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| - ❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅❄❅ — Jaymes Young, Habits Of My Heart IT TAKES a long time to recover. About two weeks pass, and our little group is still huddled in the cave. Jett organizes a hunting schedule, sparing Everly, Eider and I, since we were the worst off after the expedition into the storm. I ignore the schedule and make daily trips anyway. The others try to stop me, but I'm used to pushing myself past the point of no return. They don't understand it--they stare at me like I'm insane as I claw my way up and down the mountainside, my worn paws leaving rosy smudges of blood on the snow, breath rattling through my ribcage, eyes glazed with pain. But to me, it's nothing compared to what Greer has had me endure in our training sessions. I don't even need to count. The downside to all of this is Everly. Whenever I stumble back into the cave at some hour after moonhigh, the others are slumped together in a cozy, furry heap. Not her. She sits apart, waiting for me, her multicolored eyes reflecting the moonlight. Usually, I ignore her and curl up in a ball near the door. She tells me she's glad I made it back safe and wishes me good night, and I don't respond. I wait until her breathing slows and I know she's asleep, and then I lift my head and allow myself the briefest of moments to watch her sleep. I know that's creepy, but watching her, small and peaceful, somehow makes my nightmares less powerful -- and the nightmares, they never end. Dawnlight's face, and rivers of blood. Greer, and mountains of pain. DiAngelo, and storms of terror. Tonight, something's different, or maybe it's me. I enter the cave and drop my prey on the fresh-kill pile. "Hi," I say quietly. Everly, who till now was still as a statue, jumps. "Hi," she says, looking surprised. "So you're acknowledging my presence?" Before I can come up with an answer to that, she rushes forward and buries her face in my shoulder. I stiffen and pat her on the back awkwardly. "What was that for?" "Lucifer, I've barely spoken to you in half a moon. You're avoiding me." "That's not true," I say uncomfortably. "I hope not," she says, looking for all the world like a disappointed mother. It's so absurd I almost feel like laughing as she squints up at me, standing on the tips of her paws, her delicate face scrunched up in disapproval. "We've been through too much for you to shut me out." I don't know what to say. "Want a mouse?" She snorts, but politely accepts the fresh-kill. "We need to talk." "What about?" I sidle a little closer. "Not us," she dismisses me, and I realize I might just have lost my chance to... whatever. "I mean all of us. We need to talk about when we're going to get back to Thorn Mountain." I make a choking sound. "What? After all we risked to get away?" "Eider needs Miko. She's coughing all the time now, and I don't think she's ever going to recover if we stay here. The others are finally strong enough that I think we could try getting back--" "We barely survived getting here." "We'll time it so we don't run into a storm." Skeptically, I say, "Are you new here? This is the polar zone. There's always going to be storms, and you'll never be able to predict them." "I should've predicted this," she mumbles. "What?" "This. You. I thought you'd want to get back. There are still so many questions we haven't answered. And so many cats we still have to save." I stare down at my paws. "Why? You don't owe them anything. Thorn Mountain takes what it wants and gives nothing. If it wants to take their lives..." Everly is on her feet in a flash, her eyes burning. "Right. You're right. We should let the wolves take them and rip them apart. We should let them be Collected till there's no one left. We should let Greer slit them open like your mother." The temperature seems to drop ten degrees, which is saying something, considering it's always cold. I take a step backwards and hit the wall. A strange thought drifts into my mind. For someone who has spent their whole life being abused by Greer, I have rarely been truly hurt. There was the death of my mother, but I didn't even remember it till I saw it through the boreas lux. The fact of the matter is, the numbness the asara gave me always protected me from the pain other cats feel constantly. Take Everly. She's lost her family. She's been hunted, attacked, witnessed horrors beyond comprehension, and somehow she still manages to talk of hope, to brave blizzards and swim rivers and climb mountains in pursuit of saving others. Somehow, she finds it in her heart to stay up late waiting for me, the cruel, aloof assassin. I gaze at her and wonder how such a small, fragile she-cat can be so much stronger than I ever will be. "I'm sorry," she blurts. "I'm sorry, that was cruel. I don't want anyone else to get hurt by Greer, but hurting you isn't going to fix that." "It