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"I had a dream last night."
They are laying down in sunshine, when she speaks. Guard raises her head. Her cheekfurs shift, when she glances at Suncat.
"Sure."
"In that dream I was in forest and Guard, the trees were talking to me. They talked and I understood what they said."
Suncat stares at her for a long time. "She was there too. And after Her nobody said anything anymore."
She is quiet, and her gaze turns away, not wanting to meet Guard's eyes. Guard waits if she has anything else to say, but after while she settles back down.
Deep silence falls on them, like a soft blanket thrown over them. It presses on her back, hugging her body like a mom hugs her just-born child when danger closes in.
It's nothing new to her.
"Why you didn't let me go?"
Guard flinches. She turns towards Suncat, who stares into forest.
"What do you mean?" She asks, rising up. Suncat too is sitting.
"Why you didn't let me go?"
She sighs, "Suncat you know I can't-"
"WHY YOU DIDN'T LET ME GO?"
She turns, her face covered in flies that keep eating it away. Guard flinches, but her back is against wall. She can only watch as Suncat writhes, rising above her.
"YOU DIDN'T SAVE ANYONE! YOU CAST US INTO THIS DOOM!! SHE DOESN'T LOVE US!"
She features melt away, and Guard witnesses as She takes Suncat's place, glowing with toxic air as she changes, leaving nothing behind.
She leaps over her, eating all of her being as she fights for her life she already lost and-
"Hey!"
Senior Guard recoils back to woken up world, almost striking claws in Her before she recognizes Kuutamo's face almost against her face.
"You hissed very loudly," they shake their head as if they is mad, smiling from ear to ear, "Ratamo almost woke up, and that wouldn't have been funny at all."
Senior Guard takes a deep breath, calming her racing heart. She sheathes her claws.
"Kuutamo! Thief! Time to hunt!" Yöhopea's voice rises from the other side of house. Kuutamo shouts back for both of them and promises they'll be soon there. She herself glances out from the broken window.
Suncat stares back.
Senior Guard has got used to a calm life. Beast don't often wander to Where She Goes, and biggest thing she had to deal with was Suncat herself.
In Yöhopea's colony that calmness is more rare, especially when prey is scarce. Senior Guard has to go hunt more often than ever, and to make sure Kuutamo is safer. Senior Guard doesn't mind that, though. Routine is always better than doing nothing for days, only interrupted by Suneves.
She is not sure if she would've been able to give children to Her like Senior Guard had suggested.
Especially after her.
Senior Guard has started to like this new life of hers. Kuutamo is good company, even if she is very different from Senior Guard, who she used to spend time with. Kuutamo is free. Lively. Senior Guard still doesn't know how she could be like this when she lives in these conditions. But she has started to understand.
Senior Guard's words were always something about Her. Kuutamo speaks of just life. Hard survival, fighting against nature's claim.
Senior Guard lived in Her cradle, unknown of this all. This life that spreads from Kuutamo's chest, endless and joyous dance with nature.
Maybe she too could learn that weird skill.
She stops, dropping the mole Kuutamo had caught when huge groan surprises her. She stares, trying to find the animal that let that new scary sound, but no one is around them.
"What was that sound?"
Kuutamo stops tracking their next piece of prey, and turns to look at her like she had asked how they breathe air. She stands frozen and then that horrible sound returns with vengeance, surprising Senior Guard.
Kuutamo's eyes brighten. "Oh, you mean the trees!"
She looks around like that explains all.
"Trees." She stares at Kuutamo.
"They tell our secrets! You just need to listen them right," she laughs, turning her head little bit sideways, "They say… that you are scary!"
Senior Guard laughs awkwardly, not sure how to react, "I hope they don't tell much more."
"No-oo… oh wait," Kuutamo stops, like heavily concentrating, "They say that you… tickle easily!"
She springs against her, and she falls goodheartedly as Kuutamo presses her head against her. She tries to protest, but Kuutamo glances at her with sparkling eyes, and is even more enthusiastic.
It doesn't take long before they both are almost laughing, Kuutamo on ground curled up under her weight after she had defended herself from the attack. But Kuutamo just giggles , swatting at her with her paws. Finally she gives up, and falls next to her into grounds embrace.
When they finally settle down, neither of them rises up immediately. They stay on the ground, Senior Guard's cheekfurs turning wet, but she doesn't truly care. She stares the sky, little crooked and cold.
Not like Her own over them.
"So?"
"What?" She glances towards her.
"What are they saying to you?"
She turns her eyes back to the sky.
"You are lying… nuisance?"
Kuutamo's laughter echoes between trees, "Nonono, you are doing it wrong! That ain't a secret!"
She pounces upwards, expecting her to follow. With rolling her eyes she ends up sitting up. Immediately Kuutamo pushes next to her.
"Alright, listen! Hear how they speak."
Senior Guard glances at her, but with a sigh she turns her ears towards forest.
At first she doesn't notice anything different. She hears leaves moving, something so weird but already familiar. And then she finally is about to hear it, before something catches her eyes, rushing in to her head and wrapping around her.
Her smile falls.
"You were right," the words escape her, and Kuutamo pokes at her friendly.
"Just like I promised."
Then she starts to follow the trail again, but Senior Guard stands still, her eyes glued to forest.
Suncat's empty eyes look back. And Her being spreads in air.
She stares in to the mouth of lion. It wraps around her lungs, draining even the last willpower from her. She looks down to find the light shining from her chest.
She wakes up, and when she looks towards the horizon she can see the same glow rising from the far, from where there isn't any sound.
