Dust in Your Pocket {OPEN - WC PLOT TOPIC #4}

Where his legs stuttered at the last moment, Goldengale’s and Dappleshine’s carried them past him and into the darkness, one after the other. Relief rushed through him. Guilt and frustration followed hot on its heels, but he shoved them aside. There he waited, beside the tunnel’s entrance, ready to meet cat and beast alike. First, a small shape bolted into the open: Spotpaw, mud-stained but unharmed. Alive. Raventail made to usher her toward the moor-runners, but she had already seen them, and so he resumed staring into the tunnel’s mouth, straining to hear anything beyond hisses and growls. Finally, a different sound broke through. Dappleshine’s voice, muffled as if she was carrying something. Raventail’s ears stood straight. He stumbled backward.

Dappleshine emerged into the moonlight, Crowpaw placed securely between her jaws, and the second tunnel came down.

When the dust settled, the apprentices reacted first. Spotpaw dug at the newest mess of dirt and grass with a familiar desperation. Neither she nor Crowpaw was old enough to see a body, but Raventail couldn’t move to pull her away, nor did he protest when Crowpaw looked up, steady as stone past the wetness in his eyes, and said, ”We have to try.” ”Of course,” Raventail murmured, and raised his head. Of their patrol, helplessness had left Clovertwist and Barleytuft stunned, Aspenheart was possibly beyond hearing, and Crowpaw was wounded. But camp and Elmskip were too far away. They had no time to spare. His gaze swung across Barleytuft’s face as he tried to put together a compelling argument. I know what you said, but we can’t leave them. What if they’re still alive? Barleytuft, please. Help me.

None of those were good enough. This was dangerous. It flew in the face of logic and what he’d been told. It was still the only thing that made sense to him. Either there were survivors, or the tunnel patrol would be unearthed for WindClan to bury. If they uncovered something worse, well, he wasn't too hurt to fight. All the essential phrases (Grousefrost and Ploverpuddle, Finchstar, dig them up, save them) clogged his throat. ”Dappleshine, Aspenheart—the other tunnel,” he managed. They had no reason to listen to him; he had no reason to wait and see who did. Instead, Raventail plunged his own paws into the dirt beside the apprentices, hoping for and dreading the first glimpse of golden fur in equal measures.

/mobile oof

Aspenheart was shutting down, and he was shutting down quickly. Blinking rhythmically, his gaze remained cast down to the ground. He didn't hear the rumbling of another tunnel collapse over the heaving of his breath. Where was he, again? What was this strange, otherworldly place? He heard the desperate clamoring of paws just beyond him, and a familiar voice boomed over the roaring in his ears, penetrating the fog of his brain.

”Dappleshine, Aspenheart—the other tunnel.”

Aspenheart growled, the guttural noise ripping through his throat and tearing him from his place. He woke up his legs, one by one, breaking his violent period of mourning His eyes, a little crazed, landed on the previously-RiverClan cat. He cackled, a painful and high pitched noise, allowing the tears now to flow freely. "I don't know anything about you, except that my deputy trusts you. My leader is missing. He told us to dig, so you and me, we're going to DIG!"

Shoulder-checking Dappleshine on the way, Aspenheart ran as fast as he could towards the first tunnel. He fell twice, his legs still bucking and kicking as he stumbled over. As soon as his paws touched the rubble, he knew he had to adjust his technique. Huffing with the effort of scooping up piles of dirt, he scanned the wreckage for clues.

"Dappleshine!" he gasped, "Dig right there, a tail-length away from me! One of their heads are under there! If we don't let them breathe, they'll die! Work fast, please, my legs don't work like they should and I need help..." His shaking front paws punctured the earth with more effort than he'd ever given in his life. His worst nightmares were coming true. Finally, finally, the tip of an ear peeked out of the earth: grey tabby. Grousefrost's face was being unearthed with every movement. Aspenheart struggled for a few more moments and collapsed in horrible agony. Grousefrost's muzzle poked out of the dirt, and Aspenheart wheezed beside him. "Give me a minute, you rabbit-headed little smth..." he mumbled breathlessly.

