Dovepaw's Moonstone Journey

The clan was slowly rebuilding, which meant that life as he was told it was supposed to be, was returning to normal. At the lake, borders were hardly solid. In fact, most cats had been too sick to traverse very near to the neighboring lands. There had been no moonstone, no history. But all of that had given way to what their world was supposed to look like. Littlepaw had been busy healing his clanmates and learning new remedies every day. However, today, there was a new task at paw that he had never tackled before - leading an apprentice to meet with Starclan for the first time.

Sandyshell, despite having one paw outside of the medicine cat's den, had helped to walk him through the proper herbs needed for traveling. Herbs were sparse during this season so they were portioned out, lean, but surely the whole clan was accustomed to a lack of resources now. Dovepaw was his companion for the day. It knotted a pit deep into his stomach to imagine how his own grief at Egretswoop's loss paled in comparison to the older tom's. Yet today was supposed to be a day of celebration, communing with Starclan as a next step to warriorhood. Littlepaw would have been lying to himself if he did not acknowledge how easy it was to let sadness melt away in the wake of joy. Knowing it would continue to plague him, the medicine cat vowed to constantly push it away for Dovepaw's sake, even if such treatment only stung him with pinpricks of guilt.

The pair's journey to Highstones was a pleasant one... for the most part. Having only once traversed the territory on their way back from the lake, Littlepaw was utterly lost. He'd thought to ask Dovepaw if he knew that was but found himself too nervous to ask a warrior apprentice something that a medicine cat was supposed to know. It was the grace of a passing Windclan patrol, whose raised hackles settled at the acknowledgement of a medicine cat, that allowed them proper direction. The anxiety that buzzed in his paws had quickened the pace, and Dovepaw and Littlepaw were able to make it to the entrance, just in time.

A sign of relief parted the medicine cat's maw as they faced the dark gap in the entrance. However, the thought of pressing darkness quickly caused him to swallow. Littlepaw hesitated for several moments. He knew this was the way. It had to be. Lead me Starclan. Guide my paws. His eyes squeezed shut as he prayed silently to the ancestors before diving forward and beckoning Dovepaw to follow. For what seemed like an eternity, a cool, inky blackness seemed to tug at his pelt. Just when Littlepaw was convinced the cavern would never end, a pale blue light pushed away the shadows. The ethereal glow of the moonstone reminded him of Starclan. It bathed everything in a peaceful aura. Stunned, he stopped to stare and take it all in.

Finally, snapping back to reality, he looked at the other apprentice and meowed softly, "I think you're supposed to touch your nose to it and Starclan will speak with you." As if to give an example, mirroring the words he had been directed with, Littlepaw took a couple of steps forward and touched his nose to the ice-cold stone. It sent a chill up his spine before fading into a cool comfort. While Dovepaw found companionship in the ancestors, Littlepaw took solace in his own dreams.

The Moonstone journey. Dovepaw knew that it was a rite of passage for all apprentices--to go all the way up to Highstones, to speak with their ancestors and gain wisdom before becoming a warrior. A moon ago, a few days ago even, he wouldn't have been that interested in the idea. Partially because he saw little point in the long travels just for some words from the stars; even though the concept of meeting a long-dead cat such as his mother intrigued him, he knew it would be more painful than helpful. And partially because he'd already had so many dreams of advice from another cat that it felt to him as though that particular novelty had long since worn out. However, the events of just a few days previously had completely turned the notion on its head. The Moonstone was of secondary importance. But who he could meet there... Egretswoop. Would you come to see me? Even if I don't remember what you said?

The idea had him focused so inwardly, so anxiously, that he barely even responded to Littlepaw except to make friendly conversation. He hadn't brought the pelt for fear of losing it, but he wore it in spirit. He wanted to see Egretswoop. He wanted it so badly that he was unsure whether he'd ever wanted anything else. Of course, he had--but the idea seemed strange as he journeyed across territories. The travel might have been hard if he had not already completed two even longer ones far before it. It just seemed normal now to walk until his paws ached. Yet, something darker stirred in the back of his mind, even though his thoughts remained occupied with a pair of golden-honey eyes that had stared into his. What if... Starlingflare came instead? Obviously he didn't need the Moonstone to visit his dreams, as he'd done so several times before. If they were even real, which Dovepaw was beginning to increasingly suspect was the case. But what if his dreams were interrupted before Egretswoop could reach him? The idea felt bitter. His feelings on his ghostly father figure were mixed enough, and they would only sour if the one-eyed tom became the reason that Egretswoop was forever lost to him. But that wouldn't happen. Hopefully.

