The dawn was breaking in the TranquilClan camp, but the cold nip of the air still seemed tangible in the soft breeze. It was early newleaf and the sun still remained behind the rising hills that surrounded the clan's camp. Only the amber glow of the sun's rays were able to be seen. Many of the clan cats were asleep, until a cat barreled into the leader's den. "Alligatorstar, come quick!" a white tom with black and grey speckles said sharply.
The leader, Alligatorstar, grumbled as she rose up from her nest. "What is it Flintblaze, it's quite early for commotion..." she yawned and stretched. Flintblaze paced around, flicking his tail for her to follow. "Please, father wants us, it's urgent." Suddenly Alligatorstar's eyes hardened and she nodded briskly. "Lead the way," she instructed, and her son was quick to scale down the massive tree that held the leader's den at the top.
They were quick-footed but silent as they slunk around camp until they finally arrived at the elder's den. Three more cats surrounded a nest, but soon made way for the leader and deputy. "What's happening?" Alligatorstar asked as she looked over to the other three cats. A soft chuckle was heard from the cat inside the nest and he looked at her with loving eyes.
"Oh Alligatorstar, calm down, it's nothing to make such a fuss about." Another cat, a white cat with a gray nose, hissed. "Nothing to make such a fuss about? You said you think your time is up!" Alligatorstar's eyes widened and she turned to her mate. "Thistlehaze...please tell me it's not true.." she breathed desperately. He looked down at the ground, let out a weak sigh, and looked back up at her with a reassured gaze.
"Yes, I believe it is my time to die," he said confidently. Flintblaze and his sister, Mothsplash, scooted closer together, feeling deeply saddened by their father's words. Another cat, a brown tabby she-cat named Duskfire, looked as if her world was evaporating right in front of her. The white she-cat with a gray nose, Dewcloud, looked angered and hurt at the same time. The last cat, Alligatorstar, looked utterly stunned and horrified.
"W-what? No...no that's not true!" she cried out. Thistlehaze smiled softly and nuzzled her with his muzzle. After a moment he looked to everyone else surrounding him. "Please...I just-" he was cut off by a sudden cough, to which Alligatorstar looked quickly at the white she-cat and barked out an order. "Dewcloud, go get some herbs for him!" Dewcloud began to leave, but was stopped by Thistlehaze.
"No! I do not need herbs wasted on me, just let me finish what I was saying." The others glanced at each other and eventually back at him. "I just want to lend you, all of you, a final word of advice," he stopped to ensure that they were listening.
"I want you to know that I'll always be here, no matter if in body or spirit. Learn that death is not always a bad thing, and that everyone has a time. I can feel that this just happens to be mine. When I'm gone, do not dwell on the grief that you feel, for I will always be with you in your memories, hearts, and eventually spirits when it is your time," he took a short break to cough, which turned into a chuckle-like sound. "Which I hope isn't soon for any of you..now that that is said...I hope you all know that I love you."
Thistlehaze turned to Alligatorstar. "Whether you be my mate..." then to Flintblaze, Mothsplash, and Duskfire, "Or kits," and finally to Dewcloud, "Or my apprentice and one of my best friends...I love you all." He gave them a sad smile and some of them returned it, some of them had to look away in anguish. In time, they started to approach him.
First was Flintblaze and Mothsplash. They looked sad, but were trying to hide it behind a smile. "We love you father...and we wish Duckpaw could be with us now." Thistlehaze smiled and waved his paw. "Oh I'll be seeing Duckpaw, don't you worry, and I know you'll both live great lives." He turned to Flintblaze and nudged him comfortingly with his head. "And you'll be a great leader, just like your mother, I know it."
They exchanged goodbyes and stepped back. The next was Duskfire to step up. "Thistlehaze...you were like a father to me, especially when mine..." her face contorted in disgust as she thought of Hawkshadow, her biological father. The dying tom saw this and his face softened. "I'm honored that you thought of me as a father, even if I wasn't your real one." She nodded and gave him a quick lick on the cheek. He purred and she backed away.
"Even he had a reason for what he did, and in some ways I can't blame him...we've all had hard lives," Thistlehaze thought momentarily about the dark brown tabby tom that had had a significant part in his life. The second to lastcat to pad up to him was Dewcloud. He could still sense that she was tense and angry at him, but he knew it stemmed from her care for him.
"Dewcloud...I'm sorry that your feelings couldn't be reciprocated...but you were truly the best apprentice I could have asked for, and I thank you for putting up with me," he smiled. She frowned but it soon faded away when her face scrunched up while trying to hold back a wail of sadness.
