Willow woke up, in her tree. Winter was leaving the forest, and flowers were beginning to come back to the trees and ground. Willow stretched, and leaped out of her tree. She saw a baby sapling sprouting out of the ground, Willow walked over to it, other plants were crowding it, blocking the sunlight, it would dye soon. Willow put her paw to it, letting the powers the universe gave her, flow through her, after a second, the sapling grew slowly, growing branches and one hundred times the speed of any tree growing normally. When the tree was almost half the size of Willow, she took her paw off. The tree waved its leaves in thanks. A thousand years ago, the universe gave her the powers to grow plants, and protect forests. After humans settled by Willow, her job got harder, with the humans building houses out of trees, they weren’t living in the holes of trees, they were cutting them down, killing the trees, only to make a house that they would knock down in a year or so. Willow could feel the trees when the humans cut them down, she could hear them screaming, and she could feel their pain. After that, it had gotten even worse. The humans gorged a hole straight through the forest, cutting down trees, just to throw them away, just to put ugly, black tar down where they cut down the trees. It smelled horrible. Bright sunlight interrupted the calm quiet of the woods. At night, Willow could barely sleep due to the noise of humans traveling on the tar. She moved deeper into the woods, there was less of it, ever since the humans decided they needed to cut down trees to live. The woods used to cover everywhere Willow could ever go, now, she was confined to the shrinking area of forest the humans hadn’t cut down yet. Willow lived alone, in a tree next to a clearing, at night she liked to look at the stars. Sometimes a cat came and stayed with her for a week or so, Willow enjoyed the company. Once, a tabby mother of two kits was lost in the forest. Willow watched them from a bush. She was walking around, clearly, she was looking which way to go. One of her kits climbed up a tree. He scrambled onto a low branch, but the branch was still pretty high. The mother didn’t seem to see that one of her kits were missing. Then a big gust of wind blew through the forest, and the kit on the tree slipped and fell. Willow raced out of the bush, and caught the kit before he hit the ground. The mother whipped her head around, clearly surprised that one of her kits almost died. “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” She yelled at him. The kit’s ears were timid, and he looked sorry. “I’m sorry.” He said, “I didn’t mean to.” The mother turned to Willow, “Thank you so much for saving him, some cats just can’t behave. I’m Sarah by the way.” She said. Willow saw the kit sulking behind her, the other kit trying to comfort him. “Um, I’m Willow.” Willow told her. “If you need a place to stay you could come with me. It is getting dark.” After she said that, Sarah looked up, seeing the stars appear as the sun went down. “Ok, come on, Clyde, Lola.” The kits stood up and followed their mother as Willow lead the way. Soon they got to the clearing. “Sleep where you want, just don’t sleep in a tree.” Willow joked, glancing at Clyde. He rolled his eyes. “Come one, go over to that bush, I’ll meet you over there.” Sarah told her kits. “How long have you lived here?” She asked. Willow looked down, not wanting to give away her real age, but Sarah seemed friendly enough, and Willow felt like she needed to share. “About a thousand years.” Willow admitted. “WHAT?” Sarah screamed, scaring a few birds out of their trees. “Huh? What?” Said a voice sleepily from the bush. Willow looked down at her paws, embarrassed. “I’m sorry I screamed like that.” Sarah said. “But how? You look seven years old.” “Yeah, about that…” Willow started, “MOM! LOLA STEPPED ON MY PAW!!!!” A voice yelled from the bush.
“Oh, so sorry about this,” Sarah said as she ran towards her kits. Willow sighed and went into her tree and fell asleep. Willow woke up, the first rays of daybreak were shining through the leafy canopy. Willow jumped down to the ground. She walked over to the bush where Sarah and her kits slept last night, hoping to finish their conversation. Willow stopped outside the bush. “Hey Sarah?” She asked, after a few seconds of nothing, she repeated, “Sarah?” When she didn’t respond, Willow looked into the bush, they were gone. Willow sighed. I thought I found a friend, she thought, but it was just another lie. She walked back to her tree, and laid down, she felt a few dyeing plants, but she was too sad to care. A bird even flew into her tree, but she was to sad to see it. Only once Willow looked up, and through the haze of tears she thought she saw Sarah, and thought she heard her calling her name, but she looked down again, knowing it was a hallucination. When day turned into night, Willow looked up into the stary sky, she thought she saw Sarah’s face in the stars, but when she blinked, it was gone, and Willow fell into a troubled sleep. Willow woke up to mewling outside her tree, “Hello?” The voice mewed, “Is anyone there?” Willow got up, and looked outside, she saw a tiny, mewling kit. She was sitting in the direct middle of the clearing. Willow leaped out of her tree, and walked to the kit. The kit turned toward her. “Hello? Are you my mommy?” Willow felt bad for this kit, who she had never seen in her life. “Where did you last see your mommy?” Willow asked. “I don’t know! I don’t remember anything!” The kit said. “Well, what’s your name?” Willow questioned, trying to stay calm. “I don’t know!” The kit screamed, “I don’t remember!” Now they were crying. Willow breathed, trying to calm herself. “Well, how about I call you Dandelion for now, ok? And if you want, I could be your mommy.” Willow suggested. The kit sniffed and wiped her eyes. “O-ok, I guess.” Dandelion said. “I do remember one thing though.” She walked over to a dyeing plant, touched her paw to it, and after a second, the plant started to grow, after about a minute, a blue flower bud appeared, and opened into a beautiful flower. Willow’s eyes opened wide. The universe must have sent her to me. Willow thought, it is about time for another forest guardian. As Willow thought about it, she didn’t remember anything before her mother found her, Willow couldn’t remember her name, it had been around 1000 years to be fair. “Come one, are you hungry?” Willow asked. Dandelion nodded eagerly. Willow never really felt hungry, being immortal and all. Willow led Dandelion down to the stream, looking for fish or frogs. Willow crouched on the edge of the water, and Dandelion did the same. When Willow saw a fish coming, she thrust her paw out into the water, claws out, and snagged the fish. Dandelion watched closely, and when a fish came under her, she thrust her paw into the water, claws not unsheathed, and only bopped the fish on the head. She grunted in anger. “Ok, good speed, just make sure your claws are out, ok?” Willow advised. “Okaaaay, fiiiiiine.” Dandelion replied. A minute later, another fish came by, this time she had her claws out, and dashed her paw into the water, she fell in, but came out a second later with a fish in her jaws. “I got it!” She said. “Good!” Willow said, “Now you can eat it!” Dandelion bit into the fish fiercely. Willow laughed and bit into hers, less fiercely. Willow couldn’t remember the last time she laughed. Maybe it was 230 years ago when that funny loner came to stay during a thunderstorm. Still, Willow was happy to smile again. After the next few days, Willow grew happier and happier, until she almost forgot about Sarah. Until she appeared again. Willow heard a rustling at night, Dandelion was sleeping, when Willow looked out of the tree hole, she saw three cats, one, the biggest, leading the way, and the other two were only a little bigger then Dandelion. They were trying to be stealthy, but Willow could still hear the big one whispering to the kits. THERE IS MORE INSIDE THE PROJECT you have to wident the "comment" (i think i did too much XD)
