mind over matter | 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜

prologue

"Because my mom is your sister?" She whispered feebly, and though she never intended the phrase to be funny in the slightest, Eveningleaf couldn't help but chuckle.

"StarClan no, I would do anything to spite your mother." She countered before she allowed her laurel stare to soften once more.

"When you were just a kitten, you came screaming to me. I remember being terrified, thinking you had hurt yourself or one of your siblings had been hurt, but neither of those were the case. You came to me with the smallest mouse, freezing and barely breathing, begging me to save it's life."

As Eveningleaf spoke, instant memories came rushing back to when Zinniapool had found the mouse. She remembered being brought to instant tears at the thought of the little thing being cold and alone.

"I would've never typically waste herbs on an animal we use to feed us, especially one that I was sure would never even survive, but I just couldn't say no when you were so distraught over it. So I tried to save him, and you didn't leave my side once."

"Good thing you did." Zinniapool murmured.

"I know, by some miracle he survived and you were so happy. You grabbed some red berries all on your own, dyed a small piece of his fur, and we both called a clan meeting and informed the clan that they were not allowed to hunt the mouse with red fur."

"I remember." She grinned, reminiscing over the memory. "We went to the field and released him, and he even seemed hesitant to leave us at first."

"Yeah, it look a bit of time, but the little guy finally scurried off into the tall grass. I remember watching you help me throughout the entire process, and I instantly knew that you would make an incredible medicine cat one day, and you proved me right."

"Thank you, this really helped." Zinniapool murmured, offering the other she-cat a faint smile in which was returned to her.

They two spent a bit of time talking until Eveningleaf had eventually fallen back into sleep, however Zinniapool was still wide awake. The medicine cat gave her former mentor one last look before she exited the den, being met by an instant cold which engulfed her entirely. Moonlight trickled from the night sky, sending the settled snow into a brilliant gleam. Zinniapool welcomed the freezing touch to her paws as she made her way out of camp, enjoying the company of herself.

Zinniapool wasn't necessarily a loner, she was far from it. She loved her clanmates and she loved being with them, hearing the elder's stories from the days of their youth, watching the kits play with the same tattered mossball from her own childhood, picking flowers with her sister that they would bring to their brother and place in his fur despite his obvious annoyance, running through the mountain with her two best friends and learning the art of healing from not only her mentor, but a cat she had grown to treasure so much. There was no better way she'd want to live life.

Though she still enjoyed the peace accompanied by being within her own presence and the creative thoughts which laced her mind.

Despite it all, she knew something separated her from her clan. Eveningleaf just called it intuition, but Zinniapool knew there was something she couldn't explain which allowed her to have deep insight on certain situations. Half the time she didn't even understand how to even put it into words, and she wasn't sure she ever would.

She figured that's why her nightmare had frightened her so much. Her life force was strong, and she didn't hide that. She embraced it, so anything she felt might damage that force sent her into a sense of paranoia. Though Eveningleaf had dulled her fear, and she was grateful for that.

However a feeling of apprehension began to form a pit deep within her stomach as she continued walking, and suddenly she was following a trail of black feathers, though her curiosity far outweighed her fear.

She felt as though the world was pulling her in, the forest whispering little prompts into her ear as she continued to follow the trail until she was met with something she instantly knew to be something deeper than a coincidence.

Before her was a group of dead crows, laid out in a perfect circle, though not a single drop of blood covered the ground. However the feeling of immediate horror didn't settle until Zinniapool noticed what was in the dead center of the circle.

The little mouse she had saved from her childhood was sprawled out, and if she didn't know any better she'd guess he was sleeping by how peacefully he was laying, though the way his chest failed to rise and fall was indication enough to know he was dead.

It was a multitude of emotions which completely devoured her, she felt as though she was going to faint from the intensity of it all. Her heart was beating rapidly now, her thoughts overwhelming her mind. She backed up in a dazed terror, copper eyes shining madly in the brilliant moonlight which also seemed to shed the perfect amount of light to showcase the disturbing scene before her.

Any consolation she had been granted was gone now, all in a single moment.

Something was so incredibly wrong, an evil the clans have never witnessed, and an evil which she feared stemmed from herself.