Here you are- I FINALLY updated. This one is Leafpool&Crag, suggested by .-Golden.Rose-., and I think people seconded it, but I'm not sure. On the grounds that they shared in Dawn and Leafpool "dipped her head shyly". I am totally with her there, the shy around guys thing. -gets off topic-
Anyway, hope you like it. Not so much romance, but I did like writing it.
The sound of the waterfall had always been music to Crag, but no longer. Now it was nothing more than an endless thudding of water against stone, over and over again, never changing, always predictable. It made him want to scratch his claws against the rocks, if only to have another sound to listen to.
He hadn't always been so irritable and cold. In fact, most of the time he wasn't. But ever since the Clans had left, there had been something wrong with him. It was like a tick on his back that he couldn't reach, that bit harder and harder and there was nothing he could do about it.
"So what is it, eh?" Stormfur sat opposite him after a long day of hunting while Crag and the other cave-guards watched over his group. Crag was good friends with the former forest cat, even though they hadn't known each other that long. He liked Stormfur's steady loyalty and determination- they were useful in the mountains.
"What do you mean?" Crag took a bite of a falcon and chewed it as he passed the rest of the bird to Stormfur. The gray cat ripped off a piece of rabbit before tossing it Crag's way in return.
"There's something bothering you." Stormfur stared at him, his amber eyes wide. "And I'm not the only one who's noticed. Brook says so, too."
"It's nothing," grumbled Crag, shaking his head. "Don't worry yourself with it, Stormfur."
His friend eyed him as if he did not quite think that he was speaking the truth, but he didn't say any more about it. Crag picked at the rabbit, wondering. What was bothering him? Was it something to do with the Clans? Was the Tribe of Endless Hunting telling him something?
"Stormfur," he meowed, with sudden thought. "Will you tell me about your old home? The Clans?"
Stormfur's tail twitched. "What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about the cats you knew. Were they very different from the Tribe?"
The gray prey-hunter blinked. "Our ways were different. But the cats themselves...I don't think so."
"What was different?" asked Crag curiously.
"Well, each Clan had a leader, like Stoneteller- they shared dreams with StarClan, just like he learns things from the Tribe of Endless Hunting. And they had a deputy, who would take over as leader when they lost the last of their nine lives."
"The Tribe of Endless Hunting will tell Stoneteller when he is to soon lose his last life," Crag meowed. "So that he knows and can prepare."
Stormfur blinked. "Maybe that is because it's so much harsher here. You accept death more easily than we did in the Clans."
Crag shrugged his massive shoulders. "Maybe."
"We also had a medicine cat," Stormfur went on. "They were healers, like Stoneteller is, only they didn't lead as well."
"Who was...medicine cat..." Crag stumbled over the new word that he hadn't learned when he had met the Clan cats in person himself, "...for your Tribe?"
"RiverClan's medicine cat was Mothwing," Stormfur mewed. "Mudfur was her mentor- he died because of the Twoleg monsters. Barkface is medicine cat for WindClan, Littlecloud for ShadowClan, and Cinderpelt for ThunderClan. Leafpaw is her apprentice."
"Yes, Leafpaw," echoed Crag. "She is Squirrelpaw's sister, is she not?"
Stormfur nodded. "I don't know her very well, but she and Squirrelpaw are very close."
"Siblings should be close," Crag agreed. Just as you and Feathertail were, he thought, but didn't dare say it aloud, not wanting to reawaken his friend's grief for his kin. Instead he turned his attention to a few kit-mothers as they led their offspring across the cave. "Ah. Wing's litter are on their first legs at last."
Stormfur's tail curled up. This was important, especially for Tribe kits. They would not last long in the mountains if they could not get around on their own paws. Wing looked ready to burst with pride as the three little cats followed her across the stone.
An older mud-streaked cat appeared from his den, padding over to the kits. They looked up at him with huge kitten eyes as he pressed his silver-streaked muzzle against them each in turn, a rare gesture of affection. Wing nodded to him, and he touched his tail to her flank as well.
"I didn't know they were Stoneteller's kits, too," Stormfur commented.
"A Tribe-healer has many kits," Crag replied. "They are blessed, for the Tribe of Endless Hunting may pass his wisdom and skill down upon them." He looked at Stormfur in surprise. "Do the Clans not say the same?"
Stormfur shook his head. "Clan medicine cats are forbidden to have mates or kits."
Crag felt something prick at him, but it didn't quite register. "Why is this?"
Stormfur shrugged. "It's StarClan's way."
"StarClan's ways are odd," meowed Crag.
Stormfur let out a mrrow of laughter as he turned away, heading across the cave to meet Brook as she padded in with a hunting group. "The Clans could say the same about the Tribe of Endless Hunting."
What do the Clans say about the Tribe? wondered Crag. For reasons he could not understand, his mind landed on the young tabby cat that had shared with him moons ago. And Leafpaw? What does she think of me?
&&&
Crag tossed and turned among his cave-guards that night. As the chief of them he slept in the very center of the group, but tonight he didn't feel the comfort of the familiar fur around him. He ended up staring blankly around the cave, until at last his eyelids became too heavy to hold and he let himself drop off into dreams.
He stood in the darkness of an unfamiliar cave. The muscles bunched beneath muddy pelt as he looked around, trying to pinpoint the light that would lead to the exit. He couldn't see any. Was he trapped in this place?
