Thanks to reviewers: Stacy Rockfall, Leafshadow, and Mikaceous.
Working on a presentation all weekend. Now that it is out of the way, I can give you this late chapter. Also, you will notice the first part is what the last chapter ended with. Chapter 8 was rather lengthy and I had wanted to end it earlier last, but felt the last bit wasn't quite up to being it's own chapter. Now that I have written this chapter, I felt could move the Quicksparrow bits into this one.
So, basically skip to the -line- for new content if you are keeping up with my updates.
Chapter 9: Best Forgotten
"What was that?" Hollowbird demanded. The ShadowClan medicine cat looked up.
Bravepaw followed her gaze to the cavern roof. The square of sky was black except for the small chunk of moon left uncovered by the rock. It was still as pure white as she remembered. There was no red cast to it as there had been in the vision.
"Blood on the moon," Divepaw whimpered where she hunched beside the glowing Moonstone. "The cats, oh those poor cats!"
"It's okay," Bravepaw tried to comfort the other apprentice, but Divepaw stared at her with eyes wide as the full moon. She stared through Bravepaw as if she weren't there. Bravepaw hesitated to touch the other apprentice, although she felt Divepaw would appreciate the warmth.
"I take it you all saw the vision?" Halfshine meowed. His voice was loud, but calm. "The same one?"
Bravepaw watched as the other medicine cats shared glances.
"I would say so," Rainleaf meowed. The gray RiverClan she-cat's fur bristled thickly.
"So, are we going to die, tonight?" Bravepaw demanded. She had to know. At least none of these cats had blood leaking out of their mouths.
"I would hope StarClan didn't give us a warning this late," Hollowbird meowed. The black she-cat lowered her gaze to her paws. Bravepaw wondered if she were seeing the blood coat them. Bravepaw wiped her own paws together at the memory.
"It must be bad if we were all shown the same thing," Boleclaw meowed. "It must be urgent."
"It affects every Clan," Rainleaf agreed. "I haven't heard something like this, not sense. . . well, I really don't remember."
"When stories fail even Rainleaf, we must worry," Boleclaw meowed. He snorted in amusement but quickly grew somber. "Right. So what do we do about it?"
"Do we even know what it is about?" Halfshine meowed. "Cats dying on the halfmoon, choking on blood?"
"Moonblood," Divepaw whispered. She shivered in place, desperately seeming to want something to calm the thoughts in her head. "The moon causes it."
"The moon doesn't bleed," Rainleaf sighed. "The only times we've ever called it a blood moon are rare nights when the shadows creep across the surface. It has always returned after."
"So did the one in the vision," Boleclaw meowed. "However, I doubt the moon makes cats choke to death. The moon may merely represent timing."
"It, well. . . it reminded me of something we have in ShadowClan," Hollowbird meowed. Attention went to the black she-cat immediately. "Sometimes when our Clan gets desperate, some apprentices goes to the rot-pile left by twolegs and hunt there. They come back with prey that when devoured, a cat dies bleeding from their mouth. They hemorrhage to death. But it only affects the cat who ate the prey. Unless some cat was stupid enough to bring back a fresh-kill's pile worth of poisoned prey, I don't see how every Clan could be affected."
"Quicksparrow," Rainleaf muttered.
It was a word so quick Bravepaw didn't recognize it for a name at first.
"There is no way he's still alive," Boleclaw growled.
It was the first time Bravepaw had seen the large former warrior get angry. His ears bristled and his eyes burned.
"Who is Quicksparrow?" Bravepaw meowed.
"A story to frighten kits," Boleclaw meowed. "Something best left forgotten."
"Is it?" Hollowbird demanded. "If he's back and up to his tricks again, I'd say we speak of him."
"He is dead," Boleclaw growled. "He was a senior warrior when I was an apprentice, he is not living now. Not without a Clan."
"But what did he do?" Bravepaw demanded. "You can't just throw around a name and expect me to know what you are talking about. Who is he? Why would he make cats hemorrhage blood?"
The medicine cats turned to her. Their expressions were grave. She felt ashamed for her outburst, but she disliked how confused their words left her. She'd had the vision too and this was the first time she'd received any answers to it. She needed to know how could they stop it from coming true.
"Boleclaw?" Rainleaf meowed, looking at the ThunderClan tom. "It is your right."
"My right? I don't think it is anyone's right," the former warrior grunted. "The misery he caused shouldn't be remembered."
"But if he's back, or if one of his followers has the same idea he did, we need to be prepared," Hollowbird meowed.
