[TB] TWILIGHT -- Chapter 14 (Patreon)

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Freezing rain quickly stopped Shadepool's plans to clear out the Twoleg garden. The frozen droplets of water shattered against the rocky hollow walls, slamming against the roofs of the dens and halting the thaw that every cat had hoped to be the herald of leafbare's end. Shadepool could hear the sleet from inside the medicine cat's cave, like the hiss of a foreboding snake.

“It happens,” Brackenfur sighed. His tail rested on Shadepool's shoulder. “Chin up; those plants have survived many seasons already - I can't imagine they'll die out from some bad weather.”

“I know,” Shadepool sighed, hanging her head, “I was just hoping this would be over.”

“Things are never so simple,” Brackenfur reminded her gently. “Stay in camp today. There's plenty to do.”

He was right - even in the freezing rain, Shadepool was able to put her paws to work. Firstly, she helped Dustpelt reinforce the ivy roof above her nest, to help keep the water out of both where she slept and the medicine cat's cave. Then, she set about cleaning up their store of any old leaves, sticks, or gravel that their initial cleanings had missed, or had been tracked in on their paws.

Though she was keeping busy physically, her mind was rather bored. This wasn't particularly stimulating work, but there just wasn't a ton of thinking she could do when no cat was sick and herbs were in such short supply.

Past sunhigh, Shadepool was soaking birch bark in the pool that formed at the back of the medicine cat's cave. The freezing rain had passed, leaving the clearing covered in a layer of slick icemelt. The sky was covered in heavy gray clouds and the air was cold, promising more bad weather later in the day.

She tried not to have her paws linger in the icy  water that had trickled in from above, but she had to ensure the bark was soaked through, or else it wouldn't be flexible enough to use. Her pads felt numb, and the cold was creeping up her limbs. Her whiskers trembled.

Think of something else, she thought. Anything else!

She let her mind wander to warmer places, in the hopes of keeping her paws from freezing over completely. She thought of what the territory would be like in greenleaf, full of foliage and sunshine and prey, with the lake water warm at the surface but cozy cool just beneath.

Maybe Graystripe could teach me to swim?

She pulled out her strip of bark and pressed it against the stone, squeezing out the excess water. It wouldn't do if they froze overnight, either. She shook it out with her jaws, the drippings catching in her chest fur.

Shadepool groaned and began rolling and squeezing the bark between her paws one last time. It seemed thoroughly rung out, after, so she placed it with the others to dry and started on the next.

When she plunged her paws into the icy water, her mind wandered again - this time towards Crowflight.

She missed him terribly. Though they hadn't agreed on another meeting time, she wondered if he would sit and wait for her beside the Divide, in case she came to him. She wondered how he was doing in WindClan, how he was coping with his deputy position, and the current status of his Clan.

Shadepool began rolling and squeezing her bark piece again. She wondered if Mudstar was so bad a leader, really - it seemed like he had put his Clan in order during a tragedy. He'd chosen a deputy, he'd taken charge, and none of his warriors seemed upset about it, beyond the obvious loss of Onewhisker and Barkface's maiming.

Sure, there was the matter of a potential war between WindClan and ThunderClan, but Shadepool wasn't sure Tinystar would've reacted much differently if he'd suspected a warrior from another Clan to have killed one of his Clanmates.

Maybe Mudstar is just doing what he thinks is right, too? She frowned. Perhaps that was the problem with that way of thinking - what was right for one cat was certainly not right for another. Maybe that was what Tinystar was trying to tell her last night?

Shadepool set aside her bark roll and had to take a break. She shook out her paws, trying to return feeling to them. Her ears felt stuffed with her own thoughts, now that they were trapped in her head with nowhere else to go. Was this how every other cat felt?

Brackenfur limped over to peer at her work. “Well done,” he mewed. “These will do, for now. Go and get something to eat.”

Shadepool nodded and trotted out of the cave. The ground was hard beneath her paws, slick in places from the freezing rain. The sky was just as dark and ominous as before, and she sighed - she was no RiverClan cat, but she didn't have to be: It was clear that another blizzard was coming their way.

