HAWKWING
A lean squirrel swung from Hawkwing's jaws, too lean for the coming leaf-bare. It had been old and slow, not able to escape his pounce even when he'd given himself away with the crunch of leaves beneath his feet.
He gave silent thanks to StarClan for its life as he returned to camp, the clouded night sky blushing shades of gold and red. No cat so much as looked in his direction as he padded across the green hollow to deposit his fresh-kill on the pile, heads together or low to the ground.
Owlswoop sat nearby over a dead mouse, a quick three-bite morsel, but he left it untouched at his paws.
"How now, Hawkwing?" Owlswoop asked, voice creaky with exhaustion. "Good hunting?"
"How is Rowanstar?" Hawkwing pressed, cutting straight to the point.
"Exceeding well," Owlswoop sighed, glancing up to the bloodied dawn. "His worries are all over."
He already feared the worst, written bold across the face of every LeafClan warrior, and Owlswoop's pained glance was merely confirmation. "I hope, not dead…"
"He's walked the way of nature, and to our purposes, he lives no more."
Hawkwing felt his heart plummet, hackles rising. The very outcome he'd dreaded. "I wish he'd called me with him to Silverpelt," he said through gritted teeth. "The service I did during his life has left me open to all sorts of injuries now. "
"Indeed, I don't think our young deputy cares much for you," Owlswoop murmured, keeping his voice low to not be overheard. That young deputy, the scar-faced golden tom he'd been herding around and correcting like a mother goose since the feather-brain was old enough to leave the nursery on his own four legs, would be their leader now.
"I know he does not," Hawkwing hissed. He had to brace himself for the coming times, whatever that would mean for him. It couldn't be any worse than he'd drawn up in his imagination.
Other cats approached the fresh-kill pile; reddish Sorreltail, dusky ginger Honeypad, golden brown Ryebreeze with her belly swollen with kits.
"Here comes dead Rowanstar's litter," Owlswoop said with a heavy glance in their direction. The senior warrior's own daughter, Swiftstorm, padded among them. "I wish their brother had the temperament of the worst of those three."
Good StarClan, Hawkwing thought in silent prayer, biting on his tongue. I fear all will be overturned.
The young warriors came within earshot then, gathering in a loose circle around the fresh-kill pile. "Good morrow, Owlswoop, Hawkwing, good morrow," Sorreltail said with nods of greeting.
"Good morrow," Ryebreeze and Honeypad each added quietly, but he could hear the hollowness in their voice, the fatigue in their eyes.
After a silent moment, Sorreltail managed a weak, sad grin. "We meet like cats that forgot how to meow."
"We remember," Owlswoop managed, "but the subject is too heavy for much talk now."
"Well, peace be with him, that has made us heavy," Sorreltail said, dipping his head.
"Peace be with us, lest we be heavier," Hawkwing sighed now, unable to help himself.
"Hawkwing, we all know you have lost a friend," Honeypad said quietly. "And I can see your sorrow runs deep."
"Although no cat knows what to expect now, the expectations for you must be coldest," Sorreltail said with a pitying glance. "I'm all the sorrier; I wish it were otherwise."
"Well, now you must speak kindly of old Goosebelly," Ryebreeze said with a twitch of her whiskers. "As much as that must pain you."
"Everything I did, I did in honor, totally impartial," Hawkwing said, glancing at each of them helplessly. The sting had faded, but he wouldn't forget the lash of the deputy's claws in a hurry. "And you'll never see me beg for forgiveness for upholding the code."
If truth, honesty, and innocence did not shield him against this new leader… Hawkwing would simply have to join Rowanstar in StarClan, and tell him who sent him.
Where StarClan took one life at sunup, another one was born by sunhigh. The air was crisp and cold, broken by the wailing of a queen, and then the high pitched mewling of a newborn kit. He didn't think the day could get more exhausting, when he first heard the frantic excitement around the mouth of the nursery.
Ryebreeze was in there now, Dovefeather and Mousespots with her, Murkpool and little Elmpaw. Her mate Bluenose paced outside the den, looking like a cat with his tail on fire, while warriors and apprentices alike entertained Dovefeather's kits. Bantering about names, or petting on pelt colors.
Some said it was a sign that the kit was born only hours after Rowanstar had passed to Silverpelt. His body still laid in the Hollow Ash, waiting to be prepared for the night's vigil and burial. But there was very little trace of Ryebreeze in her newborn kit, when Hawkwing was given a chance to greet his new clanmate.
Frostkit was a snowy white bundle that favored his father's looks, the only one of his litter.
When Sunfire came to the mouth of the nursery, ducking through the curtain of ferns and fragrant grass, Hawkwing was quick to move to the exit. But the deputy stopped him with a tap of his tail, barely looking at him.
"I'll have you with me, when I go to Standing Stones," he mewed, and dismissing him, moved to introduce himself to his newborn kin.
Murkpool fed him a bundle of bitter, truly horrible herbs that he fought not to hack up. But it would be the medicine cat apprentice who would escort them to the sacred pool, on the holy island beyond all Clan territories.
