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THE SUN WAS SETTING BELOW THE HORIZON, casting vivid streaks of color across the dimming sky. Clouds parted and were painted a darker tone of gray, the moon beginning to showcase itself amongst the skies image. Thunder crackled lightly in the distance, sparks of lightning following after in a brilliant, luminous flash of color. The breeze grew in strength and whisked away through the forest, trees losing their leaves in the process as their branches swayed to and fro vigorously.

Shadows from the towering trees shrunk in size as the sun disappeared below the horizon. Darkness devoured the crowded land and animals cowered away to their resting place for the night. Birds' charming, soothing melodies were replaced with the light songs of crickets and toads, the nocturnal entertainers at home with the change of day. Everything was serene yet a fragile presence, slightly broken by the form of an unknown creature pacing through the forest.

Its body was molded of stars almost as if constructed out of water and ice. It was a cat yet so chilling to the touch that it took the form of a predator, unharmful but an unrealistic, threatening presence. Its chocolate pelt was smooth as if never rustled by a thorn or shrub for centuries and littered with a ghostly touch as if ancestors had painted stars across its pelt with their claws. Its eyes were transculent, clearer than a fresh river cleansed of any murky presence. It was an appearance of perfection yet peril, racing through the forest with a set destination.

Finally, the starry form came to a halt before an immense tree. Its roots were erect from the ground as if pulled out by a monstrous, prodigious creature. Some of the roots came together around the undergrowth to form a cave-like site to which the ghostly cat seemed delighted and relieved to spot.

Inside of the formation was another cat yet everything about this one was realistic and original. Its black and white pelt was ragged and knotted and its side rose and fell with every steady, slow breath. The starry cat approaching was startled by the cough that shook the laying tom, his throat rumbling and muscles pulsing as it turned, knowing of the another's presence.

"Elkcall?" The black and white tom spoke with a hoarse, rough voice. "Your appearance seems duller than usual. Are you okay?"

Elkcall, the starry, chocolate tom, froze at his companion's words. He was hesitant and stumbling over his words at first until he finally managed to speak. "My Calling Time is approaching. Remember how I told you about that, Vince?"

Vince's ears folded back against the back of his head. He stifled back another cough and nodded. "You'll disappear forever.. I know," Vince sighed, glancing up at Elkcall with a frown plastered across his face. "It's vile that you'll just fade away like you were nothing. You had a family back in RidgeClan. I don't understand how I'm a loner and I comprehend better how messed up your Realms and Clans are for accepting this as your overall fate."

"I can't do anything about it, none of us Betweeners can," Elkcall mumbled, sitting before his friend. "We all deserve it though and you should understand that, Vince."

Vince grumbled and looked away, his stature rumbling with another cough. "You killed the cat who murdered your mate. You brought justice in the easiest, most fulfilling way possible and your Star Realm can't bare your actions? They've got bee hives for brains."

"I killed a cat. It's against our code to kill outside of battle, even if it is in the light of justice," Elkcall muttered, attempting to meet his friends gaze but Vince strayed away swiftly. "I accept that, Vince. What I did was wrong even if it wasn't in some other light. The Star Realm is very cautious about who they allow in-"

"And yet your Dark Realm believes you did no harm to walk amongst their filth and think about your actions," Vince growled, shaking his head in dismay. "Now your land is littered in Betweeners, some of which who don't deserve to just rot away like they are eventually going to. How do your Clans and your Realms think? They are so contradictory! So stale-brained!"

Elkcall winced at his friend's words. Somewhere inside his mind the idea of Vince being right buzzed and corrupted his original path of ideals. A part of him always believed that what he did was right yet the ambition and hunger for another's blood within the moment he murdered the tom for what he had done to Galeflower was haunting and inhumane to the minds of those who walked amongst the Star Realm. Perhaps Vince was correct but a loner and a Betweener had no word in changing how the Realms and the Clans lived.

"Lay with me, Elkcall," Vince told his friend softly, his lips curling into a light smile. "Let me tell you a tale I used to hear as a kittypet."

The starry tom was shocked by his companion's words. Usually, Elkcall laid in a seperate area completely from Vince since his presence brought an overwhelming, cold air that chilled Vince to the core. The suggestion danced around in Elkcall's mind for a few moments before the tom hesitantly moved and settled beside Vince, the tom shivering lightly in response.

"When I was a kittypet, all of my friends and littermates loved to speak tales to one another. Whether it was tales of ridiculous things we discovered our owners doing or even of one anothers' idiocy, we always had a great time doing so," Vince started, his pelt bristled as the cold air conquered his body. Elkcall parted his jaw to speak out of pure empathy for what he was causing, but Vince continued speaking. "One of the older cats within our Twolegplace had the most interesting tales. He told tales of the Twoleg Betweeners."

