A Stumbling Across Sunlight - East Shore Topic

The wave had hit, cold and unforgiving, ripping Mosspaw right off of her feet and throwing her into its torrent. As the time passed, she grew weary struggling to keep her head above water, but refused to stop trying. Finally, after what felt like moons, her paws brushed against ground. It was marshy, but it was ground. Pulling herself further onto the land, she collapsed in the mud, breathing heavily as her eyes shut and her muscles relaxed.

---

Just as dawn broke the next day, Mosspaw's eyes opened suddenly. She shot onto her paws, wincing at the feeling of cold mud under them instead of her warm nest. Looking around in dismay, she realized that she was completely... alone. Lost. Her eyes widened as she tried to control her breathing, forcing herself to try to stay calm. Her mind traveled to the events of the day before, the waking to water in the camp, trickling down the gorge walls. I hope everyone else is okay.... Where am I? Is there anyone else around?... She turned back towards the expanse of water behind her, gasping as she realized how far it stretched. Her ears flattened against her head and her tail drooped as she looked around and didn't recognize anything... Taking a deep breath, she set out along the shore, praying to StarClan that she would come across something... anything... that reminded her of home.

---

Exhausted and hungry, the sun had started rising in the sky. Mosspaw was beginning to give up hope, when suddenly something white stuck out from the mud. Her ears pricking up, she opened her mouth and tasted the air, but the only scent she got was water and mud... With a hushed hiss of frustration at her dulled senses, she cautiously approached the lump on the shore, pausing mid-step when she realized that there were actually two. Placing her raised paw down into the mud, she hesitated before calling out.

"Hello?.. Is someone.. there?..." She took another step closer, watching the two figures carefully, her every sense alert to her surroundings. The last thing she wanted was to be caught off-guard by anything in this strange place....

The world was spinning, swaying under Lightstep's side as he lay sprawled and slumped in the mud. Mud and algae streaked his spiked and matted white pelt. His thoughts drifted in and out of lucidity; memories of a booming crack, a crescendoing roar, and an impossibly quick wall of water swirled in the darkness of sleep. The young RiverClan warrior had been swept as easily as everyone else, like a leaf in the breeze, tossed away from the river and the forest and everything he'd ever known. As he had been swept he had washed into Sunpaw, his brother's daughter, and managed to save her, but almost immediately he had determined that something was wrong: she couldn't move her back legs.

The first part of their journey had been exhausting for Lightstep as he struggled to keep himself and his niece afloat despite the dead weight of her hind legs. By the time he had managed to find a piece of debris to grab onto that would support both he and Sunpaw, the sun had long passed its peak, and the muscles in his neck were burning with protest as he helped his niece grab hold. He swore that his spine must be full of needles as he finally rested - well, as much as he could - atop the floating debris that held them. He had to constantly work to steer their flimsy little raft to avoid eddies and other obstacles. He was ready to sleep long before night fell, but he couldn't afford to rest or else he risked losing Sunpaw. If she slipped off, she would be killed.

Lightstep didn't remember falling asleep. That being said, waking up was a surprise. A soft voice called through the haze, "Hello?.. Is someone.. there?..." The RiverClan tom tried to lift his neck but the muscles jolted with protest, and so he let out a pained grunt and flattened his head against the ground again. "Y-Yes, I'm here..." Lightstep rasped. Immediately thoughts of Sunpaw burst into his head and he forced himself to sit up despite the pain in his neck and shoulders.

He was on an unfamiliar shore of water. Lightstep's yellow eyes slowly adjusted to his surroundings and he was relieved to see the familiar calico pelt of Sunpaw. His relief immediately became horror, and understanding, when he spotted her absolutely mangled lower back, hips, and hind legs. "Sunpaw!" he cried, wobbling to his feet and stumbling to stare helplessly at her grisly injury. "Oh, Sunpaw, what in StarClan's name happened...?"

The RiverClan warrior's weary gaze slowly lifted to the cat who had addressed him only a few moments before. A dark calico she-cat who looked about apprentice age stood before him, looking as bedraggled as he felt. Lightstep licked his lips, which were oddly dry despite having floated in water for what must have been a day, and meowed hoarsely, "My name is Lightstep... A-Are you a Clan cat?"

Sunpaw let out a moan. His fur was mostly muddy brown expect for a few patches of bloody fur. Her hips down had been crushed and mangled, every bone broken. Her body ached from the cuts and bruises but what the most surprising was that she couldn’t feel and cuts from her hips down. She couldn’t even feel the group beneath her back end either. Her eyes were open, her ears rung and struggled with every breath.

