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

XXVII

Song of the Chapter
Maudlin of the Well - Heaven and Weak

A wave of cold, suffocating water swept her from slumber. A daze cradled Squirrelflight softly, with a burning sting striking her senses back into her mind. Blackness hugged her as her head rose, and she found herself laying on vast, dark moors. Moonlight, an angel stuck in place, fluttered in timid attempts to light the void holding only hopeless stars.

She rolled over to see murky water sleeping before her, but her reflection in the stillness was tainted by crimson. Squirrelflight almost gasped as she realized what it was. Staring down, she noticed dirtied strands of her fur floating upon the murk. The blood was hers. 

The molly looked up from the pool, catching Bristlefrost silently staring down with lifeless shock. That sight sent memories flooding back. Had Bristlefrost...attacked her? She reached into her memories again, catching ghostly sensations of claws across her pelt, of screeches and panicked chases through a labyrinth of pines, of a choking blur as she bled out and dropped into unconsciousness in the grass. Bristlefrost had done it all.

The larger she-cat stared up from the pool, and a flare of malice was clear in her crystal-blue eye. It was so intense, its sparkle sent more light than the moon and stars above. She stood crouched with vicious talons sinking into the earth as she bounded across the pond. She was a wolf in this night, vicious and scarred.

A wave of panic fell over Squirrelflight as she turned back in a desperate attempt to escape. She bounded through the grass, throwing herself forward with all the energy she could bring within her, only for the thumping of paws behind her to stop. Squirrelflight spun around to stare back and the chase came to a dizzyingly abrupt end. Her former companion no longer looked vicious, her face was instead painted in a look of panic and shame. Bristlefrost looked almost delicate now, as though she'd changed completely. She was delicate under the distant eye of light that cut through the black sky.

"You have to leave," she hissed, her breathing quick and loud. "Now."

"You attacked me!" Squirrelflight hissed, feeling like a shivering mouse crouched beneath the watch of a towering predator. 

"Go before you're killed!" She hissed, a look of malice filling her form as she looked like that monster for one second, before she dropped her head with her teeth clenched. "Now!" It sounded choked and heartbroken this time. 

"But-" Bristlefrost turned and ran, vigorously darting through the shaded, moonlit grass. She sprinted down for the way of the Clans, furiously tearing at grass with her running, before she vanished down the slope and fled for the gloomy horizon.

Squirrelflight felt...betrayed. She felt as though every single thing she'd known in her life had been a lie, a game of deception to hide a vicious reality. The emotions began to flood through her, her muscles breaking under the weight under of her own mind. She could barely even stand. Her chest hurt, and her throat burned, the only way to ease the pain was to scream until she no longer could even whisper.

She clenched her teeth, releasing a monstrous cry into the vast universe. Her scream burned her own ears, but it didn't matter, her senses were numb. Her cries stretched out across the endless moors, killing bugs, scaring mice to hide in the dark again, and terrifying the nightbirds. It didn't matter. She just wanted to scream.

"Squirrelflight!" she heard Mothwing hiss through the cacophony of her own cries. She had to harness herself, forcing her muzzle shut to stop herself from crying. "We're back!"

She turned, feeling so weak she could barely even move. The two stood at the top of the slope and stared down at her. Spotfur was holding a flower, crystal-blue. It looked like the light of the summer sky, and yet it looked like luna shining at dusk, enticed by ocean air. The flower sparkled with an infinite cluster of stars. 

"Why were you...crying?" Mothwing asked, then her eyes widened. "And where's Bristlefrost?"

Spotfur laid down the flower, visibly panicking. "Is she..."

"No!" Squirrelflight said, finally gathering the strength to speak. "She's fine, she's not dead! Well, she's not fine either."

"Then what happened?" Spotfur asked and she and Mothwing bounded down the slope. Squirrelflight found the numbness paralyzing her mouth returning, she couldn't blurt it out. They were thorns in her mouth, each syllable making her bleed. So she had to force the words out of her.

"Bristlefrost killed Flipclaw," she meowed. "And I think she killed Bramblestar too, with the help of a Dark Forest cat. And now she's tried to kill me."

Spotfur and Mothwing didn't even speak. They just stared at her, not horrified, but simply looking confused. "Are you on catmint?" Mothwing meowed.

"Bristlefrost killed Bramblestar and Flipclaw!?" Spotfur's words were quiet and choked. Her teal eyes began to shimmer and bubble with tears. "But she's a good cat! She couldn't have done all this!"

"She did. I saw her do it, myself." Squirrelflight meowed. Not even she herself could believe it, but it was true.

"Where did she go?" Mothwing asked. 

"She went in the direction of the Clans, down the way we got up this mountain. I don't know fully where she went, but I think she went back to the lake," she answered, staring at the slope Bristlefrost had ran down. "Come on. We have to find her."

"Well, we needed to go back anyway," Mothwing commented, staring at the luminous flower. Spotfur bent down to pick it up in her jaws and they began bounding down the slope again.

 They walked without sleep, or food, or water, for days. They walked as the sun awoke to fill the horizon with milky light, they walked as the heavens filled with the light of a winter day, and they walked as the day choked and drowned beneath darkness as the moon came to rule the sky. As they travelled, Mothwing and Spotfur told her about what'd happened on their journey. How they'd walked through a constant blizzard, stolen food from a group of twolegs and found a flower denoting StarClan. The two then proceeded to bicker about what to call it.

As they neared the Clans again, a burning horizon became apparent. A red glow blazed in the black evening sky, and it was clearly coming from the forest. The suffocating smell of smoke tainted the breeze as they stepped into the woods again, and the scarlet flame ahead became brighter and brighter. Once they came to the lake again, it became apparent what had happened. The island laying in the middle of the lake was glimmering with flares of bright orange hue, spreading their blinding red light to the bleakness and threatening to smolder the sky.

The fire sent a old memory in her mind returning, and she remembered. She knew who did this.

He was here.