded by a storm that had not let up. She had still known what she wanted to say to Farstrider and had kept that close. The doors had stayed open, red lights watching her walk down the same hallway he had earlier. Only when she had disappeared around a corner did they close and the drones go dormant.
"It is better this way," Proxima had said to herself. "You are needed here."
O O O
The maze of short twoleg nests painted earthy colors seemed to go on forever, each somehow decaying at a different pace. The thunderpath in the middle was too narrow for monsters and instead littered with two-wheeled mechanisms big enough for a single twoleg. The footpaths on each side sprouted pockets of grass that hadn't grown quite as wild as the denser twolegplace. They were just natural enough to feel inviting. But she seemed to be the only one in good spirits.
Several drones buzzed in and out of view, with one hovering over the group and aiming a solid red light forward. Proxima had apologized earlier for being unaware of the Rigel Flock's movements. Mira was just glad they were safe, but her guardian's silence into the evening made it seem like something else was on her mind. But she was more concerned with Faypaw. The one form-fitting bandage across his back was nothing compared to the littering of bandages Mira had on her back and flanks. He hadn't said a word since the attack. Mira had thought it was shock, but it didn't take long to figure out he was disappointed, instead, and she still didn't know what to say.
"Those clouds are a dangerous electrical storm." A flat, circular drone hovered close to Mira, which looked at clouds dark enough to mimic the night. Lightning arced silently between them, but they moved quickly through the windless sky. "It will certainly scare away the Rigel Flock before they destroy those security drones."
"Do we just stay in one of these dens—" Mira froze as a tiny gust of wind brought the scent of fresh lavender mixed with fur. "There's someone else here. Another cat."
Faypaw's ears perked up as he unsheathed his claws. A relaxed paw from Mira convinced him to stay calm. Over a double story, pastel-blue twoleg nest were over a dozen flat, circular drones identical to Proxima's. The front door to the nest swung open and let out a cat she could barely make out. One of its eyes was an unnaturally bright ring of yellow. Fleetheart appeared near her more curious than cautious. When it hobbled to the footpath, overhead lights snapped on and revealed a hunched-over old tom with solid brown fur. The unnatural ring of yellow faded to match its natural orange eye.
"Oh, that is peculiar." His voice bellowed with power Mira didn't expect. "You, too, wear twoleg things. And they do not look for show, either."
He waved them over. He was even older than Mira and posed little threat with his lopsided stance and inviting smile. She prompted her kit to settle down and approached. Proxima's drone was already hovering near the tom and scanning his twoleg nest with blue light. He dipped his head and slowly perked up his ears, revealing patchy fur and large scars where he was bald. He wore rigid, tan sleeves around his hind legs, which seemed to crudely return his mobility with stiff joints instead of soft woven pelts. One had the same thin, inflexible panel on the front.
"This house is in remarkable condition," Proxima said, alerting Mira to the blue nest's damage-free façade. "It has been maintained for a lone occupant, a single pet cat."
"I did not think I would ever meet you." The tom seemed momentarily bewildered at the voice from the drone's chatter holes. "The actual twoleg-thing. But your name escapes me. Proximity, was it? I was a kit when I first heard your speeches."
"Proxima," Mira said. "I'm Mira and this is my kit, Faypaw."
"Paw, huh. I haven't heard a full name in quite some time. How delightful to have such prestigious guests!" The geriatric tom's eye flashed yellow again. "My name is Rush, though I am not so quick anymore. Come in, come in. Looks like you have run into trouble. There is a nasty storm brewing outside, but I assure you this nest can withstand anything."
His rigid pair of sleeves practically bent his hind legs for him as he returned to the twoleg nest, maintaining a functional but misaligned stance that couldn't even pounce a flower. His forelegs were much stronger and he looked perfectly capable of leaping and climbing, though. Warmth radiated out as the twoleg nest's door swung open to let him and a couple circular drones in. One of them dropped low and hovered next to Mira.
"Rush is registered to the family who once lived here as their pet cat."
"How is that possible?" Mira whispered, leaving Faypaw to wander through the front door. "I thought every cat alive today was born after Skhul Terra was abandoned?"
