"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities."
-Sophocles
PART I
THE STARLIT SKY
DarkClan Camp
New leaf
853 Moons Ago
On the rendezvous of what is now called Fourtrees, but which the inhabitants at the time simply called the Camp, across the den of Oakstar, in the all-too cramped apprentices' domain, lives a lanky, white, curly-furred she-cat by the name of Whitepaw. She did not speak until she was two moons old. Since then, it has only been questions.
"Why are there different clans?"
"Why don't the high-walkers have claws?"
"If I eat a frog, is it really true that I turn into a slug?"
"Why did Oakstar choose the name, Whitepaw? It's so boring!"
When she was younger, the Halfqueens used to call her Mouse because she was always getting into things: stumbling into Senior Hunters, climbing up the Lokya tree, and the tomkits used to call her Rat because she was always messing with their moss-ball games, but the head Halfqueen Amberpool said she ought to be called Hopeless because she was completely inept at her pre-apprentice training.
Whitepaw sleeps with the other thirteen DarkClan apprentices in their shared den, barely large enough for ten kittens to sleep comfortably. Her closest friend is Honeypaw, a pretty light-furred molly who all the toms swarmed after. Between them they would share stories about the adventures of Darkstar and the mysteries of StarClan and the idiocy of ThunderClan. Whitepaw has never tasted rabbit, and never set foot outside the DarkClan territory. Before she receives her warrior name, everyone she knows will either be enslaved, banished or dead.
(ooooooo)
Dawn. Rain falls from the sky in rhythm like the beat of a hummingbird's wings. Ten Senior Warriors tediously trudge from their den and head Senior Warrior Silverpool moves her way to the apprentice's den. She pokes her head into the entrance and says, "Bless our morning, StarClan," and the apprentices begrudgingly reply, "So that we may fulfill our duty to the clan." One by one, the young warriors-to-be follow Silverpool from the den and into the clearing between the four holy trees. As soon as the morning light reaches above the horizon and touches the gentle raindrops, they begin.
The oldest, at 101 moons, is Silverpool. The youngest, at six moons, is Whitepaw. She matches her pace to her mentor, eyes plastered to the ground. They circle each other: once, twice, five times. Then Silverpool howls and they sit. "The most important ability of any fighter," she rasps, "is to be able to fight any cat, no matter the size or fighting style." She rises to her paws and pads her way to the center of the circle of apprentices and mentors. A flick of her tail and Whitepaw's mentor, Goldenstorm, calmly makes her way to Silverpool. "On my signal, each one of you will attack another of my choice. There are many ways to surprise an enemy, but the most important technique is the basic one."
"We raise our non-dominant paw like this, then pivot onto our enemy, see?"
Whitepaw does not see. Who wants to live a life like this, claws always unsheathed and anxiously awaiting violence? Goldenstorm demonstrates a sweeping takedown, Silverpool explains a set of close-range strikes. Whitepaw tries to follow her mentor's paw – unset backclaw, set frontclaw – but directly infront of her is a Bluegill catfish, weaving its way through the river currents, swiftly yet graciously swimming with its fins, and in a blink of an eye Whitepaw has daydreamed herself into a fish. She plunges into the trickling water and swims past DarkClan, dodging the eager paws of the Hunters, and glides her way down the gorge, dodging foreboding rocks and fallen trees. Pink salmon wrap around her, trying pitifully to climb the downpour of the waterfall. She continues south, past the edge of the WindClan territories, gawking at the crescent of the Moonstone. But Whitepaw swims further still, beyond the forest and into the unknown, until—
"Whitepaw," hisses Goldenstorm. "Which strike do you use here?"
From across the circle, Silverpool's attention flickers to them.
"Um, set stance? Pivotclaw?"
"No," Goldenstorm sighs. "No set stance. And no pivotclaw."
(ooooooo)
All day she hunts mice, hunts Robins, hunts Blue Jays, hunts Squirrels. In the afternoon the apprentices hear the talking of toms and the greeting of the mentors and the lumbering pawsteps of Sprucecreek. The apprentices line up horizontally, freshkill on display. The large leader of the Senior Hunters rumbles his way through the awaiting apprentice-mentor pairs, giving acceptive nods and stern grunts as he goes. He makes his way to Whitepaw's pile and stops, staring. Then he chuckles dissaprovingly and flings his bushy tail into her face. He pulls Goldenstorm aside and Whitepaw hears him rant about how back in his day apprentices would be killed if they brought back so little prey, how disappointing it was that Whitepaw lived and not her sister, and does your apprentice realize that more territory is lost to SkyClan every day, and if any cat in the clan does not do their part then eventually even the Camp would be conquered?
Whitepaw understood; she simply did not care.
(ooooooo)
As the sun begins to dip under the treetops, head Senior Warrior Silverpool summons her. "StarClan willing, child, it's not too late in the day for poppyseeds. They'll ease the pain in my wrists and surely help your mentor's. Be back before moonhigh, keep your eyes alert and aware, and watch for rogues and SkyClanners."
Whitepaw can hardly keep her paws on the ground.
"And don't run. No need for an injured apprentice, hmm?"
She forces herself to go slowly out of the warriors den, slowly across the clearing – then she flies. Through the holy trees, past the dew-plastered valleys, around the huge boulders near the spruce trees, between the archway of a fallen oak. Puddles glimmer in the young starlit sky; Whitepaw feels the wet ground give way as she runs, digs her pads into the moist topsoil.
Probably two thousand poppyseed flowers grow just past the DarkClan clearing, but Whitepaw sprints the full three odd miles to the edge of the territory: the river. Here, as the water flickers the refracted starlight, there is a willow tree older than anyone's memory. She clambers onto the trunk, then digs her paws into an ancient hollow and finds herself grasping at a makeshift grass container.
Breathless, she drags it out from its hiding and into the moonlight. Dozens of moons ago, someone – perhaps a rogue, or a warrior from even Darkstar's time – placed hundreds upon hundreds of Bluegill scales inside the hollow. Time has flaked away much of its color, but the texture, the feel of the scales remains clear.
She sprawls the uncountable scales onto a thick piece of slate, and treads her paw across it, again and again and again. Fourteen times she has stared into the glistening spectacle of the Bluegill scales, and each time she believes she gets closer to deciphering it. She has heard and told stories her entire life; this is simply one she cannot hear just yet.
But soon.
In the groves below, an owl calls twice into the darkness, and the moon sets itself above the forest. Whitepaw hastily fastens the grass bag and the scales, then stuffs them inside the willow hollow. She jettisons into the valley fields ahead and dips her maw into the vast fields of colorful poppyseed patches.
By the time of moonhigh, her maw is only a quarter full. She will be late; Honeypaw will be worrying; Silverpool and Goldenstorm will be angry.
Whitepaw slips her head back quickly into the hollow and pauses again atop the scales. One more breath. In the starlit sky the river seems to stop its flow, the forest to glow; the Bluegill catfish paces the riverbank, desperate to stay out of the paws of the Hunters.