Gone, But Not Forgotten

It was dark. Thunder clattered, no, roared in the distance.
Moisture collected on Mintwhisker's pelt in ice-cold beads, rolling down her spine and dropping silently to the ground. Was it sweat, rain, or something else?
Her chest was heaving and she panted, her maw agape.
She'd been running, although she couldn't remember why- why were her paws shaking? Why were her claws out? What just happened?

Mintwhisker shook violently, trying to clear her fur and mind, but to no avail. She took a step back and collided with something solid.
She turned, her murky eyes narrowed as a flash of lightning illuminated what she had bumped into. It was such an odd tree: Scores of claw-marks- ugly, scarlike -were embedded in its bark. They were hauntingly familiar. She'd been here before.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Had she neglected to take her herbs? She'd always been careful to eat at least a few leaves each night before she fell asleep. Perhaps she'd been distracted by Amberdawn's disappearance?
Not that her former apprentice had been a distraction. Far from it, actually: Amberdawn would probably be the easiest to forget, especially with the help of the herbs...
the herbs. Mintwhisker supposed they were doing their job a little too well if she was forgetting to take them. She turned away from the tree, scanning her surroundings, trying to gather herself. "Starclan," The word was a weapon, a demand. Surely her ancestors would come to her aid. It was their duty- she was a medicine cat. They had to.
"Starclan." She repeated, letting the word echo until the murmur of the rain drowned it out.

She shuffled her paws and suddenly became aware that she wasn't standing in a puddle of rainwater. Tentatively, Mintwhisker raised one paw to her face, trying to identify the dark liquid that had stained the pad.
She hissed at the acrid scent and put her paw back on the ground, wrinkling her nose. Blood difficult to deal with when it was expected. She shook her head, her eyes focusing on movement past her bloodstained paw.

No.
There, on the other side of the tree, dry patches of fur ruffling in the stormy breeze, most of it plastered to the skin by rainwater. Her stomach dropped.
Mintwhisker could've sworn she hid the body. She glanced around before approaching it tentatively, her hackles rising unbidden.
Sedgestrike. Even in death, he was unmistakable.

The sight of the pale brown tabby as she padded through the darkened forest was an odd one. She didn’t belong here. The feeling sank down deep in the atmosphere as jade green eyes watched from the darkened bushes. Mud covered the ground in a sickening and cloying form as a tom lay helpless in the mud.

His skull was split. Jaw agape in mute agony with eyes that were dull and glassy. Though for the briefest moment they flashed with light. Silver tail rising and lashing despite a lack of breath. His mud covered fur did not gleam in the light of the stars. Nor did the shadow’s.

Bushes rattled to Mintwhisker’s right as the she-cat’s pelt prickled.
"Strange. How you call for StarClan.” The voice echoed through the forest. Shadows clinging to the pelt of the cat that padded around the clearing. One moment north, the next south. Scentless, impossible as it almost looked as though other shadowed forms joined in. Mud squelching beneath paws.

"One who murders has no place in the stars.” The voice hissed, the body at Mintwhisker’s paws twitched. Claws unsheathing as the body changed. It’s pelt elongated into fluffier and muddy fur. Ribs began to show, a guant haunted expression on the cat’s face as it’s pelt darkened and the body lifted slowly from the ground, crawling towards the medicine cat as blood seeped from a neck wound. "A cat who couldn’t stand up for the weak.” the voice sounded worse now, more of a garble as the form lifted itself slowly.

Sparrowpaw regarded Mintwhisker, hatred in her green gaze that seemed torn with the ache of longing. This she-cat, whom she had once been close to. Who she had stood up for against her own father’s wishes. Who should have known her better than any cat. Yet, she had stood by and allowed the execution.
"Did it make you feel better?” Her voice hissed, garbled with the lack of throat as she swallowed continuously, thirsty, desperate for water that would never reach her maw. "I slapped you once, and you let him rip out my throat. You let him kill me Mintwhisker.” She stopped in front of the brown she-cat now. Jade green eyes vibrant in the shadows that drifted closer. As mud and murk gathered at Mintwhisker’s paws as though to trap her.

"This is your fate.”