Summer Gathering: The Results!

Snowbriar looked forward at the tall, verdant trees and lush foliage, then glanced back at the large mass of clan cats behind her, the cats that would call this place their home. She could see her leader, Stormstar, walking up to her.
“Is this the place? The one you saw in your dreams,” he asked.
“I. . . I think so,” Snowbriar replied. “But what if I’m wrong?”
“Snowbriar, you’re a capable medicine cat and I believe in you. Now, let’s move forward and look around our new home!”
. . .
Snowbriar sat hunched over, panting. She could hear a kit’s squeal echo throughout the rainforest. The thick foliage had made exploring the territory difficult. Snowbriar and her clan had tried finding a good spot for a camp but to no avail, and their attempt had drained any energy left after their long journey to the rainforest.
“Stormstar, are you still sure this is the place we are meant to live?” Snowbriar couldn’t help but doubt her dreams.
“I trust StarClan,” he murmured. Snowbriar detected a hint of doubt in his voice.
“Storm-” her voice was cut off by a kit’s squeal, this time much louder and painfully familiar.
“Beekit!” Snowbriar’s sister, Leafsong, shrieked.
Snowbriar struck her gaze back to where Leafsong and Beekit were once resting. Leafsong stood there, a dismayed expression on her face. A strange, exotic looking bird had Beekit in its large beak and was flying upwards. Other birds, some who looked like the bird that had taken Beekit, others that looked vastly different but were just as exotic.
Leafsong jumped up and tried to grab the bird but only knocked a few of its feathers off. The bird flew more and more out of reach, Beekit squirming in the hold of its beak. The large flock of birds flew off, their squawks draining out any other noise in the rainforest.
“Beekit-” Leafsong whimpered with a brittle voice. She was as still as a statue, her wide yellow eyes empty and glazed over.
“Stormstar, I don’t think my dream was a vision of our future territory. . . It was a bad omen.”

Chip surveyed the strange animals crossing the wet, swampy marsh, heading towards the trees.
They look kind of like ocelots, He noted, cocking his head. Except, these ones have different fur and are a tad bit smaller, and yowl a lot more.
“What do you think they are?” Skippy asked as she landed next to him. Her black feathers ruffled as she settled on the branch, her blue eyes unblinking as she stared at them.
Chip shook his head. “I don’t know. But they remind me of ocelots, a little bit. Don’t they?”
Skippy bobbed her head. “Yeah, I suppose they do. But they’re a lot noisier and smaller, and clumsier,” She brawked.
Suddenly, a screech sounded from below, and the two birds looked down and saw one of the small ones, possibly a baby, staring up at them with wide, orange eyes.
Bigger ones quickly shielded the small, and a sound like a snake rose up from the ocelot creatures.
“Ok, I guess that means they aren’t exactly friendly,” Skippy observed, shifting from one blue-gray foot to the other.
“Yeah. Should we go back and tell the others?” Chip squawked. “Yes. We can’t let them hurt us!”
With that, the two toucans flew off into the forest.

“What were those things?!” Tangledvine gasped, pulling her kits closer to her.
Emberstar growled. “Whatever kind of bird it was, it might be dangerous. We need to keep the apprentices and kits in the middle of our group, to make sure those things don’t try to steal them off.”
He shook out his dark ginger fur and started yowling orders.
Fallingdove started to herd the kits, queens, and apprentices toward the middle, then stopped.
A bright purple flower caught her eye, and when she looked closer, she could see the outline of a bird in the dew collected on its petals – the same bird that she saw, perching on a tree branch high above the cats’ heads – wide bill, huge talons, beady eyes.
Is StarClan trying to tell me something? She wondered, padding over to the flower and studying it closer.
A vision poured into her head – the birds flying above the cats’ heads, dropping mice and voles and other tasty rodents at her Clanmates’ paws. One alighted next to her and dropped a bundle of berries next to her, as though giving her a gift.
Then the cats brought some sort of berries and other, bigger creatures. It was like an exchange of food and other necessities.
Then the vision ended.
“Emberstar! Emberstar!” Fallingdove yowled, running over to her leader.
“What? What’s wrong?” He asked, turning from where he was speaking to his deputy, Silverfoot.
“I’ve had a vision – I think… I think we’re supposed to befriend the birds.”

Chip and Skippy led the rest of their flock to the place where the cats had settled down for the night, ready to drive them out.
“Remember,” Roco clicked, “only target the big ones. We do not want to harm those who do not understand what is happening, or those who are too young to control their own lives.”
Everyone squawked in agreement just as a yowl sounded below the trees where they were hiding.
A pale gray ocelot-thing with a white face and darker stripes stood right under the toucans, holding a mouse in its jaws. It yowled again, dropping the mouse, looking up expectantly at the birds.
“What’s it doing?” Mango brawked, flapping her wings nervously.
“I don’t know,” Chip chittered, tilting his head. “I think it wants us to come down to it.”
“What if it’s an ambush?” Skippy countered.
“How could something that clumsy and noisy ambush graceful and quiet creatures like us?” Mango retorted.
We’re wasting our time, Chip thought impatiently. Before anyone could stop him, he flew to the ground in front of the ocelot-creature and stared it dead in the eyes.
“Mrow,” It said, pointing its tail at the mouse and looking meaningfully at Chip. “Mrow!” It said again, and that time he thought he understood it.
“Friend!” It said again, prodding the mouse this time. “We cat friends!” It said in its garbled language.
“Cat?” Chip tried repeating the word in the animal’s strange impression of a toucan noise.
The cat nodded, its weird, light blue eyes bright. “You are?” The cat asked. “Toucan,” Chip said, forgetting to make it understandable for the cat.
“Toucan,” The cat said without a hitch. Chip bobbed his head. “Yes. My name is Chip,” He said.
“My name is ferlingdrv,” The cat said. “Ferlingdrv?” Chip asked, confused. “Sorry, Fallingdove,” Fallingdove said, more clearly this time.
“Oh. That makes a lot more sense,” Chip laughed.
“Anyway, I know you think we aren’t friendly,” Fallingdove went on, “but we are. We just didn’t know what you were the other day, and, well, back where we come from, big birds eat our young. Sorry about the misunsaing.”
“Misunderstanding, you mean?” Chip asked. Fallingdove nodded. “Yes. We thought that maybe, we could have sort of a… friendship?”
Chip cast a glance up at where the rest of his flock was hiding. “I’ll have to check with my leader.”
“It’s ok, Chip! I’ve heard everything, and I think that will be nice. With everything trying to kill us out here, it’d be nice to have an ally,” Roco squawked, fluttering down on his old wings to the ground.
“Great!” Fallingdove said, bouncing on her paws. “I’ll go and tell my leader.”
With that, she strode off into the bushes, leaving the mouse behind.

