ACORNPAW

It wasn't the same as the old lodge, but it kept the rain off. Miss Mittens and the others made their nests under a clutter of wooden pallets, trees stripped raw and snapped together by Twoleg claws, and now left among the other unidentifiable junk piled at the end of the alleyway.

Sunstar had never said a word, but Acornpaw had a feeling in his gut that the leader knew he still frequented this place. As careful as he was, the guilt of Twolegplace must cling to him. But if he knew, he didn't seem about to punish him.

Just the contrary. He needed him now.

His new mentor had summoned him into the Hollow Ash, after sending the MeadowClan cats away. Acornpaw met his eyes for only a moment before looking down, averting his gaze from the terrible scar.

And he'd entrusted him with a special mission, one he couldn't entrust with anybody else. To find any of the rogues, loners, or sometimes-kittypets of Twolegplace, and promise them fresh-kill for their service.

There was nothing but dust in the lodge now, what all the LeafClan cats called the old Twoleg nest. The time was, Acornpaw could've popped his head in with Goosebelly, and found half a dozen rogues drifting in and out through its doors.

But the old faces had scattered now. It was the way it had to be, he supposed. Snare got new housefolk who shut her up inside, and now she just stared at them forlornly through the window when they came to visit, trying to meow through the glass until her housefolk shooed them off.

She looked sad, but fat and better groomed these days, at least. As for Fang, one day he screwed up the courage to say he was journeying to the other side of Twolegplace, and they all wished him good luck and farewell. Socks though, he just couldn't stick around after things fell apart. He left one night, after joking and smiling the day before like nothing was wrong.

Petey got into some bad blood with some of the tougher rogue gangs that patrolled their streets, and took off. And Dolly, sickness took her, as tough as she was. As tough as old mouse-jerky.

The others, it was familiarity and fear binding them together, fear of drifting apart, even if it meant sticking together in a place as sad as this. They were all he could find to take Sunstar's call to action.

And driven by the hunger in the bellies, they had answered, as reliable as ever.

Nimble hunched over an old crow, pecked clean already. Still, he gnawed at the bone, spitting out black feathers. Three rapid sneezes announced another cat's arrival, as he went clambering over the clutter to join them.

"Well met, little Acornpaw," Sneezy purred. "And Nimble, you're back. Are you and Old Scratch friends yet?"

Nimble spat out more feathers. "For my part, I don't care. I say little." He always said so, thinking saying little made him more wise, all the while speaking in nothings and redundancies. "When time serves, there shall be smiles… but it is what it is."

"I'll catch a good rat and share to make you friends," Sneezy said, beaming with optimism as he sat himself down beside the other rogue. "And we'll all be sworn clanmates in the battles together! Let it be so, Nimble."

Nimble just grumbled under his breath, tail lashing. Still heartsore.

Sneezy flicked his ears. "Well, yes, I know, Mittens and Scratch are mates now… And certainly, she did you wrong, since she'd been promised to you."

"It is what it is!" Nimble growled, certainly not sounding so indifferent.

The others were returning by then, the new couple, Miss Mittens and Old Scratch, laughing together as they turned the corner and started down the alley.

Nimble was to his paws now, hackles up. "Be patient here, Nim," Sneezy hissed in warning, before hailing the approaching rogues with a wave of his tail. "How are you, good Scratchclaw?"

Old Scratch bared her teeth. "Call me that name, base mite? Now, by this claw, I swear I scorn the term!" She swiped through the air, eyes locking with Nimble now. "Nor shall my Mittens keep strays."

The two rogues leaped at each other now, crashing in a clumsy tumble of muddy brown and ash gray fur. Mittens let out a yelp, jumping upright in startlement.

"Nimble, Scratch, don't fight here!" Sneezy pleaded. Acornpaw had to scamper out of the way as they rolled across the greasy cobblestones.

"Pish!" Nimble hissed.

Scratch bellowed, "Pish on you, prick-eared dog!"

"Oh, Nimble, put away your claws!" Miss Mittens cried, trying to weave between them.

"Will you shog off?" Nimble growled with a wild kick, making Mittens duck back with another yelp. "I want you solo."

"You want me to do what? Vile pervert!" Scratch yowled.

Sneezy jumped in now as they broke apart, eyes swiveling between them, nose dribbling. "Hear me, hear what I say. The first cat who strikes again, I'll c-claw them to shreds, as I'm a warrior!"

Nimble sheathed his claws, sitting back. "Fine. I'll cut your throat some other time, as I may."

Scratch looked as if she were about to leap at him again, but Acornpaw's voice arrested her mid-pounce. Faint, nothing but a squeak, but still the rogues froze at his words.

"Stop this," the apprentice said, lashing his tail. "I want to see Goosebelly."

They all sheathed their claws then, averting their eyes. Miss Mittens gave a low moan, gesturing to a path through the heart of the clutter, to where his former mentor made his nest.

"In faith, he's very ill," Sneezy mumbled.

"Yes, I swear," Miss Mittens whispered. "Sunstar has killed his heart. Come, little one…"

She led him through the stacks of wood boards and old skins the Twolegs threw out, to where two colorful planks steepled over an old crate, filled with old musty straw, crow feathers, little green weeds and leaf-bare wildflowers. And overfilling that crate, his pale gray flecked flank rising and falling, there was Goosebelly.

Acornpaw approached his side, closing his nose to the stench of sweat and sickness that overwhelmed the makeshift den. All he could do was sit by the exiled senior warrior's side, listening to the faint bickering of the rogues outside.

"Come, shall I make you two friends?" Sneezy was saying. "We must go to the meadows together. Why should we unsheathe claws to cut each other's throats?"

