The Road Goes Ever Ever On

The evening air was thin, and as the sun slid slowly towards the horizon it became cold: not the chilly, shivering cold that draws you closer to your clanmates for comfort, but a marrow-deep stab of ice, seeping gradually through fur and skin and settling in the crooks of your joints and between your ribs.
Nothing stirred the undergrowth. Even the wind, usually playful, was nowhere to be found. The forest had fallen abruptly silent, driven to seek shelter from the chill that had so quickly appeared.

A snap echoed through the trees like a gunshot. It reverberated, swelling to a peak, and slowly faded into silence.
Residents of the forest peered out of dens and from the ice-sheathed boughs of branches. What creature would be foolish enough to venture out into the open?
A sudden, collectively drawn breath heralded their arrival, and the forest swiftly averted its eyes from the strangers that were approaching.

Meanwhile, a thin, ragged tomcat was weaving his way through the undergrowth on the other side of the clearing. He walked without thought, following his pawsteps aimlessly through the darkness.
He had much to think about, but his mind was empty, unable or perhaps unwilling to conjure a thought. The young tom was so lost in the silence of his head that he didn't notice the sudden burst of sound just ahead.

And that would be a fatal mistake.

Frostpaw, arriving at Fourtrees shortly after the tom, definitely heard the sound. But frustration clouded what little forethought she possessed, and so she passed it off as a settling tree and continued onwards, eyes narrowed. Her mind was churning, bringing forward every time her siblings had overshadowed her, every time her mother hadn't trusted her. It was bad enough that she was still an apprentice, but not being allowed to go into battle while her other siblings could had stung her.
It was with that deep, roiling sense of injustice that would dictate what she did next.
Everything was about to change.

"There!"

Lynxtail felt something slip around his neck. His pawsteps faltered, then stopped as he felt it begin to tighten.
Confusion quickly turned to fear as he felt it press down against his neck. Gagging, he pulled against it, paws churning the cold, muddy ground as beads of blood appeared where the wire was cutting into his neck. He struggled to draw a breath, his lungs swelling, his chest heaving. The tree's branches above him shook as he paced, wheezing.

Frostpaw felt three things in rapid succession. First, a strange, unnaturally solid thing beneath her paw, reminiscent of the Thunderpath.
Secondly, as the leaves shifted, a pinch of fear. The thing was silver, incredibly so, and it glinted with a strangeness that she couldn't comprehend.
click-CLANG

Red and white pain, so sudden and complete that the she-cat jumped into the air, thrashing. Iron jaws had closed around her leg, severing bone and skin with the delicacy of a badger trundling through the forest.
She screamed so loudly that her throat stung as blood began to trickle onto the frosted ground. Falling to her knees, still writhing in pain, Frostpaw turned and vomited.

One of the strangers strode towards the snare, the other to the foothold. "Ah," The former tugged on the wire attached to the branches. "Held up fine-" He suddenly cursed, having caught sight of the creature that had fallen prey to the trap. It wasn't a fox like he'd hoped, nor was it a badger or a cub.
The housecat had flopped on its side, its flanks slick with sweat. Foam poured from its mouth. The man cursed again, drawing his knife and quickly cutting the snare. He picked the cat up by its scruff.

His companion seemed to be having a little more trouble with his quarry. The man heard a loud yowl, followed by a string of curses. "Need help?"
Before he could come to his aid, however, his friend emerged with a scowl, holding a struggling cat tightly in his hands. "What do we do now?"

They both knew this wasn't exactly legal, but during the summer there had been a stir-up about foxes eating a few housepets, and they figured they'd be able to catch one or two.
"We can't give em' back,"
"I reckon we could just skin em' anyways... that dark one has to be worth something."
The man lifted the darker cat, studying it. Suddenly, it lashed out with a yowl, leaving a dark welt on the man's arm. He cursed, dropping his hand and shaking the cat vigorously by the arm.
"Have you seen the people 'round here?" He grunted once he was satisfied that the creature wouldn't fight back. "The second they notice their cats' is missing, there'll be a manhunt. And I don't think we can just turn em' in to the shelter without having to answer some questions."
Another disappointed curse, followed by a brief silence.
"Hey, here's an idea- you're driving up north in a few days, right? Why don't you take em' with you, ditch'm at a rest stop or something along the way? If someone finds em', they won't be able to trace it back to us."
The man lifted the cat he was holding, peering into its cloudy eyes. "On second thought, I'm not so sure that this one's gonna make it-" He gave it an experimental shake, then nodded as its limbs began to move. "Ah, nope- there we go." He muttered.
"Fine by me." The other said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "We should get going- grab the double spring."