[TB] TWILIGHT -- Chapter 19 (Patreon)

<< INDEX || Chapter 18 || Chapter 19 || Chapter 20 || From the Beginning >>

Shadepool ran as fast as she could, splashing through the marshy shoreline of RiverClan and ShadowClan territory, leaping the stream that split ShadowClan from ThunderClan, and careening along the treeline of her own land, the wind howling in her ears. She might've taken the route through the moorland, which would've been faster, but the fight at the Gathering was already so much - WindClan didn't need any more provocation. She had enough sense to keep her scent off their land.

By the time she hit the Divide, her paws were on fire, and the sky was bright with the sunrise. There was absolutely no way she could stop, though - if she even so much as tried to catch her breath, she knew she would collapse. It felt like her paws had wings, and she flew upstream, fueled by desperation and determination.

Barkface was dead, and she had to find him.

As she left ThunderClan territory and entered the uplands, her strength began to flag, and she felt faint. Would StarClan even speak to her in daylight? It didn't matter - she would lay by the Moonpool until she reached someone, anyone, even if it took a moon's worth of nights.

Shadepool tore through the hawthorn and stumbled ungracefully down the ridge, her sweaty paws slipping against the ancient pawprints embedded in the stone. She finally stopped at the shore of the Moonpool - in the daylight, she finally noticed that the sand here was black, the complete opposite of the pale cream color by the lakeshore.

Her limbs trembled, unable to support her. Her head throbbed, and her mind blanked, bees buzzing high-pitched deep in her ear fur. Dizzy from the exertion, she found it impossible to catch her breath, and she fell onto her side, the black sands below her softening the blow. Her nose splashed into the Moonpool, and all went dark.

———————————————————

She was in a world devoid of scent and sound and sight, sinking as if she had fallen into the lake. She could breathe, but moving her limbs felt like too much work - even blinking hurt, though staring into the black void made her eyes ache and feel heavy.

Shadepool wondered where she was. She was aware enough to know that she was dreaming but not yet able to awaken. Was this what happened when one visited StarClan in the daylight? Or had they finally decided not to see her because she had broken a fundamental rule of the medicine cats?

Was she dead?

No, Shadepool thought. Not dead. Just tired. So very tired...

She closed her eyes.

———————————————————

When Shadepool opened her eyes, she guessed she was in StarClan.

It was not any place she had ever seen before - she was at the bottom of a massive hollow, as if some great creature had scooped out the earth with its paw long ago and never bothered to put it back. It reminded her of the ThunderClan camp, but the walls here were more naturally sloped and covered in greenery, rather than the tall, straight-cut stone she had come to call home.

Water lapped at her pelt. Shadepool craned her neck around and saw that she was lying at the shore of a massive pool of water which lay settled at the bottom of the scoop. Its surface reflected the cosmic swirl above, stars so close that Shadepool could taste them if she stuck out her tongue.

Her pelt prickled. I made it!

Shadepool got to her paws. She opened her jaws to taste the air but got little more than the usual soft, greenleaf scents of StarClan - there was no one in sight, either.

Tail twisting, Shadepool wondered where Barkface might be. StarClan's hunting grounds might as well be infinite, for all she knew, and there were no borders here - he could be anywhere, and she didn't have an eternity to try and find him.

What do I do? she wondered. Normally, by now, some StarClan spirit would have sought her out. It felt eerie to be here all alone.

Just as she was about to give up hope, the dense foliage at the top of the hollow rustled. Out from a massive clump of ferns stepped a delicate tortoiseshell she-cat, her amber eyes sharp and bright. Shadepool recognized her instantly - Spottedleaf!

Shadepool's heart leaped. Spottedleaf was here! That eased some of her nerves - she hadn't wanted to wander the stars, interrogating cats she had never met nor heard of before. She wouldn't have to fumble to find Barkface's whereabouts, not with Spottedleaf here.

Spottedleaf padded her way down the slope, her gaze focused and intent like a hunter fixed on prey. Shadepool was sure the ThunderClan medicine cat would've noticed her by now, but strangely, Spottedleaf was moving as if no one else was there at all. Shadepool's hope turned to worry.

Spottedleaf paused at the pool's edge, a few tail-lengths away from Shadepool. Still, nothing. Not even a twitch of an ear to acknowledge that Shadepool was there.

“Spottedleaf?” Shadepool decided to try speaking. Perhaps she was just too focused?

Spottedleaf did not answer. The tortoiseshell took a deep breath, then looked up at the stars, her eyes wide and unblinking.

Shadepool's pelt rippled uncomfortably. Spottedleaf had never ignored her like this. She looked down at her own paws and tested them against the ground, pressing hard. She felt solid and real, and she could feel the world around her - so why was Spottedleaf acting like she wasn't there?

