Can You Hear it Hanging on the Wind? (Solo)

Daisyfang curled up in her nest. WindClan’s medicine den was quiet. The absence of sick cats was as much a relief as it was unfamiliar. She found she missed the dug out den under that bush back in the southern lake. It had her brother’s claw grooves all over it, each pawful of soil carefully removed and packed down, the thought behind the neat divoits that carefully stored her herbs, the well-used scent of it, lavender heavy in the air. This den smelled of stale herbs, the brittle dried bits of them caught the light as they floated towards the ground. It hadn’t seen use in a long time, but the echo of other’s skill lingered like a ghost. The well-worn depression where countless cats before her had crushed and mixed herbs. The disorganized bundle of dried bindweed had been thoughtfully placed next to broad crumbling leaves, and a scattered pawful of poppy seeds that had stubbornly survived the freeze, ready for an emergency. It didn’t quite feel like her den yet, but the thought of it sheltering so many before her was comforting. The medicine cat closed her eyes, and sleep came easy in the rocking stillness.

The medicine den loomed before her, bathed in the gentle light of SilverPelt. Daisyfang stepped towards it like her paws were weightless, the strange silence of camp felt ethereal and blurred, like everything was slightly out of focus. She ducked into the den, only to find the bright beady eyes of a fox staring back from the dark. Its fluffy tail twitched, all its sharp teeth bared in a grin, but it didn’t move, just stared at her from the dark. The medicine cat wanted to growl, or ask its purpose, but she found her voice wouldn’t work and her paws stubbornly refused to bring her any closer. The fox had a bunch of tiny white flowers gripped between its teeth, their lacy pattern swaying slightly in some unfelt breeze.

The medicine cat blinked, and weak leaf-bare sunlight filtered into the den. Her nest was ruffled, and the den smelled of dust and herbs. There was no fox lurking in the shadows, or even a pawprint to suggest there had been one at all. A strange dream. She thought, blinking the sleep haze from her eyes. She stretched, shaking bits of moss from her gray and white pelt. Water Hemlock. She mused silently. Surely that didn’t grow around here.