Minkpaw's Moonstone Journey

Minkpaw watched Mottledspark's face as the other tom's eyes narrowed. Wearily, he waited for the inevitable, feeling a stubborn sort of irritated tiredness sticking to his paws. The other's words still whirled through his head like a swarm of bees stinging his mind. He'd never see his father, the one who had never been there. Never meet him, never know him. Bitterness still hung on his tongue, souring his thoughts and scoring claw marks down his heart. So he waited, and listened.

"No, Minkpaw, I'm here 'cause I don't want you to rot. You already are. I don't need the sight of a StarClan ancestor to see you're torn over your loyalties, 'specially when it's one of the first things you throw out when you get to your Clan's ancestral home."

The truth of his words stung like the pelting ice of a snowstorm, and Minkpaw closed his eyes briefly, tilting his head slightly downwards almost as if the other tom's words were a howling wind driving snow into his face. Looking down at his paws, he could almost see the divide Mottledspark talked about, every thought that had run through his mind, the every widening rift between him and his Clan. On one side, the river, memories of growing up, and what Clanmates he had left. On the other, a black she-cat, a golden horizon, both rippling in the light of the setting sun, both waiting for him.

His anger bled away, draining out of his paws as he finally sat. "No, I can't take that oath," He whispered, lifting tired eyes back up to meet his mentor's fiery ones. "You're right about me, about all of it. No one can fix me, nothing can. I can't do this. I'm rotting from the inside out; I'm torn, I'm... lost."

He sighed, aching emptiness in place of emotions. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't even know why I'm trying." Bitterness, regrets, couldn't they all just disappear? Leave him alone? "All of it's so pointless."

As Mottledspark said his piece, he could tell that Minkpaw was feeling uneasy and angry, but that frustration was drained as holes were pierced in the young apprentice's walls. He had to see it whether it hurt or not. The ginger-and-white tom's face fell and he stared hard at the ground. A few moments of silence passed once the warrior had gone quiet. At last, Minkpaw spoke, his words barely even a whisper. Mottledspark's ears flicked in, listening intently. His apprentice confirmed his suspicion: his loyalties were divided - or, really, undecided. Minkpaw looked up and said sadly, "No one can fix me, nothing can." I didn't say that, Mottledspark thought, but he didn't interrupt. Minkpaw continued in a defeated voice, mumbling that everything was pointless.

"Some things are pointless," Mottledspark agreed, his tone quickly shifting back to something more stern, "like wallowin' in self-pity and misery, for example, instead of takin' action. I told you, if I wanted you to rot, I'd have left you alone. You're rotten, yes, and broken. But you're not destroyed. You're still something - there's a storm in there, Minkpaw, a force to be reckoned with an' respected, and you're spendin' all your time stifling your storm and then wonderin' why you're gettin' nowhere and why you don't feel like anything matters." Mottledspark's tail flicked one more time, and he stood, slowly, to stare Minkpaw straight in the face. "You're partly right: no one can fix your problems.

"No one except for you." Mottledspark's head dipped slightly, his eyes unfocusing slightly with though, and he rumbled, "You've survived so much... I won't give up on you now. I won't let you die because of yourself."

Mottledspark’s words were stern, reprimanding, as he held the younger tom's eyes, and Minkpaw's soon slid away, his eyes closing. When did I stop caring about anyone else? The answer was right there in front of him, in the missing places in his heart full of bleeding holes. I... really don't care anymore, do I? Some spark of him briefly flared at the words, before quickly sinking under the depths of howling emptiness. What actions could he take, anyway? Run away with another Clan's warrior and commit treason? Stay, and watch everyone else he cared about slip away?

He listened, empty, the rustling of the reeds evoking an image of golden grasses swaying in the wind, even as it brought back memories of chasing Aros and Princess through puddles, their paws splashing glittering droplets up to the sky. "You're rotten, yes, and broken." The words echoed him, what he had become, this dull shadow of a cat, this... conflict.

"But you're not destroyed."

His eyes flickered open, staring up at his mentor’s, searching them. Mottledspark's fierce gaze held his, fire burning in them as he leaned forwards slightly, the force of the older tom's words stabbing through the ice surrounding him like a paw scooping a sleeping fish from the river. Minkpaw found himself sitting straighter almost unconsciously, his eyes and soul held as his mentor spoke, a spark kindling in his empty heart.