"Thistlehaze...you know I love you, but you were also my best friend, and...and I still care, I want you to know I still care about you even as a friend." He nodded in understanding and she touched her forehead to his. A few small whimpers slipped through her will as she did so.
Backing up, she let his mate greet him. Last but not least, Alligatorstar approached her dying mate. She tried hard to keep her composure, but he could always see past her. "In all honesty...it pains me to finally have to face this," he said as she sat down in front of him. She nodded slowly.
"Me too...I just..." she laughed softly, pain clear in her voice. "I can remember when you were a little kit and...when you fell and I helped you...Thistlehaze you need to know that even though it wasn't too long ago that we became mates, you were always in my heart, even if I didn't realize it." At that moment, his mask cracked for a second and his raw emotion showed. She leaned down into his shoulder and wailed. He closed his eyes and lied down, feeling comfort from all of his surviving family and friends around him.
As he closed his eyes, a thought flashed through his mind. "Smokeheart...Storm...Maplebreeze, Rootclaw, Duckpaw and everyone else...I'll finally be able to see you again." He let out a soft sigh of content, his mind was at peace. When he opened them, he found himself in an ethereal place. "Hello?" he called out. "Over here, young one," a familiar voice said.
He widened his eyes in shock. "Dawnwater! It's been forever!" he said, rushing over in happiness. He noticed that he could run properly, no longer having that small limp that he had for so long. Looking at himself, he looked younger and fitter all together. Dawnwater chuckled and nudged him playfully. "It's hard to believe I'm seeing you again after so long."
"Yes, well, everyone has a time," he responded. She chuckled and nodded. "It seems you've grown wiser, why don't we-" she stopped, which startled Thistlehaze. "What's wrong?" he asked. Dawnwater looked into the pool at their paws and focused. "Look into the pool, something is not right." He gazed into it and he, along with Dawnwater, seemed to be teleported down into TranquilClan.
They were there, but in spirit, not able to be seen or sensed by anyone else. What they saw was horrible. Alligatorstar didn't seem like herself, she was overcome with rage, slicing her claws along an apprentice. Shouts were heard, but Thistlehaze's attention was on his mate. Alligatorstar was tackled off by Duskfire and pinned down.
Blinded by rage, Alligatorstar slashed at her daughter, but was ended by a blow to the neck from Duskfire. She had been on her last life, and now she was completely out. He looked around and saw a dead apprentice near the one the leader had been attacking. The dead apprentice was being dragged away by Mothsplash while Flintblaze and Dewcloud hurried off to the medicine den with the injured one.
Though it was highly unlikely, he wished with everything that he had that Alligatorstar would show up, stars in her pelt, in Starclan. Alas, his hopes were effortless. Duskfire let out a caterwaul of grief and he saw Alligatorstar's spirit for a split second before it dissipated into the ground. Racked with grief, Thistlehaze raised up his head and wailed loudly.
Suddenly he was back in the starry woods of Starclan, and looked his gaze turned angered at Dawnwater. "Why! Why does this always happen to me! Why do I always have to make everything worst!" he yowled. Dawnwater's expression softened and she padded closer, trying to comfort him with her tail. "Thistlehaze...you may not know, but you don't always cause grief, you have caused happiness in many lives."
"Really? Name one instance where I have helped!" She gazed at him hard for a second. "You were a medicine cat, you helped many times, but you won't listen to me right now...I need to show you for you to understand." Before he could respond, she touched her nose to his head and it pounded hard. Images, memories, flashed before his eyes.
"You certainly have a good litter, Maplebreeze, FrondClan is lucky to have them," Dawnwater said, pointing to three little kits scurrying around the nursery. Maplebreeze chuckled and looked towards her kits. "I just hope they grow up ok...with Rootclaw always out on patrols it's hard for me to care for them all by myself." The medicine cat smiled. "I'm sure they will all be fine, I can feel it." They both looked over to the kits, who were dangerously close to the entrance of the nursery.
"Thistlekit watch out!" Maplebreeze called to her little runt kit. He was white with a blonde underbelly, one blue and one green eye, and it had recently been discovered that he was deaf in one ear. He turned to hear her better and lost his balance, falling out of the nursery tree. He landed with a thump and a crack was heard. His family and Dawnwater rushed to get him, but a little apprentice got there first.
"Alligatorpaw, get him to my den, now!" Dawnwater instructed.
Thistlehaze's vision blurred as another memory flew into his head.
"I can train as a warrior apprentice, even with my paw!" Thistlekit said to Dawnwater. He had been in the medicine den for one moon now as his paw was healing. He broke it and it had been healing slowly, but steadily. Dawnwater had told him that he would have a limp in that front paw for the rest of his life. Now he was the age of a warrior apprentice, and desperately wanted to be one.
