Second
BTW: these first 2 chappies belong to Laughing Rain, check him out! The next ones will be mine though.
A cat walked through the forests of ThunderClan, thinking. Head hanging low and eyes dull with grief, the warrior padded silently on, until, upon reaching the lake, he sat on his haunches and looked out upon the sky, the water, and the place he called his home.
The heavens were beautiful that night, sparkling with oranges and reds that dyed the wispy clouds. The faint beginnings of an indigo night coaxed out the members of StarClan, shining faintly in their lands.
The cat saw all this and wondered if it was a night like this that the Clans had arrived in their lake home.
The older warriors would always tell him this when he was an apprentice. He knew that often times they would exaggerate, and he had always blown them off. They thought they owned this territory, but they didn't. It belonged to the sky, the water, and the earth. It belonged to each new generation that was born here, and each soul that sacrificed it's earthly time here. It belonged to every life that had existed in this place, but very few knew that.
When he was very, very young, his mother had told him that cats that were born at the dawn died with the dusk. He and his littermates were born, she said, when the first flames of dawn caressed the earth.
He had formerly hoped that he would die in a blaze of glory, fighting for the Clan he loved, maybe side by side with his littermates. After a while, that dream became another, one where he died old and peaceful, a wise elder with his beloved mate. Then that dissolved. Dissolved like mist in the dawn. Dissolved like her.
The sun was sinking into the horizon. The cat looked up, then stood and began to walk away into the forest, only to turn around suddenly. He began to run, faster than ever, then leaped, into the sky, then fell into the lake lake that reflected the heavens.
He was born with the dawn, and the warrior Berrynose joined his beloved at dusk.
He was one with the sky, the water, and the place he called his home.
I gasped. I couldn't help it. I was tempted to run back to the camp to find help, or to try to help Berrynose now. I took a deep breath and began to think clearly once again. No, I mustn't connect myself with death now, or it may remain in the future, arousing the suspicions of ThunderClan. I must wait.
Icepaw leaped towards the shore. The squirrel she was chasing was fast, but she hoped to be faster.
Her feet pounded the stony beach as she ran, causing her paws to hurt, but she couldn't lose this catch. This was her final assessment, and if she was to be a warrior she must catch as much prey as possible.
One more jump and she closed her teeth on the small animal's spine. She looked up, happily swinging the prey as she began to run back to hunt in the forest some more, but she saw something. A shape on the shore, it could've been a piece of driftwood, but she still ran up to it, and was horrified at what she saw there.
Soaked cream fur drooped onto the rocks, boggy water glistened on whiskers, and a dead face held a peaceful expression. Berrynose's hindquarters were being lapped at by the waves and his tail went in and out with the almost still water. Eyes widened in shock and fear, Icepaw did the one thing she could think of: scream.
A white shape burst from the bushes, running up to the body.
"Oh... not again." he whispered. This was the second death in the Clan in mere sunrises. Cloudtail looked from the fallen warrior to his apprentice. "We have to take him back to the camp." the white warrior told Icepaw softly, resting his tail on her shoulder.
She nodded silently, and copied Cloudtail's actions stiffly. Mumbling directions through Berrynose's scruff, Cloudtail could only wonder if death was becoming a pattern in his home.
I was there when they brought him to the camp. One white warrior in front, another in back, it seemed much like a solemn ritual, although that would come later. Daisy ran up and buried her nose into the cream coat of her son.
"My little Berry.." she sniveled as she sat near his body, laid in the center of the camp.
Jayfeather nosed a pile of half-prepared dock into the back of the crevice where herbs were kept. Icepaw had come in earlier to tell him her assessment was today, falling onto the drying leaves. She wasn't close to him or anything, but she was exitedly bouncing as if she was a kit again, blathering to any who would listen.
He wasn't particularly eager to see the outcome of the apprentices final assessment, but he did see it as a small break from the monotonous work he did. The only real difference from day to day was different small injuries, but even those were disappearing.
He and Lionblaze were outcasts in a way, their only company each other. Even Squirrelflight didn't commonly come near them.
He began sorting the leaves where Bumblekit had crashed into them when Millie brought him in for a thorn deep in his kitten soft pad. Jayfeather had taken the thorn out, but Bumblekit had kept his eyes closed. When he opened them and saw blood welling up from the wound, the young kit had squealed and ran. His mother had managed to keep him still long enough to treat the cut, but the damage was done to the herbs.
Jayfeather curled his nose at the faint scent of blood. Despite all, he never wanted to feel its reek on his nostrils again, nor did he ever wish to have the cold breathing of death near him once more. He had seen it enough.
It mattered not how life ended, bloody or bloodless, it was still leaving.
Hollyleaf, his dear sister, had left him. She had gone out with a bang, a shooting star leaving a gaping wound on all. She was dead, and he was alive. She was somewhere else, maybe with other spirits, and he was here and alone.
His mentor had thought him bitter and grumpy, an unappreciative young cat.
Ha! She should see me now.
He had always wanted to be a warrior. Always and forevermore. He would never see in that dream like in most of his. Life was not a dream, only an illusion. A careless show by a cruel puppeteer.
He was blind, but his destiny was not to defend his home as a warrior. He was merely a medicine cat, only here to care for his Clan.
Lifting his muzzle, he sensed the arrival of Icepaw, Berrynose, and Cloudtail. He noticed Berrynose had an odd scent about him, water, as if he had fallen in the lake, and another. He tried to probe the warrior's mind, but found only a dark, empty space, as if his soul was absent.
He hurried out into the clearing. He recognized the other scent Berrynose carried now: death.
Daisy was grieving in a shocked silence. The usual heavy presence of the queen was stifled into a small, quivering cat, standing by the lifeless body of her son. Thyme for shock. He recalled as he led the she cat with his tail to his den.
