Spirit's Journey

CHAPTER 26- Midnight: Tension Rising

How in the world of the Skycat was I supposed to answer that question?

My first guess would have been her being upset over her dreams, and all of this having-a-mate and finding-all-of-these-animals thing.

Not that I didn't know she was stressed over that, because I knew she was.

How was she supposed to keep everyone safe and provide? I didn't know-how but Spirit always tried her best, and somehow got a good ways with it. She was keeping us safe now, and as long as she as she was trying, I was here by her side trying, too.

And she'd done good so far, keeping all of us safe and coming up with a plan to escape the wolves.

The cat with blue eyes told me to take care of her.

"Just keep doing what you're doing. I mean, everyone's been safe with you so far, so it can't be that bad, right?" I mumbled uncertainly, my eyes trailing on the ground.

What bad advice. Great Skycat, I was not good at this.

"No, I've done horrible so far! Look at this," she paused and flicked the crow with her paw a tail-length to the right, frowning.

"How am I supposed to feed everyone with this? And I didn't even catch it! You did!"

"Only with your help," I murmured.

It was true-Spirit had taught me a lot in the skill of hunting since I'd been with her group.

"Midnight," she said seriously and I had to look up. Her expression made me feel really bad, and I wished I could take away her pain.

"I don't know what to do. About this-I mean, about everything. How does the Skycat expect me to do this all on my own?"

"Well, if it helps, you have me." I meowed certainly and placed a paw on hers, looking down at it. So much smaller than hers- but that didn't matter.

It probably didn't help, though. I honestly didn't know how to help this cat. It was her destiny to do all of this- all I could do was give help whenever I could, and trust that her sisters would, too.

"Thanks," she said. The lighter tone of her voice told me that I'd managed to calm her down. For now, that was.

"Now let's get going. We're late already."

I felt relieved that the problem was over, and that I'd managed to help her even a little.

One day she's going to all-out crack though, I thought as we padded up to the place where everyone was about a half-hour ago.

Fallan and Diamond were un-surprisingly not there yet, while Storm meowed a small greeting, washing his huge paws.

Hannah padded forward to meet us, a stringy mole in her mouth and a look of shame on her face.

"This was all we could find." She dropped it at Spirit's feet while I felt a pang of disapointment hit.
Most of us would surely go hungry tonight if this was all there was...

"Well, it's better than what we've found. Thanks," she said and turned away. I turned and followed, intending to sit down and wash my pelt only to bump into one of Spirit's legs.

"Spirit! Spirit!" She yowled, hurting my ears.

"Keep your voice down! What is it? And by the way, you're late." Spirit said as she bristled slightly, even though we'd been a few minutes late as well.

Those two always quarreled, and I understood Spirit's side of it, because her little sister could really be pretty annoying sometimes.

Fallan ignored the last statement, still bouncing up and down.

"There's a small water hole over to the Northeast, I think. Where I was! And can you guess what was there?"

"Prey," I said, stepping forward and licking my lips while looking up at her.

"Yeah," she muttered dis-encouragingly to me, acting like since I agreed it wasn't such a good idea now.

Perhaps she thought I would eat all of her food. Well, even if I did, which I wouldn't, I'd be doing her a favor.

She was fat enough as it was. It was alright, though. I knew Fallan didn't have a particular liking for me, and I didn't like her so much either. Especially since she'd been so bitter towards me when I had first arrived, for practically no reason at all.

'Something controlled me,' she had said. Whatever. I didn't believe a word of it. She'd probably just faked it when she passed out, making it look like she was innocent. But it wasn't my place to confront her, especially now, so I held my tongue as Fallan swept on.

"Yeah, there's a bunch of pigs there! Can we go there, please? Everyone's really thirsty and-" she broke off for a moment and observed the two small carcasses of prey, licking her lips.

That's not all for you, chubby.

"And we don't have much prey and we're hungry and need to rest and eat and-"

"I can hear you, Fallan, thanks," Spirit muttered and looked as if she were considering the idea.

I flattened my ears, hoping she would say yes. My throat burned and my paws ached, plus I was starving.

"Well, we need to keep going," she mewed disapointingly.

"Spirit," Hannah said and stepped forward to her sister's defense, and I was thankful I wasn't going to have to be the one to pursuade the snappy cheetah.

"Please. We're all starving, and this will only take a few minutes. Plus, with our energy restored from the prey we'll be able to move at a faster pace, for longer."

I grimaced. Move at a faster pace? How fast were we going to go?

I understood Spirit's distress, but everyone could only take so much walking, running and lack of rest for so long. Hannah swept on as the blue-eyed cheetah didn't respond.

"You know that our amount of prey will not be enough to feed everyone-not even close, and that we'll have to stop and hunt at some point anyway. Better to now do it since we know there's prey around," she meowed, saying all the right things.

"She's right," someone said from behind and I turned around, flattening my ears as Storm stepped forward and agreed, about to protest with Hannah.

Oh boy. That was the worst thing he could have done.