Rubblepaw stared, blinking, at the spot where Arrow had just stood. The white-and-brown tabby had vanished into the veil of mist along with his gray-and-white companion, leaving Rubblepaw, Squirreltail, and Bearpelt, who was somehow still alive but definitely near death.

"Can we help him?!" Rubblepaw asked worriedly.

"I don't know; I'm not Frostglaze." Squirreltail's brow furrowed. "Do you see any cobwebs lying around?"

Rubblepaw did see some cobwebs. In fact, they were in the very tree they were crouched under. Of course, they were high up amongst the branches, but Rubblepaw could make it. He hooked his claws into the soft black spruce bark and began to climb. Needles poked his fur as he reached the cobwebs. Bearpelt was bleeding pretty badly, so he'd need a lot of them. Clinging to the trunk with three paws, he reached out with one to snag as much as the cobweb as he could. Rubblepaw became unbalanced, and for one terrifying second he thought he was about to fall onto the frozen ground below, but he managed to re-secure himself, and climbed safely down.

"Here are the cobwebs." He handed them to Squirreltail, who pressed them into Bearpelt's wounds.

"Are there any other herbs that should be used for infections?" Rubblepaw wondered, trying to remember. "Oh, that's right! We should make a poultice!"

"Could we use spruce needles?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we might as well try."

Squirreltail stood on his hind legs so he could reach a low-hanging branch. He tore off part of the branch and laid it over top of the gash in Bearpelt's stomach. Rubblepaw doubted that it would be very effective, but he tried to help by piling on some clean snow. Then he stepped back, watching for any sign that their efforts were working. The bleeding had been stopped, but Bearpelt had lost so much blood already. Could he really live after all that?

"Well, there's nothing more we can do," Squirreltail sighed. "Let's carry him back to camp. Maybe Frostglaze can help him in a way that we don't know about."

Rubblepaw nodded. The sleet was finally beginning to give way to a simple light rain, and although mist still hung over the forest floor, the visibility had improved a lot. By the time they'd made it back to camp, the weather had cleared up altogether, and the sun was peeking through the parting clouds.

When they walked through the camp entrance, Strikestar was pacing around the camp. When he saw Rubblepaw and Squirreltail, his gaze lit up. But when he saw Bearpelt, his face was darkened with worry.

"What happened?" he asked.

"We took shelter from the storm beneath a tree when we were attacked by the Alliance," Squirreltail explained. "There was a white tom with a brown tabby pattern who had scars like you and Rubblepaw here, and a gray-and-white she-cat."

Strikestar's ears pricked.

"That sounds like Arrow," he muttered, a low growl rising up from his throat.

"That's what he said his name was," Rubblepaw confirmed. "Apparently he's our father."

"He may be related to us through blood, but he is not our kin." Strikestar looked angry now, as he always did when discussing the Alliance. "The same goes for Mist. It doesn't matter whether an Alliance cat is your mother, father, brother, sister, or former best friend. They are the enemy, and you must never trust them!"

"What's all this commotion about?" Frostglaze poked his head out of his workspace. "Oh dear! What happened to Bearpelt? Wait- tell me later. First I need to take care of him."

While he dealt with that, Rubblepaw turned back to Strikestar. Now was the perfect time to ask him about that dream.

"Strikestar, when you left the Alliance…" Rubblepaw hesitated. What if his brother got mad at him for asking? No. It was his right to know the truth. "What was the first thing you did?"

"Well, the first thing I did was cross the thunderpath." Strikestar purred, but it sounded forced. He clearly wasn't actually in a joking mood. "A-and after that, I walked through the woods for a while. I had to carry you for quite a while. Eventually you got so heavy that I dropped you."

Rubblepaw stared his brother down, unimpressed. He wanted the truth this time, and he wanted to make it clear that that was what he wanted.

"That's right," he mewed. "You did drop me. But I don't think it was because I was too heavy to carry. If that was the case, why wouldn't you have just set me down right where you were rather than going out of your way to walk over to the marsh?"

"This whole forest is marshy during greenleaf," Strikestar protested, although there was a certain deep fear in his eye. He knew that Rubblepaw knew about what he'd done. "I made sure you were okay. If I wanted you dead, why are you still alive?"

"Boss rescued me!"

"Who is Boss?!"

"He's just one out of many cats who cared about me more than you ever did!" Rubblepaw spat, his ears flat and his pelt bristling. Strikestar's body language matched his perfectly, but it seemed like a different kind of anger- like the anger you feel when you know you did something wrong and you hate that you did it, and you hate that now you'll have to face the consequences.

"I do care about you," Strikestar insisted. "If I hadn't, I'd have left you behind under their care."

"At least Mist makes sure I stay alive," Rubblepaw argued. He realized that Mist only did so because she wanted him to be her heir, and might not care about his wellbeing at all if she knew that Strikestar was alive as well, but he didn't care. "At least she never tried to drown me!"

Rubblepaw stood, glaring at Strikestar. He expected him to make a rebuttal, but instead, the gray tabby leader was silent. His gaze became less sharp, and he began to back away slowly. Rubblepaw hadn't expected Strikestar to break down so quickly. Well, maybe he wasn't breaking down so much as dropping his defense.

