Me: *says I'll be able to post more*
Also Me: *doesn't post for a solid two more months*
Yeah, sorry about that. Quarantine is great free time but it also totally tanked my mental health so like, I was struggling for a bit. Thankfully, I'm much better now! I'm not gonna promise about posting more so that I don't feel the weight of failure when I don't keep up to said promise, so I hope you all can forgive me for that, but I will promise that I'll do my absolute best to start (which is easy because I'm living every day just doing my best, so no weight of failure :D). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and again, real sorry!
Kestrelpaw lifted her head as Nettlepelt returned, the tom moving over to where she and Pearlight were resting.
"So far, everything's clear," he mews. "I didn't see any dangers, and the only scents I found were prey-scent. Not even a stale badger."
"Good," Pearlight replied. "Hopefully that means we're safe here." He pauses, whiskers twitching before his gaze glances to Kestrelpaw.
The apprentice watched curiously as Pearlight nudged Nettlepelt around the tree, and further off, saying that he wanted to discuss the route they were taking. Her ears twitched with excitement.
Well, if they're talking about the route, it wouldn't hurt to listen in, right? She hummed to herself, her tail twitching. I mean... If I'm gonna become an expedition cat, I should learn as much as I can!
She fumbled under the roots of the tree, where a small dug-out, shallow hole greeted her. Something she had found while Pearlight and her had been searching. The den the cats would rest in for the night.
She slowly crawled beneath the tree roots, ears perking as she scooted closer to the side that Nettlepelt and Pearlight had gone. As quiet as a fox, she shifted closer until she could hear them murmuring in hushed tones, their voices just barely reaching her ears.
"...no scent of one?" Pearlight was asking.
"None," Nettlepelt replied stiffly, his ears low. But the pause in his voice seemed to make Pearlight's gaze darken.
"Nettlepelt..." He hisses softly. "You can't hide it if you did catch a scent of one."
"It doesn't matter," the tabby tom mews briskly. "It was just one. Heavily injured. Don't worry about it."
"Did you see it?" Pearlight gaped.
"No." Nettlepelt shook his head. "I just... You can't tell Cindercall."
Kestrelpaw froze. This wasn't route discussion. Nettlepelt had found something... And wanted to hide it from Cindercall?
The apprentice never once knew of a time that Nettlepelt hid things from his mate; not at all.
"We need to-"
"If we tell Cindercall, she'll take it into her own paws," Nettlepelt hisses quietly. "She thinks she has to do this alone; you remember what happened. During the battle. I... I can't let her get hurt like that again, and even if there's one wolf, there's a chance that-"
"She'll go to sleep," Pearlight replied. "And possibly never wake again."
The stone cold silence reached Kestrelpaw, and her eyes widened.
"We got lucky last time," Nettlepelt whispered, his voice choked slightly with emotion. "She woke up. I can't risk her going out and doing it all over again. Hurting herself because she doesn't want to lose anyone else."
Pearlight's ears pinned to his head.
"Cindercall's a warrior, Nettlepelt," he hissed softly. "You know what's on her shoulders. You can't keep protecting her from this kind of thing."
"And she can't keep protecting me or anyone else!" Nettlepelt retorted. "If I told her about that creature, she'd storm up to it and kill it. But what if there's more? What if I missed something? What if she dies-"
Pearlight's paw was quick, cuffing the tabby tom over the ear, his eyes narrowed with anger.
"No." He snapped. "Don't you go do that to yourself, you fur-brain. What happened with Hazelpaw wasn't your fault. No one's going to die because of you, cloud-head. You're the best damn observer we've got in this Clan. There's no way you missed anything. Not when you've got Milkthroat's blood in you."
Nettlepelt's ears lowered, and Kestrelpaw stared at her paws.
All of their words made no sense, but it sounded scarier and scarier with each breath.
Was her mother at risk? Was Cindercall going to die?
She could only think of Goosekit. Of how he died before she could have said goodbye.
Maybe Cindercall didn't hate her, but even if she did... Kestrelpaw didn't want her to die... There was too much she had to say to her.
