"Starlingpaw?" called out a voice from somewhere outside of the abyss.

The sable apprentice couldn't see anything beyond the blood that she was submerged in, which was so dark that it appeared black.

Suddenly a small, bright, line broke through the void, widening and widening until she could no longer see the blood.

Larkpaw was crouched over her, his claw hooked on to her eyelid. "Starlingpaw! You're awake, thank StarClan!"

"What happened?" Starlingpaw mumbled so weakly that she wasn't sure he had heard.

"Well, we think you passed out from the pain. You just collapsed on the ground and didn't answer to any sound. Tawnypaw ran to camp to get Honeypool, so she came and treated you. It's been a while since then," he explained, which was almost too much information for her exhausted brain to handle.

Starlingpaw raised her neck to look around as Larkpaw backed away from her. The clearing was barely lit, but she could still make out the streaks of blood where the fox had run away. Tawnypaw's pelt glittered from a few pawsteps back as the setting sun caught on it just so. The ginger she-cat sat silently, grooming her fur, but her ears were pricked toward Starlingpaw.

Finally, Starlingpaw turned to look at her injury, which Honeypool had apparently treated. She assumed that the medicine cat was around somewhere, hunting for herbs or prey. With one last sigh, the she-cat twisted her head as far as she could, and was met with a horrible surprise.

As she stared, Larkpaw licked the top of her head and nuzzled against her side, a welcome but unhelpful comfort. Half of her tail had indeed been torn off, and there was a ratty, bloodied mess where most of her tail used to be. It was partly covered with some sort of poultice that she couldn't identify under the reek of blood. She tried to move it, if only to prove that it still worked, but upon doing so pain shot through her tail from the stump.

A cat pushed through the foliage behind her carrying sweet-smelling plants. "Don't try to move it, Starlingpaw. You'll only cause yourself pain," Honeypool placed the herbs she had been holding on the ground next to her patient, then selected a couple of bright green leaves to push toward Starlingpaw with one claw. "Chew these. Dandelion leaves. They should help with the pain."

Starlingpaw obeyed, biting down on one of the leaves and cringing at the bitter taste. The thought made her stomach growl, and she longed for a fat piece of fresh-kill.

A question arose to her mind as she finished chewing the leaf. She turned to Honeypool, who was now inspecting her wound, and asked, "Where did the other half of my tail go? The fox didn't take it, right?"

Honeypool purred in laughter for an instant before probably realizing that it was inappropriate. "I had to amputate it. Half of your tail was already shredded to bits and many of the bones in it were shattered by the fox's fangs."

Starlingpaw froze for a moment before she was thawed by anger. "You amputated it? What if it could have healed? Now I have half a tail because you didn't even try to fix it!" In her pain-induced state, she couldn't even begin to imagine what troubles losing part of her tail would cause, but she absolutely knew that there would be a lot of them.

"Starlingpaw," Honeypool meowed softly. "You didn't see it. It was much too injured to heal. The fox gnawed the middle of it to a pulp."

The injured cat shivered at the image and tried to push it out of her head.

"This should heal soon enough if we keep covering it with herbs so it doesn't get infected. It'll just be like having a shorter tail."

"It's so short that it's barely there!" Starlingpaw whimpered, terrified at the thought of facing another hurdle on her way to becoming a warrior.

"Want me to cut the rest of it off?" Honeypool growled, her patience thin. "Look, Starlingpaw. This is absolutely upsetting, and I know that you're still in pain," Starlingpaw nodded vigorously at this, though the pain was starting to calm. "You've dealt with disease already. I'm confident that you'll be strong enough to work past your new balance issues. We'll just find new exercises to help you out."

Starlingpaw noticed that Tawnypaw had been listening intently and her ears were now flattened in confusion. "Disease?" Tawnypaw asked, padding closer to Honeypool and Starlingpaw. "What do you mean?"

Honeypool sighed and explained Starlingpaw's kit-gait as she applied some new herb to Starlingpaw's tail, which was now about the length of a mouse's.

Tawnypaw blinked in surprise at the rush of information that she had unleashed. "I never knew."

"I didn't really feel like telling you. No offense," Starlingpaw replied, resting her head on the ground as she tried to keep still for Honeypool, who was now wrapping the tail stump with cobwebs.

"I get it," Tawnypaw meowed, looking directly into Starlingpaw's eyes. "There are some things I keep to myself, too," The way she said this was so meaningful that Starlingpaw had to rack her brain for an instant before realizing what Tawnypaw was trying to imply. Starlingpaw sighed when she figured it out–Tawnypaw hadn't yet told Larkpaw about Mosspetal.