“Spottedleaf, it's me, Shadepool,” she tried again, firming her voice, speaking a little louder. She drew a step closer. “Are you okay?”

Spottedleaf said nothing. She stared up at the sky, eyes open like an owl's.

Shadepool drew closer. Was she having a vision? Was Shadepool intruding on a StarClan cat receiving a prophecy?

Now she was a whiskerlength away, able to count the hairs on Spottedleaf's pelt, smell her cloyingly sweet scent, and see the stars spangling her body. The way she sat, so still, unmoving, made her seem like a cat made of stone. Her body wasn't even twitching to breathe.

Shadepool was thoroughly creeped out. “S-Stop it, Spottedleaf,” she mumbled. “Please...”

She reached out and touched Spottedleaf's shoulder with her paw.

Spottedleaf jerked, screeching as if she had been struck by a devastating blow. She twisted away, claws unsheathed, sides heaving with adrenaline. Her eyes were lit with aggression and fury as they bored into Shadepool as if she were a badger swallowing a litter of kits in her sight.

Shadepool stared at her, shocked, numbed by the spirit's sudden intensity.

“What are you doing here?” Spottedleaf snarled.

Shadepool flattened her ears. “I-I...” She swallowed. “I just wanted to know where Barkface is!”

“Barkface?” Spottedleaf sounded as if she had never heard the name before. Her tail whisked through the air.

Shadepool narrowed her eyes. “Barkface, yes,” she repeated. Shadepool steadied her breath. “He died two nights ago - three, now, I think. I need to know if his spirit made it to StarClan or if it didn't, like Onewhisker's. If he's here, I need to speak with him!”

“Oh,” Spottedleaf grunted. Her spine unbent and her posture relaxed, her fur lying flat. “That.”

Shadepool's ears rang at how dismissive her tone was. “Yes, that,” Shadepool insisted. She stared at Spottedleaf, confused. She repeated: “Do you know where he is?”

“I haven't looked,” Spottedleaf answered simply.

Shadepool's stomach twisted. “How have you not looked?” Her voice was a strained hiss. She didn't want to be outwardly frustrated with a cat from StarClan, but this was just baffling!

“It's pointless,” Spottedleaf replied, her tone glib. “The whole thing. A waste of time. There are far more important things to do.”

Shadepool bristled incredulously. She looked around herself again - the vibrant colors, the smell of starlight - this was StarClan, alright, so why did it seem like Spottedleaf wasn't Spottedleaf?

“Where is Yellowfang?” Shadepool demanded. If Spottedleaf was going to act like this, then Yellowfang was her best bet for answers.

Spottedleaf was sitting down on her haunches again. “Why bother with Yellowfang?” she wondered. Her tail twitched. “Why bother with a lost spirit? There are far more important things...”

“What could be more important than this?!” Shadepool snapped. Annoyance flashed in her pelt. “Spirits who should be here are going missing!”

Spottedleaf stared Shadepool in the eye. The face that had once given Shadepool comfort in her days as a young apprentice now looked strange, alien. It was Spottedleaf, but not, and it seemed as though Spottedleaf was staring right through her.

“The Omen,” Spottedleaf meowed gravely. “Have you not heard it?”

Shadepool blinked. “An omen?” she repeated. Was this what was making Spottedleaf act so consumed? “I've not heard of this. If there was an omen, why haven't we medicine cats been told?”

Spottedleaf's muzzle twitched. “Yellowfang,” she growled. The fur along her spine lifted again. She spoke quick and snappy: “She thinks I'm being obsessive. But she doesn't see what I see. She doesn't know what I know!”

Shadepool took a step back, nervous. The look in Spottedleaf's eye was wild and dangerous.

“Yellowfang wants to wait, wants to learn more,” Spottedleaf meowed on, her tail lashing, “but I know that we can't afford to wait. We must act. I'm the only one who truly understands the Omen - the only one who wants to do something about it!”

The StarClan she-cat's claws were digging into the soft earth surrounding the pool, and Shadepool felt her legs tremble. Was Spottedleaf going to attack her?

“The Eclipse is coming,” Spottedleaf raved. Her eyes were wide to their whites now. “The Four will come. Before there is peace, blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red! Before there is peace, the Omen must be fulfilled!”

“Spottedleaf, y-you're not making any sense,” Shadepool mumbled. She took another pace back, her tail bushed with fear. She had never seen any cat behave this way, let alone one from StarClan.

Spottedleaf did not stop: “There will be Four, blood of hatred and blood of hope, who hold the power of the stars in their paws! There will be Four, and they will sunder the heavens!”

Shadepool's ears rang as if she had taken a blow to the head. The words were dizzying, coming in a flurry as Spottedleaf ranted on and on, making very little sense.

