Disclaimer: I, KatieK101, do not own Warriors. If I did then SkyClan would've had their own freakin' arc, like, two years ago. Furthermore, this fic should not be considered canon past the events of 'SkyClan and the Stranger'.
Special thanks to InkblotLeaf for creating this beautiful cover art! You're a gem!
Chapter Seven - They Don't Warn You About Your Friends
Plumwillow's heart hammered in her chest in rhythm as her paws pounded against the sandstone paths. She raced to put as much distance between her and Honeyflower as possible. She lied to me, she thought, again and again. How long have she and Rockshade had feelings for each other?
A few days, or a few moons?
It didn't matter. Honeyflower - her very best friend - was in love with the tom that she was in love with, who she'd been in love with ever since she was an apprentice, and she never even knew. I told her everything, Plumwillow thought, as the wind stung her eyes. She knew how I felt about him, and she lied to me. She lied she lied she lied-
Plumwillow knew she looked like a fox in a fit when she burst into camp, panting for breath as a sob clawed her my throat, but she didn't care. I just want to lay in my nest, wake up and realize that this was all just a nightmare. She wanted to believe that Honeyflower was honest, that Rockshade loved her, and her seemingly perfect life wasn't shattering right in front of her eyes.
"Finally," Nettlesplash meowed when he noticed his sister. "Where's my moss?"
Rabbitleap immediately noticed that something was wrong. He stared at Plumwillow with concern brimming in his amber eyes, and Creekfeather jumped to his paws and pressed his pelt against hers in a display of comfort, but she shook them off - I just want to curl up in my nest.
"Hey!" Nettlesplash called when she shoved past him, running towards the Warriors' Den. She didn't call out an apology, and she didn't slow down until she reached the den. Thankfully it was empty, and Plumwillow immediately curled up in her nest. Only then did she allow tears to roll freely down her face, and once they started she couldn't make them stop. She cried until she sobbed, and she sobbed until she couldn't breathe.
Why why why why didn't she tell me?!
"Plumwillow!" a new voice exclaimed, and the she-cat could have groaned with dread; she didn't want any of her Clanmates to see her like this. "I've been searching all over for you! Have you heard what your bird-brained brother did to me?!"
As soon as she lifted her head, Tinycloud trailed off. The small white she-cat was drenched from head-to-tail, and Plumwillow vaguely recalled that Creekfeather had shoved her into the river after she complained about the heat. Typically Plumwillow would have endured Tinycloud's rant and nodded along sympathetically, but now it took everything in her to control her shaky breath and whisper, "I'm not in the mood, Tinycloud."
Tinycloud rushed to her side. "What happened?" she demanded. "Did Creekfeather get you too? Frecklewish," she suddenly called, "he got Plumwillow too! Hurry!"
"No no no-" Plumwillow begged and hid her face in her paws, "don't call anyone else!"
Frecklewish strolled into the den with a mouthful of herbs. "I wasn't sure what to bring so I came prepared." She admitted as she put down her load, " Creekfeather has really been testing mine and Echosong's skill today!" She sounded exhausted, and typically Plumwillow would have offered to help her tend to the patients, but now she just wanted to be alone.
"Please just leave," she whispered, refusing to look at either of her friends. "Creekfeather didn't hurt me, it was-" she nearly choked on her name: Honeyflower.
Tinycloud nuzzled the top of her head. "Then who did hurt you?" she asked. "You never cry, Plumwillow! What happened?"
"You can tell us anything," Frecklewish added. "You know that."
Plumwillow knew she could trust them, but she didn't trust herself to get the words out without having a breakdown. But when she raised her gaze to meet her friends, their eyes so soft with concern, Plumwillow melted. "It's Honeyflower," she whimpered.
Frecklewish's ears flicked forward. "Something happened to Honeyflower? Is she alright?"
Plumwillow shook her head. "She- she-" her voice trembled violently, and she inhaled a breath to soothe her frazzled nerves. "Outside camp, I went looking for moss and I heard her voice, so I followed it, and- and I watched her and Rockshade-" deep breath in, deep breath out, "cuddle and flirt and-" finally her voice gave way and a sob escaped her maw. "And they're together, and Honeyflower knows better than anyone how much I love him, and they're together and she lied to me!"