She wasn't the only one to predict this. Dustpelt was working on den walls all over camp, directing every spare warrior to weave more sticks and dead leaves into his constructions in the hopes to stave off the coming weather. She told herself to prepare a poultice of what little feverfew and peppermint they had, to soothe his aching muscles tonight.

I'll slip it to Cinderpelt, so he doesn't have to ask...

The fresh-kill pile was small, and she selected a shrew from it, leaving the bigger pieces for the warriors. She wasn't that hungry, anyway.

As she laid down to eat, she wondered what Sorreltail was up to. She wasn't in camp, but neither was Sun - perhaps they were having that talk Sorreltail had wanted? Shadepool hoped it went well for them.

Her shrew did not last long, so Shadepool took the time to clean herself of bark scraps and whatever debris was clinging to her pelt from all the cleaning she'd done. She tried to reach for Nightfrost, to wonder where he was, but found the thorn barrier in her mind poking back, bending but not breaking. She sighed.

Thinking of her brother only brought his words to mind - that Shadepool was reckless, pulling everyone with her as she did what she thought was right. That Brackenfur and Tinystar had echoed the sentiment didn't help.

Shadepool had never viewed herself as reckless before. She had bent the truth of a sign from StarClan to help WindClan when they needed it most, but that was partially because she worried Brackenfur wouldn't have listened to her - now, though, she wasn't so sure he would've brushed her aside. What would have happened if she had just told him what she had seen from the start?

Maybe none of this would've happened.

Shadepool shook her head. She hated this, so much. Self-reflection was fine and all, but she had no idea how to do it on her own, and it made her feel so miserable!

She opened her jaws to yawn, prepared to head back into the medicine cave - but a familiar tang touched her scent glands, and the fur along her spine rose.

Blood!

As she got to her paws, the thorn tunnel shook out one of the hunting patrols - Nightfrost, Whitewing, and finally Rainwhisker, whose gray pelt was spattered with bright red streaks of blood.

“Great StarClan!” Dustpelt roared. He dropped the branches he was holding in his jaws, shocked by their arrival. “What happened?!”

“Rainwhisker!” wailed Sootfur. He pulled himself out of the warrior's den, streaking across the clearing to meet his brother. He didn't even bother to clear the mud from his paws. “Are you alright?”

“Give them space!” Shadepool ordered. Her heart thudded in her ears. Was Rainwhisker okay?

Dustpelt and Sootfur scooted back, and Mousefur emerged from the apprentice's den with Spiderpaw to observe. Shadepool rushed over to meet the patrol, immediately setting to work while Whitewing explained what had happened:

“We were hunting over near the WindClan border, and we found a dead bird by the Divide,” the white she-cat fretted. “It smelled of WindClan, so we started investigating, when...”

“One of their patrols ambushed us,” Nightfrost finished, his ice-blue eyes darkened. “There were only two of them, but they managed to surprise us - Rainwhisker got hurt, and they took the bird and ran across the tree-bridge.”

“Fox-hearts!” hissed Mousefur. Her tail bushed. “Resorting to ambushes?”

“Did they say anything?” Dustpelt asked, his gaze severe.

“Just to keep off their land,” Whitewing murmured, “or next time, it would be worse.” The white she-cat was trembling, a little. “But I'm not sure what they mean! We haven't done anything that they don't know about! We've certainly not gone on their land!”

Shadepool glanced up from Rainwhisker and met Nightfrost's eye. Her heart sunk at his guilty expression. The Clan must not have been told about what Shadepool had done, exactly, when she'd snuck over their boundary to get a second look at the ambush site. Duskwhisker must not have recognized her scent, or worse, she did and reported her anyway.

She felt her tail tremble. This was my fault.

“Sootfur, go and find Tinystar,” Dustpelt growled. His eyes were burning. “He should be hunting near the outskirts of the territory. Tell him what happened.”

Sootfur nodded. He bounded past the patrol and streaked through the thorn tunnel, tail bushed.

“So, what,” Mousefur grunted when he was gone, “we'll start a fight? Tinystar isn't going to agree to that.”

“They started it,” Dustpelt snarled back. “If they think they can get away with this...”