Along with Elmpaw, Sorreltail and Honeypad gathered at the camp entrance with him, their trepidation clear in their faces, even as they waited patiently for their leader.
"My littermates," Sunfire greeted as he approached, sweeping them with his good eye. The other side of his face was scarred bald, his pupils mismatched from the seasons-old wound. "You mix your sadness with some fear."
They exchanged a wordless glance, but he cut in before Sorreltail could open his mouth to interject.
"Keep being sad. It becomes you," he said teasingly. "You wear sorrow so fashionably I'll put it on myself, and wear it in my heart. Be sad, but remember we're kin. You can lay your grief and worries on me, as your brother, and your leader. And in time, we'll turn every tear into an hour of happiness."
Honeypad said, "We wouldn't hope otherwise."
"Our leader," Sorreltail said with a weak grin.
"The rank doesn't suit me as easily as you think."
Sunfire led them out of the bramble tunnel, to the watching eyes of the Clan, through the drooping, misty forest. A path of gold leaves underfoot stretched down along the swollen, silver river, its waters a raging torrent.
Clawtower rose and passed, the sun turning bloody again as it began to sink in the distance. The taste of salt hit his senses as they crossed over scrubby plains, to sandy hills tossed with driftwood, each breath of wind a dagger of ice through his fur.
The sun-drown-place.
They stopped at the edge of the earth, where the dark poison water lapped against the land, and seabirds floated and bobbed around in the darkening sky. Tiny birds raced on stick-thin legs across the sand, fleas jumping, the crash of waves a constant roar up and down the coastline.
Ahead, many tree-lengths into the water, a dark wooded island rose out from the black expanse. The tide would recede at sundown, Elmpaw told them. As Sorreltail and Honeypad went wandering aimlessly down the barren strip of land, forbidden to hunt, Hawkwing stood alone at the edge of the water, staring into the horizon. A thin band of gold, beneath layers of red and violet.
The last time he had been here, it was with another leader. Rowanstar, and Elderheart, and Beethorn, and Shrikepaw. All dead now.
"They all look strangely at me," Sunfire said from behind him, almost making Hawkwing jump out of his fur. "You, most of all. You're assured I hate you, I think."
Hawkwing felt his hackles rise. "I'm assured, if I'm judged rightly, you have no good reason to hate me."
"No?" Sunfire said, walking up to the water's edge alongside him. It was his evil eye that turned on him now, the hideous scar that faced him. "How might a leader of LeafClan forget all the indignities you laid on me? What insults, threats, and attacking your own deputy? Was that easy? Should we just wash our paws and forget?"
He had to choose his words carefully. But more importantly, he had to speak honestly. Speak the truth. LeafClan, and Sunfire needed it.
"I did what the warrior code told me to do," Hawkwing said. "What Rowanstar would have ordered me to do, if he knew. And while I carried out my duties, you stood in my way, and struck me in my seat of judgment."
He tapped his own head with a light paw.
"If what I did was wrong, then now that you are leader of LeafClan, will you tolerate your warriors' disobedience? Will you let them skip patrols, protect rogues hunting on our territory? You will take your father's place now. Imagine a son of yours, in your place, disobeying your command. And the leader's word is the warrior code. So now, as our leader, tell me what I did that misbecame my place."
Sunfire stared out over the water, not answering at first. "You're right, and judge this well," he said at long last. "And I wish you serve our Clan long enough to punish a misbehaving son of mine, in that case. You stood up to me even despite my rank, and I ask that you do so for me again and again."
The golden tom turned to look at Hawkwing fully now. "My father is gone. You will be a father to my youth, and you will always have my ear, and I will speak with your voice. I need your friendship, just as my father relied on your friendship."
It was all Hawkwing could do, but to bow his head in respect.
Sundown came, fire streaking across the black water. The island had become a green hill, as they padded together over the dark, wet earth.
The Moonshard gleamed within the heart of the wild, tangled grove, gleaming silverstone draped with moss. Tendrils of fog drifted in through the trees as they stood at the edge of the sacred pool. Above, the star-strewn night sky was perfectly mirrored on the water's glassy surface.
He couldn't mask his fear, the terrible awe at this place where his warrior ancestors were closest. Their presence could be felt on every breath, and every muscle in his body screamed at him to turn and run, before he was trapped here by the dark waters.
Sunfire walked to the very edge of the pool before turning to them.
"Don't believe my words," he told them, looking at Honeypad, Sorreltail, Elmpaw, and Hawkwing in turn. "Just trust in what I do next. My passions go with my father to his grave. And his spirit will be alive in me, to mock the expectation of the forest. To frustrate prophecies, and raze our rotten opinion of everyone who knows me, or of me. I lived for myself until now, but now I will only live for LeafClan. And I will need all of you around me to be successful.
"And if StarClan approves my good intent, I swear to you, I'll prove everyone wrong."
He turned, bounding across the dark stepping stones, toward the splinter of otherworldly sharpness. It seemed like moonlight captured within a fragment of ice, Sunfire's face reflected in the surface as he drank from the pool and turned to approach.
Sunfire touched his nose to the Moonshard, closing his eyes, and was no more.