Plumwillow expected gasps of shock and cries of outrage; how dare she! How could she?! She knew how much he meant to you!
Instead, Plumwillow was greeted with silence.
The gray she-cat raised her gaze again, but now her friends' eyes weren't soft with concern; they were dark with something else entirely: guilt.
"You knew," Plumwillow breathed. As soon as the accusation left her lips she knew that she was right.
Tinycloud and Frecklewish exchanged pained glances, and then Tinycloud softly meowed, "Plumwillow, we didn't want you to get hurt-"
"How long?" She interrupted Tinycloud, voice hollow.
Frecklewish shuffled her paws awkwardly. "About a moon," she admitted.
It felt like someone kicked her in the gut and knocked the air out of her lungs. "You've known about this for a moon, and no one bothered to tell me?!" She demanded. "What kind of friends are you?!"
Tinycloud shook her head. "Honeyflower begged us not to tell you; she wanted to tell you herself, she just didn't know how."
"All those times we sat around and gossiped about toms," Plumwillow started, her voice steadily picking up volume. "All those times you told Honeyflower she should chase Bouncefire so that we could all be kin; all those times you told me that we would have the most adorable kits; all those times you lied to my face," she hissed.
"It wasn't our place to tell you!" Tinycloud protested.
"You're my friends! Of course it was your place!"
"We're Honeyflower's friends too, though," Frecklewish meowed softly. She tried to lick her shoulder, but Plumwillow shook her off.
"No," she growled. "You're only Honeyflower's friends. Clearly, my friendship meant nothing to any of you."
Tinycloud and Frecklewish tried to argue but Plumwillow paid them no attention. She'd already heard enough, and righteous indignation gave her the strength to pull herself together and storm out of the den, into the twilight air.
She stole a glance to the left, then the right, and then charged down the sandstone path. She needed time to be alone and process her thoughts. Our mentors always told us to never trust an enemy, she thought as she ran. They never warned us about our friends.
Creekfeather wasn't the most responsible warrior, or the most dependable, or the most disciplined, but sometimes he knew his littermates better than they knew themselves.
When the sun fell and rose again, and there still wasn't sign of Plumwillow, Creekfeather wasn't worried about her; she was capable and emotional and she would return to camp once she pulled herself together.
When Plumwillow did finally return, she was dragging her paws and glaring bitterly at the sandstone with bloodshot eyes. Creekfeather sat at the camp entrance and patiently waited for her.
She noticed him and asked, "how long have you sat here?"
He replied, "don't worry about it. You okay?"
Plumwillow shrugged. "Not really. I thought I would finally face everyone and maybe join a patrol; try to make it up to the Clan for running away and worrying them."
"Forget about them," Creekfeather dismissed, and that caught her attention. "Let's go find a sunny spot and gossip about everyone."
A shaky smile tugged at her lips. "Yes, please."
Creekfeather knew a spot where they wouldn't be interrupted and - how thoughtful of him - he already had a squirrel waiting for her. Squirrels were her favorite.
"Did you know Shrewtooth has like, the biggest crush on Ebonyclaw?" Plumwillow asked as she pulled the squirrel towards her.
Creekfeather froze just as he found a sunny spot to lay across. "... really? That's sad."
"No it isn't! It's sweet."
He shook his head. "You don't actually think Shrewtooth has a chance with her, right? Ebonyclaw is too perfect for any tom - well, except for me, but I'm not really a fan of green eyes."
Plumwillow narrowed her green eyes. "Gee, thanks." She took a bite of her squirrel. "You really don't think they would work out?"
"I mean, Shrewtooth can dream all he wants, but… yeah, he has about a much of shot with Ebonyclaw as Mintfur has with Rabbitleap."
"Oh, I meant to ask you about that-!"
