Shadepaw's Moonstone Journey

Shadepaw froze as the scenery changed around her. She watched the blurry cats move around camp and the old scent she knew as Stagclan danced around in the air. She stood, shocked for a second before turning to the black cat to answer. "Yeah..." She trailed off looking around at the peaceful camp. She saw her family. Salamander, Yew, Ash, Night, mother, father and then she saw a smaller version of herself, watching her littermates play. She couldn't see every detail. Her gaze changed towards Night and she felt a sad feeling wash over her, a memory flashed in her mind making her flinch.

She padded around until she was in front of herself looking at the yellowish-blue eyes of her kithood self. A small smile crept upon her muzzle as she saw her former self shuffle her blurry paws. "I'm fighting the urge to join." She purred, yellow eyes fixed on the grey calico. "It's like looking into a puddle, blurry at times. But like a magic one, looking at a younger version of yourself." Her tail twitched as she saw Shade pass through her. "But this isn't me now." She turned around to look at herself again. "I'm not Shade anymore, I'm Shadepaw." She paused before nodding. "Shadepaw of Shadowclan, that's Shade of Stagclan." She meowed with a strong voice, she accepted it now, even if it was hard before.

The apprentice's shocked reaction was plenty of an answer for Frog, and the StarClan cat studied the she-cat's face. The awe. The surprise. The wistfulness.  It was the world that Shadepaw had been born into and grown up in, and it was a world she knew - or thought she knew - that she would never see again. The pale apprentice finally murmured confirmation. With that, Frog let some of Shadepaw's memories take control of the scene before them. She watched as the younger she-cat began to move around, pale eyes glancing from shape to shape full of recollection and emotion. When Shadepaw turned quickly away from one of the figures, Frog dipped her head solemnly. She knew what Shadepaw had last seen of this cat, but there was nothing to say of it now.

When at last Shadepaw stopped in front of herself, Frog moved to join the she-cat, her starry gray coat glimmering over her sleek muscles. She couldn't help but smile at first at the young calico's words. Why didn't you? Frog wanted to ask; however, Shadepaw continued speaking, her tone bittersweet. The starry she-cat's tail flicked, and when the apprentice went quiet the gray cat looked from the dream-like blur back to Shadepaw and replied plainly, "Nah; that's still you." Frog padded between Shadepaw and Shade, obscuring the murky image as she looked intently into Shadepaw's eyes with her pale green ones. "It doesn't matter what name you have or what cats you surround yourself with or where you make your nest at night: you are you. Whatever you go through, however you change, whoever you lose, you're still you. That's why it's so important to feel at ease in your own pelt."

Shadepaw turned her head to the side when Frogmarsh jumped in front of her. "It's me, sure it is. But this is the old me, keep to myself, frightened me." She meowed before padding past Frogmarsh to see Shade, Night, Salamander and Yew again. "That was the me in Stagclan, the me for a little bit in Shadowclan. Then I changed, saw that everything can work out for you if you make it happen, even if it's so sudden and scary." Shade was huddling against her mother now. 

"Mother got to keep her name, but she changed too. Well, a little, just because she was closed off to the clan. Hm, so many little things can change something big." She mewed, walking towards Night, swiping the blurry figure. She felt as starlight brushed against her claws, the black pelt of Night followed her claws but then disappeared, returning to normal. "Even though it was an accident, you were going to hurt someone anyway, Night was a friend to you.." She hissed quietly, so that Frogmarsh could hardly hear her. "It's your fault, you meant to hurt her you meant to hurt us." She started to pad until she couldn't see the camp anymore and the world became Starclan once again.

"That day was horrible. Two deaths of cats I knew, one my own littermate and the other, my father." She soon sat. "One of those deaths caused by a trusted Stagclan cat. They were going to hurt my mother anyway. That's why I don't want to remember Stagclan, or feel that I was even once a Stagclan cat, I don't want to be in the same clan as Cinderfa-" She didn't end up saying her name. "No, I don't want to be in the same clan as a murderer."

Frog felt her tail flick with mild frustration as Shadepaw seemed to miss the point of her statement. The ShadowClan cat moved around her starry guide to observe each of the murky shapes again, though she spoke of herself - her old self. She spoke of how she used to be timid and fearful; how she used to sit out, wishing she had joined in. Frog listened without speaking as Shadepaw said that she had learned better. She had learned how to get what she wanted by going after it. When the young she-cat began to speak about her family again, Frog bit back a sigh, choosing to settle in and listen patiently instead. She'd been sent here to give guidance to a ShadowClan cat, the child of Frog's friend whose reign she never got to see, and if the guidance that Shadepaw needed was just talking through it herself, well, that was less work for the starry warrior.

