.:| Ɗıᵴʀɛɢaʀᴅɛᴅ Өᴍɛɴᵴ |:. A Tuesday Challenge One-Shot
Jun 16, 2017 8:47:32 GMT -5
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Post by FåwnFrøst on Jun 16, 2017 8:47:32 GMT -5
Disregarded Omens
One-shot by FåwnFrøst
Deep in the heart of a mountain range, there was a valley.
It would have been normal, except that the reason the rivers glittered were the shiny rocks in their beds, the water gone in a drought lasting five months. The windswept fields were dry and brittle from the lack of rain, and the pines had lost their sweet smell, their needles turning brown and falling from the trees like an odd sort of snow. The thick moss littering the boulders was brown, dying, and if you touched it just the right way, it would turn to dust.
At the base of a cliff, sheltered by a dying forest, cats were gathered, glowing eyes pointing at the sky where a cloud had been spotted an hour ago.
It was just a wisp of a cloud, but after five months without seeing one, the clan’s eyes were glued to the sky, watching it as it continued on its path, like a spare bit of cotton candy against a blue sky.
The white scrap had been the predecessor for the rest of the storm, now coming full force like a parade. The clouds swirled and darkened around the sky, blotting out the sun and sending fat drops to the ground like bombs, turning the dry dirt into mud.
Raindrops splattered the cat’s faces, and they smiled up at the sky with renewed hope in Starclan, for this was what they had wished and prayed for. They danced in the rain like kits, sending out patrols to catch prey for a feast.
The patrols wouldn’t come back.
And the sound that came next was an ignored omen; the sound of thunder.
It was a thick, rumbling growl, let loose from the sky like a flock of crows after a gunshot.
It was, like a gunshot, a sound not easily forgotten.
Especially if it had not been heard since last autumn.
The echoing roar of the clouds kept pace with a young she-cat’s pawsteps, her blue-grey fur rippling like the clouds behind her as she ran. Heavy raindrops stuck in her fur, almost giving the impression of glittering stars, which would have been quite beautiful if not for the present situation.
The forest behind her was flooded.
A wall of water stood out sharply on the river’s steep banks behind her.
She could hear another cat’s screams from behind the wave.
She could hear her apprentice’s thumping paws on the mud-streaked grass behind her, could hear his ragged breaths as he struggled to keep up. She could hear the thunder.
“Froststep!” her apprentice gasped, yelling to be heard over the sound of the cloud’s rumbles and the pouring rain. “I can’t make it!”
“You have to!” she said, turning back toward him, her eyes widening as she saw what the tower of water had become, sloshing and cresting against the sides of the riverbank, its brown waters littered with bits of trees and loose sticks. It was almost upon them.
Froststep lurched backwards, grabbing her apprentice and pulling him under her, calling up the cold power within her and surrounding them in a ball of ice.
The wave struck.
This one-shot was written for this week's Tuesday Challenge. This week's prompt was return, preferably not a character's return. The return in this story was the return of water after the drought, and it's set in Jadeclan, perhaps a few years before my other fic, A Dark World, in the timeline.
I hope you liked it!
