NEVER LOOK BACK | closed ; coyotegrin

One moment she was in her nest, tail curled over her nose, honey-hued eyes heavy-lidded. The next, she was somewhere else entirely. It took Sleepyhollow a moment to open her eyes, to register the change in the air, and the tickling of thick moor grass prickling against her nose. "What is going-" her curious call was cut short in her throat, blinking the sleep from her eyes she slowly stood to her paws.

Grass. A sea of grass as far as the eye could see, the twinkling stars of a beautiful night overhead seemed to swirl and dance around her very paws in their midnight promenade. She watched them with wide-eyed wonder as they tickled her fur and danced between her ears before skittering off, playful in their movement, beckoning for her to join them.

It was on instinct that her paws jutted after those sparkling lights as a kit might pounce for a straying beetle, paws typically unwieldy felt light and airy, dancing over the grass as weightless and prim as the air itself. Even her body felt lighter; and as the "stars" began to pull away from her once more in the direction of a distant copse of trees, she was quick to follow. She felt nimble, and quick, her body felt well-muscled and light and she ran as quick as any WindClanner after their prey, the watchful eyes of stars peering at her from the sides went unnoticed in her flight.

It felt like she ran for an eternity or a few mere seconds, but her paws soon brushed past the gnarled bark of the trees, slowing back to a walk for the remainder of her journey. The lights swirled through her fur, tousling her pelt and prodding her to go forward to keep her on her path; a scent came to her nose, familiar but not, cold but... welcoming. Picking up her pace once more, the fur of her belly swishing against her legs as she trotted along, she came to an opening in the trees, the lake? No, it was smaller... a pond. And across that pond, stood some very familiar animals. "Fox.." she whispered aloud, ears flattening to her skull as she backed away from the edge of the water, watching as the massive canine leaned down and lapped at the star-strewn surface of the pond. Suddenly materializing as if from the air, a figure sat next to her. It felt normal. Comforting even. "Oh... do you see the fox too?" she questioned the figure next to her. The figure didn't respond, instead turned to look at her with a smile of her own, a touch of her nose to her shoulder sent the pristine picture shattering.

A low grumble, blinking sleep from her eyes as the milky sunrise sun filtered into Highstones to meet her eyes. That was all a dream? It felt so real, even her paws were tired! But she was glad to be awake. Another groan as she heaved herself up out of her den, taking great care to not wake her denmates. That's when she saw it. In the snow was a tuft of fur, orange, it was pretty and...familiar. Fox fur. It had to be. Fear grew in her stomach like a disease and at the thought of fox, the scars on the back of her neck started to itch. With her older sisters' death, she was even more frightened by the creatures. She didn't waste a second. The warrior scurried to where her mother lay, slowly putting a paw on the she-cat's shoulder and giving a little push. "Momma..can I lay with you?" she whispered, her voice unseemingly diminutive, "I..I had a bad dream." with those words suddenly the warrior was as small as a kit.

Despite being so soundly asleep moments before, she felt as though she had been doused in ice water. She carefully positioned herself between her parents, focusing hard on matching her breaths to theirs. In...and out...in...and out... she copied their breaths until she was no longer on the verge of hyperventilating. The silence that followed Coyotegrin's question was perhaps a little longer than the average lull in a conversation. Sleepyhollow curled as tight as she could, taking in a deep breath before she answered, "A fox.." she confessed, her voice barely audible. Maybe.. if she hid further in her mother's fur, the remnants of her dream would go away..yeah. Surely.

But the dream wasn't really the root of her stress, the root of her feelings. She had thought that having feelings for Russetrye was the end of the world. The calico had no idea how truly overwhelmingly painful feelings could be. She now knew how Russetrye felt when...when Ryepaw had passed. She felt like a shell of her former self, she felt wrong that she hadn't been there for Daisybreeze more, and she felt like she should've been the one to get taken rather than her eldest sister. But beneath the sadness was anger. Red hot rage. It kept her awake most nights, she had been telling her clanmates she was staying up late hunting, or some other reason but most nights it was her rage. She opened an eye to look at her mother, "No more fox fights without me." she meowed softly. Foxes had taken far too much from her, they would not take her mother too.