Hidden from the Sun

 HIDDEN FROM THE SUN

Episode Four, Season Two, of Rise.

Enjoy <3

Hidden from the Sun
“HE DID WHAT?”

We are back at the edge of the forest, and Terran and I, along with our other friends, are exchanging stories. “He threatened us by holding his claws to Terran’s throat and demanded that we stopped snooping around the area.” Karina repeats patiently, “How many more times do I need to say it?”

“Certainly enough time until Bryce shouts her throat hoarse,” Terran rubs his ear, “you’re shouting right into my ear, Bryce.”

“Sorry,” I mutter, “but I can’t believe he did that!”

Terran rolls his eyes. “How many times is she going to say that?”

Even Feathershine is amused. “Bryce, Terran’s fine.”

I run my tail over his pelt just to be sure. To my surprise, Terran’s eyes widen by my action and he glances away. “That’s what happened on our side. You haven’t told us anything about what happened to you.”

I glance down at my paws. “Nothing really happened,” I mumble, “I talked to some of my old friends to try to figure out where you guys were.”

Karina flops down on the ground. “Wow, beautiful. So why did you look so bleary-eyed and so worn out, as if you aged five moons in five days?”

“I was worried about you guys,” I defend myself, “weren’t you all worried about me?”

“No honey,” Karina gives me a scathing look, “we figured you knew the Twolegplace well enough to not care about you at all.”

When I don’t laugh, Karina sighs. “Terran practically scoured the entire territory in search of you. He couldn’t be bothered to sleep at night because you weren’t cuddling at his side.”

“That isn’t true!” Terran yelps, his eyes wide.

Feathershine smothers a giggle. I peer over at Terran, who is avoiding my gaze. He even seemed a little more flushed than usual.

“All right,” I huff, “I talked to a few of them asking them what they knew about the situation in the forest.”

“What’d they say?” Karina tilts her head, obvious more interested in this than teasing her brother (whatever was going on…).

“Nothing much,” I carefully say, “just that there was too warring societies and that I should avoid them at all cost.”

“And here you are,” Feathershine drawls, “surrounded by both sides.”

“One side,” Terran corrects, his pale blue eyes flicking towards his sister, “we’re all on the same side right now.”

Feathershine puts up her tail in submission. “One side,” she rolls her eyes, “we sound like a bunch of kits, bickering in the nursery.”

Karina lay all the way down and made her eyes big. “Mommy, tell them to stop fighting,” she pretends to plead at me.

I burst out laughing and Karina rolls over. “You’d make such a bad mother, Bryce,” she twitches her whiskers, “I can imagine you just laughing at your kits because they say something stupid.”

“Kits aren’t stupid,” Terran says thoughtfully, “and Bryce would make a great mother.”

“Of course you would say so,” Karina purrs, her golden eyes amused. I tilt my head at the white tom, but he still wasn’t meeting my gaze.

“Tell me more about Aleric,” I nudge the dark gray she-cat, “you didn’t explain half of your story.”

“I did,” she exclaims, “you just didn’t listen! You were more concerned about the fact that Terran had a nick on his neck.”

Terran shrugs. “Someone’s got to care, right?”

This time I find myself flushing but Karina pretends not to notice. “All right, anyways, so Terran was being a fool--”

“I am not a fool.” Terran snaps at the same moment I blurt out.

“He’s not a fool.”

We stare at each other for a moment and Karina coughs loudly. “Please don’t creepily read each other’s minds and say the same thing together. Like just don’t.” She pauses for a moment, as if to make sure we won’t go against her orders and continues.

“And so he was being a fool and then this creepy tom came out of nowhere and like jumped Terran--”

“I wasn’t jumped!”

Somehow my mouth moved at the same time as his did. “He wasn’t jumped, Karina.”

The dark gray she-cat buries her head in her paws. When she glances up, she frowns. “You’ll stop that now, right? Like no, just don’t speak. I really don’t need my brother and my friend just sprouting the same lines just from different perspectives. It’ll drive me crazy.”

I feel my ears grow hot. “You said before the tom just appeared. You can’t just change the story.”

“Do you want to hear the rest or not?” Karina asks hotly, rolling her eyes, “Does it matter how I tell the story as long as I get the point across?”

“Then it’d be something like this: tom comes up to Terran, tom tells Terran many things like get out, tom disappears.” Terran points out.

Karina throws up her paws. “You guys are useless.”

Feathershine purrs and Karina nudges the gray she-cat. “Come on, let’s go hunting and let these fools have their time together. Apparently five days apart have made them one cat or something.” She stalks out muttering with the gray she-cat following.

“What was that about?” I ask, puzzled.

“Beats me,” Terran shrugs and lies down, “but hey, we’re alone.”