Creekfeather looked at his sister in disbelief. "Now you're just talking out of your head. There's no way-"
"Just hear me out! What if the reason they constantly argue is because of pent-up sexual tension?"
Creekfeather burst into laughter. "Number one, eww. Number two, you're delusional. Mintfur isn't a normal cat. She's half-cat, half-rabid fox. I don't think she's even capable of falling in love. And Rabbitleap is just…" he shook his head, "Rabbitleap."
Plumwillow shrugged. "You have a point there. For the record though, I think Rabbitleap will make some she-cat very happy one day."
The gray tabby snorted. "Sure, once he pulls that icicle out of his-"
"Creekfeather!"
"Sparrowpelt is pretty upset about his situation," Plumwillow remarked.
"I bet. It would be such a bummer to get an apprentice, train her for a couple of days, and then be confined to the Medicine Cats' Den for- how long?"
"I think Frecklewish told me it was a moon."
"Did she say what happened to him?"
Plumwillow frowned. "Yeah, but it's weird. She said that a beehive fell from the sky and landed on him?"
Creekfeather coughed, and when Plumwillow looked at him curiously he mumbled, "Hairball. Um, you don't believe her, right? That's crazy. Beehives don't just fall from the sky!"
"But he was stung all over his body."
"Details details," he waved his tail dismissively.
"So, I heard you nearly killed half the Clan."
Creekfeather huffed. "Something like that."
"What are you going to do to get back into everyone's' good graces?"
"I'm still working on that." He rolled onto his back and tipped his head back at her. "Any bright ideas?"
Plumwillow whiskers twitched thoughtfully. "Nothing specific, no, but I think all it'll take is for you to prove that you're responsible."
"Sooo I need to mentor my own apprentice?"
"Great StarClan no, Rabbitleap would die."
She couldn't avoid the topic forever. "So I guess everyone already knows what happened?"
Creekfeather nodded. "You know how the Clan is; gossip spreads like wildfire."
"Can't say I'm surprised."
"Just disappointed?"
"Yeah." She stared at the remains of her squirrel. "I mean, I didn't want to tell everyone what happened, but I didn't want anyone else to, either. I guess I just wanted to pretend it never happened." Her gaze drifted aimlessly. "Did… Honeyflower say anything about it?"
The tom stretched out and exposed his belly to the sunshine. "She was worried about you when you didn't come back last night, but she didn't try to bad-mouth you or anything like that."
Plumwillow snorted bitterly. "How nice of her."
"Yeah, Honeyflower sucks. She's the worst. Booooo Honeyfloweeerrrrrrr."
A small smirk worked its way across her lips. "You're such a bird-brain."
"But you're smiling, aren't you?" Creekfeather pointed out. Her smirk fell away.
"I just don't know why… like, how long did she have feelings for Rockshade? How long did she listen to me declare my love for him and hate me for it? Why did she think she couldn't tell me about her feelings?"
"If Honeyflower fawned over Rockshade for moons and you secretly had feelings for him, would you want to tell her?"
"Funny, you don't look like Rabbitleap."
"Hey!" Creekfeather huffed and cuffed his sister over the ear. "Be nice! I'm trying to be helpful!"
Plumwillow rubbed her sore ear and mumbled, "I just didn't know you had it in you to be the voice of reason. Rabbitleap is going to be so proud."
"Ah," the tom nodded. "You're avoiding the question because you know I'm right. I understand now."
Plumwillow blew out a heavy sigh. "Yes- I mean, no, if I were in her position I wouldn't want to be honest either. But I still would have been. Honeyflower is like the sister I never had; we've never kept secrets from each other. It just…" she trailed off softly, "hurts."
Her gaze wandered again, unable to look at her brother and see the sympathathy shining in his blue eyes. She didn't want sympathy, she everything to go back to normal. Why did Honeyflower have to go and mess everything up? Weren't things just perfect the way that they were?
"It probably doesn't help that Tinycloud and Frecklewish, y' know."
"Don't even get me started on those two."
"I can't believe neither of them ever told you about it!" Creekfeather huffed. "I certainly don't feel sorry for shoving Tinycloud into the river anymore, or filling the Medicine Cats' Den with patients."
