Washed Up (closed)

For the second time in his life, Minkpaw found himself lying in the medicine cat den. Though this time the place was a bit muddier and less organized than it had been the last time he was here. Scars from the flood were evident everywhere he looked, from the disheveled ground to his Clanmates' eyes. Even he himself carried a new one, a healing wound curving around from his forehead to the base of his right ear. But it was the scars hidden beneath his pelt and in his mind that were still raw and bleeding; memories that he couldn't escape swirling through his mind every moment. Nowhere was anything the same as it had been.

Not that he cared, anyway.

Dully, he stared at the little circle of light where the entrance to the den was. Slightly damp moss pressed into his paws from where they lay in front of him, propping his head up just to stare. It was strange, really, how it could be so dark inside, but so light out there. With a sigh that never left his lips, he closed his eyes against it, mind empty as the place his heart was supposed to occupy. Maybe for once he would be able to sleep without any dreams shattering his peace. Maybe just once he would be able to forget.

Dappleshine had returned to camp with four fish hanging in her jaws. It had been a good fishing day, but then the news reached her that Minkpaw was in the medicine den. Snagging one of the larger fish she had just caught, she made her way over, poking her head in. Minkpaw's eyes were closed, but it looked like he either wasn't asleep yet or hadn't been for long. She paused for a moment before making her way in. At the very least, he'd wake up to some fresh kill. Padding forward quietly, she laid the fish down next to him and sat down, deciding that she'd give him a little company as he rested, she had some time before her next patrol, after all. And the peace and quiet of the medicine den put her out of sight of Magpiepaw....

A noise stirred in his ears as he lay, but he made no outward sign of hearing it. It would probably be one of the medicine cats coming back to do something with the herbs, anyway. A scent brushed across his nose as pawsteps approached, two of them, actually. One was the familiar smell of freshly caught fish - bringing the memory of his first fish caught back with a pang - and the other.... He'd smelled it before, but he couldn't quite place where. He twitched an ear as the smell of fish intensified, accompanied by the sound of it being placed beside him.

A dull curiosity broke through the tiredness of his mind, and he cracked his eyes open slightly to see a silver she-cat sitting near him, along with the fish he'd smelled. Ignoring the fish - he hadn't eaten for a while, but he wasn't hungry anyway - he eyed the other cat. Her name was... Dapplepaw? Suddenly, the memory of Scorchclaw dragging Gingerstripe across the ground back at the lake flashed through his mind. Yes, she was Dapplepaw. Something someone had mentioned briefly crossed his mind, and he frowned slightly. Had she gotten her warrior name...?

The effort of bringing back things he hadn't been paying attention to proved too much, and he gave up, instead blinking dully at Dapplepaw - or whatever her name was now. "Hello." He once would have winced at the dull tone of his voice, but now he could barely conjure a twitch of his tail. Some part of him felt obligated to talk, though. Maybe a remnant of the young bright-eyed apprentice he used to be.

Dappleshine jumped as the silence of the medicine den was interrupted by Minkpaw's voice. She turned her head to look at him, blinking in surprise. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you... How are you feeling?" Her tail arched over, gently brushing against his side. "Is there anything I can get you, to help you get more comfortable?" Her eyes were clouded with worry, the concern for her clanmate apparent with their blue depths. She supposed it was a good sign that he was talking, but... He sounded so dull and void of emotion. As much as she wanted to help comfort him, she wasn't sure how much she could do.

Minkpaw blinked tiredly at the other cat's words, shrugging slightly without moving his head from his paws. "I wasn't sleeping, anyway." The touch of the she-cat's tail on his side and the concern in her voice briefly brought another molly to mind, and he closed his eyes briefly as the hole inside himself made itself known again. Why did he see them in every blue eye, every ginger or silver-coated pelt?

A sigh came from between his jaws, a faint breath that had no substance. "No, there's nothing you can get." He blinked his eyes open again, briefly flicking them to the light outside before bringing them back to his Clanmate. "Not here."

Dappleshine frowned as his statements, wishing she could do anything to help. Looking down at the fish, she nudged it towards him gently. "Do you mind if I stay and keep you company then? When was the last time you ate? I can promise that the fish is fresh, I just caught it myself only a little bit ago." Settling down beside him again, just close enough that their pelts brushed together ever so slightly, she started to slowly groom her ears and face. If he didn't mind her staying, then she would stay.

Minkpaw hesitated at the she-cat's question for a moment. It would be so nice just to sink back into limbo, to just sleep once again.... With a slight shake of his head, he struggled against the urge like a fish trying to swim uphill through solid mud. "...No, I don't mind." His eyes moved to the fish for a moment as she nudged it towards him. It looked like a good fish, better than any he'd caught recently, since he hadn't caught any at all. "I'm... not hungry." It was true enough, he hadn't had an appetite since that day in the mountains. Gritting his teeth against bringing up old memories, he twitched slightly as the she-cat settled down next to him, a flicker of surprise - the strongest emotion he'd felt for a while - running through him.

