Streamripple

As soon as I woke up, I walked straight to the medicine den. Beewing's apprentice, Swiftpaw, and Harepaw were still sleeping, but Beewing was awake, organizing his herbs.

"Hello, Streamripple. And no, I don't have the cure yet."

"Couldn't hurt to ask." I sighed and slumped against the wall of the den.

Beewing chuckled. "Harepaw would appreciate that you come in here every chance you get, but you have to understand, I've never seen anything like this before."

"Never?"

"Never. And I don't have any idea what happened, either." I flinched. Because I knew. I did this to him. Leopardscar said so himself. "But he'll be fine. We just don't know how long it will take."

Harepaw stirred. Beewing gathered several herbs, spat them out beside him, and gave him a nudge to wake him up.

"I'm going to need you to eat these," Beewing meowed. Harepaw frowned, but he ate them dutifully, wincing at the taste.

This was the first time I'd visited that Harepaw wasn't resting. "How do you feel?"

"I have a small headache, but it's much better than what it was a few days ago."

"What were your symptoms?"

"I had a huge migraine, and I felt super nauseous. But the nausea has gone away."

Beewing cut in, asking, "Can you try standing up?"

Harepaw shakily tried to stand up. "You can take your time," I meowed. He smiled at me and fully stood. Although he wobbled a little, he managed to regain his balance.

"Looks like I'm all better." When he walked around the den, he stumbled.

"Not quite." Beewing forced him to lie down in his nest, and he ordered, "You can't go back to training quite yet. You're free to move around the camp, but I'm afraid anything like hunting or patroling would be too strenuous, and I don't want you to have any trouble when you're really far away."

"How long is that going to take?"

"Just a few days. But even then," he added, looking at me, "You have to take it easy with training, okay? Nothing difficult."

"Well, I have to organize patrols. I'll see you later, Harepaw."

For the most part, the Clan was still asleep, save for the three of us. The night before, I told Stormfall, Tansycloud, and Wildbramble to go on the dawn patrol, but the three of them were still sleeping. I gently shook the three of them awake. Stormfall and Tansycloud woke up, stretched, and quietly left, knowing what had to be done. Wildbramble, however, rolled over and went back to sleep.

"Come on. I told you about this the night before. You knew about this," I whispered, exasperated.

"A little longer?" he pleaded.

"No. Get up and go patrol with Tansycloud and Stormfall. Now."

Wordlessly, Wildbramble stood up and started walking towards the other two warriors, not looking at where he was going and waking up every cat in his path.

As soon as I saw his mechanical movements in the dawn light, my heart sank.

After Leopardscar told me what I was capable of, I tried with everything I had not to be so commanding when I organized patrols and gave out orders. But now, I slipped up. This was bad.

I hurried to catch him, being more careful than Wildbramble was in his state. "You know what, Wildbramble? You don't have to go patrol. I'll go instead."

But that didn't work. I wasn't commanding enough.

So I barked, "Sit down." Wildbramble sat. Now what? What had I said to Harepaw to get him to…

"Snap out of it."

Just like Harepaw had, Wildbramble collapsed. Tansycloud and Stormfall turned around, surprised. I pretended to be shocked.

"Oh no! Wildbramble! Are you okay?"

He didn't say anything. Not good. "Tansycloud, I need you to go get Beewing and Swiftpaw. Stormfall, can you go find another warrior who can patrol?" After they left, I sat down next to Wildbramble. He was still breathing, thank StarClan. But every breath was ragged and shallow.

As Beewing approached, he gasped. "Uh oh. What happened?"

"Wildbramble was scheduled for the dawn patrol, but he fell down and didn't get back up."

Swiftpaw looked him over. "He's still alive, and he'll be fine after a little while. But this does have some resemblance to what happened to Harepaw… And didn't you have something to do with that time too?"

"Um… I guess…" I looked at Wildbramble. I couldn't face Swiftpaw, or he might have been able to see right through me.

"Well, what matters now is that we get him to the medicine den at once," Beewing stated. "I need to run a few tests. Streamripple, go tell Briarstar what happened. She needs to hear about this immediately."

Gulp. That made me nervous. Briarstar knew everything about me, because she was my mentor when I was an apprentice. If I lied to her, she'd be able to detect it right away.

But I had no choice, so I dutifully walked to her den.

She greeted me with a blank expression. "Streamripple. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I looked just above her head. I couldn't meet her eyes. "Do you remember what happened to Harepaw a few days ago?"

"The event is still fresh in my mind."

"Wildbramble had a similar accident."

"Did he now?" I couldn't directly see her, but I could tell from her voice that she was suspicious.

