hello!- some preliminary notes
1) i looked at a certain cat in the allegiances and went "he doesn't have an apprentice!" he did. my bad.
2) it's been a year since this has been updated, so what. it is aging finely, like a wine
3) i write most of this in what seems now like a fever dream so... idk
4) MOST IMPORTANTLY THIS IS MY AMAZING WIFEY'S B-DAY PRESENT, SHE DESERVES THIS AND SO MUCH MORE
The horror of Palefur's murder soon fades. The apprentices banded together in a pretense of safety, at first; the fear and tension wore out, but they remained a closely knit group. Oakstar, however, does not spring back so quickly. The elder had been his mate. As far as Sablepaw knows, Meadowmist and Stripethorn are the only family he has left. He's ancient, really, and his mate's death was an imminent thing, but he perhaps had not expected her to end like this. No one had. The killer was hunted across the territory, but they had vanished in a discreet, clean manner, and they found no further trace of it. Sablepaw suspected Oakstar would bring it up at the Gathering- bring it up in the most accusing tone he could muster. RiverClan were masters of the water, and it was improbable that even one cat in the Clan hadn't considered the possibility of their involvement.
"Are you excited for the Gathering?" Silverpaw asks, as they wake in the morning. "You've been doing really well, I'm sure they'll let you go."
Sablepaw shrugs. She hasn't been to one before; even Strongpaw has, and that rankles. "What about you?" she asks, dodging around the question. She refuses to get her hopes up, the way she has done for the past three moons.
"I've already been," she says lightly, in an airy tone of uncaring. Sablepaw wonders if it's forced, for her sake. "I guess it was alright."
"Alright?" Strongpaw butts in, from his nest nearby. "It was brilliant. I met so many cats." He pauses, and wiggles his eyebrows inelegantly. "Mostly she-cats." He can barely be heard over the sound of Sablepaw's scoffing.
"I bet they couldn't keep their paws off you," Silverpaw says, in a rare tone that could be entirely genuine or slightly sarcastic. She is related to Sablepaw, after all. "Let's go outside. They'll probably be announcing it any second now."
They exit the den, but Silverpaw is not exactly right. They eat breakfast, make light-hearted quips, endure some mild teasing from Pepperpaw, and whittle away half the morning while doing so. Oakstar is nowhere in sight, and neither is the deputy. This, however, is nothing unusual.
Rainpaw and Nettlepaw join them after a while, laden with prey as they trot back into camp. They're gushing about the Gathering, certain their hard work has earned them a spot on the guest list. Sablepaw notices something is different about Rainpaw; she giggles more, and casts odd sidelong glances at Strongpaw. She wants to put it down to a bad meal, but her behaviour unsettles something her stomach. It's almost, she thinks, how Silverpaw acts around him too. Here, Sablepaw is the anomaly.
They all scramble to their paws as Morningstorm strides out of Oakstar's den. Once again, the leader is nowhere to be seen, but they've grown to expect this. She is resplendent in the early afternoon light, fur alight with a polished sheen. Sablepaw often wonders where Strongpaw gets his patchy white-and-brown pelt from- it certainly wasn't his mother.
"Attention, please," she yowls, leaping elegantly onto a low-hanging branch. She doesn't need to command it; she has it already. "Oakstar and I have made the necessary discussions to decide who will attend tonight's Gathering. I will go with Embertooth, Toadstep, Meadowmist, Strongpaw, Honeyleap, Stripethorn, Swanpath and Sablepaw. Unfortunately, Oakstar will be unable to attend. That will be all."
Sablepaw turns to Silverpaw with a smile on her face. "Finally!" she exclaims, exchanging a glance with Strongpaw. "Maybe she doesn't hate me after all." Nettlepaw bumps their shoulder together, unable to entirely keep the sour expression off her face. Silverpaw, however, is staring off into the distance. Following her gaze, she sees it settle on Bramblethorn, alone and forlorn on the edge of camp.
"He's still in trouble," she sighs, darting a furtive look at her sister. "If you hadn't insisted on-"
"We couldn't let the killer waltz merrily on their way if there was a chance we could catch them," Sablepaw argued. "That would've been stupid. Even you know that."
Silverpaw's tail lashes, and Sablepaw steps back. They rarely fight like this; she's normally the one to diffuse the situation before it worsens.
"It was the right thing to do," Strongpaw adds. "Bramblenose knows that. That's why he let us go."
"Hello," Rainpaw says loudly. "We're missing the important thing here. Oakstar's not going! It must be for the first time, in like, a decade."