"Yes, but sometimes you should share things so that your secrets don't get out and harm you. Like just now," Starlingpaw replied, trying to shove as much meaning into her words as Tawnypaw had. She believed that Larkpaw deserved to know sooner rather than later, and Tawnypaw kept avoiding that fact.

Starlingpaw saw Tawnypaw's fur bristle for a moment before it settled, so she must have understood what she meant.

"Do you think you can walk?" Honeypool asked once she finished treating Starlingpaw's tail. "These herbs should be able to hold if you get up."

Starlingpaw nodded and dragged herself to her feet, moving slowly to keep from upsetting her tail as she moved. Larkpaw stayed by her side as she stumbled across the clearing, shocked by how difficult it was to balance without a tail she could easily move. All she could do with the remaining tail was move it slightly from side to side, but it wasn't enough to counterbalance her and she almost fell forward multiple times. It took a long distance full of stumbles and spills for her to realize she had to walk with more weight in her back legs than she had before.

It was pitch dark in the woods when they returned to camp, and for the first time, Starlingpaw realized that Blizzardstar wasn't with them, so she questioned Tawnypaw about it.

"That piece of vermin ran off the second I went to get Honeypool, apparently. StarClan knows where he is, but good riddance. I hope he never returns," Tawnypaw spat, her words full of anger almost reminiscent of when Birchpaw had spoken about his kithood.

Almost as if they had summoned him, both she-cats caught sight of a white-furred tail flashing through the tree roots of the nursery, and Starlingpaw immediately took off after it.

"Starlingpaw! Don't run like that!" Honeypool cried, waking some of the cats in the den closest to her.

Starlingpaw ignored her, focusing only on the nursery ahead of her and the sound of heavy pawsteps behind her, likely from Tawnypaw. Her gait was clumsier than ever, and multiple times she tipped to the side as she ran with her stiff kit legs, but she reached the nursery regardless, with Tawnypaw by her side. Starlingpaw's first thought was that Blizzardstar should not, for any reason, be in the nursery after what he did to Birchpaw, intentional or not. Any cat so heartless that they would watch a kit be carried off to its death without intervening absolutely should not be trusted around the youngest of the Clan.

She burst through the gap in the roots where brambles and twigs hadn't been woven into the warm den of the nursery only to be met with a cat that was definitely not Blizzardstar.

"Oh," Starlingpaw panted, out of breath from her run, as the cat turned around. His fur was white, yes, but short, and his eyes weren't Blizzardstar's. He had two bright blue eyes, one darker than the other, and a familiar face shape. "Hi, Breezefall," she greeted Birchpaw's father.

"What's the matter?" Breezefall meowed as he laid down beside his mate, Ebonypetal, and gazed lovingly at his kits. Two older kits lay curled beside their mother, one almost fully black and the other white with black patches. The white kit looked shockingly like Birchpaw, so much so that Starlingpaw could imagine its tiny scruff dangling from the fangs of a fox.

"N-nothing really, I just…" Starlingpaw stuttered, at a loss for what to say. She couldn't possibly explain what had happened of the course of the day in a few short sentences. "Blizzardstar is missing, is all."

Breezefall gave her a confused look. "No, I just walked by his den. He's asleep in it. Why were you looking in the nursery?"

"We thought you were him," Tawnypaw cut in. "You look similar from afar."

Starlingpaw felt her face burn. She wasn't sure why she was so embarrassed to have made a mistake around Breezefall, as he was possibly the nicest cat in DawnClan. Maybe it had something to do with his son.

"Well, we'll be going now. Thanks for your help," Tawnypaw meowed almost pleasantly, but there was a touch of tension in her voice.

Starlingpaw realized that leaving would mean turning around and exposing her tail, and she didn't want to speak about her injury just then. She longed greatly for a soft moss nest to collapse in, warm cats sleeping nearby, and the calm quiet of her den. Unsure of what else to do, she walked backward out of the nursery, looking at the sleeping Fireblossom along the way and her three young kits curled beside her, all of them at least partly colored like their father, Oakstripe, who was a dark brown tabby. Starlingpaw felt both a rush of warmth at the sight of the Clan's future warriors-in-training and one of humiliation that she would likely still be in training when they became apprentices.

Tawnypaw walked beside her to the apprentices' den, walking with heavy paws tired from the day's exercise. Starlingpaw realized only then that Tawnypaw had run all the way to and from camp as well as taking the round trip to the Moonfalls; she must have been exhausted.

