I spy [Stone/Summit]

The shecat was having the time of her life! She could feel it. She could feel the charge of energy that surged through the world, on the wings of the winds, through the pulse of the earth beneath her paws, from the crackling of the trees, so alive and active, more so than she had ever seen them. Summit had lived through storms before of course. She knew the pitter patter silvery song of gleaming water falling from the sky to splash in a steady symphony of sound on the leaves and stones and pelts of all that lived below the mystical world of the clouds and all the creatures that watched over them from high up, so high Summit would never be able to see anything more than the gleams of their eyes as the stars overhead in the eve.

But this, this was a wholly different tune. As the sky greyed, the winds became fiercer, fiercer than Summit had ever known. If she had been smaller, she fancied one of the gusts would have picked her up from the simple grass where she stood and carried her up, up, up into the treetops, which sang with a worried groaning as trees always did when the rains came. So strange. So very strange. Everyone needed the waters. The waters brought life. The waters brought joy. And yet the leaves always chattered frantically with the sky water's coming and the trees sang out songs of broken limbs and watered stumps, as if all would end with the falling liquid drops of life that filled the air. This song was even more dire than any Summit had ever heard. It was fascinating.

The first strings of rain drip drip drip dropped on the shecat's pelt and she found herself tilting up her head, opening her mouth to catch the sweet sound that began to ring around her, over and over. The wind swept through, so fast! so aggressive!, and pierced right through the shecat's thick fur with its force. A chill ran down the shecat's spine and her eyes widened at the electrifying sensation. What did this mean? She had never heard the wind screech so loud before, almost taking control of the song of the whole forest with its ferocity! Summit did not know what it all meant, a storm truly, this was a storm's voice that wailed through the world to reach her ears and tell her its tale, but this was a tale more determined and mournful than any she had ever heard. It was a powerful gale that threatened to sweep her senses away with its force. Summit closed her eyes, giving herself over to the song. She listened, to the soft plucking tunes of the raindrops, to the fearful chattering of the leaves, to the mad babbling of the river so far away, to the- the cry? Summit lost touch with the world that touched her paws as her ears guided her over stone and hill, through whistling trees and shivering bushes. Was it an owl's cry? Was it- was it another cat? Where there other's here? The shecat's heart picked up speed, matching the rhythm of the rain drops, faster oh faster now. What did she hear? Was it a cry? She had thought she heard a cry! Not of bird or tree or mouse or river, but of cat! A silvery rumble started to make its way up through her throat- perhaps if she returned the call she could know for sure. Perhaps if she-

"----?"

Something brushed her fur and the shecat's call died in her throat before she had even given it form. She snapped open her eyes with a start, taking a small gasp of breath to remind herself of what the world around her, the world close enough to touch and so awfully loud compared to the sounds she had been focusing on. Her father's pelt was close to her now, his head cocked toward her although his eyes wandered. Summit tried to quickly recenter herself, so catch up with the pieces of the song she had missed. He had asked her something. She was sure of it.

"What do you think it is?"

Now her father looked to her. It was rare for Summit to need a second prompting. Her ears flickered down guiltily and a sour note tainted the music of her heartbeat. Oh. Her thoughts had wandered, her ears taking her astray too far. She felt the uncomfortable twang, sharp and unwelcome permeate her own inner song as guilt made itself known in her heart. She did not wish for her thoughts to wander. She did not wish it at all. She knew too many stories of another cat -a very bad and horrible shecat- who had let her thoughts wander always, never keeping in tune with the sound around her. That shecat had ruined her father. That wandering shecat was what made her beloved father's eyes grow sad and mournful, sad in ways that Summit herself could not fully understand and could not fix with her music. That horrid shecat who had given birth to Summit, and left her father alone in darkness. 

Summit would never leave her father. Ever. She loved him more than the music of the world itself, more than any song she had ever heard, even the song that sang through her body and made up the force of her own life. She wished to be his joy, his song of happiness and light. She never wanted to be a mournful, sad tune that lurked deep in his amber eyes full of regret and sorrow. She was sometimes though. Once, when she had come awake late at night, she had seen such things in her beloved father's gaze as he watched over her, tormented by memories. Another time had been with Aunt Raven, a white cat or maybe a grey one, Summit could not be sure anymore as the memory was hazy. They had been talking about her mother and about... Summit's coat, when they thought she was distracted. The young kit had looked at her coat, realizing for the first time it did not match her father's brilliant silver. Hers was much more muddled. It held brown and black and red and hints of orange all swirled around like the Leaffall leaves. Afterwards, she had been so unhappy with it she had run outside and buried herself in the snow to try to make it white, to try to make it like her father's.