Shadepool's mouth felt dry. Her paws trembled against Rainwhisker's pelt. It's my fault, she thought, staring at the scratches on the Clanmate's body. Oh, StarClan, forgive me!

“Is he okay?” Nightfrost asked.

Shadepool swallowed. “He, uh... He'll be okay.” She lifted her muzzle from her Clanmate. “It's mostly superficial.”

“It doesn't feel superficial,” Rainwhisker groaned.

“You've got a deep cut by your eye, but everything else should heal easily after it's been cleaned,” Shadepool assured him. She glanced at Spiderpaw and mewed, “Take him to Brackenfur while I look over the others.”

Spiderpaw was still shocked, but she obeyed after Mousefur nudged her forward. With the apprentice gone, Mousefur and Dustpelt bent their heads together to continue their conversation, leaving Shadepool to look over Whitewing and Nightfrost.

Both were unharmed, thankfully - Whitewing had a scratch on her muzzle, but it wasn't deep, and it looked worse than it was on her white pelt. Nightfrost had lost some fur on his flank. Shadepool cleared them both, telling Whitewing to see if Brackenfur had anything for her scratch before going to rest.

Her littermate, however, she pulled aside, away from the older warriors. Her heart was in her throat, but she had to know: “Was Crowflight with them?”.

Nightfrost sighed, and shook his head. “No.”

Shadepool trembled with some relief - at least her brother hadn't had to fight a close friend. How long will it be until he does?

“It was Webfoot and Softbreeze,” Nightfrost reported, “and they were just as quick as I said - they hit Rainwhisker and then ran away as fast as they could, getting a few blows on us along the way.”

“That's a coward's tactic!” Shadepool hissed. The fur along her spine lifted. “Crowflight would never authorize that.”

“Maybe not him,” Nightfrost muttered, “but someone did.”

That meant it was probably Mudstar, which meant that Crowflight likely fought the decision. Unless the pair had decided to do this on their own, which Shadepool couldn't imagine - the Divide was a risky place to attack, and Crowflight did not have the heart of a coward. She regretted thinking favorably of Mudstar for even a moment, earlier.

Shadepool reached for her brother again, longing to know his true feelings - but he was just as blocked off as before. She tried pulling at the thorns, wanting them undone; but found they were too tight to untangle. How was that? She had been the one to put them up!

Nightfrost grimaced before her, as if he could feel her efforts.

“It sucks, doesn't it?” he grumbled. “Not knowing what I'm thinking?”

Shadepool pulled away, defeated. “Nightfrost, I'm sorry. Please...”

“Are you?” Nightfrost wondered, his voice low. He tilted his head, and there was pain in his eyes. “I don't know if I believe that, yet.”

Shadepool swallowed. She stared at her brother and wondered for the first time if he was the one preventing her from tearing down what she had made. It goes both ways, he'd said. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that this was the case.

She stared helplessly at her brother. But why?

“This will be good for us,” Nightfrost muttered, “to see the world the way everyone else does. I think you need that, Shadepool.”

Shadepool quailed. “But what about you?” she whispered. She stared into his eyes. Doesn't it hurt you, too? Why would he want this if it was making him miserable, too?

Nightfrost's gaze was hard to read, something it had never been before. It made Shadepool want to wail.

“You'd be shocked just how much of it all was you, Shade,” he whispered. He brushed past her, adding, “Maybe now you'll listen when I speak.”

Shadepool felt her brother pad away. She was grateful for the fact that Dustpelt and Mousefur couldn't see her - there was no way she could explain what had just happened, or the immense hurt on her face.

Her heart fluttered in her chest, wanting to escape. What does he mean by that? she thought, frantically. Have I actually been silencing him? She didn't want to be mad at her brother anymore, but now it seemed like, somewhere during the course of their fight, he was determined to continue being upset with her, when it was supposed to be the other way around.

Right?

Numbly, she got to her paws and headed for the medicine cave. Brackenfur would need help, and there wasn't anything she could do out here, not for her Clanmates or her brother.

Snow began to fall once more, and Shadepool felt so very alone.