|  | Rowanpaw |
The air was especially cold today. While its signature chill had been soft and slow like the rising of the sun, the cold snap came just as suddenly as the sharp transition from gentle dawn to radiating daylight. Rowanpaw would have groaned about it any other day, raised his voice to whine his dissent over something no one could change. Today, he padded quietly after the pair of warriors he was accompanying to hunt. The river chattered alongside them, rushing along as it always did. Over stones, weathering them into little more than smooth pebbles, until it would reach the eventual curve where it would turn to babble farther eastward; or in the other direction, it would pour into the Gorge, dangerous and roaring.
Something about it drew Rowanpaw’s attention, and he found himself lingering, stopping short on his pads so he could really focus on the racing water. He’d heard that it would freeze soon. It would go still, trapped beneath layers of cold and dangerous ice. Then the harshest seasons would turn over again into new-leaf, and the ice would thaw, and the river would run swift and furious once more. He wondered what leaf-bare would look like for RiverClan, then. The river was the heart and home of his Clan; without it, where would they be? It was hard to imagine a world without swimming, without fish. It was hard to imagine what a world covered in sheets of snow and ice would look like, feel like.
And… it was even harder than that, to imagine the change. Beyond the way it would affect him and the life he had grown accustomed to– it was hard for him, to wrap his mind around how easily and uncaringly the world changed. His thoughts drifted to the story Irispaw had told him. A great moss ball, the sky darkened by its horrible shadow, lording over the land. All living creatures bent to its terrible rule. He wondered if the seasons still turned, even under the Moss King’s oppressive rule, or if it had bid the land to halt in the warmest months of the year. His ears flicked with memory. Irispaw had said the King had been strong enough to send plagues and desolate weather upon those that would not bend to his will; what was to stop it from halting the world where it stood?
Then his thoughts drifted to the more recent tragedy that had befallen RiverClan. Owlshriek and Sleepycloud’s sudden deaths; Poppyshine’s sharp decrease in health. Two cats in less than one moon– gone. Two more, two Rowanpaw thought dearly of, changed seemingly irreparably. He hadn’t spoken to Poppyshine since she had fainted in camp, not yet. He didn’t know how to. It scared him, too. It
scared him. He did not want to grapple with these tormentous thoughts, these feelings. He almost longed for the earliest days of his apprenticeship, filled with frustration and rage towards Stormdance merely for existing. This would have been easier, if he had not been dragged so suddenly into the act of caring.
He would have for Poppyshine, though. He’d always cared for her, from his earliest days. The unfamiliar ache that had made residency in his chest would have settled there had it been her and her alone suffering. But with the added pressure of his mentor’s sudden emotional distance, the ache felt deep enough to swallow him.
Slowly, as if pulled forward by something beyond him, Rowanpaw padded closer to the river’s edge. It was then that he realized, as he drew nearer to the water, that his patrol had gone on without him. That made his ears lower, and a tingling sensation went through his paws. His mentor had filled his days with every ounce of busywork he could grasp, leaving little to no time for him– now even uninvolved patrols had gone on ahead? Rowanpaw swiftly shook his head. Surely, they hadn’t gone far. He didn’t bother to look and see whether they were still in eyesight, but the sound of their pawsteps had faded.
He felt alone.
Alone. It was a cold, hollow feeling, and not one he had ever felt before. But he could call it that: alone. He was getting better at that. A sharp breeze blew across the river, making him shiver and recoil into himself. Settling into the sand, Rowanpaw curled his tail around his paws and bent forward. His reflection rippled against the current. He didn’t look the same as he had the last time he caught his reflection. His face was sharper, the angles more defined; his fur had grown just a little longer, thicker; his eyes were deeper; where his shoulders reflected, he could see the shape of muscles lined under his fur.
He was changing. Just as the world around them did, the fire-shaded leaves left clinging to their branches, the too-short lives of his Clanmates. Everything changed. The world turned, ceaseless.
He thought to the Moss King, again. Rowanpaw wished he’d had that sort of power; the power to command, to halt. To grind the world to a crushing stop, entreat it to bend to his whims. Had Irispaw said the Moss King had been stronger than the stars? Or that it only thought as much? Either way, Rowanpaw wished one thing was true: he wished that the stars were not as strong as they were. Strong enough to send chilling winds through the forest, cutting through even the thickest fur and drive their prey into hiding. Drive them to starvation. Fill them with sickness, with starvation, with fear. With death.
So many things he knew nothing about. So many things he had never even considered before. He had never been a worrier. On principle, he did not worry about things. It was beneath him. The last few suns had proved stressful on his heart, though, and had worn thin some of the layers built around it. It felt like the only thing he knew how to do was worry. Worry for Poppyshine.
I hope she is okay. I should see her, once the warriors find me and we return to camp… The terrifying thought that something happened in his absence hit him. What if he returned to a horrified, anguished cry that she was dead– another one? What if this time, it was true? It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility to think that she would collapse again and never wake up. His heart pounded heavy in his chest. It terrified him.
Slowly, Rowanpaw’s legs stretched out in front of him, until he was laying splayed out in the sand with his forepaws dipped into the chilled water. It was shocking, briefly uncomfortable, but he didn’t pull himself away from the cold river.
”I want mama,” he murmured, to no one in particular. His head lolled to the side, resting uncomfortably against his leg.
”I want Stormdance.” He did. He missed his mentor. It was surprising, that he had grown to care enough for Stormdance to actually miss him. But he’d only just decided that he actually
liked his mentor, had started to look forward to their time spent together. And then it was all gone, just like that.
He didn’t understand it. He wanted to, he’d been trying to, but no way he tried to put it together could he make anything make sense. His head felt foggy, scrambled, his thoughts a racing mess tumbling all together until all he could think about was how alone he felt.
Sighing, Rowanpaw closed his eyes, trying to banish the ruinous thoughts that plagued him. They would not leave. He felt cold all over. He felt, for the first time in his life,
sad. Simply sad, no bigger word for it.