For a few long beats of his heart he stood frozen, and then he lifted one paw, placing it in front of him. Instantly there was the sound of splintering rock from above, and a shower of rubble came down, along with an explosion of sunlight that made Crag screw up his eyes and turn away. He opened them to slits in time to see cats stream through the hole that had been made, bounding down onto the cave floor, leaping to clefts and ledges on the walls. Crag trembled where he stood, for he found himself recognizing some among them. There was Star, killed by Sharptooth not so long ago. His own mother, Moss that Grows On Rocks, blinked at him from a nearby jut of rock. And another cat that he thought he knew- but he had never seen him before- gazed at him from just a tail-length away. And beside him...Feathertail.
Unlike those of the Tribe, her silver-and-black fur was untouched by mud and gleamed like a pathwork of starlight and shadow. Her blue eyes gleamed as if they were tiny pools, and she met Crag's gaze warmly. "Welcome, Crag, to the cave of the Tribe of Endless Hunting."
"So...you walk among us?" Crag asked tentaintively. "Even though you were not born among us?"
"I watch my brother here," she answered. "And I will never forget the cats I died for."
zx
"She is honored among us." It was the tom that sat beside her. He was bigger than even Crag's friend Talon, and his fur was a thick, snowy white that no amount of mud would ever be able to cover. He padded the short distance between him and Crag, staring at him with blue eyes that were darker than Feathertail's. "You do not know me, Crag Where Eagles Nest," he meowed, "But I know you."
Crag bowed, extending his paw in deepest respect to the white cat, as well as all the others around him. "Who are you?" he asked softly.
"I am Ice On Sheer Cliff," meowed the tom. "Once I was Iceteller."
"That means that you once..." Crag trailed off, his eyes widening with awe.
"Yes, I once led and healed the Tribe of Rushing Water," meowed Ice. "And Stone Where Birds Gather followed me, when I died. But that is not why you are here, Crag. You are here for what we have found inside you. What must not be."
He heard soft hisses rising from the cats around him, and Crag flattened himself to the ground, his ears flattening against their anger. What did I do? he wondered. Never would I disobey the Tribe!
Then the sound died away, and he was aware of Feathertail standing beside him, nudging him gently so that he would rise. "Come," she whispered. "There is something that you...that we...must see."
Crag rose to his paws. They were still in the dark cave, now with a broken roof. Feathertail led him confidently into deeper darkness, until the sunlight from the hole only cast faint shadows and he had to narrow his eyes to see at all.
"Look," murmured Feathertail, padding forward a few more steps. Crag walked up beside her and found himself staring into the depths of a shallow pool. The silver she-cat was peering intently into it, and he did the same. Feathertail purred, as if she had found something inside that pleased her. Crag looked harder.
The shadowy image of a she-cat appeared before his eyes, shimmering faintly in the dark water. Amber eyes...a mud-less tabby pelt...yes, it was her. Leafpaw, with her gentle stare and calm voice, curiosity and wisdom that he had heard Stoneteller praise her for. Warmth exploded inside Crag like sunlight streaming free of the clouds.
"Yes!" he called excitedly to Feathertail. "I did not understand it before...but I see it now. She is the one I am thinking about. I must see her again. Could I follow the Clans? Would Stormfur come? He could bring Brook...she would not be so afraid of leaving the mountains if I were with her as well."
Feathertail lifted her intent stare from the pool to look sadly at him. "Oh, Crag," she sighed. "That will never happen. Firstly because she is a medicine cat and forbidden from having a mate. And secondly...most importantly...because of this."
She gestured once more at the water. Crag watched silently as a small leaf fluttered down on its surface. even though there were no trees around that leaves could fall off of. Crag stared longingly at the little shape as it bobbed gently on the pool. Surely it meant Leafpaw?
He opened his mouth, but Feathertail shook her head, pointing with an extended paw. Something else was dancing through the air, falling to the pool to join the leaf. At first he thought it was another leaf, but it was a feather, jet black and darker than the shadows that surrounded it. Crag's eyes widened as he watched it land beside the leaf, and they swirled around the pool together.
Two images appeared once more in the depths of the pool. Squinting, Crag made out Leafpaw again, and he felt a purr come to him at the very sight of her. But there was a cat beside her, one he knew...Crag's fur bristled as he realized it was Crowfeather. The two Clan cats were staring at one another, and the look in their eyes was bright and warm. Crag's heart plummeted, and he felt the soft fur of Feathertail as she pressed comfortingly against him.
"I will miss him," she murmured, "And you will miss her. But not StarClan nor the Tribe of Endless Hunting can stand in the way of destiny. Crowfeather and Leafpaw- Leafpool, as she will become- have their paths enterwined, while mine lays alone in the stars, and yours dwells here with your Tribe."
"If I could see her...could I change her mind?" wondered Crag.
Feathertail stepped away from him, and as she went farther into the darkness of the cave, her silver fur swallowed by the shadows, he heard her reply. "Perhaps you could, Crag. But that is not what was supposed to happen, just as Ice told you. This must not be."
Crag stared at the tabby she-cat in the pool, and he wished that he could see her again, even though he knew now that he never would. It must not be...but what if I want it to be?