Since I have to wait to check out Dawn to continue with Cursed, I came up with this short story to kill some time. I had an idea while reading Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights for the third time- what pairing seems the most like Catherine and Heathcliff? The answer came immediately. Spiderleg and Whitewing. But, since I planned on doing Spiderleg's story later, this will not apply to other stories I write, just like Jealousy does not apply to anything else I write. When I write this from Spiderleg's perspective, the story will probably be completely different. For those of you who wonder why some of the character's personalities are not consistent with the books, it's because they aren't. This is a warriors version of Wuthering Heights, which means I had to make Whitewing seem selfish like Catherine. I suggest reading the book to gain an understanding of this; plus it is a great book! And, please don't yell at me about Thornclaw being Whitewing's uncle. I still think that would have been a nice pairing. The part labeled chapter 5 & 6 have Eclipse spoilers. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors or Wuthering Heights.
Prologue
"Spiderleg, and I are inseparable. Our souls are one; If the whole forest were to be torn away again, but he remained, I would survive; but if he were killed, and the forest and ThunderClan were fine, then I would cease to exist."
Chapter 1
"What a strange relationship those two have," I murmured to myself, watching the two lively apprentices. Spiderpaw, with his glossy black fur and brown chest, was a stark contrast to Whitepaw, whose long fluffy white fur resembled a pretty puffy cloud rolling lazily across a new-leaf sky; indeed, her green eyes, the same as her mother's green eye, resembled very much the fresh buds of new-leaf. Spiderleg resembled, with all his dark fur and sharp amber eyes, an outcast, a gypsy, something strange and unusual and dark when standing next to the pretty, lively Whitepaw. He was so hot-headed, so arrogant. So like his father.
"What are you staring at, Thornclaw?" Squirrelflight meowed, padding up to me.
I turned my head, catching sight of the young warrior's flaming ginger pelt instantly. Seeing these young cats is just like growing up with the cats of my youth again, I mused. Squirrelflight looked and acted exactly like a young Fireheart.
"Greetings, Squirrelflight," I meowed politely, dipping my head. The impatient ginger she-cat didn't hesitate for formalities, her curiosity burning as much as her pelt.
"What were you looking at? You looked really thoughtful."
I hesitated before answering, my gaze running over the pair again swiftly. Jealousy sparked inside me, my honey-amber eyes raking over the pretty, young she-cat.
Too young, too young...she loves him. That's obvious. Still, the shine her coat gives off when the sun lights upon her fur...
Plus, I have to remember our somewhat distant relationship; I am her half-uncle. Not that that hasn't happened before; it's not that close of a relationship.
Squirrelflight fidgeted beside me. I gave her the answer she was seeking for. "I was just looking at our apprentices. They seem to be close, don't they?"
Squirrelflight blinked her large green eyes in surprise, turning to look at her former den-mates. "Yes, I suppose they are close. Do you think...?"
I shifted at the implications in her words, my jealousy growing by the moment. "Yes, I suppose they may become something more. They may already be more then friends."
Squirrelflight gasped. 'But they're only apprentices!"
I turned my hard eyes on her quickly, my gaze smoldering. "Do not forget, young Squirrelflight, that they are both a moon older then you are. Firestar only made you an apprentice before them because you proved yourself early. And, if I'm right, your young age isn't keeping you from thinking about taking a mate. Do not be so quick to judge; warriors should be fair and honest in all of their dealings."
The young she-cat quivered under my harsh gaze, slinking off after muttering, "Still, it's not right...I'm a warrior."
I sighed, turning my gaze back to the two. They were causing a cloud of dust, fighting playfully. I wonder why I jumped to their defense so quickly; I certainly didn't want them becoming mates. Something about Squirrelflight's condescending manner of her seniors in age but inferiors in rank just bothered me.
Trotting into the warriors den, I curled up and fell asleep. I would be spectacularly happy if Whitepaw showed any favor towards me; but I would not seek after the she-cat.
Just let her have what she wants. She deserves to be free, to take wing and fly.
Chapter 2
I pressed my soft belly to the forest floor, stifling a gasp as a loose bramble dug into my soft under-belly. I want to hear this.
