A cold wind was blowing off the lake, ruffling Watersplash's fur as she sat on the shore. Emberpaw had begged to come down there, and although Watersplash had done her best to convince her that it was too cold out for swimming lessons, the apprentice had done nothing but sulk all morning until Watersplash had finally given up and agreed to take Emberpaw down to the lake. She knew she had to stop being such a pushover, but it was hard to take authority with such a difficult apprentice. She felt like Emberpaw wouldn't listen no matter what, so it was easier to just go along with what she wanted sometimes.
"I'm gonna start swimming now!" Emberpaw called from where she stood a few tail-lengths into the lake. The water came up to her belly. Watersplash seemed to remember it being up to her chin at that point when she'd been Emberpaw's age; the young apprentice had hit a growth spurt.
"Just don't go too far out," Watersplash meowed. Emberpaw nodded before taking a deep breath and plunging her head under the water.
Watersplash watched the stream of bubbles that tracked the submerged apprentice's location in the water as she swam about, coming up to suck in a gulp of air and then going down again. Despite her initial bad behavior, Emberpaw was proving to be quite the fast learner- almost faster than Watersplash had been. If it weren't surely impossible, she'd have wondered if her apprentice would soon end up surpassing her.
Since Emberpaw was doing fine on her own, Watersplash let her attention wander, gazing over at the rolling hills of WindClan. Squinting against the sun, she spotted a patrol on the horizon, and as they drew nearer she saw with a pang of excitement that Grasstail was among them. She stood up and waved her tail, hoping he'd see her. Sure enough, the greenish-gray warrior seemed to perk up a bit, and she could just make out him waving his tail back at her.
Watersplash purred softly to herself, pleased to have seen her lover, even if it was only from a distance. Just as becoming a warrior had given her more freedom, becoming a mentor had taken that freedom away; Watersplash had only been able to meet up with Grasstail three times in the past two moons- and one of those times had been at a Gathering.
Then she diverted her attention back to Emberpaw, who had paddled a bit further out than what was to Watersplash's liking. "Come back this way," she called. Emberpaw didn't listen, instead propelling herself even further out toward the middle of the lake with surprisingly powerful strokes. Watersplash wondered if she could even hear her from that far out. "Come back!" she repeated, raising her voice. "You're too far out!"
Emberpaw still didn't turn around. Watersplash sighed; she'd hoped to avoid going in the water on such a chilly day, but it was her duty as mentor to keep her apprentice safe at all times. She jumped into the lake, cringing at the low temperature, and swam out toward the disobedient young cat. Emberpaw must have seen Watersplash swimming out for her, because she sucked in a breath and ducked underwater again, this time holding her breath. Not in the mood for such shenanigans, Watersplash submerged her head as well, keeping her eyes open so as not to lose track of her apprentice.
She could see Emberpaw thrusting herself away as fast as possible, her little legs kicking hard and fast. She had to get tired out soon, and sure enough, after she went up for air once her pace had slowed down significantly. Watersplash closed the distance between them, her frustration sharpening into outrage as Emberpaw veered up to the surface again just as she reached her. But she wasn't going to lose her that easily. Watersplash followed her apprentice to the surface, giving her a sharp cuff. "Emberpaw, stop this at once!" she commanded, kicking her legs to stay afloat. "You are directly disobeying your mentor's instructions- I told you not to go too far out!"
"But I wanna swim to the other side," Emberpaw whined, trying to jerk away and duck back underwater. Watersplash wasn't having it; she grabbed the black-and-orange apprentice by the scruff and yanked her toward the shore. "No fair!" she protested, struggling against the grip of Watersplash's teeth. "I'm gonna tell Storkflight!"
"In that case," Watersplash hissed around a mouthful of bicoloured fur, "I'll tell Miststar that you were misbehaving."
Emberpaw grumbled but stopped resisting. Once they were both back on shore, Watersplash sat Emberpaw down across from her and gave her a strict talking-to.
"I know swimming is fun, but it you're not ready to swim that far yet," she meowed sternly. "Even accomplished warriors have a hard time swimming such a distance! You'd never make it all the way across. And if you did, some cat from another Clan might spot you and think we're planning to invade!"