He didn't even notice the brief detour, so lost in his own mind as he was. So when they finally arrived in the dark caverns, Dovepaw simply continued, following Littlepaw's scent and soft pawsteps as the only guidance he had. And sure enough, eventually, they made it. A tall spire of stone glimmering in silvery light. The sight stunned him. Though he'd seen much on his travels, he had never seen something as diaphanous and yet as real as the Moonstone. It emanated something almost peaceful that soothed the worst of his worries, and yet the underlying nervousness still remained. Egretswoop... Please, wait for me. He offered a brief nod of thanks to the medicine cat apprentice, and then laid down at the stone's base. His nose touched it. Briefly, he recalled a moment of surprise at how cold the surface was, and then all conscious thought ceased as sleep took him.

She had followed him home every single step of that journey.

From the sky above, soaring at the untouchable distance, she had followed him. Step by step. Star by star, cloud by cloud. Her pelt the honing beacon that allowed her to stay tethered just enough to float amidst the ethereal plane's portal, all to ensure he made it home safely. Amidst that journey, the pale molly had been particularly shocked to have even been allowed to be commended as a member of the starry gates and receive such an honored place, but it seemed they had approved of her heroism and act of sacrifice. Not long after that, she had felt it: the way he had solidified following the immediate shock. Morphed right into that untouchable material that she had bestowed the name upon him for. Perhaps it was one last parting gift of the ancestral plane before she would inevitably disappear to be simply another piece of its crowd forever.

It had not been lost on her, either, how the shade had taken her position as his dutiful sentry. The lethal little shadow, who now moved with the fluidity of the river, who had assisted her in felling the creates that ultimately produced her pelts. Perhaps it had been in a parting act of her will that she had taken upon his side, or perhaps it was in remnant of the pain she had found herself broken by herself. Whatever it was, there was gratitude that would forever fill her honeyed gaze as she looked upon the abyssal guard, and blessings so long as she would keep watch over her now-former apprentice.

Her presence had entirely faded upon their return. The leash that had been secured around her throat had been whipped back with a sharp tug, an unforgiving gesture that meant that the greater ancestors' generosity had ran as dry as the rivers had prior to their departure. She had yielded to its call as the dutiful warrior she truly was, having understood the exchange that had taken place. It did not mean she had ceased her watching, however. At any moment she could, she stole the glimpses. Hovered, above the clouds, soaring on the feathers of the afterlife. Sent whatever starborn power she could to the pelt that had been granted to him as an heirloom on the particularly frigid nights to become a scrap of additional warmth. So long as she walked the stars, and he the terrestrial plane, she would watch him. Her other apprentice did not need such guidance, for their bond had grown beyond that before their journey. But for Dovepaw...

They had bonded like kin.

As it came time for the tom to present himself before his ancestors to maneuver his final tribulation prior to his ascension as a full warrior, the decision for her to step forth had been a given. There was no argument to allow her to come forth to be the one that he would greet, as there would be no graduation for her apprentice without allowing his uneasy soul to find a semblance of rest. So again, she had followed her little bunny friend and her mighty apprentice to the stone. Her steps climbed higher and higher to the star-specked fields as his descended towards the stone. They would meet again. They were meeting again.

Nose touched to stone, and she felt that connection hum with life. It was the solid warmth that only came from Dovepaw himself. Each cat brought with them a different bond to that of who the greater cats of the stars felt necessary to connect with. She herself had a particularly fickle bond, flexible in such a way that had been hard to determine just who to send before her. It had symbolized the tumult of identity that she had gone through in her youth, struggling to find her place in the forest. Yet, she had fought to pass the strong sense of self that she did not possess upon those in her tutelage, and it seemed her efforts were successful enough. Perhaps it had been an innate possession of the tom; but it was still a skill she had took care to nurture to the best of her efforts.

As the tom would regain his consciousness in the planes above, the scenery was that of the freshest of newleaf days. The promising breaths of new life shimmered everywhere, enhanced by the stars that forged them. She herself was in her truest of forms: with no pelt to call her own, a halo surrounded her with the glow of the starlight that had infused itself into her fur. She looked upon him with the eyes of fresh honey, softened by the silence that had comforted her own restless spirit in the afterlife. There was no need for her to bear a pelt, as it had been passed onto Dovepaw. It was now his to wear.

Egretswoop's head bobbed in greeting as she rose to all four paws, coming to greet the tom in closer proximity. "I have journeyed with you from this plane above every pawstep home; and I am relieved you wish to see me again as much as I have yearned to greet you." Emotion tugged at her voice as she spoke. She had rehearsed the words countless times, thousands, even. All structured in different ways in some attempt to pull together some tangential string that would properly convey how she felt. None of them seemed to be quite right, and as such, she simply allowed the first ones to rise tumble forth from her maw. They conveyed it well enough. "Your strength shows. You command your name as it is you, Iron." A gentle smile tugged at the corners of her lips. It felt wrong for her to approach; to act as if she hadn't practically abandoned him amidst what was otherwise a scene of nothing but death. Yet she did not entirely know how to seek his forgiveness, or if there was any to find. There was simply overwhelming relief at his desire to look upon her spirit once more.