The she-cat laid her head on her paws and expelled another sigh. "I don't know what I'm going to do, Creekfeather. I lost all of my best friends and my life goal turned into dust."
"Not all of your best friends," Creekfeather protested, offended.
Plumwillow shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Kin is different; we have to love each other, we don't have a choice-"
"I definitely don't love Nettlesplash most days."
"But friends aren't obliged to like you," she continued. "You can't choose your littermates, but you can choose your friends. And obviously I love you guys, but I don't want to be…" she trailed off as she searched for the right word. "I don't want to be Rabbitleap. He has, what, one, maybe two cats that he's close to, excluding us? I don't want to spend all of my time with my kin, I want friends."
Creekfeather begrudgingly understood where his sister was coming from. He and Swiftleap had been attached at the hip ever since Creekfeather was an apprentice; they did everything together! Still, he couldn't help but feel slightly offended that Plumwillow didn't think he was enough. "I guess you have a point."
"So what am I going to do about it?" Plumwillow asked him, and finally looked up to meet his gaze.
"Find a new best friend?" Creekfeather suggested. "What about Petalnose?"
"Petalnose is old enough to be my mother; I want to connect with someone around my age."
"Sandytail?"
She wrinkled her face. "Pass. I'm not sure what it is, but something about him just annoys me."
"Yeah, same. Cherrytail?"
"She has Sharpclaw and Echosong."
"Bouncefire?"
"You mean Rockshade and Tinycloud's brother?"
"Ooh, good point." He gazed into the forest thoughtfully for a few heartbeats, and then his face lit up. "Oh! What about Sagefoot?"
Plumwillow narrowed her eyes. "Are you serious?"
"As a hawk attack," he cheerfully replied. "What's not to like about Sagefoot? He's laid-back-"
"Wayy too laid-back-"
"Smart-"
"That's debatable."
"And super friendly, just like you!"
Plumwillow opened her mouth to protest, then hesitated. Shoot, he got me there. For all of his faults, Sagefoot was one of the most friendly cats you could hope to meet. Still, he was not a candidate for "Plumwillow's New Best Friend".
Creekfeather must have realized as much because he took one look at his sister, and then huffed dramatically. "Not trying to be rude, but I don't think you have room to be so picky."
"You don't have any other suggestions?" Plumwillow pressed. "Not even one?"
Creekfeather wrinkled his nose, like he always did when he was deep in thought. After a prolonged, suspenseful silence, he weakly suggested, "Mintfur?"
"... I think I'll go see what Sandytail is up to."
In green-leaf, the forest was beautiful. The trees grew luscious green leaves and decorated the ground with warm, sunny dapples. Prey was bountiful, skys were a cheerful blue, and there wasn't a storm cloud in sight.
Nettlesplash hated green-leaf.
He mumbled as much after he stepped on a thorn, and based on Birdflight's reaction, one would think that Nettlesplash had admitted to spitting on kits. She spun around, stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief, and demanded, "You what?"
He didn't understand why she looked personally offended. "I hate green-leaf. It's the worst."
"How can you hate green-leaf?!" she cried. Nettlesplash rolled his eyes.
"It's actually really simple. I think about all the things I don't like about it, and then I realize, 'hey, I hate green-leaf'." He eyed Birdflight for a moment and then continued, "Judging by your reaction I assume you love green-leaf? There's another reason I can add to my list."
He resumed walking, pushed past Birdflight, and rolled his eyes at her utter disbelief. "Great StarClan, you're looking at me like I clawed you! Green-leaf is overrated, get over it."
"You must not have a soul."
"Eh. Souls are overrated too."
It wasn't until the sun reached its' highest point in the sky that Nettlesplash realized he had no idea where they were going. He asked, and Birdflight replied, "what's your favorite season?"
Nettlesplash furrowed his brow. "That isn't even close to what I asked you."
"You never answer my questions, so why should I answer yours?" Birdflight retorted.
