The Sunlapse (A Light in the Mist AU/rewrite)

XXV

Song of the Chapter
Sonata Arctica - Fullmoon

"The light of the sun is beginning to lapse. Beware the branches of the maple tree, for they have cursed this winter," the cat spoke out against the cashing of thunder and the flowing clatter of midnight rain.

Bristlefrost hadn't thought the shadow could talk at first. The stranger's voice was firm and deep, but also, in a way, motherly. After that, the silhouette did not speak again. She sat still and stared down at them, perched against the tarblack veil upon the sky. Just in front of the full moon that beamed light upon the crumbling twoleg nest.

She shivered. Bristlefrost did not fully realize if it was from the droplets of water that lashed at her skin as they fell, or the freezing winds that swam through the bleak, or the fear that ran through her blood from not knowing what this cat was about to do. She was sitting still like a statue, silent, but the shadow could strike at any moment. The molly turned to stare at Squirrelflight. She seemed to be staring blankly too. Maple trees, what did that mean? What did any of this have to do with maple trees? Was Mapleshade here after all?

Then she realized. Of course it was Mapleshade, of course she'd come back from the Dark Forest. But how? And why for them?

Then Mapleshade leaped, soaring like a black eagle toward them. Bristlefrost stumbled back as she twisted unbelievably fast while still falling and landed on all fours, with a thud that shook the shaded earth. Fear surged beneath Bristlefrost's pelt, tumbling through her bloodstream, making every nerve from the tips of her tufted ears to the edge of her claws burst.

She stumbled back, hyperventilating with the terror thundering up her spine and burning her lungs. The cat approached her and she backed into a stone wall. I get it, Bristlefrost thought, her heart ready to pound right out of her chest. I wasn't supposed to fight. I've just ruined everything.

"Kill me. Take me to the afterlife with all the others who died because of me," Bristlefrost's voice shivered, every word trembling as it fell from her mouth. Mapleshade stepped towards her, perched like a villainous predator with her shaded claws slipping out. Her amber eyes pierced the chilling night air, and though there was no clear intent on her face, her gaze somehow whispered a promise of death. Death that she stood and accepted.

But she didn't pin her down, she didn't tear through her abdomen or slice though her neck. Mapleshade just stared at her with those dreadful yellow eyes.

"Why aren't you killing me?" Bristlefrost asked. She couldn't believe how all of it had changed her so much. All the battles, all the pain physical and mental, it'd torn her apart from being brave and quiet to loud and afraid. Why couldn't she have done anything? Bristlefrost just shut her eyes and continued waiting for claws to meet her throat.

"You know, I was a lot like you," Mapleshade meowed. Bristlefrost didn't dare open her eyes.

"How?" she asked. 

"I fell in love with a cat from another Clan too."

"And what happened?"

"I was exiled. And the kits we had died. They drowned in the river, dying miserably under the water. I lost the ones I loved, just like you. We're really alike, you and me, aren't we?"

Her eyes shot open when another scream shocked her into wakefulness. Had the Dark Forest cat turned on her and tried attacking Squirrelflight instead? She jumped forward to stare, and realized that the opposite was true. Squirrelflight was dashing around the nest, much smaller than the more powerful molly. She scurried about like a ginger mouse, or more appropriately, a squirrel, using her quickness as a way to tire her out.