Sunpaw's Moonstone Journey

The sheer excitement coursing through Sunpaw's veins was already enough to ruffle his hackles before Fawnshine's face appeared at the mouth of the den. Today was the day! A half-suppressed squeal of joy tumbled from his still-narrow, kitlike chest. He hastily made his way out of the den, tumbling past his fellow apprentices and mumbling insincere sorries as he went.
Finally, he reached the bundle of foul-smelling herbs she had left him. Not wanting to seem hesitant, he choked them down with –what he imagined, at least –hardly a pause. On his way to this day, he had conquered both famine and plague. The acrid scent sticking to the inside of his nostrils wasn't going to stop him now. Now he would walk the path countless warriors of legend had walked. He would meet with his ancestors. Most importantly, he would leave with the knowledge needed to become the effortlessly powerful warrior he knew he was destined to be.
"Ready!" His voice crackled its way out, his overflowing excitement obvious to anyone watching. He cleared his throat, channeling a deeper voice– something warrior-like. "Let's go."

The last leg of the journey had been daunting– Sunpaw had never enjoyed tight spaces at the best of times, and being travel-weary meant his paws ached as he crept through the dark tunnel. Emerging into the wider cave, though, he had to admit it had all been worth it. The moonstone was awe-inspiring, its pale light otherworldly. As he continued to stare into the light, he felt a prickle of discomfort. He began to grasp that the power contained here was truly beyond him. He felt inconsequential, miniscule. No matter how hard he trained, he would never be stronger than the forces that hid in this cave. A sudden wave of revulsion washed over him like icy cold water.

Fawnshine's voice brought him back to the present. Shaking his head to clear his mind, he stepped wordlessly toward the stone. He bumped it hesitantly with his nose, glancing back at the medicine cat for reassurance, before easing himself to the cave floor and closing his eyes.

Odd, that she was called upon again so soon. Well... not soon, not really, but soon to a cat who had been fading away in the stars since four lifetimes before any of the cats below had even been conceived of. If only Redpaw--Redsun, now--remembered her at all. Maybe then her pelt would cease its fading. But if nothing else, Turtlepelt felt slightly more lucid this time as she sat in the echo of ThunderClan territory, deep among the bracken and gorse bushes. She breathed in--or at least imagined that she did--the scent of oak bark to ground herself. Speaking to an apprentice was all she had left, really. Flamestripe had been gone for... longer than she knew. Or at least they had wandered so far apart that their voices could no longer reach each other. All she had left was using her waning power to appear at all, to look down at the living cats and envy those who grew beyond their youth. Something she had never been blessed with. Perhaps she ought to have stayed with her mother and became a kittypet... it would have been more fulfilling than dying unfulfilled and being abandoned by even the stars themselves.

She didn’t come here to ruminate, though. Stars knew she’d done enough of that, since her death unfathomably long ago. An apprentice was coming to speak with her. He was, honestly, her last hope... though she wouldn't burden him with that. She'd been enough of a burden in life; to become a useless lump of fur in death was even worse. Still, when Sunpaw awoke, he would find himself in a familiar-looking landscape. Nearly identical to the ThunderClan forest he'd traveled through to make it here, complete with clumps of trees and twittering birdsong, only that a few of the tree trunks were moving. But no, those weren't tree trunks. A dark brown mottled tortoiseshell, whose pelt blended easily with the sun-dappled landscape behind her--even more easily than she had in life, given how her form had grown nearly translucent--stepped out into a sunbeam, becoming half-visible. She seemed ghostly, like a reflection. Only a pair of green eyes, simultaneously full of ageless wisdom and irrepressible youth, and the winking stars that gleamed from the depths of her fur indicated that she was in fact a spirit rather than part of the backdrop.

“Hello, Sunpaw!” she said. Her voice, still loud despite her faded appearance, sparkled with warmth. She sounded extremely young--perhaps a season older than the apprentice. “It’s nice to meet you. The name’s Turtlepelt. I was a warrior of ThunderClan... long, long ago. I’m sorry it might be a little bit hard to see me, at the moment.” It was hard not to be self-conscious, honestly, of her appearance. She had always been proud of her beauty, but... there was so little of it left, literally. Flamestripe would tell her she was being silly. She shook out her fur and tried to focus on the here and now. It was more difficult than it should have been. “So... how can I help you? How are you doing?”