Starlingpaw pushed through the drying grasses into the apprentices' den where Birchpaw laid alone on the far side of the den, Larkpaw sleeping a couple of nests away from him. Exhausted, Starlingpaw settled herself down beside him, curling her tail around her legs as much as she could, and let the weight of the day crush her. She had received a prophetic dream, possibly two, and been so badly injured that it would likely affect her future training. Even still, she felt oddly empty as she realized the struggles that lie ahead, her emotions so overworked that they just stopped.

It was calm at Birchpaw's side, and she listened to his even breathing as she tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes one of the traumatic events she had experienced came bubbling back up from deep in her mind. She saw both visions, but most disturbingly she felt the fox's teeth, again and again, shattering both the bones in her tail and her hopes for a future.

"It's not fair," Tawnypaw breathed from her other side, echoing her thoughts. The ginger she-cat's voice was wobbly, more emotional than Starlingpaw had ever heard it be. Well, that wasn't entirely true, but this time her voice was angry rather than sad like it had been with Mosspetal. "Blizzardstar should have been fighting with us. He should have got his stupid tail bit off. All he did to 'protect his Clan' was cower up in some tree. What kind of leader leaves his own to die?"

Starlingpaw took a deep breath and touched her nose to Birchpaw's forehead, breathing in his scent and the constant fear that lay under his pelt. She pitied him and cared about him much more than she had ever realized, and to be back by his side was a great relief. "You'll have to talk to Birchpaw about that sometime," Starlingpaw murmured, her voice muffled by the fur her snout was buried in. "I think you two would get along well."

When Starlingpaw awoke, she thought for an instant that she was having another vision. Her curled up paws were black-and-white, a patchwork of the two shades. Then she realized that they were not hers; they belonged to Birchpaw, who was still fast asleep beside her. Somehow, she didn't feel relieved.

Tawnypaw had already left the den, probably getting an early start on training with her mentor, Sootpelt. Starlingpaw wondered if Sootpelt ever grew tired of training with such an overzealous cat and then realized once more that Tawnypaw was related to Russetstorm. Russetstorm's sister, Fireblossom, was Tawnypaw's mother. Sootpelt had to mentor the kin of the cat he hated most–or at least, the one he appeared to hate the most. Starlingpaw almost laughed at the thought, though Sootpelt probably didn't find it funny, like most things.

Starlingpaw figured she should start the day by talking with Honeypool, who would have a better idea of what to do about her tail injury than Starlingpaw did. She rose slowly to her feet, trying not to wake Birchpaw, and slowly padded out of the den.

As she stumbled toward the cliff that hugged the far side of camp, trying to use her head to balance but struggling with its constant shaking, she heard light pawsteps behind her and turned to see Birchpaw staring directly at her tail.

She lowered her eyes to the ground, unable to meet his gaze, as he moved to stand by her side.

"What happened?" he asked quietly, his tone delicate and gentle.

"A fox."

He bristled at her response, his neck fur standing on end, and she knew he was remembering the horrible things that had happened to him, whether he wanted to think of them or not.

Starlingpaw said nothing else, just walked to the medicine cat's den with Birchpaw close by her side, which helped. When she stumbled and tried to set herself right with her tail before ultimately realizing that it wouldn't help her, she could put her weight against him and stay standing upright. Starlingpaw hoped that he didn't notice how difficult it had become for her to do such a simple thing as walk. It humiliated her that she had fallen below where she had started, after all of the progress she had made.

She stopped in her tracks as they passed the tallest tree. Under its roots she caught sight of a bright white cat, sleeping peacefully as the sun pricked through the canopy above them. Her blood boiled with rage, more than ever before. Blizzardstar had done this. If it hadn't been for him, if he had sacrificed just one of his nine lives to protect his Clan as he had sworn to do, Starlingpaw would be training with Darkfeather and learning new ways to fight. Now she could barely walk, and it was all his fault.

Starlingpaw took a step closer, her claws already unsheathed. She found that digging into the ground with her claws helped her balance, but she was picturing something other than the dusty clearing under her paws. The vision flashed in front of her again, of Blizzardstar's dying eyes, and in one terrifying moment she realized how close she could be to enacting what she had seen if she just took a few more steps forward, into his den, and dug her claws into his throat.

But no. She was not a murderer.

Starlingpaw turned back to Birchpaw and walked with him to the medicine cat's den.