Every moment of his life seemed to reflect that; his kithood, trying to be the best apprentice he could, when the twolegs had attacked him, when he had fought the fox alongside his friends, and even into the end, when he had faced a pack of dogs to help his Clanmates. It was only then, when the weight of everything - every missing part of his heart he’d desperately tried to forget - had come crushing down.... He'd shattered like a broken bone, and only Dappleshine's kindness had lifted him out of that bottomless pit. Everything afterwards....

He felt like shaking his head at the thought, sudden clarity washing over him.

He had stifled himself, in his confusion over what he was meant to do, over guilt that he could even consider leaving his Clanmates. He'd stifled himself to keep the doubts away, to stop himself thinking about the heartache he would cause those he had left... but he'd only invited a worse monster, one now eating him from the inside out.

And he wasn't raising a claw to stop it.

"You're partly right: no one can fix your problems."

"No one except for you."

How? He searched his mentor's eyes as Mottledspark's head dipped slightly, but instead his gaze was drawn to the network of scars lacing the tom’s muzzle.

A raccoon did this to me when I was an apprentice

He offered to help me deal with my own scars... to learn how to work around them.... He could remember a younger Minkpaw, still wounded and plagued by vivid nightmares and memories, sitting by the prey pile as his mentor took the time to speak with him. The memory of the conversation suddenly seemed so vivid, and so much brighter than the bleakness that had begun to surround him afterwards. Not everything can be avoided.... We can learn from the things that hurt us.... His mentor's current words blended with scraps from the past, binding together almost like trickles of water flowing gradually into a stream. "I won't give up on you now. I won't let you die because of yourself."

"You can move forward the same way I did: Talk about it."

He blinked, the words echoing in his head with startling clarity as his eyes focused properly back on the present, and the starry warrior in front of him. It’s time I finally listened.

He opened his mouth, his voice coming out stronger and more sure than it had in a long time. Even the wind seemed to encourage him, the ghost of a breeze stirring his whiskers. "Once, you told me something I should never have forgotten. I did. But... I remember it now. You told me that to move forward I needed to talk."

He took a deep breath, memories swirling through his mind, images and scents of foreign places: dark, constricting rifts filled with a multitude of stinking scents, nets digging into his fur - snow, and blood. But everything was dominated by a pair of wild yellow eyes, his own reflected in their depths. "I never did tell you what happened. I... couldn't. But I was taken by twolegs a long time ago, and dragged through twolegplace. That was bad enough, but it was what came after that... well...." Snow whirled through the air, freezing his paws in place as teeth buried in a cat’s spine, blood spilling into the white, steaming into the air with a sickening, clinging stench. A desperate, agonized plea. RUN! He gritted his teeth, turning his head away for a moment, waiting for the memory to fade before continuing, almost having to force the words out, "There was a fox. It attacked me and my friends, and... killed two of them. Sharptooth died to save me, the stupid, worthless, half-rogue...." He exhaled, his head sagging as he shook it slowly, the stones underneath him dark as if with blood, a metallic scent only in his head tickling his nostrils. "...The one who froze in the moment he was needed. The one who said frog-brained things, and did things even more frog-brained."

A bitter smile crossed his maw. ”The one who called out for his “father” the moment he turned up in StarClan - who for some reason bothered to hope he could someday meet him.”

He turned his gaze back up to Mottledspark, a phantom breeze drifting through his fur, winding coolly through the rushes and blending with the burble of the river. ”The one who always ignored what he already had for what he didn’t, and couldn’t work out why it all went so wrong in the end.”

Mottledspark felt his eyes flicker back into focus as his apprentice's gaze sought his. Their eyes locked for just a moment. The StarClan warrior's pelt stirred slightly as he observed the clarity which Minkpaw was finding. The apprentice spoke of the talk the two of them had shared long ago, when Mottledspark was alive and well - before Lightstep's brother had gone missing, leaving a broken mate and kits behind - and Minkpaw had been hurting. Mottledspark remembered the conversation vividly, as the stars reflected memories clear as a pool reflected the sun. The warrior's scarred face was intent as he responded gently to the maturing tom, "Have at it. I will listen."

And so Minkpaw spoke. His memories were reflected by the stars; bits and pieces of StarClan's dream-woven landscape changed and flickered with the tom's thoughts and words. Oh, how strongly he felt, and how shakily he bore the weight, and how bitterly and silently he endured it. Minkpaw was taken to the twolegplace, where he met and befriended other captured Clan cats. The apprentice did not wish to see what had happened, and thankfully StarClan granted him that mercy and let the landscape settle back to stars once his bitter tale had been spoken. Mottledspark listened to and watched it all without speaking. When Minkpaw went silent, the dark warrior took in a long, slow, deep breath.