"Let floods o'erswell and foxes howl for cat-flesh!" Scratch cried, much too dramatically.

By contrast, where Old Scratch was all noise and fire, Nimble had the energy of an old mold-crusted rag. "You'll give me the rat you stole from me last claw-moon?" he hissed.

"Base is the slave that pays," Scratch hissed, and although Acornpaw never bothered to glance behind him, he could hear them clawing at each other's pelts again.

"B-by these claws, the cat that makes the first swipe, I'll k-kill them! Achoo! By these c-claws, I will! Nimble, if you will be friends, the be friends. If you won't, then be enemies with me too…! Please, put up."

"I'll have my rat?" Nimble growled again.

"Most justly repaid," Old Scratch finally relented.

"Well, then it is what it is."

The days seemed to darken again before sunhigh ever truly hit its peak. Acornpaw had been born in the late leaf-fall, old enough for a warrior's name, but he'd never seen leaf-bare outside the snug confines of the nursery until this season.

They sat together around crowfood bones, breath frosting in the cold, until Miss Mittens emerged from the clutter with forlorn green eyes.

"If any of you come of mothers, come quickly to Goosebelly," she mewed as their shadows began to lengthen, light receding from the alleyway. "Ah, poor heart, he's so shaked of a burning fever, it's lamentable to behold… Sweet friends, come to him."

Nimble shivered where he sat, hunching his shoulders. "Sunstar has spread bad health on the warrior, that's the way of it."

"Nim, you speak true," Scratch said, voice low. "His heart is fracted and corroborate…"

"Sunstar might be a good Clan leader, but it must be as it is," Nimble mewed.

Old Scratch stood to beckon them on. "Let's condole the warrior," she mewed, "and we will live."

He had meant to return to camp the night before, mission successful. But Acornpaw stayed with Goosebelly until rosy dawn painted the Horsepaths full of color, and the rogues walked together to the edge of Twolegplace. Almost to the edge of the old lodge, where the old broken down fence gave way to the shadowy depths of the forest.

Once they crossed over into LeafClan territories, who knew when they might return again? With tentative glances around, they slipped through the old, regular entrance to the lodge, and sat together in the dusty room where they all used to laugh and share tongues throughout the night. Stale cat scents, almost all LeafClan now, hung in the chill, musty air.

"Please, honey-sweet," Miss Mittens murmured to her mate. "Let me come with you to LeafClan camp, at least."

"No, for my heart yearns," Old Scratch rasped, gazing up at the rafters lost in gloom, the thick carpets of dust that now covered the floorboards. "Sneezy, be blithe! Nim, rouse your vaunting veins! Acornpaw, bristle your courage up! For Goosebelly is dead, and we must mourn."

"Would I were with him," Sneezy sniffled, blinking tears from his eyes. "Wherever he is. In SkyClan, or… you know, the other place…"

Miss Mittens shook her head. "No, sure, he's not there," she mewed, big green eyes fixing somewhere distant. Her white muzzle had turned silver with the seasons too. "He's in StarClan, if any cat ever went to StarClan's hunting grounds. He made a finer end than any innocent kit.

"He parted just at moonhigh, even at the turning of the tide," she went on, voice growing fainter. "When I saw him fumble at his nest and smile at the ends of his paws, I knew there was only one way. Because his nose was as sharp as a thorn, and he babbled about green fields.

"'What's wrong, Goosebelly?' I asked him. 'What, be of good cheer…!'" Her voice cracked now. "So he cried out, 'StarClan, StarClan, StarClan!' three or four times. Now, to comfort him, told him he should not think of StarClan… I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with such thoughts yet.

"So he told me he needed more feathers for his nest. I reached into his nest and felt his paws, and they were as cold as any stone. Then I felt up to his knees, and upward, and upward…" The tears flowed now, as Miss Mittens ducked her head into Old Scratch's shoulder. "And all was as cold as any stone…!"

"They say he cried out for fresh-kill," Nimble said.

Miss Mittens managed to laugh now, between sobs. "Yes, that he did."

"And about she-cats," Sneezy interjected.

"No, that he did not."

Acornpaw cut in, "Yes, that he did. He said they were evil incarnate."

"Well, he could never abide carnation. It was a color he never liked."

"He said once, his warrior ancestors would get him because of she-cats."

Miss Mittens sighed, "He did, in some sort… touch on she-cats. But then he got weepy-eyed and talked about the warrior code."

Despite the heaviness in his heart, part of him had to smile around at the lodge, remembering all the times they'd spent together there. "Do you remember when he saw a flea sticking on Sneezy's nose, and he said it was a bad spirit burning in the flames?"

Sneezy gave a long sniff. "Well, the fuel's gone that maintained that fire. That's all the warrior glory I got in his training."

Nimble stood with a long stretch. "Shall we shog?" he asked. "The wildcats will leave without us."

Old Scratch nodded. "Come, let's go." She turned to Miss Mittens, brushing her cheek intimately against hers. "Listen, my love. Trust none, for oaths are straws, cat's faiths are mouse-wind, and holdfast is the only dog, my duck." She looked at the rest of them after that little bit of complete nonsense, tail whipping. "My fellow lion-hearts, to the meadows like leeches, to drink blood!"

"I'll leave the blood-drinking to you, if it's all the same," Acornpaw said, bidding Miss Mittens farewell with a brush of his tail. Sneezy copied the gesture, but Nimble stood back, forcing his eyes away.

"I can't, that's the way of it," Nimble said. "But… farewell, Mittens."

"Farewell!" Miss Mittens called after them, smiling through her tears as they clambered out of the window. Acornpaw glanced behind him one last time before they went bounding toward the trees. "Farewell…!"