"Exhausted... gone into shock... rain... might... greencough..."

Faint voices filled Duskelle's mind, sounding as if they were coming from far, far away. She tried to open her eyes, but it seemed as if a heavy weight was pulling down her eyelids, refusing to let them part. She struggled a few more moments and finally managed to open them.

For a second, everything was a blurry rush of colors, but then her vision cleared and she saw that she was in the medicine cat den. Her hearing, which she hadn't even realized she'd lost, came back to her, and heard the pitter-patter of heavy raindrops outside at the same time that the scent of fresh herbs and rain stole into her nose.

Three cats were standing in front of her, the cause of the voices. They had fallen silent and were staring at her. Two gray-and-black tabbies, one pale and the other dark, and a dark, gray-coated tom. It took her a moment, but she recognized them. Lilacfeather, Minnowstar, and Graysplash.

Lilacfeather leaned over her. "Duskpaw! You're awake! Can you stand?"

Duskelle tried to speak, but her voice refused to come to her and instead a croak escaped her throat. She tried to push herself to her feet and she almost managed it, but suddenly, a spike of heat and pain shot through her. She cried out and collapsed, her last sight Graysplash rushing over to her before darkness took over once more.

---

Her pelt was hot. Burning. Fire. Burning up. Ashes.

---

Water. Thirst. Dryness.

---

A second of consciousness. Rising. Vomiting. Falling back.

---

Cold, brown eyes. Loud voices. Yelling. Accusations.

---

You're faking it. You're a liar. You've ruined our lives. I wish you were never born.

---

A kind blue-green gaze. A swish of fur. A warm pelt pressing against her own. A low, comforting voice.

---

Lilacfeather. Graysplash. Seapaw. Minnowstar. Hawkripple. Hawkkit?

---

Duskelle pushed her eyes open, her vision bleary. She was in the medicine cat den. How had she gotten there? She lifted her head up and shook it to clear her vision, wincing at the spike of pain that shot through her.

She turned her head to take it her surroundings and realized that another cat was curled up in a corner to the other side of the then. The den was dim - apparently, sundown had already passed - and all she could make out was some shaggy fur, parts of it white and others lost in the shadows.

"Hello?" she called, her voice cracking and turning the second half of the word into a whisper. She tried again. "Hello?" This time, her voice stayed clear.

The cat jumped up, looking around wildly and Duskelle leaned away in surprise before realizing that the cat was Mosspaw.

"Duskpaw!" he exclaimed. "You're finally awake!"

"What do you mean 'finally?'"

"Oh, that." The tom shook his head as if he had forgotten something, and instead of enlightening Duskelle as to what it was, he padded forward and settled onto his haunches by her nest.

Duskelle pushed herself up into a position that copied Mosspaw's, some of her joints cracking loudly as she did so and she realized that she must've been out for a long time.

The thought brought back the memories of what had happened. Hawkkit lost, her meeting Stormpaw, searching for Hawkkit, the fox, Stormpaw's bloody fur, coming back to camp, and - and that was all she remembered.

"Mosspaw," she asked tentatively. He turned his head inquisitively. "What exactly happened after...after we came back?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, worry forming in his expression. "You don't - you don't remember?"

Duskelle silently shook her head. She didn't understand why Mosspaw was showing such concern over her, or why he'd been in the medicine cat den when he wasn't even hurt.

"Well, anyways, right when we got to camp, you just collapsed. Unconscious. Just like that. We didn't even notice you for a while, everybody was so immersed with what happened to Stormpaw."

He paused, looking abashed, before continuing. "Not until Hawkkit asked for you. Then we looked and found you outside the camp, just lying in the mud and soaking in the rain. Took us about four patrol's worth of cats to drag you in. We put you in the medicine cat den, and we thought that you were just tired and cold and you'd be fine with some sleep, but that didn't happen. Something happened to you. It was crazy, Duskpaw. One moment, your pelt would be burning up and the next, it'd be freezing cold. Lilacfeather just didn't know what to make of it. She thought it was greencough - that's a sickness that shows up during leaf-bare sometimes, it's very serious - but it wasn't. It was something else. She thinks it some sort of Twoleg illness we didn't know."

