Father, Grandfather, Blood, War [closed]

It was with heavy tension that SkyClan followed Tinystar home. Sandblaze, upon hearing the mixed opinions of each and every clan, suddenly felt pulled and torn with no real feelings of his own on the subject. What should he believe? He wanted to believe in the tom that had taught him everything about the clans, but could he now? Deep down inside, he still felt that one more slip up meant another sibling's exile. Even, perhaps, his mother's. Firflower's supposed sin, which Sandblaze still could not see as a sin, was a blemish on SkyClan... or so he had come to understand. The best thing he could do was say nothing now. And yet, the questions burned at his soul. He had to have somebody on the inside. It was a stupid and risky decision, but what other choice did he have? His opinion on the matter would mean nothing when it all came to light.

"Executing Sparrowpaw was my decision." Two medicine cats in the clan meant two messengers of StarClan. If they couldn't help him, nobody could. And so, on the restless night of the full moon, Sandblaze found himself creeping into the medicine den. Mintwhisker had been gone for many moons, training an apprentice in WindClan. That same apprentice shouted with all the fury of TigerClan at the Gathering. He condemned SkyClan. It meant nothing to Sandblaze. Amberdawn was Tinystar's kin, and that could mean he had her loyalty, but he was out of options. Do or die. Worst case scenario, he could run away. His job would be done, failure or success. Sucking in a breath, he mewed to signal his presence.

"I couldn't sleep. Do you... Do you have something for that?" he asked softly. He moved closer, watching Amberdawn for a few more careful moments. "If you don't mind, I wanted to talk to you. I have a StarClan-related problem. I... I need some guidance." His eyes pleaded with hers as he sat down. "It's about my sister."

Amberdawn had remained silent on the journey home and retired to her den without pausing to say goodnight to any of her Clanmates. The air was crackling with tension as they returned home; she doubted that anyone was overly interested in trying to talk. When the medicine cat was in the solitude of the medicine den, she felt empty and fragile inside of the smothering space around her. The scents of the herbs which always brought Amberdawn comfort were simply overwhelming her senses. The memory of Sparrowpaw's death, dredged up and reawakened from the murky depths of her mind, had opened an old chasm of insecurity. She begged Mintwhisker not to give Sparrowpaw deathberries yet said nothing as Tinystar raised his claws. Why?

Every explanation Amberdawn thought of felt like a weak excuse, and she wondered how she could have faltered so miserably. Sparrowpaw's death was something that couldn't be undone or resolved or fixed. It should have been prevented. As the minutes passed and Amberdawn paced her den restlessly, she wondered what she could have lost by standing up for the executed cat before her life could be taken. Would the medicine cat have been exiled like Night was? She had always feared losing her grandfather's trust if she spoke on Sparrowpaw's behalf, but... Slowly, realization dawned on the tabby she-cat that it was too late. Tinystar still didn't trust her, when all she had done was protest an unjust death. Amberdawn shook her head slighlty and muttered, "StarClan... how could that be wrong...?"

A soft mew sounded at the entrance of the den and Amberdawn turned her glimmering dark amber eyes towards the shape that slowly padded in. "Sandblaze," the she-cat greeted quietly, dipping her head in respect as she swept her tail to gesture his welcome. He was younger than her, certainly, but he had earned her respect during the exile of his sister - and, admittedly, she was rather bound to care for him in some manner after seeing a vision from StarClan about his heritage. She raised her head as he spoke, explaining that he was having trouble sleeping. The medicine cat clicked her tongue softly, her features immediately softening as she answered, "I understand, Sandblaze... It's been a long night. I'm sure your mind is restless - I have something that should help."

She turned to begin looking towards her stores, but she paused for a moment as he spoke again hesitantly. Amberdawn immediately sensed something off about his tone - his expression - and she met his gaze evenly. When he brought up his sister, the medicine cat knew her face betrayed interest. Immediately the vision flickered back into her head: Firflower and a rugged ginger-and-white tom in the mountains with three indistinct kits dancing around them. Three half-Clan kits. "One of them knows." The medicine cat nodded slowly as Sandblaze sat, turning fully to the stores as she replied as neutrally as she could manage, "Delta... You must think of her a lot. What can I help with?" The exile's denial of medical treatment had stung Amberdawn, but she understood. It was best for Delta - in her own interests and those of self-preservation - that she left.

Sandblaze let his eyes drag to the ground, and with them his hind legs as he sat in the den and curled his long pluming tail around his front paws. He refused to seek out the medicine cat's gaze again. This double life he seemed to lead, biting back protests when the clan whispered "half-blood," was all too much to handle all by himself. He could take no comfort in Swallowflight or Lightfang, not right now. They were too volatile, still too broken from Delta's apparent betrayal. Sandblaze almost admired her will to be free. Even so, he couldn't ignore the obvious. How could he protect and defend his family if he didn't even know where she was?