"They would have found us eventually. They would have discovered us and brought us back to the Alliance with them. Carrying you slowed me down too much and you weren't who they were really after anyway." Words tumbled out of Strikestar's mouth, their tone starting out as apologetic but transitioning into something… almost accusing. "You were born to be a prince. I was born to be a king. I was named Striker because they wanted me to strike down my opponents. You were named Rubble because you were all that would be left after the fall of a civilization. At least that's what Mist used to tell us. She loved you more than she ever loved me. If you were dead, maybe they would have just left me alone. You got Mist's love. I didn't. And for that, I hated you."

Rubblepaw took a step back, stunned. Their Clanmates had gathered around them to watch the intense exchange, and eyes burned into Rubblepaw's pelt from all directions as his paws gave out and he dropped to the ground. Strikestar had tried to kill him; he'd already known that. But surely there had been a good reason. He'd been forced to. He'd had no other choice. It had somehow been for his own good.

But no.

Strikestar had hated Rubblepaw because Mist had only paid attention to her younger kit, ignoring her older one. Mist, who Strikestar hated with a passion, was what had driven him to try to drown his younger brother. Jealousy over the mother he despised was what drove Strikestar to attempted murder.

"I-I have to go," Rubblepaw mumbled. "I have to go. I have to go do something."

He scrambled to his paws and started walking quickly in a random direction. He almost tripped over his paws a she walked, but he hardly even noticed. All he could think about were Strikestar's words.

I hated you.

He had used the past tense, so he must not hate him anymore, right? Blood roared in Rubblepaw's ears. Maybe Strikestar did still hate him. Maybe he was planning to kill him any day now. It was insane, but Rubblepaw had already experienced so much insanity that it didn't seem too far-fetched at this point.

"Rubblepaw, wait."

It was Honeypool. Her voice was filled with concern. Rubblepaw stopped for a moment, but he decided to ignore her. He kept walking.

But Honeypool didn't give up easily. She ran around in front of him, and when he tried to walk around her, she moved along with him so he couldn't get around. Rubblepaw kept his gaze fixed on the ground. The snow had once been so fresh and flat, but now it was covered with pawprints. Nothing ever stayed perfect.

"Rubblepaw, look at me," Honeypool mewed, her voice gentle but firm. "I'm not going to be that she-cat who begs and pleads for a tom to not do something and get in his way while doing so, only to give up and let him do it anyway. But I am going to be the cat who cares about her friend."

"'Friend'?" Rubblepaw muttered. "What makes you think I even want you to be my friend?"

"Oh, don't be such a…" She sighed. "Rubblepaw, you are my apprentice. I am your mentor. So I'm telling you as your mentor to look at me and talk to me."

Rubblepaw reluctantly obeyed. He lifted his head and gazed into Honeypool's glittering eyes. She was so lovely. But this didn't involve her. It was between Strikestar and him.

"This is about me and Strikestar, not you," he told her.

"Strikestar is my leader as well as yours," Honeypool pointed out. "I've known him for even longer than you have, in fact. And I thought I knew him pretty well up until you showed up. When Strikestar found you, he changed. He became a lot more emotional, but he also became a lot more confident. He does care about you now, you know. In fact, you should be proud of him for finally getting up the nerve to tell you the truth. It's a horrible truth, and he's ashamed of it. He hated you then, but e doesn't hate you now. Rubblepaw, your brother only wants you to forgive him."

Rubblepaw sighed. She was right. He turned his head to see that Strikestar was still standing in the same spot, staring at Rubblepaw, his eye filled with regret.

"Strikestar…" Rubblepaw began. Then he stopped. "No. You know what? No. I don't care if you're sorry; you still tried to drown me- when I was just a kit! I didn't even do anything wrong. It's not my fault that Mist loved me. Any decent mother would love her kit!"

Shock flashed in Strikestar's eye, followed by hurt, followed by rage.

"Mist was not a decent mother!" he snarled. "She's a psycho! She hates me, Rubblepaw. And don't tell me I'm just saying that, because she told me! She told me, at six moons old, that my new little brother was so much sweeter than I was, and how much she wished that he was the eldest instead of me. She said it would be wonderful if Rubble was the heir instead of me. That's the same as saying she wants me to die! So the joke's on her, I thought, because her precious little prince Rubble is going to die instead!"

"Oh, good, you're finally being honest," Rubblepaw snarled.

"When have I ever been dishonest?"

"You lie all the time! You never tell me what's really going on!" Rubblepaw yelled, rage welling up from deep inside of him. "You left me in the dark about being my brother, you didn't tell me about Mist or Arrow or the Alliance until I asked. And even then you danced around the question. You avoided giving me the answers I needed. And most importantly, you did all this with the knowledge that I was the cat you'd tried to drown as a kit!"

"Could you two please stop fighting?!" Honeypool cried. "You're behaving like a couple of ravens fighting over a piece of crowfood!"

"That's what I am to you, isn't it, Strikestar? Crowfood?" Rubblepaw said accusingly. He wasn't even sure if he believed what he was saying anymore. All he knew was that he couldn't forgive Strikestar- not now, not ever. "You'd rather I not exist at all. Would you have even left the Alliance at all if Mist had loved you?!"

"Of course I still would have left! I hate Mist!"

"You said you hated me, too!"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't been my brother I wouldn't have had to hate you," Strikestar shot back.

Without saying another word, he turned, tail lashing, and padded over to his den. He went inside and didn't come out for the rest of the day.

Rubblepaw wondered who had won the argument. He supposed that neither of them had. If anything, they'd both lost.