Run from the past into the near

Nothing to fear

Run from the darkness into the clear

Nothing to fear

-Under The Shadows, Rae Morris


Oakkit watches her sleep. Maybe it's weird, that they're still sharing a nest on the verge of their apprenticeship. Maybe it's unnatural. At first they slept here because it was their nest, and it smelled of their mother. Now it's a habit, and he thinks perhaps he should enjoy it while it lasts, before they're thrust into different corners of the camp. After tomorrow, it's likely they'll never speak a word to each other again.

Emberkit gives a sudden, small snore, and he rolls his eyes. She may have Sablefrost's face and fur, but he's fairly sure the black queen never snored.

He hasn't slept at all, all night. It's not like he doesn't want to leave the nursery- he does, he has, ever since he opened his eyes and realized there was more to his small world than the clearing he lived in. He's quite certain he'll be one of the best apprentices the Clan has ever seen. He won't even be leaving his friends behind.

Maybe I'll miss her, Oakkit thinks. Even though I shouldn't.

The tabby sighs and sits up. The faint, pale patch of light pooled on the nursery floor insinuates dawn might just be approaching. Nettlecloud's kits are sleeping, but the fawn queen herself is gone. Despite now being the closest thing he and Emberkit have to a parent, she's often absent. It doesn't trouble Oakkit. His mother is gone, and there's no use trying to replace her. Maybe Emberkit would disagree.

He can't tell, because she's perfected her mask already.

Yet, when she sleeps, there's no trace of it. Perhaps that's why he watches her now; she's vulnerable, tries to hide nothing. Unlike her waking hours, when she's barely ever there, where they exchange a maximum of five words a day. What's there to say? Emberkit is the one who listens, not talks, and Oakkit is the type who'd rather scuffle than open his mouth.

No form of eloquence is required in PureClan, and for that, he's glad.

"Hey," someone hisses, breaching the gap between their nests. He turns, pricking his ears; it's Burrkit. Looks like someone else can't sleep, either.

"What?" he hisses back, pretending he was really half-asleep all along. Nothing bothers Oakkit. The trivial, after all, is trivial.

Burrkit shuffles his paws. "Can't sleep."

He weighs the options in his mind- friendships are tactics, stratagems, alliances just short of affections. He could be civil, but the curfew for niceties has been and gone. He's not really that fond of Burrkit.

"Shut up and stop talking. That should help."

He rolls away from his friend and faces Emberkit. He hasn't woken her. He wonders what she dreams of, when not even his callous rudeness can bring her back to him.


Oakkit wakes up late; everyone else has left him behind. Typically, he's as tired as he was the moment his head hit the moss. Still, he's excited. Even sleep deprivation can't dampen that. The tabby gets to his paws and heads out, wondering if he's missed his own apprentice ceremony. If Sablefrost would even care, where his father very obviously doesn't. He hasn't seen Strongclaw for a while in fact, but he suspects he spends hours at a time in the meadow. He took them there once, moons ago when he had been somber, not shattered. At the time it'd been fun, considering he'd completing thrashed his sister in a mock fight. But he looks back now, sees Strongclaw staring at his paws, sees him hiding something he hasn't bothered to since.

So he's surprised to reach the assembled Clan and see his father sitting with the crowd. Strongclaw and socialising just don't seem to mix anymore. It looks like they've just begun, and so one notices the stocky kit arrive late. He slips in behind Mallowkit, and although they're roughly the same age, he can see right over the top of his head. This doesn't achieve much, as Mallowkit happens to be sitting behind a large black tom, and Oakkit isn't that tall. But if he cranes his head, he can just see Morningstar, leisurely reclining on the Speaking Hill, swiping her jaws with her tongue.

She pulls a face at the tom in front of her- the deputy, Oakkit thinks.

"Mmf. Who is it this time?" she asks, lazily scanning the crowd with slitted dark eyes.

Oakkit takes the initiative and pushes his way through the assembly. He doesn't care who he shoves past, or who can't stop staring at him like he's just finished taking a bath in his mother's blood. It's been what, three months? Three months and they can't stop treating him like he's the ghost.

At least, he thinks, finding space alone in front of the leader, if I am the ghost, then Strongclaw is the Clan's pariah.

"Ah, I know you," Morningstar says. She looks pleased, that at least she's remembered one of the rabble.

The other kits begin to join him- the other toms, Emberkit and her friends. Behind him, he can hear Duskkit and Flowerkit whispering to themselves, but their mother hasn't made an appearance. Oakkit isn't observant, not like his sister, but he knows Swanpath spends a lot of time in the medicine den, and she isn't there for the herbal incense.

"Under the eyes of StarClan, I rename these young cats Oakpaw, Emberpaw, Burrpaw, Mallowpaw, Fawnpaw and Mosspaw. Oakpaw, your mentor will be Sleetclaw. Burrpaw, you will be mentored by Thornstreak."