"Maybe he's carked it?" Nettlepaw muses. "Maybe Morningstorm doesn't want the whole Clan to panic."
"Don't be ridiculous," Strongpaw replies. "The first thing she'd do is yell it from the treetops." His words are light, but Sablepaw can feel his gaze on the pair of them; Silverpaw's fur is not exactly bristling, but it's not smooth and settled. Maybe she's jealous? Maybe she wants to go too, she thinks.
The thought remains with her for the rest of the day, and she tries not to bring up the Gathering around her sister. She nowhere to be found when the Gathering party assembles in the middle of camp, and they set off without further ado. Strongpaw trots alongside her, a jaunty bounce to his step. Of all the company she could be keeping, she wouldn't rush to pick him. However, the animosity between them has dulled a little, as of late, and Sablepaw can't find it in herself to hate him. He's as annoying as ever, of course, but he seems to think they're friends. She's even relieved he's experienced all the chaos of a Gathering before; she won't feel quite to helpless if she's by his side. Crowds have always unnerved her, strangers even more so; by all accounts, she is not a reputably friendly cat.
"Do you think Oakstar's sick?" Sablepaw asks, hoping to quell the peppiness of his step. His abundance of energy always exhausts her. Strongpaw pauses, considering this.
"I think he's sick," he replies at last, "just not in a way anyone can see. Or help." His blue eyes are pensive; chatter blooms around them anyway, impervious the to gravity of their conversation. Sablepaw is struck by the perception of his words. "He must be functional, though. Morningstorm would be far happier if he weren't."
Sablepaw doesn't doubt this; Strongpaw makes these comments often enough that she's started to agree with them, or perhaps she fails to see a side of Morningstorm that would be upset, that would grieve instead of celebrate. This is a version of the deputy that she's yet to witness, but that in itself is not an incriminatory act. There's something calculative about the golden she-cat, like a great golden eagle that observes everything for the slightest hint of a weakness or fault. No, Sablepaw thinks suddenly, she is more like a spider, with Oakstar caught in her web. In the end, she supposes, Morningstorm would fit in with whatever insipid allegory thrown at her. She could call her a hundred names, and be sure that each and every one would come back to bite her at some unrelated date. Even now, at the head of the ShadowClan pack, her ears twitch and her tail shivers in some restless wary rhythm. Ready is an apt description, although the apprentice is not sure why, or for what.
"Do the other Clans like us much?" she asks, recalling the blustering tales from her kithood. She knew for a fact her peers considered ThunderClan as a sort of rival sibling, RiverClan as a cultish order of fish-eaters, and WindClan as their spineless cousins. She never paused to consider how the other Clans might view them, holding, as all do, a stubbornly biased and narrow-minded opinion that hers was the very best. Sablepaw doesn't fail to notice Strongpaw's subtle wince.
"Well…" he begins, glancing at the senior members of the group, "we get along. Mostly."
"Yeah," she replies, rolling her eyes. "But do they like us?" She's not sure why it matters, but it seems of paramount importance at this instant; she's about to walk into the midst of all of them, and she'd like to know they hate her or not.
"It's more a sort of...toleration. But the other apprentices are nice," he adds, backtracking to accommodate the displeased expression on her face. "I met some nice ThunderClan she-cats last time and wow, you should have seen Smokepaw with one of them, they got on like a complete forest fire, if you know what I mean."
"I'm not here to gossip," she responds tartly, only because she holds herself up to some high moral pinnacle. Now it's Strongpaw's turn to roll his eyes.
"Gatherings are all about gossip, sweetheart," he drawls, winking as Honeyleap throws them a disgruntled glance. "We'll see if you have any fun with your rigid anti-gossip stance."
Sablepaw sidles a step or two away from him. It's at times like these his supposed charm and humour get to her nerves; normally she'd let someone like Silverpaw or Rainpaw take care of him while she scurried away into the forest, fuming at the audacity of his latest statement. "I don't do things for fun," she mutters, but she knows this is a lie. She can be very fun, provided Strongpaw's not around to bother her.
They walk in silence for the rest of the journey which is, admittedly, not very long. The scent of foreign cats grows thick in the air and pushes Sablepaw, unconsciously, closer to Strongpaw's side. She would rather shadow her own mother, but she's chatting animatedly with Toadstep and Stripethorn, in a somewhat unusual convention; Sablepaw's never really seen her own mother talk to toms, and suspects this has something to do with her father's delicate constitution and jealous tendencies. He's not a barbarian, but nor is he the sharing type. As such, Sablepaw really has no one else to turn to, unless she'd rather brave the hoards alone. Strongpaw must sense her unease, because he throws her a look that is neither smug or suggestive.
