A/N: This is a special little bonus chapter that I thought would be fun to write. Please note, it isn't apart of the current storyline, so feel more than free to skip it if you wish. It has no real baring on the overall plot of the main narrative besides being a neat little peek into the backstory of a few certain characters. It is not necessary for you to read this to get the "full" story of Broken. It's merely here for those who might find it interesting. Anyway, enjoy!
Perfect. It needs to be perfect.
It was near high-noon and strong rays of sunlight were shinning down on the field. The soft honeyed scent of flowers was casually wafting through the air, attracting a small crowd of bees with their pleasant aromas. The grass felt warm and inviting beneath his paws, a few stalks being just high enough that they tickled the underside of his belly every time he would move.
The young apprentice exhaled deeply from his mouth before lowering his form into a tight crouch. His muscles bunched and then flexed as he cautiously stretched out a long paw. It landed in a small patch of darkly yellow flowers, crushing them under the weight, and with another exhalation he slowly pushed forward.
Patience, he reminded himself. Don't rush it. Don't rush it.
Meticulously, he stretched out his other foreleg, repeating the process from before, and softly pushed it into the ground. Cutting his breathing shallow now, the apprentice turned his body inward and then began the process of curling himself around the makeshift pillar. He concentrated on keeping his fur completely flat as he moved. Just a few stray strands out of place could destroy his progress.
He slithered his way through like a serpent, coiling around each gap with deft and agility. Instinctively, he receded just a bit back on his quickness and then slid through the next gap cleanly. His heart rate was proceeding at a low thud against his chest, reminding him to keep his breathing in check. Things were progressing well, he was nearly there.
Claws slid into the soil to allow him better grip, the tom suddenly paranoid of miraculously becoming unbalanced and then failing. Every pawstep was purposeful and made with only the firmest of decisions. As he'd recounted endlessly to himself already, it had to be perfect. Nothing but the most outlandish of circumstances could usurp his control now.
There was a sudden clatter of noise behind and horror seized his entire body, forcing him rigidly still. Before the tom could chance a glance up, a cascade of stones thudded against the side of his head in repetition, one after the other, burying him under their weight.
"Oops," he heard an all too familiar voice while struggling under the rocks. The outlandish circumstance had chosen the most opportune of times to arrive.
He exploded from the rubble in a ripe fury. "Why'd you do that?" he exclaimed in exasperation. "It took me all morning to set those up!"
Cedarpaw casually glanced at the now fallen piles of stones discarded to the side, her expression curious. "Oakpaw, what in StarClan's name were you just doing?"
"Briarclaw says my stalking still needs work. That I'm not stealthy or careful enough when I move. Our assessment is coming up soon and if I don't perfect it, he's not gonna pass me. And you," he sharply indicated towards her, "just ruined my practice course!"
He'd spent all of yesterday fetching and collecting those rocks, going out of his way even to individually measure the size of each in comparison to the other, so that they may perfectly stack. Since dawn, and with excruciating amounts of difficulty, Oakpaw had created a long line of towering pillars of stones for the extent purpose of using them to practice his stealth crouch.
The young tabby figured if he could do several laps without knocking down a single pillar it'd help improve his skill for stealth. With the significant size he was in comparison to most apprentices, it was incredibly tedious for him to stalk much of anything without alerting them to his presence almost immediately.
All that hardwork gone! He thought pitifully, staring at the crumbled course crestfallen.
"Shouldn't you be on tick duty for the elders?" he accused Cedarpaw, knowing the she-cat was currently serving a punishment. "If one of the warriors finds you gone you're gonna get in big trouble."
"You worry too much," Cedarpaw said lightly, dismissing his concern. "I didn't just sneak out. Brackenpaw's covering for me."
"Brackenpaw's covering for you! I never thought he'd speak to you again after that wasp nest prank of yours. How did you- no, you know what," he said, shaking his head, "forget it. I don't have time to play, Cedarpaw. I have to practice now or I won't perfect my stealth crouch."
"But I found this really interesting place. I was gonna ask you to come explore it with me." Her eyes glowed brightly in the presence of the sun, brimming with a certain twinkle that Oakpaw had seen enough times by now to know he wanted no part in it.
