Chapter 42: What Makes A Name

One would believe ascension to a more powerful being would leave one more apathetic and less prone to feeling anything at all. They would be mistaken. Instead, I receive a flux of new feelings and desires with my rise. I still feel all the regular feelings other cats do, but I feel something else. The best way to describe it is like a pulse or heartbeat. This pulse does not correlate to individual love, hate, sadness, or anything others would consider normal. What this pulse forms from is none other than the cats of the Unseen Stars. It is faith I feel, not in faith of myself, but of what others feel in me. It fills me with warmth and tends to draw out my maternal instincts. I believe this is because I chose to ascend as the Mother as opposed to anything else. I imagine ascending as a warrior would make this faith bring out bloodlust. This pulse not only provides me with power beyond what I could typically do, but it guides me to fulfill the obligation I ascended for.

I found myself instinctively drawn to the reflection pool, the connection between the living and the dead. As I let my instincts guide me, I pondered what drew me out here. I hadn't left any feelers in the pool or any other means of sensing, but something drew me here anyways. Almost as soon as I arrived, the reflection pool thrummed with light. Stormpaw/Crookedpaw sprang from it. I could instantly tell something was upsetting my poor kit, so I wrapped him up in an embrace.

"My dear kit. What ails you?"

He pressed himself into my fur with choked sobs. I responded by gently grooming him, letting my maternal and calming aura wash over him. I am the Mother and I will be there when my kits need me. After a few moments, Stormpaw's sobs settled down. He was still sad, but he'd cried most of his tears out.

"I had a bad day. The cats down there can be so mean. I asked Hailstar to change my name back to Stormpaw, but he refused. He said my mother gave me this name, so I'll have to live with it. I got so angry. She's not my mother, not anymore. You are and you call me Stormpaw. Why can't they see that the name is mean?" He mewed with his voice cracking and a slight hiccup.

I wrapped up Stormpaw tighter as I thought of how to respond.

"You know, I used to hate my name once. The idea of being named after a tree, one who left behind sticky sweet sap and soft leaves, left me bitter. I wanted to be the strongest and fiercest in all of Thunderclan. My denmates teased me about my name, things like sticky sweet and Mapleflower. Those things I still carry despite how I grew out of the taunting. After all this time, I realized that the name Maple didn't make me weak. It made me strong. I strove to be more than my name implied. I became the fiercest fighter if only to prove them wrong. Then I found the softer side of my namesake. I found behind my own prickles of briar and bitterness was the capacity to love. I loved as any other cat could, and I found the truth. Maples are hardy with bark thick to protect their sweet syrup, but to those they let past their barriers, they receive a sweetness unable to be acquired elsewhere."

Stormpaw stilled after my story before asking, "what does that mean for me?"

I chuckled softly before mewing on, "it means that the word Crooked does not have to define you. You can make it your own. It can mean to stand out, to not follow the norm, to be abnormal. You don't have to be just another Riverclan warrior. You can follow your own path, bending off the norm, and forge your own destiny. That jaw they think is a weakness can become your strength. Others will never have overcome the obstacles you have, and they'll falter when the going gets tough. You've already faced trials they would fall to. You are so much stronger than you believe. If you ever feel like you can't believe in yourself, believe in me and those that support you because they believe in you."

I let silence fill the air with only the babbling stream breaking up the still air. I wanted Stormpaw to ponder on my words, find his own strength, and face his problems. My job as a mother is not to remove the obstacles in his path but to give him the means to overcome them on his own. I can't always be there for him, so the best I can do is give him the strength of will to carry on.

Finally Stormpaw broke the silence. "Mom, do you think you can call me Crookedpaw? I… I can't keep pretending my name is Stormpaw. I want to find the meaning behind my name. I want to find my meaning for Crooked like you did Maple. The name still hurts, but I think I can do it. I want to do it."

I gave Crookedpaw an affectionate lick before giving my answer. "Whatever you want my beloved Crookedpaw. I am so proud of you. I'm sure someday you'll leave your mark on this world. Now that you are feeling better, what do you want to do?"

Crookedpaw's eyes lit up the idea of having me all to himself for a while. "Can you teach me how to fight? I haven't caught up to the other apprentices yet, and Cedarpelt keeps drilling me on the basics."

I hummed before replying, "what I can teach you is a little unorthodox. You see, I had my own philosophy on fighting. What I always believed is the body knows what to do more than you do, so let's spar. Don't focus on techniques just yet. Just do what you feel. Then we'll have something to go off of."

We threw ourselves into a light spar. True to his name, Crookedpaw struck from odd angles, and if I weren't so experienced, I'd be left feeling off kilter. This is a strange truth of the world. What is in a name? Who defines what it means? The truth is that a name means what we make of it. Maple and Crooked, both seen as insults in youth, we have made our own.