Asterstrike's Elder Ceremony

Flintshard bounded onto the Jaggedrock, glancing at the clearing as a soft sigh escaped him. His father had made his plan clear - he was to retire and while it would have been Thornstar's duty to do a ceremony like this...With expecting kits, she wasn't in any real position to do her duties or move around. Going to the Gathering itself had been a stretch, it was time for her to get some rest in as he knew he could handle something like this. "ShadowClan! Gather beneath the shadow of the Jaggedrock!" he called out, then waited for the Clan to gather so he could get this going.

Asterstrike heaved himself up to his paws and lumbered out into the clearing, sitting nearest the front, knowing what today’s meeting was supposed to intel. Today, he would retire from his duties as a ShadowClan warrior and live the rest of his life as an elder. He wasn’t sure if Flintshard would also tell the Clan what he had told him, that he had killed Lightpaw after the apprentice killed his brother Poppyheart. It would probably be a good thing if the deputy did bring that up in this meeting, just to get it out of the way.

He also hoped that his son would remember his request made in secret regarding his name. He never felt more separated from Thornstar ever since the Gathering, not even when they had been separated during the massive flooding that had split the Clans apart seasons ago. He no longer wished to be associated with her, after the way she betrayed him the way she did by having kits with another tom, while they were still a couple. Hopefully, if Flintshard remembered, he would return to his former name of Asterspark.

---

Curious to know what her brother wanted this time, Sparkfire walked out of the warriors’ den and sat near the back of gathering cats. No kit was set to become an apprentice today, nor was an apprentice scheduled for a warrior ceremony. What would this be about?

"ShadowClan, I've called you here for a pawful of reasons," he started as the Clan gathered and had taken notice of his father's arrival. He spared a glance toward him, a soft sigh escaping him. "The first is a serious one. An explanation that needs to be given. It is no secret that Lightpaw has been missing since the night of the Gathering...And I'm here to report that she is dead." He let that hang in the air, glancing back at his father for a moment before he continued on. "...I've discovered that it was not Beartooth who had taken Poppyheart from us, but instead Lightpaw - who instead took his life in the shadow of combat and pinned the blame on the old ThunderClan deputy. The reason for which I do not know but I don't question the source of my information...Asterstrike. Who slayed Lightpaw for her treason against both his - our family - and ShadowClan as a whole."

He fell silent to let the cats mutter among themselves, before he spoke up once more. "I do not condemn Asterstrike for his actions - Lightpaw might have been my apprentice but she had done something unforgivable in taking the life of a fellow Clanmate for no reason...It has been decided that no punishment will be inflicted - as Asterstrike has made his choice to step down from being a warrior and become an elder. And so, that brings me to the second reason I have called you all together. Asterstike, please step forward," he called out to his father, settling down into a sitting postiton as he glanced down at the tom. "Asterstrike, is it truly your wish to give up the name of a warrior and go to join the elders?"

So Flintshard had decided to announce the treachery of the late apprentice today after all. Asterstrike knew many cats would be angry at him for killing an apprentice — especially Cardinalcry — but at the same time, he hoped others would feel he had done the right thing. Poppyheart had been a valuable warrior of ShadowClan, a rather well-liked one at that. He hoped they would take that into account when they decided to judge him.

As Flintshard started the ceremony for his retirement, the old tom nodded in response to his question. He was ready to spend the rest of his life as a ShadowClan warrior resting. ”It is.”

---

It hadn’t been Beartooth who had killed Poppyheart, but Lightpaw, his own Clanmate. Sparkfire narrowed her yellow eyes and gave her tail an angry lash behind her. How could that traitor kill her own Clanmate? What purpose did she have in doing it? She had to admit, she had never been a fan of her late uncle’s overwhelming enthusiasm and energy, but he had still been her family. She also knew just how deeply her father still missed his brother, too. So, she had no ill will for Asterstrike when learning he had killed the apprentice who had killed his brother.