"The good thing is that you won't need your tail to swim," Honeypool explained. They had made the slow trip out to the river as a group of three, being Starlingpaw, Honeypool, and Birchpaw. It was difficult to walk so far, but Honeypool had taught her to walk with a wider stance on her back legs, which made balance much easier, even though it was embarrassing. Starlingpaw felt like a rabbit when she walked, her hind legs were so far apart.

"Okay," Starlingpaw responded, looking warily at the river. Her confidence in swimming had been totally shattered by her injury, and she worried most of all that it wouldn't help her as much as she needed it to. Sure, it would strengthen her legs, but she didn't see how that would help her balance.

Birchpaw came up beside her and nudged her shoulder with his, a small encouragement. With a glance at her friend, she dipped a paw tentatively in the water and shivered at its chill.

"Don't worry," Birchpaw meowed reassuringly. "If anything happens, I'm here to support you."

Starlingpaw looked into his eyes and saw the truth in them. She took a deep breath and stepped into the shallows, pushing off from the bank into the river.

The first thing she noticed was how refreshing it was to swim. There was no worrying about balance, just about moving her paws. Starlingpaw couldn't tip over to the side or fall to the ground as long as she kept paddling. The water would keep her afloat no matter what.

Her tail, or rather the stump of it, stung from the chill of the river, but it felt good. Dried blood was washed off of her fur, billowing out in clouds that drifted downstream, and her wound was cleaned by the natural flow of the water that carried contaminants away from where she swam.

She kept swimming for a time. It was hard to tell how long she had been in the river; had it been just a few moments or much, much longer than that? All she knew was that Honeypool eventually excused herself to hunt for herbs, leaving Starlingpaw alone with Birchpaw.

"How do you feel?" Birchpaw asked as he sat on the bank, just a tail-length away from where she was swimming.

Starlingpaw thought for a moment and looked up at Birchpaw with a smile. "I think it helps. It's nice that I don't have to balance in the water," A thought hit her. "But I guess that'll just make it harder to walk once I get out."

Birchpaw shook his head. "No, Honeypool knows what she's doing. She wouldn't have you do something that would harm you."

"How would she know? I'm kind of a special case," Starlingpaw pointed out, her head tilted to the side.

"I'm sure cats have lost their tails before. Battle injuries aren't that uncommon."

Starlingpaw flushed, realizing he was right. Surely some of the cats up in StarClan had suffered wounds that made it harder for them to walk. She just hoped that her kit-gait wouldn't complicate things beyond what Honeypool could do to help her.

But her thoughts were drowned by the cold rush of water entering her mouth as a hard weight landed on her shoulders, pushing her under the river's surface. She was stunned, gasping for air and swallowing water instead, and whatever was on her back kept pushing her down until her short belly fur touched the bottom of the riverbed, pebbles tangling in her pelt.

When she recovered from the initial shock, she tried to push against the weight, paddling as hard as she could, but without air her limbs were weak and she failed to knock it off.

Just as her eyesight began to fade, turning black at the edges like when she had passed out, she felt the pressure on her shoulders disappear, and she floated to the surface of the river.

Her head broke through the water, gasping for air, and she dragged herself to the bank, coughing and retching mouthfuls of river water. Despite her struggle to breathe, she couldn't even try to ignore the scene taking place a fox-length away, where she had been swimming peacefully.

Birchpaw was in a battle stance, low to the ground, his ears flat against his head, hissing angrily at a tiny ginger tom. With a groan, Starlingpaw recognized him as Owlpaw, the nasty apprentice that had teased her when she first started swimming. The little tomcat was bleeding from a cut on one of his legs, and Starlingpaw realized with a rush of–what was it? Pride?–that his wounds must have been caused by Birchpaw. Owlpaw must have leaped on her while she was swimming for whatever self-centered reason and Birchpaw had defended her.

The black-and-white tom was screaming something she couldn't hear, her ears still filled with water, but she saw Owlpaw shrink in fear and leap back into the river, returning to DuskClan territory.

Starlingpaw shook her head violently and ran over to Birchpaw. He stood in place, his legs trembling, staring at the spot where Owlpaw had bled on the thin grass, leaving a small pool of scarlet. He didn't even notice her as she approached, his wide eyes trained on the DuskClan blood as his whole body shook.

"Birchpaw?" Starlingpaw mewed softly. Birchpaw showed no sign that he heard her.

An unsettled feeling washed over her. Something was very wrong. Unsure of what else to do, Starlingpaw moved to Birchpaw's side and pressed her flank against his. She could feel his rapid intake of breath and his tensed muscles as his body shook violently. Starlingpaw had no idea what was happening, and it terrified her. For a moment she considered fetching Honeypool, but Starlingpaw didn't want to leave Birchpaw alone.