"You are too young to remember those days," Boleclaw meowed.
"ShadowClan still tells the stories," Hollowbird meowed. "We deal with the illness too often to let it fade away completely."
"Do you want me to tell it?" Rainleaf meowed.
"No. I will," Boleclaw meowed. He closed his eyes. "Why not rake up the leaves of ThunderClan's past? In the end, it reveals all the Clans' fault, does it not?"
"I did not say venture that far back," Rainleaf muttered.
Boleclaw gave her a dark expression as he told the tale. "Once, there was territory next to ThunderClan. A place before the twolegeplace. Cats used to live there, but then the day came the twolegs decided they wanted the territory. The trees were torn up, and the cats were forced to move. In time the twolegs built their dens until seasons passed and it is the way we know it today."
Bravepaw wondered who those cats were. Had ThunderClan shrunk their territory? Something about Rainleaf's expression made her think otherwise. There was something that looked like guilt on the elderly she-cat's face.
"The cats may have moved, but other animals were more reluctant to leave because of the slow growth of the twolegplace," Boleclaw went on. "ThunderClan found that prey caught on this territory had a tendency to cause a cat who ate it to hemorrhage, much like Hollowbird described. The leader at the time declared that ThunderClan would avoid hunting on the border or eat any sickly prey and that seemed the end of that. But just because we didn't eat the prey found here, didn't mean some ThunderClan cats didn't catch it."
"Quicksparrow," Rainleaf supplied as if Bravepaw wouldn't have figured it out.
"He and his followers first caught the sickly prey to keep other cats from killing and eating it themselves, but that idea grew. They fed the poisoned prey to predators like foxes and badgers, hawks and dogs. After all, it would make the territory safer, wouldn't it? But something shifted in his thinking. I don't know what or when, but in time, Quicksparrow decided that other animals weren't the only thing ThunderClan had to fear. He decided cats threatened our borders as well."
Bravepaw gasped. No. He wouldn't have.
Boleclaw met her eyes and nodded. "As far as anyone has bothered to investigate, he started with rogues and kittypets first. Those that helped him must have agreed with his actions, because no one stopped him then. It was only when he moved on to Clan cats there was a protest. He gave prey as gifts to other Clans. Or brought live prey to other territories and let it run free for warriors to catch. He strove to weaken the Clans and allow ThunderClan to seize more territory. Cats took the prey and they died. In time, he was discovered to be the cause of all the deaths."
"What happened to him?" Bravepaw whispered. "Did the Clan leader force him to eat the prey he gave to others?"
"No. He was exiled. The Clan leader could not bring himself to match Quicksparrow's cruelty by killing another cat on purpose. He and his followers, of which there were not a few as I recall, were banished from the territory. They tried to join other Clans, but no one wanted a murderer. Eventually he and the others had to go into the twolegplace as every Clan cat they met would fight them without question. There were rumors he started his own Clan there with the dregs he could find. But after all this time, he is dead."
"And the prey at the border?" Bravepaw meowed. "Is that not still poisoned?"
Bolecaw shook his head. "Not any more. Eventually the twolegs must have decided not to poison the animals. Either because too many died on their own territory, or there weren't as many to kill. Perhaps they disliked seeing the dead kittypets in their gardens. Quicksparrow wasn't one to hide his kills. But the prey is safe now. The rot-pile as far as I know is the only place prey is poisoned."
"StarClan could be warning us not to trust the prey again," Halfshine offered. "If we avoid any suspicious animals where twolegs gather, we may be safe."
"Pardon me," Gracklemask meowed for the first time since he'd woken. The other cats turned his way. "I didn't want to interrupt the story, but I don't think that was blood in the vision. It was too bright red."
"He's right," Boleclaw meowed. "Not prey nor cat. As I said, the threat isn't from Quicksparrow or his follower's seeking revenge. StarClan is warning us about a different threat."
"Then what on our territories could make a cat cough on something crimson but not blood?" Rainleaf meowed.
The cats looked at each other. This time, no one had an answer.
-Line-
The scent of fear was as thick as storm clouds as they left the tunnel. Even Fungusnose seemed to exude uncertainty as the medicine cats left the Mothermouth. The gray-speckled ginger tom was facing the tunnel when Bravepaw stepped outside. His tail was bristled at the tip and Bravepaw was quick to recognize his stance as one preparing to fight.
"I heard shouting," the ShadowClan warrior meowed. His eyes were wide and ears flicking. "Are you all right?"
