mowgli's road [O]

Dayquill

The trek back from the farm had been surprisingly long and arduous. It had started fine– a band of cats racing away before the dogs reawakened their bloodlust, rushing through the tall grass and piled snow under the moonlight. The night had passed into dawn, dawn into day, and the rolling fields slowly gave way to more familiar ground. The group of cats had split up quickly in search of their proper homes. That first day had been fine. It'd been a bit troublesome for Dayquill– his head was pounding and his paws kept crossing, but it wasn't unbearable. There were trees in the horizon, and he knew he could reach them by nightfall. Even if he couldn't reach ThunderClan in one day, he'd be close. The throbbing in his head was almost ignorable compared to the drumming of his heart pushing him to race home. He hadn't quite made it to the trees when the moon rose, but he was close enough that he could hear the whisper of their branches when he begrudgingly settled down to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning, the pain in his head had worsened– it hurt just for his vision to shift. But he- his vision wasn't shifting. Not entirely. There was nothing to the right of him except... emptiness. The shift in depth and the jolt of being suddenly blinded made Dayquill wake up screaming, sending birds fluttering out of the near-off treetops. It took hours for him to recover from his fright, but once he'd found himself, he couldn't do anything except stumble numbly along.

The rest of the hike was aggravated by his heart, now racing not with desire to see his loved ones (had Comfrey's leg healed? had Blazefang made it to ThunderClan?) but with fear. Had it been the run in with thorns that had done his eye in? Would the other follow? And he kept getting his paws caught on unseen vines and roots as he passed through the forest, kept shouldering into trees that were closer than he'd thought them to be. Dayquill was cold, frightened, angry, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up among his Clanmates. Luckily, blessedly, he'd somehow ventured into the right forest– ThunderClan's scent drifted to him over the breeze, and he followed it on dull, aching paws. To his surprise, it lead him not to the sandy hollow, but to their camp. The thought that they had gone home in his absence added just another layer of hurt to him. On shaking legs and as carefully as he could, Dayquill squeezed through the familiar thorn tunnel, his working eye wide and quickly filling with tears. He couldn't bring himself to speak, to call out to the cats bustling about camp, only to stare and dumbly, heavily, drop to his haunches with an exhausted wheeze.