"No one's gonna murder us," he says, with a self-assured flick of his tail. He adds an imperious tilt to his head and adds, "The she-cats would riot."
"Get over yourself," she snorts; that's how she arrives, rolling her eyes and sneering ever so slightly, to her first Gathering. The crowd in front of her seems immense, a smear of colour and sound. Imperceptibly, Strongpaw's tail brushes her shoulder. Up ahead, Morningstorm gives the signal and the group splinters, heading out in all directions. Sablepaw sees her mother stop by a group of wiry she-cats, whilst Morningstorm herself heads straight for the three leaders with a rigid set to her shoulders. Sablepaw wonders if she's going to bring up Palefur's murder before the Gathering even starts. In the meantime, the rest of ShadowClan has spread out so far she can no longer tell them apart from the rabble.
"Follow me," Strongpaw announces, setting off at a steady trot into the clearing. Sablepaw dives after him, reluctant to lose him in this sea of unfamiliarity. He heads directly towards a conglomeration of younger cats, clearly the apprentices of the gathered Clans. Strongpaw prances towards them, a jaunty kink to his tail; she's not fooled by the illusion, not when she can spot at least three leaves caught up in the unholy fluff of his backside.
"Ladies," Strongpaw says as the reach the group, smoothly dipping his head into some flattering approximation of a bow. "And gentlemen," he adds, with a sweeping glance at his fellow toms. "I'm delighted to introduce to you my dear friend Sablepaw." He steps back, gracefully, and pushes Sablepaw into the ring of socialisation, not wholly unkind. She thinks he winks at her as she goes by, and she's not wrong.
"Sablepaw," one of the she-cat says, assuming an expression of thoughtful concentration. "Oh, yes! Silverpaw's sister. I'm Honeypaw, and these are Whitepaw, Mousepaw, Frostpaw, Lilypaw and Eaglepaw." She finishes her rapidfire introduction and sits back, looking simultaneously pleased and expectant.
Sablepaw's head spins with each new name, and though she smiles, it must look wooden and strange.
Strongpaw looks at her, his fur barely brushing hers, but it's one of the young strangers who sees her floundering and rescues her.
"First Gathering, huh?" It's the golden tom, the one with the burnished, autumnal pelt. "The first time seeing so many cats in one place in startling." Eaglepaw, she thinks; he smells of forest and ferns, the prevailing scents of ThunderClan's territory. He gives her a beckoning, lulling smile, and Sablepaw sits beside him without a second thought, knowing Strongpaw will gladly make himself comfortable beside whichever she-cat he decides to pester. Moments later, of course, he wedges himself in beside Sablepaw and Whitepaw, settling in with a self-satisfied hmph of approval.
"Yes," Sablepaw says, simply, still flustered. She's always been comfortable within her small circle of friends, the cats she grew up with, but here she feels the embodiment of being a fish out of water. Luckily enough, at that precise moment the collective attention of the thrall turns to the center of the Gathering, and the esteemed leaders at its center. It is not so strange seeing Morningstorm up there, in midst of them, sleek and stone-faced with rigid shoulders and ruthless posture.
"Where's your real leader?" Eaglepaw asks, watching as the four clear their throats. "He was here last time, I'm sure."
"He's unwell," Sablepaw replies, unsure if she's making some sort of tactical error here. Surely that kind of information is sensitive, even dangerous, but it doesn't seem like anything a smart cat can't figure out on their own. She seems to be tripping over her paws tonight, as if she's discovered she has six instead of four. She never knew she could be this unwieldy in a public setting.
Eaglepaw murmurs something sympathetically. She thinks, cursing her uncertainty, that she hasn't transgressed on any tradition at all.
Strongpaw huffs out a sigh beside her, sounding irate, though he keeps talking to she-cat on his right. It sounds inane, boring even. Strongpaw, she knows, is hardly one for boredom.
The first leader to speak is a black tom. "RiverClan is doing well. We've had three litters born this moon, and have more than enough prey to support our blossoming ranks." He seems a little smug, as though these litters have been a personal project for him, something he's overseen with meticulous attention to detail.
"Crowstar is as arrogant as they come," someone murmurs in her ear; she thinks it's Eaglepaw, until the commentator adds a slide aside about Morningstorm. "Which is quite the feat, knowing my mother." His breath fans across her whiskers, smelling of the vole he ate for lunch.
