Time ticks like water in a still cave. After a turn of events out of their control, the renegades have scattered with a promise to reunite in a year and a season. They are not the only ones who have disappeared from the South Forest. While hope blos...
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Dusk got up quietly as Sethral and Neptune got themselves into another shouting match. Wing had disappeared long ago and Jay was readying for another exasperated bid to calm things down. Nobody noticed Dusk as he edged into the shadows and out the door.
The tunnel was dark and calm after the tense room. Checking for scents of anyone nearby, Dusk wandered towards the back of the fort. It had not taken him long to memorize its layout after he had established the path of the main tunnel, and most rooms of interest did not lie far from there.
Wing proved to be in his room, asleep. Dusk drifted along the opposite wall and wound up beside an alcove barely holding onto the nest inside it. He brushed aside grass bedding and spiked himself on a beetle carapace. The nest was littered with junk: rocks, shells, butterfly wings, Hyenar teeth, sticks, dried flowers, nut caps, small crystals, feathers, and bones. How the cat slept so soundly in this mess was beyond him. Dusk sifted through the collection, then let the bedding fall back into place. A few pieces came loose and tumbled from the alcove. He caught and returned them. The floor of the whole room was spotless.
The room's back wall was pockmarked with tiny, tidy shelves. Dusk dared not investigate all of them—that would take him too close to Wing—but they appeared to hold only organic things. He backtracked and left the room.
Sethral's cave was next, but it was so far down the tunnel that mosses cast a dim glow on the walls by the time Dusk reached it. He stopped outside the door. On second thought, Sethral more liable than anyone to have a booby-trapped room, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught. He bypassed her space and wandered around for a while, finding one more room that seemed to have been a sleeping space once but wasn't anymore. Maybe the twins had stayed there before adopting their current migratory habits.
He didn't trust himself not to get lost in the back end of the fort, so Dusk returned to the main tunnel and followed it to the cave at its end. Orange mosses gave way to mint green ones, indicating a switch from dry stone to cool, damp walls. The floor-moss was soft and dark. Dusk picked his way to the pool sunk into the stone, had a drink, then lay down and put his forehead on his paws. The taste of the water still lingered. It was the first thing he had tasted after being carried to this fort, too weak and exhausted to even open his eyes. From then on, somebody had always made sure the bowl beside him was full. Usually Jay, but sometimes Fletch, Taz, Silversand, or even Sethral.
