Wilting Petals [Closed]

Foxfire was barely stealthy as he crashed through the undergrowth, his chest heaving and lungs burning as he scrambled and tripped through ThunderClan's territory. His eyes were watering, having long managed to outrun the fire but the effects of the smoke still lingered. Coughs racked his body but he couldn't risk slowing down, he had to warn ThunderClan - Spottedstar had given him this duty and he had already failed his leader one to many times. There was just a slight problem he was starting to realize as he tripped over yet another root, grunting as he forced himself back onto his paws to keep running.

He had no idea where the ThunderClan camp actually was.

At this point, he was just blindly hoping he would stumble across it - if only because it was actually hard to see anything with his watering eyes. His mouth was open, panting for breath as he tried to pick up the scent of ThunderClan but all he could smell was the smell of burnt fur - his own from skirting to close to a burning tree to avoid a branch that had fallen - and the heavy clogging scent of smoke that had refused to leave him since he had raced from the camp. He just...Had to keep going even as his body cried for relief - he wasn't built for running for as long as he had, mostly in the condition that the fire and smoke had left him in. He grunted as his paw caught on another root - before it turned into a startled yowl as he found himself tumbling down into a small hole. He landed on his back as he struggled to regain his breath...Before he just gave up and let himself go limp as he fought to welcome the fresh air that still existed in the ThunderClan territory.

Stars, he hadn't thought this out at all, had he?

The sun shone bright overhead. It’s heat filtered through the dried leaves of the trees above Thunderclan’s territory. Dry leaves, twigs and dirt covered by thick bush that made it hard to keep an eye on. Ever since Daisybloom’s warning, he had taken care to patrol the borders closest to twoleg place. She mentioned twolegs in her vision, surely that meant whatever it was… it’d happen here.

He paused, panted heavily through a greying muzzle while he sought out relief from the warmth. The shade of a nearby berry bush would do him some good, but as he settled into the leaves and shelter he noticed black.

In the sky. His amber eyes narrowed, was it a trick of his vision? A rustle of leaves brought wind, and an acrid tang he knew. His tired old paws would have to rise again. It wasn’t metaphorical, it was real. He bolted towards the smoke. It was distant yet, not on ThunderClan’s territory. The river was closer, and that flooded him with relief. Even dry, the river would be able to cut off the path, but the other side was… he paused in thought. A red shape at the corner of his vision.

A cat. The stench of smoke was potent on his pelt, but he recognised the tom’s scars. He nudged the tom gently to stir him, then padded to the water. He dipped a paw in, relished the cool feeling of it sinking into his pelt before he awkwardly limped to Foxfire and placed the cold paw on the tom’s head. Patches of black where his pelt had burned.

If Foxfire was here… where was SkyClan? His chest clenched in worry. Where had they gone? Had they all escaped? Why was Foxfire here, and not with them?
"Foxfire. Where is everyone?" He meowed gently. Careful of the tom’s burns. Mossbloom would have to treat them.

Foxfire hadn't realized that he had drifted off from exhaustion until he felt a cold wet paw on his face. He jolted, fur fluffing up as the rush of everything came back to him. "GottawarnThunderClan," he said quickly as he straightened up...Before he completely halted as he realized that somebody had stirred him awake and found himself staring face to face with the ThunderClan leader. Oh. The energy that had spiked through him quickly faded as he fell back onto his haunches, catching the leader's words. "They were heading...Toward the river," he said, his voice a tad raspy as he started to feel the pain of his burns. He raised a paw to the wet spot on his head, collecting some of the water on his paw before he brought it down to his muzzle to get some moister back into his body. "Spottedstar send me...To warn you guys...About the fire," he said, glancing toward where he was pretty sure he came from - it was hard to tell as the undergrowth looked all the same to him. They might have both lived in a forest but ThunderClan's territory was far more...Cluttered. Roots and bushes everywhere that got underpaw.

"So...Uh, there is a fire...And its bad," he said simply as he turned back to the leader, shifting on his paws as he was now a little unsure on what to do now that technically his job was fulfilled.