"Smokeki-paw is already an apprentice!" he declared, leaving out his sister who had ran away from the clan after their father had died and their mother mysteriously disappeared. "Yes, well, Smokepaw didn't fall off a tree like you did." The tiny kit grumbled and looked her hard in the eyes. "I will become a warrior apprentice, I promise you!" he said. She smiled, interested by the determination in the kit. "Okay then, I will tell Lilystar that you are fit enough to become an apprentice, but before I do I will give you one tip."
He tilted his head in curiosity. "What?" She smiled and prodded his paw softly. "To make that stronger and the limp weaker, practice walking on it. Start with swimming in shallow water, it'll be easier to move it there, then start walking on dry land." Thistlekit widened his eyes and smiled widely. "Thanks Dawnwater, you're the best!" He said then scurried away.
A little bit later, he was indeed apprenticed to none other than the deputy, Alligatorsnap.
"Dawnwater...please..." Thistlehaze groaned, wanting the memories to stop.
"Come on Thistlepaw, I know you can do better than that!" a voice called out, dodging a sheathed attack from the heterochromic tom. He chuckled in return, "Oh I'm not so sure, with you mentoring me and all." For a moment, Alligatorsnap's focus was broken. "Hey!" she said, giving him time to leap in and pin her down. He purred and got off of her. "I'm just kidding, I owe all of what I know to you." His mentor got up and huffed, with a smile, "You're right about that."
"I think we're done for now, you can go," she said. He started to pad away, but was stopped before he could go to far. "Wait! I almost forgot, I have some news." Thistlepaw turned back to her and tilted his head. "What news?" She then rolled her eyes. "Well if you were quiet I could tell you." He promptly shut his mouth.
"I think you're ready to be a warrior." His eyes widened and he jumped up in joy. "Really? Oh that's amazing!" he said cheerfully. Alligatorsnap smiled back, "Well you passed all of your assessments, so I think its time." He nudged her playfully, while feeling his pelt heat up, and purred. "Thank you Alligatorsnap, you're really the best mentor I could have had."
"And you're the best apprentice I could have asked for, now go, I'm sure Dawnwater would be happy to hear about this!" His eyes lit up. "Dawnwater, yeah! See you later Alligatorsnap!" he called and sprinted back to camp. He padded back through the FrondClan territory and into camp, heading straight for the medicine den. Once inside, he called out, "Dawnwater!" As she was in there already, the medicine cat came out and smiled once she saw him.
"Thistlepaw! What brings you here?" She asked. He started smiling uncontrollably, "Well...Alligatorsnap said I'm ready to be a warrior!" Dawnwater's eyes widened. "Really? That's great! But..." her voice trailed off a bit. He stopped and gave her a confused look. "But what?" he asked, starting to feel a prick of worry.
"Well, Thistlepaw, I have noticed a lot about you in these past moons... mainly that you're a ripe candidate as a medicine cat apprentice." He was almost knocked back by the words. "M-medicine cat apprentice? But...but.."
"Yes I know that you're training to be a warrior, and that being a medicine cat means giving up a lot of indulgements , but come on Thistlepaw, you can't tell me that you don't enjoy when you help me. For Starclan's sake you helped me when you were stuck in here as a kit and then continued to help me when I asked and even when I didn't after you became a warrior apprentice. I'm not forcing you, I'd just like you to think about it."
He nodded slowly. He truly did enjoy helping her out, but he also thought back to one thing, Alligatorsnap. His heart ached when he thought about her, but Dawnwater was around the age that she should be training an apprentice, and he honestly did love helping her out.
"Okay, I'll do it," he finally said. Her eyes lit up in surprise. "Are you sure?" He looked at her, this time more confident, "Yes."
"Please, I don't want to go through this again..." His memory was in a new place now, farther away, in a newly-founded TranquilClan.
Thistlehaze was sorting through herbs, trying to see what he had to stock up on. "Dewpaw, we need some more feverfew, would you go and get some?" Dewpaw enthusiastically jumped up. "Yes sir!" she giggled and bounded out of the medicine den and off into the woods to get some. He smiled and looked over at Duskpaw. "Are you alright Duskpaw?" he asked, hoping the death of her sister wasn't going too hard on her.
She shrugged. "I guess, it's nice being down here with you," she said. He was glad, as one of Alligatorstar's kits, he was always happy to be around her. Thinking of Alligatorstar still made his heart ache painfully. She had seemed to move on. She got a mate- Hawkshadow -and they had had multiple litters of kits. Luck was not on their side though, as only two of their kits are alive out of the seven they have had.