"Nothing you need to worry about at this moment," Hollowbird meowed.
The black she-cat didn't meet his eyes as she spoke and Bravepaw was certain the warrior was not comforted. He had traveled with them to protect the ShadowClan medicine cats, but there was nothing he could do about events that hadn't yet happened. There was little Hollowbird could do either.
They had remained in the cavern long after the Moonstone stopped glowing, but no one could determine what the vision truly meant. Rainleaf feared it had to do with the Moonstone cavern. In her mind, the beginning of the vision had started in what had seemed like stone underpaw.
Halfshine hesitantly put forth he believed WindClan was in danger, because of the tall grass, and asked if the other cats had seen their own territories instead, to which Bravepaw was astonished to find, they had. Although they had primarily found the first cat in the heather, the moon had dripped the bright "blood", onto cats of their own territory, whether that be forest or riverside. That appeared to be the only difference between their visions, and that realization seemed to make the cats more fearful.
The disquiet was as tangible as snow beneath her feet. One ill step and she could be sent stumbling through the crust. The words the medicine cats spoke were calm, but the moment something changed, they too might lose their balance and fall up to their ears.
Bravepaw had hoped for answers tonight. She'd thought they'd learn how to prevent the vision from coming to pass. Even with the other cats having experienced the vision, they still hadn't come to any resolution.
Their decision was the same as Halfshine's: wait and see. If any cat learned more news or had an idea, or first noticed cats falling to this unknown cause, they were to alert the other medicine cats. Perhaps most disturbing to Bravepaw was the consensus not to tell any other cat what they'd seen until they had more information. They did not want to cause panic and uncertainty in the Clans.
They decided all this before they left the cavern, so Hollowbird gave Fungusnose no more reassurance then that they had not been harmed. She gave no explanation for their shouting and Fungusnose remained posed to attack. His arrogance from earlier was replaced by attentive wariness as the group quietly descended the Tall Rocks and headed for Clan territory.
The moon scuttled across the sky, drifting toward the horizon. A bank of clouds gathered, clawing through the stars as it grasped for the moon. The splotches of darkness grew larger, covering portions of the sky and hiding Silverpelt.
At the thunderpath, ShadowClan was the first to depart, following the flattened ground beside the black path back to their territory. The other medicine cats stayed together as they ventured into the WindClan heather. Divepaw and Bravepaw trailed behind their mentors.
"Are you all right?" Bravepaw meowed quietly.
Divepaw's eyes darted toward her. "No. How can you be?"
Bravepaw sighed and tilted her ears. Did she look all right? She didn't feel it. She felt like she might vomit, but she wasn't shaking like the other apprentice. She wondered if she had been this way the night of her ceremony. No wonder Halfshine had insisted she rest. But like that night, Bravepaw knew Divepaw wouldn't be able to shut her eyes without seeing the images of the choking cats against her eyelids.
"I'm not," Bravepaw meowed. "Does StarClan often do things like that? Send visions?"
"I've never seen that before," Divepaw whispered. "StarClan didn't even speak to me this time."
"Should they have?"
Divepaw tilted her head curiously. "I've always seen someone with Rainleaf."
"With Rainleaf? You shared a dream?" Halfshine hadn't mentioned that was possible.
"Who did you speak with at your ceremony?" Divepaw meowed.
Bravepaw looked away. She watched as Halfshine's ear, which was twisted back to their conversation, flicked upright.
"We'll be leaving now," he meowed. The cats came to a halt in the grass. "Our camp isn't far away."
"May StarClan light your path," Rainleaf meowed. "Let us know if you learn anything."
"I will."
Halfshine waved his tail and Bravepaw gratefully joined him as they left the other medicine cats. She didn't want to have to answer Divepaw. She was also grateful WindClan was so close to the Moonstone. The journey to ThunderClan and RiverClan was longer. After everything she'd been through this quartermoon her legs felt like feathers held down with stones: easily tossed by any breeze, but unable to lift from the ground.
"It used to take longer to get back to camp," Halfshine meowed. He seemed to have followed her thoughts. "We often would spend nearly three days away from camp and would walk alone the last day."
His gaze was tilted upward. The sky was starting to lighten, but with the clouds it remained a dusky gray instead of blue. A light rain started to misted the moor, reminding the grasses of the crisp air that had so recently seized the frozen land.
"Is the dawn patrol waking, do you think?" Bravepaw meowed.
"They may," he meowed. "Don't worry about sleeping in. You have no duties today."