Mosspaw's ear twitched as she heard the response, and her fur fluffed out. Not sure what exactly she expected, or hoped for to be honest, she hesitated before realizing that the cat was in pain. Pushing back her fear of the unknown, her paws carried her over to the two cats, reaching them as the tom sat up. After looking him over quickly, her attention turned to the cat still laying in the mud, and she gasped in horror at the sight before her. "Oh no..."

Tearing her gaze away from the figure of the she-cat, she turned to the tom as he introduced himself, forcing her fur to like flat on her back. A look of relief flashed over her face, at least this Lightstep seemed to know of the clans, and he had a clan name... Maybe she wasn't alone, maybe there was still hope. "I am, my name is Mosspaw. I'm from ThunderClan. Are you from the clans too?" She glanced down to the apprentice that still lay on the ground as she moaned, and her eyes narrowed in sympathy and sadness at the injury that had come to her. She leaned her head forward and gently brushed her nose along the top of the she-cat's head. "What happened? She... She's not okay..."

Lifting her head to look back to Lightstep, Mosspaw's tail swished towards the apprentice. "Should we try to get her cleaned up? Maybe then we can see more of what happened... At least we could get the mud off of her to see any smaller wounds... She shuddered as her gaze returned to the other apprentice, dismay coursing through her again at the sight before crouching down so their heads were close. "It's okay, we're going to help you, Sunpaw. She spoke quietly, trying to be soothing in her words. "I'm going to start cleaning you off, okay? I'll be as gentle as I can." Having said that, she slowly began to wash Sunpaw's neck and shoulder, taking special care with the cuts. While she might not know this cat, her heart broke for the other apprentice. She couldn't imagine how she would feel about such a greivous injury, and she wanted to help as much as she could.

Lightstep could barely stomach the sight of Sunpaw's hind end, mangled and torn, and so he did his best not to look at it anymore. His niece let out a quiet groan of pain, her eyes flickering open. Her breathing was ragged, and Lightstep could only stare helplessly at her face, wishing he knew what had caused her injury - and, more importantly, that he could take it back. First Icepaw, then Sootcloud, now Sunpaw, he thought miserably. Will any of Aspenstrike's kits live to become elders?

However, a soft gasp from the other she-cat dragged his thoughts from the darkness. The look of horror on her face only served to sink Lightstep's spirits further. She won't become a warrior, he thought sadly. Again the other cat brought him back to the present, introducing herself as Mosspaw of ThunderClan. Part of him wanted to recoil from the she-cat who came from the same Clan as Hailpaw, who had maimed Icepaw, and whose Clan had long had a deep-seeding rivalry with his own. This she-cat, however, was not Hailpaw, and Lightstep was much too relieved at finding another living cat to dredge up rivalries where there need not be one. At Mosspaw's question, the white tom nodded and replied, "Y-Yes, me and my niece, Sunpaw, are from RiverCl-Clan."

Slowly, with nothing else to say, their wary eyes drifted to the wounded calico cat's body slumped helplessly on the ground. Again Lightstep's heart broke, but there was nothing he could say. Mosspaw asked, "What happened?" Lightstep shook his head wordlessly; he didn't know, and how could he even guess? So much had happened in the moments leading up to the flood... She must have been wounded that way the whole time, but how? Mosspaw looked at him and asked him a question, but the RiverClan warrior couldn't take his eyes off her injury. He just nodded sorrowfully, replying in a tired voice, "You're right." The ThunderClan apprentice crouched down, and Lightstep's eyes widened slightly with surprise. "You don't have to do that..." he murmured, but he was grateful that she was as he crouched to continue helping with the groom.

The work was long and slow, and with each stroke of his tongue Lightstep feared that Sunpaw would screech in pain or that he would just rip her apart with the gentlest movement. How could this have happened? some part of his brain wailed in lament, but no reply came. At last Sunpaw's wound was cleaned - or cleaned enough. It seemed that some of the mud had, for the time being, actually helped to stop the bleeding in any open wounds. Chances are it had really saved her life, but it couldn't stay on forever or she'd get an infection.

After several long moments of silence, Lightstep looked at Mosspaw and asked wearily, "Are we the only ones you've found?"

Sunpaw let out a low moan in fear, with a screeching hiss she glared at Mosspaw but her hiss was cut off when the cat started to lap at her pelt and Sunpaw shot Lightstep a look. Sunpaw rested her head down and grunted then let the 2 cats go to work. Sunpaw slowly lifted her head, and lightly lifted her front paws to see what didn’t hurt. With a dry raspy tounge she started to lick the dirt away from the mud on a small cut on her paw. Sunpaws throat ached so she didn’t dare talk. But she managed to turn her head around to look at her hips and see why she couldn’t feel anything she let out a hiss of fear.