She watched Shadepaw's quiet pondering, seeing the pale she-cat move slowly towards a dark-pelted cat. Even Frog, with her typically cavalier attitude towards grief and tragedy, couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Shadepaw swiped at the shape, whispering angrily about something. Then, as if she'd suddenly realized she needed to flee, the apprentice turned on her heel and began to pad away from the starry shape of the StagClan camp. Frog quickly left the scene behind, letting StarClan's hunting grounds take their shape again around the two she-cats. They walked for a short time as Shadepaw explained what she had seen: a day she hated, where she had seen too much death too soon. That was forest life.

Frog sat beside Shadepaw, listening intently to the apprentice's explanation. Frog's tail flicked, and she questioned, "You don't want to be in the same Clan as a murderer? Well, I've got great news on that front: that murderer is dead - lond dead - and she's never going to see tail nor whisker of you. The bad news, Shadepaw, is that you are still carrying a piece of that wretch around. Every time you refuse to think of who made you - what made you. Every time you deny StagClan. You're letting that same murderer decide who you are by letting her decide who and what you can and can't think about. You're missing out on the warmth of the love that created you; you have cut yourself off from a great source of strength."

The dark gray she-cat lifted her chin, green eyes glinting as she regarded Shadepaw and declared, "You are already strong. You are capable. You endure when things are painful. You have proven that a thousand times over. But this - denying where you came from, denying yourself - will wither you from the roots out." As she spoke, their surroundings were beginning to fade, stars blinking out one by one. "You have to care for your roots or you will starve, even if there's plenty around to sustain you." Now Frog was beginning to become translucent, but she hadn't disappeared yet.

Shadepaw stared at her, not realising until too late that the Starclan cat and the territory around her was beginning to fade away. "Wh-where are you going?" She reached a paw out but now she couldn't even touch the former Shadowclan cat. "I know that she's gone I just- wait, where are you going? Don't leave me here!-" The world faded to black around her, leaving Shadepaw and the she-cat staring at each other. "-In the dark.. by myself..." She was quiet for a long time, processing all that the grey cat had said. "I know what you mean now. But that moment will never fade from my memory. Even if she's dead, her memory didn't die with her- though, I wish it did, I wish Night just went missing or-or didn't jump in the way." She looked at her paws. "But you can't change the past... Can you?"

As the scenery faded, Frog could see Shadepaw's clear alarm and confusion growing. The pale she-cat protested - protested both StarClan's slow disappearance as well as, at first, the idea that Cinderface might still have any sway on Shadepaw. Frog merely blinked slowly and raised a brow, an ear flicking as the apprentice reached out a pale paw to try to touch her. No luck. The starry landscape was gone, leaving them in a strange ethereal plane: no light, no dark. Frog's slowly fading frame still glimmered with stars that shone in Shadepaw's yellow eyes. You aren't alone. Mothglow'll be right there when you wake up. That's all the darkness means, the StarClan cat thought, but as she gazed into the glassy expression of the paler she-cat, Frog could see the careful consideration on her face. Her face was ducked slightly. Frog fought against the shadows that were pulling her away from the young ShadowClan cat; surely Shadepaw could sleep a few more moments.

Frog flicked her ears again as the apprentice spoke with understanding, and hesitation. Frog narrowed her pale green eyes and gazed at the ground with something like wistfulness on her own face. When Shadepaw finished speaking, the StarClan warrior shook her head. "No. We can't change the past, no matter how badly it hurts us in the present. If we could... well, maybe I would've met you in StagClan. I have no idea how different things would be now. Even so, it does me no good to ignore the past; trying to hide the bad things clouds the good, too." Frog shrugged and shook her head, half smiling. She felt herself fading further away, some of the stars in her pelt blinking out. "I'm sorry, Shadepaw. You have to wake up now. You're getting restless at the Moonstone. You have a life to live; for yourself, and for everyone you love, live it well, Shadepaw."

The gray she-cat was nearly indistinguishable from the darkness around them save for her glimmering green eyes - so antagonistic at first but now so intent and hopeful. "Don't let the ones who hurt you decide how you live." Then slowly her eyes closed, and the darkness began to shift from that of prophetic dreaming to that of dreamless sleeping. StarClan - and Frog - were gone, and what Shadepaw did when she awakened was for her to decide. As Frog watched the figure from the stars, however, she smiled; she suspected Shadepaw's life would continue to be interesting.