"We've smelt fox lingering around the edges of our borders, but it hasn't dared cross. That's our news for tonight, and I'm sure our prosperity will only grow in the coming moons."
Sablepaw watches Morningstorm's face, straining to see every ounce of expression. She seems remarkably impassive.
"Thank you, Crowstar," the grey she-cat says, stepping deftly in front of him. Eaglepaw tells her, proudly, that this is Fernstar. He's a ThunderClan tom, she realizes, though she tries not to let this fact diminish his likability.
"ThunderClan is progressing adequately," she says, making no attempts to outshine the imperious tone of Crowstar's speech. "We've also smelt fox, but have seen neither hair nor hide of the creature. We are ready, though, to defend our territory from any threat. We have one new apprentice, Fleetpaw, although he was unable to attend tonight. On a more important note, our long-serving deputy Breezespot has retired, and Willowmist has stepped up to take his place."
Fernstar dips her head, amid the polite murmurings of the crowd, and steps back. She seems brusque, candid, and Sablepaw likes her. ThunderClan, she thinks, doesn't sound half-bad. This thought is a private one, a dark one, and she will never let it see the light of day. She fluffs her fur up instead, starting to overheat in the ragtag circle of apprentices.
WindClan goes next, speaking dryly of prey and plains and omens. Splashstar, she infers, is not overtly popular amongst the other Clans.
"The river will run red," Eaglepaw quotes under his breath, sardonically; Whitepaw giggles and Sablepaw, despite herself, smiles in return. "And mice will fly, and we'll all drown in a summer rainstorm. Does she hear herself? Where does she come up with this shit?"
"Language!" Strongpaw gasps, pretending to cover Sablepaw's ears with his voluminous tail, sweeping leaves into her eyes with his efforts. I'm older than you, she thinks, contemptuously, but doesn't bother to speak the words. She's not so insecure that she feels the need to repeat this fact every other day.
"Last Gathering," Lilypaw says, a salacious undertone in her voice, "she predicted a change in the Warrior Code. She all but demanded we do it. She's crazy."
Sablepaw ignores their gossip, in favour of scrutinising Morningstorm. She has stepped up, as though displayed on a pedestal, and looks every inch a regal leader. More so than the three standing behind her, suddenly diminutive in her presence. This looks like an omen. Perhaps it is.
"ShadowClan has done well in the face of adversity, as it always does." She begins strongly, no quaver in her voice, no tremble in her legs. Strongpaw must be proud, she thinks, knowing that he's not. "Three weeks past, one of our own- our dear, beloved elder Palefur- was murdered mere minutes from our camp. Brutalised. The shocking discovery was made by our own apprentices."
Sablepaw feels a sudden weight on her pelt- the collective gaze of the gathered Clans, scrutinising her for any sign of trauma or agitation. She hopes they find none, but that's as improbable as finding Palefur's long gone murderer.
"Unsurprisingly, her attacker fled the scene."
Sablepaw is almost relieved; she'd been apprehensive about this, wondering what accusations would spill from her lips. She's handled this better than Oakstar would, but Sablepaw is no longer sure he's capable of speaking, let alone rattling off a news bulletin at a public assembly.
"But we don't need to catch her killer to know who's guilty."
The crowd stills, a disturbed silence falling softly over the ranks.
Morningstorm turns, a flash of molten gold, avenging and vainglorious. She points herself at Crowstar; her claws, Sablepaw notes, are unsheathed.
"You," she snarls: it's all but a roar, and the sound is too loud in the silent clearing. "Filthy murderers! RiverClan has always lusted after the glory and wealth of ShadowClan, but now you send assassins to sate your thirst? Who's next? What's next?" The crowd is bristling, and even the other leaders look alarmed. Crowstar bares his teeth in a snarl.
"We have no quarrel with ShadowClan," he says, impressively calm. "Yet. If you continue to implicate us in crimes we did not commit, this soon will change."
"Liar," she spits, but the sound is indistinct, a muffled hum of a word. She looks ready to skin Crowstar alive.
"That's enough!" Fernstar barks, looking up at the cloudless sky. "This Gathering is dismissed! Good night!" She leaps from the stone, shoving Crowstar with her shoulder, sending him down too. He seems all too happy to disappear into the crowd, and the RiverClan warriors begin to leave, slipping away in silent streams. Whitepaw, too, stands to leave in haste, though she pauses and shakes as if to rid herself of ShadowClan's scent. The glare she sends back to Sablepaw and Strongpaw is injured.