He didn't say anything as she began to groom herself, a strange tangle of emotions bubbling up through his pelt. It seemed like so long since someone had just... sat with him. Had bothered to listen to him speak. A long time since he had felt like anyone even cared enough to do so. After all, what was he once everything he had ever held dear was stripped away from him, leaving him an empty shell?

And on the other paw, she was a rather pretty she-cat. He shook that thought away before it could gain any traction. Somewhere in his memory was the vague recollection that her and Magpiepaw had been close when they were at the lake. The lake....

For a moment, he stared at his paws stretched out in front of him, a thought stirring in his mind that bloomed into a question. "Dapple...shine," A hazy memory of her name being called out supplied the suffix in time, "do you remember your parents?" Though the tone of the question was subdued, there was more life to him than there had been in the past few days.

A smile spread across her face at Minkpaw's acceptance of her company, and she continued to wash her whiskers slowly. She blinked as he said he didn't want the fish, concern floating in her eyes. She didn't push the matter though, not yet at least, and stopped her grooming to move the fish off to the side so it didn't bother the tom too much anymore. She hesitated at his twitch, before settling in comfortably. He remained quiet for a long time, and the silence felt like it was building into something, slowly but surely. A glance at the tom showed that he was seemingly lost in a daze, simply laying their blankly, but she recognized the look in his eyes. It was a similar look to what she sometimes had, mostly when she was left alone to think about things. A look that disappeared when Ravenpaw was around. Her tail tip shifted slightly, and she waited for a moment longer, maybe Minkpaw himself would break the silence. If not, she would to try to gauge what he was thinking. 

It wasn't long after that thought that he did break the silence, asking a question that took her by surprise. She turned to look at him for a moment, eyes wide before they softened, she remembered something about a loner tom that had fought in the mountains. They brought the body back to camp, and she recollected that they had buried him somewhere away from where the other clan cats were buried, slowly piecing things together. She laid a tail gently across the tom's shoulders before mewing quietly. "Honestly, no. The only memories I have of them have been when they were already gone, Flurryshine dragging their bodies along that shore so far away from here." Her nose wrinkled slightly at the memory of the stench, and she looked down from him to the ground. "I was still only a kit when Scorchclaw finally convinced her that they needed to be laid to rest, so far away from the home they knew and loved. He took us in, along with Thornbriar of ShadowClan. The only other memory I have of them is from my Moonstone, when I got to see both of them for the first time other than on that shore." She paused, taking a deep breath. "It's been hard, sometimes. I take comfort in knowing that family is what you make of it, and that there are good cats who would accept you into the folds of their hearts. Maybe that's the trip home talking, where the clans had to depend on one another regardless of alliances, or boundaries. Some days have been better than others, but I know that they're always watching over me. No matter where I am, they travel with me, and live on in what I do and say. The time I had with them alive and among us was far too short, Gingerstripe passed before we were even born and Dewshine passed just moments afterward, and then Flurryshine abandoned us to stay behind at their burial grounds." She sighed heavily, thinking back to everything that had happened. "I was able to make my peace with them, which has made it much easier. Why do you ask?"

Minkpaw listened to Dappleshine's words, an odd sort of comfort coming from the fluffy tail resting across his shoulders. For a moment after she asked the question, he was silent, his eyes closed as he listened to the rhythm of his heart beat. Finally, his eyes opened to focus on his paws, his maw opening to mew quietly, "I grew up with one parent, my mother. I never knew my father. I was told by the Clan that he was a loner, a rogue; someone who had mated with her and then left because he didn't care about us." He trailed off for a moment before stirring and looking up into Dappleshine's eyes. "That was alright, though. I had my littermates, and my mother. But then something... happened." Images from a time he'd never wished to remember flashed across his mind as he looked from her to the light outside the medicine cat den, the walls of the den painted over with a snowy landscape of whirling snowflakes and blood-stained white for just a moment. "I was taken by twolegs, along with cats from other Clans. And when we came back I...." He swallowed, "I-I was just in time for my sister to die."

Something dripped onto his paw, and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. Some part of him wished to stop, to just leave it at that and sink back into oblivion. But another part of him knew that if he did, he wouldn't come out again. "I refused to see it. I convinced myself it was a dream," He whispered. "When my brother disappeared, I told myself he would come back, that he was back already, and I'd just somehow missed him. And then the flood came and the last of my family was swept away. I did my best not to think about them, I tried my hardest to forget that I'd ever had one." Unwillingly, his claws came out of their sheaths to dig into the moss below his paws. "When we came back together, I watched my mother die in front of my eyes, but I didn't see it. I watched her die, but I pretended it was someone else. Just like everyone else."