"The pet is listed as forty-five years old. Even with life extension therapy, which requires federal authorization, this is impossible for a cat. The house drones must believe he is the family pet and work on his behalf. That would explain the leg braces and artificial eye."
"Does it say anything about his injuries? Some of them look like they were from a fight."
"His injuries were recorded six and a half years ago. But he seems harmless and you and Faypaw need a place to sleep, though I am concerned about the intensity of the coming storm. I will alert you if problems arise."
The circular drone's red light faded and it blended in with the rest of them. Mira entered and caught Faypaw's eye, who already looked a little better with someone and something new to explore. He was walking up stairs to the second floor, which were lined with images of a smiling family of twolegs. Mira focused on a portrait of a dark brown tom that looked exactly like Rush. Gentle cream walls bounced just enough light from the ceiling fixtures to give the illusion of evening light. The heated floors were soft with long strands that ended abruptly in certain dens. Rush emerged from one, his artificial eye still glowing yellow.
"I can't climb those stairs without help," he said to Faypaw. "If either of you wish for privacy, you may stay up there. Are either of you hungry?"
The adolescent tom's ears perked up. "I didn't realize I was. Is it twoleg food? I've never had it before."
"Yes, unfortunately. Though it is quite good. The kittypet who lived here had impeccable taste."
Faypaw bounded down the stairs and followed Rush into a wood-floored den. Mira glanced around the entrance again, noticing how many see-through spots there were for her to watch the storm clouds. A rumble of thunder made her shutter, but she was glad it wasn't raining. One of the see-through spots in the walls projected red twoleg scribblings intended to warm its occupants of the weather. Some even covered themselves.
"I never liked thunderstorms." Mira nearly yelped at Fleetheart's sudden presence behind her. "But honestly, I'd rather not be here at all."
"What?" Mira said, curious to the StarClan medicine cat's unusual glumness.
"Oh, don't mind me. I'm just talking to myself." A few ghostly flakes of ash were falling around her, along with her paws seeming dirtier than they usually were. She perked her ears up and left to join the others. "I've never met a pet with taste before. We'll see about this."
Fleetheart bolted from her spot, phasing straight through Mira, and into the brightly lit den. She followed close behind, but the StarClan medicine cat had disappeared when she arrived. The den had smooth wood floors with a couple small, squared-off "islands" with stone tops. Above each stone top were matching wood shelves. A drone rummaged through one and grabbed a couple packaged blocks. Before heading into the next den, Mira spotted Fleetheart on one of the counters distracting herself with the ceiling lights.
The second den was also lit like the evening sky. The entire back wall was see-through and gave a clear view of a pool of water recessed into the ground surrounded by stone. There were a couple large seats made of burgundy woven pelt surrounding a short table. Pictures of twolegs adorned the wall. Mira stared at one of a pair of cats sitting in the lap of a twoleg. One of them had a gray muzzle, orange eyes, and brown fur, just like the tom in the other picture.
"There is another bowl there, in case you want it," Rush said, perched atop a low-lounging chair.
Gleefully eating from the first bowl was her kit. Mira was glad to see him back to what she knew as normal and joined him to eat the other portion. One of the drones she assumed was under Proxima's control shined a blue light across his back. Fleetheart, who had appeared next to him, shook her head in disgust and gave Mira an I-told-you kind of look. But she refused to look in Rush's direction.
"I think prey tastes a little better," Faypaw said, leaping onto the largest seat when he was finished. "The twolegs make cat food too sweet."
"Guess I am alone in liking this," Rush chuckled. "By the way, your name? It was my understanding clan culture died out long ago, so only a Star Covenant branch would have added 'paw' to it."
"My dad said I would drop the 'paw' when I'm an adult. He's a Star Covenant wanderer, but I wasn't born where he's from."
"We settled with a group west of here called the hill cats," Mira said, joining the others. "We had Faypaw there. I'm not part of the Star Covenant, but neither of us are even from the Yaga District."
"Far-flung travelers, I see. If you don't mind me asking, what is your mate's name?"
"Farstrider," Faypaw blurted proudly.
"Oh, him." Rush's yellow eye shined brighter for a moment. "He was from the Ammit main branch if I remember correctly? We met once when we were both young. He was the one who told us we would receive a new branch herald after ours had died."