The news that the two cats she stumbled across came from RiverClan lit a small flame of unease in her chest, but she pushed it aside quickly, choosing to help regardless of their clan. However, her demeanour never changed or showed the unease that had flickered momentarily in her chest. Her ear flicked as Lightstep spoke, and between the strokes of her tongue she responded. "What kind of cat would I be if I just left you? Different clans or not, you need help, and I couldn't live with myself if I refused - especially when I'm capable of doing so."

She hesitated for a moment when Sunpaw hissed at her, before continuing as the she-cat relaxed again. Although the work was long, finally Mosspaw was satisfied that the wound was cleaned enough to be acceptable. With it cleared of debris, Mosspaw held back a shudder as she saw the full extent of the injury. When the apprentice looked back and hissed as she saw her own injury, she blinked in sympathy and pressed her nose to Sunpaw's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. We'll do whatever we can to help, maybe there's a medicine cat that can help you more. We can work out ways to help." Drawing her head back, she looked at Lightstep over his niece's back, fear tinging the edge of her expression. Surely there would be something that could be done... Right?...

At Lightstep's question she paused before meeting his gaze. She nodded slightly, a small frown forming on her face. "You two are the first I've seen... Have either of you seen any others?... She trailed off as she thought of her family. "I hope Lilypaw.. and my parents are okay..." She tried not to think of any of them with the same injury, stranded StarClan knows where... Without even realizing it, her body started shaking as everything hit her all at once, overwhelming her like the wave had the night before. She cast a desperate look around, confirming that none of her loved ones were in sight. As her fears were confirmed, she seemed to stagger backwards, her legs buckling under the stress. Her head dropped to lay on her paws, ears laid back as the realization that her family could be anywhere, with any extent of injury, and she had no idea when she would see any of them again. A low moan of grief escaped her jaws as she feared the worst for the two cats who had taken her in, and the sister that she cherished. Adrenaline and hope had brought her this far, but as the sun slowly rose higher into the sky with no change other than coming across the two RiverClan cats they both were starting to dwindle fast.

Sunpaw's reaction to the stranger approaching her was understandable: a soft groan, a sharp, pained warning hiss. Lightstep tensed a little but pressed his face into Sunpaw's shoulder gently, murmuring, "She's here to help us." The warrior was grateful that his niece quickly relaxed, but even as he and Mosspaw groomed her he found himself hyper aware of her movement and breathing. Every time that her chest fell he felt a small jolt of fear for only the half-instant before it rose again. He was much more at ease when the tri-colored apprentice weakly lifted her head and began to lick at her paw.

The work was done, Sunpaw's pelt and wounds cleaned as well as the two could manage. Again dark thoughts of mourning threatened to snuff out what energy he had. However, when Sunpaw began to shift, imemdiately Lightstep was alert and alarmed. "N-No, don't..." he tried to tell her, but it was too late. She turned awkwardly to see her torn pelt and grisly wounds, and she jerked, turning away to hiss with fear. Mosspaw immediately leaned into Sunpaw's shoulder, offering words of comfort. "We'll do whatever we can to help, maybe there's a medicine cat that can help you more. We can work out ways to help." Lightstep's pale yellow eyes immediately caught Mosspaw's over the wounded apprentice's back; in the depths was a numbness, and despair. Lightstep agreed tonelessly, "If we survived, there's a chance a medicine cat did."

He didn't mean to be dismal... He had asked his question with little hope, so when Mosspaw responded that he and Sunpaw were the first she'd found, Lightstep wasn't surprised. He was just tired. The ThunderClan apprentice asked if he or Sunpaw had found anyone. Before she finished asking, Lightstep's head had hung slightly as he shook it. 

"I hope Lilypaw.. and my parents are okay..." The young she-cat's voice quivered with the beginnings of tears and the white RiverClan tom immediately lifted his head again to stare sadly at the frightened, mourning apprentice. Lightstep watched her look around hopelessly then slowly sink to the ground, her face growing dark with grief and loss. For several moments, he could think of nothing to say... nothing to do. Truthfully, he wanted to do what Mosspaw was doing and lay down. He wanted to give up. Everything seemed so hopeless. However, such a thing wasn't in his nature. It was not how he had been raised by RiverClan, or trained by Jaystar, or how he had become a warrior. Sunpaw was depending on him, and now it seemed that Mosspaw - who had so selflessly given her time and energy for a doomed apprentice from a rival Clan - needed him, too, at least for the time being. They had no proof that they were the only ones; there was no way that the Clans had been destroyed, all but the three of them.

The slender white tom stood, touching his nose softly to Sunpaw's shoulder. Lightstep padded over to lay next to Mosspaw, his fur pressed up comfortingly against hers as he rested his head across her neck and lapped comfortingly at her shoulder. He still could think of nothing to say, but one thing he had learned was that they felt, and they needed to feel. Instead of comforting her, Lightstep allowed himself to weep - just for a moment. "It's okay," he whispered softly. "Let it out... Things will be better once we dry out." As a RiverClan cat, he had never felt so distrustful of the water near them and that soaked their pelts. Once their tears, dried, too, then they could likely do something actionable.