Strongpaw nudges her with his shoulder, an unimpressed frown on his face. "We should go too," he mutters, and she couldn't agree more. She looks back at the other apprentices, who look frankly traumatised, and dips her head in a wordless farewell. It's all she can manage. In hindsight, she knows, she should've stayed, should've defended herself and her Clan- though not the deputy, and her barrage of accusations. Never her.
She follows Strongpaw from the clearing, stepping where he steps, as though they walk in a stiff wind- one stern gust ought to be all it would take to bowl her over, send her falling down.
She looks back, preserving the scene, and sees Splashstar. She stands on the speaking stone, staring at the sky: she is, indeed, some sort of oracle, a priestly vision. Sablepaw's not sure what kind she is for a long, long time.
Everything returns to relative normality the next. Word spreads, of course, about Morningstorm and her outburst, though it only garners sympathy for the ShadowClan cause and hatred for RiverClan's. Everyone is sure, in quiet confidence, that they're guilty. It only makes sense. More importantly, Silverpaw seems to forgive her- fusses over her, really, as though her concern can smother the memory of that disastrous first Gathering. As with Palefur, the horror and spectacle of it all fades; within a week, she laughs it off, and returns to normal, though she now knows more about herself, and the fears she didn't know she possessed.
This only drives her to study harder; moves and countermoves; strategy; blood, bone and anatomy. Strength, she decides, is her insecurity, and she patches it up as best she can. She's a passable hunter, and soon her fighting skills surpass her knacks as a huntress. Things are halted, momentarily, when Meadowmist falls pregnant. The very idea boggles Sablepaw's mind. Bramblenose is soon appointed as her new mentor, in an attempt to synchronise her concluding schooling with Sunpaw's; he's either restored himself to Morningstorm's good graces, or is currently making the attempt. With her. With her training. Sablepaw gets a little pissy at this unappealing concept, and complains to Silverpaw, who in turn gets pissy with her. She should be grateful, apparently, but he's a kittypet, one who's earned the animosity of half the Clan.
She regrets this, of course, and not just because she upset her sister (SIlverpaw is all the best parts of her, something she readily acknowledges). Bramblenose begins to teach her things, and it is not the standard ShadowClan curriculum. He specialises in the city, the distant and shining land of adventure.
Sablepaw learns- of cars and humans, streets and the things that wait in their shadows.
"Why did you leave?" she asks one day, after they conclude their tree-climbing episode. Her claws ache, and she flexes them.
Bramblenose smiles at her; he has a nice face, a handsome one, that Sablepaw has not failed to notice. "I suppose you could say I was bored. The city life was a very lonely one. The life I lived was, at least. There were gangs and groups of thugs, of course, but I, being of a stoically moral nature, refused to join their ranks. They were growing bigger and bigger every day, but I managed to resist."
Sablepaw snorts. Stoic moral nature is not an inappropriate label for him, she thinks, but he picks and chooses moments to let it show. "You were lonely then? What about your family?" She thinks of her own: her doting father, her charming mother, sweet Silverpaw and rowdy Pepperpaw. Her friends, too, are not far from her thoughts. Nettlepaw, Rainpaw, Smokepaw, on occasion. Strongpaw, too, at a stretch. She keeps a healthy distance from him, and maintains her solid barricade of disdain and attentive insults- it's a habit.
"Family?" Bramblenose asks, wrinkling his nose. He has paused in between strides. "I had a father, but he wanted nothing to do with me, after I refused to help his entrepreneurial enterprise." At her questioning stare, he gives her a flat look. "It's no topic to discuss with your sensitive young ears, either. So I went to the streets, and then to the forest, and then to here. ShadowClan was wonderfully receptive, for the most part."
"What about your mother?" Sablepaw asks. For all of her superficial protests, she loves Embertooth, dearly.
Bramblenose shrugs. "She was a side project, of my father. I never knew her."
They walk in silence back to camp, digging up a small cache of prey on the way. The city has suddenly developed a darker undertone, in her mind. It is not all staying up late, catching your own meals, and reveling in your hard-won freedom, she understands. Perhaps she would not like it so much after all.
Silverpaw ambushes her when they get back to the clearing, full of questions- Where did you go? What did you see? What did you talk about? Sablepaw fills her in, mostly, but keeps Bramblenose's city comments to herself. They seem almost too sad to voice. She play-fights with Pepperpaw, later, ignoring Strongpaw's "helpful" commentary, and manages to pin him.
"Victory!" she crowes, hopping off him and graciously allowing him to shake the dust from his fur. Thornstreak thumps his tail in approval, and Strongpaw pretends to swoon.