Then Flintshard asked Asterstrike a question she hadn’t been expecting. Her father was going to retire? He was quite old now, but he still seemed to have at least a season’s worth of fight left in him. Perhaps he was just tired of fighting? Either way, she was going to support him in his choices. He had done quite a deal for ShadowClan during his time.

Flintshard gave a soft nod of his head at his father's agreement, wishing to get this over with. It was going to be strange not to see his father in the warrior's den anymore, but this was what he had wanted. "Then your Clan honors you and all the service you have given to us. In this moment, I also honor your request and return your name to Asterspark. May you have many moons of rest." With that, he swished his tail to signal the end of the ceremony but remained where he was...Certain that things were not over with all of what he had revealed. Lightpaw was a dear Clanmate to many - some would not take her murder as easily as Flintshard had.

Cardinalcry padded over to sit below the Jaggedrock, a little confused but suspected an apprentice was becoming a warrior. In the moments before Flintshard spoke, her mind began to wander. Perhaps it was Thornstar. Had she had kits? Maybe died? Oh golly, that would be horrible. No, no, of course not! There would have been a commotion if somecat had died! Everything was fine, of course. Alas, her heart sank to her gut as Flintshard continued. ...And I'm here to report that she is dead. That much was shocking enough. Her daughter, dead. Her last trace of Scorchedbird, gone.

And if that wasn’t enough, it was Asterstrike who had killed her. Asterstrike, who she’d loved as her own family, even like the dad she’d never gotten to meet. Asterstrike, who’d been so kind to lead her to where she thought she had found her family. A murderer. The killer of a clanmate, killer of a daughter. Her head slowly turned to look at him. He didn’t seem to regret anything. He wasn’t sad. He didn’t care. Had he ever? She had followed her friend to the ends of the territories, only to be betrayed like this? Who cared, who cared, WHO CARED that Lightpaw had killed Poppyheart? This was her daughter? Killed, murdered, slaughtered, no trial, no explanation, nothing, just sent to the heavens. Lightpaw had a life ahead of her. She was just an apprentice, for Starclan’s sake! And Asterstrike… Murdered her.

Lightpaw could have moved on from her mistake. She could have become something great. But she didn’t, and it was all Asterstrike’s fault. It dawned on Cardinalcry then, that Lightpaw and Cardinalcry were exactly the same. Flintfang and Firflower, both good cats, were incapacitated and unable to train their apprentices fully. So Lightpaw likely wasn’t so sure how to make the right choices, just like Cardinalcry had been. They both made some bad decisions that they didn't really understand, and both suffered the consequences for it. Except for one difference. Cardinalcry got to live. Lightpaw didn’t. Why? Did Asterstrike not trust that even the worst cats could change? That every cat could be good, if they just tried? If she had known, if Cardinalcry had found out one of Asterstrike’s kits had killed Sandblaze, what would she have done? She certainly wouldn’t have killed them! So why!? WHY HAD ASTERSTRIKE KILLED HER DAUGHTER!?

He had to know her integrity, after all. Asterstrike should know, she was a good cat. And with the right guidance, Lightpaw would have become truly kind in heart like the cat whose life she’d taken. How could Asterstrike not understand? Surely he had to know a cat who’d done something bad. Who had broken the code. Maybe even killed a cat. Thornstar, even! Thornstar, his mate, a perfectly accountable cat who knew what she was doing, had broken the code as far as to kill an apprentice and have kits with the Riverclan leader, but Asterstrike hadn’t killed her? Was it merely because it was his brother? Lightpaw had family too! Family that cared about both Asterstrike and Lightpaw. Well. Not anymore, she supposed. To care for her daughter’s murderer… That was a challenge she wasn’t sure if she could overcome.

Of course, then she wouldn’t really be any better than him, right? Hatred got cats killed. So she had to love. She had to force herself to love Asterspark. But she didn’t understand. How could anything go back to the way it was, when they both knew what he had done? And he wasn’t even going to be punished! No retribution! Did Thornstar and Flintshard not care? Or… Were they going easy on him just because he was Thornstar’s mate and Flintshard’s dad? Was he getting… Was he walking free, just because they cared about him? Or did they truly believe that was the justice that should have been served? That Lightpaw, an apprentice, should rot without so much as a burial?