Mottledspark stood and moved until he was in front of his apprentice - oh, stars, he remembered when he still had to look down to Minkpaw, and now they were nearly the same height - and he stood in quiet thought for a moment. "You were young. You learned. You're still young." He paused, then said as he gazed into his young friend's eyes, "You can still learn." The starry warrior touched his nose to Minkpaw's forehead, and he meowed, "It's impossible to know the right path 'til you've chosen one. Don't freeze in the moment ya need yourself. Take a step - a leap a' faith, if ya have to. Just... don't stop movin', Minkpaw." He leaned back and gazed intently into his apprentice's eyes. "You have too much spirit to end up here too soon. Alright?"

Minkpaw watched as Mottledspark stepped up to him - somewhere in the back of his mind noting that the other was only slightly taller than him - and stood quietly for a moment, thoughts shifting behind his inscrutable gaze. Inside, Minkpaw felt oddly empty, and yet, it wasn't the sort of empty, bitter pain he'd held for so long. More the emptiness of a heavy burden finally pierced and ebbing away. It felt light, like there was a taste of the wild wind curling his fur, just about to lift him into the sky. Peace, yes, that was it.

For the first time he could remember since that dark day, he felt truly peaceful.

Yes, he'd been young, then. He'd also learned, though maybe not as much as he could have. Despite the newfound lightness, there was a pain that still lurked in the darkest corners of his mind. But... there was still time for him to learn. Those words sent a spark of hope from his mentor to him as the tom held his eyes and touched his nose to his forehead.

"It's impossible to know the right path 'til you've chosen one. Don't freeze in the moment ya need yourself."

Minkpaw's eyes closed, yellow eyes flashing once again in his mind, his paws frozen with ice to the ground. Can I overcome this? Was he doomed to freeze again in the moment he was needed, even after everything Mottledspark had taught him, everything his family had taught him?

I guess... I'll just have to find out.

He met Mottledspark's eyes as his mentor leaned back, the older tom gazing at him with a familiar intensity that ordered him to pay attention as he spoke. Just like when he'd taught him as a much younger, more naive apprentice. Something about it struck him. Stars, he knew this tom better than he did his own father. And stars knew this tom had been a better one to him than the absent Starlord could ever have been.

As he stayed silent for a heartbeat that dragged for far longer than it should have, Minkpaw swore he could feel eyes on him, the night whispering in the rushes with a hush like three cats' breaths held in anticipation. "Not until I'm done, and I think... I'm not finished yet," He finally mewed, and he swore, once again, there was a sigh tinged with happiness in the rustle of the rushes. A whisper of encouragement? He cast a quick glance in the direction he felt it was coming from, and whether it was his imagination or not, a glint winked back at him, like eyes.

If you're out there, I'm... sorry, for everything, He told them silently, remembering with shame how he'd almost willed himself to forget they'd ever existed. How he'd turned away in his grief and abandoned them. How they could forgive him when he couldn't forgive himself, he didn't know, but maybe... they could.

But whether or not they were out there somewhere, watching, he could feel in his bones that his time in StarClan was coming to an end, a strange sense of finality in the very air that surrounded and whispered through his ear fur. He could feel a tug on his soul, a thread dragging him back to the real world, just waiting for him to say the final things he needed to. He'd poured out his soul, he'd found new hope, and now it was coming to the time he'd have to travel back to RiverClan with it.

His eyes, so dull when he'd first arrived, sparked with a semblance of the old spirit they'd held as he turned back to his mentor. Suddenly, a smile twitched up one side of his maw, a lop-sided smile so much like his father's, but his own and no one else's. "I never really got to say it when you were alive... but thanks for being there-" He paused for just a moment, a sudden mischievous glint appearing in his eye - "Uncle."

But as soon as it appeared, the glint faded, a thoughtful sadness replacing it. "You know, all of you - you, Wolfsong, Lightstep - were better fathers to me than Starlord could ever have been. I fought on because all of you were there for me, and I think... if I hadn't had you, I wouldn't be here."

He smiled again, a sadder version, but still genuine, as he met his mentor's murky gaze and felt himself fading away. "Just... thanks. For everything."