Oakstar, meanwhile, remains more of a recluse than ever.
The next morning- solidly over halfway through their apprenticeships, and reaping the benefits- Sablepaw, Nettlepaw, Silverpaw, Sunpaw and Rainpaw venture out into the forest on an ill-advised hunting trip. It will be little more than gossip and hot air, a fact not lost to their mentors. Sablepaw, for once, happily partakes in the exchange of gloriously juicy information. Jaypaw has just become Jayflight and, as the prettiest of all of them, simply must have suitors lined up for days.
"Bramblenose!" Sunpaw exclaims. "It has to be Jayflight and Bramblenose!"
Nettlepaw veers away for a few moments and returns, miraculously, with a thrush.
"It makes sense," she mumbles, through downy feathers. "I think he's been distracted recently, and not just with his doubled mentoring duties." She twitches her whiskers to match her conspiratol tone.
"Nonsense," Silverpaw says. "She could have anyone, why Bramblenose?"
"Who'd say no to Bramblenose?" Sunpaw says, chiming in again, evidently pleased with her new theory. "I mean, I would. He's not exactly my type, but my point remains."
"Your type starts in White and ends in paw," says Sablepaw, who now knows some things.
"You're not exactly bolstering your own argument," Rainpaw snorts. "I'd pass on him, as well. I have my eyes set elsewhere." She trails off, dreamily, and Sunpaw shudders in response.
"Eww. I have not given you my permission to pursue my brother!" she says, a little shrilly, and they all fall into laughter. Rainpaw's mirth dies quickly.
Sablepaw and Silverpaw find themselves walking ahead of the group, brushing shoulders in sisterly harmony.
"And you, Sablepaw? Have you got your eyes on anyone?" Silverpaw doesn't sound like she's teasing, but her sincerity can often be part of her bantering charm.
"No…" Sablepaw says, slowly, but she sounds uncertain.
"Because I heard you were sitting pretty close to a handsome ThunderClan tom," she says, voice light and bubbly. She doesn't sound castigating in the least.
"Who told you that?" Sablepaw exclaims, scandalized; the she-cats behind them fall into laughter again. "Was it Strongpaw? God, it was Strongpaw!"
"That boy cannot keep his mouth shut," Silverpaw says, though her voice is fond. "He's a worse gossiper than all of us combined."
"But it is a nice mouth," Rainpaw says, conversationally, sending the group into a fit of squeals. Silverpaw seems to be nodding in agreement.
Then they find the smell, or the smell finds them, and it seems to happen all over again.
"You didn't follow it this time, did you?" Morningstorm asks, stern in every aspect of her countenance. She has a voice simply made for interrogation. "And you didn't find anything?" She has insisted on talking to all witnesses on-one-on, and gave them no time to corroborate their stories.
"We were walking, and talking, for a few minutes," Sablepaw says. "We noticed the scent close to the border. It was thick, and foreign, and we couldn't figure out what it was."
Morningstorm nods her head. Sablepaw must be saying the right things; she feels relieved.
"As soon as we realized we could smell something, we stopped. We couldn't see any pawprints, or blood. We got nervous, turned around, and came home."
"You did the right thing," Morningstorm says, almost soothingly. "The last thing this Clan needs is a pile of slaughtered apprentices." That sentiment is instantly destroyed.
"We thought," Sablepaw says, attempting to venture out on a limb, "that it might be the fox. The one the other Clans mentioned…. at the Gathering." She winces as the dreaded word passes her lips. Morningstorm is liable to explode, for all she knows.
The older she-cat's lips seem to twist, in some kind of smirk or growl. "It's nothing for you to ponder," she says, simply. "We do have warriors for that. You may leave me now, and return to your apprentice duties in the morning. It would be prudent for you to remain with your mentor at all times, and to watch out in turn for young Streampaw and Pinepaw."
"Yessir," Sablepaw says, all too happy to escape the deputy's overwhelming presence.
Strongpaw is waiting outside the medicine den. He must be there for his mother, she supposes, and is surprised when he peels away from the lengthening evening shadows to join her.
"Are you okay?" he asks. "Silverpaw told me everything, and it reminded me of that afternoon, when we found… you know."
All their words seem inadequate tonight.
But she does know. She's remembering too.
"I'm okay," she replies, in her best attempt at a convincing tone. "Rattled, of course, but we didn't see anything this time."
Strongpaw leans against her for a brief second, and she revels in the warmth and comfort, before she remembers herself.
"As soon as we're warriors," he says, more to himself than her. "As soon as we're warriors, I'm going to hunt that thing down."
