The Hidden Mountain Pass

"YEEAAWWWW!"

The cry bellowed out and echoed between the sides of the pass. Your head jerked up in time to see the brilliantly coloured Tigon dive from the top of the peak straight at you. Your eyes still on his rapidly approaching form, you step back onto a small rock, stumble, and land on your bottom. The winged feline lands gracefully nearby on his large paws.

He takes a moment to lick a paw, and then runs his claws through his mane, shaking it out. With a big grin he saunters over to you and holds out a paw, "Need help?"

You roll your eyes, but take his offered paw, and he helps you get back on your feet.

"I'm Festive Cumulus," he says with a bow. This guy was a real joker, maybe all the colours of his fur got to his brain. But you had to admit he was quite a sight, an explosion of Christmas colour.

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..."

The two of you pause at the strange sound. Sort of like some kind of enormous insect.

"Snork...smacksmack.

The male tigon crouches low and sneaks up on a bush. Without warning, he pounces with a resulting "Ack!"

A red female pounces back, they tussle for a bit, and it ends with Festive Cumulus pinned to the ground. The female snarls, "Will. You. Stop. Doing. That.

"Oh, hello," she adds when she sees you. "I'm Sun Spot." You realize that the strange sounds had been her snores.

A giggle draws your attention of a blue female with a bright yellow mane. Her coat seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. She shakes her head at the silliness of the other two and says, "Don't mind them, Cumy is always fooling around and Spot tends to get frustrated with him." The red female snorts, then licks her paw. The male just grins goofily, quite proud of being the fool, after all, wasn't life for having fun? The blue female continued, "I am Bright Skies."

"And if you look very carefully, there in the shadows, you will see Black Thunder. Though she has quite the terrifying name, she's really very shy and tends to hide when strangers are about." Indeed, if you looked very carefully where bright skies had indicated, you could make out the bright blue eyes of a small Skydance Tigon.

As you approached her, she shrunk back further. Rather than force her to do something she didn't want to do, you backed off and talked to the others. By the time you were ready to leave you were pleased to see that she'd crawled out of her hiding place and was watching you from a distance.