Spirit's Journey

CHAPTER 50- Spirit: In my Head

I scrambled to my paws as soon as I returned to consciousness, breathing a bit hard and wondering what had just happened in my head while I'd been sleeping.

Was that all it had been? Just in my head?

Without thinking, I turned around and prodded Midnight with a paw, who was sleeping soundly just a few paw-lengths away next to Aspen.

"Midnight," I hissed urgently, as she blinked wearily through the gloom. I was at least glad that it was still night, and that everyone else would stay sleeping from the tiredness of trekking through snow all day.

"What's going on?" She meowed while trying to blink sleep away from her eyes, then jumped up with her fur bushing out.

"Is it the wolves? Have they found us again?!" Midnight's black head was a shadow against the dark background behind her, as she turned this way and that, trying to locate any source of danger.

I shook my head, beckoning for the little black cat to follow me farther to the side of our sleeping pride-mates as Aspen twitched an ear and curled his tail closer around his nose. How he hadn't noticed the cold air flowing onto his side where Midnight had been curled up, I would never know. The tom often slept soundly and snored in his sleep.

"A cheetah came to me in my dreams," I meowed quietly as soon as we were out of ear-shot.

Before Midnight could respond, I swept on to avoid questioning that my statements would have answered anyways.

"She told me: 'Accept your fate, for once paws have been set in their path they cannot be changed,' but what could she mean? I've already accepted my fate. Do you think there's something she's not telling me?" I could feel the worry reflecting in my gaze as my head reeled with confusion. Midnight sat still for a moment, her breathing small and quiet as she observed the ground in front of her.

"Did she have blue eyes?"

I was taken aback. How would Midnight have known that?

"Did you walk my dreams again?" I asked, wondering because it'd happened before. Midnight, in every other mysterious dream I'd had like this one, had been there all along, either out of sight where I couldn't see her or right in front of my eyes with the rest of the dream. Either way, she had always known about the dreams I had.

"Yes, and a long tail and legs like me. I thought she was the Sky-cat," I said reluctantly, and wondered if I still believed it. Why would the Skycat speak to me? And if not, what other cheetah could it have possibly been?

I absent-mindedly heard my belly grumble for food, but ignored it and paid attention to Midnight's words as she opened her jaws to speak again, her gaze still fixed on her paws.

"She has spoken to me before." Midnight's purple gaze finally lifted, her tail twitching to and fro.

"She came to me a few days before I met you and told me you were going to come to me. She'd said you were coming and that I was supposed to go with you."

"I never knew that," I said, a little disappointed that the kit had never mentioned that until know. Why hadn't she told me? Midnight never kept secrets.

As far as I knew.

"I didn't tell you because I didn't think it was important- I didn't know who the cheetah was, where she came from, or if she was real."

"Tell me about it," I muttered, thinking back to the cheetah's round face and ears, and sleek pelt that'd held no scars. Who was she, and why did she care about whether I knew the warning or not?

"You don't think it could have been the Sky-cat, do you?" I asked because I had to be sure.

"Like the literal Sky-cat?" Midnight mewed, and I gave a small nod. She stared at me for a long moment.