Littlepaw's Moonstone Journey

StarClan was… stuffy. Almost a bit too stuffy for her taste. StarClan cats were very uptight. Many of them believed that they had a moral compass that exceeded everyone else's, and therefore Bearflower wasn’t their biggest fan. She had come to accept death. At first, she tried to fight against it. She had believed that she still had so much life to live, so many things to accomplish and so many cats to meet, but death was something that no cat could ever avoid. Everyone, kits and leaders alike, would face their end eventually.

However, no matter how many times she told herself that she had fully accepted the fact that she was dead… she would give anything in the world to return to the land of the living.

Bearflower had been against speaking with any apprentices for the longest time. She considered it to be an insult from the stars to her face. She could practically hear them laughing at her as she stared down at her reflection in dismay.
“Ha, look at you. These apprentices that you talk to will get to wake up from the starlit plains eventually. You, on the other hand, will never leave.” StarClan seemed to say.

It was humiliating, and Bearflower wasn’t one to allow herself to be humiliated, especially not by the stars. When she was alive, she already had many doubts about StarClan. She had spoken poorly about them and their tactics of looking over the living world, like sending down lightning strikes to punish a slap in the face at a Gathering, but looking the other way when cats were actually suffering. She had fully believed in their existence and hadn’t renounced them, which was the reason why she was here, but even now she still felt a twinge of disliking toward her starry Clanmates.

And Beechface… how was that she-cat still alive? She hadn't been keeping track of the moons, but wouldn't Beechface be, well, ancient by now? How had Bearflower died before her? What kind of sick joke was that…? If that was karma, then the brown warrior didn’t think she liked it very much.

Only recently had she opened herself up to speaking with apprentices, and today would be her first time. She still held a slight sense of bitterness in the back of her heart, but she would have to learn to suppress it. She wasn’t the type of cat to put on airs or act wiser than she actually was. She wasn’t going to put on a ‘holier than thou’ voice and exert a false sense of power over this apprentice. She didn’t care that much.

When Bearflower revealed herself to Littlepaw, she opened her mouth to speak, but was immediately bombarded with a trio of questions. She let her jaws close on their own. Well, this apprentice certainly was talkative. She waited for a heartbeat or two after Littlepaw was finished speaking to make sure that there were no more questions before she sat herself down and raised an eyebrow.

“Dude… chill out. Sit down for a second, yeah? We got a bit of a conversation to have. By the way, a conversation means that we both talk, not just you.” Bearflower began, flicking an ear and clearing her throat.
“Anyways. Hey, I’m Bearflower. Yes, I’m a StarClan cat… I don’t know what else you think I’d be. And to tell the truth, it’s kinda boring here. There’s trees to climb and all that but there's literally no fights and thats so stupi- let me not start rambling. We’re here to talk about you. Talk to me, tell me what’s up.”

As Bearflower listened, she could feel her ears involuntarily perking up. She could finally understand why she had been matched to this specific apprentice. Their experiences were a little too similar. The only difference here was that Littlepaw seemed to be worried about what this feeling meant. Bearflower, on the other hand, had embraced it ever since the first day she had felt it herself. She couldn’t help but grin down at the apprentice as she began to speak.

“Well, I’m glad ya told me. I know the exact feeling you’re talking about. It’s more than adrenaline… it’s more than excitement, it’s something else. I never had the chance to give it a name while I was alive, but it’s nothin’ to be scared of. Stars, I miss fighting. The feeling of tearing flesh, drawing blood, gosh, there’s nothing else like it. You’re lucky, okay? You’re still alive to do all of those things. Any cat who’d be afraid of you expressing that is just a coward. You’re not a coward, right? I don’t do cowards.”

She sighed, trying to think of some sort of advice to give Littlepaw. There were plenty of words that the two of them could share, but she knew that these meetings had a time limit. The conversation would be over quicker than it started.

“Listen… you don’t gotta tell anyone about this feeling if you don’t want to. It’s none of their business, actually. But you should be proud of it. Use it to your advantage. Heh, looks like I left a piece of me in SkyClan after all. Don’t let me down, okay? Or I’ll scruff you behind the ears when you eventually come to the stars to join me. Understand?”

Bearflower smiled gently at the apprentice.
“I know. Guess I’m wiser than I thought.”

She pulled herself back to her paws. It was time for Littlepaw to wake up and return back to SkyClan, but not before the she-cat could say one final thing.
“Say hey to Beechface for me. I’m sure she’d love to hear my name again,” Sarcasm dripped from her tone as she spoke, “And Spottedfrog… give her a hello too.”
That one was more genuine. She felt that bitterness rising up within her throat again, that undeniable sense of jealousy that she was trapped up here for the rest of eternity while she still had living blood down in the land of the living that Littlepaw would soon be returning to. It made her feel hollow.

She gingerly rested her nose on top of Littlepaw’s head to bid her farewell.
“Seeya. Remember what I said about not letting me down. That was a threat.”

And Bearflower was gone, left to linger amongst the stars once again.