Emberpaw stared at her paws. "Sorry," she muttered. It was obvious she was only saying it because she had to, but Watersplash decided to accept the apology anyway. Emberpaw would learn in due time what was acceptable behavior and what wasn't. Until then, it was her job to keep her on the right track.
She just hoped she'd be able to keep it up for long enough.
Sandstar was sitting up in his nest, staring at the elders' den with a faraway look in his eyes. Grasstail wondered if he was worried about Gorsewind. The old cat's health had been rapidly deteriorating as of late, and as leaf-fall progressed Podtail was afraid that he'd soon succumb to illness. Grasstail knew that the two elderly toms had been very close in their youth- "closer than friends," Roseflower had once told him. It was unclear to Grasstail exactly what the nature of their relationship had been, but at this point it didn't really matter. They were both so old…
"You've been to RiverClan territory again, haven't you?" Sandstar's raspy meow startled Grasstail. The leader swung his head around to face him, his half-clouded eyes piercing Grasstail's pelt. "I can smell them all over you."
"I-I was on a border patrol earlier today, yes," Grasstail answered, choosing his words carefully. He added a flustered dip of his head at the last minute, not wanting Sandstar to think he was being disrespectful.
Sandstar gave him a long look. "That's not what I meant." The reply made Grasstail want to shudder. He wondered just how much the leader knew. He hadn't shown any sign of knowing anything about Watersplash before this- but what if he had suspected something all along and was just waiting for the right moment? Maybe he was testing Grasstail to see what his reaction was.
Well, if he did know something, hopefully he'd just spit it out already. Grasstail would have preferred Appleshine's intrusive interrogations to this anxiety-inducing uncertainty.
"Could you do me a favour and check on Gorsewind for me?" Sandstar asked, changing the subject. He hesitated a moment before adding, "And tell him I'm sorry for being such a fool all those seasons ago."
Grasstail nodded numbly, still shaken by the prospect that the Clan leader knew he was having romantic relations outside his Clan. He ducked into the elders' den to find Gorsewind huddled in a corner, scuffing his paws in the dirt. What is he doing? Grasstail wondered, padding forward to get a closer look at what the elder was scratching in the dirt.
Up close, he could see that Gorsewind was drawing some kind of pattern. His breath rustled some of Gorsewind's ragged fur and the elder flinched, swinging his muzzle around to glare at Grasstail accusingly. He jumped back, alarmed, and Gorsewind relaxed, his shoulders sagging back into their sunken position.
"Don't sneak up on me like that," Gorsewind croaked, frantically rubbing out the patterns he'd drawn. "You'll give me a heart attack."
"Sorry," Grasstail muttered. He sniffed, checking for the scent of sickness, and was relieved not to detect it. "Sandstar told me to check on you," he explained. "He also said to tell you he's sorry."
Gorsewind stiffened, drawing in a sharp inhale. "Sandstar, eh?" he rasped, trying a bit too hard to sound casual. "Why, what's the old cat done wrong this time?"
"He says it's for something he did many seasons ago," Grasstail meowed awkwardly. "Acting like a fool… I, um, don't know exactly what he meant, but-"
"I know what he means," Gorsewind sighed. There was a deep sadness to him as he spoke, and Grasstail wondered what could have transpired between him and Sandstar to warrant it. "But I don't know what good he thinks it'll do to go apologizing now. I've already forgiven him long ago. Oh, I was angry at first, but what choice did he have? Things were different back in our day. Cats weren't as accepting."
"Accepting?" Grasstail echoed, fully aware that he sounded like an idiot. "What do you mean?"
"Son, you may be a moody one, but you're no rabbit-brain," the elder harrumphed. "Haven't you figured it out by now? After all I told you about us before, did you really still think that Sandstar and I were just friends back in the day?"
Grasstail was unsure how to answer. Of course he'd been able to surmise that the two toms had had a very close relationship, but it had never occurred to him that the relationship had been anything other than platonic.
