Who Stole The Moon?

20251107

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Cat was getting tired of this. Fifth night in a row where the moon didn’t rise, and she had to go find it! Stalking about in pitch darkness wasn’t fun at all.
This time, she wasn’t just going to find the moon - she was going to get to the bottom of this.
First she questioned the “usual suspects” - Magpie, Crow, and Raven. They were thieves, they liked shiny things, they could fly high, and being day-birds they wouldn’t respect how important the moon was.
“The wot?”
“The moon!” Cat repeated, her tail twitching in barely-contained annoyance. “Surely you’ve noticed it’s gone?”
The daft birds peered at her and then at each other. Heads cocking and feet shifting.
“It sounds familiar.” Raven said slowly. “Have we stolen it before?”
“Familiar??” Cat squinted at them.
For what it was worth (not much, with these three!) the group seemed sincerely puzzled.
“I don’t remember it.” Magpie scoffed. “So it can’t be important.”
“It is important!” Cat hissed. “It’s the nighttime sun!”
“I’d definitely remember a sun which comes out at night.” Magpie said dubiously, and Crow cawed agreement.
Raven bobbed his head, his eyes half-closed. Cat thought he was agreeing with his foolish siblings, and had turned away in disgust, when suddenly he spoke again. “I don’t remember such a thing. But… I remember nights where I could see. Hm.”
Though Cat waited, he didn’t say anything more. Just sat thinking. So she turned her back again and stalked deeper into the forest.
This was now a mystery beyond just moon-theft. Time to bother Owl.
“The moon! The mooooon!” Owl hooted. “I knew something was missing. However didn’t I notice?”
Cat scoffed “The silly day-birds have forgotten it existed at all.”
“Curious.” Owl mused. “Have you asked Fox? Perhaps he’s scheming again.”
So they looked for Fox, and found him digging in dry leaves.
“I can smell it, they must’ve put it somewhere around here…”
“The moon?” Cat guessed.
“Ah!” Fox pulled his head out of the hole and squinted at her. “Did you hide it?”
“As if! I thought you had.”
“Oh. No.” Fox sneezed out dirt. “I could get it down off its perch easy enough, but taking everyone’s memories? Tricky. Fiddly. I’d need a good reason.”
Owl spoke from her perch above them. “You rarely need good reasons to do things.”
“I do! Good for me. And fun is good.” Fox flashed a grin then turned back to the hole. “This isn’t fun, though, it’s annoying. I’ll roll the moon back where it belongs. You two hide and follow me. See if you can catch anyone.”
Though suspicious (this was Fox, after all), Cat agreed and slunk into the bushes to lay in wait.
“Probably Man.” Owl grumbled. “Always causing trouble!”
“No.” Cat said confidently. “Man would take the moon home and put it in a box.”
She settled, silent and alert, and Fox resumed digging. Before long he had the moon in his paws and was rolling it up the hill.
Cat didn’t hear anything. She couldn’t smell anyone. But she was certain someone was there, wrapped in power, hiding.
Her tail twitched. Her whiskers wiggled. Her ears strained.
Ahaha.
Butt wiggle… butt wiggle…
POUNCE!
Jay squawked and thrashed and smacked Cat in the face with both wings, managing to get loose for just a moment before Owl dropped on him.
“You!” Cat hissed. “I should’ve known, when you weren’t with your siblings. What do you want with the moon, day-bird?”
“If I wanted it, I wouldn’t just bury it.” Jay said reasonably. As if he wasn’t being dangled upside-down by an annoyed owl over an irate cat. “But Wolf was being mean and won’t apologise, so I decided until he does, he doesn’t get to enjoy the moon.”
“Ugh! So petty!” Said Cat, who would never do such a thing. Unless the other person truly deserved it, of course. “While Wolf might love the moon, some of us need it. Selfish day-bird.”
“Alright, alright! I’m sorry.”
They both knew he wasn’t, but he did at least look to have learned his lesson.
Cat stretched up and warningly boxed his face. “Fox is going to put the moon back. And you’re going to let everyone’s memories of it out of wherever you’ve stashed them. And I’m finally going to have a proper prowl. And if I catch you doing this again…!”
“You won’t! You won’t! I’ll find some other way to make Wolf sorry.”
“Good. Just don’t make it my problem.”
Satisfied, Cat slipped through the underbrush towards her favourite prowling field. She was overdue playing with Mouse.

Prompt was “Every night, someone steals the moon from the sky, and you’re the only one who remembers it was ever there.”