Wolfpaw’s Moonstone Journey

Briarthorn still felt uneasy about assuming the duties of SkyClan’s leadership, but she knew it was a duty she needed to fulfill, and so she did. That was why she now found herself at highstones, with Wolfpaw in tow. Beechfang and Dovefrost had been kind enough to help pull together bundles of traveling herbs for the young apprentices that needed to make their journey to speak with StarClan, for which Briarthorn was grateful. As she approached the mothermouth, though, she grew a bit concerned. It had been moons since she traveled through these tunnels, and it was with Mothglow’s assistance. Taking a deep breath, she looked to Wolfpaw and mewed, ”Stay as close to me as you comfortably can. Once we get to the moonstone, touch your nose to it and StarClan will greet you. It’ll be out of my paws, then.” With a quick nod of reassurance, she ducked into the tunnel and began walking. Eventually, the light of the moonstone shone brightly, and Briarthorn turned to face Wolfpaw. Gesturing with her tail, she motioned for the she-cat to do as she’d instructed.

Wolfpaw hadn't complained about the taste of the traveling herbs, though she was sure her face had said it all. That her parents seemed to think they were a good thing, she was absolutely sure was some sort of twisted former-medicine-cat sense of humor, but for once she hadn't argued. She was eager to get out of camp and see territory that wasn't Skyclan's, even if they were only passing through. She felt a mix of excitement and trepidation as the ground below became rocky, the steepening slopes allowing her to look back over the forest territories in the distance. The sun was slipping below the horizon at last, throwing the world around them into deep shadows, and Wolfpaw was glad to stick near her much older clanmate. Briarthorn wasn't her grandmother, though she was her grandfather's mate. They'd never interacted much, and from what little she had seen of Beechfang and Briarthorn around camp, things were... Awkward. Not truly friendly, but not hostile either. She'd wondered at the hint of shame or guilt that she would sometimes see in Beechfang's expression, there was obviously something going on between the two older she-cats, but Wolfpaw didn't have the nerve to ask either of them. Briarthorn was intimidating. Beechfang was intimidating. Even when they weren't trying to be. Strangely, it was comforting now, as she stuck close to the brown tabby she-cat as she led her through the dark, narrow, almost claustrophobic tunnels. If there was anything in there, she could be sure that Briarthorn would handle it. When they finally reached the moonstone, glowing brightly, Wolfpaw couldn't help but take a moment to be a little awestruck, eyes wide as she faced the glowing stone. Touching her nose to it and falling asleep to speak with the stars was a strange thing to do, but she'd heard her parents speak of it briefly before. Beechfang with bitter disdain, Dovefrost with more respect. Clearly then, there was some sort of power to it. Taking a steadying breath, the pale tabby and white apprentice stepped forward to do as instructed, eyes closing as she laid on the floor. The moonstone was icy against her nose, and despite the unfamiliar environment she was asleep faster than she would've thought.

Stars hovered in their places, a quiet hum filling the endless sky. It was a tranquil note, the teeming of life beyond. A willowy calico she-cat approached Wolfpaw, her paws neat and her pelt healthy.

“Wolfpaw. I knew your mother Beechfang as a friend, your great-grandfather Wolfstar as my leader. Call me Leaf-frost.”

The she-cat looked at the apprentice in front of her. She had died before being able to take an apprentice; in many ways, this was her chance at putting her paw back in SkyClan.

“Do you have a question for me?”

There was no point in blathering on about history that the apprentice couldn’t be asked to care about. The thought of rambling on made Leaf-frost’s eyes roll.

Almost as much as her friend confessing to murder at a Gathering, and the resulting chaos from there, but Leaf-frost was pretty sure Wolfpaw didn’t care about that either.

Wolfpaw blinked awake to an unfamiliar starry landscape. Wide-eyed as she glanced around and sat up, she couldn't help but jump slightly at the appearance of a willowy calico. Her fur shimmered with starlight just as her newfound surroundings did, and while she carried the typical strong haunches of a Skyclanner, Wolfpaw had never seen her before.

The stranger didn't leave her waiting long for an introduction, at least. Leaffrost. So she was Beechfang's friend, "...Mom has friends?" Her whiskers twitched. It was a strange thought, considering what she'd seen and heard. The gathering, the murder, the tension even within Skyclan. The disparaging comments towards Starclan.

Questions, right. Now that she was here, Wolfpaw honestly wasn't sure what to ask about or where to even start. She didn't know this cat, though clearly Leaffrost had been watching things if she recognized her friends' daughter.

"Wolfstar?" Wolfpaw knew she was named after him, but little else. "What was that like? Were things in the clan always so- so chaotic?"

Leaf-frost cackled at the comment. “She was great! I didn’t talk to her as much as I should have, if I knew what little time I had. I felt like I could have told her anything. You know, I can’t condone murder, that’s the other side of the sky. But very few things happen just because.”

So she did want to know about Wolfstar. Leaf-frost had no idea how to explain to Beechfang’s kit that her uncle was a rampaging sociopathic murderer, but she supposed she would learn that on the job.

