Rift [Closed]

At last, his first Gathering as leader was over. But with it, Torrentstar felt as if a small part of him had died. On the way back, the RiverClan tom had barely spoken a word. Perhaps his clanmates had instinctively sensed the turmoil raging within him; perhaps they had been cowed by his forceful display atop the Great Rock. Either way, none of them approached him. None of them said anything about his decision. The whole way back, he had only faced forward, never throwing a glance over a shoulder. He knew what he would have seen, if he had done so―at least, he believed he knew. He did not want to face those stares so full of reproach and doubt. He could not, when his heart already felt like it was breaking apart from what he had had to do. One, in particular, almost seemed to scorch a hole in his pelt. He could feel it burning into him, a gaze that had once been so familiar to him. He knew what he had left behind, as he stepped into RiverClan camp, and he knew that the events of tonight could not have turned out any other way.

Dacepaw had made her choice, choosing ThunderClan over RiverClan. Somehow, Torrentstar had not been surprised. Some part of him had grown to expect the pain, the disappointment. There was nothing to do but steel his heart now, lie to himself that she had never meant anything more to him. RiverClan did not need a deserter; he knew that fact. As long as he ruled, those who abandoned their clan without care would not face a sympathetic heart. If there was one thing he regretted more than anything else, however, it was Dappleshine―his daughter... No. From this day onward, perhaps she was no longer his daughter but just a cat he had raised in passing. He knew, at the very least, that she no longer considered him her father. He had been ready to face the consequences from the moment he had made his decision regarding Dacepaw. Even so, it still hurt. It still hurt so badly.

Quietly, his clanmates stole away to their dens. Before she could go, he called out to her. "Dappleshine." Once, it had been a name that brought joy to him. But now it was agony to have to speak it. Just that one word, and then he was silent. He stood waiting―waiting to hear the words that he knew was coming.

She had left the Gathering, leaving her beloved daughter in ThunderClan's care forever. Oakstar had made a promise, one she was sure to call upon as often as she could. Her daughter would always know her, and be able to find her. The trip back to camp, however, was silent. There were cats who disapproved, of Dacepaw's initial disappearance along with Sparkfrost, of Dappleshine's stand against Torrentstar, of Dacepaw's final decision. She want to claw the judgmental looks off of their faces - like so many of them hadn't made an error in judgement, or had to make a difficult decision. For StarClan's sake, she wished they would stop staring. Even so, she was tired. As angry and adamant as she was, far above it all she was a tired, grieving and lonely mother. A she-cat that had seen the loss of so many... And now one of her dearest treasures had made the choice to leave on her own as well.

She wanted nothing more than to simply find her nest after returning to camp, and pull the many beautiful rocks Dacepaw had given her under the moons out from under it. To surround herself with their sparkling depths, and take comfort in their water-smoothed edges. To recall every memory of her minnow bringing them to her. The voice that cut through her despair demanded her attention, however, and she turned to face the origin of it. The cat she had always considered a father... But perhaps in his eyes she was no longer a daughter to him after the events of the night. That stung almost as much as everything else, but then again, what part of her didn't hurt at this point.

Her expression was cold, harsh and shadowed as she faced Torrentstar. Her eyes, on the other paw, betrayed her loneliness, grief, and sorrow, and try as she might to make it otherwise she knew they still did. He stood still, watching her, waiting. Silence spread between them for what felt like far too long as the strangling warriors and apprentices made their way into their dens, settling into their nests of reeds. The silence was suffocating, but Dappleshine was having a difficult time finding the words to break the silence. What if he exiled her, for what she did? The thought crossed her mind bitterly, and her shoulders slumped slightly as she finally broke the deafening quiet surrounding them.