Morningstar pauses for a moment, glancing down at the tabby tom. He holds her attention for barely a second before she lifts her head and looks away. Oakpaw can't read what's in her eyes- he doesn't get that, reading cats' thoughts through their eyes, because how are eyes supposed to be expressive?- but he knows there's nothing fond in them.

"Mallowpaw," she continues, "your mentor is Tallstorm. Crookedflower will mentor Mosspaw and Streamshade, you will mentor Fawnpaw. I will mentor Emberpaw." As usual, there's no sense of ceremony to her words.

Oakpaw stares at his sister. Wonders how special she could be, if the leader has chosen her for her very own. And who did he get? A nobody. Maybe this is just what he needs- to fade into the background noise. Maybe, for a little while, he ought to be a nobody himself.

So he turns to face Sleetclaw. He knows nothing about the tom; in his mediocre life, this grey warrior has achieved nothing noteworthy at all. He has kits, but they're one of the foremost reasons he wanted to escape the nursery in the first place. The tom is standing behind him, and he looks a little nervous.

Oakpaw's stigma is one that precedes him.

His attention flickers for a moment; Emberpaw is slinking after Morningstar into the forest. She doesn't even look happy. Ungrateful.

"I'm going for a walk," Oakpaw announces. Sleetclaw twitches his whiskers and steps aside, and doesn't bother with a condescending speech about getting lost. He's probably relieved. Even without his heritage, Oakpaw is a handful.

He heads towards the woods and manages to look like he knows where he's going. It's not like he's never been out here before, because what kit doesn't sneak out of camp on occasion? It's that he's never been out very far on his own. He doesn't know where any paths lead, but he finds a well worn one and sticks to it. Solitude can be nice. Maybe this is why Emberpaw always insisted on her daily escapades, although Oakpaw thinks the familiarity will bore him in two moons time.

He wonders where his sister has gone, as he walks. Maybe she's learning twenty new moves to disembowel an enemy. Morningstar seems like that kind of cat. And here he is, out for a stroll. Oakpaw bares his teeth at the ground. Sleetclaw looks like the type whose most strenuous exercise is stretching to groom the fur on his lower back.

This is where he'd ask his father for advice- but oh, yeah, his real one is dead, and his faux father hardly bothers to hang around.

It's days like these where he hates Sablefrost, because she's made such a mess of everything and left them alone to muddle through it.

His paws touch something that isn't dirt; it's grass. Oakpaw looks up, hesitating. He knows where he is now.

It's just a place, he tells himself, frowning. Why be afraid of a place?

But it's not just a place, it's a meadow, where the sun shines until it sets and the birds sing the optimistic of songs. It's a meadow that hides red with green. Strongclaw holds a morbid fascination with the place. But that's it- it's a field. Nothing to fear. The field isn't responsible for the crimes it's witnessed.

He takes a step and wonder if they've left her here.

He takes a step and wonders if her bones are yellow or white.

He takes a step. And another. He takes a step and a voice growls at him to leave.

Oakpaw isn't surprised, to see who it is when he turns, although he's nearly unrecognizable. There used to be white, on his pelt- now it's a pale brown, stained with dirt and mud. He wears burrs in his pelt like small festive decorations. The apprentice isn't sure whether he ought to call him father, Strongclaw or stranger. So he justs asks why.

"You have no right to be here," he snarls. The blue in his eyes is masking something feral.

"It's the Clan meadow," Oakpaw points out, trying very hard not to appear uncomfortable. He's going to be an amazing warrior, and what warrior quails at the sight of their deranged of-a-kind father? "So yeah, I think I have a few rights to be here."

Strongclaw emerges from the shadows of the trees, and although Oakpaw is anything but diminutive, he feels tiny beneath the tom's glare. Yes, he has been the subject of many whispers, the focus of many stares. But no one has ever shown him such hatred.

"You have no rights at all," Strongclaw whispers. Oakpaw strains to catch his words as they fall, yet he thinks they're the words he wants to hear least of all. "You have no rights, considering you're the reason she's even dead at all."

That's not want Oakpaw wanted to hear at all, so he bolts, before Strongclaw can spit out any more cruel truths.

