The sun was sinking below the horizon, and a soft breeze ruffled Thorntail's pelt he climbed the hollow of FourTrees. He charged through the scent markers - placed by Beetleflight, Darkstorm, and Emberpaw, he noticed - and set his paws in RiverClan territory.
His paws tingled with relish as they felt RiverClan land beneath their pads. The cool dew of early morning brushed against his ankles, and his whiskers twitched as the wind tickled them. The scents of musty fish and curling reeds whirled through his nostrils and sent warm memories flooding through his mind. The river roared somewhere far away, offering encouragements, welcoming him home.
Home.
Thorntail, weak from the long trek from the ShadowClan camp, scarred from his verbal duel with Smokestar, wanting for Rosethorn, found strength in the familiar landscape. His muscles recharged, and his spirits flew higher as he drew himself deeper into the land.
And as Thorntail predicted, RiverClan's deputy and his friend, Tawnyleaf, accepted his excuse without question.
The deputy and Cinnamonfur had been hunting alongside the riverbank when Thorntail had found her. He knew Tawnyleaf would be more accepting to his excuse, and easier to deal with than if he simply padded into the RiverClan camp after his absence. He even suspected she might be willing to help him explain his disappearance.
She trusted him, after all.
Tawnyleaf had been curious to where he had been, but not suspicious. "A ShadowClan she-cat, eh?" she mused, flicking a golden paw into the river and tossing a fish through the air and onto the bank. "Thorntail, I can't imagine why you would choose one of those hideous creatures over that pretty little thing you got from ThunderClan."
Cinnamonfur let out a pitiful mewl from his position at Tawnyleaf's flank. "You have Rosethorn, and you took a ShadowClan mate, too? Oh..." he bristled, but not with rage over Thorntail's blatant disregard for the Warrior Code. "That's so unfair! I don't even have a mate in RiverClan."
"Well, Rosethorn got homesick and returned home," Thorntail lied. "I can't go padding after her, can I?"
Tawnyleaf sighed. "Thorntail, that was bad judgment. We are at war with ShadowClan now. You can't stroll into camp having their scent all over your fur. Make sure you take a bath in the river, first. Oh, look at that one!" She clawed another fish.
Thorntail's whiskers twitched. Tawnyleaf had never cared two mouse-tails for the Warrior Code, and Cinnamonfur was too mouse-brained to even comprehend what the code meant, let alone follow it.
"You won't tell anyone?" he pressed.
"No," Tawnyleaf shook her head. "They noticed you left, but I simply assured them that I'd be been seeing you around and have been sending you on hunting patrols. You were only gone a day - almost two," she glanced at the setting sun. "Just don't go see this she-cat again, okay? At least not until this stupid war goes away."
And then, exonerated from all persecution and suspicion, Thorntail settled down beside the lion-furred warrior and hunted some fish for the Clan he was going to help slaughter.
Cinnamonfur and Tawnyleaf asked no more questions. Even when he confessed that he had padded after an enemy warrior, they had still trusted him to keep his loyalties in check. They thought he would never choose a she-cat, something he had used and discarded countless of times, over his Clan. They expected him to be loyal to RiverClan, to fight tooth and claw for the land, to want nothing more than to see RiverClan prosperous.
And he was going to betray them.
Cinnamonfur was talking excitedly about how the warrior Silentsong had shared a word with him the other day, while Tawnyleaf fretted about Melodypaw, her apprentice, who was having a great amount of difficulty learning how to wriggle out of an enemy warrior's grasp.
After he betrayed them, would they ever speak to him like this again? Would they forgive him? He, the cat who had promised ShadowClan's leader that he would find the perfect time for an attack. He'd send to his friends ShadowClan warriors with silver claws and bared fangs, all thirsting for blood. RiverClan blood.
But the irony was, he wanted to be loyal to RiverClan, to fight tooth and claw for their land, and he did want to see RiverClan prosperous.
He just wanted Rosethorn to be safe, more.
His paws slipped and he stumbled forward, just barely catching himself before he fell into the river.
"Oh, mouse-dung," Tawnyleaf bristled. "Your reflection fell into the water."
"Now all the fish will be frightened away," Cinnamonfur fretted. "And I was going to catch something really special for Silentsong, too." He paused. "Maybe there's some more upstream!" He started to bound away.
"Wait up," Tawnyleaf called after him, charging forward. Over her shoulder she cried, "Take the prey I left there to camp when you're done, will you?" She didn't wait for an answer, and soon her footsteps disappeared.
Thorntail hardly noticed.
The river was clean, and it flowed smoothly, like a she-cat's pelt being licked the right way.
Inside its watery depths, Thorntail saw the cat that had scared the fish away. The cat had pale gray fur, broad, powerful shoulders, and frightened blue eyes.
The cat looked just like his brother, Graywhisker.
He was going to betray RiverClan. He loved RiverClan, felt at home among the watery pelts of RiverClan, and had sworn to protect and die for RiverClan before StarClan. Even so, he was going to give them to Smokestar.
He had betrayed Graywhisker. He had loved Graywhisker, he had been his closest friend, and he had sworn to his dying mother to protect Graywhisker. But even so, he had betrayed him. He had killed him just as assuredly as the monster did.
"Have I learned nothing?" he asked himself, the words tumbling out of his throat as a pitiful mewl.
Before him, the gray cat beneath the waves asked him the same question: Have you learned nothing?
He had lived with the guilt of Graywhisker's death his whole life. Hearing the name still sent shivers down his spine, still made his breathe hitch in his throat. And now, with the whole of RiverClan, he was going to make the same decision again? He was going to, indirectly, push them into a monster?
"Yes," Thorntail told himself. Because that cat in the water, that's just your reflection, Thorntail. It isn't Graywhisker, even if he has his soft blue eyes and his stone-gray pelt. It's just your reflection. "I've done this before. I've lived through it. I've done murder," he nodded. "Spying is easier than murder, I'm sure. I can do it."
The river was still roaring before him. But instead of warm, comforting rumbles it seemed as though it was speaking to him.
All the river, the soul and lifeblood of RiverClan had to say was one word:
Traitor.
"No," he cried, stumbling backwards. "No, I'm not. Rosethorn doesn't have a Clan that can protect her," he explained. "She needs me to do it. Her Clan couldn't, and I have to now. She saved me from myself. Now I have to make sure I save her!"
Traitor, traitor.
The words bombarded his ears, slithering through the air liked winged snakes. His pelt bristled, and indignant fury exploded inside of him.
"And so what if I am?!"
He had launched himself forward again, and had jerked his neck forward so he could howl it straight at the river, straight at Graywhisker.
His jaw was parted in a yowl, but the words garbled in his throat.
He had expected to see his brother, like he always did when he stared into the water. He never saw his reflection; he had always merely saw Graywhisker.
What he had never seen was his mother.
But sure enough, there she was, just as he remembered her. She was beautiful, with a soft, blue-gray tabby pelt, and warm, kind eyes. She looked lithe, and graceful. He could almost hear her purring.
Thorntail blinked. But to his surprise, he wasn't frightened or shocked by the image of his mother being reflected at him from the pool. Seeing her was calming, like he was a kit again, pushing against her, and drinking her milk.