For now, I just want to mourn... I want to rest.

Sunpaw flinched away a little when the ThunderClan apprentice leaned into comfort her and shot Lightstep a glare. What is she doing. Sunpaw stared into her uncles eyes. She shook her head slightly. No medicine cat can help. If only my mother had thought more of her daughter. She ahgerly began to knead the ground with unsheathed paws.

She watched as Lightstep and Mosspaw got close. You’re from different clans. She let out a growl. She was ok with them being friends but what Mosspaw hurt Lightstep? What if they became more than friends. With a huff she heard movement in the mud. Was that a mouse? She began to claw herself and drag herself to the noise and then saw it. They needed all the food they could get. The mouse froze and then with a massive leap she tried to pounce on it. Only to remember that she was crippled. Her back legs didn’t leave the ground as simply twisted and she landed hard and writhered in pain. She took deep breaths and laid in pain with her back legs twisted and tears dropped down her cheeks.

Relative silence had fallen over the three, broken only be the quiet weeping of the Lightstep and Mosspaw. She hesitated for a moment before accepting his comfort, and lay still as she felt him gently begin to lick her shoulder. After a few moments, she began to sniffle, the sobs fading away as she thought of how much worse things could be... She could be alone still, or injured.... Turning her head, she gently pressed her nose to Lightstep's neck and whispered. Thank you... Just then, the sound of scuffling caught her attention, and she slowly turned her head back around. Her eyes first caught the sight of the mouse, but it was frozen looking at.. "Sunpaw!" She yowled as she watched horrified as Sunpaw crumpled to the ground. Leaping up, she ran over, although she was unsure of what exactly she could do to help.

Looking to the white tom which had been so kind to comfort her, she quickly spoke. "Should we try to get her legs straightened back out? Sunpaw, is it okay if I help you?" Worry and concern, shadowed with fear showed in her expression as she anxiously awaited permission to help. Having been hissed and glared at a pawful of times, she didn't want to tread on Sunpaw's tail.

Lightstep was aware of Sunpaw's mild hostility when Mosspaw leaned in to comfort her. He felt weary and said nothing about her discomfort to either apprentice. Mosspaw spoke hopefully of getting help, and Lightstep had agreed unconvincingly, but of course Sunpaw saw through it, his own despair reflected in her eyes. She knew. She knew there was nothing anyone could do for her. It pained Lightstep to know that, and so he took comfort in his moment of mourning with Mosspaw. His words seemed to be enough to comfort her, though truth be told he didn't feel any better whatsoever. She whispered a soft thank you, but at that moment Lightstep heard the earth shifting nearby.

The white warrior lifted his head to see Sunpaw struggling through the mud a short distance away. The calico was trying to go for a mouse, but she stood no chance. It was gone before she was close, and then she was collapsed in a writhing heap. Lightstep immediately left Mosspaw to run to Sunpaw's side, gasping, "Sunpaw, please be careful!" His pale yellow eyes were dark with horror and guilt. I just looked away for a moment and she got hurt... The white warrior could feel his body trembling slightly with anxiety as he looked at her legs crumpled uncomfortably beneath her torso. "Sunpaw, is it okay if I help you?" Mosspaw asked.

Lightstep felt his stomach twist with nerves, remembering how his best friend Mottledspark had spoken of Sunpaw as a very jealous cat who didn't like to share attention. His heart ached as he missed his friend, wishing for another set of paws that might be able to help him here. However, Mottledspark wasn't there, and hadn't been for some time. Only Sunpaw, his niece, and Mosspaw, a ThunderClan apprentice who had been so selfless and had only served to make Sunpaw uneasy. "I think I can manage her legs," Lightstep interjected, though his face was cast with an apologetic sadness. "Were... Were you trained to hunt in ThunderClan yet?" he asked nervously. "Perhaps you could hunt and find something for Sunpaw and yourself... Sh-she needs to keep up her strength. You both do."

OOC: Gonna go ahead and post with Moss going off to hunt so that the topic can be wrapped up :)

Mosspaw gazed at Lightstep as he spoke, a quiet sadness clouding her eyes. Her ear flicked subconciously, as she nodded her head lightly. She had never actually gone out hunting yet... Just learned some of the techniques from Emberheart before the flood came... But Lightstep didn't need to worry about that. So even though her tail twitched nervously, she turned to walk off, maybe she could find that mouse from before... "I'll see what I can find, and be back soon." She said quietly as she began to follow the scent of the mouse.