"I spoke with StarClan during my apprenticeship," he said in a quiet voice, barely audible above the whistling wind of the night. "You took me to the Moonstone. A kit spoke to me. ShadowClan. He told me about somebody... A rogue, with a red coat. He took many mates. It was the kits' father." Sandblaze's head suddenly turned upward, pleading and round, like an owlet left hungry and cold in the nest. "What's more important to you, Amberdawn, StarClan or SkyClan? If StarClan said something that went against everything we were supposed to do, would you still follow it? None of it makes sense, please, help me understand!"

The young warrior stifled a mew of grief as he bowed his head in the medicine cat's prescence. "Do you know what it was like, to grow up in that mountain cave? Our mother is deaf. We were surrounded by cats from everywhere. There was no such thing as a 'SkyClan' or a 'code' or a 'rogue' until we came to the forest. I'm adapting, I'm surviving, even though it doesn't make sense, because my brothers needed me! We only ever had each other! So why did Delta go her own way? Why is she so birdbrained? I got her back just to lose her again!" Realizing how elevated his voice had gotten, how strained and tight, Sandblaze winced in embarrassment. Setting his jaw tight to combat the throbbing headache in his temples, the warrior finally returned his eyes to Amberdawn's. "Why did StarClan set me up just to fail?"

Amberdawn kept her dark amber gaze focused on the collection of herbs before her, scanning for what she desired as Sandblaze gathered his nerves behind her. Juniper berry. Thyme leaves. Poppy seeds. Her ears flicked back to listen to Sandblaze as his soft voice spoke. He talked of StarClan and his trip to the Moonstone. Part of her wished to stop him; after all, what cats learned during their meeting with the ancestors was meant for them. However, she kept quiet as she reached for a juniper berry - then hesitated, wondering if perhaps it might energize him rather than relax him. She chose not to add a juniper berry so late at night. "A kit spoke to me. ShadowClan. He told me about somebody... A rogue, with a red coat."

The medicine cat's tail flicked, and Amberdawn turned her head to look at him, staring into his pleading face as he asked a deep, burning question: "What's more important to you, Amberdawn, StarClan or SkyClan?" She blinked with surprise. It was a probing question - searching. What did Sandblaze think he would hear? Was there something he wished to hear? What if what she said wasn't that? He asked further probing questions: Would she do what StarClan said even if it went against everything she'd ever known?

Sandblaze's plea for help was not left with room to answer. The sandy warrior went on with a quiet passion about the hardship of being raised on the mountains with a deaf mother and no borders or real distinction between Clans. Amberdawn felt her mind drift back to the lake; it certainly had been different. She missed the absence of borders as well, but she hadn't shared the temporary living space with the Tribe. No, she could never truly understand what Sandblaze and his family had ggone through. The medicine cat pulled two poppy seeds and three thyme leaves from their places at last, turning to Sandblaze as he continued his desperate tale.

Amberdawn listened with a dark, sympathetic expression as his voice raised in frustration with Delta's situation. She kept her paws on the herbs until he had fallen silent, and she slipped the poppy seeds and thyme over to him in the gap. When Sandblaze's shining blue eyes met hers, Amberdawn was saddened by the turmoil in the depths. His words, however, were words: "Why did StarClan set me up just to fail?"

The medicine cat shook her head slowly, staring intently into his eyes. "You haven't failed, Sandblaze; others have failed you," Amberdawn answered. She clenched her jaw slightly, mirroring him yet serving the same effect, and she added even more quietly, "They've failed us both, time and time again. We can only do so much, yet we'd give our lives for them still." Her tail twitched rapidly, and Amberdawn probed, "This kit... why do you think he would tell you about his rogue father?"

And the standoff hung in the air. One of them knows.

In a moment, Sandblaze understood that too much had been said. He blinked once or twice just to test the legitimacy of the moment. It was real, and it could not be undone. He had spoken it into existence, and if she hadn't understood before, she certainly did now. Sandblaze hesitated, betraying nothing by his face. He let the words lay on his tongue. As the moments passed, he bent his neck to lap at the herbs she had given him. The anxiety and sadness melted away with each bite, but the apprehension and pain remained. A dull ache. In that moment, he relinquished all his resolve. How could he hide, when he was so incapacitated by grief and frustration?

Her amber eyes bored into him, asking for confirmation. Pleading. With a fierce gulp, Sandblaze tested the waters. "What do you think you know?" he whispered.

Sandblaze wasn't willing to reveal everything yet. He wasn't willing to trust her yet. "What do you think you know?" he questioned quietly, and Amberdawn tucked her chin, averting her gaze. What to say...? She had wondered that ever since he'd had the vision from StarClan. Her expression was thoughtful, and at last she replied, "I know that our Clan brought home a litter of kits from the mountains. I know that three of them are the children of a rogue - a tom perhaps like yours, though in my vision he was ginger-and-white." Her golden tail flicked, and she sat before him, one eye always to the entrance of the medicine den. "And I know that one of these kits knows."

She turned her head to meaningfully meet Sandblaze's gaze as she murmured, "It's not my secret to reveal. Is it yours?"