He had thought a lot of terrible things about her before. She had betrayed a cat that loved her and manipulated her way into a Clan on the basis of a lie. And because of what she had done, he and Graywhisker had to live under the shadow of Smokestar's hatred their whole lives.
"But," he looked softly at her, thinking about what Rosethorn had said to him earlier, "you really loved Graythorn, didn't you?"
By way of answer, Lightsnow extended her own neck. Her face flowed from the water, and he felt her tongue roll against his cheek.
He felt her tail brush against his shoulder.
He felt her claws dug into his chest.
And he felt his lungs expanding with water.
Suddenly, their positions had switched. Now Lightsnow was standing safely on the bank, her claws firmly on Thorntail's chest, her tail on his shoulder, pushing all her weight on Thorntail. He was under the water, the stream flowing around him, sinking into his nose, his mouth. He couldn't breath, the water was so heavy, he was about to collapse, he heard a kit screaming for help beside him ---
Thorntail used all his strength to push himself up, to free himself from Lightsnow's grasp, to find air, to breathe, to survive...
He blinked.
He had fallen backwards, flat on his tail. He was a fox-length away from the riverside. He was surrounded by reeds.
His eyes flashed about. His mother was nowhere to be seen. Not a trace of her scent rolled through the air.
His heart was throbbing. He gasped for breath, and then bent to lick his chest and help himself breathe like he often saw medicine cats do to almost-drowned cats, ignoring the fact that there was not a drop of water on his pelt.
Thorntail hesitated, but finally padded forward to the water, once again. All he saw was his own reflection.
What had just happened? He felt energy coursing through his veins, and his claws had instinctively unsheathed as if he had been attacked. But his mother had been dead for seasons, and he hadn't even been in the river, let alone had the opportunity to nearly drown in it.
This didn't happen often, he had to remind himself. Cats rarely, if ever, saw their dead mother in place of their reflection. And if they did, their dead mother wouldn't try to drown them.
But if this didn't happen often, why did it all seem so familiar? He hadn't felt any surprise when he felt Lightsnow's paws holding him under, and none of it had seemed truly shocking.
It had seemed cloudy, foggy, like something that happened long-past.
...
"And that's the Gnarled Tree," Sapphirepaw announced, jerking her tail to a withered, battered pine. "Mentors often bring their apprentices here to practice battle moves in the shade, and to teach them to climb. I'm one of the fastest climbers of all the apprentices," she added with pride.
"That's very good," Rosethorn purred.
Sapphirepaw had excitedly volunteered to escort Rosethorn around the ShadowClan territories. The apprentice was very knowledgeable about the land; Rosethorn was shocked at how much history every tail-length of territory had.
"It was under the Gnarled Tree that the Great Volestar was born," Sapphirepaw told her. "Volestar's mother had to flee the camp during a WindClan raid, and was forced to give birth far away from home. It was a difficult birth, and the medicine cat wasn't there to help her, so unfortunately she died. Volestar was the only kit in his litter to survive. And he never forgave WindClan for the pain they had put his mother through, and when he became ShadowClan leader, he tricked them into attacking the camp again. But," she added, her eyes widened with emphasis, "this time ShadowClan was ready for them. He..."
Rosethorn only half-listened to Sapphirepaw's detailed story of a ShadowClan leader long-past. Her mind was reeling with other things. She had seen what Duststar and RiverClan do to spies when they had caught poor Pearlpaw, who had accidentally crossed their border. What would happen to Thorntail if they found out? And he was returning to RiverClan after being absent for a whole sunrise, what if they were suspicious? Sure, RiverClan had been lenient and had almost turned away from the Warrior Code when she had first joined, but once they had trouble, they had scrambled for StarClan's protection.
Oh, StarClan, she prayed to her newly found Warrior Ancestors, Please keep-
She couldn't finish the prayer.
Sapphirepaw was still telling her long-winded tale of Volestar's vengeance, but Rosethorn wasn't interested in that. Her eyes rounded with shock as she saw a familiar, sleek gray figure stalk behind Sapphirepaw's form.
He disappeared into the shadows as quickly as he appeared, but Rosethorn was certain. She knew that gray pelt, those broad shoulders.
"I know!" Sapphirepaw had misinterpreted Rosethorn's sudden interest. "But don't worry. See, Volestar fought like a TigerClan cat, and Honeystar just couldn't withstand such an onslaught! But Honeystar had no honor, so it came to be that here, right under the Gnarled Tree where Volestar was born, she - "
"Sapphirepaw," Rosethorn broke the young apprentice off. She flicked her tail in the direction where the gray cat had vanished. "Are there any warriors in this Clan that look like Thorntail?"
Sapphirepaw blinked. "Smokestar does, a little."
Rosethorn shook her head. The cat she had just seen had youth, vigor. Smokestar was still very sprightly, but he wasn't a young warrior. "No, not him."
"Well, um... There's Cricketjump, I guess. He looks a little like Thorntail. But he's a lot smaller - smaller than me, even." She purred lightly. "We like to joke that he's not any bigger than a cricket, himself. But don't do that," she added, her light tone growing dark. "He gets mad..."
But Rosethorn wasn't paying attention, not any more. The cat she had seen wasn't small. He had looked exactly like Thorntail. Had her mate returned to ShadowClan territory already? Did he have important information to give to Smokestar? Why didn't he say hello to her?
Finally, the idea was dismissed. She couldn't pick up any scent of Thorntail. She must have been seeing things.
She listened politely to the rest of Sapphirepaw's story.
---
Thorntail was on his haunches, his gaze firmly meeting that of his reflection's in the river. His mind was whirling with questions.
"Why..." the memory of his lungs filling up with water, gasping for air that wasn't there flashed through is head, "did I think that my mother would try to kill me?"
He could almost feel her claws on his pelt, holding him under.
"She was supposed to love me. Why would she try to drown me?"
He could still hear her voice speaking from his memories. She had promised to protect him and Graywhisker with all of her might, and had warned them of Smokestar. She had whispered words of love, of affection. He couldn't recall many solid memories of her, but he could remember feelings. He had felt warm, loved, safe.
Memories...
When he listened to other cats talk about their days in the nursery, they seemed to have really vivid memories of things their mother had said to them, nursery tales and the like. Lightsnow had gotten sick shortly after she had her kits, and hadn't been allowed to be with them for a lot of the time, but even so -- shouldn't he have been able to remember more than just feelings? Shouldn't he have been able to remember more than just a few scattered phrases, a few broken images?
He sat on his haunches. The river flowed before him, offering him no more answers than the darkening sky above him.
He had never given his mother much thought before. But reentering the ShadowClan camp, reentering where he had spent his kittenhood had torn open the floodgates of his memory. But to his surprise, instead of a powerful ocean of recollections careening towards him, a few raindrops were soaking his pelt. Why wasn't there more?
"Oh, fox-dung!" he had taken a step forward, and the moment his forepaw touched the ground a sharp pain sheered up his leg.
He lifted his foot, and gazed the source of the pain through narrowed eyes. A sharp thorn had buried itself in his pad.
"Oh, fox-dung," he swore again, covering the wound with frantic licks. "What is this, StarClan?" he asked to Graywhisker no cat in particular. "You trying to punish me for treason by digging small thorns into my pads? Argh," he growled, swiping his tongue across his mouth as he finished. "If so, good job. Geeze, that hurts. Ouch..."
