Eagle Dinner?

Mosspaw looked around quickly. The cave was bustling with busy clan cats and trine cats. They won’t notice me! He shook his head and walked out of the to-be den. His tail flicked nervously, he needed some alone time without those darn tribe cats yelling in his ears! He looked at Daisyflame for a moment and then to all the busy cats. He slunk low to the ground and tried to be hidden.

A shadow casted over him and paws stepped in his way. ”Where are you going?” A voice asked. So close to the entrance! Mouse-dung! Mosspaw silently cursed and he looked up and swallowed to meet the eyes of a tribe cat. ”Err.. Following my mentor. I got distracted so I’m following him now!” He said nervously, hoping his life would pass. The tribe cat nodded and stepped away, watching Mosspaw through narrowed slits as he left the cave entrance.

Mosspaw shook out his fur, relived to be away from the stuffy to-be’s. He inhaled the fresh air deeply and kicked a pebble as it landed in front of him- wait what? Landed in front of him..? Mosspaw looked up and his heart leaped into his throat. A wide shadow passed overhead and Mosspaw crouched to the ground, being silent and trying to hide once again. A massive eagle had spotted the tiny black apprentice moseying around. Mosspaw let out a shriek and took of running into the distance and the shadow followed. Getting closer and closer until it disappeared for a moment and Mosspaw felt claws reach into his fur.

Mosspaw let out a shrill yowl and trashed back and fourth. Claws seared through his pelt and his paws began to lift up from the snowstorm ground. He squirmed and wiggles making it worse as the claws tightened. He let out yowls and cries as blood dropped and he laid limp in the large birds grasp. Terrified for his life he decided to stop moving and stay silent.

Mosspaws tongue hang limp out of his mouth as there was a train of blood on the ground below him and the eagle. His eyes rolled and he felt sick, his vision fuzzy he though. This is the end. He swallowed and he knew it was his last chance. He suddenly let out a yowl that echoed around the endless snowy land and gave a violent trash and the eagle stumbled in the air, letting out a cry as Mosspaw slipped from its grasp. He plummeted into the snow with a loud thud and lie unmoving.

Mao was beginning to wonder if she had made a mistake.

Some time after the unpleasant reunion with Laurelpaw, the two young cats had noticed the gathered clans dividing into two groups. If the forest-dwellers could be considered rotten flesh, would that comparison make the rogues flies? The Regime was scattered and powerless now; only its ideology lived on within a few stubborn individuals. And certainly, Rift and Mao could be considered stubborn. Who could blame them, however? It was all they had ever been taught, and it was now all that they had left. With nowhere else to go, nowhere to return to, she and Rift had ended up following a portion of the clan cats deeper into the mountains. Mainly, the decision had been Mao's. Wherever they went now, what would be the difference? The barn was the only territory that they had been familiar with for most of their lives, but it was no longer fit for cats to live in. It might or might not have been a coincidence that Laurelpaw was included in the group they were following. Neither of them mentioned anything regarding that fact, but they both were certainly aware of it. Anyway, the clan cats had to be heading deeper into the mountains for a reason. Rather than staying in the open at the base, wallowing in uncertainty for the future, Mao had judged it a better decision to trail them. The young rogues would linger a safe distance behind the large group, allowing the strong scent of the forest territories guide their pawsteps... Or so it should have been.

By the fourth day, Mao and Rift had very successfully gotten themselves lost. For one thing, neither one of them was particularly skilled in tracking. The different environment also played a big factor in throwing them off. Perhaps out of paranoia from losing Lengxue, Xuexi had never truly permitted them to leave the proximity of the Abandoned Barn. Day after day, she had filled their minds with propaganda against the clans. She had personally taught them the battle techniques passed down by Shade. She had thoroughly impressed her lessons upon them, but there was one thing she had neglected to allow—experience. The weather deep within the mountains was colder than Mao had expected it to be. It was probably their first time experiencing such cold. Before Xuexi's death, before the flood, they had always managed to take refuge within the Abandoned Barn. Snow drifts had been great fun to dive into. But here, in this new rugged, dreary world, there was little shelter from the temperaments. Harsh winds scarred the rocky walls with their intangible claws, whistling down into the valleys. Never before in her life had Mao been so thankful for her thick fur. Her pelt had fluffed out even further ever since their entering the mountains, and it kept out the worst of the chill. In this aspect, Rift seemed to be worse off. With as much trouble as they were having, it was no surprise that their focus soon turned from off the clan cats to their own preservation