I was hunting near the Sky Oak when the sounds of Spiderleg and Whitepaw approaching had reached my sensitive ears. The air had a crackle of tension to it, and now they were crouched among the giant tree's roots, face to face, and I was hiding under a bramble bush, spying.
"Spiderleg, what's wrong? You're acting really mean," she whimpered, voice confused. "Just because I shared tongues with Birchpaw instead of you today-"
A sharp, hurt-filled voice broke in. "It's not just that; you not only share tongues with him, you sleep next to him, you hunt with him, you train with him, you go on every patrol with him; where is there room for me in your schedule? Do we not even get to share tongues at sun-high anymore? Does my brother have to take that from me too?"
Through the criss-crossing branches, I saw the white apprentice's green eyes spark. "Well, we're the only two apprentices in ThunderClan; we share a den. What do you expect? Of course I'm becoming friends with your brother."
"Friends? Is that all there is between you two?" The black warrior's voice was sadistically desperate. I shivered from the hysterical edge in it. He really doesn't want to lose her.
There was a pause, in which some sort of deep, wild emotion passed between the two. Then Whitepaw took a step forward, pressing her muzzle to Spiderleg's chest. "You know you're the most important cat to me, ever," she mewed, "And, even if something does happen between Birchpaw and I, I will never leave you. We will be friends forever."
Spiderleg murmured something in return, but I had turned away, slipping like a snake through the underbrush, anywhere to get away from that tree. It was too hard to watch.
It's obvious what they have is more then friendship; It's even more then love. They act like the only thing sustaining them is the other...
Chapter 3
"Hey, Thornclaw!" Whitewing called cheerily. I turned and twitched my whiskers into a smile, joyous inside that she was paying attention to me.
"Hello, Whitewing," I meowed, liking the way her new name sounded on my tongue. Whitewing. How fitting.
She had just recently had her ceremony; it had been delayed for a long time as she recovered from the Great Journey and near starvation, and then their was only one other apprentice to take care of the elders. The addition of Daisy and her apprentice-aged kits only benefited the clan in that aspect; the whining queen got under my pelt constantly. Also, for some reason, Whitewing had been paying much more attention to me since the apprenticeship of her three kits. Of course, Spiderleg and Birchfall still took up most of her time, but I could still call myself her friend.
We sat beneath the highcliff, sharing tongues. Across the clearing, I could sense a sudden baleful glare; looking up in surprise, I saw Spiderleg turning his head and flouncing out of the thorn entrance.
Whitewing noticed, of course; she always noticed where Spiderleg was and what he was doing. Sighing, she mewed, "I'm not sure what's come over him..."
I knew; Whitewing had come over him. Whitewing and her increasingly diverted behavior.
Chapter 4
Brightheart sighed as she stared across the clearing to where her daughter lay, warming her glistening fur in the brightness of sun-high. Turning to look curiously at her, I meowed, "Is something wrong, Brightheart?"
The maimed she-cat glanced over at me with her good eye; I could remember, as I did now, with her scars facing away from me, what a pretty she-cat she used to be. Like her daughter.
"Well...I'm worried about Whitewing. We had a conversation earlier that bothered me..."
Flicking my tail comfortingly over my half-sister's shoulders, I meowed, "You can always confide in me, you know."
She blinked her good eye in gratitude. "Thank you, Thornclaw. I do need to tell some cat, and I can't tell Cloudtail...so, we were talking a few days ago in the warrior's den..."
The story went like this;
"It was evening, and as I was curled up alone in the warrior's den, Whitewing poked her head in, and meowed, "Are you alone, Brightheart?"
"Yes, dear," I replied.
She entered hesitantly and sat down beside me, her expression distraught. Her muzzle was parted, as if she were going to speak, so I waited for her to continue. Surprisingly, her first question was, "Where is Spiderleg?"
"On patrol, I believe," I answered.
It was only after I answered her that I noticed him curled up in a nest near the entrance; his glossy black fur blended in perfectly with the moss. However, I didn't think it really mattered, so I didn't correct myself.