Gorsewind barked out a short, harsh laugh, as though he could tell what Grasstail was thinking. "That's right, I'll just come right out and say it now, because StarClan knows I couldn't come out and say it back then. Sandstar used to be my mate."
He paused, maintaining eye contact with Grasstail but tense, as though he was going to run away at any moment. He was obviously gauging Grasstail's reaction to see if he had a judgemental expression. But he had no reason to. Gorsewind was no more deserving of his judgement than Appleshine, or Barkstripe, or any other cat.
"Go on," Grasstail meowed calmly, and he smiled inwardly as he saw Gorsewind relax and his fur flatten. "What happened between you to change that?"
"Well, even then, it wasn't like cats like us were considered a violation of the warrior code- at least not officially," Gorsewind began. "The previous leader, Harestar, couldn't have exiled us from WindClan just on account of us being mates- or at least, that couldn't be the official reason."
He gave Grasstail a dry smile, and Grasstail's belly did a summersault. He couldn't even imagine Appleshine being faced with the threat of exile, and as much as he hated her sometimes, he was glad that wasn't the case. Two warriors in the same Clan being mates was never something that should have been seen as a problem.
"Fortunately, Harestar wasn't too judgemental, so even if we had been open about the whole thing we wouldn't have faced the risk of exile," Gorsewind went on. "However, Sandstar- Sandstone back then- didn't want to take the risk."
Grasstail seemed to remember Gorsewind having told him once before that Sandstar's warrior name had been Sandstone, but he'd completely forgotten. He recalled the time the elder had repeated the name as he was tossing and turning. Suddenly that made a lot more sense.
"I told Sandstone to stop worrying- after all, it wasn't like Clan life was the be-all, end-all. If worst did come to worst, we could've run away and lived together in the woods somewhere. The life of a rogue wouldn't be so bad if I had him with me. Rogues on the whole tend to have a… more colourful lifestyle," he added with a scratchy purr. Then the purr faded and he returned to a more somber tone. "But it would have been unheard of for a tom who loves toms to ever have become Clan leader, and that's just what Sandstone wanted. So we kept it a secret, he went on to become leader, and we kept on being mates right up until he lost his first life to a bought of greencough. While he was recovering, Deerspots came into his den to give him some medicine while I was in there with him. After that he got paranoid that we'd be found out and told me we had to stop being mates. We kept being friends after that, but… it felt like Sandstar was just putting on a show of friendship. Then when we started getting older, he alienated me completely, and we haven't talked since."
Once he was finally done his long-winded story, Gorsewind slumped deeper into his nest, eyelids drooping. Grasstail blinked, not sure if he should comment. What could he really say to such a story? It seemed insane how such a relationship could fall apart under the wrong circumstances.
Grasstail thought of his own secret relationship. Were all such affairs doomed to failure? If so, maybe it would be better for him to be the one to end it and spare him more pain later on.
Having an apprentice may indeed have made it difficult for Watersplash to get away and see Grasstail, but that didn't make it impossible. They had bumped into each other a few days ago while they'd both been on border patrols and had made plans to meet each other at the broken halfbridge. Watersplash had volunteered to be the night guard, and though she felt guilty about leaving the camp unguarded, what where the chances anyone was actually going to invade? As soon as all her Clanmates had gone to bed, she slunk off toward the lake, tingling with excitement.
It took Grasstail longer to get there than she would normally have expected from him. When he finally did show up, he looked uneasy, and it was apparent that something was wrong.
"What's the matter?" Watersplash murmured as she ran up to greet him. "Did you have trouble getting away?"
"Not exactly," Grasstail mumbled. He ground his jaw, which Watersplash had often chided him about; if he kept that up he'd grind his fangs down so he couldn't bite properly. "Look, Watersplash, I'm not sure we can keep doing this," he muttered. "I mean, you're a mentor now, and I… well, let's just say I've aroused a bit of suspicion lately."