Mosspaw's eyes were huge as he raised them to meet hers. "We thought we'd lost you, Duskpaw. You just looked so frail, lying there in that nest-"

"How long?"

Mosspaw frowned. "What?"

"How long was I out?"

"Oh." Mosspaw was quiet for a second before continuing. "About a quarter moon and a half."

A quarter moon and a half. She'd lain here for a quarter moon and a half and she didn't even remember a second of it? Anger burned hot inside of her for a moment. How dare this illness come and take away a quarter moon and a half in her life? How could it just make her forget that?

But the anger left as soon as it had come. It was no use getting mad at something that couldn't respond and didn't have a reason for its actions.

Mosspaw cleared his throat reminded her of his presence. He opened his mouth to speak, but Duskelle beat him to it. "Why are you here anyways? Where's Lilacfeather?"

"She left to get some herbs. Apparently, after rain is a good time to gather some herb. Even if one has to go out in pitch darkness to do it." Mosspaw's face spread into a smile, but it disappeared as he continued talking. "And as to why I'm here... well, I'm here for you, Duskelle. Well, and also Stormpaw over there." He waved his tail distractedly at something behind her.

Stormpaw! Of course! How could she have forgotten about him? She jerked around, and dull pain began throbbing through her leg. She remembered hurting her ankle. She bent her head over and tried to look at it.

"Your leg, of course! It was sprained where the paw connects with the leg. Oh, did Lilacfeather have a hard time fixing that, what with you being a Twoleg and her not knowing how to heal you and all that. You'll be better in about a few sundowns or so."

"Oh - uh, okay," Duskelle said awkwardly, uncomfortable at being spoken to so casually by a cat she barely knew. Instead of continuing the conversation, she turned her head again to find Stormpaw.

He was lying in a comfy nest pumped with plenty of feathers and soft moss. Duskelle could just make out a poultice on a few gashes in his side. She winced at the scratches that criss-crossed his muzzle.

"He'll be alright too," Mosspaw said from behind her, making her jump. "Lilacfeather said in a half-moon or so-"

"Wait." Duskelle stopped him, her eyes narrowing. The apprentice looked at her, a hint on confusion spread across his face. "You said - you said you were here for - for me."

Mosspaw seemed to squirm a bit. "Yes. I did say that."

Duskelle didn't let herself feel any emotion. Not yet. "Why would you wait for me?"

"Because you saved my brother, Duskpaw." Mosspaw's tone turned serious and Duskelle could tell that every word was genuine. "And that's like saving my own life." He grinned unsteadily. "That means you've saved two lives of cats that are very important to me." Duskelle gave a short laugh and Mosspaw paused before continuing. "And that makes you somebody that I care about. Someone who deserves to stand next to me as an equal."

Finally.

A smile formed on Duskelle's face, starting small but quickly spreading into something larger, something happier, into the smile of somebody who'd finally found something they'd been looking for after a long long while.

Mosspaw watched Duskelle in awe as her unspoken happiness seemed to spread into the air around her, making the den seem lighter, the sounds outside the den softer, and everything but her seem less significant. Suddenly, so quickly that any who saw it would've thought they'd imagined it, a flash of golden light seemed to ripple over Duskelle's body.

Suddenly, light flashed bright in Duskelle's vision and faded away just as soon as it came, being replaced with darkness that suddenly seemed to shift and disperse, leaving Duskelle disoriented. She opened her eyes to see that once again, she was in the same meadow as before, where she'd first met Hawkripple.

But this time, instead of Hawkripple, it was another cat that stood in front of her, a cream-colored she-cat with swashes of white and piercing green eyes. She opened her jaws to speak and instead of the single voice that Duskelle expected, a thousand voices seemed to speak as one along with her.

"It has begun."