He scowled. Birdflight was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most frustrating cat Nettlesplash had the displeasure of knowing. She was reckless, overconfident, sassy, and sometimes she tried to pretend that she cared about him and he hated it, because nobody cared about him, much less the she-cat he insulted on a daily basis.
Birdflight glaced backward at him. "So. Are you going to answer my question?"
He glared at her in response.
She shrugged and said, "you are the most predictable cat alive."
As the sun reached its' highest point in the sky, Creekfeather and Plumwillow went their separate ways. He to find Swiftleap, and she to find Sandytail.
Good luck to her, Creekfeather thought, as he strolled into camp. She was right; there was just something about the tom that made one want to snap, "shut-up, Sandytail!"
Oh well. If there was something so wrong with making your littermates your best friends, then she could suffer a little bit of annoyance.
He found Swiftleap by the fresh-kill pile, a robin in between his paws. Creekfeather thought he looked sickly, which might explain why he was only staring at his meal.
"Hey," he chirped, catching the other tom's attention. "So, I just talked to Plumwillow and I think I know how… we can…" he trailed off.
Swiftleap shifted his stare from the robin to his friend, and Creekfeather's chest tightened unexpectedly.
As he stared over the edge of a rushing waterfall, felt the power of it thum beneath his paws, heard it thunder, Nettlesplash already knew this was Birdflight's worst idea yet.
Unless… "So you're going to throw yourself off of it, right?"
Birdflight shot him a look. "That's pretty dark. What would you do if I actually tried to?"
"Return to camp with my newfound sense of blissful freedom. Sleep past dawn. Quit looking over my shoulder expecting to see an angry hawk mother."
"Ah. You would return to your old, boring life."
For some reason it irked him whenever she called him boring, even though his littermates did it all the time and he had never even blinked. "It's not boring, it's peaceful."
The black she-cat looked away from him and to the thundering waters. "Whatever you say." She didn't sound convinced, and he contemplated pushing her over. "Bouncefire told me he thought the river must lead to a waterfall, and I wanted to see if he was right." Evidently, he was. "Isn't it beautiful?"
Nettlesplash looked into the rushing waters. "No, it's dangerous."
"But don't you think there's a certain beauty to be found in danger?"
Nettlesplash shot her a pointed look, and she rolled her eyes in response. "Of course you don't. You don't even like green-leaf." I know, I'm so awful, aren't I? She was such a kit.
"Can we go back to camp now?" She found the waterfall, she should be satisfied.
Of course, nothing was ever so simple when it came to the she-cat.
Birdflight meowed, "later. I want to see if I can find a secret cave or something!" And with that, she walked past him in search of secret caves. He grit his teeth and followed her.
"Hold on, Sharpclaw is making you do this?"
Swiftleap shook his head. "No! He just- he pulled me aside and talked to me about the trouble I've been getting into lately, and…" he shook his head again. "You didn't see how disappointed he was, Creekfeather. I was his apprentice, he knows he trained me better than this."
"Better than what?" Creekfeather echoed bitterly. "Better than having fun? Better than being friends with me?"
Swiftleap looked frustrated, like he was blatantly refusing to understand his point. The truth was that Creekfeather was still struggling to comprehend the very first sentence.
"I don't know if we can be friends anymore."
There were so, so many other things Nettlesplash would rather do than waste his time searching for secret-caves-that-didn't-exist.
"Do you think that's a cave?" Birdflight asked him, nodding to a dark gap.
Nettlesplash squinted. "No, that's where the water has carved out a small space."
"Do you think I-"
"No, you could not fit in it."
Birdflight pouted. "Fox-dung," she mumbled.
The black she-cat padded up and down the length of the thunderous water, always pausing when she reached the edge of the falls. Nettlesplash didn't realize he was holding his breath until the third pause.
He scowled. "Don't get so close to the edge. The ground is slippery."
She glanced back at him and smirked. "Scared I'll get swept away and your life will be boring without me?"
There that word was again: boring.
"Quit calling me boring," Nettlesplash snapped. "Just because I value my life doesn't mean I'm boring."