Hawkshadow was a loyal warrior to FrondClan and now TranquilClan, but like Thistlehaze's own father Rootclaw, he was always caught up in his warrior duties. As more and more of the kits started to die off, Hawkshadow seemed to separate himself further and further from his mate. Speaking of which, Alligatorstar padded down into the medicine den.
"Thistlehaze! I came to check on Duskpaw, is she doing ok?" The tom looked over at his old mentor and felt happy and sad at the same time. Like her kits, he was always happy to see her, but much of the life seemed to have drain out of her after these many moons. He could never have pictured her like this when he was an apprentice.
"Yes I think so, she-" he was suddenly caught off by Hawkshadow, who stormed into the den angrily. "Alligatorstar, I won't stand for this anymore!" he yelled, padding up to her. Thistlehaze frowned and glared at him, but backed up slightly. Alligatorstar looked confused and turned to her mate. "What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? I mean you! I can't believe it's taken this long for me to see it, but now I do. It's your fault," He said, padding closer to her, to which she backed up. "My fault, for what?" she asked, confused. He growled. "For our kits, for their deaths, it's your fault. No matter what I try something always happens, I try to be a good father and it doesn't work, I isolate myself from them and that doesn't work. You're the only one constantly around them, so their death has to be linked to you!"
He continued to shout, pushing her closer and closer towards the edge of a pool inside the medicine den. Hawkshadow's eyes suddenly darkened. "And I'm going to fix that, so none of our other kits die." Before she could answer, Hawkshadow slashed his claws across her throat and rammed her into the pool. She flailed and tried to get to the surface, but it was impossible with her life bleeding away.
"No!" Thistlehaze yowled, leaping at the tom. Duskpaw quickly moved around the tumbling toms and into the pool, swimming for her mother. Thistlehaze pinned Hawkshadow down and sunk his fangs into his shoulder. Hawkshadow growled loudly and tried to push Thistlehaze off. Losing his balance, the white tom retreated backwards but held his claws down while doing so, giving his opponent a nice gash down his chest.
Hawkshadow scuffled to his paws and struck out at Thistlehaze, slicing him across the side. Thistlehaze gritted his teeth, trying to keep strong and remember his warrior techniques he had learned so long ago.
Out of the blue, Alligatorstar- who was up and healthy now after losing her life and filled with adrenaline -flew into the fray. Thistlehaze and her seemed to be a tornado of teeth and claws, battling Hawkshadow like it was a dance. Their movements melted into one another, aligned yet not patterned. After a few short moments, Hawkshadow was incapacitated.
"What are we going to do now?" Thistlehaze asked, panting. "We exile him," She replied with a hard, yet clearly depressed, voice.
The pounding in his head became too much, to which Thistlehaze let out a pained yowl.
"I can't do this anymore!" an exasperated voice shouted, looking desperately at Alligatorstar. "Thistlehaze...are you sure you want to do this?" she asked. "Yes! A thousand times yes! Dewcloud is more than capable of being the medicine cat and I love you Alligatorstar, and I can't let my duties hold me back anymore. I don't want to break the code, so I'm certain in my decision to resign from my medicine cat position to be with you!"
She smiled sadly, closer to him, burying her muzzle in his shoulder. "I love you too..."
It was finally over, the images faded and the white tom looked at his mentor with hurt eyes. "Dawnwater...all you showed me.." She nodded. "Yes, it might have been suffering, but good always came out of it. You feel out of the tree and permanently injured yourself, but you met Alligatorstar. You chose to be my apprentice but in turn saved plenty of lives throughout the moons. You gave away Alligatorstar's love to Hawkshadow, but in the end you two still ended up together. You must understand no matter what has hurt you, good can always come out of it."
"But..." He began to say until he slammed her paw down. "No, no buts! If you doubt it just look back at the good you have done. You saved Dewcloud from greencough as a kit, you helped a pregnant loner when everyone else wanted to throw her out, you fought tooth and claw to protect Alligatorstar from Hawkshadow, and I shouldn't even have to mention all the lives you prolonged from the bloody battles we faced!"
He sighed and straightened himself up. "Okay, so I guess I don't always cause things to go wrong...but that still doesn't change the fact that Alligatorstar is in the Dark Forest and I'm in Starclan. I'm never going to be able to see her again..." Dawnwater looked at him like he had two heads, then started shaking her head.
"If that's the problem, then you just need to listen to your own advice. Sure you may never see her again with your eyes, but you always have your memories, she will always be with you, to the end of time."