"Thank you." She blinked her eyes and for a brief moment her thoughts were on her nest. Would there every be a night she slept properly? Her tired thoughts flitted away as quickly as a swatted fly at the sobering reminder what kept her awake. Everything about his night was like a tick burred in her flesh in a hard to reach spot. Questions swirled in her head. It was hard to know which thought to stalk first.
"They don't realize you didn't see the vision," Bravepaw finally meowed.
"There was no need. I know what was in it because of what you shared. That was enough."
"Would you have seen it too?" Bravepaw asked. "If you hadn't been arguing with me?"
"We weren't arguing." His tail twitched and his ears lowered. It wasn't just against the misty rain that started to fall from the low clouds either. His gaze did not waver from the horizon and his steps were heavy for a cat only lightly coated in water. "Perhaps I will receive it later."
Why hadn't he visited StarClan? Why try to force her to go to StarClan when he himself only pretended? Why not dream together as Divepaw said she and Rainleaf did? She wanted to ask, but for once wasn't certain how to start. She didn't want to tell him about her refusal to see StarClan. He would tell her it was foolish. He was probably right, but she didn't want to see the vision again and that seemed to be all StarClan wanted to share.
"How did ThunderClan survive with poisoned prey?" Bravepaw meowed instead. "With their territory smaller, did they really struggle so badly Quicksparrow felt he had to harm the other Clans?"
"You are thinking of the story?"
"It's the closest we came to deciding what the vision is warning us of." It was the only thing she had. "Why haven't I ever been warned about poisoned prey? Why haven't Hunterpaw or Flickpaw?" She didn't want them hunting something down that would hurt the Clan.
"There isn't any to worry about. Or there hasn't been," Halfshine's tail jerked side to side in irritation at the twolegs' actions. "And Quicksparrow is a cat best forgotten. He hurt cats when he didn't have a need to. That territory with the poisoned prey, that wasn't ThunderClan's. They have plenty of territory."
"Whose was it then?"
Halfshine flicked the water from his ears before turning to Bravepaw. He stopped and Bravepaw quickly stopped walking to not run into his side. She looked at his face. He was staring at her with whiskers drawn down. He looked uncertain. Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed. The rain dewed on his whiskers, gathering and falling off when they became heavy.
"There are stories, that the Clans do not discuss." He opened his eyes and met her gaze. "Times that they wish forgotten. You'll come to understand the older you get, how much cats don't like to remember sorrows. Boleclaw didn't want to talk about Quicksparrow because that was a moment in time his Clan was not held in esteem by the rest of the forest. It is easier not to think how your Clan could create a murderer, or why your Clan let it go on for so long."
"But ThunderClan didn't kill cats," Bravepaw shook her head.
His blue eyes gazed into her own. There was something serious about this moment. She knew this wasn't a conversation for the ears of warriors.
"How long did ThunderClan know about the prey he caught and used against other animals? What of the cats who assisted him?" Halfshine meowed. "They knew. And when cats in other territories reported illness? The leader of ThunderClan could have done something then, but he didn't. For if they admitted to being wrong, well then, they'd have to take responsibility. Make reparations, accept the jeers and hate of the other Clans. To admit they were wrong, they'd have to accept that they were in the wrong."
"But weren't they?"
"Yes. But have you ever done something you didn't want your mother to know about?" Halfshine meowed. "Something you didn't want to tell anyone about because you were scared of what they might say?"
Bravepaw lowered her eyes. The honey incident came to mind. But so did her recent fear of StarClan. She was a medicine cat. She couldn't be scared of StarClan. What would Halfshine think of her if she admitted that?
"Now, think of if your actions had h-harmed another cat." Halfshine swallowed. "Would you want to admit that?"
Her heart clenched. Hedgepaw.
"Then you understand why no cat speaks of the terrible times," Halfshine meowed in her silence. "They want to avoid thinking about the claws at their heart and throat. They certainly don't want another cat adding to the pain they already feel."
He shoulders slumped as he sighed. "So while Quicksparrow and ThunderClan were at fault for their actions, there were some cats who believed what happened was a punishment from StarClan."
Bravepaw flinched and lifted her eyes. "What? A punishment? Why?"
She fluffed her shoulders and wished they were back in the medicine den away from the cold and wet.
"That other territory that is now the twolegeplace," Halfshine meowed, "It belonged to another Clan."
"Another. . . Clan?" Bravepaw felt as though her paws were spinning out from under her.
