Watersplash had been afraid at first, but then her adrenaline started pumping and she stopped seeing the cat in front of her as her mother and started seeing her as simply an enemy that needed to be taken down. After that, fighting Minnowleap was almost kind of fun in a way. However, when her gaze involuntarily flickered over to Grasstail slowly lowing himself down Shale Hill, the lives of Sprucekit and Ripplekit on the line along with his, Watersplash was reminded of the urgency of the situation. She needed to keep Minnowleap away from-
Suddenly there was a crack and a blinding burst of light that it took Watersplash a moment to recognize as lighting. She stumbled back, having momentarily lost her vision; her heart skipped a beat as chips of shale pelted her face and she realized that the rock her front paws was resting on was beginning to slide away. Watersplash scrambled back in a hurry, realizing with a jolt that the part of Shale Hill that was now collapsing was the part Grasstail was climbing down.
"Grasstail!" she shrieked as though to warn him, although part of her knew by the time she said it that it was already too late. "Grasstail, no!"
The second half of her cry was drowned out by a deafening clap of thunder. Watersplash flinched, flattening her ears against her head. Then she crouched, breathing hard and fast, blinking her eyes open and shut as her vision slowly returned.
The acrid smell of smoke hung in the air, and when Watersplash looked down at her paws she saw that they were covered in soot. Lightning had split Shale Hill clean in two, nearly right down the middle. The half she and Minnowleap, who was now standing still with eyes open wide, apparently too shocked to react, stood on remained intact aside from the shale being blackened where the lightning had struck it. However, the other half- the half that Grasstail and the kits had been on- was gone.
"Grasstail!" Watersplash shrieked again, scrambling to peer over the crumbling edge. Sooty shards of shale rained down around the larger chunk of Shale Hill, all plummeting toward the flooded camp. She couldn't make out Grasstail among the falling rocks, but she knew he was there- and the kits, too.
It was too dark and stormy to see properly, or hear a splash as they landed in the water. Watersplash's mind whirled; part of her screamed to jump after them and pull them to safety, but her chances of surviving such a leap would be no better than theirs. Besides, Grasstail had been right beneath the falling rock… he'd have been crushed by it.
"N-no!" she said aloud, appalled by her own horrific thoughts. They must have survived somehow; they must! Glancing desperately around at the barely visible waves below, she struggled to make out where the fractured rock formation had landed. "Grasstail, where are you?!"
While she frantically scanned the flood for any sign of Grasstail or their kits, Watersplash saw Minnowleap preparing to lunge at her out of the corner of her eye. She spun around, pelt bristling, and sent her mother staggering backwards with a swipe across the muzzle. Watersplash got a thrill of satisfaction at the red lines that appeared on Minnowleap's muzzle. Maybe it was bad of her, but she felt like some part of her had always secretly wanted to do this.
However, Minnowleap did not retaliate. She didn't even snarl or hiss at Watersplash. Instead, she bowed her head respectfully and retracted her claws. Confused, Watersplash moved to attack her again, but Minnowleap simply raised her head enough so that her downcast gaze landed on Watersplash's soot-coated paws.
"I'm sorry, my dear," Minnowleap murmured. Her tail was curled neatly around her paws and she was as poised as ever, but when Watersplash took a moment to actually look at her she realized that her mother's silver pelt was singed from the lightning just as Watersplash's was.
Watersplash clenched her fangs together and raked her claws over the charred surface of Shale Hill, wishing she was tearing them through Minnowleap's pelt instead- and yet something was preventing her from doing so. She felt like she had no choice but to at least hear her mother out, even if what she was saying was hard to believe.
"Surely if you didn't hate me before, you hate me now," Minnowleap meowed remorsefully- or maybe it was more reproachfully. She could be hard to read at times. "All I was trying to do was be a good mother! I wanted you to be special, and I tried to help you by setting up a perfect scenario for you to be a hero. But I let you down… and now you've lost everything."
"I haven't lost anything," Watersplash objected, taking a step back. Her gaze flickered briefly back to the jagged edge that had once merely been a crack in the rock between there and the other half of Shale Hill. "They're still alive; I have to believe that!"
"Is that so, dear?" Minnowleap murmured, raising her head and blinking sympathetically at Watersplash. She followed Watersplash's gaze and added, in a completely emotionless tone, "In that case, why don't you just go down and check?"
Watersplash gulped as she gazed down at the swirling waters. Could Grasstail really have survived that fall? And even if he had, what about the kits? The longer she stared down over the edge, Watersplash became more convinced that she didn't want to know the answer.
She tore her gaze away from the flooded camp; there were no answers to be found there, at least not ones she wanted. "I…" she began, suddenly feeling like a fish-brain as Minnowleap sat calmly across from her, looking on with a sort of sympathetic coldness. Who did Watersplash think she was fooling? Certainly not herself. She was wise enough to know that looking for Grasstail was pointless.