Had he fallen asleep? He must have, since the bright green landscape that met his eyes was a stark contrast to the snow-drenched world outside the cavern. Dovepaw blinked a few times, simply taking in the scenery--the season of new-leaf, which he had never seen--until something else took up his vision. His breath caught in his throat; his heart paused in his chest. What he had hoped for, prayed for... Egretswoop stood before him. No hint of red marring her soft creamy pelt, and no fox shroud over the face that looked at him with such warmth and pride that he might have ceased to think entirely. It was her. She was here. Though dead, she was alive... even if for this briefest of moments. The stars shining through her fur were beneath his notice because they were not her. She was here.

In a moment his strength returned to him. He hurled himself forward, pressing himself as close to Egretswoop as he could possibly get, despite their relationship of mentor and apprentice never having been a physical one before now. He just needed to feel her--needed more confirmation than sight that she actually stood before him. And she did. Her fur brushed against his own face as he shoved himself into her chest. "Egretswoop... you're here." Because she was. She was. Even as his mind went blank with relief, soothing the anxieties and the raw grief that hadn't loosed  its hold on him since the moment of impact, his heart knew. His heart would recover. He would be okay, and he would continue to live, because even if Egretswoop was gone she was right here.

The use of his new-given name, Iron, caused his ears to twitch. Oh how he had missed hearing that name. The word for a substance he'd never seen, the word that meant nothing to him other than that it was his name given by her. No one else would ever call him Iron except perhaps Mothpaw, and even that would be different. To everyone else, he would be Dovepaw... but some secret part of him would always be Iron. The part that wore the fox pelt. To hear it spoken again only solidified his resolve.

Eventually he managed to step back and look up, pale-blue eyes meeting his mentor-sister's honeyed gaze. "I miss you, Milk," he said frankly. The words were nothing more than truth, and though they pushed at the scarred-over ache on his heart, it no longer brought the agonizing pain that had halted his world. "I wish you hadn't done that. But...  you can't undo it. So I'll do my best to keep going. Even if RiverClan is a little bit emptier without you. You're... family to me, Egretswoop." There. He'd said it. Even if he were torn away now, he would know that he had told her, and that she would know. A weight off his shoulders. But now he smiled--and though it was a smaller one, not of true jubilation nor a fake attempt, it still bore warmth. It ached, but... it was an ache that he could bear. "So, what... what did you say to me? Before you went? I couldn't hear you."

No amount of mental preparation or ethereal scenarios could have prepared her for his reaction. Every part of her had expected hatred: the rightful ire that came from a loved one departing long before their time was due. It had been inevitable that her passing would precede his own, save for in the case of a truly horrific event that would have led the astral warrior bringing her wrath upon the stars to allow his youthful spirit to once more walk the forest that was rightfully his home. The lack of understanding for what had pushed her to depart from the world would have been absolutely understandable, as well. She had not ever truly shared with any feline the way the world seemed to pelt down upon her at every turn, making her wince and clawing at her sanity as if she were simply edges of moss bedding to chip away at. It was an impossible ask to share such sensations that, to her keenly perception, had never been shared beyond her own self. The fox pelt whose hues uncannily resembled those of her apprentice had been her only solace.

A huff of surprise came out of Egretswoop's chest in lieu of the reaction that her presence did yield. Never, amongst her small dozen moons of walking amongst the forest, had she been privy to such an embrace. The closest feeling came in the scrap of kithood memories of being tucked close to the nursing queen that had provided her that pivotal nourishment of life, but beyond that, she had always been on her own. There had been occasional gestures of physical contact from mentors and her mother-figure Brick, but never something so intimate and close as the tom currently pressing himself so thoroughly against her, as if he would simply not accept the fact she was actually here without it. As if... as if had she not been able to partake in the embrace, she would have been nothing but a visage: a ghostly trick on his mind to shatter his heart. Tears threatened to spill at the edges of her eyes in response, and her nose found itself burying into the soft fur between his ears. "The stars would face my wrath to revoke this honor." She affirmed. Even as his ears gave that twitch of familiarity, deep down, her own soul was being soothed.

