i tried my best [part 2, just with an earthquake this time]

Holly was ready to be home. Just… home. In Skyclan, in the forest, under actual trees. Her body stung with little cuts, ached with odd bruising (in places she couldn’t even remember hitting!), and her pelt was dusty and dirty, but there was still a skip in her step. An unusual energy. I’m pretty sure this is the right way! Yes! I… think. And… in spite of everything, her heart still lit up at the sight of green as she crested the hill. It had to be here! The Big Ridge-place.

It looked just like it. It had to be: the sharp rocks, visible even from this distance, and the growing scent of… um. Forest stuff. Like leaves! And trees, and soil, and birds. (Not like the Twoleg crazy she just left, where it burned in her nose.) That itself confirmed it for her! The only other Clan border it could’ve been was Shadowclan (see! Holly did pay attention when her Aunt Raven was telling her stuff!), and she knew it couldn’t be. “No pines,” the molly recited, if a little hesitantly. (Trees weren’t really her thing, either.) But the closer she got, the more the familiarity of it all stood starkly in her mind, as she brushed past ferns, ducked under bushes.

Thank Starclan!

Relief hit her limbs… as did the desire to flop to the dirt and never get up. But in her defense, there had been… a lot of walking. If Holly had to describe what it was like, living as a loner — er, LIKE a loner, LIKE (because of course Holly wasn’t really, not like those dirty rogues or whatever her murder cousins were) — it’d be that. You couldn’t stop anywhere you wanted to, and the ground was like burning rocks, and… and it made your paws hurt.

(And bleed. A little.)

But Holly was here. She was home!

And then she felt a tingle of anxiety, like little claws in her chest. 

It hadn’t been forever, but… it felt like it. But it wasn’t like the first time she’d come home, after being kept away. And… and it was a fool’s hope, really, but… maybe her Mom and Muddy were home. Maybe they came back, and I just missed them. And this has all just been a silly… adventure. Yeah. It buoyed her, somewhat. She could hear her Aunt Beechfang’s snort at the idea — but it was possible! It was! It had happened before! And… and Holly hadn’t had much luck in finding her family herself. And I tried… I really tried. Would her grandpa believe that? Her Aunt Beechfang? 

They would have to. 

“Of course they’d get it,” she muttered to herself. Just like they’d get that I… had to leave. The scruffy calico dug her claws into the dirt a bit, then — a nervous habit — before she pushed herself forward. It was time to be home again! She didn’t need to think about this…

But that’s when the ground literally flipped on her. Holly squeaked — potentially embarrassingly — as it felt like the ground was shaking.

No. Not felt like it — it WAS shaking. But how could it?! It wasn’t a dream (it wasn’t, right?). Skyclan wasn’t like… like the Monsterpath! And yet like a nightmare from her imagination, the world erupted around her, in a cacophony of noise — and one she’d normally associate with Twoleg crazy. Oh, gosh, what’s happening—?! She froze, dumbly, as a boulder tilted from its position above her, on the raised ravine.

It was only on instincts gotten (that is: pounded into her) from monsters that she flattened, like a squirrel, and the rock missed braining her skull. She flinched, and then realized running toward any more rocks was a Very Bad Idea, even if it was toward home—

But that’s when something hit her, squarely, and everything went black.

((keeping this a bit vague, as the SkC camp topic isn’t finished quite yet))

Dawnfeather was darting through the forest (on the ground, thank you, the trees she’d trusted all her life were a danger, now, one she couldn’t risk) when the scent of blood hit her nose- and where most cats would’ve shrugged and thought some poor prey animal had been wounded by the earthquake, Dawnfeather turned instantly aside, following the smell. There was a chance- just a chance- that some unfortunate cat was injured, and even just a chance, just a small one, was enough for Dawnfeather to risk it.

A quick leap over a fallen trunk, brushing through a cluster of ferns (were they the same ones that she and Muddy had found when herb-hunting so long ago?) and Dawnfeather came out into a small clearing that appeared particularly ravaged by the earthquake- stones and sticks and crushed ferns, but the scent above it all was blood, metallic and cloying. It didn’t overwhelm her nose, though, which was a good sign, another hint that it was likely just some prey animal.

And though she turned to leave, some sharp bird-call sounded out from behind her- and Dawnfeather, always on the lookout to follow signs from StarClan, for it was a sparrow’s call, like her father- stuck around, sniffing for the source of the smell.

And then-

And then-

Some new scent nipped at her mind, something vaguely familiar-

And then-

Holly.

Holly, her long-lost sister, the one she’d named at birth, the she-cat she’d sheltered and taught and above all loved, the one she’d prayed so, so many times for StarClan to protect-

She was here.

Right in front of her.

Dawnfeather let out a yelp, sprinting over, stumbling over the wreckage in her path, skidding to a stop beside her sister, her sister, who was bleeding. The golden molly carefully licked away the blood- not too bad, Holly would be okay- Dawnfeather’s throat constricted with emotion, her paws trembled-

But it was Hollyshine, the last remaining member of her family, one she’d ventured out into the city to look for-

And she was here.

And she would be safe, if Dawnfeather had anything to say about it.