OOC Note: Goldengale will not be found

As quickly as she was moving, Dappleshine wasn't sure at first if the sensation of dirt falling around her was from her movements or something else. Finally stumbling into the moonlight, she set Crowpaw down and turned to find.... Dust. Where the hole into the tunnel had been just moments before, where she had been heartbeats before, was gone. Her eyes lifted to meet Raventail's, concern and horror freezing her paws. Her mouth felt dry with the endless possibilities, she could have sworn that Goldengale had been right behind her. Past Raventail stood Barleytuft and Clovertwist, horrified and distraught, frozen in place just as she was.

The sound of her name brought her head around towards it source, and she nodded numbly at the order. Aspenheart met her eyes, and the look within them shook her to her core. His cackle, accompanied by the haunting cackle that emitted from his throat before he spoke, sent shivers down her spine. She hadn't known Finchstar well, especially not as well as the cats surrounding her, but for a brief moment she considered if it had been Torrentstar. Relenting in resistance slightly as the wobbly-legged medicine cat checked her as he passed, she turned to follow him to the other depression of dirt and mud.

For a heartbeat she stared at the expanse, not sure what to do. Taking a moment to watch Aspenheart, she mimicked his actions. Her legs, strong from moons of navigating the currents of the river, and her webbed paws allowing for big scoops of dirt to be pulled from the hole. Aspenheart's voice came again, and she quickly made her way over to him. Carefully, she helped pull away the dirt as a head emerged. Aspenheart cleared the dirt away from his muzzle before collapsing, his breathing heavy from the effort. Panting herself, Dappleshine pushed on. Now that the tom's muzzle was clear, she began to start pushing the dirt away from the top of his shoulders, and back.

Finally, she grasped the cat's scruff and pulled, slowly but firmly, attempting to drag him from the clutches of the dirt that had come collapsing over him. As she pulled, a realization hit her. This was Grousefrost, Goldengale's mate. Oh stars...

The dog snarled, deep, angry, as yet another cat engaged him; but this one was slippery and managed to get ahold of his scruff before he could land a powerful blow with a large, clumsy paw. She was gone as fast as she appeared, shuffling and moving with the smaller cats in her jaws. Whatever. He had delivered his message, and hopefully he and the fox could leave this ugly scene soon. Cat blood still dripped from his twisted lips and the taste occupied his attention until a familair deep rumbling sounded around him. This tunnel, like the last, was closing in on the trio. Letting out a final enraged bark, he turned tail and followed the russet fox deeper into the tunnel.

Behind him, Aspenheart came back to life. Raventail, listening just close enough to distinguish feline voices from a beast’s snarls, processed his frantic sounds without the words. Aspenheart had heard him. That was all that mattered. Aspenheart had been one of the first new tunnelers, and Dappleshine was brave enough to fight for WindClan, to run into the tunnels with next to no training—more than brave enough to dig for WindClan, too. To hang his hopes on his medicine cat and his mate was by far the simplest thing this battle had demanded of Raventail. He did just that, and shut the rest of the world out.

The ground turned before him. His movements could have been methodical if not for the furious shuddering that had seized him. Leaf-fall’s dirt was colder than newleaf’s. It caught and stung in the torn bits of his pelt, the smaller wounds that hadn’t been secured by cobwebs. Only two things were audible to him now: the blood in his ears and every single one of Grousefrost’s lessons.

His old apprentice, so eager to learn how to dig before the tunnels had even been tested. Gone the same way as his mentor. His paws brushed across overturned earth. The only thing worse than finding her dead was finding nothing at all, yet the dirt he flung aside revealed neither ear nor muzzle nor scrap of fur. Something like a sob broke from him. They hadn’t found Quailpaw, either. No, no, she had to be here, just—somewhere else. Raventail moved aside through a fox-length of debris and resumed digging there.

As Dappleshine pulled Grousefrost out of the rubble, Aspenheart dropped to his forepaws and pressed his ears to the dusty tom's flank. He could barely hear over the roaring of his own blood in his ears. He growled, half in agony and half in frustration, sucking in breaths to releve the tension in his head. It didn't work. His tail lashing, he opted instead to place his willowy paws on Grousefrost's chest and pressing down. He matched his pace to the thumping of his heart, his eyes scanning Godlengale's first love for any signs of life. He felt his head bubbling and warping, and his vision began to blur. Unfocused, he continued to press down evenly on Grousefrost's chest, mimicking a heartbeat in the tom's battered ribcage.

