Chapter 19
The days come and go like fish in the river, yet few dig into the water to grasp it.
The air felt thin this high up.
Sooner or later, he would have to come down, but for now, Loneheart had found himself climbing a tall tree near the borderline to contemplate for a little while.
He'd never been able to climb well, but he was sick of being lost in the woods, so even if it scared him, he would rather be closer to the moon.
He had spent the whole day working, trying his best to do something for his clan, and he succeeded, bringing home two large mice after a little while.
It wasn't much, but Loneheart was proud of himself.
Yarrowleaf had congratulated him for the catches, but the conversation turned sour too fast for Loneheart to enjoy her company.
It was like there were thorns where he walked.
The confrontation with Rustheart and Aspenpaw the day before was still weighing on his mind, and he was sure it would be until the next time he saw either of them.
He tried not to focus on it, but the worry and the bad thoughts have a way of overpowering all else.
He had gone to sleep then, without feeling he could do anything else.
But it hadn't lasted long.
Loneheart had had a dream earlier in this night, though he barely had a recollection of it.
He had been looking for an old friend, one who never did, and never could, exist.
He had escaped from Thunderclan, from this war, from the violence, from Red, and he found himself in the shambles of a city, the Thunderpath cracked and the Twoleg dens all abandoned.
A cat had come up to him and shuffled him into line, some sort of training being taught for some upcoming battle.
Loneheart ran away then, and he remembered when he was stopped and scolded, he had thrown an unsheathed claw at the cat.
Even now, Loneheart was ashamed of himself for doing so, though it was just a dream.
In an old building, barely standing on its foundation, Loneheart found himself walking down a busy hall, cats scrambling to get where they were going.
He had stopped one or two of them and asked where he would be able to find his friend, though none of them seemed to recognize the name which even Loneheart couldn't remember now.
He had turned the corner into an empty hallway, traffic absent from his vision, and he had sat down against the wall, overwhelmed and feeling helpless.
And in the way that only a dream works, the friend had appeared from the other side of the hall, simply passing through without purpose. Loneheart had so many false memories to share.
He had finally found someone to love.
But as if as a joke from whichever evil spirit weaves his dreams, the friend, at first with a joyful recognition and reminiscence, quickly turned to painful sorrow, and the friend spoke only a few words which Loneheart could remember now, "I'm sorry. I have a new life now," and Loneheart was alone once again.
He had awoken then, surrounded by his resting clanmates. Now he sat atop this branch, high in the sky, away from those cats and away from that dream.
He thought about his mother for a moment. He didn't know anything about her, and yet it was her death which had affected him the most over these last few moons.
He thought of his sister too, Winterwood, and he vowed to never forget the name, even if he was never to see her again.
The light breeze shaking the treetops made Loneheart nervous, and he pressed himself up against the trunk of the oak.
The night sky was fading now. The day would be soon to come.
In these fleeting minutes before the dawn, he found himself wondering what could have been different, what could have changed between then and now.
Whenever it was, he wasn't sure, but he wondered if there was something that could have prevented any of this.
The clouds parted and Loneheart was left with only the stars as company. He asked them so many questions, and he poured out what hope he had left into their stream.
His voice grew pained, rasping and ranting for an answer, yet as always before, none was given. He was not allowed the guidance of Starclan, such like every other cat in this forest was, but he didn't curse now, didn't swear to the outer layers of life, not anymore, he simply leaned against the tree, realizing he could do nothing now, and let the rough sensations of the bark run through his body.
Loneheart reached the ground by the time the sun rose over the horizon.
The climb down had been treacherous, but with patience and fear he was able to make it. It had been a terrible idea to go up that high, and he only really realized the danger of it now.
The sky had grown warm blue by the time Loneheart reached camp again.
On the way, he had been able to take down a small sparrow to bring back.
A hunting patrol was just leaving for the woods as he skidded down the ravine, dropping his catch halfway down and almost tumbling down the remaining stones.
He picked himself up and shook the dust off his pelt before picking up the sparrow and reflected on the growing day.
Luckily, of all cats to see the embarrassing scene, it was Yellowsky who guarded the camp entrance.
Loneheart expected him to laugh, or smirk at the very least, but there was a pain in the tom's eyes which worried him.