“Well… Wolfstar was great to me. He really cared, his mate was one of the nicest cats in the forest. The whole Clan was split about him appointing your uncle, known as Dawnhawk then, into deputy. I didn’t understand why he did it at the time. I actually fought Dawnhawk with my siblings, my mom Flowerthorn didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. We were born when his group Asylum came in, so I really pity poor Briarthorn kitting at a Gathering. That whole thing was a complete crowfood chewing mess…”

Leaf-frost blinked her eyes and shook her head. “SkyClan’s not new to drama, murder, complete tomfoolery, but Gatherings are supposed to be the one time where cats at least pretended not to have bees in their brains.”

“Clan life is always a little complicated. You got a bunch of cats in one space and some of them are idiots. It’s part of the job, and I don’t envy Bloodstar or anyone that has to juggle that many idiots. And then, to make it better, you have to manage your idiots with four other Clans’ worth of idiots.”

“Wolfstar did what he thought was right at the time. Your mother does too, in her own way, but I wish she inherited more of his temperament sometimes. She seems to have gotten a little better lately, but with everything going on, I can’t know what happens next.”

“If you learn nothing else, you got to do what’s right, even when it’s inconvenient or unpopular or your boyfriend might not like it. Who cares about some stupid tom? Do what you think is right, and you’ll always be able to sleep at night.”

"I suppose not... But why murder? She was a medicine cat too, wasn't she?" Though from what little Wolfpaw knew, Beechfang hadn't exactly enjoyed being a healer. Fighting seemed to come so naturally to her. She was an admirable warrior, but an intimidating one. And murder wasn't something warriors did. It was difficult to sort out her own feelings on it, when her mother had been the one to do the crime. She looked up to her, but... "It's still wrong, regardless of the reason, right? But she's still my mom. I just..." She trailed off, shaking her head.

Leaffrost moved on, talking a bit about Wolfstar. Made Dawnhawk deputy- stars. She'd never known the tom, but what few stories were whispered about were scary enough. What he thought was right? How? Wolfpaw knew of course, that she'd been born after things had settled, in regards to Dawnhawk. Maybe Wolfstar hadn't known at the time just how awful things were. Dawnhawk couldn't have always been evil, right? And- "Fighting him must've been terrifying." She couldn't imagine fighting one of her own clanmates, though she also couldn't imagine one of them betraying the clan in the way Dawnhawk had. She couldn't imagine how the clan could possibly be split over a decision to make a traitor deputy, but then, she hadn't been there to understand what went through a leader's mind in the face of hostile rogues invading camp. "Wolfstar at least exiled him in the end, I suppose." That told Wolfpaw he'd tried to fix his mistake.

Doing what you thought was right certainly seemed to cause plenty of problems. Misguided, short-sighted, that seemed a more apt description for half of what Leaffrost claimed was cats trying to do what they thought was right. "I don't know, I think mom could've... Maybe waited until after the gathering. Did the entire forest need to know when it could've just been between Skyclan and Riverclan? And those Windclan elders at the gathering- I know Birdpaw didn't help the situation by retaliating, but they broke the peace in the first place. Why punish everyone with a hailstorm when the two doddering fools could've... I don't know, keeled over instead?"

“You can love someone and not agree with what they did,” Leaf-frost meowed, looking at Wolfpaw. “And she was a medicine cat! Her name was Beechface then. Hardly the cuddly type, though I doubt I have to tell you that. She even presided over my warrior ceremony. I’ll never forget it.”

Mentioning the fight with Dawnhawk, her face became more serious. “We wanted to save SkyClan, and my brothers and I thought defeating Dawnhawk would drive him out of the forest. We were just made apprentices, it was by all accounts a stupid idea. Dawnhawk knocked me out, he flung me to the ground with a slam. I don’t know what happened after that, but I was nursing bruised ribs for a while…”

Leaf-frost took a deep breath when the Gathering was mentioned. It was a complete joke, and there was no nice way to put that. Shaking her head again, she turned to Wolfpaw. “I agree, I feel like airing something like that out at a Gathering would spell nothing but trouble. It involves everyone in the forest when it could have just been SkyClan and RiverClan, as it should have been.”

The elders though, that was beyond the pale. “Now that was complete lunacy. I have never seen elders act like that before. You’d think they would know better. Being that old, they were probably there when the moon was made!”

Leaf-frost thought briefly about the hailstorm. “You know, I didn’t have a paw in that choice, but to me, it was a sign to everyone not to make a complete joke out of the truce like what happened that night. What happened was inexcusable.”

“As for killing the elders on sight, I don’t have that authority either. They’ll have to answer for that though.”

Wolfpaw blinked. Beechfang presiding over warrior ceremonies was news to her. "But she was never deputy, though I suppose anything would be better than Dawnhawk presiding over them. But then, why wouldn't Wolfstar have done it?" She was curious to know of the history, though she supposed little of it truly mattered now. And Leaffrost had been right. Beechfang wasn't exactly cuddly, though she did try. Still, it was easy to pick up on her awkwardness, too.

"That... Makes sense." She mewed, but still... "Most cats have more sense than that, surely? Why punish those who took no part in it?" If she had to look forward to chaos like this at every gathering, Wolfpaw wasn't sure she wanted to attend them at all.