Talk
I probably couldn't have been more apprehensive and on end than when I found myself trailing after my new mentor, having no earthly idea what would transpire out there. One thing was for certain of what occurred that day. We talked, the first of many, but one I would not soon forget.
The jagged tips of bony branches poked and pricked at Redpaw's pelt as he pressed through the bushes, forging a path through the foliage as his small awkward gait struggled to keep pace with the leisurely stride of his new mentor. For such a remarkably sized monument of a cat, one would only naturally speculate that Oakclaw's form would give way to a lumbering raucous of a run that sent tremors reverberating across the forest floor standard of a tom of his mass. But like many things Redpaw had slowly managed to gleam from his stunted amount of time with him such logical sounding thought did not apply to a tom that appeared near weightless with each light and easy step he took.
Speaking of his mentor, the two of them had been traversing through their Clan's territory, borderline foreign land to Redpaw at this point, without pause, break, or so much as an utterance of a word from Oakclaw. A part of Redpaw wondered if he was even still aware of the fact that he was scrounging to barely keep up with him, not for a single instance having turned around to confirm that his newly acquired apprentice still lay in tow.
If his mentor's continued steady ignorance towards his presence wasn't enough to snuff out his already fizzled excitement, Redpaw could had have never envisioned that his first venture out into the wilderness of his own territory would be such a miserable experience.
Originally, he used to daydream on end about what it would be like to finally shed the inner walls of the Clan and enter the great unknown that dwelled beyond the horizon of his own imagination. What possibilities lay in wait, he could hardly stand to stomach in his eagerness to see and know of the world outside the hollow where prey was caught, skirmishes were fought and won, and apprentices made their stake for why they deserved to be and slowly transformed into warriors. It was there in the heart of the forest, in the midst of the sounds and smells of the wild, that they bore witness to the splendid glory and whims of what nature had to offer and so generously gifted to them all.
Redpaw had not been allowed wondrous pleasure, however. There had been no opportunity to soak in and awe over the luscious landscape and enchanting scents that the BoulderClan territory had to offer. From the start Oakclaw's sole intent had been movement and nothing more, leaving Redpaw with little option to either be left behind lost or chase after the only other life form for several foxlengths.
The descent through BoulderClan territory transpired as a rueful experience for the ginger apprentice. A combination of stumbling and scrambling across unfamiliar feeling terrain littered with stray rocks, nagging gnats, and a tandem of thorn bushes, coupled with the glaring onslaught of the sun's fervid rays that beat down relentlessly against his back the remainder of the time left Redpaw in a slovenly exhausted state made even worse by the notion that his body was not accustom to such an arduous and rapid pace.
Where were they even headed, he wondered with a progressively decreasing ability to adequately keep up. His breaths were coming out in short erratic bursts now, the aching in his paws a painful thud that only seemed to augment in degree the further he pushed himself.
If Oakclaw didn't choose to stop soon, rather in the next upcoming seconds, Redpaw would most likely collapse. If that happened would Oakclaw stop to help him? The uncertainty of realizing he could be left abandoned and defenseless sent a shard of fright piercing through his heart. Who was to say that that hadn't been Oakclaw's plan all along, traveling to a remote enough location in BoulderClan and leaving Redpaw to die where no cat would look or care to come find him?
Just as Redpaw's imagination was cajoling itself into inventing some even more insidious plan to rid BoulderClan of him, without so much as a warning, Oakclaw came to an abrupt stop in the middle of a small sunlight clearing and plopped down in the middle of it, slowly curling his tail around to meet his tucked front paws.
Redpaw paused, hunching over in a near drained form of euphoria, as the sides of his flank rose up and down rapidly as he struggled to catch his breath. Another few steps and he just might have been left good for crowfood.
The haggard condition of his apprentice seemed to be paid no heed by the large tabby, whom at the current moment was idly lounging around the grass, soaking in the diluted but warm rays of the sun without little care it seemed. His attention appeared to be solely placed on doing nothing more than that, leaving a certain ginger furred apprentice at an uncomfortable impasse.
There was absolutely no indication given from the large tom that he should sit as well, so instead Redpaw just stood there, awkwardly standing a few foxlengths away from Oakclaw uncertain of what to do. Slightly intimidated and baffled by his behavior or not, he didn't want to do anything that would garner him the ire of his new mentor so soon.
Despite the severe events that had only so recently occurred in the hollow of BoulderClan, Redpaw still had a desire in him to please, even if only a fleeting notion at this point.
Oakclaw continued to lounge, his tail now slowly flicking just below his chin as he stared off into the forest with that same vacant, faraway look that Redpaw had noticed earlier, but with a slight smile served to juxtapose the lack of emotion resonating from his eyes. For Redpaw it was an eerie sight, but a type that left him feeling more intrigued than repulsed.
Oakclaw's head suddenly tilted in his direction, the tabby's pale eyes lazily brushing across his scuffed exterior of clumped and uneven ruffled fur before falling on a spot right between the crooks of his ears.
In that instant I somehow knew Oakclaw was about to speak to me. I remember the feeling of my body tensing as I waited, breath abated, for what his first proper words to me as his apprentice would be. A gauntlet of different possibilities flowed through my mind like a running stream. Words of encouragement, tips on becoming the best possible warrior I could be, the best hunting techniques, the suspense was killing me!
"There's a pinecone stuck to your head."
The jovial tone in which he stated this left Redpaw in a stunned silence, questioning whether or not he had properly overheard him right. Slowly raising a paw Redpaw ducked his head and sent his paw brushing over it, feeling his claws snag against something stuck in his fur before clawing it out to watch a small pinecone come skirting from his head and roll off onto the grass.
