“Do you feel that?” she asked.

“Hm?” Floodstrike seemed to only have just remembered she was there. “Feel what?”

“Like something’s watching us,” hissed Fogstalker secretively. 

Floodstrike took a moment to tilt his ears around, to breathe and observe the area before responding. “It’s probably those cats up there,” he said, nodding in the direction of the empty lot beside the twoleg den. Fogstalker looked and sure enough, there were a group of cats huddled in the lightly dusted snow, watching them approach. There were probably six or seven all together, some of them with notched ears. 

“Oh, maybe,” she said, but the answer didn’t feel right. She could have sworn the thing was behind her. 

“Let’s just keep walking,” he said, shivering in the cold. “They’re probably just hanging out there.” 

As they drew closer, the cats shifted uneasily, talking amongst themselves, although the sound was swallowed by the falling snow. After a moment, three of them got up and began moving to cut her and Floodstrike off. Floodstrike’s body tensed beside her, but she hopped a half step forward to try and meet them before he did. 

It wasn’t until they were close that she noticed something was off about them. 

They had varying pelt patterns -- a ginger tabby, a dingy-white-furred cat, and a dusty brown one -- but they all had a dark stain of grime from their chins to their chests, as if they had dipped their necks in filth. As far as she could tell, it was just dirt, maybe ‘oil’ like Ghost had told her about, but the sight of it made her feel dizzy and sick to her stomach for some reason. 

“Whatcha doin’?” asked the ginger tom, cocking his head to the side. He had a notched ear and a scar over his left eye that gave him a perpetual squint. “Goin’ out to wild territory in the middle of a snow storm?” 

“Yep,” said Fogstalker, trying to push through her discomfort and do her job. “Just heading back home. What about you?” She meant it in a friendly way but the gaggle of toms seemed to take it as some kind of threat. 

“They’re wild cats,” said the white one as if he’d caught them in a lie. The stain on his chest was the boldest of the three and Fogstalker tried to resist the grimace she wanted to make when she saw that it went all the way up to his gums, like he had opened his mouth in whatever substance he’d used to make it. 

“This one’s definitely the traitor’s little bastard,” said the dusty one, tail lashing. 

Fogstalker squinted in confusion. The traitor? Did they mean Ghost? Who had he betrayed? It took her way too long to realize they must have meant Sardine.

Luckily, Floodstrike was much quicker on the uptake. Before she had even finished processing, he was stepping in front of her with his tail arched in warning and saying, “We don’t want any trouble. Just leave us alone, alright?” 

“What if we want trouble?” sneered the white one. “You think of that, smart guy?” Floodstrike rolled his eyes a little, lip curling in unimpressed contempt. 

“I’m a mediator,” Fogstalker said, frightened despite herself. “We were here for, uh,” she tried to remember the word Scorch had taught her, “diplomatic purposes. We have a truce with the Speaker, you can’t attack us.” 

“The Speaker is dead,” declared the white cat, “long may he reign.” 

“Long may he reign,” the other two repeated in chorus. This was clearly something they’d said before and the way they said it sent shivers up her spine. They weren’t talking about Rudy, were they? No, she didn’t think so, and the implication there deeply unsettled her. 

Floodstrike let out an uneasy growl. “Don’t do something you’ll regret,” he warned, unsheathing his claws and puffing up his thin fur. The snow was coming down thicker now, big and fat and wet. It settled over their backs and added to the chill growing in Fogstalker’s bones. It created a bubble of sound, their voices stopping a few tail lengths away, no other sounds reaching them through the storm. It made her feel suddenly and intensely isolated. 

“I- I can’t fight!” Fogstalker hissed under her breath to Floodstrike. She was a mediator! She wasn’t supposed to lift a claw, even if she’d been trained to do so. 

The rogues looked at each other as if making a decision. The white one took a step forward and-

The second he moved, Floodstrike struck out and jabbed him right in the throat with the butt of his paw. The tom coughed violently and stumbled back and the others bristled furiously in shock. Floodstrike took advantage of the momentary pause and lunged for the next nearest cat, slashing out at the ginger tom’s eyes. He managed to draw blood on his brow and it dribbled into the tom’s eyes as he pulled back, blinking, a noise of disgust escaping his throat.

Floodstrike wasted no time in turning on the dusty one, snapping with his teeth at the tom’s throat. The rogue scrambled back with a frightened yelp and Floodstrike pursued him a step with a series of quick strikes from his paws. It became clear to Fogstalker that he was focused on keeping them back, away from her. 

The white one snarled, having caught his breath, and swept in with an overhead swipe. Floodstrike caught it out of the corner of his eye and spun around so that the swipe barely nicked his leg, then turned that momentum on his attacker and went for another jab to the throat. The white tom was prepared this time and fell back a half step, then lunged again, but Floodstrike didn’t fall back with the typical dance of a battle. He kept moving forward, head ducked, and the other tom crashed into him, being hit once again in the throat by the crown of Floodstrike’s head.

He choked and lost his footing, tumbling into the snow, and Floodstrike bore down on him with teeth and claws bared. He tore the cat’s ear in his teeth, raked his claws over the front of his neck and chest. The tom screamed and writhed beneath him, making shapes in the thick, wet snow. 

“Get off him!” the dusty tom cried in distress and reared up to bat at Floodstrike’s head and Floodstrike fell back, taking up a defensive stance just in front of Fogstalker. 

“I warned you,” he snapped, spitting out blood into the snow. “Back off.” 

“Fucking, savages!” the cat’s ears were pressed against his head and his tail bristling. “Just get out of here! Shit!” The white one was rolling to his feet, shaking blood from his dingy white pelt onto the stark white snow. 

The ginger tom growled in frustration and threw in, “Yeah, go back where you belong, degenerate scum.” 

Fogstalker was frozen for a moment as her brain caught up with what had happened. But Floodstrike interrupted with a, “Come on, let’s go,” which pulled her out of her stupor. 

“Yeah, okay.” She slank along beside him as they skirted the others and quickly trekked out into the snow. It wasn’t long before the rogues disappeared into the haze of the falling snow. 

“That was close,” Floodstrike grumbled. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help,” she said glumly. 

“It’s fine,” he flicked an ear to dismiss the apology. “You’re a mediator. I get it.” 

“You were amazing, though,” she brightened a bit. “That was so cool!” 

He chuckled bashfully and flicked his tail against her side. “Thanks. I did feel pretty cool.” 

“I love the throat punch!” she went on, bouncing in her steps now. “Just ‘cha!’ and bam!” She punched out a paw of her own and laughed, her steps wobbling so that she careened into him before bouncing back to her own path. He laughed and shook his head and that creeping sense of dread she had felt started to melt away.