Prey was scarce, and the variety of edible critters were undoubtedly different from those that had been available at the Abandoned Barn. The sixth morning of their journey through the mountains, the two young rogues were fortunate enough to snag a young hare through their combined efforts. After the meal, Mao sat cleaning her whiskers. Not for the first time in the past days, she struggled with the fear that she really had made the wrong decision. The mountains were a harsh new territory—far harsher than either of them had expected. It was cold and unforgiving. If she had slipped up, if she slipped up, there was the possibility that she could doom both of them to an untimely death. While their bellies were filled for now, there was no guarantee that they would have such success again tomorrow. They were cold, tired, and very, very lost. Should they never have set paw in the mountains? Her pale ears flattening with what could very well have been shame, Mao lifted her head. What did her sister think? "Rift, I—" She began quietly.

I'm sorry. The words never got to leave her mouth, for a resounding shriek caught both of their ears. Caught off guard, Mao froze. Her pale-ginger fur spiked. There was an ensuing moment of silence, before a dull thud sounded a distance away. The she-cat leaped awkwardly to her paws, amber eyes wide. "That was a cat's cry, Rift!" She exclaimed. Her anxious gaze found her sister's, before she sputtered out, "I—I'm going to check it out!" Without waiting for a response, she was already bounding forward. Her long, lean legs propelled her swiftly over the snow.

What had just happened? Her gut twisted within her. That screech, and then that thud... It couldn't be.

Rift shivered in the cold wind whistling down from some ridiculously cold place she was convinced had to be where all evil Clan cats ended up when they died. Hunched into a tight crouch as she tried to conserve warmth, she didn't dare to attempt anything like cleaning herself, instead just staring at the remains of their hare as thoughts swirled through her head. Lengxue was gone, pushed away by her reckless anger, again, and now they were wandering through the coldest place she'd ever been through, completely and hopelessly lost. She blinked at the chilled bones lying on the cold rocks in front of her, feeling like even her eyes were freezing. We can't lose them now. There has to be a way to make them pay.... The memory of her mother's body flashed through her head, and she glared harder at the blood staining the ground. One day that will be the Clans' blood. Sometimes it seemed like anger was the only thing that kept her warm in these mountains.

Locked in her dull thoughts, she didn't notice Mao's troubled expression as the other stopped cleaning her whiskers for a moment, and when her sister spoke she nearly jumped, her head swiveling to blink up at the other she-cat.
"Rift, I—"
A sudden loud shriek came from further up the valley, followed by a resounding thump, cutting off whatever Mao had been about to say. Despite the cold, Rift jumped to her paws, glancing up the valley and back at her sister as the same thing apparently occurred to both of them. "I'm coming with you!" She pounded after the other she-cat, her legs feeling cold and stiff as she scrambled over the rocks and snow. Blood pounded in her ears, warmth returning painfully to her body in the rush of adrenaline as she bounded forwards. Distantly, some part of her noticed the irony of scrambling after her sister for once, instead of racing ahead, and she let a shivering smile come onto her face.

That smile died as soon as the rushing wind brought a familiar scent to her nose. It was only there for a moment, and half-masked by the cold, but she would never be able to forget it. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later as they burst through a drift of snow, and she slowed, prowling towards the half-buried scrap of fur lying unmoving a short distance away. Her eyes narrowed as her bristling fur was flattened by the wind, and she stood, claws digging into insubstantial powder. "Mao, that's a Clan cat. We should leave it."

Mosspaw laid in the snow, unable to move because he was so bloody and strained of energy. His body was rigid with cold from lying in the snow. The snow quickly started to soak up the blood around him and staining his black fur. It was now a slightly deep red but he didn’t know he was still alive. He saw the darkness and he thought it was the end of his life.

