"The Dream"

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-- no more passing out, waking up. again, follow my lead. this is where it gets interesting--

It seemed like only moments, but it could have been hours since he had passed out. Waking up, Shadestar's head felt sore, perhaps where he hit it? He felt groggy as well. Wondering what even happened, he stood up shakily, putting one foot on the rock one by one and standing up. What met his eyes scared him to his core.

The wolves were all collapsed as if they were dead. Every single wolf. What could have even caused this? But that wasn't what alarmed him the most. All the trees, all the foliage, everything.... Was burnt to ash. Gone, like that. He couldn't have been out that long could he? Stepping down from the rock, he trotted to the edge of the clearing. Something didn't feel right here, as though it was a dream, though it felt real enough certainly. It was just something didn't fit right in his mind. Perhaps he was just attempting to cope with what happened. All of his home, everyones home, gone in the course of a second. What the heck was going on? Confused, he ran back to the rock and stood there, his golden gaze protectively watching the rest of the collapsed wolves, especially the ShadowClan ones. They would have to come together, whether they wanted to or not.

Silverpup looked around the small black clearing the ground crisp and dry. She backed away from lilystar and padded back to the river. She layed at the shoreline soaking her paws. It seemed everyone was confused curious and a bit miserable.

Jaystreak yawned as she patiently waited for her clan, expecially her deputy. Waiting was not a problem, her clanmates do not deserve to be left behind. But, the big problem, is that there are only a few Thunder Clan members at the Gathering compared to more in each clan. So, if anything happened, they got their hands tied.

Squirrelpup reached the river, and rested on its sandy shore, waiting for all of ShadowClan to come. He saw some RiverClan wolves in the river, too. But he ignored them.

Skypup looked away from Shadestar to instead look into the river. She instantly moved her gaze else ware. The fae wasn't scared of the river, no that fear was all for the Thunderpath, but the thought of using water because of a fire made her uneasy. Swimming for pure joy was fine, and she didn't believe a fire did this to the forest, but in was strange to her.

Lightningpaw listened to her mentor and glanced around when she said the place was full of emotion and that the key was to stay calm. /Uh, doesn't she realize I am calm?/ she thought to herself for a moment before continueing listening to her mentor. Once her mentor finished, she turned to look at the water. It did appear somewhat gentle on top. After studying the movements of the wate for a moment she turned back to her mentor. "So, you mean you want me to start swimming across the river right now?" She asked, tilting her head slightly. "I would have thought something else but okay." She said before stepping close to the river. However instead of jumping in to swim, sh bent down and lapped at the nice water, getting a drink since she had been quite thirsty on her way to fourtrees and hadn't had anything to drink since. Once satisfied she looked at Moonlightmelody. "Now?" she asked her mentor, just to make sure.

Riversong rushes out of Fourtrees, and folds her ears, heading back to her home.

The conceited canine gave an approving look at the scene before her. Most cats had decided to follow her advice and stay by the river. As her observatory mood set in, she watched another wolf train a smaller one which had a give-away youthful appearance.

Lightningpaw glanced at two wolves, one being a pup, and saw that the older one failed at catching a fish. She also saw the the pup offered a few of what looked like little sparkly silver fish to the older wolf. Lightning snorted at the gesture then looked at the water, wondering if she would succeed or fail at her first time swimming. She glanced back at her mentor, waiting for the older wolf to join her next to the river.

[[ Stonestar's told me all that's going on, so I'm just gonna go with the flow and pretend Tallpup is just waking up. ]]

A faint groan escaped Tallpup's lips as his eyes cracked open, registering a gloomy mist and omnious lack of trees. His head felt fuzzy and limbs heavy as he slowly pushed himself to his paws, looking around in sudden alarm. It seemed like he was one of the last wolves to wake up -- members of each and every clan were milling around, confused, alarmed, frightened and shocked. Tallpup shared all these emotions as he stared around Four Trees, his paws clutching the ground as shock threatened to overwhelm him. What was happening?