“We are alone,” I agree, unsure what to say, “what do you want to do?”

“Let’s just talk.” I lie down next to him, “After all, like Karina said, it’s been five days since we’ve seen each other. It was really lonely with you—and the rest of them.”

“Same here,” he breathes out, “even though I had Karina and Feathershine, it felt like I was choking on air, trying to find my breath.” He leans forward so his cheek is brushing mine, “It was with you.”

I smile a bit. “Don’t be so overdramatic,” I laugh.

We fall silent. “Karina cares about you too, you know?” Terran says softly, his pale blue eyes pinned to mine, “I mean I know she acts like she could care less about anything in the world but she cares too deeply. When Aleric had his claws to my neck, it was Karina who was so terrified that I was going to get hurt.”

“I would have been terrified,” I murmur, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Terran uses his tail to brush away some of the dirt that’s on my pelt. “I won’t get hurt.”

It’s an empty promise, considering the times, but I nod along anyways. “I saw someone,” I whisper, “I saw someone like Ruby a few days ago. She was so like my little sister.”

Terran tenses. “Was it Ruby?”

“No,” I shake my head, “but she was stumbling through the Twolegplace, her eyes glazed over like something horrible had happened to her. I thought it was Ruby, so I raced over there, only to find her dying.”

“That’s horrible,” Terran places his muzzle on top of mine, “I’m sorry.”

“It was like she was poisoned,” I say sorrowfully. Calypso’s words wash over me again, and I freeze, realizing that the Blood Army had more uses to the plants than I had thought. What had the she-cat done to make the Blood Army poison her to death?

The Blood Army had always been at the Twolegplace, and my parents must have been apart of their system, as well as Sara and Cloud. Stocks were one way to live, but it was one way to die also.

“Bryce?” Terran is glancing at me with concerned eyes, “Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” I try to muster a reassuring smile, “I’m just wondering what our next move should be.”

Terran glances at where Karina and Feathershine are returning from their hunting trip. “Anything,” he says softly, “anything that keeps us safe.”

I crack a small smile. “Nothing will keep us safe, not in these conditions.”

~

Karina never knew how good company Feathershine could be. The light gray she-cat had always been too shy for Karina’s taste, and she hated the silence the Coalition cat usually brought with her.

“You know, Nightshadow used to talk about visiting the Twolegplace for the fun of it,” Feathershine said fondly, “it was as if he wanted to escape the war-torn world and try to find something better, even if it was just a day.”

“I think everyone does,” Karina related.

Feathershine laughed softly. “Yeah…but it just seems so surreal now that we’ve been here. Like it’s nothing like Nightshadow used to say, because it’s just like the forest. Everything has gone wrong here, and there’s no one to fix it.”

Karina’s eyes were distant. “Bryce will fix it.”

Feathershine smiled. “Yes, she will.”

“You know, Terran and I used to live out in the forest, a distance away from the Vipers. We didn’t always abide to Viper rules.” Karina said thoughtfully, “It was much more peaceful, and sometimes I still wish for that place. That place where nobody would get hurt.”

“What happened?”

“My mother died,” Karina said flatly, “and we found that the Vipers were the closest thing we had to family.”

Feathershine didn’t say anything but wrapped her tail around Karina. Her eyes said it all, but Karina found no pity in them, and for that, she was eternally grateful.

~

We decided our best move was to lie low and return to the Coalition instead of snooping around anymore. I didn’t even feel comfortable hanging out at the edge of the Twolegplace, because I knew that Aleric tom, or others like him, had to be watching us.

“We’ll set out at night,” Karina decides, “that’s our best shot at slipping past any Vipers who might be watching the border for runaways like us.”

“We’re not runaways,” I mutter crossly, “we’re merely just enemies to them.”

“Same thing,” Karina waves her tail nonchalantly.

Feathershine shakes her head. “It’s definitely not the same thing. Runaways make us sound weak, as if we need to flee from the Vipers. Enemies show that we stand up against them without backing down.”

The dark gray she-cat shoots Feathershine a surprised look. “Feathershine’s right,” I move over to stand by her side, “we aren’t running from the Vipers, we’re staying away long enough to strike back when the time is right, that’s all.”

A slow smile spreads across Karina’s face. “Sounds like a plan.”

Terran bumps me with his shoulder and I purr. “One day we’ll launch an attack and I’ll find Ruby. We’ll take down their system and save the day.”

“I like how you think,” Karina smirks and I laugh.

It’s nice to be with friends, I decide.

We spend the rest of the day lounging around, waiting for nightfall. When the sun finally sets, we stand and head for the forest, our heads low, our legs tense.

It’s time to go home.

The End.