Knowledge Passed Down (c)

Thalia had been pacing. Not an uncommon activity for her, especially lately- she needed to keep her paws busy somehow, and eventually she ran out of flowers to weave, so she'd had to find alternate methods of keeping busy.

As if by chance, an apprentice knocked into her- providing just such an opportunity. Before she could open her mouth to say anything, the young apprentice- Honeypaw, her mind supplied after a moment, Iceheart's apprentice- began to speak.

Eventually, she finally managed to get a word in. "I'm Thalia, yes..." It was an odd and unfamiliar but not unwelcome experience; that a cat she didn't know well was excited to see her. "You've wanted to talk to me? That's very kind of you. There's nowhere I need to be right now, so go ahead."

Truthfully, she'd been quite curious about Iceheart's apprentice. This was an opportunity to satisfy her own curiosity just as much as Honeypaw's.

Suffice it to say, Thalia was not prepared for the onslaught of questions that the young apprentice threw her way. "R-right...! Well, Iceheart... When she was apprenticed to me, she was already an older apprentice," she began, deciding to start with the first question. "So you more or less know the answer. Maybe she was different to the cats younger than her, though...? I wouldn't know. She was... Quieter, I think. More reserved. We were all struggling with something at the time."

Honeypaw knew. Honeypaw had lived through it, too. So Thalia didn't dwell on ShadowClan's shared demons for long. "Yes, we still talk and spend time together. I'd like to think we're fairly close... You'd have to ask her thoughts on that," the warrior mused.

The apprentice's next words threw her, though. Cool wasn't something Thalia had associated with herself in... A long time. Not since her younger days, when she still believed so strongly in herself under Asylum's guidance; in strength and power and the safety she could bring. It was strange that someone could see her now, so far removed from that life (and yet, with her fox pelt still drawn over her head from time to time, with the knowledge passed down to her, it didn't feel that far at all).

"Um... I like hunting," she offered. "I'm not very good at it, though, so I usually help out around camp instead. Otherwise... I like collecting herbs and flowers." That, at least, she was good at- moons of practice meant she knew, generally, what was meant for the medicine den and what she could keep for herself. She didn't have much knowledge of the specifics, though she caught pieces here and there. "Mostly I like... Making things with them. Flower crowns, usually."

She felt decidedly awkward and out of her element. It was almost nostalgic, it had been some time since she felt this out of place. "Um... What about you? What do you like to do, Honeypaw?"

Thalia purred as Honeypaw showed interest in her hobby, nodding. "It's not that difficult, really. I'd be happy to teach you sometime! I'd offer now, but... I ran out of flowers a little while ago," she admitted. "They don't usually last very long, since I can get a bit carried away..."

She listened intently as the apprentice listed off his own hobbies. Sparring, but not fighting... It made sense, she supposed. "The sun is nice, isn't it? Sometimes I like watching the sunset over the marsh," she whispered, as if it were a secret. "It's best if you can find somewhere with clearer water, though... It's so pretty."

"Anything you like is good for it, if the stems are long enough," Thalia informed the apprentice. "Well, anything the medicine cats don't need, anyway... It took me a while to figure that one out, but it means I'm still helping the Clan when I go out to gather them! Of course, I still don't know what most of them do... But I know which ones I can keep, so that's enough, isn't it?"

Truth be told, she would have loved to learn to heal; she could have seen herself pursuing that path, if not for the way the Clans kept their healers separate from the rest. Maybe, if things were different... But this was ShadowClan, and it was her home for now, and she had tried to make her peace with that. To live in the moment and accept what didn't need to change.

Still, some days the ways she'd failed to truly be one of them started to weigh on her, if she let herself dwell on it. So, she tried not to. "Is there anything you've ever wanted to learn? Aside from this, I mean."

"Swimming could be useful," Thalia mused. "The river doesn't reach us, but the marshes can get pretty deep... And the history! I love listening to the elders talk about the history of the Clans," she purred, her genuine excitement for the subject shining through. "The things they've faced... Everything they've survived... It keeps hope alive, I think. Even the darkest, most dangerous days the cats before us lived through have ended with the return of the light. I... I really like the stories."

She likes them because it's a way to belong. She is not ShadowClan in blood, but she is halfway theirs in heart and spirit; she can know their history like her own reflection, like the marsh beneath her paws, like the fox pelt that lines her nest or covers her face. Like the flowers she bundles and delivers to the medicine den, and weaves into delicate circles.

She does not say this.

"It's nice," she says instead, "to be a part of something."

(She is one small part of a great many things, but few and far between are ones she speaks of freely.)