ALLEGIANCES- PURECLAN

LEADER:

MORNINGSTAR: dark golden she-cat, tawny dapples

APPRENTICE- EMBERPAW

DEPUTY:

ICEFACE: icy-grey tom with thin grey flecks

APPRENTICE- CLOUDPAW

MEDICINE CAT MALE:

SORRELSTORM: ginger tom with darker streaks

APPRENTICE- PINEPAW

MEDICINE CAT FEMALE:

SPARKPOOL: plump, sandy ginger she-cat

WARRIORS, MALE:

FUSSYFUR: spiky-furred grey tabby tom

COLDBONE: grey tom with erratic stripes

PEPPERMASK: dark tabby tom with white chest and bold black stripes

APPRENTICE- FIREPAW

TALLSTORM: tall black tom with almond shaped yellow eyes

APPRENTICE- MALLOWPAW

GORSESPOTS: ginger tabby tom with white legs, belly and chin

APPRENTICE- SCARPAW

THORNSTREAK: dark brown tabby tom, short, tufted tail and scarred throat

APPRENTICE- BURRPAW

TORNEAR: large, scarred brown tom

APPRENTICE- WILLOWPAW

SLEETCLAW: pale grey tom with blue-grey patches

APPRENTICE- OAKPAW

FLEETSTORM: soft-pelted grey tom

APPRENTICE- NIGHTPAW

SLATETHORN: pale grey tabby tom with gold eyes

APPRENTICE- LITTLEPAW

STRONGCLAW: white tom with tabby and cream patches

APPRENTICE- VOLEPAW

WARRIORS, FEMALE:

FALLENFEATHER: light sorrel she-cat

APPRENTICE- SWIFTPAW

SHIMMERLEAF: white she-cat with black patches and, blue eyes

APPRENTICE- FERNPAW

REDSONG: reddish overo she-cat

APPRENTICE: SUNPAW

MEADOWMIST: white she-cat with green eyes

APPRENTICE- DAWNPAW

CROOKEDFLOWER: small tortoiseshell she-cat

APPRENTICE- MOSSPAW

LITTLEFERN: pale, creamy fawn she-cat with brown rosettes

APPRENTICE- FLURRYPAW

JAYFLIGHT: pale blue-grey she-cat

APPRENTICE- GOLDPAW

NETTLECLOUD: dappled fawn she-cat, wide green eyes

APPRENTICE- FLUTTERPAW

CHARPOOL: grey she-cat with thick ashy stripes

APPRENTICE- ASHPAW

STREAMSHADE: mottled grey she-cat with black paws
APPRENTICE- FAWNPAW

APPRENTICES, MALE:

FIREPAW: bright ginger tom with white stripe on his back and yellow eyes

CLOUDPAW: fluffy white tom with orange tail and face

NIGHTPAW: black-and-white tom with blue paws

SCARPAW: muscular dark ginger tom

LITTLEPAW: small pale tabby tom, speckled with gold, amber-green eyes

WILLOWPAW: bulky, dark brown tabby tom with gold patch over one eye

VOLEPAW: grey tom with pale grey underbelly, white tail-tip and paws, blue eyes

MALLOWPAW: little dark brown dappled tom

BURRPAW: dappled dark brown tom with green eyes

OAKPAW: bulky tabby tom, amber eyes

APPRENTICES, FEMALE:

FLUTTERPAW: pale brown tabby with round amber eyes and white chest

GOLDPAW: small golden tabby with blue eyes

FLURRYPAW: white she-cat with scattered ginger spots over her haunches

ASHPAW: very pale grey she-cat with white underbelly, muzzle and chest, bright blue-green eyes

SWIFTPAW: small white she-cat with ginger patches and copper eyes

DAWNPAW: dark golden she-cat with light brown dapples and pale green eyes

SUNPAW: pure golden she-cat, dark amber eyes

FERNPAW: pale grey she-cat with luminous blue eyes

MOSSPAW: brown tabby she-cat with pale paws

FAWNPAW: pale fawn she-cat, snowy underbelly

EMBERPAW: green-eyed black she-cat with four white paws

QUEENS:

SWANPATH: frail white she-cat with black paws, muzzle and tail-tip, paired to Sleetclaw

(KITS:

DUSKKIT: grey tom with black muzzle

FLOWERKIT: thin with she-kit, dark grey paws)

SNOWDAPPLE: white queen with faint grey dapples, paired to Webfoot

(KITS:

DEWKIT: dappled smokey-grey tom

MISTKIT: pale silver tabby, blue eyes)

ELDERS:

WEBTAIL: stocky dark grey tabby tom

TAWNYPETAL: cream tabby she-cat with narrow amber eyes

WATERSTRIPE: pale marbled silver tabby tom


Hella sorry about this, guys. School's been screwing with me and to be honest I just haven't been feeling the motivation I need to write this story (or anything at all, really), and I've been super busy. I'm not going to discontinue it, it's just going to take me longer to update, and as a result, this might be a shorter story than originally intended. Don't forget, your reviews mean the world to me, and they do help with inspiration.

I've also been working on an original collaboration with batmaaan, so there's that. There's also my Drabble A Day challenge, which is sproadically updated, if you wanted sablestrong fluff or crap like that.

Stay tuned.