"With how far everyone is away from each other, why don't they just promote someone within the branch?" Faypaw asked. He seemed to have more to say, but stopped himself. Rush noticed.
"The herald we were to be assigned," the geriatric tom said, "had supposedly seen visions from StarClan themselves. We were to confer to what extent, if at all. It is a short but painful story." His artificial eye briefly turned several shades darker. "But I do not mind telling it. It is long in the past."
Faypaw stayed quiet for a while, nervously shifting between Rush and his mother's gaze. Mira sat next to him without a word, not sure herself whether it was rude to pry or if her curiosity would get the better of her.
"I would like to hear it." The group's attention was taken by a red light in the center of the see-through wall. "A senior mixed-breed cat named Draper was adopted by the family who lived here and reported missing during the evacuations. Without knowledge of computer systems, you must have been extremely lucky to find this place."
"That is undeniable," Rush said, scratching his grey chin. "If I were given nine lives, I am sure eight and a half would have been lost getting to this place with these drones giving me that other half back." He paused for a while to gather his thoughts. Fleetheart, however, was lying under the table with her ears folded down. "I am from a small Star Covenant outpost in the mountains bordering the Yaga and Ammit Districts, an abandoned coyote den built by twolegs under a juniper tree."
"I've been there," Mira said uneasily. "I looked like something terrible happened."
"It did." Rush cleared his throat, his artificial eye turning a bright shade of purple. "After our branch herald died, we were told by Farstrider the Ammit main branch was sending us a peculiar tom named Dombay to be our new leader. He was an outsider to the Star Covenant, but claimed to have strange visions and dreams from StarClan. His effect on twoleg objects—they treated him like a twoleg—convinced higher leaders of possibly being the key to returning the presence of StarClan to the ringworld. Our branch was remote and small, so it was seen as ideal conditions to test if Dombay truly had a connection to the stars or if he was simply unbalanced in the head."
"That doesn't sound like a good choice," Faypaw said. "How could they get away with that?"
"On the contrary, I agree with this decision in hindsight." Rush's eye turned a deep shade of blue. "We received a raggy calico tom—an oddity already—with very long fur who, under no circumstances, let us touch him. In a few rotations he changed his name to Dombaystar, dug tunnels to nowhere, and claimed he needed to go to the sky. The final straw was constructing a shrine to someone called 'the pretty mask cat' and begging for answers of some sort. The morning we attempted to depose him was the end of our branch. None of us knew he was a chimera, and such a dangerous one. His unnatural strength, his intelligence, we did not stand a chance. Only two of us survived by playing dead."
"Proxima-Dombay, or Dombaystar, is currently in orbit aboard what you would call a star-monster." Proxima projected a strange-looking spire on the see-through wall. "He has caused a tremendous amount of damage using its weapons."
"My Stars, he actually made it!?" Rush shuddered, his eye briefly shining red. "I thought it to some twisted irony that demon would find his way up there. There is a crater not far from this nest where one of those massive darts hit. To think he did that…"
"You haven't returned to the Star Covenant at all?" Faypaw asked carefully.
Rush sighed, his blue eye returning to normal. "Drones from the twolegplace our branch was located in did what they could with us. The surviving molly chose to return to the Ammit main branch, but I went east knowing full well there were no known Star Covenant presence in the Yaga District. It took a great deal of my life and a greater bit of luck to stumble upon this place. It was here I got more mobile leg braces and this artificial eye. This is my home now."
Faypaw asked a few more questions and told Rush of their own journey. Fleetheart was still lying under the table in a pile of glowing ash. She looked a little worse for wear, a little older, and shook her head. Mira resisted the urge to ask her what was wrong, knowing the others couldn't see her and deciding not to tell Rush of her own visions.
"Oh, by the way Mira," Rush said, taking the old molly's attention, "I did not want to imply I despise chimeras with this story. I wish no ill-will towards you or whatever journey you are on. The Rigel Flock, in contrast, can rot in a hole."
"All the Star Covenant cats I've met realized quickly I was a chimera," Mira sighed, dipping her head. "Only a few have been receptive to it. Honestly, after hearing that, I was afraid of telling you."
"No wild cat could be born with colorless eyes like yours. But you are as pleasant as any other I have met." Rush leapt from his spot and stretched. "I can show you where you can sleep, whenever you get tired. The twolegs have places even softer than this."