"Bring me back its head," she says, surprising herself with the fierceness of her demand.
He just bows slightly, mock-chivalrous. "Anything for you, my love." He's a brash thing, wild, reckless, hungry, but she believes him. Just a little.
She drowns in a sea, dies in a circle. Gasps for breath in a ring of faces. Her bones crumble, her skin melts, and they watch it all, this pantomime of justice. She cannot smile, cannot force a laugh or apology or plea. The apathy of it all is crushing, crushing her, suffocating. She cries and wheezes, but none will help her. And so she drowns, drowns in that cruel circle of faces…
That is the night of the nightmares, and its reign is long, its grip unyielding. It dies with the dawn and is born again that very same evening. Death and birth are soon a steady revolution in her life.
In the wake of the dreams- in which she is invariably, beaten, broken, killed- she loses a little weight, a little luster. It's not abnormal; half the Clan goes through the same thing, the same sensation of being haunted. She sticks religiously to the constants in her life.
Her constant, of course, is this: watching Strongpaw and Silverpaw, laughing at them, smiling with them. It's nearly enough to banish the memories of her unwaking, undying moments, and that in itself is a blessed thing.
Two more Gatherings go by, and Sablepaw chooses not to attend. She gets all the gossip from Strongpaw anyway, who makes a point to inform her how well-groomed Eaglepaw is, and which way his sleek fur chooses to fall. She pretends to lap all this up, rolling her eyes the whole time.
"But his eyes!" she cries. "What shade of blue are they? How did they glow in the moonlight?"
It's somehow easy to be this jovial, as though all this angst has given her a new, witty edge.
Strongpaw just rolls his eyes in return and composes an ode to Eaglepaw's empyrean eyes. It's sickening, and it pleases both of them.
When the dawn patrol she's joined bumps into ThunderClan's at the border, she looks everywhere but Eaglepaw's eyes. Bramblenose and the ThunderClan warriors talk about prey, and the upcoming winter, and the suspicious nature of those seedy RiverClan cats. Smokepaw, too, seems awfully chatty with Lilypaw.
"Will you be at the next Gathering?" Eaglepaw asks, kindly ignoring her avoidance of direct eye-contact. "I haven't seen you there for a while, and I'm sure we'll both have our warrior names by then."
She pauses and considers the thought. The idea of her warrior name has been her armour, and concept of walking into a Gathering wearing it seems doable. "Probably," she says, with a smile that may seem a little too coy. The prospect of warriordom never fails to rile her up.
"Well," Eaglepaw says, as his older peers make their farewells and begin to depart. "Let's call it a date."
Sablepaw almost chokes on a glob of spit, and when she recovers, he's gone.
She dreams she is not the hunted, but the hunter. She does not flee, but chases. She is something to fear.
The twilight of her apprenticeship, as mentioned graciously by Eaglepaw, has arrived. Bramblenose has mostly taught her all he knows- Meadowmist, meanwhile, has kitted an enormous batch of lumpy new babies in the nursery. Sablepaw visits once, and that's enough for her.
Oakstar has barely been seen in camp for months, and so Sablepaw makes her peace with the prospect of Morningstorm bestowing upon her her new name. There's a chance it might be badass, after all, even if there's also a chance it might be insipid, uninspired. She thinks it might happen any day now; their ceremony seems practically overdue. In the long tenure of her apprenticeship, she's seen Strongpaw, Sunpaw, Pinepaw and Streampaw become apprentices. Palefur has died. Jayflight has already moved on from them, leaving Smokepaw and Pepperpaw ing in her wake.
Sablepaw feels like she's on the cusp of something. A new dawn. An old storm. A beginning, and an end.
She wakes up on a morning in which nothing changes. Nothing happens. It is superficially normal, just as she likes it. She spars with Pepperpaw again (and loses, but it's fine), eats her morning meal with her mother, lies in the sun with her sister. She doesn't think of her dreams, or what may be lurking in the forest, or who. Even the sight of Morningstorm stalking across the clearing doesn't dampen her mood.
She remains positive, or tries to, when the deputy looks her way and calls her name.
"Sablepaw!" the golden queen snaps, looking uncharacteristically flustered. The emotion doesn't sit well on her stern face. Gulping, Sablepaw climbs to her paws and slinks towards her, attempting to look vague and non-threatening.
"Yes?" she asks, wondering if she's done something wrong, if her warrior ceremony has been delayed for a purpose.
"You're needed," the deputy replies, face pinched. "My son has run off. Someone needs to talk to him. Someone he likes."