He started saying sorry to all the cats he thought he hurt somehow. He sniffed and started to silently sob, buried in the snow as it got harder to breathe. The snow melted around his muzzle from his hot breath but that didn’t help much. The only signs of life was his chest slightly rising if you were an onlooker.

Mao's paws sunk deep into the cold, cold snow. With every breath, the young rogue felt as if her lungs would freeze. Sunlight glittering upon the snow, dark wood, the flash of greenery—for a minute or two, nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. Stumbling to a halt, she swept her amber gaze from side to side in an attempt to detect the source of the cry. She was sure that she was looking for a cat, but what was it that she would actually find? Her sides rose and fell from her exertion. If only for a moment, the adrenaline pumping through her veins provided a little warmth. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of her sister chasing after her. She could hear the other set of thudding pawsteps, undoubtedly churning up the snow.

A hint of red caught Mao's eyes as she glanced around. The amber gaze grew wide, swiveling towards it. Fear suddenly sprang to life in her heart. Intuition processed the sight faster than her mind could. Blood. Briefly, the image of Xuexi's remains flickered before her mind's eye. She found her paws stumbling forwards on their own, despite the knot in her gut.

She had to see. She had to know.

Before long, Mao was standing by Mosspaw's side. Her breath choked, her chest growing tight. The bundle of dark fur, streaked with blood, made a stark contrast to the pure white snow it was half-buried in. Upon a better look, the stranger had wounds tearing through his pelt. Claws? What had the earlier disturbance been, then? He had fallen. The only question was, where from?

Rift's voice cut through Mao's swirling thoughts, causing to pale ginger tabby to start. She turned to face her sister, amber eyes wide. Now that Rift mentioned the scent, she was aware of it as well. It was one that she unfortunately recognized. It was not the scent of fish, which she had recognized on her mother's body, but it was a more murky sort of scent. Le—Laurelpaw's scent. She realized. At that moment, she was more than half-inclined to agree with Rift. Rift is right. The thought instantly sprung to her mind. What had the clan cats ever brought them, apart from misery? While this one was still alive, it seemed to be barely clinging on. If they left it in this state, it would probably perish on its own.

It was barely more than a kit.

Mao gritted her teeth. Her paws seemed frozen in the snow, refusing to budge. It should have been so simple to abandon the clan cat, after everything that had happened. She glanced at Rift for a second, their gazes meeting. Then, wordlessly, she reached out with a paw and prodded the dark-furred bundle. "Hey." She meowed gruffly, "Hey! Can you hear me?"

Everything had always gone wrong when there were Clan cats involved, and now, as she looked upon a young one half-buried in the snow, Rift felt as much pity as the merciless snow. Mao hadn't seemed to realize it was one of them, instead stepping forward in a sort of daze to inspect the mess of a cat lying in the snow. The young russet-furred she-cat felt a cold anger stir in her heart as she unsheathed her claws, watching on cautiously as Mao turned from her inspection of the cat, and ready to leap to her sister's defense at any moment. We should leave. We should leave now.

Rift's eyes hardened as they met her sister's and she twitched her tail once, the message clear in her eyes. Leave it. Don't do it. She let a slight growl rumble deep in her throat as Mao turned back to the scrap of fur, but only watched motionlessly as her sister stared at the thing, obviously conflicted. Her heart as cold as stone, Rift felt nothing for the cat, even though it looked relatively young and in a sorry state. She wouldn't let herself feel pity for it, no matter whether it was a kit fresh from its murdering mother's belly or a hardened Clan cat who'd killed scores of rogues.

The wind flattened her fur against her body, swirling around the three of them for a moment before Mao looked up again, their eyes meeting for a heartbeat. Rift let her face empty of emotion, her tail falling still as she fatalistically prepared herself for her sister's inevitable decision. I won't stop you from helping it. But I won't help you. Sometimes it was hard to comprehend how Mao still had empathy in her heart after all these monsters had done to them, but as her sister turned away prod at the shape lying in the snow, she grudgingly decided it was good at least one of them still had some redeeming features.