His eyes rounded as one of his few, precious memories of his mother scrolled through his mind.
The ShadowClan nursery was boring.
The whole floor was blanketed with soft moss and dotted with feathers, and there was always someone watching him. It was all safe, all secure, and all boring. Especially since Graykit was napping and all the other kits were playing outside. There was nobody to play with.
The mean warrior Whitesky said that he wasn't allowed to leave the nursery on account of how he had slipped out of camp the other day and had tried to ruin Ravenpaw's assessment. He didn't care what Whitesky said, she was stupid and didn't think he had to listen to her. But he really couldn't leave, because his mean mommy wouldn't let him.
"Ouch!"
He jerked his head towards his mother in alarm. He hadn't meant it! She wasn't really mean! Had he hurt her feelings? When you hurt a cat's feelings, did they really get hurt?
"I'm sorry mommy!" he cried, scampering over to her.
But Lightsnow wasn't looking at him. She had lifted a forepaw, and was examining her pad.
He stumbled to a halt. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Lightsnow was staring at him now. She showed him her paw. "I stepped on a thorn," she meowed, using her tail to point out the barb jutting from her pad. "I bet you Swamp-paw wasn't careful enough when he cleaned out the bedding."
He stared at the thorn with wide eyes. It was hooked into his mother's pad like a claw, and red, gushy stuff was coming out around it. "Does it hurt?" he asked. He was named after thorns, so he thought it was pretty important that thorns be able to hurt cats, other wise he wouldn't ever be a good warrior. But he wasn't sure if he liked being named after something that hurt his mommy.
He felt his mother's tail flick his ear. "I'll show you," she meowed chipperly.
A mewl of shock escaped his throat. Lightsnow had flipped him on his back, and had dug one of her claws into his pad. A sharp, shearing pain tremored throughout his body. He mewled.
"Shh," Lightsnow cooed, placing him back down. "You don't want to wake Graykit. But don't you see, Thornkit? You and Mommy are feeling the same pain now." She licked his forehead. "You're feeling just what I'm feeling, and I'm feeling what you're feeling.
"We're linked like that, Thornkit. You and Graykit are all I have left now. If you die, Mommy's going to die too."
---
Rosethorn was dreaming.
She didn't know how she knew, but she just knew. Maybe it was because the waking world wasn't like this. The stars above didn't swirl, and the grass didn't glow. The prey didn't sparkle and the water didn't sing. The trees didn't scrape the sky and the air wasn't as clean.
But here, it was.
There was not a scent of want, not a cry for help. There was not a tremor of sadness or worry in the air. There was no suffering, no pain. Only in memories, only in the hearts of the cats that roamed these sacred hunting grounds.
The sacred hunting grounds of StarClan.
Rosethorn didn't know how she knew she was with StarClan just as she didn't know how she knew she was dreaming. But she did. She knew it as assuredly as she did that her name was Rosethorn.
And she knew the dark ginger tomcat that approached her. His crimson pelt that reflected her own, his kind amber eyes that showed nothing but love.
"Father!" she cried. She flew towards him, her paws hardly scraping the earth as she buried her muzzle in his chest and breathed in his secure, protective scent.
Crimsonspirit nosed her shoulder, groomed her neck. "Oh, Rosethorn," he mewed, the first time she had ever heard him call her by her full name. "Rosethorn, Rosethorn, my beautiful daughter Rosethorn."
And for a moment, it was as if he had never left. The strength of their bond was just as powerful as when he first left to be with StarClan, and she could scarcely remember not be able to share tongues with her father.
She felt the other cats she had lost around her, too. Their presence was strong, their welcome stronger. Ebonypool, her close friend and apprentice. Turtlefeather and Raykit, Ebonypool's mother and littermate who Rosethorn had failed to rescue from The Blood, were there too. Scornpaw, Thorntail's trusting pupil, Listeningecho and Robinwing, the pair of deputies who had met tragic ends -- she even noticed Scarletkit and Lilykit, her sisters who had just lived to receive their names.
She hadn't felt so protected, so loved, so safe and valued since she was a kit. Everyone she had ever cared for, unbothered by Clan boundaries had come to her, to welcome her home.
She thought of Thorntail. She felt a twinge of panic.
"I haven't died, have I?"
Crimsonspirit had stepped backwards, the expanse of all her friends and kin behind him. "No daughter, merely dreaming."
Rosethorn's gaze took in them all. "You were here the whole time," she breathed, having to state the knowledge she now had.
As if in response, as if to provide proof, she saw the flickering images of memory before her. She saw herself mourning the death of her father; saw herself receiving her apprentice name, hunting a vole, learning how to mix herbs. The whole time, beside the form of her younger self, there had been another. A StarClan warrior was always guarding her, always guiding her paw steps.
But then the happy memories faded. Where she had seen a proud Rosepaw, she now saw a broken one. Rosepaw, broken and battered, curled on her disheveled mossy nest, alone and frightened. Blood was streaming around her, but there was no ghostly warrior. No StarClan warrior was with her when she needed him most.
The rage coursed through her again, stronger than it had been even before Smokestar had spoken to her. StarClan had coaxed her back into their bosom simply to throw her out again!
"I was right!" she cried, now more hurt than angry as she turned her gaze back to her father. "You left me," she was shaking now, unable to control her claws from slipping from their sheaths. "You weren't with me! You abandoned me! You left me alone!"
Seasons of pain and regret flooded Crimsonspirit's eyes. "We couldn't."
"Why not?" Rosethorn mewled, now more confused than furious. "I was just an apprentice! I was alone and betrayed. I needed StarClan more than ever!"
"We couldn't afford anyone, Rosethorn."
Crimsonspirit couldn't have hurt her more if he had struck her. "...Couldn't...afford?"
Her father's eyes softened. "Oh, Rosethorn. We couldn't be by your side. For we had to run ahead and fight off the demons that plagued you."
Like a tom defending his mate, like a queen defending her kits. If the enemy was deep in the forest, the queen had to go and face the enemy, far away, her kits staying behind for safety. From the very beginning, StarClan had been charging ahead, clawing her demons, searching for an escape.
For her.
Her gaze flickered around to the cats around her. They all looked so powerful, with the elements of fire and ice flashing in their pelts. Each looked like they could run from ThunderClan's camp to HighStones and back with no difficulty. They were strong, perfect, and she knew that they had no worries or troubles here in Silverpelt.
But even so they had run ahead. They had fought for her.
She had thought they had rejected her, she had thought they had found her impure and ruined. She had rejected them.
She could have met with them at any time, had she truly wanted to. She remembered all the times she had wanted to confront StarClan, to challenge them about Flamesoul, about --
A memory flashed in her mind. She had been waiting for Thorntail to come back from a private meeting with Shadenight. Blackshadow and she were discussing Graywhisker's death. In order to find out the truth, of why he had taken his life, Blackshadow had suggested that she speak to StarClan and ask Graywhisker himself. She hadn't been able to, then. She had told Blackshadow that she couldn't because StarClan thought she was dirty. Blackshadow had told her that she was wrong. But she didn't believe him, then. He hadn't known about what had happened to her, she thought, so how could he know if she was tainted?
But Blackshadow had been right about StarClan. He was probably right about Thorntail and Graywhisker, too.
