Chapter 16: The mountains

We had been walking a lot of the day and I could see that Mint was starting to get very worn out. She still had a scar and the bleeding was healed, but her bodily functioning was not full healed for her quiet yet.

I began looking for a place we could rest for the night, I was also sort of tired and I was also hungry. I knew that Mint was not in the correct condition to start hunting, and she was also down and too tired. I knew she would probably like to hunt but there was no way that she would possibly catch anything.

I wouldn't want her to even try because I knew that it would only get her even more stressed out. Over the last couple days she had kept telling me she was ready but Jayfeather kept telling me that she was not. She kept trying to get up and move around but just about every time she would fall over.

During this time I was with Lionblaze and he had been teaching me how to fight animals like badgers and even cats, I asked him why, and he told me that not all cats out here were nice and friendly and I would come to find that out really soon.

It kind of scared me because I had always had a thought inside my head that a cat would never kill another cat, I knew that some cats were not exactly nice and sweet but I never thought that I would ever see another cat kill someone, but I would believe Lionblaze... They had taught me a lot and I had learned not to question any of them anymore.

I saw a tree we could potentially sleep in for the night. I was about to head up to it until I had forgot that Mint was not ready to make a jump quiet that big yet.

She looked at me as if she knew what was going on inside of my head and she lowered her body as if it was her way of saying sorry. I wondered what went on inside her head a lot of the time, clearly she was not like a normal cat and I had wondered if it was the family she was with or maybe the other cat. But I failed to see it be because of that, they had both told me they loved their family dear to their hearts.

I had also known it could not possibly be the cat she was with because he was nice and sweet, maybe there was a reason that he didn't want Mint following me, I was tempted to almost head back for just a couple or moments.

I then realized I had no idea the way back and I was just following the way that Squirrelflight was telling me to go, I was happy to have her as company and I don't know how far I would have gone without her.

Squirrelflight had told me the reason I found them in my dreams was because somewhere deep inside my thoughts I believed in an afterlife... If I would not have believed then I would have never found them.

She told me a lot of cats where she was at were counting on me. I didn't really like when someone was counting on me to win, because if I failed it really seemed like I would be letting everyone down.

The other night I had asked about Tristan, she said that he was okay, he was just in a different place than them at the moment. I was about 100% sure that they were dead cats, but that basically ended anything in my head that told me that I was dreaming something in my head when I saw all of this.

Not even Mint telling me she could see the cats had even told me, she had only seen them once before, I thought maybe it had been something that we had eaten. That's why she wasn't having those types of dreams at the moment.

But I had never eaten any normal cat food before all of this, and I had seen her the night before it had all started...

I kept on looking for a place to stay not sure where we could sleep tonight. I thought about maybe just straight up sleeping on the ground at this point, but I really didn't want to risk it no matter how tired I was... I could tell that Mint was even more tired than I was because she was slowing us down a ton and she had her eyes closed nearly every time I looked back at her.

I looked down to the right of me and saw a bit of a ditch and a little crevice that we could stay for the night and I nudged to Mint. She opened her eyes and then looked where I was looking.

"Thank you Moon... You say it was them, but you are the one that saved me... I will get better soon... I promise." She said to me. I thanked her for the gratitude, she was so sweet, and maybe not as a mate quiet yet... But on my heart I knew I loved her.

"You would have done the same for me... They did save you as well, I would have not known what to do if it was not for them." I said, nodded my thanks up to the stars for Jayfeather, he had helped me a ton, he said someday soon I would need to teach some cats until they knew where to go.

I wasn't all too sure what exactly he had meant by that, a couple of cats had told me about a moonpool but I wasn't too sure what exactly it was or what it looked like. They told me when I found it then I would know... I would just have to believe what they had said for now. They had not once lied to me, so I would believe them.

Mint went down into the crevice and I heard her begin to snore almost instantly. It was satisfying seeing her curled up just sleeping. I went ahead and began sniffing around for food for both of us to eat when I headed back over to her.

Squirrelflight had told me I was almost done learning to hunt for my food, I was going faster than most apprentices she would say, I wasn't all to sure what she meant by that but I took the compliment.

She said there was something I would have learn very soon that would be very hard for me to learn. But she always would tell me that I was a smart cat and she believed in me, she also said that I was a strong cat.

I sniffed the air and caught a couple of scents, including a nearby squirrel. The squirrel would be big enough for another meal for the both of us tonight, so I began heading in the direction that I could scent the prey.