There was much of her that needed this, too. To feel the closeness and bond of another feline, the companionship that she had witnessed from afar between many of her clanmates. Rookflight and Larkspring, Dovepaw and his littermates. They had each other to cling to in times of need, whereas she had found that in other ways. There was no move on the molly's part to step away, not until Dovepaw himself had finally relinquished the embrace.

Her ears immediately fell back with grief as he heard her name. Milk. The title that no cat among the stars would call her. It was a name that had been permanently laid to rest, save for the three that had known of its existence. One of those she knew would never come by her again, as he had rejected the world that she called home. But what came next...

There was no holding back the star-glittered tears that slipped down her face. Family.

She did not have a family; she had a mother. She had Harebounce, she had Brick. That had been it, nothing more. When she had deemed Iron and Toffee worthy of her heritage, that had been the closest thing to accepting them amidst that nigh-most intimate circle that she could allow without crossing the boundaries of a mentor. "Forever family." She affirmed; even to at least assuage the fear that her tears were of some ill emotion. From the smile that had been left on her paw, and the purr that had begun rumbling in her chest a time ago that she was not aware of... there was joy there. Relief. Acceptance.

Releasing a breath of the emotions that swirled around in her like a tumult, she allowed herself to dip her head in a physical maneuver to reset. "You are worthy of everything, Iron." She recited the words, but this time, without the sheer desperation that had infected her tone on the first time they had been spoken. "I repent for my inability to provide that to you; but I ask of you: to Live." Her death-wish: for her apprentice-kin to continue walking amidst the forest, even without her presence. She would make that wish again and again, on every star that comprised her pelt.

After several heartbeats to allow the tom to absorb her message, her demeanor shifted. "I do not walk among the forest to bestow this upon you, but it is tradition, Iron, that a new warrior learns the act of making pelts. It is tradition as well, Dovepaw, that your warrior-guide bestows upon you wisdom. I believe no wisdom would be more fitting than the final piece of the traditions that are now fully yours to bestow and safeguard." She had not learned pelt-making herself until having earned her name, and it would be fitting to teach Dovepaw upon such a precipice. Rising to all four paws, the smile on her face registered excitement and promise as she indicated behind them. A power of the stars, it certainly was, that a felled badger resided not too far away.

Dovepaw couldn't recall the last time he'd felt comfortable, exactly. He'd been relieved beyond belief when Pigeonpaw appeared again at that stupid gathering. He'd felt warm, both physically and some strange sensation inwardly, when he shared a nest with Murkyriver. He'd even felt joy, however brief, when he stumbled back into RiverClan camp for the first time in moons. But comfort... no, comfort had escaped him recently. With all the losses he'd borne, it had been the furthest thing from his mind. But now... with Egretswoop there before him, smiling at him and purring like he'd never heard before... he felt it, finally. He was comfortable here, with her. Somehow he even managed to wrest comfort from the knowledge that after this, he would never see her again until his own passing--except in the faintest of longing dreams. The thought of dreams brought a momentary frown to his face, before he immediately turned his attention back to his mentor-sister when she said the words he'd missed in the tumult of fleeing wolves.

"You are worthy of everything, Iron. I repent for my inability to provide that to you; but I ask of you: to Live."

He hadn't cried since that night with Murkyriver. Yet now, he felt something in his eyes sting. That was what she'd told him? asked of him? As she ran to her death for reasons she still had not explained, and would never need to, she'd thought of him. She'd asked forgiveness for leaving. She'd called him worthy... She'd asked him to live.

He almost hadn't. If not for Murkyriver, he might have remained lost in his shock and grief until the beasts took him. Again, a flood of gratitude for the shadowlike she-cat pulsed inside his heart.

"I will," Dovepaw promised. He straightened his back, drawing himself up to his full height--nowhere near that of his tall, slender mentor-sister, but with its own presence nonetheless. "I'll live. And... though I wish you were alive, I'll remember you. You taught me so much. I'll keep going, and I'll keep your memory, as long as I can." He had no wish to die. He had to live for his siblings, for Murkyriver... and for Egretswoop now, too. For Milk. She would be added to his list of reasons to fight. Her memory would live on within him for as long as he still drew breath.

Then, Milk switched tacks. Iron saw her almost completely change phases, tuning into her mentor teaching mode. His ears swiveled forward to listen intently. Teaching him... how to make pelts? That was right; he'd never ended up learning. They'd never seemed to have the time, before... well. Maybe then he could carry on the tradition. Though he hardly knew about where it came from or what it meant, it came from Milk. That meant it was worthy of continuation. Iron--Dovepaw--smiled. "I'm here to learn. But if it's okay with you, I think I'm going to keep the fox pelt. I wear it for warmth at night." The sight of a badger corpse behind her ought to have surprised him, but it seemed that anything was possible in the realm of dreams. "Teach me."