Being a hollow-guard requires incredible skill and strength. One must trust their instincts, even on the smallest of hunches. They must also be fierce and unyielding, willing to lay their life down for the Tribe of Soaring Oaks.
As of late, many ha...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The moon was coming. Drift felt it in his bones from the moment he woke. There was morning birdsong and hints of sunlight outside the den, but that changed nothing. The moon was still coming.
Maybe it should have scared him. It didn't. Instead, he lay in his nest and breathed in the cool autumn air, planning all that needed to be done.
First came the dawn shift, which he was already late for. Even if the end was near, it was still his duty to protect the Tribe. He would see that through as long as he could.
Second came Poolteller, who needed to believe nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. She had refused Drift's story at every turn, so perhaps it would be a kindness to indulge her disbelief. Besides, there was no time to change her mind, and Drift didn't want his sister's last memories of him to focus on an argument.
Third, though, was Flight, and as he left the den, Drift realized he had no plan at all. There was a great deal he wanted to say, but he was at a loss as to how to say it. How could he tell her he loved her and that a fate akin to death awaited him? They were not sentiments to be said in the same breath, certainly. But they were becoming intertwined in the worst way, and he could not see how to separate them. He had to deliver them with great tact, or he would ruin everything.
But the moment Print dashed from the nursery with Flight in tow, Drift lost whatever nerve he had gathered. As if he hadn't seen them, and because they hadn't seen him, he threw himself headlong into the forest without a word.
Peak was waiting for him, bleary-eyed and still unsteady with grief. As soon as he approached the guard post, she hurried away in total silence. Drift had too many words begging for release, but he suspected Peak was still searching just for one. At least she had time to search, though. Time was a luxury Drift was running out of faster than he had ever dreamed.
He tried to use it wisely, to think of a way to tell Flight the things he wanted her to know. Each conversation he imagined with her was harder than the last, though. Each conversation did nothing but hurt the Flight in Drift's head, carving deeper with each attempt. The beginning of love and the end of life were poisonous at one another's side. They were impossible to reconcile, both painful truths to their cores.
Drift tried all the same. He strung hundreds of confessions together, one after another, searching for the one that was truest, kindest. So desperate to find the words he sought, he turned Fish away from the sunhigh shift in order to buy himself more time. The guard post allowed him to think in relative peace and total solitude, something he was not ready to relinquish even as the moon kept coming, steady and sure.
But he could not stay forever, and even though it felt wrong to leave his post before a replacement arrived, he gave it up for the final time, the words still tumbling frantically through his head. They could not be refined, not before moonrise, and then it would be too late.
He tore along the path like death was at his heels, which it was, in a way. The world flew by in a blur, suddenly unfamiliar after moons of calling it home, and Drift ran faster still to escape it. At the end of the blur would be the familiar, along with his last chance to embrace it. As he careened into camp, though, all eyes locked onto him, all ears swiveled his way. The Tribe held its breath as it took in his wild, frenzied expression.
Fish broke the silence, standing protectively between the nursery and the camp entrance. "Is it coming?" he whispered. "The wolf?"
The Tribe waited, spellbound, for Drift's answer. Some cats murmured prayers. Others strained into the wind, searching for any sign of a howl. The kits shivered in the nursery entrance, and Poolteller stood aghast at the mouth of her den.
Flight's expression was the worst. Drift had never seen her so afraid before, not even when they were rescuing Print. Her eyes flickered across camp to everyone she loved, one by one. They settled on Drift in the end, sad and frightened at once.
He found the right words, then. The only words that would ever do. "There is no wolf," he croaked. "It's only me."
They were true words. Honest words. And he didn't blame the Tribe one bit for turning their backs on him as those words slipped out. He had scared them all for nothing, brought imaginary death to their door. He made them fear for their lives when there was no need.
It was time to go, and without any more words.
But he couldn't leave as Poolteller rushed to his side. "Are you okay?" she asked, already guiding him to the healing den with her tail over his shoulder.
Flight watched them pass, and Drift could see her heart breaking. She pitied him. Worried for him. Maybe even loved him. "No," he finally said in the darkness of Poolteller's den.
He was not okay.
Poolteller made him lie down. She quizzed him on his health, poked and prodded for hidden hurts that might explain his madness. The moon was the source, though, not that she would believe it. But he didn't try to change her mind. It was easier to wait for the moon to claim him, and to retreat into himself until it did. Pretending at peace was a simple task so long as he curled up inside himself and refused to feel for just a little while longer. Even the gentle tug of the moon on his heart lessened.
Yet Poolteller still managed to shatter the calm, her words stronger than the moon itself. "Stay here tonight," she ordered him. "You weren't ready to go on guard again."
Drift froze. The moon pulled at him with renewed vengeance. "I can't," he wheezed. Then his limbs came to life again, and he lunged for the exit.
"You will," Poolteller answered, cutting him off. "I don't want you getting hurt—"
"I don't want you getting hurt!" The moon would make him hurt her. He knew it, and he shoved her aside with all his weight, bursting from the den and almost tumbling into the pool beyond. If he didn't leave now, the curse would fall upon him in the middle of camp. He would become a wolf in the heart of the Tribe. No one would be safe.
Drift stumbled around the pool's edge, heart pounding in his ears, moon singing alongside it in haunting harmony. He was almost free, just a short sprint from the camp entrance, and Poolteller would be hard-pressed to keep pace with him in his panicked state.
Except the moment he crossed the den threshold, he was moonstruck.
It burned through his veins. His ears rang, his bones quaked. He ground his teeth so viciously he thought they might snap. One by one, his claws felt like they were being ripped out, and a howl began to build in his throat unbidden, bringing tears to his eyes with its pressure.
Then, as suddenly as it began, all the pain receded save for the ache in his side where Poolteller tackled him back into her den. She rolled away as soon as they landed, every inch of her fur on end, green eyes feverish and wide.
"You are cursed," she choked out.
And however ready Drift thought he had been to become the wolf, he was not. His resolve crumbled and he crawled away from the moonlight, trembling. Somewhere deep, his veins were still aflame.
"It's the moon," he said. "I don't want to change. I don't want to."
Despite all her refusals to believe Drift earlier, Poolteller became at that moment the best sister he could have asked for. Her fur already settling, she led him through the dark to the healing den, careful to avoid the skinny moonbeams slicing into the shadows. She did not let the curse take him that night. She did not let him change.