Sandblaze tightened his jaw against the question. There was understanding between the two in that moment. A feeling of not quite knowing what to do, of course, mixed with the realization that maybe it all could be salvaged.

"I know it's not realistic to think that I can save them from whatever path they choose. Delta proved it. I guess she wasn't meant to be in SkyClan after all. I need to come to grips with that, somehow. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But even so... All I wanted was to see her at the Gathering, with some other group of cats. To know she was safe. I wouldn't even care that she wasn't with me!" He almost laughed with the bitterness of it all. "I was given the task to protect them. With Delta off doing StarClan-knows-what, I can't guarantee her safety and health. I need to know that no matter what happens, my kin will be out of harm's way. I can die happy if they're just okay." His eyes shifted to outside the den, to the stars high above. Was that what they meant? Tanglekit hadn't really given him too much of a clear direction. Was the secret of his parenthood really just to give clarity? Thinking for a moment, Sandblaze imagined where his paws would take him if there was no SkyClan, no code, and no purebloodedness. Perhaps it wasn't Tinystar's law that he was protecting his siblings from, but the harsh reality of being on your own in a great big world. When Leafbare came, would Delta have a den to lie in? His siblings would all gave a home in him forever, but death was not an easy thing for a family.

"I thought that I was trying to defend them from being taken away from me," he whispered, "But we're all grown now. We have our own lives. The rogue blood in us, our father's ways, feels ingrained in my heart. I'm pulled towards it... but I know I'd be alone. Starlord would have looked after us if we chose him, but we can't make that decision anymore. Maybe it's not about being all together, but about knowing that we're all looked after." He met Amberdawn's eyes. "SkyClan has never made sense to me. I wish it did. I see how important it is to all of you, the sense of community you all have. The only community I have is my famiky, and Lightfang and Swallowflight need me. My mother needs me. If something happens, if we get scattered, can you do whatever you can to look after my mother and brothers?"

There was silence. Tension crackled that could be touched, surely, or shattered by a breath. Amberdawn waited, and Sandblaze weighed the risks. Then the choice was made. The risk was taken. It would be met with compassion. The warrior and the medicine cat had found each other in the depths of a secret, and immediately they were bound by duty of trust and soul to endure the uncertainty together as Sandblaze began to spill his heart, his mind, and his fears.

Sandblaze's voice began to grow impassioned, and he spoke again of his wayward sister, Delta - Maplepaw as she had been called before her exile. The name of Delta seemed more fitting, and Amberdawn recalled that Sandblaze had given her that name at his sister's little trial. He had confirmed that he was the kit who knew - the half-rogue son of Firflower - and Amberdawn wondered if, perhaps, Delta's ceremony wasn't the first time that the tabby warrior before her had considered non-Clan names for himself and his kin. Sandblaze described his feelings of helplessness once again, explaining that StarClan had told him to take care of his family and that he was worried he'd failed. How could he protect her when she wasn't in his Clan?, he wondered, and Amberdawn watched him quietly, taking in the honorable tom's words and features.

A short silence stretched between them, and Amberdawn could see the warrior's face darken and swirl with thoughts. She knew that look. She felt it. When he spoke again, it was a whisper. The golden tabby she-cat's ears flicked intently towards him. He murmured that he had thought he had to keep them together, but that they were growing - physically, mentally, emotionally - and might grow apart. The medicine cat took great interest when Sandblaze commented that he sometimes felt the pull of the rogue life in his blood, and even greater interest as he spoke the name of Starlord: his rogue father. Starlord, Amberdawn's mind echoed a few times, but then it was gone as Sandblaze continued, "Maybe it's not about being all together, but about knowing that we're all looked after."

Then the tom's eyes met Amberdawn's, and his tone grew even more somber and severe. He explained that SkyClan never made sense to him, and she felt a bitter, conflicted agreement - she felt it had at least made sense when she was a kit, but she wasn't a kit anymore and hadn't been for moons. Ever since Sparrowpaw's execution her understanding of the Clan she was born in had flickered like a tiny flame in the rain. Some days it was so crystal clear, yet other times it was little more than a wisp of smokey intention. Sandblaze wished he could see the clear parts that she could, but he couldn't. He saw only his family - his brothers. His mother. The warrior's eyes held Amberdawn's as he made a deep, desperate request: look after them, if they are separated. If Sandblaze followed the pawsteps of his sister, or if Tinystar forced him to leave, or if, stars forbid, Sandblaze were killed, would Amberdawn do anything to watch over them?

The medicine cat was speechless. She knew her uncertainty showed; her hesitation was blatant. "Sandblaze..." Amberdawn began quietly, nodding her head ever so slightly and forming her mouth a few different ways to try to find the words. She breathed and said, "Sandblaze, I live and breathe and die for my Clanmates. I will do whatever I can, always, but I... I can't... I mean, I-I don't know if I... if I am the right cat. I'm not strong. I can't fight... I can only think and move plants around." Her eyes were sad as she glanced just slightly away from Sandblaze, looking uneasily at the entrance of the den. Camp was still silent; all was dark, and secret. "I don't know what I can protect them from besides illness."