These cats had helped her. They hadn't had to. Why was she being so selfish? Her wounds were being soothed and mended by the warriors of Silverpelt. Didn't Thorntail deserve that same courtesy? If she could find out the truth, of why Graywhisker had gone to the Thunderpath that night, maybe Thorntail's heart would be mended. Maybe he would find that StarClan was ready to fight his demons, too.
"Where's Graywhisker?" she asked. To clarify she added, "The RiverClan warrior. Thorntail's brother."
Crimsonspirit hesitated.
Panic fluttered in Rosethorn's chest. "He is in StarClan, isn't he?" Not many cats ended their own lives, but she was certain that it wasn't in the Warrior Code. Had Graywhisker been banished to the Place of No Stars because of he had tried to end whatever his suffering had been? The thought made her fur bristle.
Her father's eyes were kind. "Of course he is, Rosethorn. His warrior ancestors came and led him to Silverpelt upon his death, and he stalks our hunting grounds as welcome as any noble warrior who was slain in battle."
Rosethorn's fur lay flat once more. "Then where is he?"
Reluctantly, Crimsonspirit stepped to the side. Her heart wrenched to pad past him, to leave him so soon after she had found him again. But as much as she wanted Crimsonspirit's security and protection, Thorntail was more important. She wasn't running in Silverpelt yet, and she had no intention to for many moons. Thorntail needed her. And he also needed to know the truth.
She padded past all of her fallen loved ones. Ebonypool's green eyes filled with warmth and understanding. Listeningecho was offering a nod of encouragement. Raykit urged her forward, and Turtlefeather used her tail to point Rosethorn in the right direction.
And Rosethorn padded on. Through StarClan's mighty hunting grounds, the magnificence and expanse tickling her fur. She knew she had trampled great amount of territory, but her paws did not sting or hurt. She felt like she had never ending energy, and that she would use every drop of it to get to her destination.
The land around her was growing darker. The earth beneath her paws was growing marshy, sticky. Instead of fleeting rabbits and squirrels swirling through her vision, she instead saw bounding frogs and toads. She was confused, at first, but when she saw the Gnarled Tree that Sapphirepaw had painstakingly described she understood. She was no longer in StarClan's hunting grounds. She was exploring ShadowClan territory.
Her whiskers twitched, concerned. Had she woken up? Was she no longer sharing tongues with StarClan? Would she ever have another chance to speak to Graywhisker?
Or even, if she had been dreaming, had she been dreaming with StarClan? Or had she been so happy to capture their warm glow once more that she had simply concocted her own dream.
Then she came to a foxhole. It dipped neatly beneath ShadowClan territory, and was almost hidden by a great stone blocking her vision. It wasn't all that unusual, but what had caught her attention was the gray cat perched on the rock, his forepaws dangling off of it neatly.
Rosethorn's breath hitched in her throat.
The gray cat was the image of Thorntail. When she had heard the other cats describe Graywhisker as Thorntail's reflection, she hadn't truly comprehended what the words meant. But the cat's fur was Thorntail's gray pelt, and his blue irises glittered like Thorntail's sapphires. His broad shoulders made him look strong, and powerful. The only difference she could discern was that Graywhisker didn't have as powerful muscles rippling beneath his pelt, and it wasn't blanketed with scars of battle. It was probably because all wounds were healed once a cat entered StarClan, she told herself.
Her mind whirled as she recalled everything she had heard about the spirit before her. He had been a noble, intelligent cat. But his mind was sharper than his claws, and his fighting skills never flourished. He had had liked mixing herbs and healing cats, and likely would have trained to be RiverClan's medicine cat if he had lived long enough. He had so loved Thorntail with the intensity that most warriors have for their Clan.
But even with Thorntail, Graywhisker had still chosen to end his life.
Graywhisker spoke, interrupting her thoughts. "I've been waiting to talk to someone. I wish I could speak to Thorntail, but I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to someone close to him."
His voice sent shivers down her spine. It was Thorntail's voice, but her mate's tone was always dripping with emotion, with a rainbow of feelings. Graywhisker's voice had Thorntail's rough beauty, but there was no feeling behind it. It wasn't monotone, as Graywhisker appropriately varied his pitch, but there was no feeling.
Her mind reeled to those six moons ago during Leaf-Bare. The RiverClan warrior Owlpelt had been curious about his former denmate's death and had begun digging up all sorts of facts. Shadenight and Thorntail both blamed themselves for Graywhisker's death, with Thorntail even going so far as to claim he pushed Graywhisker in front of that monster.
Now, maybe Graywhisker could make all those feelings go away. Make all the guilt fade.
"Graywhisker," Rosethorn meowed, dipping her head politely to the StarClan warrior, "there's a lot of cats in the forest that are still plagued by what you did. Nobody knows why you chose to..." she hesitated here, "to kill yourself."
Graywhisker's mellow expression didn't change. "Except for one cat."
"Thornpaw, wait up!"
Rosethorn's head jerked backwards. A cat had shouted behind her.
She blinked in surprise. She had thought that she and Graywhisker were speaking to one another privately. But she saw two forms pounding towards her. Was she still dreaming? Or had Graywhisker visited her in her waking hours?
Her eyes rounded as the forms grew closer, and they took shape. She could see their broad shoulders, their matching gray pelts.
Even younger, with his pelt not scored by the fangs and claws of his foes, with his fur softer and fresher, she recognized them: young Thorntail and Graypaw. Although they looked nearly identical, one of them carried himself with so much confidence and pride, like even as an apprentice the only authority he answered to was his own. This cat was rushing a fox-length ahead, his blue eyes narrowed into maleficent slits.
It had to be young-Thorntail.
But his brother had referenced him as Thornpaw. He looked a little old to still be an apprentice -- then she remembered that Thorntail hadn't earned his warrior name until much later than what normal apprentices do due to his antics, and Graywhisker had refused to take his until his brother caught up.
She glanced at the fully-grown gray cat perched on the boulder. He was Graywhisker, but she knew that the young gray cat at Thornpaw's side was also Graywhisker. Was she looking into the past? Was the cat atop the boulder the Graywhisker hunting in StarClan, and the cat rushing to Thornpaw the Graypaw of the past?
Thornpaw stumbled to a halt beside the foxhole, flicking his tail impatiently as he waited for his brother to catch up. "Hurry up, Graypaw," he cooed. His eyes were staring right past Rosethorn as if she weren't there. "There's something I want to show you!"
Graypaw hesitated before coming to Thornpaw's side. His eyes were clouded with confusion. "What is it, Thornpaw?" he asked warily. "Why did you lead us into ShadowClan territory? We're RiverClan cats, we're not supposed to - "
"I wanted to show you something," Thornpaw repeated. He jerked his tail towards the foxhole and slipped inside, signaling for Graypaw to follow him. Young Graypaw padded past his future self without a twitch of the whiskers.
Rosethorn hesitated before she followed the young cats in.
The foxhole was small, just large enough for two cats to sit comfortably, and was carpeted with ripped, torn moss and scattered feathers. The dirt walls were crisscrossed with claw marks.
And Rosethorn, she felt her jaw drop. Thorntail had told her this story, about what he had done for no reason other than to hurt Graywhisker. Because Graywhisker had so loved Smokestar...