might. I'm part of the problem." I shrug. "Ugh. Maybe I phrased that wrong. I'm sorry, because I can't stand that look on your face, and I never want to hurt you." "You didn't hurt me." "Well then, I'm sorry for what the world did." I sigh. "Don't apologize, Everly. You haven't even known me most of my life. Our worlds are lightyears apart." "Not anymore," she counters persistently. And I don't argue. I look at the space between us, and as if reading my mind, Everly fills it, so that our pelts are pressed together. "You're warm," she says, which is not something someone has ever said to me, "but shivering. We need to fix that." She does fix it, just by being there. In that moment, I learn something that would have been alien to me before. That the way cats survive a world in which hearts are ripped as easily as skin is by being there for each other. Friendship, it turns out, is not overrated. Maybe pain and love cannot be eliminated. Maybe in their combat, they complete each other. Without even realizing it, I sink against the wall, my eyelids sinking too. And my mind sinks, right into the canyon of the scar my past has carved through me. So the nightmare begins. It starts with my mother. Flowerfrost. She walks towards me, her image wreathed in white mist. "Lucifer," she whispers. My stomach clenches as I realize that I've never heard her voice in living memory. It's a beautiful sound, musical like Cecily's, but gentle and loving in a way the silver she-cat has never been. I lean into it. "Mother," I breathe. "My son, my North Star." She caresses my face with a paw. Her eyes are so beautiful, blue and cloudless. "Mother, I'm a dark star. I'm not--I'm not anyone you can be proud of." "But I love you, Lucifer. Oh, how I love you." Love. Love. I've never been loved. Stars, that hurts to realize. I step forward, needing the reassurance of her pelt pressed against mine. But the instant my paw touches her, she jerks like she's been stabbed. Her eyes freeze and glaze over. Something thick and hot splatters my chest. I look down and see the wound opening on my mother's chest, running its way down her stomach. "No, no," I moan, trying to stop the bleeding. "Mom, please stay with me." Her breath rattles in her throat as she falls, her head cracking on the ground. The white mist rises, leaving her body bare, crimson and white. I watch the mist swirl around a new shape, a dark shadow that materializes into another she-cat. "You killed her," snarls Dawnlight, dropping out of the mist like a dark angel. "YOU KILLED HER!" She springs at me, but instead of her claws cutting me open, it's her who screams in pain, falling to the ground as her body falls apart. The white mist releases Riverfrost next. At this point, I start backing away. "I don't want to hurt you," I say. "Stay away from me. Don't touch me!" He won't listen. "I'm sorry for everything, Lucifer. I should never have given you up. I will fight for you, son." His paw is on mine before I can yank it away. His body seizes. I shut my eyes until I hear the heavy thud, unable to watch him die. "Lucifer?" purrs a lilting voice. It's Cecily. Her green eyes glow, her silver pelt as radiant as ever. "Oh, stars. Oh no." I stumble into a wall and pound on it desperately. "Go away!" "There, there. It'll be okay. You've been hurt so much. Part of it was my fault. I want to fix it. I want to fix you." She leans in. "I care about you more than you know, and it hasn't been easy, given our past. Your past. Haven't I always been there?" Our muzzles touch. I open my mouth and scream. The agony of seeing her drop fills my voice and echoes in the prison of my mind. "No more," I beg. "I've lost all I can stand to." But the white mist is swirling again. And this time, it's Everly who steps into being. I've seen her in my nightmares before, but only fleetingly. The image of her won't stay in my mind, the way ice cannot stand against the heat of a flame. She burns the darkness. She can't be here. Yet her hazel eyes are fixed on me, and I can make out the glints of gold and green in them clearly. "Lucifer." Like my mother, all she has to say is my name. My mother. Who bled out because of me. "Not you." I can hardly speak. "Please, not you. I can't lose you." Because she's Everly, she cannot walk away. She keeps coming, reaching for me with that irrepressible desire to save the lost written all over her face. Only she can't save me without destroying herself. I can't stop screaming like I'm physically being ripped to pieces. Everly's face changes. The white mist vanishes, and the darkness starts to recede. "Are you okay?" Everly says, only I'm not dreaming anymore. I'm lying on the floor of the cave, which is empty except for the two of us. "They're out hunting--or, Sasha and Calder and Farrah and Jett are. I think Plover and Eider are building a cat out of snow outside," says Everly, gesturing around us. "Are you okay? You