"Oh, Brightheart!" she moaned, sinking to her belly beside me. "I'm very unhappy."
Surprised, and wanting to make her fell better, I stroked her back with my tail and asked "What's wrong?"
"Well...today, Birchfall asked me to be his mate, and I've given him an answer, but it worries me! Now, before I tell you if I said yes or no, tell me what it should have been," she confided
"Really, Whitewing, how can I know? I am not inside your head; how can I know if you love him?" I answered, very shocked with her talk.
"Well, I accepted him; tell me, was I wrong to do it?" she fretted.
From there I sensed Spiderleg shift. He must not be sleeping, after all. "Well, if you've accepted him already, what's the use of discussing it now? You've told him you'll be his mate; do you want to back out of that promise?
"Please, just tell me if I made the right decision!" Her voice was near desperation, so I humored her.
"Well, first, do you love Birchfall?"
She seemed irritated by my answer. "Well, of course I do."
"Why do you love him?
"I...I just do."
I sighed. "But why?"
"Well, because he is handsome, and nice to be with,"
"Bad," was my commentary.
"and because he is young, and cheerful, and a good hunter," Whitewing answered innocently. My ears twitched in confusion. What?
"And because he loves me!"
"Worst of all!"
Whitewing turned away from me petulantly. "How so?"
"Why, that's no reason at all to love a cat! You wouldn't love him if he loved you, but didn't have the former attractions, and if he had the first traits but not the last, you would definitely move on without a second thought to a more devoted tom! Whitewing, how foolish and young you are!"
The young she-cat's voice was strangely calm. "Yes, I guess you're right."
"And Birchfall will not always be young, and handsome, and a good hunter. Someday he will either get maimed or grow old; we are warriors, and this is the way of our lives."
My daughter flicked her tail dismissively. "But I care only for the present. With the future comes change."
My meow grew angry as she said this; Cloudtail still loved me, after all, when I was maimed. Would she move on from Birchfall is he received terrible scars like mine from some source?.
"Well then, if you mate only for the present, then agree to be his mate."
She blinked, oblivious to my pain. "I don't need your permission, Brightheart; I will mate with him; I only need you to tell me if I'm right."
"Perfectly right, if your reasons for mating are so shallow. It's a good match, and you say you love him; why are you so unhappy? Where is the obstacle? "
"Here and here," she cried, flicking her tail to her head, then her chest. "Wherever my soul is; because in my heart, and in my soul, I'm convinced I'm wrong!"
Now, by this, I was baffled. "Why ever would that be?"
"Well..." she meowed hesitantly, "I have a secret."
I waited patiently for her to expose this secret, as seemed her intention, but instead she blurted, "Oh Brightheart! How it would degrade me to mate with Spiderleg! He is always so harsh to every cat, and not a very talented hunter at all. I would not be proud to be his mate as I would to be Birchfall's."
As I reprimanded her for saying such a thing, I saw, through the corner of my eye, Spiderleg quietly stand and slip out. I knew Whitewing wouldn't have seen it.
"And so, Brightheart, Spiderleg will never know how I love him; and not because he is handsome, but because he's more myself then I am. Whatever souls are made out of, ours are the same, and Birchfall's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, as frost from fire."
"Hush!" I meowed suddenly, thinking, as this must be the secret she wished to keep from him, that he might overhear.
"Why?" she mewed, glancing nervously around. When I told her I thought I had heard Spiderleg at the door, but it had been only an apprentice walking past, she grew fearful.
"Oh, he can't have any ideas of my feelings! He can't know what love is, can he?"
"I don't see why not; and if you are his choice, he will soon be the most unfortunate cat here. As soon as you become Birchfall's mate, he'll lose love, friendship, and hope. Have you thought of how you will bear the separation?"
"Separation?" she scoffed, "And who is to separate us? Not any cat- a clan full of Birchfall's might be whisked away to StarClan before I can bear to be separated from Spiderleg." At my outraged look, she continued, "No, that's not what I meant...just, that Birchfall will just have to tolerate us always being together. They are brothers; they can get along well enough."
I blinked, feeling I did not understand entirely her feelings for Spiderleg. "How do you really feel about this tom?"