“I see it in your eyes!” Spottedleaf said, leaning close to Shadepool. “Hope! Hope!” Spottedleaf's muzzle thrust close to Shadepool's. “The hope is in your eyes!”

Shadepool lurched back, stumbling over her own paws in an effort to put distance between herself and this deranged she-cat. “What is wrong with you?!” she screeched.

Spottedleaf did not look affected - in fact, she was still staring at where Shadepool had been and not where she was now. Spottedleaf just kept repeating the words over and over, her pupils thin as a claw.

Eyes stinging and belly knotted, Shadepool turned and fled. She ran up the slope until she couldn't hear Spottedleaf's voice any longer, crashing into a thicket of boxwood and cowering beneath its cover. She crouched there, trembling, claws stuck in the loamy earth.

Her heart felt like it had been pierced with thorns, gripped tight by despair. Spottedleaf had been her guide since she had been able to dream, so soft and gentle and sweet - the cat that had spoken to her now seemed almost possessed, a caricature of that beloved she-cat who had once guided and taught her. Shadepool wanted to sob.

“Shadepool?” a thick, raspy voice called. “Shadepool, is that you?”

Shadepool whimpered, “I'm here.”

It was Yellowfang - Shadepool exhaled. Thank StarClan, it was Yellowfang.

The old she-cat crouched down to peer into the boxwood, her dark orange eyes glittering with sympathy.

“So,” she wheezed, “you met Spottedleaf, hm?”

Shadepool could only nod.

Yellowfang sighed. “I'm so sorry, little one,” she murmured. “Ever since she heard that Omen, she's become impossible to talk to. No one's sure of what's happened to her.”

Shadepool trembled. How could the sweet Spottedleaf she had known since the beginning of her training become so twisted by some omen?

“H-Has this ever happened before?” she asked.

Yellowfang grimaced. “Kind of.” She wiggled into the boxwood and wrapped her tail around Shadepool's trembling body, drawing her close like a kit. “Once, when I was young, there was a medicine cat that saw too many prophecies and omens at once. He went a bit mad from it, true, but he seemed to have a better handle on it than Spottedleaf does.”

Shadepool wasn't sure that made her feel better. She pressed herself into the tangle of Yellowfang's fur. “I just came here to find Barkface. I didn't think...”

“Barkface?” Yellowfang repeated. Her body shivered. “Oh, little one, I'm so sorry...”

“He's not here, is he?” Shadepool guessed.

Yellowfang shook her head.

“Do you know what happened?” Shadepool asked. After her encounter with Spottedleaf, Shadepool was too rattled to even be surprised. “Was it like what happened to Onewhisker?”

“Tallstar tried again, with others this time,” Yellowfang rasped. “But Barkface's spirit was gone.”

“How can that be?” Shadepool whispered. Horror finally managed to turn her body cold through the shock. “How can that happen twice?”

“The only thing we can think of is that something else laid claim to their spirits before we could,” Yellowfang grunted. Her tail wound closer, perhaps in hopes of warming Shadepool.

She shivered, regardless. “Is that possible?”

Yellowfang's eyes darkened. “When a Clan cat is born, so long as they believe in StarClan, we can guide them here - but remember that faith is complicated, little one, and not all spirits are so kind as we are.”

“The shadow-cats,” Shadepool guessed. She dug her claws into the dirt. “It has to be them.”

Yellowfang frowned. “We're beginning to think the same.”

“Can't you stop them?” Shadepool wondered. “You're StarClan!”

Yellowfang snorted. “'We're StarClan!'” she chortled, choking sound barely emulating laughter. “We're not all-powerful, Shadepool!”

Shadepool stared at Yellowfang, wide-eyed. “What are you saying?” she whispered.

“I'm saying that what's happening is something we don't know how to handle,” Yellowfang grumbled, her muzzle rankling. “We'll have to figure this one out together. It goes both ways and all that.”

“You can't help us.”Shadepool trembled to her toes. “I came here for nothing,” she whispered.

“Not nothing,” Yellowfang insisted. She put a broad paw over Shadepool's. “You came for answers, and you got them - you just don't like them and don't know what to do with them. Neither do we. This is something we might not understand for a long time.”

That didn't make Shadepool feel any better. “I'm so tired of doing all this for nothing,” she said bitterly.

Yellowfang made a gentle noise in her throat and licked Shadepool between her ears. “I am here, little one,” she mumbled. “I will always be here, no matter what.”

The dream was slipping, and Shadepool could feel it. She wanted to stay with Yellowfang for a while longer, but she knew she couldn't. So she closed her eyes and let herself drift away, the feel of Yellowfang's tongue against her pelt soothing her to the waking world.