A loud yowl split the air, making Kestrelpaw squeak in surprise, her head ramming into the underside of the tree. Groaning, she scrambled out the way she had come, to see Cindercall and Fleetpaw trotting back to the tree, prey in jaws.
"The forest is rich with food!" The grey warrior announced proudly, dropping a rabbit onto the ground. "And Fleetpaw did amazing out there." She nodded to the young tom, who proudly placed down a thrush and a pair of mice. Nettlepelt and Pearlight quickly rounded the corner, any sign of their conversation wiped off their faces. The brown tabby greeted his mate with a touch of the nose and a purr, while Pearlight moved to Kestrelpaw, nudging her softly.
"Why don't you pick out some prey?" He purrs sweetly. "You've done good work today, and you earn a good rest."
Kestrelpaw nodded slowly, not meeting his gaze, before moving towards Fleetpaw and taking a mouse.
Quick and quiet, she moved back to the tree, curling up as she stared at the limp mouse.
Will this... one day be Cindercall...?
She looked at the other cats. Cindercall seemed completely unknowing of what might happen. Fleetpaw too. And Pearlight and Nettlepelt...
They were hiding it all so that they wouldn't worry.
Her eyes returned to the mouse.
StarClan... She whispers in her mind. You already have Goosekit... Please don't take Cindercall from me too...
Sweethawk stared blankly out at the camp, her tail curled around her paws.
Lighteye and Eaglewhisker were hunched beside her, the sisters quiet and huddled together like kittens who had lost their mother.
With a stab of pain, she could even remember that. The scars over her face throbbed as she looked at the medicine cat den.
She wanted to speak. To say something...
But she couldn't.
What was there to say?
Eaglewhisker's gaze was dark as Mumblebee emerged from the medicine cat den, Eelstar helping him carefully move Oddbird's body out into the center of the camp.
Larchsplash, Deadcreek, Heatherheart, and Longspring were quick to join their aid, the six cats taking on the weight of the young warrior's body.
As the Clan slowly began to gather, Sweethawk felt a pained heaviness in her chest.
Oddbird didn't deserve this. Maybe he didn't talk much, and maybe she hadn't been as close to him as she had been with his sisters, but...
She still remembered the days where she would play-fight him and the others.
Oddstar versus Sweetstar; two kits who were young and excited for life as a warrior.
Maybe she hadn't been close with him, but... A part of her still wanted to see which one of them might've become leader one day.
But if Oddbird was dead...
She'd never know... Not truthfully. Not even played out between them if neither of them became leader.
The thought that she'd never have small races side by side with the tom during hunting patrols again stung harder than anything else.
Her gaze flickered to Eaglewhisker and Lighteye, who had pressed even closer to each other as Oddbird's body was laid in the center of camp.
If it hurt this bad for her, she couldn't imagine what they were feeling.
The two sisters moved forward as the elders backed away, Mumblebee staying by Oddbird's side. Eelstar moved over to Sweethawk, sitting beside her, his thin tail curling around his paws.
As the rest of the Clan gathered to pay their respects, Sweethawk held herself reserved, watching in silence even as Vinedust moved forward, nestling beside Volenose, Lighteye, Fuzzymoon, and Eaglewhisker.
She watched, silent.
"You're... quiet..." Eelstar mewed softly after a moment, his voice breaking the tense silence that had settled over them.
Sweethawk didn't reply at first, her ears lowering against her head.
With a long, tired sigh, she looked to her former mentor.
"When... When I was a kit..." She whispered. "No one ever told me about this..." Her gaze flickered back to Oddbird's body. "First, it was the Battle for the Moon Circle... We lost... so many... Jaggedstar, Milkthroat, Greysong, Timbermask, Shiningdawn, Moonbreeze, Ashwater... And before then, we lost Skyfleet... Squirrelkit..." Tears welled in her eyes. "Aspenfang..."
Eelstar pressed into her pelt comfortingly, his yellow eyes soft with pain.
"I know..." He agreed. "This has been... A very hard few seasons..."