Clumps of moss broke apart beneath his paws. "And then we went into the mountains, so much happened and I-I... don't have anything left.... He died there in front of me. I never knew him, he never met us, never came by or bothered to care...!" His voice broke, tears blurring in his eyes as he gritted his teeth against the sudden swirl of emotions raging through his pelt. One wet drop followed another, soaking into the moss around his paws as his throat closed up. He closed his eyes, bowing his head so he wouldn't have to look into the other cat's face. He didn't blame her if she wanted to leave, pain had followed him his whole life; it would be best if no one had to share his.

Her ear flicked lightly as Minkpaw began to speak, revealing details from his past that she had never known. He trailed off momentarily, and when the tom looked up at her she was already looking at him, and their eyes met. She held his gaze, listening to him quietly until he closed his eyes, the words becoming hard for him to express. His breath shook, as did the words. She shifted closer, leaning over to slowly groom the fur at his shoulder gently as he continued speaking, her heart breaking for the tom hearing all he had gone through. His voice cracked, and his head bowed towards the ground in his emotion. For a heartbeat Dappleshine hesitated, wondering if she was the best cat for this. Thinking back to when she first saw Ravenpaw at the Gorge though, she pulled away from Minkpaw's shoulder, moving to rest her head on the tom's.

She took a deep breath before speaking, ignoring the warm, wet drops that fell onto her paws. "There's been a lot of loss, too much, especially recently. I never knew you had gone through all of that, things have moved so quickly... We all have our own ways of dealing with grief, and none of them are the same. Similar maybe, but not the same. You were taken, by cruel beings outside of your or StarClan's control, and yet you still made it back. Your sister had her final moments with you having returned home safe, rather than never knowing. My brother has disappeared too... Maybe they're together out there somewhere, fate is weird and has strange ways of working. We can hope together. It is hard, to walk knowing what you had.... But I don't think you should try to forget them. It's clear that you cared about them, and loved them, and they remain with you in the ways that you act and interact, speak and walk. They've all helped shape you - if you forget them all you could very well forget yourself in turn, Minkpaw." She spoke softly, trying to be comforting. The words she had told Ravenpaw wouldn't help everyone, and she didn't want to use the same ones here, Minkpaw was different, with his own way of grieving, and he was special in his own way.

"You have your memories, your friends. I know they can replace the true thing, but your memories are yours alone, you can decide what to do with them. I can't speak for your father's desires, but something brought him to you in his final moments, whether it was genuine care for you or an urge to protect or just coincidence, I can't say for sure. But we get to carry the memories we have, and the experiences we've experienced with us wherever we go. If you want to share them with me, we can carry them together." She groomed the top of his head slowly, taking it one step at a time. "I'll be here to share tongues and listen whenever you need, and I'll keep what you've shared close to my heart. We're friends, and friends help celebrate successes and carry burdens, together." Magpiepaw's face flashed in her mind as she spoke, and as she blinked it disappeared. Maybe Magpiepaw hadn't ever been her friend.... But she could be a friend to Minkpaw, if he would have her, and help carry his grief.

Minkpaw felt a tongue brush against his head as Dappleshine rested her muzzle there. For a moment, he could almost imagine it was Littlestream, her gentle voice telling him it would be alright. He kept his eyes closed, throat too tight to speak as she began talking, her soft words echoing through his mind and heart. It was true, Lionpaw had known he was safe before she was killed, but all he could remember was that he had ignored her death as best he could.

But still, her words... comforted him. The grief - like a thorn in his heart - was still there, but simply talking kindled a stubborn hope back to life that he had never quite been able to extinguish. As her tongue rasped gently across his fur again, her final words fanned it higher. Yes, they were friends. The thought brought a vague sense of surprise, as well as warmth. She hadn't run from him as he spilled all that he'd held inside for so long, and she was still willing to listen. He blinked open his eyes, staring down at the moss - still blurred - at his paws. "Thank you," The two words came out almost silently, in one quiet breath.

She was right, as well; if he ever forgot his family, he would forget himself, too. "I don't want to forget them," He whispered in the
momentary silence, "But... I wish... I wish things could have been different."

He let his mind wander, the memory of a ginger-patched tom racing towards him flashing briefly through his mind. "I wish... I had been able to talk to him just once. If I could have just asked him...." A sigh escaped his jaws as he closed his eyes again. "I've lost my chance. I won't see him again. He's gone forever."

