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| - "As long as I get answers," I mewed, "I'm willing to go back in time, anything." Just don't kill me. "This will not kill you," Rock replied gravely, "nor will it give you all the answers you seek. But as your advisor I must show you or you will befall upon your eventual demise." "Advisor? Eventual demise—?" I was cut off as the world became blurry and the ground started trembling. I stumbled. "Rock, what's going on?" I shouted. "Keep your paws anchored to the ground!" he spoke. Weird, I could hear him perfectly well, even above the noise, as though he were speaking into my mind.... I dug my paws into the ground, almost unprepared for the violent shaking that came next. Suddenly, the world went dark and I blacked out. ~ I woke up as if in a dream. I lay comfortably on a bed of grass, the sunshine shining warmly on my face. I sat up, looking around. I was in a huge field of heather, with the occasional pink heather blossom. Fluffy white clouds rolled over an endless blue sky. I yawned. Now I feel like a good nap... "Wintergreen, wake up." I was nearly startled out of my fur as Rock spoke to me from behind. I turned and mewed, "Hello, Rock," as best as I could, trying to look unbothered. No point in letting him know I was scared, though he probably already knew from listening to my thoughts. "Where are we?" "We are in the mesa biome, home and camp to the quick, rabbit-chasing cats. Wintergreen, what time is this?" I glanced at him, then up to the sky, my rogue survival instincts kicking in. "Er, now? Must be about past sunhigh." "No, the time period," he pressed. Oh. "I don't know," I replied angrily. "You're the one who brought me here, to the past. You tell me." "Just make an attempt." I paused, thinking about it. More than anything, I wanted to be right, especially in front of Rock, who possibly knew more than anything I would learn in a lifetime. "Well, this is a place I've no idea about," I pondered. "So...maybe a moon or so ago?" "Guess again." "A year or two." Rock shook his head. "Try again." I took a deep breath. This was as far as I would go. "Ten years?" Rock's eyes widened. "Wintergreen, we have traveled back from the point when you existed to where we are now. From the looks, I would say this is about a season or two before the eventual demise of the Clans. So" —he stopped to look at me— "this would be almost one hundred years before your time." I nearly choked. "A hundred years?" Rock nodded. "I brought you here to show you how insignificant you are in the grand sceme of things." He sighed. "I brought you here to show you that, even though you may be this insignificant, the things you do can affect the course of history forever. That one choice you make tomorrow could be the final consequence, a wager between life or death. So choose carefully, Wintergreen. Your future will be full of choices, and you must make them carefully." I nodded, to sullen to speak. "Hold on." I dug in my claws so I would be better prepared for our next time shift. The world went blotted out, and the air crackled with intensity. My vision blacked out, though it was less painful this time, and I woke up to a ceiling of green trees. Sunshine cascaded gently through the gaps of the leaves, the air cool and calm. Rock's shimmery form crouched next to me. He was looking down from the branch on which we perched. And when I looked up, I gasped in bewilderment. There was an endless canopy of leaves before us, but at the very end the trees were getting suctioned down as if by magic. Then I caught sight of an immense, glittering, monstrous figure behind the trees. It made an inhumane growling noise while eating away at them, leaving only wooded stumps. Then, a movement from below grabbed my attention. A quick-footed orange figure was racing across the ground. Behind the orange cat paced three others, one golden and spotted, another pure white with black paws, and the last a wiry brown and white. They all looked battle-worn, strong, and had a valiant charge in their eyes. Many cats milled behind them. "I don't want to be eaten!" a voice squeaked from the crowd. "The monster will eat us too!" Then, a small kit tore away from the group and hurled itself into the trees—directly into the path of a tree being felled. "Ashkit!" a voice shrieked from the group. A tabby queen hurled herself into the path of the monster to defend her kit. "Morningfern, get back!" the orange tom yelled. Without question, he shoved her back, and, at the last second threw the kit in front of him while the collapsing tree fell on him instead. I let out a startled half-shriek. "Firestar!" screeched a sandy brown she-cat from the group. She and a smaller cat raced up to the leader and began tending to him. The world began to swirl into misty colors. "No! Please!" I begged. "I have to see what happens to Firestar!" But the transition happened, leaving