The Taste Of Pain: Shame
Berrynose padded quietly into the camp, carrying a mouse that he had stumbled upon just outside of the entrance. At least now it looked like he'd been hunting. That's what he'd been sent out to do in the first place. And then, that stupid thorn . . . Tabby fur, blue eyes . . .
No. he shook his head as if to clear the memory from his mind. What the hell was wrong with him? Birchfall was his clanmate, a fellow warrior . . . A tom. It was simply wrong . . .
"Just one skinny old mouse?" a voice came from beside him, "didn't Brambleclaw teach you about hunting?"
Berrynose's head jerked up in surprise. His eyes met with a flash of flame colored fur and emerald eyes. "F-Firestar . . ."
"Brambleclaw was my apprentice and my deputy, I know he taught you the proper techniques," the Thunderclan leader smiled, "Berrynose, is there anything you'd like to talk about?" He watched in amusement as the young warrior's eyes flashed with guilt at his words. "I'll listen."
The cream furred warrior blinked and bowed his head. How could he talk about something like this to his clan leader? Firestar had a mate and two kits. And everyone had heard the whispered story, told by the nosey Mousefur, of his love for Spottedleaf. Firestar was a perfectly normal tom cat . . .
"Umm . . .well, say this tom cat was . . .had feelings for another cat . . . But he feels that admitting these feelings is . . .shameful . . . What should he do?" Berrynose mewed quietly. He'd asked it in a hypothetical way, right? And he'd purposely left out the seconed cat's gender.
Firestar looked at him thoughtfully, "a love that you'd be ashamed of?" His eyes clouded in memories, "yes . . . That is a problem, isn't it . . ."
The look on his leader's face confused Berrynose, "Firestar . . . Have you ever had someone like that?"
The firey warrior smiled faintly, a forced smile, "I guess you could say that. A long time ago, I believed in the strength, power, and beauty of one cat. But, I could not ignore the darkness inside that cat's heart. It tore us apart, and eventually, that cat . . . Died . . ."
Berrynose stared at his leader. He had been sure the warrior was talking about Spottedleaf at first. But now . . .
"How'd that cat die? Did you . . ."
"No. Not by my claws. It was . . . I guess it might have been the will of Starclan."
Firestar closed his eyes as if trying to shut out the dark memory locked deep within him. His ears perked, and he raised his head as a cat entered the camp. "Ah . . . Birchfall's back." he flicked his tail at Berrynose, "Berrynose, I've seen more than my fair share of 'shameful love' in all it's forms in my lifetime. If there's one thing I can tell you, it's this. Great things can come . . .from listening to your heart . . ." he turned his back o the warrior and padded over towards the medicine cat den.
Berrynose watched him go, still the same amount of confused and angry as he had been before he'd asked his question. Listen to your heart? Bah, his heart wasn't doing anything but pounding like a thousand paws in his chest as Birchfall approached. That kind of pounding, it made him want to run away, not sit here and listen to it.
Birchfall glanced at him as he set his prey down onto the fresh kill pile. His blue eyes were full of regret and worry, and he quickly turned them away. "Mmm . . .I'm . . . sorry, Berrynose . . ."
The cream furred warrior's head jerked around towards the tabby. He was sorry? But it was hardly his fault . . . In fact, considering the situation, it was all Berrynose's fault. "Don't be stupid, I was the one who did it. I pushed you down, I . . ." he couldn't say anything else. "It was my fault."
"I provoked you," Birchfall whispered.
Berrynose stared at him. What was he saying?
I knew exactly what I was doing, what effect it might have on you . . ." the tabby mewed almost inaudibly.
The cream warrior's eyes widened. What was he saying? That couldn't be . . . He'd known what he was doing? That was . . .
"You can hate me if you want."
Berrynose blinked out of his thoughts. Hate? He could hate him? What kind of thing was that to say?
Birchfall backed away and raced out of camp. Berrynose stared after him. He didn't hate him . . . Did he? Wait, where had he run off to just now? They'd just gotten back from hunting. Berrynose stood up in realization. Birchfall had always been overly rash and quick to jump headlong into danger for no apparent reason. He ran out of the camp as fast as he could.
He picked up the tabby warriors sent easily enough, being less than a minute behind him. And the trail . . .
. . .Led right towards the Shadowclan border . . .
RANDOM AUTHOR RAMBLE.
Dun dun dun!!!! A cliff hanger. Wahahaha! Actually, it's not really a cliff hanger if you remember anything about Berry and Birch's relationship . . . Anywho . . . I realized I need to stop abbreviating titles of things. In the last chapter, I said DR. and then I got a question about what I meant by that. The first thing I thought of with those letters was the fanfic Diplomatic Relations. This of course, was the wrong answer.I had meant Dark River. Silly me . . . *headdesk* and that wasn't event the book I needed either.I neede Outcast for my research . . . (stupid) T3T
Anyways, I hope u like the story so far, cause I' not sure where I'm going with it. I debated for awhile whether Berry's encouragement in this chapter should be from Firestar, or from Ashfur. But I have no experience with AshSoot yet, so I decided against Ashy . . . Nah . . . Hey, if I made a warriors slash anthology Doujinshi, would anyone buy it? (hypothetically. I have been considering it for some time. The main pairing would be JayBreeze, and it would have stories I saved exclusively for doujins.)