The rest of the memory might be hazy, but when her father found her was crystal clear. Summit had been out for hours, or what felt like hours. Even with her thick coat, she had still been a kit and not yet ready to take on the snows alone. She must have fallen asleep at some point as the moon had moved into the sky. She had felt cold, colder than she had ever felt before or since. Snow and ice had crusted on her eye lids and her limbs were stiff but her ears, her ears never failed her. She heard her father. He -he was yowling, yowling out her name over and over. 

At first the tiny Summit was afraid and burrowed deeper into the snow which had already covered her and hidden her away from any cat's sight. She did not want to be in trouble. She was cold. Cold. The cold wrapped around her and held her tight until it was all she could think about, but as her father kept calling she heard something wrong with his voice. His song was broken, coming in wails and shuddering gasps Summit had never heard before, too young to know the wail of fear or the horrible breaking sound of hopelessness and grief.

She had not known what these things were or what they meant, but instinct told her these things were wrong. She knew they were notes she never wanted to hear in her father's deep, powerful music. The music that sang to her with its warmth and love as she drifted off to sleep clutching his fur, pure happiness and love singing back to him through her own, tiny purr.

"I'm here." First it had been a whisper, lost in the snows that buried her beneath the world so distant, so far above, but as her father's song called to her, broken and wrong, she found her own song reaching out back to him, to fix the notes that had gone wrong, even if she did not understand how or why they were wrong. "I'm here." Her song rose up, up, higher and higher until she was fumbling with numb paws at the snow and crying out as loud as her small lungs would allow. "I'm here!" Finally she broke through. Finally she saw sky. "I'm here!"

Only heartbeats passed before her sight of the sky was gone and all she could see was her father's terrified, tearful face. All she could feel was the immense heat of his fur has he crushed her against him. Broken, gasping notes that Summit had never heard, but would later learn were sobs, continued to break out from her father's chest. She put a weak paw on his cheek. 

"I'm here," she told him faintly. She felt dazed by all the heat that suddenly washed over her pelt. She was still so cold, and so sleepy. "Is my fur white yet? Do I look like you now? Will you be happy?"

Her father had not let her go all evening. Or the next morning. Or even the next day. And Aunt Raven had hovered with worried eyes too. But Summit did not remember all that. She had been too young. She just remembered the feel of her father's fur and the ferocity in his voice when he told her he loved her, and he loved her muddled fur. She was not supposed to look like him -she was supposed to look like Summit! And he never, ever wanted her to change.

That had kept Summit from going out into the snow to try to change her coat again, but she still worried faintly. She did not want to be like the bad shecat who was her mother. She did not want to make her father sad, ever. She tried to avoid the things she knew her mother did or liked. Her mother liked kits so Summit had always made a conscious effort to avoid other kits. Her mother had always talked a lot so Summit tried to keep her words short or share them in song. These things were easy enough, but some things were harder -like focusing. Aunt Raven told her once her mother was a daydreamer, always caught up in her own thoughts and forgetting the world around her. Summit tried to never do this. She did not want to be like the bad shecat who made her father sad -but sometimes the song was just so enticing, sometimes it tried to carry her away on the winds of its call and she had to fight back the urge to let it.

Now, as she realized she had failed and allowed her mind to wander, she felt embarrassment and guilt crash down on her like the rumble of the quarreling thunder and lightning overhead. Her ears were down and her joyful song squelched by the sour notes striking through her heart as she looked down at her paws guiltily.

"I... uhm," she mewed unhappily, shifting on her paws. She should not have let her ears wander so far. It was careless of her. She would make her father sad and she did not want to make her father sad. "... I don't know," she finally answered softly.

The shecat's ears flickered as the sound of water got louder, and louder -and even louder, it roared out over the tickling swipes of rain that now danced through the air. She looked at her father but did not understand. This sound was louder than she had ever heard from a river before. Louder than even the growling rapids she had listened to once as a child. It was too loud, so massive the song was lost in a growling roar she could not make out clearly. She tried to understand, puzzling at the mystery. Were there rapids here? But very big ones?

"It's getting closer, isn't it?"