Firestar beneath the tree, and I was being swept through time again, against my will. ~ This time, I woke in a large cavern with soaring gray walls. The end of the far wall was lost in the shadows. Rock materialized next to me, looking grim. I leaped to my paws. "Rock, tell me! What happened?" Rock shrugged, though he looked more sad than he would let on. "He lost a life," he mewed. "The Clan leaders have nine lives, so it was not his last." Bewildered out of my mind, I decided not to question him further and watched. Outside of the large entrance, through a sheen of water falling over the gaping hole, I saw massive, sharp peaks, whitened at the top. Mountains? This time, a very old cat consulted two others in our corner of the cavern, ignoring us as if they could not see us. "This prophecy will play out," he mewed, "as the stars have created it. Three will become four and destroy this darkness planned for the Clans." "Healer, you do not know this for sure," one of his companions argued. "This may be thousands, maybe eons, of years into the future. There might have been mistakes." "The stars do not make mistakes, Falcon Swoop," Healer interjected crisply. "What is to be will be. There are prophecies before this, which speak of the Clan's destroyed home. It also tells them to go somewhere new, find a new home, make a new beginning. We must do our best to protect what may be, and if we fail future generations shall be crushed." "Then what about the other matter?" the other cat meowed quietly. "This cannot be kept a secret for long if it has anything to do with the stars' prophecies." "The Trust will not get in the way of the prophecies, Glowing Moon," Healer assured her. "We have been promised that much. If the stars were cruel enough to do that, we would not be here." "But, Healer," Glowing Moon protested. "The stars have promised one cat, every millennia, the power of the world. How will this not get in the way of a prophecy? The Trust has a meaning, that is true. It is a trust, an anchorage between the ground and the stars. They have given us a cat with so much power to say that the stars do not rule over us, merely give us advice to rule over ourselves." "Let us hope, Glowing Moon," the Healer meowed, "that what you say is true. We may be affecting the lives of generations seasons and seaons into the making, and it is in our paws to fix what is yet to be wronged." Rock glanced at me and nodded. The Stirrings. I understood now, whether I liked it or not; me, the Trust, Lazuli, Aphyix, the stars, the Clans, they were all linked by one bond, and I was in the midst of it all. The air swooshed around me one last time, and the three cats discussing the matters in front of me vanished into the haze. My thoughts swirled. What was going on? What was I to do? I was dizzy, my eyes hallucinating. We were whipped through time, until we finally landed. No, not landed. We were floating in the sky, the ground not visible, the stars twinkling around me. I was wreathed in a midnight blue, so it felt as if the night itself had entwined itself around me. Suddenly, the stars glowing around me began to move. Slowly, then faster and faster, it began to collide and create shapes. The glow from the stars became more intensive until I had to look away and shield my eyes. When I looked back, the stars were still again—but this time, in the shape of two giant cats etched into the sky, curled together into a ball. Their eyes were closed, as if they were sleeping, but their purring thrummed steadily through the air. I felt my throat start vibrating and purring along with them. My mind was in a sudden tranquility, with the night sky wrapped around me like a blanket, holding the first cats in the universe. The stars. A few more of the stars broke free and created a circle. It became a hole containing layers and layers of dimensions, almost impossible to look into. In the circle flashed dozens of images, of dozens of cats, of different time periods. The flashing images slowed down until they reached an absolute halt. I peered into the circle of dimensions, my heart pounding. I stared at it, not being able to comprehend. It was me. Short moving images spanning my life. The time I had gotten into the skirmish with a dog. The time I'd had a disagreement with the rogue. The time I had met the strange loner, Lazuli, who would end up being my best friend. The stars became brighter and brighter, until it was almost unbearable to look at. The air crackled with electricity, on edge, and my fur stood up straight, as if something was about to happen. The two cats in the sky were glowing, until etched in my mind, and the circle of dimensions seemed to grow wider. My mind reached unstability, and I clenched my jaws, trying to keep out the pain and light. Then my vision exploded, filled with brilliant light, the light of a thousand stars.
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