Entwined

Chapter 6: Rocky

Rocky paced her Rough-paw cage enclosing her. How to get out? How to escape? She lowered herself back down and huffed. On the other side of the cage, Slide looked back from where she was clawing up grass. "Do you know how to escape from this thing?" Slide asked, waving a grass-stained paw towards the enclosure.

Rocky breathed out a sigh. "Nope."

"Aww... nothing?"

"Nope. Not at all," Rocky frowned.

Slide studied the cage, then shrugged and glanced back at Rocky. "Well, it's almost nighttime. Sleep, perhaps?"

Rocky played with the thought for a few seconds. "I mean, I guess it wouldn't hurt," She decided, wrapping her tail around her snout as she curled into a ball.

Rocky lifted her head. The enclosure cage was gone, replaced by the dark city streets, lined with ugly, tall lamps. The roaring of Rumblers echoed in her ears. Oh fun, Rocky thought. I love it when my dreams are my memories.

A younger Rocky, probably a single moon-circle old, trotted along-side Starry and her now late brother, Breeze.

"Are we going to go hunting today?" Young Rocky asked.

Starry and Breeze exchanged a glance. "Um... I guess," Starry said after a while. Rocky remembered feeling confused as to why Starry took so long to answer.

"This way," Breeze said as he turned the corner of a building. "I know where there are a TON of mice."

Starry followed, Rocky trailing behind them. "Guys, where's Daddy?" Rocky wondered.

More secret glances. The young Rocky began to feel frustrated. "Just tell me, okay?"

"Rocky, maybe we can tell you later, alright? Let's focus on hunting."

Of course, present-day Rocky knew what happened. And she also knew that what would happen next wasn't pretty. Breeze caught sight of a mouse near the edge of the Rumbler Path, and he crouched down. Unfortunately, Starry absent-mindedly took a step back and snapped a twig in two. The loud cra-a-a-ack noise startled the mouse, which went barreling across the Rumbler Path.

Rocky covered her eyes, trying to avoid seeing the scene that came next. Unfortunately, dreams were dreams, and her paw did nothing to block the image.

Breeze smashed in a Rumbler that was currently roaring down the path, and blood and death and blood and death and you dont want to know yikes :( Let's put it this way- Breeze didn't really make it to four Moon-circles old.

After witnessing that scene again, Rocky was thrown out and pushed into another dream. A gray-white fox Rocky didn't recognize was reading a scroll that looked quite boring. Two other foxes stood next to her, one of them smaller than the other.

"This is impossible. The quest they gave me- NO fox can do it," The one reading the scroll said.

"But Rain! If you DO manage to stay alive, YOU can do it!" One of the two foxes said.

"Yes, Fly-fy, very insightful and also quite encouraging," Rain muttered, still observing the scroll, which most foxes should NOT have their paws on.

"Well, first ya gotta find all those other foxes," The smallest pointed out, glancing over Rain's shoulder.

"Yes, but who in the name of Dawns of Light are Rocky and Flower-bud?"

Rocky sucked in a breath. Why in the world would her name be on a scroll in some random fox's paws? Then again, maybe a lot of foxes had the name Rocky. Doubtful, but reasonable.

"Uh... it says here that Rocky lives in those BIG cities on the other side of the world. Aaand Flower-bud lives in a desert. How am I supposed to get to those places?" Rain asked.

"There's a boat. Somewhere. The Weak Sensed are taking it to those BIG cities you were talking about. You can use that to get to Rocky," Fly-fy said.

The smallest one opened her mouth to say something, probably about how it would be a great idea, but Rocky's dream changed again. Wait no- she just woke up.

Slide was prodding at her nose. "Finally! At first, I thought you weren't going to wake up at all!" She said, half-joking.

Slide continued, "Anyways, I went to sleep, too. I dreamed about Starry! She told me to tell you to expect a fox named Rain to come visit sometime soon. I wonder what that means?"