Luckily, she didn't have to decide on what to do, as help came just a few moments after.

"Honeypool!" Starlingpaw cried as she turned at the sound of footsteps. The ginger she-cat was approaching the two apprentices with a bundle of herbs in her mouth.

The medicine cat sensed the urgency in her voice and quickened her pace until she had sprinted out of the woods to reach them. "What's happened?"

Starlingpaw didn't have time to answer, as Honeypool immediately set to inspecting Birchpaw. It only took a moment for the older she-cat to figure out whatever was going on with Birchpaw, and she quickly began to sort through the pile of herbs she had collected from the forest.

"He's lucky I found a good patch of thyme," Honeypool muttered as she picked out a long, leafy stalk covered in delicate green leaves. She held it under his nose, and Starlingpaw could smell its fresh and pungent scent from where she stood beside Birchpaw. The black-and-white tom suddenly roused from his trance and noticed the plant in front of him, then tore a few leaves off of the stalk with his teeth and chewed them.

Starlingpaw watched in silence as Birchpaw's trembles calmed and his muscles relaxed, as if his body were releasing a deep breath. She, too, felt herself calm down, as her confusion and terror receded.

"What was that?" she asked quietly, her voice small from the stressful situation.

Honeypool answered, so Starlingpaw guessed that Birchpaw was still too upset to talk. "It was a panic attack, of a sort. You know about Birchpaw's… past, don't you?"

Starlingpaw nodded, but she was still confused as to how the fox attack would still be affecting him physically.

"When cats undergo stressful or traumatic situations, they can develop anxiety. It puts them on edge, which is why Birchpaw is rather jumpy," Starlingpaw saw Birchpaw cringe at the medicine cat's words, and she wondered if he found his condition embarrassing. Surely he knew that Starlingpaw of all cats was in no place to judge? "Anyway, the feelings of these traumatic events can be brought back up occasionally by triggers or stressful events. My question is, what happened to cause this specific attack?"

Now it was Starlingpaw's turn to cringe. For whatever reason, she felt ashamed that the encounter with Owlpaw had even happened and explaining it to Honeypool turned out to be harder than she thought. "Well… I was swimming, you know, and all of a sudden I felt a weight on my back, and I was pushed under."

Honeypool looked bewildered. "Birchpaw pushed you under the water?"

Starlingpaw started to say 'no', but Birchpaw cut in and explained from his point of view. "No, Honeypool, it was a DuskClan cat. He hopped out of the bushes from the other side of the river and landed right on her back. It was like he thought it was funny to nearly drown Starlingpaw," As he spoke the last sentence, he brushed up against Starlingpaw, an apologetic look in his eyes. "Sorry that I couldn't help you sooner. I kind of froze for a moment, like just now, but eventually, I snapped out of it and dragged him off of you. He yelled at me like I was the one in the wrong, so I argued with him until he left," Birchpaw took a deep, ragged breath before continuing as if it were hard for him to say it. "And… he got hurt. When I pulled him off of Starlingpaw, he was hissing and scratching and I had to fight him off. He must have been young, since I was able to beat him, but he started to bleed and then everything came crashing down."

"Shh," Honeypool murmured as she gave Birchpaw another stalk of thyme. He was shaking again, but this time more from the memory of the event, as he seemed aware of his surroundings. "Don't keep talking about it. You'll only get more upset."

Starlingpaw pressed her pelt, which she realized was still very wet, against Birchpaw's. She felt his sides tremble, but this time it was from his silent sobbing. It was still confusing to her how he had become so panicked from what seemed to her a tiny event, but regardless, she comforted him. Perhaps having a friend by his side would make him realize that whatever horrible thing he was feeling was just in his head, and with Starlingpaw's help, he would become grounded again in reality.

She was right. Birchpaw's breathing slowed until it was at a healthy pace, and his shuddering was quelled. He turned his head to face her and touched his nose to hers.

"Thank you, Starlingpaw," he meowed, his voice weak with both physical and mental exhaustion. "I don't know what I would have done without you."

"I didn't really do all that much," she responded, confused.

Birchpaw glanced to the side. "I've had bad attacks before, but none of them were as easy as this one. You being there to support and calm me really helped, I think. So thank you for that."

Starlingpaw smiled. "I'll always be here for you if you do the same for me."

Birchpaw returned her grin, his eyes closed happily and his whiskers twitching. "Deal."