"Dap-ple-shine," he ordered, his voice cutting with the effort of every compression as he practically danced across his patient's ribcage. "Plo-ver-pud-dle! He's - right - und-er - that - con-cav-it-y!" Wheezing, Aspenheart slumped across Grousefrost's chest, the muscle strain hitting him completely for the first time. He had no adrehnaline left. "Please get my clanmate."

As Dappleshine returned to digging, Aspenheart felt the pain in his head returning to a dull roar. He was acutely aware of a seizure. He estimated the tremors took him for about ten seconds before he was back, gasping for a good breath. Finally at his resting heart rate, he began to lick the fur on Grousefrost's scruff the wrong way, hoping that it would help. Something had to help.

He repeated the compressions until he could go no longer, and he pressed his head once more to the tom's chest, searching for a sign. Ploverpuddle would be back up from the ground soon. Aspenheart was resigned to whatever came next. What would WindClan do without the proud and self-reliant young warrior? They needed him right now. Finchstar was missing. The medicine cat knew, though he didn't know how, that their leader would not be unearthed from the rubble tonight. He listened closely to the cavity in Grousefrost's body, waiting for some kind of life...

As the silver and white tom was moved, be didn’t stir. His body lay completely still, eyes closed to protect them from the dirt that had fallen onto him. His ears didn’t twitch at Aspenheart’s desperate voice. Every muscle laid flat, still and unmoving.

Grousefrost opened his eyes slowly. He groaned in pain as he slowly pushed himself to sit up, the dirt didn’t seem to affect him. That wasn’t normal. He blinked, looking around in the darkness that surrounded him. Nothing was visible, his pelt felt tight and itchy from the press of dirt. Before him, he could see glimmers of pale dots in the distance.

He padded towards them. There didn’t seem to be any scent, or anything else visible as he approached them. The glimmering shapes turning cat like, and the scents of WindClan stirred in his muzzle the closer he walked. Now he could see it. Starry grasslands glistened before him, shifting in a soft eternal wind. The pelts of starry cats sharing tongues, padding around in peace.

His heart dropped to his paws.

“No… no I can’t be here.” He meowed, his voice abrupt in the peaceful relaxation of what laid before him. Cats from his distant memory glanced up, intrigued by the new visitor as he shook his head and stepped back. The flash of a golden pelt and loving blue eyes in his mind as he felt his chest grow tight. Goldengale… he couldn’t leave her. He couldn’t leave Crowpaw, or Vinepaw…

He blinked in shock as a familiar cat padded forwards. Her familiar orange and white pelt vibrant as he felt himself fall fowards. Tears sinking into the ground before his former mate. The one he had lost moons ago.
“Petalbreeze...” His throat felt tight, squeezed in a vice he couldn’t see as he tried. “I can’t...” He looked up, expecting to see her, only to see darkness once more.

She hadn’t offered him a single word.

Now that he thought about it… nothing had. The darkness returned, overwhelming, almost unbearable. There was nothing.

His pale chest stuttered in a gasp beneath Aspenheart’s paws. Grousefrost lay still beneath Aspenheart’s paws. Alive at least.

Panting as Aspenheart took over Grousefrost's care once he had been freed, she watched helplessly before looking back at the dirt. It all looked the same, and there was so much of it... How could she possibly try to find another? Or even two more? Soft puffs of air came from behind her, followed by Aspenheart's pitted voice. Ploverpuddle. Concavity. Which concavity? Blue eyes scanning the expanse, she noted the one she thought the medicine cat had been referring to. Quickly making her way there, she resumed digging. Keeping her claws sheathed, she moved pawful after pawful of dirt, shoulders and hind paws aching with the effort of keeping herself from slipping into the sunken ground.

Finally, her paws brushed something hard and unmoving, and she looked down to see long gray fur. Was this Ploverpuddle? She hadn't gotten to know the clan very well, but she was sure it was. Digging around the bits of fur, she quickly attempted to free his muzzle. The shape of the cats face was definitely fitting, so she grunted as she lunged forward, grasping the toms scruff. Wiggling slightly to keep her balance and free him from the dirt on top of him, she slowly pulled him free. At the last moment, her back legs buckled and she fell back, Ploverpuddle pulled along with her. Exhausting and hurting from the effort of digging, she looked over to roll the cat onto his side and look up to Aspenheart.

