to feel like you're drowning [o]

Nightdancer's paws carried her to the riverbank, watching the water flow endlessly. Head resting on her paws, blinking at her own ever-shifting reflection; a stranger in the water. Who was she? When had she lost sight of herself? When had her pride become an illusion to hide behind?

She thought back to the Gathering where Mottlestar had called her name, and she had wanted nothing more than to become invisible; to be as unseen as greenleaf snow. She had become unrecognizable to herself: this lonely, haunted soul was nothing more than a familiar stranger. If she squinted it might be one of her sisters, perhaps, in another life where they were still within her reach.

Each day was a struggle, as she dragged herself to her paws and forced herself to act like someone else. Like the memory of the cat she had been, once, and not the shadow that she was. To smile and encourage her apprentice's questions, to go on extra hunting patrols.

Now, in search of a rare moment of solitude, she had slipped away to hide by the water. Not for the first time, she wished she knew how to swim.

(Then again, without so much as touching the water, she already felt as if she were drowning.)