Thornpaw slipped deeper inside, padding to the far wall before whirling to meet his brother. Even seasons past, Rosethorn could still taste the excitement sparking off of Thornpaw's pelt, and feel the cruelty rush through his blood. "Sniff the air, Graypaw," he meowed, his words dripping with venom. "I'm certain you still recognize our mother's scent, right?"
Graypaw looked confused. "Of course I do," he mumbled naively to Thornpaw, possibly not sensing the poison clouding the air. "No cat can forget the scent of their mother." He tasted the air innocently, and Rosethorn guessed that Graypaw thought his brother was merely showing him a place where his mother's scent still lingered. A place they could find her memory.
The cat's eyes rounded with horror. Graypaw had to have known then. He understood what Thornpaw was showing him, and Rosethorn's heart wrenched when she saw the cat that would become her mate still stab at the wound he had torn open.
"Do you smell that stale, musty odor?" Thornpaw coaxed. "That's the scent of mating. I know it well." Rosethorn wondered if that was another barb, hinting at how Thornpaw had taken the she-cat Graypaw had been padding after, Shadenight, as his mate.
"Do you smell mother?" Thornpaw continued, not taking his cold, blue eyes off of his kin. "She was here, entwined with a tom. For their scents to still be here, they must have come here a lot. But," he sniffed the air once more. "I don't smell Smokestar in here, do you?"
Rosethorn looked at Graypaw. Each word that Thornpaw spoke cut into the young cat like an enemy's claw, and it looked as though Graypaw was struggling not to run away.
"But you know what I do smell?" Thornpaw asked, cocking his head to the side. His eyes were wide, hungry to watch Graypaw suffer. Rosethorn guessed it was a satisfying feeding frenzy, but they obviously groaned for more. "I smell another tom. I think his scent matches ours a lot more than old Smokestar, wouldn't you agree?"
Graypaw hadn't spoken. He had stiffened, his tail falling limply in the dust as he stared vacantly at the torn moss.
Not disturbed, Thornpaw took a step closer. He leaned forward and hissed into Graypaw's ear so quietly Rosethorn had to strain her own pair to hear.
"Not only did our mother betray the Warrior Code that you love so much, she betrayed the 'father' that you love so much. She betrayed him for his own little brother."
Graypaw was nearly convulsing now, as though he had lost a lot of blood.
"Stop it, Thorntail!" Rosethorn yowled, her words laced with panic and drenched with anger. "You're killing him, don't you see?"
But even if the young cat could hear her, she wasn't certain if he would have stopped. She had asked Thorntail, moons ago why he had shown Graywhisker something if he knew it would hurt him so. He had told her the truth:
I didn't like him with his high-minded ideas and his sense of justice! I hated him for that since I was just a kit! I wished with all my heart that Graywhisker would go away.
"Not only is our very existence an insult to the Warrior Code, but it is also an insult to anything good and noble. Don't you see, Graypaw?" Thornpaw's words were sickly sweet, overpoweringly condescending. "We were born of our mother's betrayal. We were born because our mother turned her back on everything wholesome. She acted like a rogue, a selfish, rogue.
Thornpaw's words still hung in the air, but he had vanished. The suffering Graypaw had disappeared too.
Rosethorn stiffened. She had seen Thorntail's cruelty before, but never like that, never towards a cat who seemed to have nothing but admiration and love for him. And he didn't do it out of anything sensible, or even logical, like revenge.
Thorntail had just done it because he wanted Graywhisker to go away.
"Is that it?" Rosethorn cried, withdrawing from the den and jerking her muzzle skyward so she could confront Graywhisker. "Did you kill yourself because you found out that you weren't Smokestar's kit?"
Graywhisker blinked. "I suppose Thorntail blames himself, thinking that what he said was what made me decide to end it. But I wasn't shocked at all." He batted the subject away with a paw. "I found out a long time ago, long before Thorntail said anything to me. Of course, I was traumatized when I first found out, but the wound had scabbed by the time Thorntail told me. With a situation like that it doesn't matter. So I am not Smokestar's son? How did that really affect anything, in the long run?" He shrugged. "The question isn't important, and the answer even less so."
"Then-then why?" The words flew out of Rosethorn's mouth, unbidden, but not unwelcome. "Was it because of what Shadenight had said to you?" Shadenight, regretting that she had to choose between Thorntail and Graywhisker, had said that it would be far more convenient for her if there were only one brother, and that Graywhisker should just go away to make her life easier. "Was it because she chose Thorntail over you? Was it because of bullying?" As half-Clan cats, for moons RiverClan was reluctant to embrace the pair of toms. "What was the problem?"
"The problem lied inside of me." Graywhisker's blue eyes showed an ocean of pain. "The problem was that I realized that there was a formless beast living inside of me." His gaze flew past Rosethorn's shoulder.
She followed his stare, suppressing a gasp as she noticed how the land around her had changed. Her paws were no longer sinking into swamp, but were instead scratching against reeds. The silence of ShadowClan seemed moons and moons away, and somewhere close by, the river roared.
She new where she was very well. It had come to be a haven of safety, a place of acceptance. She was in the RiverClan camp.
Thornpaw was outside of the apprentice's den, tearing into a piece of fresh-kill. When he raised his head to look at something eye-level, Rosethorn saw that his muzzle was stained with blood. He didn't bother to swipe his tongue across his jaws to clean it off, even when Graypaw stumbled towards him.
Graypaw, like his brother, was also stained with blood. His gray fur was matted and torn, and his eyes were shaded, defeated. "Thornpaw," Graypaw greeted, his voice high, nasally, more like a kit's than an apprentice's. These were Graypaw and Thornpaw, but they were younger than the cats she had just seen. She had padded even farther back in time.
Rosethorn felt her heart beat faster in her chest as she eyed the apprentice's injuries. Unlike Thornpaw, the blood washed across Graypaw's pelt wasn't fresh-kill. It belonged to him. Had there just been a battle?
Thornpaw wasn't concerned with his brother's injuries. "Clean that blood off yourself," he ordered, more irritated than anything. After a pause, he added, "What happened, anyway?"
"What happened?" Graypaw's meekness evaporated, and he rained down fury onto his brother. "It was Fishpaw again! Look c-can you help me get the blood off? If I don't get it off soon, someone might scent it..." His eyes were wide and troubled.
"If the Clan finds out, he'll just hurt you worse next time," Thornpaw mused, more to himself than to Graypaw it seemed.
"It's more than that," Graypaw fumed, flattening his ears against his head. "Thornpaw, can you leave Fishpaw alone? He...he only did this to me," he swished his tail across his injuries, "because he was mad at how you hurt him last time. He said I shouldn't have come crying to you, that if I have a problem with him, I should take care of it myself." Graypaw had begun frantically washing his pelt now.
Thornpaw made no move to help him. "So, Fishpaw wants to be able to bully you and wants you to just accept it."
"No, he wants me to leave the Clan, Thornpaw. He doesn't think we belong here. And...he...he thinks that if I don't like what he does to me, I should just fight him off myself. But..." Graypaw paused in his wash, and shuffled his paws.
The unspoken words rang in the air. Graypaw wasn't a good fighter. Likely, he never would be. For some reason, he didn't seem to have the natural skill that most Clan cats were born with.
"Promise me you won't hurt him," Graypaw urged. "Otherwise it'll be worse next time. Look, I can handle it, okay Thornpaw? The wounds aren't very deep, there are just a lot of them. I can wash the blood off easy. I don't need you after all."