As he padded forward, Yellowsky's eyes trained on him, and as they reached just a step apart, he informed, "We're attacking tonight," Yellowsky's voice was drained of all energy, "They don't want to wait anymore," Loneheart froze, the sparrow hanging delicately in his jaws.
This day was inevitable, and Loneheart couldn't pretend that he was shocked, but to hear the words pass through his ears, it stung like a thorn in the eye.
Loneheart lowered his head and dropped the sparrow, staring down at it for a few moments to contemplate the statement.
He peered inside the camp.
Cats were gathered around in antsy parties. Coldstone and Firepelt were discussing something next to Brambletail, who seemed to be asleep.
Scornheart was coaching Harepaw and Silverpaw in the clearing while Snowflight looked on, seemingly proud.
Loneheart wondered if the new apprentices were going to be made to fight in the battle.
Clawpelt was lying in the elders' den, unconcerned with the happenings of camp.
He assumed Barkstar and Berryflight, along with Cranepaw, were in their respective dens.
Thunderclaw was patrolling in the forest with Dewstorm and Fawnpaw.
They only left Yarrowleaf, Stonefoot and Briereyes, none of which seemed to be in camp now, "It's going to be fine," Yellowsky's voice cut into his ears.
The reassurance almost made Loneheart mad, but he knew getting upset wouldn't help now,
"Everything's only getting worse,"
"Well, you can only dig so far down before you've got to climb back up," Though the words rang true, it didn't have a change on Loneheart's feelings in the moment.
He was bitter at this life he lived, madder yet at the lives of others.
It was like there was a raging river between each and every cat in this forest.
None of them would risk making contact with each other, though each of them had the power to cease the river's rambles, "Why are any of us still here? Why can't we, pick a direction and just, run?" Loneheart suddenly felt the great weight of hollowness as the words escaped his lips.
Yellowsky looked the same, though he tried to speak with some sort of reason where Loneheart tried his hardest to ignore it,
"And then what? You can't escape from yourself. That's the punishment of existence. You get thrown into this world from nothing, and now you have to live and die with everything,"
"So what can we do?"
"I'm not sure. I just don't know," Yellowsky closed his eyes in thought and Loneheart turned his head back to the ravine.
He realized in fright that the words had slipped his mind to make warning of Thunderclan's attack to Rustheart.
Without thought or hesitation, Loneheart was already back climbing that slippery rock wall, never giving a farewell nor a look back.
He sprinted with fervor, intent to make sure his friend didn't get hurt.
If something were to happen to Rustheart, it might be the final crack in the branch before it shatters completely.
He hoped the black tom would be at Fourtrees, his usual place of escape.
The trees were a vibrating blur, and the grass only felt like wind beneath his paws.
Loneheart wanted to stop and catch his escaping breath, but his legs kept moving, almost without the signal to keep going.
He ran along the Thunderpath when he reached it, in case his friend would be hung around on the border.
A few monsters raced by, but they had very little effect on Loneheart now.
Every stride took more and more out of him.
Climbing up and down the oak during the night had taken its toll, and Loneheart collapsed beside the Thunderpath, his paws just a step away from the whirling shapes that ran through.
His chest heaved like a rushing river, his mind racing faster than any monster which showed in the forest.
His will was failing him, as each movement, no matter how motivated, was met with the same resistance and refusal from his body.
The sun shone right into Loneheart's eyes, and he barely had the strength to close them.
The white and black under his eyelids seemed to dance into his thoughts.
He saw every thought that passed through his mind in silhouetted scenes, every scenario he believed possible.
His mouth lay open, barely allowing air to flow in and out as his chest heaved like a great weight had been placed upon it.
Loneheart was so tired he wondered if he would ever be able to get up again. Suddenly a wet growth was pressed against his mouth.
A soaking piece of moss dangled in front of him, "Come on, drink up. This ain't no place t'rest," Loneheart did as the voice and his instincts told him and began to lap at the cool water.
The liquid felt like honey rolling down his throat, and the cat beside him lifted his head with their paw to allow his easier access to drinking it.
Loneheart was able to open his eyes again and in front of him stood Hendrix, the loner she-cat.
