Legacy: Timeless (Book 2)

Chapter 8: Price to Pay

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting chapters, I've been busy.

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Chapter 8: Price to Pay

"Now, tomorrow we can leave this place and pretend this never happened," Painted mewed in a harshly cheerful voice. Scorch snorted, finding Painted's failing attempt at cheerfulness amusing.

"What are you laughing about? It's your fault we wasted a whole day! And we're going to have to spend more time tomorrow travelling back!" Jump mewed crossly.

Scorch just waved her tail, "At least we won't have to worry about Clan-cats travelling after that kit and bumping into us!" she mewed happily, trying to cover the unnerving feeling in her belly that something was wrong.

"If they treated that kit so poorly, I don't think they'd go so far to find her," Painted huffed angrily.

Scorch shrugged, jumping around their makeshift nest. They were still in the pine forest, the light dim even though dusk had just started to fade. "At least there's tons of prey in these woods!" Scorch mewed happily, looking at the leftovers they'd collected.

She had even been able to catch her own prey, though she accredited it to the thick layer of pine needles that muffled sound and the fact that her shaded pelt was less obvious in the shadowed forest then on open green slopes.

"Well, I think some cat should stand guard tonight, since we're so close to Clan territory," Jump growled, his sharp green eyes were continuously flickering around. Every cat, except for her, was on edge in the shadowy forest.

Scorch wondered whether it was due to the different landscape, or the fact the Clans were close enough to pick up their scents if they really tried. She guessed it was due to both as she settled down on the outskirts of the holly covered hollow.

It was hardly shelter, the holly bush sparse in leaves and allowing her to see through it to the darker pine covered sky. But it was the only hollow they'd found that was really dry and didn't smell like a swamp.

"Scorch, settle down," Mira soothed.

Scorch realized she was quivering in excitement. "Sorry," she whispered, realizing she was rustling the holly bush and was probably keeping the other cats awake.

As they fell asleep, with Jump sitting guard outside the den, Scorch peered through the darkness, no difference between her eyes closed and open. She thought she must have fallen asleep, for when she awoke, misty silver shadows wreathed and folded around the pressing blackness.

No thoughts came to her head, nothing spoke to her in her heart, but she got to her paws and slipped out of the den, hardly registering that Jump had fallen asleep on guard. Soundless, listless, she moved forward, her pelt drenched in the black shadows even as she stepped through the silver light.

The wind howled, an owl hooted, but nothing moved before her staring eyes. She didn't know where she was going; no senses broke through to her still sleeping mind. Sleeping. The back of her mind started to come to the conclusion that she must be asleep.

Through the forest she moved, and as she crossed the border which she both recognized and ignored as the ShadowClan border, things started to move. Shapes, cat shapes, with coats as black as night to pelts brighter white than the moonlight.

They moved around her, flowing like water around a small stone. Sounds, voices, and words in all matter of emotions wreathed around her unhearing ears. Memories of the land... The thought, the first one to break through her thoughtless observing, shifted through her mind, being heard and thought of at all angles.