Thornpaw took another bite from his fresh-kill. "Don't worry, Graypaw," he sighed. "Fishpaw isn't going to hurt you again because of me." He finished up and rose to his paws. "I have to go out for awhile," he called over his shoulder as he began to trot away. He repeated his original order: "Wash up."
The RiverClan camp around her melted and was replaced with the land by the river. The air around her was moist, and the land beneath her paws was wet, and sticky. Reeds clawed against her pelt as she peered forward, watching what it was that StarClan was going to reveal to her next.
She sniffed the air again, her blood chilling to ice. The moist air had become tainted, instinct telling her of danger.
She scented blood.
Rosethorn used her tail to move aside some of the reeds that had been blocking her vision. Her mouth dropped into a gape.
Thornpaw's back was arched and his claws were unsheathed. He was panting heavily, as if he had just gone a great distance.
Before him, also poised for battle, was a sleek silver tomcat. She recognized him as a younger Fishclaw, a RiverClan cat.
Fishpaw continued, "Neither you nor your brother belong here. Your mother betrayed us, and you'll do it to, one day. Thornpaw, why don't you take your brother and just get out of here?" He lifted a paw and licked some of the blood off of his claws.
Graypaw's blood.
"Betray you?" Thornpaw echoed, his voice low, dark. "I suppose, attacking a Clanmate is considered treason, then?"
If Fishpaw caught the barb, he gave no indication. He simply squared his shoulders and dropped to the ground, as if preparing to pounce. "Now go away, Thornpaw. I'm hunting for the Clan. That's what real warriors do. If you're here to avenge Graypaw," he added, "don't bother. I'll just get him worse next time. You'll have to kill me to make me stop." He sneered.
Thornpaw's eyes glittered. "That's why I'm here. I kill fish all the time, Fishpaw. It won't be difficult."
And Fishpaw's eyes, they rounded with horror. Rosethorn could taste his fear-scent in the air the way she could taste fresh-kill. Fishpaw was a big, powerful cat, but even moons younger, Thornpaw was larger. And Thornpaw had always been a skilled fighter.
The silver apprentice was torn, she guessed. He didn't know if Thornpaw was bluffing, in which case if he ran he would gain nothing but the reputation of a coward, or if Thornpaw was telling the truth, in which case if he stayed he would be crowfood.
Thornpaw answered the question. And in a mere heartbeat after he issued the threat, Thornpaw was on his opponent. The two cats collided and fell into a storm of claws and fangs, the training their mentors had painstakingly gifted to them now being used to battle against apprentices of their own Clan, a battle to defend and take lives.
Rosethorn had seen battles. She had been in battles, and she had watched battles, and had seen all the injuries battles could make.
She had never seen anything like this. She had never seen two such young cats battle so viciously, so intent for blood.
Thornpaw's eyes were flashing blue fire, and his fangs grasped and fought for nothing but blood. His claws swished and swooped through the air like falcons descending upon their prey, always withdrawing from Fishpaw's body dripping scarlet.
Any semblance of strength or pride Fishpaw had laid claim to before disintegrated. He yowled for help, and clumsily tried to dodge Thornpaw's skilled blows. But Thornpaw's claws almost always swiped their mark, almost always left a stream of red trailing behind them.
A broken and bleeding Fishpaw tried to turn tail and flee, his paws kicking up sand and tearing up grass. An unscarred and ferocious Thornpaw charged after him, his paws launching him towards his target.
A victorious Thornpaw had Fishpaw pinned and defeated.
Fishpaw yowled for help.
"Oh, what's this?" Thornpaw asked, his voice sodden with sarcasm. He quoted Fishpaw's words to Graypaw with a cold loathing, "If you don't like what I'm going to do to you - and I am going to kill you, Fishpaw - then you should just stop me yourself. That's what real warriors do." His jaws parted, and he prepared to dive for Fishpaw's jugular.
Rosethorn had heard Thorntail tell the story, and she knew what was going to happen, but that didn't stop her paws from jittering beneath her. The look in Thornpaw's eyes was sending shivers down her spine, and the brutality of the scene before her made her voice release a yowl that no cat could hear.
"Stop!"
The cry hadn't come from Rosethorn.
Thornpaw didn't release Fishpaw, but he did look up.
Rosethorn followed Thornpaw's gaze and saw Graypaw stumbling towards the pair of dueling apprentices.
"Stop," Graypaw repeated, stopping a fox-length away. "Thornpaw, don't kill Fishpaw. It isn't worth it. Just stop it!"
Listen to your brother, Thorntail, Rosethorn prayed. Don't do this.
Thornpaw held his brother's gaze for a long moment, before shaking his head. "Like a blackbird singing the same song all the time," he mumbled. He raised his neck once more, preparing to fire it downwards and dig his fangs into Fishpaw, ending it all for the young cat right then and there.
Rosethorn looked to Graypaw, expecting him to launch himself at Thorntail, to protect his Clanmate from the demise waiting for him.
But Graypaw didn't look panicked, or horrified. His blue eyes were glittering with as much joy, as much excitement as Thornpaw's.
Graypaw's mew was scarcely over a whisper, and Rosethorn doubted that either Fishpaw or Thornpaw heard it. But it reverberated through her ears, sent chills down her spine, and made a sharp wind rush over her as if StarClan themselves had shouted it to the heavens.
"Die, river-rat."
And it was there that the scene melted away, once again setting Rosethorn's paws on the territory of Silverpelt. Her heart was roaring in her chest, and panic was coursing through her veins as though it was her life, not Fishpaw's, that had been threatened.
She knew that his mentor, who had been coming to check on the progress of his hunt, would rescue Fishpaw's life. Thorntail had told her the story before. Thorntail had been comparing himself to Silverleaf, when he told her. He had said that he had once merely tried to kill a cat for the sake of killing.
And Rosethorn had told him that it had been different. She excused him, saying he had simply meant to protect Graypaw.
But after seeing the scene take place before her, seeing the joy, the excitement, the ecstasy flash in Thornpaw's eyes, she wasn't sure if her words still held true.
Graywhisker was at her side. He wasn't broken or bleeding, and he was no longer an apprentice. He was the current Graywhisker, the one hunting in Silverpelt.
"I wasn't upset at all," Graywhisker explained, his voice low and chilling, just like it had been when he had decreed death onto Fishpaw. "It started there, I suppose. I discovered the existence of a cold-hearted, bloodthirsty murderer. And he was living inside of me.
"At the time, I didn't know why, but my heart was racing. I longed to see what would happen next, longed to see Fishpaw's blood stream into the river, and see the light in his eyes fade. I felt like a kit waiting to become an apprentice, waiting to start the fun, waiting for something I had waited my whole life for."
Each word Graywhisker sent made Rosethorn's throat clench.
Graywhisker continued. "The Warrior Code states that the lives of cats are sacred. The Warrior Code is designed merely to make sure that cats survive, that they are protected even when they are too weak or old to protect themselves anymore. But to me, life -- all life, be it belonging to a vole, a Twoleg, or a cat -- is nothing but a walking pile of flesh.
"Life isn't miraculous. It has no beauty. It has no dignity. Other than myself, I only admit to Thorntail's existence. I only admit to his beauty, his miracle. He's the only one I can forgive.