"Not just seasons," she whispers. "Eelstar... I hate that I'm even breathing this... but... do you think Cindercall's birth was... a curse...?"
Eelstar reeled back, his ears pinning to his head, his eyes wide.
"Sweethawk!" He hisses quietly, taken aback. "How–why—"
"Stop," she whispers. "I know how it sounds... And I care about Cindercall, more than anything... but..." Her gaze turned to Eelstar, wide and unblinking, fear and panic in her watery eyes. "All of this... It's not normal, is it? All that death...? And the Prophecy—"
"The Prophecy was out of her paws," Eelstar retorted softly.
"I know it was!" She replied, her voice lowering below a whisper. "I know she couldn't choose it... I'm not saying she should've been born, Eelstar... I'm just... I..."
"What Sweethawk is asking," Mumblebee's voice cut them off, and the two turned to him in shock. His eyes were dark and quiet, as he sat in front of them. "No... What Sweethawk is saying, is that this Prophecy is a curse... Not Cindercall. Am I right?"
She nodded, her gaze dropping to her paws.
"I wish... I wish we were all just normal. Normal cats, with normal lives in a Clan... But all of us had the bad luck to be born in the first Prophecy that our Clans ever had..." Her ears lowered. "Fire alone saves our Clan; Darkness, air, water, and sky will come together and shake the forest to it's roots, nothing will be the same now nor has it ever been before; There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws; After the sharp-eyed jay and the roaring lion, peace will come on dove's gentle wing..." She sighs. "All of them sound so cool, and amazing... but... if this is what a Prophecy is really like..." Her gaze lifts to the two of them. "Then beg StarClan to take it back."
Mumblebee shuffled his paws as Sweethawk stared into him, and his eyes seemed to only darken.
"I'm sorry..." He whispers. "But Quietsong... she always told me the moment she got the Prophecy, that... that StarClan didn't just hand it out to us because they wanted to... It was shown to them, and then shown to her... A Prophecy isn't something we fulfill because we were told to... a Prophecy is something we fulfill because there's no way around it... no way to reverse time or take it back... it's not something we can just toss away, it's..." he sighs. "It's beyond even StarClan's control..."
Sweethawk fell silent, her gaze dropping to the ground.
"So... when will it end?" She whimpers.
"When the Prophecy is fulfilled," Mumblebee whispers. "And... and no one knows when and how it'll happen..."
Sweethawk fell silent, and her paws tore at the grass.
A soft tail nudged both her and Mumblebee, and they looked up to Eelstar, who now stood, his gaze fixed on both of them.
"Listen to me," he whispers, his gaze flickering to the cats holding vigil. "Beyond StarClan's control or not, we've been given this Prophecy, and we have no choice to see it through. In Clan-life, cats die. Cats get sick, cats get hurt, and cats feel pain. I know it's hard, trust me I know... But you have to stay strong and see it through. Cindercall needs you to; MoonClan needs you to..."
Sweethawk looked to Mumblebee, who nodded.
"We understand, Eelstar," he murmurs. "I just... I pray that this Prophecy won't tear us apart."
"It won't," the small black tom mewed. "I'll make sure of it." His gaze softened. "Now please... sit vigil with him...? I know he'd want that."
"I have to check on Hollypetal," Mumblebee mewed. "But... I said my farewells to him." He rose to his paws, and Sweethawk did the same.
"Good," Eelstar nodded slowly. "We can't lose another cat today."
"No," Sweethawk agreed. "No, we can't. I'll... I'll go join my clanmates."
Eelstar watched as Sweethawk moved to the resting cats, settling beside them, and he watched Mumblebee return to his den.
He watched a moment longer, before moving to his den, slipping inside and sighing.
"Ashwater..." He murmured softly. "I'm right, aren't I...? I'm not good with... with keeping moral like you were."
For a brief moment, he could've sworn that the tom's scent wreathed over him, a soft tail brushing his shoulder. Comfortingly.
But as Eelstar looked around, he didn't see the tom.
Only a feather, lying at his den's entrance.