Tallpup didn't speak up, just flattened his ears to his head and plastered his tail to his belly in frightened horror. He didn't know what was going on or how they'd get out of this situation, but he was petrified with a maelstrom of narcissistic emotion. Shivering, the little pup pressed his belly to the ground and scuttled backwards, away from the melting pot of wolves from each clan. Though there appeared to be more Windclan than anything, Tallpup still felt insecure around all these foreign wolves, especially as they'd just experienced the most ominous happening in the history of the clans.

Tallpup sat away from the others, shivering, ears plastered to his head as he waited for something to happen.

Lightningpaw knew that the pup was looking her way and looked at it. Lightningpaw glared at the pup before catching a glimpse of something in the water. A fish swam past with speed. And, well, Lightningpaw was hungry. She launched her paw out and tried her paw at catching a fish, a difficult task for one not born in riverclan. Her paw slipped and she tumbled into the water, completely falling into it. For a few moments Lightningpaw was under the water before she popped her head out and kicked, swimming toward the shore. As her paws touched the shallower water, a fish swam passed her. Growling, she stuck her muzzle into the water. When she lifted her head, a good sized fish flopped in her jaws. She padded out of the water, shook herself, fish still in her mouth, then padded back to moonlightmelody. She dropped the now still fish and studied the fish. She licked it a couple of times before deciding it might not do bad in a pinch. She nibbled on the fish then, once somewhat satisfied, shot the riverclan pup a glare before taking the partially eaten fish closer to the riverclan she-wolf, whom she had heard was Grayheart. She dropped it at a distance and said, "How can you eat this. It stinks. I mean, I guess I could eat it if I needed to but i wouldn't choose it as my first source of prey. You two can have it, she said before turning around and padding back to her mentor. "Not quite the first swim you expected huh?" she asked, lowering her ears in preparation for what she figured moonlight would say about either trying to catch a fish, or for giving food to a rival clan, or something like that. One more time she shot a glare at the pup before turning back to her mentor, her fur still dripping a little with the water.

The Riverclan leader watched intently at the apprentice before she had flailed into the water. Grinning as she submerged onto shore with a decent sized fish between her jaws, Lilystar let out a small chuckle of amusement before the apprentice plopped the fish down onto the cold earth and took a small bite of it. Sitting down on her own haunches, the leader knew what her reaction to the fish would be. Rolling her blue eyes, Lilystar noticed it had been given to Grayheart and Silverpup.

Smiling as her own stomach yearned for food, the leader padded up to the river and looked into the water with a concentrated glare. The female had been sitting there for about a good 3 minutes before she finally saw a fish swim towards her way. Getting her own paw ready and over the surface of the water, Lilystar began to concentrate on catching the fish once it's near.

As the fish neared, the female swiftly threw her paw into the water, and as the cold water splashed, her paw had hit something scaly. Smiling in triumph now, Lilystar raised her paw from the cold water and threw the fish onto the cold earth. As it was knocked out, the female slashed an opening from the neck and the gills, so that her prey can never breathe again. Happy about her kill, Lilystar muttered a- "Luck." To herself as it was rare for her to catch a fish on her first try. Now taking a bite from the fish, the leader avoided the bones of her prey and ate around it.

Squirrelpup decided to take a swim, away from the hot sun. He dipped in, and kept swimming around the Riverclan wolves. He saw a pup, a warrior, and a leader of Riverclan. Great, he thought, I'm going to talk with them! He then toddled to the shore.

Rosepup 's ears fell back in concern at Stonestar's troubling words of bloodstained ground and lifeless bodies. Such discussions usually didn't involve pups, and she truthfully didn't want to hear anymore of the dream. She gave a polite nod to both of the wolves and dismissed herself to try and find the other WindClan members.

Rosepup followed a familiar scent over to a pup hiding in the shadows with his ears drawn back and shivering. She mustered a smile even though she had hoped it would be her playmate, Orchidpup, but she was content with finding another WindClan member. "Hi Tallpup," she greeted, "what's up?"

As the members picked up thier pace and headed toward the river, Jaystreak sadly waited her her deputy. She hasn't seen her in a few days. It had started to worry Jaystreak a bit. The white female flattened her ears and laid down patiently waiting.