"That's better," Oakclaw commented lightly. "Go ahead and sit, there's no use in experiencing such good weather while you're like that. It'll make our talk more comfortable."
Not turning his back on such an offer when he could barely stand as it was, Redpaw squatted down, tucking his paws under his chest and warping his tail around his body, a near perfect rendition of Oakclaw's own posture.
"Good, good," Oakclaw nodded, his head tilting back and forth in a swaying sort of motion. "Doesn't that feel better? Go ahead and soak in the surroundings, you won't find a better spot to do so than here."
With a bit of prodding from Oakclaw Redpaw allowed himself to do just that. Mimicking something that he'd witnessed several warriors do from the shade of the nursery, he closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide, allowing all the scents of the forest to find a home right there on the tip of his tongue.
An explosion of a varied array of scents and tastes overtook his senses and made his ears perk, as Redpaw swiveled his around to take in more scents. He caught the hint of something…seedy, almost like wheat, so maybe mouse? Or was it squirrel? He couldn't remember, trying to recall the memory of the taste from when he would nimble off one out of the freshkill pile.
A slight breeze was blowing, cooling down his inflamed fur and causing Redpaw to let out a small sigh of release. His ears perked more as he turned his attention to focusing on the soft rustling of grass around them and serene chatter of birds hovering above in the branches of trees.
The feeling, the feeling of being surrounded by nature like he was right down, experiencing the types of wonder that the forest had to offer, it was enough to make him relax…almost.
"So tell me, do you hate the cats of BoulderClan?" Oakclaw asked in a tone much too cheerful for the question he had just posed.
Caught in a sudden swarm of panic, Redpaw's eyes snapped opened to lock onto the sight of Oakclaw casually tossing the pinecone that had fallen from his fur earlier between his paws, an off kilter smile playing on his lips as his sight stayed placed on the pinecone.
Redpaw studied the tabby's lax stature, trying to find some sort of insight to the perplexing tom's mind. What was Oakclaw trying to gain from such a question?
"An apprentice should always answer their mentor when asked a question," Oakclaw spoke lightly, the expression on half of his face a blatant contradiction of the other.
Realizing that Oakclaw wasn't going to leave the topic until Redpaw answered him, the ginger tom eased a soft sigh out before steeling himself for any backlash that may resort as of a result from his answer.
"No," he meekly answered, barely above a whisper, ironically feeling immediately guilty at how much his own words surprised him. Was that actually how he truly felt? Shouldn't he hold some sort of resentment towards those who had treated him so cruelly? Yes, without question that was the only natural reaction in front of such staggering derision. But somewhere inside of himself Redpaw had to acknowledge that his failing as a cat was probably the fact that he couldn't get over the desire to have them accept him.
"No," he reiterated a bit more soundly. "I don't hate anyone in the Clan. I only hate that no one will tell me what I've done to make them hate me. If only I knew then I could make them understand that I didn't mean any of it."
"They don't shun you for who you are, but rather what you stand for."
Redpaw's head shot up as his fur stood on end. "What I stand for? What does that even mean?"
"Hmm, what, indeed?" Oakclaw replied, in an almost hum like voice, suddenly rolling over in the grass to expose his underbelly to the sun. "And how, may I ask, will you go about getting the Clan to stop hating you? If your ceremony was any indication of things, well.." his voice trailed off, not needing to continue as they both knew how that fiasco had turned out.
"I-I'll," Redpaw's voice wavered as he bowed his head, gritting his teeth as he dug his claws into the soil. "I'll gain their respect somehow," he responded tersely.
Oakclaw rolled back onto his side, lightly sweeping the pinecone away with a swish from his tail. "Admirably ambitious, but sorely misguided," he said, sounding amused. "Respect isn't gained, not in this Clan or any other. You'll die an early death having accomplished nothing, seeking to attain something you never earned in the first place."
Redpaw outwardly flinched back as if Oakclaw had actually slashed him across the face. The words stung, more than should have being uttered in such an amicable manner and delivery. Maybe that was it, Redpaw thought bitterly. That was probably one of the reasons why Oakclaw held such an aloof style of carrying himself. It allowed him an avenue to state things that would otherwise be taken as harsh or cruel, but somehow warped in its delivery when the cat saying such things exuded nothing but the utmost form of friendliness.
"What am I supposed to do then?!" Redpaw relented, his frustration having finally broken through his shy exterior. "If I can't make them feel I belong, then what? What do I do?"
"Your duty as a member of the Clan," Oakclaw stated matter of factly, rising to his paws as his shadow now engulfed Redpaw's form within it. "Not because you want to, but because it's expected of you, it's your job. Answer me this, why are the rules in the warrior code the way that they are, and why do we follow it?"
The question caught Redpaw completely off guard, leaving the ginger tom left clawing his memory of the code for such an answer when Oakclaw just as quickly interjected with, "We won't speak again until you've done just that. Until then your training won't start."
And with that he padded right past Redpaw, leaving the ginger tom to scramble up to his paws and chase after the brown tabby's already fleeting form, his head buzzing wild with the quickly departing tom's words as he called out after him.
There was a lot that Oakclaw said to me that day that I didn't quite understand. And no matter how much I called after him or prodded for further elaboration, he kept solemn to his word that we wouldn't speak again until after I was able to answer his question about the code. While there would be sometime before I understood that, there was one thing that I had, though not the reason why. Never once, throughout the entire duration of that conversation we had did Oakclaw ever directly look at me or refer to me by my name.