Cedarpaw loved the forest and had a knack for venturing off into things that piqued her interest, which was usually always, and usually ended in her getting into severe trouble. Just recently she'd discovered a wasp nest during one of her excursions and managed to goad Brackenpaw into hitting it, convincing the hapless tom that it was empty.
In her defense to the warriors, she claimed that she hadn't been certain herself whether it was completely empty and used Brackenpaw as a way to test. Suffice to say, she'd been punished and placed on tick duty. Upon closer inspection, Oakpaw saw her glossy pelt was ruffled and unkempt, a clear indication that she had already been exploring.
"No," he stated gruffly, turning to the pile of rocks.
It was imperative that he practice. They'd been apprentices for a full moon and a half now, and upcoming was their first proper assessment to determine how well they were progressing. His lack of coordination with stalking had kept Oakpaw up many a restless nights, fraying his nerves to their last degree. He couldn't be the only apprentice that failed.
Cedarpaw had rolled into the grass while he lumbered about, wiggling her way into a bed of white flowers and playfully batting at the stray bees floating about. He shot her a dirty look while she absentmindedly lulled about, having stretched out completely now, lying back with a contented smile in the bask of the golden stream of sunshine pouring down over them.
How could she be so carefree right now while he was agonizing over the assessment, he pondered grimly. A sense of agitation intermingled with apprehension were the only things he could feel at the moment, pushing him onward to do something about it.
He reached into the pile and picked a stone up in his mouth, beginning the tireless task of attempting to restore the pillars. It'd taken all morning to complete them originally. With a grave sigh, the young tabby realized that he'd be out there till nightfall.
Oakpaw hadn't gotten more than halfway through a single tower when he dropped the stone he'd been holding with a frustrated grunt. He found he couldn't do it. His concentration had been shattered and now he didn't have the heart to reassemble the rocks again. It was a fruitless endeavor on his part at this point.
"Oh, does that mean you're done?" Cedarpaw asked eagerly, having peeked up from the flowers and spotting the action. "You can come with me then, right?" He ducked his head down and sighed. "Come on," she pressed gently with an inviting smile. "You said you've been out here since morning, right? You could use some fun, and I found just the place."
Cedarpaw's idea of fun almost always ended in him having to rescue her from it. Casting another eye down at the pile of stones and blanching at the idea of putting them back up, Oakpaw relented to her request. Besides, he had a nagging suspicion that he'd need to keep an eye on her.
He followed after her sullenly while Cedarpaw strode forward quite merrily. The clear distinction in their respective dispositions was quite laughable to behold. One large and morose, dragging their paws across the ground while the other small and blithely, energetically padded beside them with a bounce in their step.
They traveled a relative pace, talking animatedly, though it was Cedarpaw that did the majority of it. Turning to look at Oakpaw, the she-cat's expression suddenly became thoughtful.
"I heard from Rabbitpaw that you snapped at him the other day."
Oakpaw grumbled low in his throat. "Mousebrain scared away my catch."
"So you told him to go stick his head in a foxhole?"
"I was annoyed, okay? You know how hard it is for me to catch prey. I spent a long time tracking that mouse down only for it to flee after Rabbitpaw came crashing through a bush like a charging badger."
"He wants to apologize, but thinks you're still mad at him. Said whenever he tried you always looked angry." Cedarpaw fixed him with a disapproving stare.
"But I wasn't!" he protested. "Not afterwards, anyway."
"I know you probably weren't, you big furball. Maybe if you tried smiling more like I said, cats wouldn't be so scared to talk to you."
He snorted derisively. "Not this again. I shouldn't have to be responsible for how other cats see me."
"So you want your Clanmates to think you dislike them?" Oakpaw frowned, turning away, while Cedarpaw gave him a encouraging nudge. "Hey, listen, I know you've been stressed lately, but you don't have to take your anger out on everyone, okay? Learn to relax more and things will come a lot easier for you, I promise."
Oakpaw stared ahead not certain how to respond. He'd been quite fickle lately, probably coming across as more aggressive than usual when annoyed. What Cedarpaw was saying wasn't meant to insult him, just make him consider his behavior more wisely.