"When I was with Thorntail," Graywhisker's eyes shaded with nostalgia, "all I had to do was cry out to him, or beg, or bleed. The weaker I was, the stronger Thorntail became. It's like through Thorntail, I was able to be destructive and bloodthirsty. And through me, Thorntail was able to protect something."
If Graywhisker got hurt, Thorntail would have rushed to his aid and destroyed whatever had been troubling him. All Graywhisker had to do was act weak, act helpless, and he could use Thorntail like other cats used their fangs and claws to strike down their enemies.
Am I the same way? When she had met Flamesoul on the SunningRocks, had she used Thorntail to make Flamesoul writhe? Had she taken Graywhisker's place, as she had suspected shortly after she discovered the truth behind Graywhisker's suicide? Was she using Thorntail to fight what she could not?
No, no, no. She loved Thorntail. Everything she was thinking was wrong. Everything Graywhisker was saying was wrong. Life was sacred, it was miraculous, it was beautiful and dignified.
And she loved Thorntail.
Graywhisker was wrong, and she knew why, but she couldn't tell him why. She couldn't put her opinions into words, find anything to prove that life was beautiful, that her love was pure. She just knew.
And it was for Thorntail that she had to know the truth. "So why did you kill yourself?"
The gray cat's claws had slipped from their sheaths. "Because I discovered that Thorntail was leaving me. We'd been together ever since we were born…" he trailed off, seeming momentarily lost in his memories, before he continued. His voice was hard. "But because there was a Thorntail, there was a normal me. I was able to be the kind, noble, obedient cat everyone thought I was. Thorntail was the reason I was able to keep the dark side of me from emerging.
"I was… scared of myself. I was never as strong as Thorntail. He has the courage to face himself, to act as he truly is. So, I decided to end it all. There was a monster inside me trying to destroy me; I decided to destroy him with a monster on the outside."
Rosethorn remembered her naïve thoughts when she had been younger: that there was no such thing as a cat that had to go away. Every cat had purpose; every cat had a place in the forest. They could all do good, they could all earn their worth. No cat was born bad, or evil. The evil cats chose to do what they did, of their own free will.
Graywhisker didn't think that. He had detected a brutal streak in himself. A lust for blood for the sake of blood, a sadism that she had seen in few cats.
Instead of allowing himself to hurt anyone, instead of feeding his lust, he had ended it before he could hurt anyone.
She thought of Silverleaf, and how he liked to spill blood to see the blood, not to defend his Clan, not to defend his loved ones. She recalled Spiritheart's pain as she reminded Smokestar of how her son, Goldclaw, had been senselessly killed by a bored Silverleaf.
"Please tell Thorntail," Graywhisker's plea interrupted her thoughts, "that we are nothing alike. Like the sun and the moon, our natures are completely different..."
Graywhisker's words were like whispers of the breeze, gently cascading on Rosethorn's pelt. But while his voice was clear, running through her spine, climbing her, clawing her, he wasn't to be seen. Silverpelt had once again vanished, and the mighty trees that she knew so well were climbing from the earth, and grass and ferns were sprouting all around her.
The strong, familiar scent of ThunderClan filled the air. Leaves, earth, sand, trees -- ThunderClan ruled this territory.
And as she gazed around, she recognized where she was. She remembered how many times she had been told to be wary of this dangerous territory, for the ShadowClan territory lie just over the border.
And the border was woefully dangerous as well. Its smell pummeled her scent glands, scraped against her nostril and spat its acid on her tongue.
For the border was the Thunderpath. And it laid hardly a tail-length before her.
Above her head, a light snow was beginning to fall to the earth, and the sun had begun its climb over the horizon. And right beside her, a whisker's brush to her flank, there was Graywhisker. His eyes didn't focus on her, and were instead flicking his gaze from the Thunderpath to the patch of deathberries he had set at his paws.
The Thunderpath, the snow, Graywhisker.
She knew what was going to happen. She knew what Graywhisker was going to do, what Thorntail was going to see. She knew that he was about to receive the worst scar of all, not the sort that you receive in battle, but the sort that scores across your heart, and cuts and blisters and bleeds for the rest of your life.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Rosethorn shook her head wildly, willing herself to wake up. She didn't need to see this! She didn't want to see this! She didn't need to see Graywhisker die; she didn't need to see Thorntail suffer. She did not need to see her mate be completely destroyed, see him lose the thing he loved most - even if he never was able to admit that love while Graywhisker lived.
She didn't need to see Thorntail die inside. She didn't need to know!
She fled from the Thunderpath, flying wildly into the undergrowth, charging wildly into the very territory she had just fled two sunrises ago.
Because she could imagine nothing worse than seeing what had scarred Thorntail so, what had sunk so deeply into him and tore at his very soul.
She pounded forward. Even if she found Flamesoul, even if she found the demons of hell, she knew nothing could be worse than seeing suffering like that.
As she ran, the voices of RiverClan echoed through her head.
"Where do you suppose Graywhisker went?"
"He was supposed to be sitting vigil!"
"It's not normal for a cat to just leave camp during their vigil."
"Something must have happened."
"...You're right. Puddlespots, Speedtail, Owlpaw, Shadepaw, go find Graywhisker. Thorntail, you stay in camp, you're probably tired from your vigil. I'm sure it's nothing. Thorntail, get back here. Thorntail. Thorntail!"
Thorntail was far away, but she could already hear his paw steps thundering through the forest. She could taste his panic, and scent his fear. Not for himself, but for his brother. All the way in RiverClan territory, she could feel the guilt already seeping off of his pelt.
Because he knew Graywhisker so well. He had to know what was going to happen.
As she continued her flight from the Thunderpath, she heard a cat scurry past her. She tossed a look over her shoulder to see the dark she-cat Shadenight - Shadepaw, then - rushing after Graywhisker's scent. Her eyes were wide and troubled, as if she too somehow sensed what was about to happen.
And a mere heartbeat later, Shadepaw was crashing backwards, and zoomed past Rosethorn once again but in the opposite direction as before, yowling for her patrol, yowling for Thorntail.
And Rosethorn heard Graywhisker's voice echo through her head, a soft, calm quiet voice, speaking more to himself than to anyone: That's right, go get Thorntail.
And then she stumbled in her tracks, pausing her rapid, wild dash.
Charging towards her, his eyes round and wild with panic, was Thorntail. His paws slammed down onto the earth beneath him, and he charged through ThunderClan territory as if it were his own. He ran for Graywhisker, ran because he knew what his kin was going to do, knew he had to save him.
He brushed past her.
A storm of thoughts, of memories came flooding into her head as ginger and gray fur mingled. Thorntail was thinking of when they were kits, shuckling alongside one another. They had hunted prey together, tossed moss. They had snuck out of the nursery, snuck out of the apprentice den, all together. They had endured Smokestar's hatred together, endured RiverClan's distrust. All the times, lonely and isolated by their distrustful Clanmates, they had been able to find companionship in one another. They hadn't needed RiverClan, they hadn't needed ShadowClan, they hadn't needed their father or mother, they had had each other.
They had received their warrior names, side by side.
He was thinking of everything he had said to him. Every fruitless battle, every barbed comment, everything he had done just to hurt his brother. He had stolen Graywhisker's mate, taken him away from ShadowClan, took away Smokestar, taken everything from him just to make Graywhisker suffer.