Cardinalcry watched Asterstrike with the cold, hard stare of someone who didn’t know if she wanted to care. Lightpaw had taken the fall. Cardinalcry had seen the next day. Say it was Shadowclan she had left and tried to return to. Would Asterstrike be killing her then? Did he have some kind of secret grudge against her? What had she done to deserve this? Scorchedbird, Darkpaw, Lightpaw, her siblings, her dad, probably her mom too… She wasn’t going to see them again until she died and went to Starclan. If she was even going to. For a split second, she hoped Asterstrike would go to the Dark Forest for this. No, she argued with herself. Love. Love won. Always. Love had brought her to Shadowclan.

Then again, love hadn’t saved Lightpaw, now had it? How had it happened, she began to wonder. Did Asterstrike hesitate? Did he pause at all to think whether or not he should do this? Probably not. She didn’t even know how she died. Deathberries, perhaps. That would have been a proper execution. Deathberries, and then a proper burial. No, Asterstrike didn’t even give Lightpaw the honor of bringing her body back. It was rotting in the forest somewhere, attracting flies, free for any predator to come and take. The thought disgusted her, but she knew that was what had happened. Her respect for Asterstrike quickly fell to nothing. What kind of a cat did something like that?

The kind of cat who didn’t deserve the effort it took to care, that’s what. How difficult would it have been to take Lightpaw’s body back? He wasn’t ashamed of what he’d done. Didn’t care that he’d left Cardinalcry’s daughter for the vultures. That kind of blatant disrespect for life… He might as well have left himself to die. After all, that was how Cardinalcry felt. Asterstrike might as well have been dead, and hey, know what? Cardinalcry wouldn’t even care. She decided in that moment, she was not going to cry when Asterstrike’s well-deserved fall finally came. She might stand vigil. She would help bury him if asked. But in her heart, she would remember, and she would not care.

Even now, though, a small part of her wanted to believe Asterstrike was not a bad cat. She wanted to believe Lightpaw had done something more than one battle-heated mistake. Just a little. She didn’t want to believe Lightpaw was truly evil, but at the same time, Asterstrike was her first friend outside of her immediate family. She didn’t want to hate him! But what would it help? It didn’t matter if she hated him or loved him. The world would go on. She would still hunt, eat, survive. No matter how heinous of a cat he was. Now she saw. She had gotten lucky. Lucky that Asterstrike had chosen to take his revenge by killing Lightpaw instead of her. Revenge for what, she didn’t know. Perhaps in a half-asleep state, she’d said something horrible. There had to be something. Asterspark wouldn’t kill someone, without a trial, for no reason.

Well, she guessed, he would, because it had happened. Part of her wanted to chase him away from the clans, part of her wanted to kill him, parts of her wanted to do nothing, parts of her wanted to cry. Some parts wanted to seek comfort from Thornstar or Asterspark, others wanted to run away and never come back. The world seemed to snap back into reality. “You killed her.” Was all she could force out as she stood on trembling paws. “She could have changed, but you took her away.” Before she knew it, she had tackled him. “You’re just as bad as her, if not worse!” She started to claw at him, but as she began to aim for the throat, she hesitated. Was this really what she wanted to do? Was murder her solution, just like the cats before her, in a chain of killing? But he’d killed her. And he knew what he was doing.

As somecat threw her off him, she thought about how she’d met him. That one gathering all those moons ago. And to think she’d left everything behind for a pun. Maybe she’d have living kits if she hadn’t followed him to Stagclan. Maybe this had been his plan all along. Her dad had done something horrible, or maybe he just hated Skyclan. So he faked a friendship. Of course, who was she to assume anyone alive cared about her enough to do that? This was just… just a bunch of murder.