"Torrentstar." That single word shattered the area around them, and she came to a sudden realization. Torrentstar had known. He had known that her daughter was safe, and didn't say anything to her. Instead, he waited until the Gathering, of all places, putting Dacepaw and in turn herself in the forefront of all of the clans. Her voice shook with the gravity of the realization as she asked, blue eyes piercing with their grief. "How long did you know, Torrentstar? How long did you know that she was safe, and cared for, while I fretted and grieved? Why at the Gathering, of all places? Couldn't we have spoken, between simply the two clans, about this? I'm sure Oakstar would have agreed to a simple meeting. At the very least, you could have told me she was okay. That's your granddaughter, Torrentstar. Unless you don't consider me your daughter anymore?"

There, she had said it. The cold tones of her voice were so unlike her usual warm ones, so akin to what she had used at the Gathering. "Why call such a young cat out in front of every other cat? To embarrass her? To embarrass me? To try to pin her in a position so she couldn't possibly make her choice without the eyes of every single clan cat trained on her?" Her tail lashed in anger as she thought of the way her daughter had shuddered, tearful and broken-hearted at the way Torrentstar had glared down at her. "She loved you. Adored you. You were her Pawpaw. And for whatever StarClan forsaken reason, you threw all of that away in pursuit of your self-absorbed anger and inability to consider her circumstances. You do the same thing to every other cat who doesn't fit into your 'perfect' vision of a RiverClan cat. Salmonpaw, Sparkfrost, Jaystar. You despise them for their short-comings, to the point where that is all you see. You ignore their successes, their capabilities, their love and devotion in order to hold your grudges against them because they don't quite fit in."

She took a deep breath, looking at the cat she loved as a father intently, not realizing that the fur along her back had bristled. "You chase this idea of a perfect reality where no cat makes mistakes and everyone is exactly where they feel they should be and is perfect and the truth Torrentstar, is that we're not! None of us are! We all make mistakes, we all bite of a bit more tough meat than we can chew. Not every cat can be as shiny and spotless as you want us to be, no matter how desperately you try to force us to be otherwise!" She exclaimed, the hurt and betrayal evident in her expression. "I've tried to be perfect, Torrentstar. For you, for the clan, for every single cat I've encountered. I've encouraged them to be the best they can be, to the fullest of my ability. I've urged them to follow the path their heart calls them to. Yet I have continued not to follow mine, out of respect and love for you. Why, then, have you tossed that aside as well?"

The silence that dragged on between the two of them lasted for only half a minute, but to Torrentstar it could have lasted for an eternity. Green eyes found blue, piercing gazes laden with so much emotion that they almost seemed to rip apart the darkness that they traversed. Despite the depths of feeling that were contained in each, one was faintly trembling with vehemence, while the other was dark and cold. Leader and warrior faced each other, but they were more than those simple titles. Hanging in the balance, an invisible pressure that weighed on each cat's heart, was the relationship of a father and a daughter who had once thought that they meant everything to each other. With every wordless second that slipped by, the tension mounted. Moonlight spilled down their backs and coiled around their paws, mingling with the shadows―the sacred bound to the physical world. By now, the last of their clanmates had stolen away. It was just the two of them in the center of RiverClan camp, with what seemed like the entirety of StarClan's host peering down from the refuge of heaven above.

The moment Dappleshine spoke his name, Torrentstar knew what was coming. Somehow, the cat standing before him no longer looked like his adopted daughter. Her physical appearance was unchanged, and so was her scent. But her usually soft features were twisted in an expression of utter grief and rage. It was the look of an enraged and embittered mother, whose only kit had been unfairly torn away from her; now she faced the perpetrator, and she was going to hold nothing back. Like a claw piercing his heart came the realization that she saw him as an enemy now. He had changed her―no one else, only him and the decision he had made. No amount of mental preparation he had done could have truly dulled the pain of her words. Each word was like a flaming brand, burning through his flesh and his bone to reach the vulnerable heart beneath.