Watersplash blinked in dismay. Hadn't Grasstail been the one who had come to her after staying away from her for so long, saying he had to see her again? And he'd been the first to say "I love you"… He had also been the one to initiate most of the physical interactions between them. Then again, Grasstail was also the one who had told her when they were apprentices that they couldn't be friends anymore. And now he was back at it again, but this time it was more than a friendship he was angling to end…
Unable to find the right words to voice her confused tangle of emotions, Watersplash tried to reason with him the best way she knew. "We can make it work," she meowed, wincing as her voice cracked. "We've made it work for this long. Why should anything change now?"
"But it won't work in the long run," Grasstail muttered. He raked his claws through the ground, stirring up the fallen leaves that littered the area. "We think this is working fine, but it's not really. We can't even… you know… mate with each other, because then we'd run the risk of you getting pregnant and no cat in RiverClan having any reason to think he's the father."
"Is that really the biggest issue with this to you?!" Watersplash demanded incredulously. "Not being able to sleep with me? And here I thought you valued our emotional connection!"
She knew she was overreacting- or at least she hoped she was. Of course Grasstail valued their emotional connection! But he was a young tom, and he couldn't help but want to do certain things with the cat he cared about. If they weren't from different Clans, she'd have no inhibitions about getting more physical with him on a regular basis… wouldn't she?
Truth be told, even the one time they had slept together, Watersplash had mostly gone along with it because she'd known that was what Grasstail had wanted. She hadn't disliked it, but she hadn't gotten as much out of it as she'd expected. Maybe she just hadn't been in the right mood, or maybe she just didn't have sexual feelings. Either way, she did have romantic feelings, and strong ones. Watersplash couldn't understand why Grasstail was wanted to end what they had, and she wasn't about to let it happen.
"You've got bees in your brain," she told him. "What we've got now is fine, and if you're too scared to take the risk that comes with our relationship, I don't know why I even bothered with you in the first place."
Grasstail's eyes flashed and his pelt bristled. "Who are you to talk about risks?" he hissed. "I've been taking that risk for moons! I'd gladly throw away my relationship with my own kin for you! But what have you lost? Nothing, and if this keeps up, I'm afraid that's going to change, and I don't think you'll be able to handle it when a cat who care about finally stops caring."
"You don't think I'll be able to handle loss, huh?" Watersplash spat. Who was Grasstail to think he could get away with being so rude? "I lost my father and both my littermates while I was still in the nursery, you self-centred dungface! My cousin ran away and I had no idea if he was even alive until he showed back up half a moon later with no explanation! What have you ever lost in your life other than all the things you've passed up?!"
Grasstail flinched and Watersplash's chest flared with pride for a moment before she realized how hurt he looked. Had she been too harsh?
"I may not have a sob story like you," he snarled, baring his fangs and digging his claws into the earth, "but don't think for a second I've never lost anything. I don't know if I ever told you this, but my mother died on the day of my warrior assessment. Did you even wonder why I never talked about her?" Grasstail demanded, snapping at Watersplash, who jumped back, hissing. "Or did you just assume I'd driven her away the way I apparently drove everyone away?!"
Watersplash shrank back, ashamed. She'd had no idea that Grasstail's mother had died. She should have apologized right there, and then maybe they could have talked things out. But the knot of rage in her belly drove her to lash out again. "Well, how was I supposed to know that?" she hissed. "You never tell me anything about your kin or friends outside of complaining about them! I'd love to have littermates, and you don't appreciate yours in the slightest!"
"Well, it's not my fault you killed your littermate," Grasstail spat.
That was Watersplash's breaking point. She'd always felt like she'd been partially responsible for Splashkit's death, but being outwardly accused of killing him?! She hadn't meant for him to fall into the river, and she hadn't had a clue that the cold water was going to make him get sick! She'd been a four-moon-old kit, for StarClan's sake!
With a yowl of outrage, Watersplash leapt, claws outstretched, at Grasstail. She tackled him, hot rage stinging her eyes as she felt his fangs sink into her shoulder. They fought, a whirling mass of fangs and claws, and Watersplash's mind seemed to go blank until the world around her disappeared.
She'd been willing to forgive Grasstail at first, but he'd gone too far. This was the end.