"Where are we headed, anyway?" he asked, changing the flow of conversation. "You never did mention it."
Cedarpaw's smile widened, causing Oakpaw's insides to squirm. That couldn't be good. The apprentice directed Oakpaw through a deeply shrouded part of the territory that he'd never been to, where the vegetation was verdant and lush.
The deeper they probed the more apprehension bubbled in the pit of Oakpaw's stomach. The tabby was starting to have second doubts about joining. The last time he'd allowed Cedarpaw to drag him off somewhere he spent the remainder of a day being scolded by the medicine cat as she picked thorns from both of their pelts.
"There," Cedarpaw suddenly said. Her voice was brimming with excitement as Oakpaw looked over her head to see where her attention was directed.
Through the cover of a clout of bushes, bulging out enough to be noticeable, he saw the rocky beginnings of what could only be one thing: a cave.
"No," he said at once. "No, absolutely not!" he reiterated to Cedarpaw, stamping his paw with conviction. "I'm not going in there and neither are you."
"I already have," she replied casually, causing Oakpaw's frustration to deepen. "That's why I came to get you. There's something inside you have to see!"
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Cedarpaw couldn't be serious? There could've been anything inside that cave lurking, and she'd just gone inside?
"Do you know how dangerous that was! Anything could've been in there. A fox, a badger, I don't know! Always going off alone and doing stuff like this is bound to get you into severe trouble one day. The kind where you can't just apologize your way out of."
"That's why I have you to lookout for me," Cedarpaw responded, laughing heartily. "I'm too hopeless to do it for myself."
"You're not hopeless," Oakpaw chastised lightly. "It's bad luck to keep saying stuff like that, you know."
"I know, I know. So will you come or not?"
Oakpaw looked from her bright expression to the dark opening of the cave. Every fiber of his being was yowling at him to go the other way and drag Cedarpaw along with him, if need be. He shouldn't have to keep getting dragged into her wild exploits. Where was his backbone?
"Trust me," she said. "I've checked, it's safe."
He'd heard that line before, as well, which didn't fill him with much faith in her words. Oakpaw figured he must be a mousebrain to even be considering going in right now.
No, he realized. I definitely am a mousebrain.
He padded after Cedarpaw to the mouth of the cave, hesitating outside the entrance of the hollowed inside. Cedarpaw glanced back at him and flicked the tip of his nose with her tail, smiling brightly. Without warning, she darted inside, leaving Oakpaw alone before moments later he found the courage to dive in after her.
Stale air flooded his lungs, tasting of moon old rainwater and bird droppings. Oakpaw moved with reservation, feeling the coarseness of the stony path beneath his paws, while swiveling his head around to allow his eyes time to adjust to the dark. Cedarpaw was nowhere in sight, but a soft pad of pawsteps up ahead alerted him to her whereabouts, and a direction to head for.
The cave wasn't particularly remarkable, pale and dank, with long sweeping walls that curved inward as they reached the ceiling. Cautiously, taking extreme care to watch his paw placement, Oakpaw slowly began the trek down the pathway that sloped further into darkness. There was a slight draft blowing from below, shooting tiny spurts of fresh air his way occasionally, alerting him to the existence of an opening somewhere nearby.
Oakpaw swiveled his ears outward in an attempt to pick up on Cedarpaw's current location. He hadn't seen the she-cat since she'd first vanished into the cave, and now he was starting to feel a bit anxious.
"Cedarpaw?" he called out, listening to the echo of his voice bounce off the walls of the cave. "Cedarpaw, where are you? If you can hear my voice, answer me!" He strained his ears trying to intercept any sort of noise in response, but received nothing in return.
Where could she have gotten off to? A surge of dread momentarily clouded his thoughts. What if something's happened to her?
Oakpaw broke into a run, a long flowing stride of pursuit, allowing the urgency pounding within his chest to propel his advances further. Pure emotion was fueling him now. He had to find Cedarpaw, to make sure nothing sinister or unfortunate had befallen her.