So this was all it had taken. All it had taken was a single decision, and a bond that he had built up over so many moons had snapped. Was the protective love of a mother really so strong, or had his bond with Dappleshine simply been weak? To think that it was so easy for her to turn on him. He was a parent too. Even if he was definitely not the best father, he did his best for his kits. All he wanted was for his family to live a long, happy life without having to experiencing the bitterness that reality liked to throw in a cat's face. He had always considered Dappleshine to be a part of that family. Before Dacepaw's desertion, the little she-cat had also been included. It was Dacepaw herself who had thrown all that away. Any cat whose loyalty did not lie with RiverClan could not be considered a member of the clan. His clanmates might disagree, but Torrentstar knew better. He had experience; he had seen what these cats and those like them could end up doing. If he did not react with a harsh-enough countermeasure, events could unfold in a disastrous direction. It was naive faith in the non-existent good nature of a cat's heart that had led to cats like Shade and Lichenmask taking innocent lives. Sure, Dacepaw was no murderer. But who was to say that a deserter was so much better? Trust that had been broken once was incredibly hard to earn back. If they could betray their clan―their home and their identity―what else would they be willing to forsake?

Did Dappleshine really think that he had made his decision purely out of selfishness? Did she think that having to banish his own granddaughter had been as pleasant an experience as a saunter through the woods? She was accusing him of being blinded by ideals, when he had always held the clan's safety in mind. Which cat did not have ideals? If one had nothing he strongly believed in, that cat was as bland as the invisible air; such a cat was worthless and incapable of making decisions. For whose sake had he doubted Salmonpaw? For whose sake had he detested Jaystar's lies? Of course his personal feelings were involved. But with Salmonpaw, Torrentstar had always been concerned about where the tom's home truly was; what good was a RiverClan warrior whose thoughts were haunted by the marshes of ShadowClan all day long? And Jaystar... There was no need to even discuss the former leader. The silver striped tom had been a coward unwilling to face his mistakes until the last moments of his life. For so many moons, he had lied to the cats who trusted him most. Allowing his kits to believe that they were rouges rescued into the clan, he had practically abandoned all responsibility to them. Apparently Dappleshine had never seen beyond the surface. If all Torrentstar cared about was himself, he would not have experienced so much struggle. It was easy to pretend that his clanmates had nothing to with him. After all, apart from his family and his apprentices, he had practically no other connections among the clan. Even so, he had always striven to act according to the clan's benefit as a whole. Such was the responsibility that had been placed upon him―a responsibility that he had never even asked for!

It was too much―Dappleshine's words and the anger she directed toward him. She did not understand anything. She had not gone through what he had. All she could see was that he had taken her daughter away from her... Yes, she could not understand. But he had known that from the start, had he not? He had not expected her to sympathize with him. After all, she was too different from him... Even so―even so―Torrentstar realized with a painful clench of his heart. Deep down inside, he wanted her to understand. And the fact that she did not tore him apart.

If he had never opened his heart to her, to that defenseless kit back on the shore of the lake, he would never have been hurt like this. He was going to lose her, and there was nothing he could do about it. Had it been too much to ask, the happiness that he had enjoyed in the past few moons?

"Feel free to think of me what you will." The large tabby uttered at last. His words were far colder than anything he felt on the inside. They were frigid, like the river frozen over at leaf bare. It hurt him even more, to have to force on such an indifferent mask. But it was the only way he knew how to protect himself; it always had been. Even when Sweetheart had betrayed the clan, he had not shed so much as a tear or begged Ivystar to spare his mentor. Was it true that he had never felt sad about that incident? Well, if the stars could really see anything, than Sweet must have already seen how he had truly felt. "If you really want to believe that I am nothing more than a selfish tyrant, that I no longer see you as a daughter, so be it. I will say now, Dappleshine, that every decision I have made has always been made with the clan in mind. I do not care whether you understand that or not. As long as I am leader, I will continue to do what I believe is right. I will not allow this clan to perish in the laws of traitors, although you might wish otherwise." He paused, darkened green gaze sweeping over her. "That is all, Dappleshine. Good night." The usual warmth that would tinge those words was gone. If anything, they only sounded sarcastic. Turning before Dappleshine could say another word, Torrentstar padded off towards his den.

If there was no other choice but to lose Dappleshine, he just had to harden his heart, turn it into rock. Then he would surely feel no pain.