It was that strange mystic of fate which seemed to bring her to him in this moment, how he had treated her with such suspicion before, it was like he was being forced to confront his actions again.
When there was no more liquid to be drunk from the moss, Hendrix tossed it aside and hefted Loneheart, whose body was barely livelier than a corpse, so he was leaning against the trunk of a tree, before she backed away a few steps and said, "I'll find ya soming ta get down and rest yer stomach. Don't try'an move about whilst e'm gone,"
Loneheart had no intention of trying to do such a thing.
He wasn't in the position anymore to be able to.
It felt like he was bleeding out from exhaustion, but the water had certainly allowed him to retain some consciousness for the time being.
After what seemed to be hours, if not days, he heard rustling beside him and opened his eyes, expecting Hendrix to pop back out with a piece of prey for him.
But instead, it was another cat who appeared.
Aspenpaw, looking shocked and concerned at the scene which he was witnessing.
Of all cats, Loneheart could only think of perhaps one he would have wished to see less, "What happened?" Aspenpaw whispered, though there was nobody in the vicinity.
Loneheart ignored the question and realized that Aspenpaw was his best shot at transferring his message.
He tried to signal with his tail for the blue-eyed tom to come closer, but his muscles failed him, and he resorted to speaking in a low, raspy voice with all the strength he had, "Tell, Rustheart," He had to take a sharp breath after just a couple words, "There's a, a battle tonight,"
Aspenpaw suddenly got a look of solidarity and nodded. Loneheart closed his eyes, praying the murderer would send along his message.
He heard Aspenpaw run off and felt relieved. He hadn't realized it, but his body had tensed up during the confrontation.
Only another agonizing moment later, with Loneheart dipping in and out of sleep all the while, more paw steps filled the clearing, and Hendrix returned.
She was carrying a large vole with her that she laid next to him, "Eat up, eat up, you don't wanna stay out here the rest o' the day, do ya?" She raised the prey to his mouth and Loneheart took a small bite, almost unable to taste it.
For a while they each sat like this, Hendrix holding the vole up to his lips, and Loneheart chewing softly and pulling away to take breaths.
After what seemed like hours, when the vole had been halfway eaten, Hendrix pulled it away and said, "Get some rest now, little tom," By now, Loneheart had retracted most of his distrust towards the loner, who had been nothing but kind to him so far.
He was still hesitant of her and would have preferred to stay awake, but his body called for rest, and no matter what he did now, there was nothing that could keep him conscious any longer.
Too tired to even dream, Loneheart awoke back where he had left the world, leaning against the trunk of a mighty oak, a half-eaten vole left out beside him on one side, and on the other, Hendrix, staring off in thought, blank space in her eyes.
It took a moment for Loneheart to regain his bearings and remember what was going on.
He was feeling much better now, if a bit stiff, and the moments of the earlier morning seemed like only a blur to him now.
Hendrix noticed that he had abandoned sleep and asked the standard question of, "Ya feelin' better now?"
"Yeah,"
"Ya think you can do well on yer own?"
"Yeah, I'll, be fine,"
"Good, good. Finish up yer vole an' get goin' to wherever ya gotta be now. I reckon I'll be seein' ya 'round sometime,"
"T-Thanks," Hendrix smiled,
"Hey, what I do, I expect it comin' back to me, right?" She laughed and bounded off across the nearby Thunderpath into Shadowclan territory, disappearing behind the dark pines and sporadic bushes.
Loneheart heaved himself onto his side, slowly raising himself until he was standing again.
He took one look at the vole and buried it in disgust.
He felt pathetic for taking advantage of Hendrix's kindness, so instead he fed the earth with it, not feeling like he deserved the pleasure.
The lingering ghost of the night took hold as the sun waned and withered into a pool of black.
The spirits of the hitchers, the loyalists, the paupers, and the rolling stones laid about in the crevices which the naked eye could never bear witness to.
A haunted breeze flowed through the air like mist, disheveled, harrowing, and unbecoming of any which had been known before.
The sky was a cave, echoes of night cries parading its unlit visions.
The moon had flown away, almost an omen of what to come, but the meaning just as lost on the world.
The Thunderclan warriors, in all their pride and disdain, prepared themselves for the inevitable, a strike against their fellow life.