wouldn't stop screaming." How can I explain how grateful I am that she woke me before I killed her in my nightmare? I would sound utterly demented, if she doesn't think me that already. "I'm fine," I say hoarsely. Everly's eyes narrow. "No, you're not." "I can't," I whisper. "Can't what?" I am so weak. I can't even meet her eyes. If she knew how selfish I'm being by even talking to her... The moment shatters as Jett's voice precedes him and the others into the cave. "Good morning! Got some fresh-kill!" He slings most of the prey onto the pile, then brings Everly a mouse. She smiles. "No thanks, I already ate." "What? We just got back." "Lucifer gave me something." "Oh." Jett glances at me, trying a little too hard to be casual for me to believe it. But at least he doesn't try to start anything. "Guys!" Plover sticks her head through the entrance. "Come see what me and Eider built!" "Should we be concerned?" asks Calder, laughing when Farrah elbows him. We all troop outside, over to where the two youngsters are standing, beaming, in front of their creation. "It's beautiful! Magnificent, I say!" proclaims Jett. "Absolutely stunning!" agrees Farrah. "What is it?" Calder wants to know. "A snowcat!" exclaims Plover, with an implied duh in her tone. "See, this is the body," she points to a lump, "and this is the head," a smaller lump, "and the tail," which is a chunk of ice sticking out of the lump's rump. "It's beautiful," Everly declares, and smiles so sincerely it's impossible to doubt her. "But where's its face?" Plover and Eider exchange looks of distress. "No worries! We'll find it a face," Everly says. So we split up, scrounging over the mountainside for the noble cause of giving their snowcat a face. By the time I get back, the snowcat is wearing two pine cones as ears. Jett found two stones that were about the same size for its eyes. (Plover and Eider each found a rock to serve this purpose, but considering one is three times the size of the other, they decide that Jett's works better so that the cat doesn't have grossly differing bug eyes.) When I show them my find, Everly lets out an excited little scream. "It's so pretty!" she says. "It is," agrees Sasha, looking down at the little pink stone. "I thought it could be the nose," I say. I attempt to fix it on the snowcat's face, but only succeed in clumsily messing up its face. "Careful," chides Everly. "Here, let me." She brushes past me and takes the pink stone, delicately placing it in the middle of the cat's face. We step back to admire our paw-work. "It actually looks like a cat," marvels Calder. "A fat, ugly cat." "We need to name it," I say. At least, I think I say it, because everyone looks at me and it sounds like my voice, but it's just so unlike me that I'm not even sure. "I agree," says Everly, a thoughtful look on her face as she studies me instead of the snowcat. An uncharacteristic evil grin spreads across Sasha's face. "How about Greer?" she says, and knocks the snowcat's head off. For a second, I think Plover and Eider are going to scream at her. Then both of them burst out laughing. "Take that, you foul piece of dirt!" yells Eider, jumping on the snowcat. Soon, all of us are stomping all over the mangled pile of snow, throwing chunks of "Greer" off the mountain and each other. I never dreamed that pretending a pile of snow was a cat I loathed and feared would make me feel better, but it does. By the time we're done, it's sunhigh, and to all of our astonishment, the sun comes out. "A leafbare sun? It's a miracle!" Jett rejoices. The twins squeal, "It's a sign!" "A sign of what?" "A sign that we're in the right place, at the right time," says Plover. "With the right cats," adds Sasha, and her smile doesn't fade when she locks eyes with me, even though I once terrified her into speechlessness. Though the afternoon is still chilly, we spend the day out of the cave under the sun, lounging and talking and watching Plover chase Eider around for poking her with one of the pine cones. Jett and Calder tell jokes, and Farrah and Everly launch a successful hunt for a piece of wood big enough to be a sled for all of us. As the sun starts to sink, we all pile on. I get on at the back, and Everly gets on next to me. "I trust you to hang on to me," she says so lightly and matter-of-factly that I don't think twice about wrapping my paws around her small frame and hugging her to me. She's so close that I can hear her heartbeat, and even more incredible is the fact that she doesn't push me away. With my hind legs, I sink my claws into the sled. "Ready?" "Ready!" everyone yells. I grin over the tops of their heads: Farrah and Calder clinging to each other, Jett at the front wearing a wild grin, the twins squished in the middle. Then I look over at Everly. "Ready." She smiles at me. "Partner." I kick off, and we go sledding into the sunset.
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