"Oh, no," Sablepaw starts to say- Strongpaw doesn't like her, they merely reserve some kind of mutual toleration for each other, for the sake of Silverpaw- but Morningstorm interrupts her refusal.
"He cannot be out there alone," she continues. "You have to go after him, talk sense into him."
"Um," Sablepaw says, not quite agreeing.
"He does not agree with me," Morningstorm says, darkly, her eyes no longer on Sablepaw's. "Refuses my presence, even. He ought to be by that fallen log, the hollow one close to camp. It's where I found him last time. Bring him back to me."
Nodding, Sablepaw can only do as she bids. It must be safe enough, if she's delegating one lone apprentice to the task, but she is still unnerved. She starts off into the forest, giving her family a one-word farewell. The paths are familiar to her, after months of walking them, but they seem different in her solitude. She has not been truly alone for a long time. It seems to her that Strongpaw must like this sensation. She can't agree.
Shivering, she hurries on to the hollow tree. She knows the one; it's been branded off-limits to the apprentices, declared forbidden territory. It's strange now, that Strongpaw's chosen it for his haunt.
She doesn't know him as well as she ought, but that has always suited her just fine.
"Strongpaw?" she calls, striding into the clearing. The loneliness is enough to raise her hackles: the sensation of a thousand eyes burns on her skin. Sablepaw scans the clearing, but she can't see him, or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps Morningstorm has sent her on an erroneous mission to test the bounds of her gullibility. They must be fathomless, she's sure. "Strongpaw!" The edge in her voice is sharp. I sound like I need him, she thinks. Like I want him.
Stepping closer to the log, she sees claw marks in its worn bark. Angry scratches, lines of rage and pain. There's a story here, one no one has bothered to tell her.
She tries again, softer- too soft. His name barely leaves her mouth.
"No, Silverpaw." There he is, though he sounds wrong. "Not this time. Not today."
The sound of his voice and the asperity of his words unnerve her. Sablepaw feels as though she's transgressed on something, stepped across a line, into a scene that does not want her. She wants to recoil, but she restrains herself; there are worse things than the imagines her mind has supplied her.
She looks into the shadows and sees him. For once, for the first time, she sees him, and he does not see her.
His head is bent, his face obscured. The hunch of his shoulders is uncomfortable, intimate. There are burrs caught up in the sleek length of his fur, and a spot of dried blood stains his nose. He seems like a real thing, in this moment, something to touch, and be touched by.
"Well," Sablepaw says, as though she's brave, willfully ignoring the rasp of her voice. "It's not Silverpaw." She almost phrases it as a question. Instead, it comes out much harsher, not apologetic in the least.
Why does she come here, with him? Why would they need a secret spot, all to themselves? What does she have to do, or say, that she can't tell me about?
He looks up at this. His eyes are not the same- not gentle, not conniving, not lit with laughter. They seem to banish her from the clearing, to exile her, with the force of his gaze.
"Lover's spat?" she asks, tsking. God. She can't stop.
"Sablepaw," he drawls, sitting upright in one smooth move. "Well. We can't all be loveless hermits, you know."
Is he joking? Is she?
"Your mother is looking for you," she replies. "She seems concerned." Her words are concentrated, venomous, and she isn't trying at all.
"And so she sent you?" He's laughing,a sound to match the slow cold boil of her blood. "I can see how much she cares, sparing one of her henchmen, and all."
"Aren't you lucky," she sneers. A sudden silence expands between them, like the air chilling in the wake of nightfall. He walks closer, soundless on a bed of pine needles.
"Shall we count the ways?" he asks. "I'd begin, but I can't think of anything." He stops before her, and she notices, in the midst of her anger, that he is now taller than her.
"Precious prince," she snarls. "Your nose is too big to see everyone falling over themselves at your feet." She glares at his muzzle, not his eyes. They are snowmelt blue. They glitter with an icy sheen in the sunlight. Anywhere but his eyes.
Strongpaw tilts his head. "Okay, then," he starts, gesturing grandly with a paw. "Fall."
"Oh, so you'll allow it?" she snaps, but she backs up a step. And then another. "Your majesty, I'm privileged!"
He starts to say something- "Fine! God! Fine, just stop!"- but her paws do not stop moving.
She starts to run. If the hidden murderer of the forest lays its paws on Strongpaw then, well. It might be a nice change of pace.
i didn't want to leave it here, and if i didn't have so much goddamned course work to do i wouldn't.
ANYWAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY URIEKUKI I LOVE YOU