Several years later…

“No! Chip, please, don’t die!” Fallingdove begged, smearing yet another pulp onto her friend’s mangled wing, hoping against all odds that he would pull through.
She didn’t know how to fix this – she barely knew all of the herbs in the jungle, and if Chip died now, she would never, never forgive herself for letting her best friend die.
She didn’t care that he was a bird, or that she could be treating others’ wounds right now – what mattered was saving his life.
“Fallingdove?” He chittered weakly. “Yes! Yes, I’m here, save your strength. I’ll fix this! You’ll be ok!” She turned to look at his face, his black and white feathers rumpled, his usually mischievous smile replaced by a grimace of pain.
“We both know that I’m not going to survive this. And that’s ok,” He whispered, his beak barely moving. “That’s nonsense! Don’t talk like that!”
Fallingdove practically yowled, trying to fit a splint onto his wing.
Chip ignored her, or didn’t hear her. “Take care of my babies and my flock, ok? I know you’ll do amazing things for everyone you meet. You’re a great person, Fallingdove, although I’m sure you already know that.”
And then he passed out.

Chip could hear the voices, garbled and distorted. He could hear Skippy sobbing, and he could hear his chics’ confused chirping – but mostly he heard Fallingdove’s commands and pleas.
“Chip, I told you you ARE NOT ALOUD TO DIE!” She yelled, her voice missing that sweet, calming tone it usually had.
“No, please! Please keep breathing! You know I’ll never forgive myself for this!”
“MY STARCLAN CHIP YOU ARE FRUSTRATING!!!!!!”
And so, so many others.
But then he could see her. First the outline of her ears, then the texture of her soft gray fur, and then her strange, light blue eyes, staring at him with milky tears in them.
“Chip! Oh, thank StarClan! You – you stopped breathing for a minute there – I’m just so glad – ”
And then Fallingdove buried her face in Chip’s feathers.

He would never be able to fly again, but that was ok. He got to witness his kids grow up, take their first flight, see them play.
He was alive. And healthy, for the most part.
He had a good family, as well as awesome friends.
But most importantly, he was happy, until it came for him to die peacefully in his nest, surrounded by the most wonderful people he had known.

At first all there had been was water. The sweeping, crushing waves – a torrent. They were drowning, being yanked under again and again and again. The raft had tipped, and so the flood claimed its victims. All she could think about, though, were the colors. She’d never been able to pick a favorite, too indecisive for that. And her home never had many options. Now, though, as she sunk, all she could see were the colors – an almost overwhelming amount of them. Cerulean waves, pearly froth, golden sun, the whites of eyes, the flashes of browns and yellows and oranges amidst the waves that signaled her Clan. Beautiful and broken, soggy and scattered and shimmering. Each time she was pulled beneath the waves – royal blue, cyan, aquamarine – she felt the sand beneath her paws. A swirling, glittering, mixture of bieges, ambers, and browns – all colors that screamed at her that safety was near, close even, they just had to make it. The longer she was stuck there, paddling, drowning, begging, and looking, colors began disappearing – the colors that were familiar, the colors of her Clan. Replaced by something else entirely – a rainbow; a fluttering, beating, rainbow. Ruby reds, emerald greens, rich purples, bright pinks, clear yellows, glowing whites, tantalizing tangerine; all that dissolved into a beautiful tornado of feathers. Feathers that swept down with honey yellow talons, talons that closed on her scruff – her friend’s scruffs, too – and pulled them from those midnight waves and onto the golden beaches of safety. As they landed, pelts mixing with soggy sand, she managed to open her mouth – ready to croak out a thank you. A thank you to these birds of light, of color, of promises – promises of a new life, a better life. The welcome waves of heat – she pictured a deep orange mixed with rosy reds in her mind – blanketed them as she spoke. “Thank you,” she rasped, not to anyone in particular, “you beautiful colors of the wind. Thank you for opening your rainbow to someone new – someone with some new shades to offer. We hope we complete your painting.” And then she sat, rolling herself to tired paws, and opened her eyes once more. To observe the cloud of colors they created – laid out across the shadowy greens that marked trees. And she thought to herself: I think I don’t need to have a favorite color. The prettiest shades come when new colors mix, mingle, and gather. And her lips, chapped as they were, lifted in a smile. Yes, a gathering of colors – that is my favorite of them all.