She stays where trees tell their tales.
She haunts her, like curse that's cast upon her. She burn her.
It's not Kuutamo under her paws anymore, playfully pawing her away. Kuutamo's smile melts into her emptiness.
She smiles, even if She follows her like death follows wounded.
Suncat rots in front of her eyes.
They are returning back to their area when Yöhopea starts to pay attention on her.
They are taking a break from walking, and she notices how the newest member keeps wandering like a bird who can't keep their feet under them, and is a easy prey.
Yöhopea lets a harsh breath out of her nose, and step in front of her. She stops like just woken up.
"Thie- ah, Mesi, that was the name you took on," she sits down. She stares, as the younger stands, hesitant at what is asked from her.
She sighs irritated, "Don't just stare around like idiot, sit down. We don't have a year to waste."
Mesi finally understands the blatantly clear clues and settles.
"Don't you worry about making Kuutamo feel special, that girl is little crooked from head. Good heart, but she doesn't know enough about the world yet," she stares at Mesi, who has straightened like she stands guard for something.
"I wasn't worrying about that," Mesi deflects, avoiding her eye, "She's good company if you worry about it."
"Hmp! Good company, yes, but I'm not worried about it," she stares into her soul, "You are the one who I'm worried about. You come from the Nest of Beast, that's the problem. You are good help, the beast have stayed away but in your eyes there is the same glimmer every cat who has stared too long into the Nest of Beast."
Mesi looks like she has lost the ability to speak, but Yöhopea doesn't let it stop her.
"Be careful, Mesi. Because even if Kuutamo is like she is and can be tough, I won't let her lose that spark yet for the world like I had to. And if you have even slightly wisdom in your head you won't do it either."
Mesi is quiet. Finally she nods and after rising makes her way to Kuutamo. Kuutamo notices her and starts loudly new conversation, earning a soft laugh from Mesi. But in her voice is slight echo, empty and rotten.
Yöhopea is not surprised to see that Mesi's eyes don't meet Kuutamo's own, instead staring towards The Nest of Beast.
Yöhopea is not surprised when Kuutamo wakes her up with tears running down their face and their voice wavering.
Yöhopea hasn't been surprised in long time.
Mesi marches towards the sickly glowing Nest.
She can already feel Her in air. It's enchanting smell, that goes straight into her skull. Mesi deflects it, as she stares Her glow.
She comes, and cuts Her out of her. She won't survive. Maybe she neither.
Mesi is not going to die. But if it is the price she has to pay to kill Her, she will pay it. For her. For Viima.
Mesi hopes that the trees won't tell more of her secrets to Kuutamo.
Trees fall quiet around her and she presses her ears back, as she pushes through the invisible walls. Air starts slow down and grow heavy around her, and she can taste Her being, that drips from the trees, falling from the branches, lively like poisonous snakes. That same power falls through her fur and muscles, draining into her soul, welcoming her, oh how lovely that you returned, please never leave us again.
You'd stay, wouldn't you?
Then She swallows her, leaving only deep silence after Her. She continues in mute forest, towards Her cradle.
She can only feel deep thankfulness that mute can't speak.
She runs, only the moss under her paws. Her sense of smell is corrupted by the blood that runs down her face like a river. Every step is agony, that she can't escape, always in front of her non-existing eyes.
She doesn't see.
She doesn't see anything.
She feels still how Guard's teeth dig into her flesh, sinking into her soul and he rips it out, victoriously in this game they both are losing, in this cursed cycle of suffering.
Because even if she tried she failed.
She still lives.
It was not Kuutamo's intention to end up here.
She isn't supposed to ever get to these lands, now that she thinks about it. Mama had been clear when making sure none of them would ever have business this close to The Nest, but something led her here. Something that doesn't let her go of the feeling.
In the corner of her eyes she sees flash of cheekfurs, but when she turns there's no one.
The laughing birds keep leading her deeper into the forest. She should turn around.
She can't.
She peeks from behind the spruce, and the laughter quiets like secretive love suffocates, killed with sickening cruelty, that poisons everything.
Forest falls quiet like in The Nest of Beast. She steps carefully over the shrubs, her fur standing up. Even the awaited sound under her paw doesn't calm her. She can barely hear the birds hopping from branch to branch. Those keep their beaks shut, like they don't dare to make sound.
The air reeks of death.
She sneaks forward like possessed, balancing on too narrow edge of knife like her life is in line. She has no good reason to be here. Here where death is among the living in air, dancing around like a goddess, enchanting all who dare to gaze beyond her veil.
At that point Kuutamo realizes she hasn't heard the trees tell their tales. It's like they are standing guard, wordlessly witnessing something sacred. No one says a word.
She doesn't either, her tongue being tied. And the she sees it.
Lingonberries grow wildly around her, the branches turning towards ground from the heavy berries, ready to be reaped like barley. And mids of them all is a body, unknown, but she knows it. She knows it like one can know another, one's presence warming other and the spreading joy (and guilt, how she can live with that?)
Gnawed, hampered into the cycle of life far too soon. Empty for the next to come. Waiting for saving.
Waiting for savior, who never comes.
Waiting for someone to find her.
Kuutamo knew it. She knew it from the moment Mesi disappeared into the night, that they wouldn't meet again.
She wishes the world would've kept that bitter promise.
She falls in front of her, unable to keep the tears back. One drops on her bare skull, like sorrow would reach her even beyond death.
"Why didn't you listen to me?"
Mesi doesn't answer to her.
And trees stood quiet.