Elkcall's ears twitched and his clear eyes widened at the name. Twoleg Betweeners? Did Twolegs have similar realms and ideals compared to the Clans? His paws kneaded at the ground beneath him as he anxiously listened to Vince as the loner continued speaking.

"He told us stories of how he would see Twolegs he had never seen before walk his home. At first he believed they were simple guests but his owners never spectated them nor had any interactions towards them. Their bodies seemed transparent and their structures sometimes odd and blurry. Now, he never called them Twoleg Betweeners. None of us did. Us kittypets had no connection to ancestry or Realms like you Clan cats. We just... we just thought of it as some strange event," Vince explained, his gaze scanning over to Elkcall's. "But this wise fellow knew so much about the spirits. He watched them move. He could hear them lightly whisper incomprehensible terms. He watched them become one with his owners in their sleep."

Elkcall's eyes stretched wide in shock yet growing curiosity at Vince's words. "Become one with? What did he mean by that?"

"To become them. Overtake their body to their own needs and wants. Its like a refresh." Vince met Elkcall's gaze and held his stare, a sudden realization flooding over Elkcall as Vince continued. "A new revival."

"Vince..."

The loner exhaled and turned away from Elkcall, stifling yet another cough. "Elkcall, I'm sick. I feel so weak and stiff. While you've been gone, I've only attempted once to hunt and feed like you told me to do but it's so hard to do anything without my bones and muscles pleading out for mercy against the pain I'm inflicting upon them. I'm dying, Elkcall, but unlike you I have no chance for a revival."

"How do you even know those tales were true? Or that I can even perform what those Twoleg Betweeners did," Elkcall pointed out, his ears flattened and he examined his friends frozen, emotionless visage. "Plus... I could never use you like that. You're my friend, Vince."

"How do we know unless we try, Elkcall," Vince stammered in reply, coughing dryly afterwards. "I'd rather offer my life to revive yours than waste both of ours. You can return to the Clans. You can live, breathe, and hunt again. You can finally run and feel the wind tear through your fur as you attempt to dodge all the obstacles before you. You can do so much more instead of just meaninglessly drifting and fading away. Plus, you can remember me and all of our times together longer and that is all that matters to me."

Elkcall felt the first ounce of pain he had in moons. It felt like a thorn searing through his chest and rupturing all his veins on its path. He was emotionally distraught and torn at Vince's words, the first poisonous, perilous taste of agony he had witnessed since the day he became a Betweener. Vince seemed unaffected by his own words, the tom believing it was the most fulfilling path for the both of them to trek upon.

"I can't, Vince," Elkcall managed to breathe out, shaking his head with a sense of urgency. "There is nothing right about-"

"If you had the opportunity to give a life you were going to lose in a quarter moon anyway to your kin, your friends, perhaps even Galeflower, would you take it?"

Silence rippled between the two. The chirps of crickets seemed to pause as if they sensed the tension stiffening in the cold air. Emotions sparked between the two friends; feelings of love, regret, sorrow, and even a hint of anger. The reality of the world around them ceased the moment Vince asked his terrifying, agonizing question and now it was only a world built around them. Two cats on the edge of their own world, powerless and in pain.

"What if-"

"My body is still ill when you overtake it? As I said, we will never know until we try," Vince retorted.

Elkcall sighed and glanced over to Vince, the sickly tom grinning in response. The affection shared between the two friends made Elkcall's heart ache when he processed the reality of what could possibly happen. Vince was giving up a few more days of his life to ensure moons of just memories between the two and his ideal made Elkcall tremulous with anxiety.

"Vince.. are you sure?"

"I've never been so sure of anything my entire life," Vince mumbled to Elkcall in a soothing, assuring tone. "Now, let me sleep my friend. Just remember all I've ever told you."

Elkcall watched sorrowfully as Vince slowly turned his head away and shut his eyes. "Goodnight Vince, I'll always remember you," He whispered to his friend, shuffling closer to him.

"I'd hope so," Vince chuckled softly, his head rested on his paws.

Elkcall watched as his friend lay there, still shivering from the cold air his starry form produced around them. His ears were pinned against the back of his head and melancholy tore at his heart. Any moment now, his friend would fall into a deep slumber and awake for his spirit to be no more but for Elkcall's to exist within it instead. It was still a ridiculous kit tale to Elkcall's ears, foolish and presumably only one kits and elders told to chuckle at while sharing tongues, but Elkcall's reality had so many secrets and tales exaggerated and untold that he never knew what to truly believe.

He lay next to his friend, one breathing and the other still yet somehow they were both alive in a tale to start a disaster..