"You're welcome, Minkpaw." She nuzzled the top of his head with her chin, gently reassuring him. "Of course, we all wish that some things had been different. Happened another way, or not at all. That's completely normal, and it's okay to wish that things hadn't happened the way they had." She paused for a moment, pulling back her head to look at his face, trying to meet his eyes. "He's around, somewhere. I'm sure of it. Why don't you ask the breeze? Maybe it will carry your words to his ears where he now resides. You might get an answer in return, but I don't know for sure. It wouldn't hurt to try. If you want, I can go with you, and you can say it like you're talking to me." She resumed grooming the tom's shoulder slowly, her tongue rasping across his fur. "His mark remains here in the clans, in you. Only you get to decide what you're going to do with the chance that you were given, and choose to flourish."

Minkpaw felt Dappleshine move as she spoke, and he opened his eyes to meet her blue ones. "He's around, somewhere. I'm sure of it. Why don't you ask the breeze? Maybe it will carry your words to his ears where he now resides...." A slight frown crinkled between his eyes at her words, and he searched her gaze as she continued. The idea appealed to him, the sentiment seeming to echo with what he'd known of his father, but how could it possibly work? For a moment after she finished he was silent, the feel of her tongue rasping across his shoulder fur oddly comforting. Was it possible that he could still... be out there somewhere?

Outside, almost as if it seemed to be calling him, a faint rustle came as the breeze blew by, a small hint of wind almost like a whisper brushing past his ears. An echo of times lost. He swallowed, raising his head. "I... I'd like that."


And she was right. Even if Starlord was gone, he still carried a piece of the tom inside him, though at times he'd wished he didn't. If anything could give him one last chance, maybe... just maybe... that could. If I could choose what to do with the legacy he's given me... It would be anything but wasting away in here. He wouldn't want that.

As if the very sky around had been listening to their conversation, despite the two of them being alone in the medicine den, a rustle of a breeze ruffled both she-cat and tom's ears, tickling the fur within and whispering it's secrets. She closed her eyes as it passed before meeting Minkpaw's once more. She stood, nudging him with her nose as she did. "Come on, let's go! Right now. I have a feeling he's waiting for you, Minkpaw. And there's no better time than right now."

She nudged the apprentice to his paws, before padding out of the medicine den, ensuring he was behind her. As they passed through camp relatively unnoticed, she smiled slightly. Slipping out of the camp and maybe a beeline to the river, she kept looking over her shoulder to check on him, and finally they reached a quiet part of the river, quietly murmuring it's way downstream, the trees of the forest before them and the unknown mass of territory that remained unclaimed at their side. What better place to go, than where all of these things met?

Nodding to the tom, she set, her tail wrapping loosely around her. "I'll be here, if you want or need me. Talk your heart out, and let us listen together for the answer."

It almost seemed like a dream. Feeling seemed to have washed out of his paws, leaving the ground beneath them to disappear into a nothingness somehow supporting him. He followed Dappleshine, the she-cat like a beacon of hope as she lead the way out of the medicine cat den and into the sunlight. For a moment he blinked as it beamed into his face, but still his paws knew the way. Could he really be waiting for me? An ache, so painful he felt it would break his ribcage, pounded through his heart. A rhythm that followed their pawsteps.

It wasn't possible, all the grief he'd suffered, every sparkling memory lost, told him that. But still he followed her as she beckoned him onwards. Down to the river they went, to an intersection between territories. There Dappleshine stopped, wrapping her tail around her paws as she sat down and nodded to him, gently encouraging him with her words.

He stood there, swallowing once against a dry throat as he stared over towards that unknown horizon. "I..." He began, nervousness stretching bands around his throat and strangling him off for a moment.

"Starlord. Dad." That last word felt better, the pressure in his chest easing slightly as the breeze brushed against his fur almost like the encouraging stroke of a tail. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to know you, to see you just once. And I...."

"You were never there, and I hated you for that. You left us behind, and never came back," His voice seemed to grow stronger with each word, more confident, and yet it still broke on the last word as he paused to take a deep breath. "I always felt like you were some peak I could never reach. That fish I couldn't catch no matter how hard I tried, always slipping away from me."

"And then I saw you. You were running for me, even though the dogs were right there, and I saw you... And I saw you cared. And I... I can't just leave here without something. Please... just once...."

He swallowed, closing his eyes as his voice trailed off in a whisper. "Dad, I need you...."

The breeze picked up, a faint scent of drying grass and wildflowers, mixed with something unidentifiable - could it be a cat's scent? - swirling around him. It reached into his ear fur, almost seeming to whisper something just on the edge of hearing. He strained his ears, desperate to hear something, anything. For just a moment, it coalesced into faint whispered words made up of the sounds around him and a cat's voice, somehow familiar.

"Strom... Remember who you are...."