"Aspen...heart. I think... I think I've got him." She gasped, rolling onto her belly as she tried to catch her breath and pull some energy to her legs.

Spotpaw rapidly digged, looking for a golden tabby pelt. Raventail and Crowpaw had joined her helping her dig. The more Spotpaw digged the messier her fur got but that was the least of her concerns. Spotpaw digged deeper and deeper, before she noticed golden fur.

"Goldengale?" Spotpaw mewed breathlessly. Hope sparked in her chest. She continued digging just to find that it was a tuft of fur. Not Goldengale. Spotpaw let herself collapse. Tears ran down her cheeks as she looked at the golden fur tuft in her paws. They had been digging and all they found was a golden tuft of fur.

Spotpaw looked up at the sky. Oh Goldengale please don't join Starclan. Please. Spotpaw silently begged. Spotpaw then looked down at the tuft of fur and whimpered. She sniffed the tuft of fur smelling Goldengale's scent. At least they had some bit of Goldengale if her mentor ever did have a vigil.

Crowpaw finally dropped, exhausted, after what had seemed like ages of digging. A scrap of fur had shown through, not Goldengale, but he bit back tears as he turned, chest heaving, looking with desperation at Raventail and Dappleshine. Raventail had unearthed his father, and Grousefrost seemed to be at least breathing. Ploverpuddle seemed to be in a less ideal condition, though Dappleshine was working on him.

He turned back to Spotpaw. “I can only hope she managed to get out. Come on, Spotpaw. There are others who need help.” He picked up the scrap of fur, tucking it into his own for safekeeping until they could get back to camp. He padded over to Dappleshine, tail flicking, voice heavy. “Is there anything I can do?” At the very least, he would make sure his father and mentor both got out safely.

A long groan escaped Ploverpuddle as he was pulled from the dirt, the groan soon turned into a whimper of pain as his hind legs were pulled free. His chest heaved with pain and coughs as he was met with fresh air. His yellow eyes opening for just a moment before closing again. He was alive... He was free.. The warrior opened his eyes again. The pain all over his body causing another groan to escape the tom. He could feel every single blow that the dead cat had dealt to him. Every single cut and wound screaming with pain. But worse of all...

His hind legs felt like they were on fire. He couldn't really feel anything other than the pain, unlike the rest of his body. He shot up with panic. Were they still even there? He looked towards his other half as he pushed himself upwards onto his forepaws. Panic turning to dread as he saw the damage that was caused by being trapped and pulled free from the dirt. Cuts and deeps wounds covered his back half. He couldn't tell which wounds were still bleeding and which weren't. Add the dirt that was stuck to him because of the red liquid only made it look even worse.

The worse part of it all was the deep gash that sat on his back lower left leg. It looked like someone took a chunk out of him. He wasn't sure if that was caused by the dead creature or if that was something in the collapse. All he knew though now that he was looking at it, he felt dizzy and light-headed. Closing his eyes he slumped back to the ground. Oh man it hurt.. "Apsen.. Aspenheart.." He called for the tom weakly. He wasn't even sure if the medicine cat was nearby. All he knew is that he needed assistance, and badly.

The new spot, like the old, yielded not so much as a whisker. A cold, solid lump came to rest high in Raventail’s throat. He looked up to see Spotpaw and Crowpaw examining a scrap of fur. It was too light to be the dog’s. At this distance, he could tell himself it was fox fur; he could not, however, make himself believe that, not when Crowpaw took the scrap for himself, not with how Spotpaw stared at it as if it could pull the cat to whom it belonged out of the earth. He was vaguely aware that he’d stopped digging. How Goldengale had been so deeply buried in a pawful of moments, he would never understand. He supposed it didn’t matter. Dirt was dirt.

Finchstar and Goldengale were gone; foxes and worse creatures plagued the moor; in the battle’s chaos, he could have sworn he’d heard a distinctly non-WindClan voice. Later, those things would sink in. For one achingly long moment after Crowpaw left, Raventail squinted into the clumps he’d unearthed, as if he could have missed the signs despite how hard he’d searched. Then he stood. On empty, mud-stained paws, he hurried to aid the living.