"Beewing and Swiftpaw took him to go get checked up, and-"

"I'm sorry. Streamripple, my eyes are down here."

Was I looking too far above her head? But her chestnut eyes drilled into my soul with extreme ferocity. "You were saying?" she inquired.

"And…" I forced myself to meet her eyes. "Yeah. That's what happened."

"Can you give me more details?"

I continued, "Wildbramble was supposed to patrol this morning with Stormfall and Tansycloud. As he started to leave the camp, he collapsed. Do you need me to tell you anything else?"

Briarstar's eyes grew in intensity. Too late, I realized that last sentence was very rude. "Just one thing." I braced myself for a question that would be very difficult to answer, but she only asked, "How's Harepaw?"

"Harepaw? He's fine. Beewing told me he's pretty much fully recovered, but he's on a training hiatus for a few days."

"Give him my best. I hope these events don't happen again."

I couldn't tell exactly, but I'm almost certain she knew something. And that she blamed me for it.

Streamripple

That afternoon, Olivebranch walked up to me while I ate a rabbit. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"If you could see yourself, you'd know." She tilted her head a little. "Your face is serious. You look like you're lost in thought. I'm also taking into account what happened to Wildbramble."

"You're too observant. You know that, right?"

Olivebranch giggled. "Come on. Stand up. I came to ask you if you'd escort me on a walk outside the camp, but now, that's an order."

"Is it now?" I laughed, and stood up.

"I can't stand being in the nursery anymore," Olivebranch declared as we walked. "It almost feels like the walls are closing in on me. It's suffocating."

"It's the WindClan in you," I commented.

"I'm just glad Duskfur let me out of camp at all. He insisted I stay here, but then I managed to wear him down until he let me come, provided I had a warrior escort."

"But we both know you don't need one."

"That is very true."

We walked across the moor, laughing and talking. It felt nice, and slowly, the weight of the two incidents was slipping from my mind.

But we were a little too much at ease, because we wandered to the Thunderpath without noticing.

And standing there, on our territory, were two ShadowClan cats.

As soon as we saw them, I crouched in the tall grass. Olivebranch followed suit.

"They didn't see us. Good. You stay here while I go talk to them. I don't want you endangering yourself or the kits unless it gets hairy."

Olivebranch rolled her eyes. "I'm fine. You don't have to treat me like a kit."

"Alright. Think about it this way. You'll be a secret weapon. A sneak attack. They won't expect it, but I only want you coming in to help me unless you absolutely need to."

She still looked dismal, but she nodded. "Alright."

I emerged from the grass and strode toward the warriors, head high. "I believe this is our side of the Thunderpath. Kindly leave our territory and return to yours."

"Cool it. We're only here for a rabbit. One of our queens is sensitive to stuff from the ShadowClan hunting grounds, so we figured we'd just come here." One of them grinned at me, leaning forward. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Jaggedstone! That's the WindClan deputy!"

"Olivebranch?"

"No, you lizard-brain. Streamripple. She's filling in for Olivebranch."

"Oh."

"Now that you know who I am," I meowed, "You need to leave."

But they didn't. They ignored me. Jaggedstone spotted a rabbit and nodded to Tawnysky, the other one, and the two of them chased after it.

"Excuse me?"

"You're excused," Tawnysky called over her shoulder.

"That is it." Fully knowing what I was doing, I growled, "You two, go back to ShadowClan camp. Now. And give me that rabbit."

It worked. Tawnysky caught the rabbit. Dropping it at my paws, she and Jaggedstone ran back across the Thunderpath, just missing a monster by a mouse-length.

Olivebranch popped her head out of the grass. "What happened? They started hunting and they just… left?"

"I guess so. They realized that I was the acting deputy and, um, ran away. They dropped the rabbit."

"That's so weird."

We walked back in silence. I felt bad that those two would be in pain without having any idea why, but it was their fault that they were on our territory in the first place.

"Do you think that was sanctioned by Sandstar?" Olivebranch asked. I shrugged.

"If it was, I can't imagine anything good coming out of this. But I doubt it, seeing how fast they ran off."

"I'm going to go tell Briarstar." When we came back to the camp, she made a beeline for her den.

That's when the worry started to take over. What if Briarstar thinks the three events were connected somehow? What if she gets suspicious and questions me more? If that happened, I knew I wouldn't be able to lie to her.

Somehow, I had to figure this out. I had to find a way to keep the suspicion off of me. I had to come up with a believable lie.

I had to find a way to control this power.

Thanks for reading! Please comment if you have any questions or feedback.