"I value life too. That's why I choose to live mine to the fullest."
"That's why you'll die doing something bird-brained."
"At least I won't die of old age, curled up in an old, dusty nest," Birdflight retorted.
"No," Nettlesplash agreed. "You'll die with your intestines spread from here to camp because you decided you wanted to ride a fox!"
He didn't notice how she flinched ever so slightly at that, but he did notice the strange new look that entered her blue eyes; they warned of danger, just like the waterfall she stood beside. Her shoulder flexed; the one with the scar.
"I was seven moons old then," Birdflight meowed, each word punctuated with a warning. "Barely even out of the Nursery."
"No one else tried to ride a fox when they were seven moons old," came his retort. He narrowed his amber eyes. "Don't act like you regret that when you haven't quit endangering yourself since then. You haven't tried to learn from your mistakes, you're tried to recreate them!"
"How do you know what I do and don't regret?" Birdflight demanded. "We've been attached at the hip for days, and you've never tried to get to know me!"
Nettlesplash scoffed. "Of course I haven't. You drive me insane! You force me to risk my own life every day in the name of adventure, and never once have you considered that maybe I just want peace!"
"You don't want peace, you just want to sleep all day!"
"Yes, and that's peaceful for me!"
"Has it occured to you that maybe watching a sunrise is peaceful for me?" She demanded. "Maybe I think the sound of a waterfall is peaceful? Maybe the knowledge that I'm not sleeping my life away comforts me?"
"And riding a fox?" Nettlesplash asked, sarcastic. "Was being clawed by a fox and nearly leading it to camp peaceful as well?"
Birdflight barred her teeth in a snarl. Whatever she was going to say next was going to sting.
Nettlesplash would never know how she planned to hurt him next. Even though he'd warned her, Birdflight wasn't careful where she put her paws, so when she stepped forward into a puddle of water she slipped. She barely had time to yowl as she stumbled back into the rushing waters.
Nettlesplash's eyes widened as she was pulled under the water. "Birdflight!" He screeched, heart suddenly pounding. He raced to the edge of the water and searched for her head, for her black pelt, but it was impossible to see her underneath the thunderous waters. "Birdflight!"
Can she swim? Is she strong enough to fight the current? Did she hit her head when she fell? "Birdflight!"
She's dead. I have to tell the Clan she's dead. I have to tell Clovertail and Patchfoot she died. I have to look at Honeyflower and Sandytail and tell them that she drowned. I have to-
Suddenly Birdflight's head appeared above the waters! The black she-cat was gasping for breath as the merciless water shoved her to and fro, but she was swimming and she was alive!
"Nettlesplash!" She screeched. "Help me!"
His legs were stiff. "I-I can't-" I can't swim! I'll drown!
Maybe not. Rabbitleap saved two kits from drowning and had never tried to swim before; maybe Nettlesplash could too!
But memories in front of his eyes like a scene. He remembered being three moons old, full of spunk and life and joy. He remembered playing with his littermates right beside the river, fighting over which one of them could be Clan leader, and he remembered how Plumkit had shoved him because he had been Clan leader last time.
He remembered stumbling, falling, flailing as he fell into the river. The rushing waters carried him downstream and he would have drowned if Waspwhisker hadn't of jumped in and saved his life.
He remembered not being able to breathe; he remembered the fear.
And now he stared at Birdflight in horror, watched her struggle to keep her head above water, absolutely paralyzed with fear.
"I haven't seen Nettlesplash all day," Fallowtail remarked, as she shared tongues with her mate, Waspwhisker. The sun would be falling behind the mountains soon. "Do you think he's starting to come out of his shell?"
"If any cat can force him out of his shell, it's Birdflight," Waspwhisker chuckled.
Fallowtail purred. Her green eyes brightened when she saw another one of her kits coming towards them. "Creekfeather," she chirped happily. "Where are you going?"
"To convince Cherrytail that she deserves so much better than Sharpclaw," he growled, as he stormed past his parents.
Fallowtail and Waspwhisker watched their son storm off, bewildered. Waspwhisker looked back at his mate and asked, "Do you think his head injury is flaring up again?"