And now, he wanted nothing more than to take them all back.
It wasn't over, Thorntail didn't want it to be over, he wanted his brother.
All of that flashed through Rosethorn's mind in a mere heartbeat. Thorntail had rushed past her, not seeing or sensing the she-cat that would one day be his mate.
After a brief hesitation, Rosethorn whirled around and chased after him.
Thorntail wasn't going to face this alone.
She ran at his side, refusing to allow him to face the demon ahead by himself.
Thorntail's muscles rippled beneath his pelt, and his paws launched him forward at a speed any WindClan cat would envy. As the pair of cats rain, they brushed up fallen leaves around them, scrambled over tree branches, ducked under ferns and charged through brambles. Nothing made them veer to the side, nothing made them halt.
If StarClan themselves had stood in their way, StarClan themselves would have been trampled.
The snow was coming down faster, now. It was whirling, dancing to the ground, and beautifully blanketing the earth. The blue twilight overhead was glittering, just beginning to hide the warriors of Silverpelt until the following night.
Maybe StarClan was lingering for a reason. Maybe StarClan knew that they were about to welcome a new warrior.
And Rosethorn, she ran faster. Beside her, Thorntail kept pelting forward. His pelt was bleeding and torn from the bracken and brambles, and the earth where he tred his paws became blanketed with blood. He was in pain, she knew he had to be, but he didn't alter his pace. He didn't slow down. He flew as if on wings, his eyes never looking anywhere but ahead, where his Clanmate, his kin, his brother, Graywhisker was waiting for him.
Rosethorn ran shoulder to shoulder with him for so long, soon even her mind was flashing with hope, her entire consciousness having fallen back in time. Maybe we can stop him. If we get there in time, we can convince him not to do what he's going to do. We can all go back to the RiverClan camp, we can all live the rest of our lives, we can be happy. No cat has to die!
The acrid scent of Thunderpath pounded her senses.
With his mate at his side, Thorntail exploded through the ferns, tumbling right before the Thunderpath, right before the roaring monsters, right before Graywhisker.
Brother and brother, sun and moon, held each other's gaze for an eternity measured in breaths and heartbeats.
Monsters were scoring down the Thunderpath, Clans upon Clans of them. Their intentions were unknown, their eyes blank and staring ahead at nothing, nothing but where they were going.
But their roars, the wind howling around them, the rustling of leaves and the yowling of the patrol coming from behind: everything was blacked out. All was silent, all was mute, and nothing else was there except for Graywhisker and Thorntail.
Thorntail's eyes flashed from his brother, to the deathberries at his paws, to the Thunderpath. Then they rested on his brother again. His blue eyes clouded with pain, and they pleaded and begged even before Thorntail's tongue did.
Thorntail hesitatingly took a step towards his brother, as though moving too fast would frighten him into the clutches of death. He was shaking his head, unable to believe what he was seeing, not wanting to see what he was seeing.
Graywhisker's eyes were narrowed into maleficent little slits, mirroring his brother's expression in the foxhole. His eyes were sharper than any claw, armed with pure loathing and disgust.
Pure blame.
Rosethorn had never heard Thorntail's voice quiver before. But it did, it shook and tumbled like the snow falling around him. "G-Graywhisker," he meowed, calling his brother by his warrior name for what was likely the first time.
He flicked his tail to the empty space beside him, offering it forward. Thorntail's eyes were blue pools of regret, oceans of sorrow. "Come back here," he pleaded.
Graywhisker's expression was stoic, as if he had not heard what his brother had said.
Please, Graywhisker, Rosethorn prayed to the long-dead cat, Don't die. Come back with Thorntail, don't hurt him, please!
Thorntail's voice was louder, harsher, more of an order than a request. "Come back here," he repeated. But his eyes were still those of a beggar, still pleading, still bowing.
Please, Graywhisker. Don't hurt Thorntail.
And Graywhisker, he stepped away from the Thunderpath. He buried his muzzle into his brother's chest, entwined his tail with his.
Joy, raw, wrenching, warm joy flashed in Thorntail's eyes. It didn't have to end. Rosethorn knew that he would never hurt Graywhisker like that again, he was sorry, he'd make it up to him, they'd catch so much prey together and mentor apprentices together and fight for RiverClan and becomes elders together. They had just been named warriors, and nothing was ending. Their lives were just beginning, and it would be rich. Now that he knew that Graywhisker was too precious to lose, how much he loved and needed him, everything would be okay, now.
"Thorntail," Graywhisker meowed, stepping backwards to stare more meaningfully at his kin. "We're always going to be together."
Thorntail's jaws parted to reply. Rosethorn guessed he was going to agree, to say that he and Graywhisker would be inseparable now, that he loved him, that he was stupid to scare him so much and ---
"I'll wait for you," Graywhisker finished.
Thorntail twitched, confused.
And Graywhisker whirled around and leaped.
He flew into the sky, his forepaws jutting towards StarClan. For a moment he was frozen in midair and she thought maybe he was just going to fly into the sky like a bird, like an angel.
Thorntail flinched, his paws willing him onward but his instinct probably keeping him back, his face contorted in shock, in horror, in disbelief because he had been born with Graywhisker and he had always been with him and -- Graywhisker, he couldn't just be dead!
But he was dead, for he wasn't an angel. Instead of flying to the heavens he flew to the ground, to the Thunderpath. And the monster, it flew towards him, smashing him and squeezing him, unbothered by the cat beneath its paws.
And then it was gone.
And then Graywhisker was gone.
Behind her, Rosethorn heard Shadepaw's pitiful wail.
Beside her, Thorntail's jaws were still parted, but now in a silent yowl, a silent cry of agony. A cry that was still echoing through the forest.
And then, without checking if another monster was roaring down the Thunderpath, Thorntail padded onto the gray stone.
Rosethorn could see from her position at the Thunderpath's side. Graywhisker's body was flattened, mutilated, lying in a puddle of its own blood.
And Thorntail, he was standing above Graywhisker's corpse. A corpse that had formed with him in Lightsnow's womb, that had been with him every day of his life, that his been the only thing that had been entirely loyal to him, the only thing that trusted him.
A corpse that was exactly like him. They both had gray pelts. Both had blue eyes. Both had the same facial structure, muscles, jaws.
Both had been mutilated, both had been crushed. One from the outside, one from within.
Rosethorn padded to her mate's side and pressed her muzzle against his flank even though she knew he couldn't feel it. Her heart was torn seeing Thorntail suffer, seeing the cat that had so protected her writhe, and being unable to do anything about it. All she could do was try to be there.
Thorntail's eyes were as glazed and dead as Graywhisker's as he still held his brother's gaze.
Tell Thorntail, Graywhisker's voice echoed in her head once more, that I wish I was as strong as he was. And that I take comfort that I at least live on in his heart.
And ask him to please let his own monster forever live in his heart as well. The two of us will always be together. Tell him that I wait for him. Thorntail. Tell him that I hope he comes back to me soon.
Hey, guys! See? I'm getting good at this 'Don't Not Update For Six Months' thing! ^^
Anyways, I was wondering what you guys thought about something: Did Graywhisker make the right decision? He saw something very wrong with him, and before he hurt anyone, he hurt himself. Was that a good thing? Where do you stand on this issue? Inquiring minds want to know.
Review and get a steel baseball bat!