"Oh, mother...it must be a hundred times more then what you feel for Cloudtail. My greatest miseries in life have been Spiderleg's miseries; when his brothers and sister died, I mourned with such grief second only to him and his family; my great thought in living is him. Spiderleg, and I are inseparable. Our souls are one; If the whole forest were to be torn away again, but he remained, I would survive; but if he were killed, and the forest and ThunderClan were fine, then I would cease to exist. My love for Birchfall is like the trees in the forest; time will change it, as the seasons change the colors of the forest, as I'm well aware; but my love for Spiderleg is like the eternal rocks beneath, of little visible delight, but necessary. Brightheart, I am Spiderleg; he's always in my mind- not as a pleasure, but as my own being- so don't speak of our separation again. It is impossible."
Although I didn't like how she compared her relationship with Spiderleg to my relationship with Cloudtail, I thought it best not to pursue the conversation, and left her alone."
I sat back as Brightheart finished her story, several emotions raging inside me. Sadness, for her choice of Birchfall for a mate instead of me, relief, knowing I would have been no more to her then Birchfall if she had chosen me, and curiosity to her strange bond with Spiderleg. It was all quite a mystery to me, and I found myself glad that I had escaped whatever fate awaited Birchfall in the future of the mystery.
Chapter 5
I stared confusingly across the clearing at the two cats I saw there; Daisy, a creamy long-furred she-cat originally from the horse-place, who had escaped to ThunderClan when two-legs had threatened to steal her kits, and Spiderleg, the arrogant black and brown clanborn tom against mixed blood.
Daisy was looking at him lovingly, brushing against his pelt. He was looking away with a bemused expression on his face, letting her brush against his pelt.
Didn't see that one coming.
The two became mates rather quickly, and very unexpectedly, suspiciously soon after Brightheart told me her story. I could tell, from the gentle swell of Daisy's belly, that more half-clan kits would grace the ranks of ThunderClan soon.
Whitewing had treated the relationship with scorn at first, perhaps only I could tell. She Out rightly ignored Daisy, even when she was talking to Spiderleg or to the other queen's, and even teased Spiderleg once, blatantly, about never finding a she-cat that would be able to stand his temper.
She's in denial; but I can tell from the droop in her tail, from the irritated way her claws will sheathe and unsheathe into the ground every time she spots them together, that she realizes their relationship is real. Soon, she will grow tired of ignoring the fact that Spiderleg took a mate. She already agreed to be Birchfall's mate; I didn't doubt that she would be as showy as Daisy about their relationship. None of the she-cats of this generation were modest about their mates; they loved to show off and be openly affectionate. My mother never did that. I never even knew who my father was, or Brightheart's father. Frostfur, the pretty silver-white she-cat, was always modest about who she mated with. I could be half-clan for all I knew.
No. I pushed the thought away. My mother would never break the warrior code like that. My father was probably a brave, strong ThunderClan warrior. A large, muscular golden colored tom, like my coat...the image of a cat like that flashed in my mind, but I couldn't think of his name.
A movement caught my eye. Daisy was padding back to the nursery, Spiderleg slipping over to the highledge. Beneath it, lay Whitewing, eating a thrush daintily. They shared a few words, and the glossy black tom lied down beside her, rhythmically rasping his tongue across her ear.
It seems like nothing, not even mates, will keep those two apart. Whitewing was right after all.
Chapter 6
Confusion, fear, and panic lay like a smothering blanket over the clearing. The sun's mysterious disappearance, the battle in the wood's and everything else kept the air swarming with words. Of course, I noticed first thing getting back where Whitewing was. And, her first words after the the sun had reappeared were,
"Where's Spiderleg?!"
When Daisy had said good-bye to him before he left for the fight, he hadn't acknowledged her. What was with this tom? Did he love his mate or not?
Seeing the way he looked at Whitewing now, I thought not.
I was too busy to watch the mysteriously obsessed pair any longer. Too many things happening...so much fear...
What is happening to us?
This story is going to be very short, only two actual "chapters," pre-eclipse and post-eclipse. Look out for part 2 coming up soon!