𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗢𝗥𝗦ᶠᵃⁿᶠⁱᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿ 一 𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔷𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔱 [𝟑]

❆☾𑁍𓆱ᥴhᥲρtᥱr 𝟹𝟶𓆱𑁍☽❆

"Well, well. How easy it is to overpower a she-cat like that."

"Shh. Don't let Sunray hear anything about she-cats being weak. She'd rip your eyes out of their sockets and drown you in the river."

"Of course not, Moth. I'm excluding Sunray from this. After all, she was given her power by—" Hissing, the speaker interrupted his murmuring whisper. "Damn it, Agate! What was that for?"

"Don't forget what Sunray told us. As long as it is not moonhigh, we must not reveal the true form of our Highest Chosen," a tom lectured him in a sluggish voice.

The soft mewing of the toms wafted around Larkwing. Engulfed in complete darkness, feeling feeble and tiny and as powerless as a newborn mouse. She didn't know where she was, who the cats were whose voices she could hear muffled.

I wanted to go back to the others to tell them what I had seen in the past. Then all of a sudden Sunray showed up and...

"Hey, looks like she's coming round!" That was unmistakably the meow of a she-cat. Although her voice sounded high and feminine, there was at least as much hatred and scorn in it as there was in the toms', if not more.

The first thing Larkwing felt was constricting pain around her legs. Eyelids heavy, she blinked several times to adjust to the dim light. Blurred, she saw her white paws in front of her. Something dark and flexible was wrapped around them, thin tendrils leading away from her body to the side, taut as if they were being held down by a heavy weight.

Hesitantly, she opened her mouth, her throat dry and scratchy. "Where..." she could only croak before she doubled over. That meant she wanted to, but her paws didn't move one bit. Instead, the tendrils, that also held her hind legs, tightened even more.

A wave of panic washed over her. I'm tied up!

Now that her eyesight had sharpened, she could finally see that she was at the bottom of a deep pit. Above her, at the edge of the hole, three toms — one light brown tabby, one black, one ginger tabby — looked down at her.

"Truly pathetic," the she-cat from a moment ago commented again. "And so incredibly stupid and gullible. I never thought she'd fall for it so easily."

Larkwing awkwardly turned her head backwards, as far as she was allowed to in her restricted position. Her suspicions were correct: there were indeed heavy stones lying on the ends of the tendrils.

A slimy purr sounded. "My words, Pebbles, my words," a second she-cat replied.

What the Dark Forest are they talking about? Narrowing her eyes, Larkwing stared suspiciously up at the two she-cats behind her. One of them was a calico with dark brown and ginger spots. Her face was small and triangular and her green eyes glowed eerily. The other was an orange tabby with white fur on her chest and white paws. In contrast to her neighbour, her greenish-amber eyes had a serious, thoughtful expression, but there was no trace of friendliness or empathy in them either.