Vengeance filled the actions of each and every cat war hungry enough to dismiss their own nerves. Loneheart sat at the edge of the ravine, his lips sealed, and his eyes closed.
They would do him no good now.
He had spent away his time buying thoughts and anxieties.
The image of Sootpaw had been a recurring flash in his mind, the dead Riverclan apprentice, the victim of this same conflict.
She seemed to be trapped now with the living, in every cat marked for death she stood watch closely by, perhaps feeling betrayed by the lights and darks, the right and wrong, the us and them.
Loneheart found he felt no blame to put on an angry spirit such as that, and he wondered, maybe even prayed for it to be, if he would become such a thing when he ran past his toll.
The more time bled on, the more it felt like it was just this.
This one life, beautiful life, from nothing brought to wean, to be wronged, to wane, and then to nothing once again, thrown swiftly into this face-paced world and losing the race almost as it feels it has just begun.
It was almost time now, and Loneheart wished they would just start now.
The further time progressed, only the more pain would be felt on this night.
The wind fogged his ears from the sounds down below, that overbearing clear noise that rang like the drops of water, rushing down and down, always forward, always unaware of all that came before, and all that was yet.
Just a few minutes left now.
A silhouette appeared around the trees besides where Loneheart sat, moving like a dancer in the dark to join in the agony of waiting.
Yarrowleaf sat down shaking, and Loneheart was glad that it was too dark to see her eyes, he knew that it would disturb him, "I feel like I'm stuck in a fever,"
"Are you fighting too?" Yarrowleaf sighed,
"I'll face the punishment for disloyalty before I take a part in killing. I'm ready for my own pain," Loneheart admired the quality about her, but he knew that he would have to fight with his clanmates.
Yarrowleaf would be able to get by, even if she was punished in some way, but Loneheart knew that if he did the same, he could only pray for mercy then.
He wasn't a rogue, he never really had been, and yet he was forced to carry the weight of every outsider to the clans.
Every wrong step was proof of everything said of rogues, and any right step was a lucky exception.
Loneheart was forced to fight by every side-eyed glance and each sharp word.
Down in camp, a figure appeared from Barkstar's den, foretelling that there were now only these few fleeting moments to spare before the chaos began.
It all felt wrong, in every sense.
Loneheart looked beside him, but Yarrowleaf was gone, disappeared into the howling night.
He wanted to follow her, but his body was trapped in this spot.
His heartbeat like the pound of the sky in the middle of a thunderstorm, lightning stretching down like claws to burn away the trees and leave nothing to grow in its wake.
It made him think for one of his few moments of that cat, that dream she-cat, Whisperingwind, as according to Loneheart, though it seemed so strange that she would have a name really.
She seemed so far removed from anything that he was able to recognize as a normal cat.
The clan marched in unison, silent except for the patter of their paws on the hard forest ground.
Most every cat in the clan was here, even more than ever went to a gathering.
Loneheart had been put in the ambush group.
When the runners headed the Shadowclan cats out, he would have to be one of the ones waiting to attack.
Yarrowleaf had never returned back to camp and the patrol set on without her.
Scornheart started talking quietly with the other two runners, Firepelt and Yellowsky, though Dewstorm was also there, not having left Yellowsky's side since they had begun walking.
As the clan passed the Snakerocks, the last major landmark before Shadowclan territory, a whole new tensity filled the air.
Barkstar instructed the clan to roll in a clump of reeds that had been gathered here the day before in preparation.
Loneheart went last as the rest of the cats moved along without a look behind, and he contemplated for a moment just staying here, watching the silhouettes disappear into the night, but he knew that was nothing of a choice, and he got up to follow slowly behind, wanting to savor as much time as he could.
The last bits of snow for the season lay on the ground being trudged through by the living. Loneheart wondered if he would make it to Green-leaf, or if he would die a fool's death before.
It really made him think.
It had been nearly half a year since he went into the city, since he met Red, since he learned of his mother's death.
That was when all of this started, and it felt so long ago now.
With nothing else to say, nothing else to think, Loneheart looked ahead to realize that Thunderclan had crossed the border.
The time was here, and there was no looking back anymore, it wouldn't do any good now.
Until I write again,
-Gojira