The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

Fallpaw allowed his legs to carry him back to Fourtrees once again. Having left the nursery and with no one sharing the apprentices' den, he found it rather easy to slip away from camp when he wasn't with his mentor. Sometimes, he stayed close to camp and simply explored around the heather patches, but at least a few times, when the nighttime had felt particularly lonely, he'd made the trek all the way to Fourtrees.

He had vague memories of the night they he and his litter mates had been abandoned there. Since that night, he hadn't gotten a sign of any of his kin, except for that one moment he'd glanced the cat he knew to be his sire, when Fawnbriar had become leader. Fallpaw plodded into the clearing with these memories, lost in thought. He couldn't remember much that was solid of that one night, but the three or four times he'd come back here, he tended to pace around the clearing, trying to pinpoint the exact spot he'd last been with his siblings. He flicked his dark-furred tail, taking in the faded scents of many different cats left behind in a moment of low vigilance.

The lilac she-cat felt the panic seep through her as the air around her turned ominously still. Only the faint rustles of low-lying animals, or the fluttering wings of the occasional bird could be heard, along with Coyotepaw's thundering heart. Hunting with Leopardrose had turned awry when the young apprentice found herself too absorbed in a track, loosing all sense of her location, along with that of her mentor. She knew she couldn't have gone far, and that worse case she could wait by the owl tree nearby, but that didn't stop Coyotepaw from feeling undeniably anxious. Here she was, alone once again like all those moons ago when she had been forcefully stripped from her family, and before that, stripped from her mothers love by a faintly familiar tom. She could still remember her screams as she clung onto her mother's lifeless body as another tugged her away. She had been the last one to be removed. 

'Leopardrose?' she called out, her voice echoing through the layers of trees ahead. 'Leopardrose? Can you hear me?' It was the loudest she had spoken in a while, practically yelling. All hope of catching any prey was gone now, but she didn't care. Coyotepaw would rather go hungry than be alone. Her paws trailed across the forest floor as she made her way closer to the border, somewhere much more familiar. She could see the faint outline of fourtrees in the distance, a place, that while Coyotepaw felt as though she didn't belong there, but also felt closer to home then ever. Perhaps it was because she knew it was her one passing chance to see her family again. Pushing her way through the thicker parts of the forest, Coyotepaw emerged in what she recognised as trespass point, though the instant she caught sight of a dark figure moving across one of the other sides she shrunk back into the bushes, nearly turning and fleeing. 

Fallpaw's ears perked at the sound of someone else through the trees. He paused in his pacing, wondering if he was caught. Was he not supposed to be here on his own? Was it something he could get in trouble for?

Another movement in the clearing made his breath catch. He squinted at the dark grey tom, and then his eyes widened. "Murk?"

He hesitated for a moment, and found himself bounding over to his littermate. "You're here too? I've missed you and the others so much.I can't believe it!"