She couldn’t defeat Asterspark. Cardinalcry knew that. As she cried, she instead shrieked out for the clan to hear. “SHE DIDN’T EVEN GET A TRIAL! No defending herself, no nothing, just murder for an- she was just an APPRENTICE! An apprentice like I was! Know this, Shadowclan! As you care for Asterspark in his elder years, know he's a murderer!” Her tail lashed in anger as she addressed the killer that used to be her friend. “How could- HOW COULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT? And what, you just expect me to- to accept this!?” Cardinalcry didn’t care what they thought of her. Asterspark could judge her but his sins outweighed her own. “What would Poppyheart think!?” Poppyheart was the kindest cat she knew. Oh, how two brothers could be so different.

Cardinalcry’s voice quieted. “Shadowclan is not where I belong. Starc- You have made that clear to me.” She began to step away, towards the camp exit. “Whatever it was I did… I’m sorry.” She began to run, to the edge of the territories. Before she reached it, she screeched to a stop. Old, dried blood, a clawmark in the tree, and the long-dead remains of Lightpaw. Once again enraged, Cardinalcry ran like a Windclan warrior. Not in any direction in particular, but away. Away from the Moonstone, from the mountains, from all the home- places she’d lived. Those weren’t homes. They never had been. Never would be.

Perhaps, she thought as her paws pounded the ground, she should become a kittypet. Rumor had it that Twolegs cared for cats like their own kits. Perhaps she should have gone before she went to Shadowclan. She and Scorchedbird, and Darkpaw and Lightpaw, all alive and well. A soft life, but sheltered. Alas, what could never be.

She ran and ran, farther than she had ever gone, past a Twoleg Jungle, twisting and turning, until she reached a small hollow in a pine forest. An abandoned fox’s nest, barely able to be scented. She gathered her own nest and decided, yes. Here would she make her new home. As she went to sleep that night, there were no bodies around her. And the next, and the next.

How terrible of a world it was.

Flintshard could not have expected the reaction that Cardinalcry had given - he had expected her to be angry but...Truly such intense emotions was something that he could never have grasped. His ear twitched as finally Cardinalcry spoke, her voice soft...Before she suddenly tackled the newly named elder. "Cardinalcry! Stop!" Flintshard boomed as he leapt to his paws, pushing from the Jaggedrock as he crossed the clearing in a few bounds - teeth gripping her scruff as she hesitated a killing blow, ripping the two apart before he dropped the distraught she-cat. His eyes focused intently on the she-cat, standing upright with his muscles tensed in case she tried to attack - enough bloodshed had happened in ShadowClan.

He simply blinked as the she-cat started to sob, shouting at Asterspark - at the Clan. ...It was true, he supposed. Lightpaw had not been given the chance to defend herself, her punishment had been swift by somebody who had felt the most sore from the pain. His gaze flickered away, his expression unchanging as he thought on her words. ...They were better than this, perhaps a punishment would have been fitting but what could be given to a tom who had already chosen to step away from his duties? Who had given up everything to get his justice for a wrong that had shaken the entire Clan. His gaze only returned as Cardinalcry softly stated that she was not to remain...And fled. "No, Cardinalcry!" he called out, taking a step forward as she fled from the camp but she did not stop.

And he simply watched her go. He titled his head, ear twitching as he tried to make sense of it. He had not been expecting that, he could have never... He spared a glance toward his father. "...Are you alright, Asterspark?" he questioned, before he suddenly froze. "Frecklepaw." He barely whispered the name, glancing at the crowd of cats to search for the apprentice. He had...Grown somewhat fond of her as he had taken over her training, finding her view of things reminded him much of Basilpaw of who he hadn't seen in quite a while. ...Why had Cardinalcry fled? Had Lightpaw meant so much that she would abandon the rest of her family, the kits of hers that still remained. "...Cardinalcry has left ShadowClan, but she is not a traitor," he called out, glancing at his Clanmates. "If she is seen again on our territory, do not attack. Attempt to reason with her, bring her home. But if she is not seen again..." he glanced back at the camp entrance.

"Then may StarClan light her path."