Magic Cats: Fall of the Stars

Delta's Anxieties

The snow around Delta was stained red. The dog she'd met a few days ago stood proudly over the limp form of Shadow. Delta could hear yowls of rage from her friends. A human gently picked up Shadow and took her inside, while another dragged the reluctant dog by his collar. Ebony's human took him to his house. Suki and Misty gloomily turned to head home, leaving Delta alone with Jade. Jade's voice split the silence. "Delta, Delta wake up." Delta opened her eyes and lifted her head. The blurry shape of Jade came into view. It was only a dream. Relief washed over Delta and she smiled at her friend. "Bad dream?" Jade asked. "Yeah, thanks for waking me up." "You looked sad. But also, guess what today is! Just kidding, you don't get to guess. It's the first of December!" Jade quickly changed the topic. Delta's mind was still foggy from her dream. "And that's important, why?" "Because that means I'm one year old today! I'm officially an adult! I heard it from Suki. Well come on, let's go hunting. Irony's gonna teach both of us if you're willing to come."

Delta licked her fur, trying to get it to lie flat, and nodded.

"It was just a dream." she whispered to herself as Jade ran ahead to find Irony. "Not the future. The dog I met was friendly, he would never do that."

She jumped and her fur fluffed up again as Irony spoke from behind her. "I wouldn't be too sure. Your mom seemed friendly enough at first. And didn't you say you put your piece of quartz under your side of the blanket?"

Delta forced her fur to lie flat and her ears to do the opposite. "It can't be real, I refuse to let it be real. Let's just go hunting, maybe it'll get my mind off the dream."

"Good luck with that." Irony said, turning around to lead the way into the forest she'd lived in for the past years.

"Now, Jade, how about you show Delta the hunting crouch I showed you?"

Delta dropped down in the crouch she'd been taught for sneaking up on cats.

"I said Jade." Irony snickered, "That's better for sneaking up on cats than prey."

She stepped forward to correct Delta's position.

Delta quickly memorised how the pose felt and straightened up.

She got lost in thought as Irony continued showing them how to hunt, automatically following the instructions just as she had when she was a kitten learning to fight. Was it always going to be this way? Just following instructions and perfectly replicating them? Would she always just be doing the same thing she'd done in the fortress? Was anyone even that different from Nova after all?

"So," Said Jade, snapping Delta out of her thoughts and making her jump. "Jumpy today are we? Wanna tell me about your dream?"

Delta forced her fur to lie flat once more. "Yeah ok, talking about things gets them out of my head when they've been circling for a while."

Jade didn't reply, her full attention was on listening, not responding.

"I was in Shadow's yard with everyone else, and we were all fighting a dog I thought was friendly. Then the dog grabbed Shadow and the humans arrived to put a stop to the fighting when she fell into the snow. She wasn't moving! And then the humans took everyone home, the only ones left in the yard were you and me before you woke me up."

"Well, it could've been the future, but it sounds a bit unrealistic. Nobody could just pick Shadow up like that without getting a facefull of claws, and she'd just get right back up when she was dropped."

"Unless she had already been weakened to a point where she couldn't fight back." Delta's voice was almost a whisper.

"That would never happen! Not with us fighting by her side."