I began heading towards it, I was pretty sure that Mint had taught me how to catch one of these the other day but I wasn't too sure who it was. I did remember how to hunt it however. It was slightly easier to catch than a bird and it was also bigger and would be enough to feed the both of us.

I saw it from far away and I began to lower my body and make sure I was not stepping on anything that would make it hear me. It was something I had to do with most prey. The sun was almost completely lowered as well so it was hard to see where I was heading. I would have to make this quick if I didn't want us to starve tonight.

I remembered how one time when I was with Christian and our owners had left for a couple days they didn't leave us enough food so we didn't eat anything for a couple of days and Tristan had told me that he was almost tempted to eat the couch.

I thought it would have been funny to see that but luckily they had come back later that night and the lady had felt bad that we had no food and she rubbed on us all night. I loved when she used to do that, it was about the only thing I missed from having those owners. It felt like heaven, how she would just rub against my body.

I closed my eyes drowning out those thoughts. If she would have really cared then she would have brought me back in. I knew it wasn't her fault that I had just been thrown out but I was happy out here and thinking about the way things used to be just made me sad. I would take being out here any day over that though. I could actually move around and smell things that actually didn't smell like absolute disgust.

I began slowly heading towards the squirrel. I used everything I had learned from everyone about hunting and then I hopped up above the tree right as it saw me and caught it when it tried to climb up. I quickly put out the killing blow to put it out of its misery. I felt bad sometimes about doing it, but we needed to eat that way we could live.

I then began heading towards the ditch that I had put Mint to sleep in. I knew that she would be happy to have some food, even if it meant waking up. I knew she was probably in a deep sort of sleep.

Once I was there I then also realized how thirsty I was, and how thirsty she would probably be as well, the blood from the squirrel would be enough for only a couple of hours and I had seen a stream with a bit of water on the way back from bringing back the squirrel.

I dropped it of beside her backing sure that it did not wake her up that way she could get as much sleep as possible. I then headed back towards the stream that was not too far away.

At this point it was almost fully dark, I would have to hurry up if I didn't want to get attacked by something in the night. I saw the stream and quickly began to lap up from it. It relinquished be thirst for now and I grabbed a couple things of moss and then dipped it into the stream as I had learned from Mistystar how to use that. I made sure it was heavy and full of water and then I slowly dragged it back to the crevice that we were sleeping in.

Once I was there I put it down for her and then nudged her to get her up. She looked up at me and then saw that I had food and water and she first began to drink the water happily with a smile at her face. I wondered what she was thinking about, maybe the starclan cats, as the called themselves had been teaching her something, I hoped I hadn't woken her up in the middle of a lesson.

I began eating the squirrel and then once I was done with my part I handed the rest of it to Mint. She looked at me a little bit startled.

"Is that really all you are going to eat? Surely you are hungry too." She said to me. I smiled back at her and just shook my head. I knew how hungry she was even if she would try and deny it.

"I was only a bit hungry, I know you are way more hungry than I am, I could see it in your eyes not too long ago... You eat I am fine." I told her. She nodded and then began eating the rest of the squirrel. I moved closer to her, closer than I had ever been a began snuggling up against her. I could hear her begin to purr. It made me smile as I quickly fell into a trance to fall asleep.

I woke up in a clearing but this time I saw a lot of cats, a lot more than usual, even more than I had normally seen before. They all were looking straight at me, with what almost looked like hope. I was almost 100% sure what the hope was about and I didn't really know what it was about, they kept telling me that I was the one that was going to rebuild the clans. They wouldn't exactly tell me what the clans were but I was sure it was a group of cats.

I was also sure the name star meant that they were a leader of one of those groups, they seemed to argue a bit when there were multiple of them talking to me and it sort of made sense especially with all of them ending with the same name.

Firestar was the first to head towards me, a few other cats began to follow him, some that I knew and some that I did not. I recognized Blackstar, Onestar, Mistystar, and even Bramblestar even though I had only met him once.

I assumed that the rest of the cats that were following Firestar were also leaders as well.

"Tomorrow you will head to place of great importance, they were here before the clans and have been there after. Only a few of us have ever seen them but we all know their story." One cat told me. I recognized the cat as Leapordstar because Mistystar told me what she looked like and how she had looked up to her.

I nodded my head and then Firestar continued talking where she had left off.

"The trail, where the sun sets is where you must go, there they will tell you the final phase of your journey... We have taught you all that we can teach you for now, we will come into your dreams every now and then but it is up to you... Up in the sky you will see... The mountains!!!"