His gaze fell on Aspenheart, then on the cat beneath Aspenheart’s paws. Grousefrost’s chest rose and fell so subtly Raventail might have imagined it, yet Grousefrost was on the moor rather than underneath. Dread submerged Raventail’s relief before he’d gotten a chance to properly feel it. First Petalbreeze, and now… A movement from nearby caught his attention. Raventail turned to see Ploverpuddle slump down, blood oozing from his leg, back, sides. Alive. Both of them. He had no memory of running to Ploverpuddle and Dappleshine; he blinked and found himself beside them, shaking from a hundred things he refused to process. ”Well, I’m not Aspenheart, but I’m here.” Raventail raised his head. ”Aspenheart! What do you need me to do?” There had to be something, anything. He couldn't afford to stop.

Aspenheart's head lifted at the sudden shuddering breath that left Grousefrost's chest as he started to breathe again. He wasn't awake, but he took deep gulps of air as he coughed up small pieces of debris. Aspenheart cackled maniacally at the sight. He lapped at Grousefrost's ears with a vengeance, muttering the gentlest of cusses and praises in the same unlikely sentences. "You're a hero, a ratbrained, foxhearted hero with a deathwish, but a hero." He looked up and saw Ploverpuddle being hauled from the wreckage. There was nowhere near enough herbs to heal his wounds at the battlefront. Raventail asked him for guidance as the two unconscious toms heaved and groaned. Aspenheart sat up straight, peering around much like a wary meerkat. If their deputy was done digging, surely that meant that Goldengale was close behind!

There was no golden pelt waiting for him when he lifted his eyes to the moor. Aspenheart swallowed with ten times as much effort as usual. It was like a burr was caught in his throat. Well, what now? Goldengale was still under there. Finchstar, too, unless he escaped the collapse in time. Surely he was wandering around, looking for a place to emerge from down below! Aspenheart moved from his place near Grousefrost and moved in a positively ghostly manner towards the tunnels. He sniffed the air. He smelled dirt. No. No. No. No.

Obviously, it was a misunderstanding. That's it. They would find each other, Finchstar and Goldengale, and they'd have a grand old laugh as they made a little adventure of returning home. His face betrayed his bogus explanations as he turned around to address Raventail. "Ploverpuddle is bleeding, and Grousefrost won't survive the night if I can't diagnose him. We will take them home, and in the morning we will come back to retrieve Finchstar and Goldengale, who will be waiting for us. I could barely carry Clovertwist when he was half that size, so each of you should take one of the wounded." Aspenheart cleared his throat, seeing nothing wrong with the scenario that had befallen them.

"Don't question me, I know what I'm doing. They will be here. I'm in control, see? I can handle this, Raventail, don't you worry. They will be here. They will. You hear me, Raventail? They'll be sitting right here where we left them. It's all one big joke, see, and they think they've got the jump on me," he rambled, mostly to himself, as he stepped ahead of the group, ready to lead them home. Two streams of tears trickled down his face.

Crowpaw swept his tail to the side, hearing Aspenheart’s words, but still looking back at the tunnel that had come down atop his mother. Steadying his breath, he turned.

“A-Aspenheart’s right. Not about this being one big joke, but he’s right that we need to get those we know are still alive back to camp and treated, before we’re left with no survivors out of the four. Raventail... I’ll help you carry my dad. I’m not sure I’d be the best cat to help with Ploverpuddle, I don’t know about transporting cats with injuries. But I want to do something.”

His voice was shaky, but he did his best to sound firm, confident, as he padded over to Raventail, tail checking for the lump of his mom’s fur tucked into his own. Still there. They’d be okay. He had to tell himself that. Goldengale would find them, Finchstar too, somehow. Life would go back to normal. But until then, he had to keep pressing on. He had to survive, and make sure those close to him did, too.

Spotpaw could barely hear the others speak as blood pounded in her ears. She then heard Aspenheart pad over next to her and talk while Crowpaw agreed. Spotpaw felt her tears run hotly down her cheeks. "NO!" Spotpaw wailed unexpectedly to not just the other cats but herself. She kept digging and digging as tears flooded down her cheeks

Soon after what seemed a moon of digging Spotpaw collapsed. She curled herself in a tight ball as tears flooded down. "Goldengale." Spotpaw whimpered. She felt as if she failed. It should of been me who was in the tunnel collapse. Not Goldengale. Spotpaw thought.