Raven Catclaw's Arc

Chapter 7 of 12

The gray creature waited at the top of the far slope. The white fox stood beside it, tail low, watching Raven. They wanted her to follow. But the gray creature's ears kept flicking back. Its weight leaned toward the slope, ready to bolt. Raven saw it. One wrong move and it would run, and she would lose it again. She had cut this creature once. Why should it trust her now? She had nothing to show it she meant peace. "It's going to run," Raven said. "I can feel it. If I step closer, it goes." Whisper moved onto the weathered platform beside her. The wind pulled at his gray fur. He had climbed this whole ridge without complaint, though crowds and strangers frightened him. He spoke low, that deep voice steady under the wind. "Then don't chase it. Give it something first." "I don't have anything." Raven's claws dragged across the wooden boards. "No prey. No catmint. Nothing." Whisper was quiet a moment. Then he stepped in front of her. He reached into his fur and pulled out the small carved charm he always carried, a mother cat curled around her kit. His mother had left it to him. He set it on the boards between them. "My mother made peace with fear," he said. "She fed me when we had nothing. Take it. Show them you come the way she did." Raven stared at the charm. She could not carry a wooden trinket in her mouth to a wild animal and expect it to understand. But then she caught the scent rising off it. Whisper's scent, worked deep into the wood from years against his chest. Calm. Safe. The same scent on the handkerchief he had given her, tucked in her fur. She understood. She pulled the handkerchief free with her teeth. It smelled only of Whisper, of nothing that hunted. She crept toward the slope, slow, and laid the cloth on the ground halfway between herself and the gray creature. Then she backed away and sat. The fox sniffed first. It found no threat in the scent. It looked at the gray creature. The gray creature limped forward, nose low, and pressed its face into the folds of cloth. Its ears came up. Its weight shifted off the slope. It stopped leaning toward escape. Then it did what Raven had prayed it would not run from. It walked to her. It lay down at her paws, scarred shoulder against her leg, and breathed the borrowed scent of the cat who had climbed a mountain for her. Raven lowered her head over both of them. "You waited for me," she whispered. "Now show me where you sleep." The fox turned down the far slope. This time the gray creature walked at Raven's side, not ahead of her, leading her home.