"It is one of the stories that no one wants to share," Halfshine meowed. His voice grew stronger. "In fact, it is forbidden. Twistedbriar nearly didn't tell me. Who knows how many details have been lost in the seasons. I certainly can't tell you the name of the Clan. All I know, is that all four Clans here today decided to cast out the fifth. They gave them no room to survive when their territory was stolen. The story goes the leader of the fifth Clan vowed that the rest of the Clans would be punished for our decision to exile their Clan. This FifthClan left. The twolegs built their dens, poisoned the prey, and cats died. Was it actually StarClan's punishment or was the vow merely an embellishment to a terrible tale? Or did cats need that excuse to defend Quicksparrow and understand his actions in their minds? I don't know."
"But this FifthClan, where did they go?" Bravepaw meowed, confused. They had really been forced out? Where would they live? What would they eat? She couldn't imagine WindClan having to abandon their territory. For twolegs to tear it apart and leave no room for cats. The misty rain that streamed down her shoulders and across her muzzle felt heavy. Could that actually happen? One day could the territory be ripped from WindClan?
"I don't know," Halfshine shook his head. "Perhaps it is only a tale. And yet the vehemence to not speak of this Clan only makes me think otherwise. No one outside the medicine cats remember now. And in time, perhaps not even they will. This is the last I will speak of it Bravepaw, and it will be up to you what you say to your own apprentice."
"But why forget?" Bravepaw demanded. "How could they do that?"
Halfshine sighed and looked at her. "I can only speculate the Clans did not want to admit their guilt about what they'd done. They'd rather forget the pain and wrong they caused and hope the succeeding generations forgot. It is the same for anything, including what Quicksparrow did. What does knowing about a fifth Clan do for us? Nothing other than to relive the guilt of something you and I took no part in and could not prevent."
"Has. . .has WindClan done anything we're ashamed of?" Bravepaw meowed. She felt her heart pound as she stared at her mentor. Was it possible her Clan had done something that the other Clans remembered and hated them for? Was that why the warriors always fought? Revenge for long-forgotten deeds?
"Nothing that I can recall," Halfshine meowed.
His words didn't reassure her, for if the Clan was determined to forget, she would never be told.
"Some might say our relationship with the Travelers is against the code," Halfshine went on, "which is why we don't mention them to the other Clans. But, that is nothing. Not really. As a group, WindClan has done nothing to the other Clans. But as individuals?"
Halfshine grew quiet. His eyes drifted to the patch of ground beside her paws. He gave a tired, unhappy chuckle, "Often."
For a long moment, he did not lift his head. He did not speak.
Bravepaw reached out a paw to touch his own. Slowly, he lifted his gaze. She saw something the blue depths. For a moment it was as if she were lost in the darkness of the tunnels again: no way forward, no way back.
She inhaled sharply.
At the sound, Halfshine blinked away the desolation. He pulled his paw away.
"A warrior expects punishment from their leader," he meowed, his voice back to normal as he forced his ears into a neutral position. He refused to look at her. "They won't go to Harestar or Gorsepath if they have troubles. They'll come to you or me to talk instead. As a medicine cat you'll hear things you wish you hadn't. Don't judge these cats, Bravepaw. Mistakes are common. Unless a cat is in danger, then all you need to be is a listening ear. Offer help if they ask, but be patient. First, come to me if you are uncertain and in time, you'll have the experience how to assist other cats with more than broken paw pads. Now, let's get home. This weather is chilly, and I am tired."
The black and white tom's pace was quicker as he headed for camp. As Bravepaw loped behind, she couldn't help but feel he was running away from the words he'd shared in the grass. And it wasn't the story about the exiled Clan he ran from. He had shared something with her, or almost had. If she hadn't reacted in surprise, he might have told her his own troubles.
Bravepaw watched his back, wondering what he saw when he closed his eyes at night. What thoughts kept him up that made him feel so lost? Did she really want to know?
You may or may not recognize Quicksparrow from Steps to the Stars. He gets a mention there as one of the oldest Dark Forest cats. I decided this was a good place for a backstory. He did some pretty cruel stuff, but got away with it in the name of a good cause. As a PSA, don't poison your pests, it affects the animals that eat them too.
You will also notice I mention SkyClan in this chapter too. They are the cats forced out next to the ThunderClan territory. That event was a generation or so previous to current times (even before Quicksparrow) so I could use different names, but the effects were still felt if only because of what the twolegs did. The main body of cats are forgetting about SkyClan (or at least trying to) so bringing them up is still a taboo subject among the Clans.
Next chapter we finally meet the Travelers!