Summit nodded, her eyes drawn to the black clouds overhead and the sweet but sharp ringing that came down to them as the rain sang it song -a song that was faster and more aggressive than any Summit had ever heard save her own heart's when she had been running for long past a sane or safe hour. The wind buffeted the shecat's fur and the rain fell harder, soaking through her thick kit fur. She shivered slightly and pressed close to her father's legs, soaking in their warmth and listening to the comforting sound of his heart's steady song. It hummed through her quietly even as the rain pelted down, the sharp exclamation of each drop an echoing harmony that radiated against each other. Louder. The wind kicked up the chilled drops, wailing against the small tabby's ears. Louder. The rain picked up, the water splashed back against her paws in rapidly forming puddles. So much water. So much rain. All ringing around her in an inescapable echo. Fiercer. The sounds and howls and rings and chimes clung to the flailing wind, who moaned in worry as if it too had lost control of the song's force. So many sounds all came to the shecat at once, almost more than she could bare, but bare it she must. They were still moving. She had to press on, but with each step she took she felt the storm's song do the same, press harder, chime louder and sharper with notes of icy rain that froze her soaking coat. It would not be denied as with each heartbeat it grew. More insistent. The trees groaned deeply and the leaves chittered and chattered in fear, a few even taking flight as their terror overcame them and they whipped away into the night seeking sanctuary of the black cloud's roar. More sounds. Lightning struck, an almost blindingly bright clap of white noise, attempting to draw order from the chaos the world had fallen into like water to a swirling pool, but the song was too powerful to be stopped. Summit knew this. She felt it. Her heart hammer with excitement and trepidation as she yearned to listen -as she feared to hear. More sounds. More voices raised to contribute to the madness of the storm's ballad. More and more and more until it was almost enough to set Summit's ears pounding with all of the noise that assailed her. 

But beneath it all, steady and unrelenting as the mountains on high, was the thundering. Not of the sky, but of the ground -of the water. As they moved onward, Summit gasped in amazement when she saw it, for a moment the song falling away entirely as the river's mighty drum beat reached out to wrap itself around her and pull her in, as dangerous and seductive as the music of the night.


"This is called a Waterfall, Summit."

"It is incredible," the mangy black shecat mewed in awe. She wished to go closer, but she feared the beast would swallow her song whole with its huge crashing music that plunged onward never endingly, never quieting in the slightest. How could a song as quiet and young as hers possibly hold a flame to one so grand and ancient?

Her rare hesitance seemed to draw out her father's amusement, but as the rain chimed down on them with icy rings and gusty wails of water, the large tom did not slow, instead heading straight up to the monstrous beast. Summit hurried behind to catch up, embarrassed by her silliness. She had nothing to fear. Her father's song was the strongest in the world. Nothing would harm her when she was within its comforting melody.


"There are many in the mountains. They tower from the sky, and carry the cleanest water you'll ever find. And oftentimes behind them there are..."

A cave!

Summit knew much of caves. She had lived in them often as a tiny kit in the mountains. She had missed their gentle echos and whispering sounds that often made her giggle with delight when she had been small, thinking the walls were talking to her, playing with her -she had only to listen to them. She had not known they could hide behind falling rivers! Now the shecat found the twanging fear of the monstrous Waterfall mellowed into the background as she let herself get caught up in the melody of the cavern that opened up before them! 

"Oh how marvelous! How beautif- AHHH!"

The shecat's song ended on a high pitched note of surprise and fear as she passed the cavern's entrance. The moss was slick with water and she had not been expecting it. Her paws slid out from under and down, down she dropped with the angry thundering of the Waterfall roaring in her ears. The sound was drowned out immediately -everything was drown out immediately- as she was sucked into the screaming water and plunged downward with a speed that made her heart rabbit frantically in her chest. She cut off her cry was water forced its way into her mouth, making her sputter and cough, but even that she could not hear over the furious roaring. Oh the ROARING! It was everywhere! All around her! So much angry, violent sound that Summit was more terrified than she had ever been in her life! 

And then she was plunged, shoved under the pool's surface and held down by the never ending torrent of waves as surely as if by a cat's paws.

And the world was silent.

So horribly, horribly SILENT. She had been wrong. So wrong. So very, very, very wrong. The angry roars were not the worst sound in the world. ANY sound was better than the horrible cushion of silence that pressed in all around her. She had never not been able to hear before! She could not hear anything! The songs! The songs were gone! ALL GONE! If Summit could breathe she would have screamed. In fact, she did. A shrill, sharp and muffled sound that hardly even reached her ears. She lost all of her air but dear god it was worth it to hear something, ANYTHING other than that silence! But her air was out and the water was sucking into her lungs now and she had nothing left. Her whole body thrashed and writhed against the horrible wrongness that pressed in all around her. The horrible, horrible silence! But she could not do anything! She had no sounds left to make. She had no air left to cry. She had no breath left to scream.

She could not break free from the silence, the terrifying, muted silence that rushed in faster than a wave to squelch her stifled song, one thrashing note at a time.

Summit woke up by following the song of her father's voice. It was all very sweet and touching -right up until she woke up. She barfed water. A lot of water. She collapsed on her paws for a moment. She got up, shakily and turned to look at her father, her teal eyes bright and all that. She smiled and laughed. Because she's a kit so its funny.

"I knew your song was stronger than the water's, Daddy!" she mewed way too frickin' cheerily for a kit who just almost died. "I think we should get rid of that moss though. I did not like the under-water's silence."

And quite merrily started to climb up the way to the waterfall again. Why? Because Summit is either an idiot or a badass. I still haven't decided. Anyway, this time she was careful about the moss.