"Nettlesplash, help me!" Birdflight cried. Her choppy strides were weakening at a rapid rate. It wouldn't be long until she was sucked underneath the waves again. "Nettlesplash!"
Nettlesplash shook his head. Can't swim can't swim can't swim. But there had to be something he could do!
The tom looked around frantically for something that could help him. Pebbles? Twigs? A large stone? Long branch?
Wait, that's it! He grabbed the long branch in his jaws, then turned towards the drowning she-cat. "Stop fighting the current!" he yelled.
Her blue eyes were impossibly wide. "What?!" she screeched. "Are you insane?!"
"The water will carry you to that rock," Nettlesplash called back. "Then I can reach you with this branch! Just do it!"
For a heartbeat, he didn't think she would listen to him. Then Birdflight squeezed her eyes close and surrendered to the merciless river. She was thrashed around but eventually the current pushed her to a large stone jutting out of the river. From there, she was able to hook her claws into the long branch, so that Nettlesplash could pull her back to dry land.
Once all four paws were on dry land, Nettlesplash sank to the ground and tried to remember how to breathe. In and out, in and out. He clenched his eyes closed as memories continued to play out in front of him.
"Help me, somebody! Help me!"
He'd only been three moons old when he nearly drowned. Those memories had always felt like they were a lifetime old, and he didn't pay them much attention. He didn't shake and shiver whenever he passed the river in camp. He wasn't scared of water or drowning. He wasn't traumatized.
At least, that's what he used to think. Now? He wasn't quite so sure.
"Hey," came a soft whisper. "Thank you. I could have-"
"Don't speak to me ever again," Nettlesplash interrupted her, eyes still clenched. If he opened them then he was sure he would cry, and that would just be embarrassing. "Seriously. I'm going to go back to camp and tell Leafstar that I'm done shadowing you, and if you ever speak to me again, I'll shove you over the waterfall myself."
And with that, he stood to his paws and walked back to camp by himself.
Unfortunately, he ran into Rabbitleap before he ran into Leafstar.
"I quit."
"What do you mean you quit?"
Nettlesplash told him that he was done shadowing Birdflight. Rabbitleap, with all the arrogance in the world, told him that wasn't an option.
"I don't have time to deal with you anymore, Nettlesplash!"
"This was your fault anyway!"
They argued about it, like they had argued over a thousand other times over a thousand different topics.
But somehow this argument was different.
"Why don't you try to just do something with your life?!"
"How can you stand there and act like you're so perfect, and the rest of us will never be able to compete with you?! You're just as much a failure as I am!"
By the time the sun disappeared behind the mountains, something between the brothers had changed. Neither of them were sure that it could be fixed.
Question of the Day
Do you like the third person perspective better, or first person?
#I actually like third person better for this fic.
So, I'm sure you've all noticed the change in perspective here.
In short: balancing four different first-person perspectives was too demanding. I couldn't flow through chapters like I wanted to, and I didn't feel like I was paying each perspective enough attention. So I edited the last seven chapters and changed the first person to third person. I definitely missed a lot of corrections, so bear with me as I continue to fix little things. I just wanted a rough draft of the chapters up so I could go ahead and upload this chapter. I also added/deleted scenes from the previous chapters, so I really recommend you go through and reread them.
I also changed 'Honeyfrost' to 'Honeyflower', simply because I liked it better. Sorry for the confusion there as well.
Lastly, I'm using actual line breaks instead of the title. I like it better for weaving between perspectives (like the scenes with Creekfeather and Swiftleap, or the scene with Fallowfern and Waspwhisker, who I really need to pay more attention to). I'm not titeling each perspective either, so I'm sorry if that gets confusing, but I'll try to make it clear which perspective we're reading.
Alright, I think that's it! I've finally sat down and started some serious outlining, and I know that the next couple chapters are going to be very important - lots of plot stuff is starting to happen! :)
Review, or else Nettlesplash will throw Birdflight back into the river. #SaveBirdflight
