hello hello hello!
alrighttttt okay,,,, driven apart is finally done which is a tad surreal. thanks for sticking along for the ride, folks
review replies
not here forever: thank you for this review! yeah,,, if i'm being honest with you, i didn't know if i'd make moonstar cross that line in this chapter. you'll have to wait and see!
somestormleaf: hahhaha it's been a very long cliffhanger i am sorry...and thank you so so much!
minty: i think i may have killed you then because this took SO long... but thank u!
dragonbreathjr: hMMmMMMMM... and thank you!
Moonstar didn't think she'd ever been more scared of herself before.
She held her sister's life in her paws, and she was so, so ready to take it away. To lunge forward, and tear out her neck, watch as the blood splattered on her paws.
But…
She looked at Emberlight, and saw the kit she'd been. Fluff still behind her ears. Her eyes wide, not with fear, but with innocence.
And that was what made her break away, gasping for air, her short breaths slowly developing into loud sobs.
Starclan, how was she this cat? How had she turned from what she was to this? So ready to kill for revenge?
Revenge that wasn't even needed. She realised dully. Because it wasn't. Everything Emberlight had done to her… it hadn't been her fault. She'd never aimed for Moonstar to lose her eye, she hadn't orchestrated the trail of death that just seemed to follow Moonstar.
It was all just… just coincident.
She couldn't punish Emberlight for coincidence.
She finally looked up, trying to make out her sister through the tears streaming from her eyes. She hadn't moved. The other she-cat was just looking at her, neck bared slightly, offering herself up.
"I can't." Moonstar whispered. "I-I can't do it. It wasn't your fault."
Emberlight sighed at that. "But it was." She said, her voice hollow. "It was all my fault, you said it enough times."
"But it wasn't!" Moonstar hissed. "I was wrong, and I'm sorry, and you should j-just kill me. I'm not fit to lead."
Emberlight huffed. "You're not." She murmured. "But that doesn't mean you deserve to die. You're just… you need to sort your head out before you can be in charge of Thunderclan."
Moonstar half-nodded, bowing her head. She closed both eyes, waiting for Emberlight to make her move. To kill her, or to leave. To get the rest of the clan to drag her to her execution.
When she opened one eye, she was surprised to see her sister was still there. She was closer.
Emberlight swallowed, and brushed forward to embrace her sister.
timeskip/
Time in Thunderclan flowed quickly, after that.
They didn't breathe a word of the encounter to anyone. It was kept secret, but the two sisters were closer than ever.
Moonstar's family moved closer to her. The russet she-cat figured she'd been pushing them away without realising it. She spent every night sharing tongues with Sheepskip. Most mornings going out hunting with Fogstorm and Sunclaw. And she talked to her kits more, and more, nowadays.
(Even if the newly-named Mintcloud had been disappearing almost every evening. Remerging in the morning thick with Shadowclan scent.)
She'd managed to pull Mintcloud aside, this morning. Her son had seemed antsy as she asked to talk to him, casting a desperate glance outside of camp, as if he had planned something. Which he probably had, if Moonstar was being honest.
"Mintcloud." She started, taking a seat besides the smaller cat. He glanced up at her, looking startled. "I need to talk to you."
"I haven't been doing anything!" He blurted, and Moonstar's eyes narrowed. "I-uh, I mean… it's none of your business, anyway."
Moonstar flinched at that. "I'm your mother. And your leader." She reminded him gently.
"So?" Mintcloud asked.
"So I should probably know why you leave camp every night, and come back smelling of Shadowclan."
Mintcloud bristled. "I-I-I'm collecting herbs!" He squeaked.
She rolled her eyes. "Didn't know that 'Lionmoon' was a herb." She commented, and Mintcloud flushed furiously. "Look. I don't care. As long as you're keeping up with your duties, and he is, it's fine. I just… just wish you'd told me."
"You don't care?" Mintcloud stared at her.
Moonstar sighed, and nodded. "You seem happy. If he's making you happy, I'm not going to take that away from you."
Mintcloud shakily smiled at her. "I am happy." He reassured her, and that was all Moonstar needed to hear.
The code, in her opinion, was void. Too many cats had died to uphold stuffy laws set moons ago. Mintcloud could serve his clan, and love a Shadowclan tom. As long as it didn't harm Thunderclan, she didn't care.
That was probably her downfall as a leader, really.
timeskip/
Sparrowthorn passed away after being attacked by a badger a few moons after Moonstar's conversation with Mintcloud.
Without her deputy, without her sister's mate, she felt lost. Her family felt like it was in turmoil, again, and - Starclan forbid it - she couldn't help but feel like Emberlight had had something to do with it.
But that would be completely irrational. And she wasn't that cat anymore.
Bramblewing, Sunclaw, and Dawnrise were understandably devastated. As was Emberlight. They'd been mates for so many moons, and - as she'd tearfully confessed to Moonstar, when the two sisters had been sitting vigil - Emberlight hadn't gotten to say goodbye. Sparrowthorn had just left on patrol, and hadn't returned.
Family dynamics aside, it gave Moonstar quite the headache. Because now she had to choose the new deputy. Thunderclan's next leader.
Funnily enough, she found an immediate candidate.
"Cats of Thunderclan!" She called out, tail lashing as she stood on the highledge. Sparrowthorn's body was barely cold, and Emberlight was still huddled beside her mate, standing with Brambewing as the medicine cat calmly carried out the burial rites. Moonstar's head was filled with nothing but the peaceful scent of lavender for a heart-beat, and she was dazzled, before coming back to her senses.