"I would actually like to ask about the whereabouts of a certain cat before you go to bed," Proxima's voice now came from one of the flat drones buzzing overhead. "A young female lynx? She is also a chimera."
"I have seen her once or twice, but she tries to avoid me for some reason. Coming, Mira?"
"Oh." Mira glanced at Fleetheart under the table. "I'll catch up."
Faypaw seemed a bit disappointed, but he followed Rush into another den. The red light Proxima used to show her presence vanished from the see-through wall, leaving Mira alone with the thumping and whistling of the storm outside, the clouds turning a sickly yellow.
A different storm of ethereal smoke and angry faces brewed above her head. Glowing rocks and debris from twoleg nests looked as if they were real. Mira slid under the table. Fleetheart was still lying with her head on her paws and her ears folded down. The twin hide pouches she never went without were gone, revealing uncharacteristically ragged fur. Taking one look at her face, the senior molly pieced together what she was upset about.
"I had no idea there were survivors," Fleetheart mumbled. "I didn't even check, did I check?"
"At least he thought you were pretty," she whispered, trying to lighten the mood. Fleetheart growled at her with anger she didn't seem capable of. "Sorry! Sorry."
Fleetheart covered her mouth as if she said something wrong. "I didn't mean that, I'm just… I don't like looking like this. It reminds me of when I was alone."
"We don't have to talk about this if you don't want."
"I want to. Promise you won't get mad? Or don't?" Fleetheart's sigh dissipated some of the imaginary debris. "I spoke to Dombaystar many times. I knew I was hurting him. I just wanted to see my friends. I still do. I swear I didn't know what that tom was capable of, but he could see me. He was the first cat in a long time who could see me, the way it used to be long ago."
Mira glanced at the imagined clouds of smoke making their way under the table and bringing the glow of a putrid fire with them. "This wasn't your fault." Fleetheart narrowed her eyes and flexed her paws as if she was unsheathing claws no longer present. "Really. You didn't make the Star Covenant take such a risk, and you didn't know Dombaystar was a chimera. You couldn't have."
"But I could've observed him first, found out he wasn't sane." Fleetheart buried her face in her forepaws. "I could've been less desperate."
"No, you couldn't have." Mira rested a paw on Fleetheart's back, put at ease by the gentle rise and fall of the molly's chest. "I know what it's like to want something you need so bad. And for you, it's been so many lifetimes. So many even cats are unrecognizable."
Fleetheart unburied her face, some of the imagined smoke dissipating. "But that's not an excuse. I crippled that poor tom. I got his whole branch killed."
"If you stop there, you can never make it up to anyone. Especially yourself." Mira brushed her paw against Fleetheart's face. "I know you were trying to do good. But you can't forget who you are in the process. You need the rest of StarClan. You need your memories back. Just as much as I needed someone other than myself to live for."
The StarClan medicine cat looked in the direction the others were in, their conversations having died down. "Faypaw?"
Mira nodded. "You have Littlestar, and I have Faypaw. I haven't always gotten it right with him. But I can't stop trying, or both of us will be worse off for it. You know?"
When Fleetheart turned back towards Mira, she had returned to the youthful molly with the honey-like voice and her twin hide pouches. All the fiery smoke had vanished, returning the artificially clean scent of the twoleg nest. They crawled from under the table together and stared at the storm raging outside, lightning arching from the ground to the sky. The see-through wall had even tinted to keep the worst of the light flashes from view. Fleetheart purred and dipped her head to Mira. "Do you really think StarClan can be restored?"
Mira nodded. "I will try my very best. In the meantime, can you do something for me?" Fleetheart nodded, eager for any task to distract her from her thoughts. "Watch over Faypaw? He's here for me, and I haven't been able to be there for him like he wants me to be." Mira tapped her head.
"Of course," Fleetheart purred.
When the StarClan medicine cat left the table, she and everything she illusioned vanished. Mira could scent Faypaw had not slept too far, staying in another den downstairs separate from Rush. She told herself he must already be asleep. Her head started filling with all the ways she imagined he was beating himself up for feeling like a burden. Before Mira succumbed to her own apprehension, she thumped down next to the see-through wall and quickly drifted to sleep.