Watersplash tried to take a step toward Minnowleap, but her legs gave out from sheer stress and heartbreak and she collapsed onto the rain-slicked, blackened rock. Minnowleap padded over to her and gave her a comforting lick on the head but then stepped away again and sat complacently with her tail curled neatly over her paws. She was completely unaffected by all of this, which somehow made the whole ordeal even more devastating.
As Watersplash lay there, shuddering, the rain washed away the soot that caked the remaining part of Shale Hill, as well as her and Minnowleap's fur. It was as if StarClan already wanted her to forget the cats she'd just lost. No! She couldn't give up on them that fast… but she already had, hadn't she?
She had to give up on them! There was no other choice! Watersplash had gone through the first half of her life clinging to the hope that she was special, and as she'd gradually realized she was just an ordinary cat, it had felt worse and worse with each passing day. Holding onto false hope wasn't something she wanted to go through again. It would be easier to just give up and write Grasstail and the kits off as dead.
But… she couldn't. They were too important to her, and Grasstail had been a part of Watersplash's life for too long, for them to be taken away in the span of an instant. Even many times before, when Watersplash had been certain she'd seen the last of that greenish-gray enigma of a cat, he'd popped back into her life once more. Was believing he'd do so again really that much of a stretch?
—
The emptiness below was the only thing there was. The sky above Grasstail grew ever farther away, disappearing into nothingness as he fell. Above him was the cat he loved. If he could only reach her, she'd save him. But she was too far away. There was nothing he could do, nothing to be done but fall into the void…
Grasstail didn't really feel himself land so much as the dream and reality that blurred together as he fell sharpened back into only reality. The nightmare was absorbed by the shock of the cold, although he didn't really feel the cold after how cold the night had already made him. All that his reality consisted of in that moment was himself and Sprucekit, who he clutched to his chest while praying as hard as he could that Ripplekit was safe.
For a moment his head was submerged and his eyes were closed, and he existed in a state of pure blankness, completely separate from the storm raging outside. Then he felt Sprucekit scrabbling desperately at his neck, followed by the kit squirming out of Grasstail's grip and thrusting hid head above water, sucking in a gulp of air. Suddenly realizing that his lungs were burning for air, Grasstail flailed around until his head broke the surface and managed to get his footing on the ground.
This all transpired in the span of a few seconds, just before the huge spire of rock that was the broken-off part of Shale Hill came crashing down on him. Grabbing Sprucekit and scrambling away, Grasstail half-ran, half-swam in a desperate frenzy to outpace the descending mass of shale. A stray sheet of rock struck him between the ears and he came to a halt, stunned. Then his head was pushed back underwater as a tremendous weight landed on his back and he was knocked out.
The next thing he knew, Grasstail was being nudged urgently awake by Sprucekit, who had a thin trickle of blood running down his jaw. As soon as Grasstail opened his eyes, Sprucekit's gaze clouded with relief and he scampered away. Grasstail's ears were ringing and his whole body ached, but the lower half in particular was home to a particularly excruciating pain. He couldn't process what was happening, but one thing was clear: he could breathe, so his head wasn't underwater.
As the rain that still beat down on him alerted him to his surroundings, he realized that he was on top of the fallen part of Shale Hill, lying on his side in a pile of his own blood. Grimacing, he tried to roll over and instantly had to bite down on his tongue to prevent himself from wailing in agony. It felt like there were shards of rock digging into his lower back- and maybe there were, considering all the chips of shale that had been raining down on them a moment ago. He cringed when he looked at his hind legs. They were both bent at awkward angles; the right one in particular looked bad, as his paw was facing in the wrong direction.
Nearby, he heard Sprucekit wail. The tabby kit rushed back over to Grasstail; Grasstail noticed that Sprucekit's paws were stained with blood.
"Ripplekit is hurt real bad," he whimpered. "We need to stop her bleeding really soon, or else she's gonna die!"
"Ripplekit is alive?" Grasstail meowed.
Sprucekit nodded urgently. "She is for now," he mewed. "…But we've gotta help her, or else-"
"I heard," Grasstail muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth as another wave of pain washed over him. There was no way he could move at all right now, let alone walk. "Can you climb back up to the top of Shale Hill and ask your mother to help us?" he asked after a moment.
"I-I think so," Sprucekit mumbled. He shrunk back, flattening his ears against his head. "But that mean silver cat is up there! What if she tries to hurt me again?"
That certainly was something to be concerned about. However, there was no other choice, which Grasstail explained, although it didn't seem to diminish Sprucekit's anxiety too much. However, the kit complied nonetheless, and he ran off toward what remained of Shale Hill.