The clan gathered before her, like they'd done every time she'd called a meeting. Mintcloud snuck out of the medicine cat's den - clearly in a sulk, Sparrowthorn's death must have thrown off his date-night with Lionmoon - and took a seat at the base of the rock. Fogstorm and Lionmoon - the latter huddled up against his mate, eyes shaded with grief, came to sit beside him. Slowly, the clan filled in, and Moonstar could speak again.
"The time has sadly come to choose a new deputy." She announced, and there was a faint gasp from the direction of Emberlight. She pressed on. The clan couldn't afford to have her mess this up.
"I say these words before Starclan, so that the spirits of our warrior ancestors may hear and approve of my choice." She paused, raising her head to the sky, her fur shining almost red in the light of the moon. "Fogstorm will be the new deputy of Thunderclan."
The grey tom looked shell shocked. Lionclaw barely reacted besides him, at first, before jumping, and nudging his mate in the side. He whispered something in the other tom's ear, low and frantic.
Fogstorm blinked, once, and looked up at Moonstar. "Are you sure?" He asked quietly.
Moonstar gave a curt nod. "Quite."
He breathed a sigh out, and turned around, addressing the clan. "I-well, thank you, Moonstar. I promise I'll do you proud."
Moonstar didn't doubt his words for a moment.
timeskip/
The day she lost her first life was the day she lost all of them. All but one.
It was stupid, really. She'd been fooling around with her new apprentice, a small she-cat named Hollypaw, trying to show her how to swim. And she'd slipped, and the younger she-cat had been utterly helpless as she hit her head on a rock, and drifted down, down, down into the river.
She'd woken back up, a burning feeling in her chest, and a tightness in her heart, on the riverbank. And she knew that that was it for one of her lives.
She also knew that that was it for her leadership. Because… Starclan, she didn't want this. She didn't want all these extra lives. Her father hadn't had that second chance. Finchpaw hadn't been able to come back at a moment's notice.
It just wasn't fair.
So she'd made a journey. Just her, Mintcloud, and Fogstorm.
(She'd taken Mintcloud along because she'd promise they could stop off in Shadowclan on the way, and she would let him frolic with Lionmoon for as long as he wanted. Starclan, that tom was easy to please.)
They'd headed to the Moon Pool. And there, Moonstar had argued with Starclan.
And eventually, they'd listened.
Her lives had bled out into the Moon Pool, and she'd let them. She'd returned back to the land of the living, shaking, with her one eye clouded, and her paws trembling.
She'd returned back Moonscar.
Fogstorm had looked at her, as she'd stood there, trying not to throw up, and just nodded. He'd pressed his nose to the pool, and she left him.
And thus, a new reign began in Thunderclan.
As she walked back, she left herself reflect on what she'd just done. She'd given up her leadership, the thing she'd spent moons trying to convince herself, convince her clan she deserved. She'd pushed it away at the first sign of trouble, the first life she'd lost.
But… Foxstar had been right, really. She hadn't been fit to be deputy. And she'd never been fit to be leader. She was too volatile, too rash, too easily manipulated by her emotions.
"Do you regret it?" Fogstar asked, as they stood in the entrance to camp, and she shook her head.
"No." She replied, gaze trained ahead. "No. I needed to do it."
And they reentered camp, a leader, a medicine cat, and a normal warrior.
timeskip/
It was a bleak day in the middle of leaf-bare when they came for her.
She was old, now. She'd watched her kits grow up, her clan move by without her. She was an elder, now, and her other eye was almost gone, too.
It was just her left. Sheepskip and Berryfoot had died within a moon of each other, the two siblings inseparable even in death. She'd mourned her mate by Heatherskip's side, and eventually, the two she-cats had grown closer, and closer.
It was nice to have someone to lean on as the rest of her family crumbled.
Lilyheart, her daughter, her precious daughter, was hit by a monster. Bramblewing followed, ironically, passing away from an infected cut.
She always knew her niece would work herself to death.
Emberlight was the last cat to go. Her sister… well, she'd just given up. She'd sat listlessly in the corner of the elder's den, until she just… fell asleep one night, never to get up.
Moonscar could feel her time approaching, soon. Breathing hot and heavy down the back of her neck, following her as she padded slowly, on weary legs around camp, waiting for her to stumble.
She opened one eye in her sleep, sensing something there. She whined slightly, and sat up in her nest, trying not to wake Heatherskip, who was curled up beside her.
"It's time." She heard, a faint whisper.
When she closed her eyes again, she didn't know where she'd wake up. Because she didn't deserve to be in Starclan. She'd messed up so many times.
There was no place in Starclan for a cat like her.
So when she awoke to bright, sparkling lights, and her sister, in front of her, and all the cats she'd ever known, ever loved, greeting her, she thought she was still dreaming.
But she'd made it. She'd made it to the home of her ancestors. She'd made it, back with Finchpaw, back with her parents, back with her daughter, back with her sister.
She smiled, softly, and let herself fall into their embrace.
Finished
welp that's done
honestly, this is surreal. i came up with the idea for this fic when i was 11, and here i am now, finishing it as a 17 year old. it's just pretty weird lads if i'm being honest.
anyways, i'm probs going to come back and edit this final chapter because i'm not thrilled with it, so keep an eye out for that.
but thank you for reading, guys. it means the world to me.