The cave appeared to widen, walls pushing farther apart and the ground now starting level beneath his paws. A peculiar glint caught Oakpaw's eye. As the tabby drew closer it expanded in resonance, evolving now into a shaft of light that illuminated the ground ahead of him. Oakpaw could see slight indents in the floor, some insignificant grooves that left tiny imprints and others, intertwining lines that swooped up and around the ceiling circularly, partially resembling butterfly wings.
Oakpaw suddenly found himself stepping into a round chamber vibrant with a beam of light, pooling down from a hole above in the cavern's ceiling. Where the previous section of the cave smelt musty, here the air was fresh and warm, making for the first time that Oakpaw had actually felt comfortable since entering.
"There you are, Oakpaw," a voice called from his side. "I was wondering where you'd gotten off to."
He whipped around to find Cedarpaw patiently sitting down with her flickering tail wrapped snugly around her paws, appearing none the worse for wear, than when he'd last saw her. Relief washed over him only to immediately be replaced with anger seconds later.
"Me?" he said testily. "You're the one that ran off alone!"
The urge to smack the she-cat upside the head was strong. Did she even comprehend how hectic her running off made things for him? The sheer level of casualness she paraded about everything baffled him to no end.
"Are you ready?" she asked, completely ignoring his prior statement as though he'd not said it.
"Ready for what?" he said grumpily. "There's nothing here but a dead end and hole above." Which was entirely right. The was no other exit out the cavern besides the way they'd come in. And surely, of the silly things she'd done so far, Cedarpaw did not lure him down here just to observe a hole in the ceiling.
Cedarpaw chose then to rise to her paws. In the midst of it it was then Oakpaw spotted something that had been tucked in behind her leg. Leaning closer to inspect, he found that he was staring at a rock of some sort, however, it was like no rock the young tabby had ever encountered before. Sharp in design and clear as water, Oakpaw saw that he could see fractured little images of himself within. Turning to look at Cedarpaw in confusion, he fixed his mouth to ask her exactly what it was he looking at when she froze him with a bright smile.
"Wait and see," she said with a secretive wink, leaving him even more befuddled, as she leaned down to clasp her jaw around the thing.
Oakpaw silently viewed her progress as Cedarpaw padded to the center of the cavern where the beam of line lay shinning down before gently plopping the thing down in the middle of its embrace.
In that moment, a showering display of dazzling lights and multilayered colors, consisting of various shades like sky blue, vegetation green, searing red, honey yellow and more dispersed throughout the cavern, highlighting the walls of the inner sanctum and Oakpaw himself in a radiant exhibit that sparkled vividly, dancing without reservation or restraint as the young tabby stared in awe. It was like living inside of a rainbow.
"Glad you came now?" Cedarpaw happily asked, smiling widely at his starstruck expression.
Oakpaw's mouth hung open as he still reeled from the wonder exuding around him. A sight like this, it was something he never could've envisioned experiencing. Every inch of his body bore the twinkling, ever interchanging lights that would morph into another set of colors if he shifted his position while the walls and ceiling were adorned in the florescent shades. The image would forever be burned in his mind for as long as he lived, and realizing this made something else click together in Oakpaw's head.
"You knocked my course down on purpose, didn't you." It wasn't a question. Oakpaw phrased it precisely in a matter of fact manner. He was on to her.
Cedarpaw didn't bother feigning innocence. "I thought you could use the breather and clear your head."
"You could've just asked." She shot him a bemused look which made him roll his eyes in annoyance. "Fine," he relented. "Okay, maybe I wouldn't have listened."
"Uh huh."
Oakpaw sighed from his mouth. "Okay, okay, I definitely wouldn't have listened." And then sincerely to her, "Thanks. I really did need something like this."
Cedarpaw smiled warmly at him and then purred. "Wow, this is the nicest you've been in awhile."
"Don't get used to it," he replied playfully, "you're still a mousebrain, after all."
"And you're still a big ball of worry," she laughed merrily.
Oakpaw smiled despite himself, getting caught up in the giddy vibes emitting from Cedarpaw and laughing along with her. He felt lighter, as though he'd just shed an extra layer of fur that had been weighing him down.
Now this is perfect, he thought as they continued in their glee. There isn't a thing I'd change about it.