Grasstail stared after him until the kit was too far away for him to see in the stormy darkness. Then, groaning, Grasstail closed his eyes and lapsed back into unconsciousness.
—
"You poor thing," Minnowleap sighed as Watersplash lay shuddering atop Shale Hill. The harsh winds that died down and picked up again on a regular basis carried her words into Watersplash's ears, ruffling her fur with their harshness. "You're all alone now, aren't you? At least, that's what you think, but remember, dearest: I'm still here, and I'm ready to help you through this in any way I can."
Unable to put the pain she was feeling into words, Watersplash whimpered. She felt like a pathetic little kit- so maybe she really could use Minnowleap's help. After all, the only thing that could help a kit was its loving mother.
"I'm the one who's been trying to help you this whole time, you know," Minnowleap went on; Watersplash was too overwhelmed by her unbearable emotions that she couldn't remember whether or not that was really true. "All I ever wanted was for my little water droplet to be special. And you still can be, dear- as long as you promise to be a good and loving daughter from now on."
Watersplash couldn't think of anything intelligible to say, but she felt that she owed Minnowleap some sort of response. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry for everything. It's my fault they fell."
"It is, isn't it? See; now you're starting to think sensibly!" Minnowleap said. She flicked her tail under Watersplash's chin with a purr of approval. "If you hadn't been fighting me- you own mother, for StarClan's sake- that silly WindClan tom you love so much wouldn't have had to die."
Flinching at the final word of her mother's sentence, Watersplash drew back, hackles raised. Then the rain beat her fur down flat again and she blinked wordlessly up at Minnowleap, feeling lost and utterly hopeless. She needed Grasstail now more than ever, and he wasn't here- and the fact that he wasn't here was the whole reason she was so lost and hopeless! A new wave of sadness washed over her, and Watersplash began to droop toward the ground again, but Minnowleap stuck out her front paw and tilted Watersplash's chin back up so that they were at eye level with each other.
"There's no use denying it, darling," she trilled. "Just think of it as a blessing in disguise; now that he and those half-Clan kits of yours are gone, you can finally be loyal to your own Clan! Isn't that lovely?"
"No…" Watersplash began. Inside her mind, the wheels were turning. Listen not to the voice in the wind, for it speaks not the truth you speak… The voice in the wind was Minnowleap's voice! She wasn't speaking the truth, and Watersplash had to sotp listening to her!
"Oh, but they are gone, dear!" Minnowleap said in what sounded like halfway between a purr and a hiss. She opened her muzzle to say more, but Watersplash cut her off.
"You didn't take all our kits, mother," she snapped, standing up and staring Minnowleap down. She'd been so disoriented by what had happened that she'd completely forgotten about one thing- something very, very important. "Featherkit is still safe in the WindClan nursery right now!"
The loss of Grasstail and their other two kits- if they even were really dead- was still the most dreadful thing that ever could have happened, and Watersplash was sure she'd never be the same again, but they weren't everything. Upon seeing Minnowleap's reaction, which seemed almost angry at her for having mentioned Featherkit, Watersplash took a deep breath and, pelt bristling, spoke her mind.
"Even if Grasstail and Sprucekit and Ripplekit really are gone- which I don't believe for a second that they are- I've still got a perfectly healthy, beautiful kit who's depending on me," she proclaimed. "And it's not just Featherkit- I've got plenty of Clanmates who love me. Shellsong, Mallowheart, Smokefur, Emberstorm… they all care about me! Not to mention Grasstail's friends in WindClan- Appleshine and Seedpelt and the rest-if it came down to it, I bet they'd be willing to look after me. I haven't lost everything," she concluded, glaring defiantly at Minnowleap. "There are plenty of cats out there who are important to me. And you are not one of them!"
For a moment, Minnowleap appeared to be stunned into silence. Then, tail lashing, she drew her lips back into a snarl.
"It doesn't matter how many cats you think care about you," she said. "And don't even get me started on how many of them really do, because we needn't break your heart any more than it already has been broken." Minnowleap paused, silver-blue eyes flashing, before carrying on in a hiss that gradually rose in a crescendo into a screech. "I am your mother, Watersplash, and you do not get a choice as to whether or not I am part of you life! I am the only cat who loves you, and the sooner you accept that, the better!"
Watersplash flinched, but she didn't for a moment believe what Minnowleap was saying- not this time. She'd been so lost in her misery that she'd allowed her mother to lead her astray, but this had gone on for too long. It was time to let Minnowleap know that Watersplash was done with her, once and for all.
With no more patience to use words on her mother, Watersplash coiled her muscles and leapt, snarling, at Minnowleap. The only way this could be settled now was with claws- the way it was always meant to be.