When his eyes snapped open, Sunpaw was greeted with a frustratingly familiar sight. Thunderclan territory... He sat up, disgruntled, squinting into the forest. He'd expected something spectacular, otherworldly– befitting his destiny, at least. And he was alone. Where was the great warrior who would teach him the secrets of his ancestors?
Scanning the trees, his eyes landed on a patch of air... not air. His stomach dropped as he realized he was not, in fact, alone. The fur along his spine rose uncomfortably as a ghostly she-cat materialized before him. An otherworldly power emanated from her. Confronted for the first time with something beyond his comprehension, Sunpaw desperately turned to what he knew. Apprentices go to the Moonstone to learn from their ancestors. He would go and learn how to become a hero. But now he was here with a warrior of Starclan, and yet... she was not the towering, grizzled warrior of old he'd expected. He shook his head in an attempt to process what was in front of him.
Her voice was the most shocking of all. She was so young, hardly older than he. His lip curled slightly. How am I doing? That was it? How would she know the secret to becoming a legend?
Either way, he had to reply. "Fine, I suppose," He spoke softly, guardedly. Had she been living he would've called her beautiful. Now, it was an otherworldly kind of beauty that unnerved him deeply. Her pelt rippled with stars.
Sunpaw had never anticipated being asked what he needed. If the dead were so wise, wouldn't they know? Caught in a strange feeling between dissatisfaction and awe, he rushed to speak again. "Sorry– you're not... what I expected." He winced internally. Some instinct pushed him to muster a semi-respectful stance. "I mean, I can barely see you. What happened to you? Do they all..." He trailed off, gesturing uselessly. look like this? An echo of a cat, if that. Her quiet power, her near nonexistence was not the bold, glorious life after death he'd believed in.

Turtlepelt laughed a little bit at the way he moved back, startled--but her laughter carried an undercurrent of sadness. That was fair enough. Maybe the stars ought to have chosen some leader for this proud tom, not a former kittypet-turned-warrior who'd died pointlessly young with no family or friends left to mourn her. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I guess I'd be a champion at hide and seek, if anyone were to come looking for me." She retreated out of the sunlight so that it wouldn't shine through her translucent form. Where should she sit? Maybe here, on this patch of grass. She wanted to be visible, but not... scary. She'd never been scary. Not even to the rogues she'd tried to threaten off the territory. "No, not everyone is like me. Most of them aren't. It's not common--not that I know of, anyway. But I have very little purpose here in the stars, so I'm fading. I... if I had to guess, it's cause I died so young. No one remembered me or cared. Not for years, and years, and years. I had no living relatives anywhere near the forest." Her mother probably never even knew she died, probably kept living happily with the Twolegs. The thought should have made her bitter... but for some reason, it didn't. She shrugged. "I don't know why the stars sent me to speak to you. You probably wanted someone more important." She flicked an ear. No more sob stories. That wouldn't make him want to think about her, ever. She had to at least do what the stars put her here to do. Purpose, for once. "But, oh well. I'm here now. I... haven't exactly been down there in a while. So what kind of advice do you need? Ask me something, anything to go off of. I'll do my best to help, but I can't work with nothing."

Cats could fade? This was certainly news to Sunpaw. His discomfort grew, tail twitching, as he grasped the reality of Turtlepelt's situation. His thoughts raced: she wasn't here to guide him, then. She was a warning. A death beyond death awaited him if he didn't live up to his destiny. Fear mixed with pity, now. It was what he imagined watching a Sharptooth– an unfathomably powerful predator –die a slow, painful death. His shock was evident. He struggled for words.
"Forgotten cats fade... I-I don't know what I need to know," he mewed uselessly. You probably wanted someone more important. All he knew now was that he was desperately eager to avoid the she-cat's fate. What was the point of it all? What mantra did he repeat, day after day, that drove him to work the way he did? To commit himself to his clan? Since his days as a sickly kit, he'd known that he wanted to be stronger than all the cats in the forest. All the loneliness and spite he felt peering out at the world from the medicine den had grown into his desire for glory. The terror he felt when confronted with the alternative latched onto this desire, shifted it slightly. Standing in the forests of Starclan, he knew he only had one goal.
"I want to be remembered." He spoke with more certainty now. To live forever in Thunderclan's memory, to evade true death. Forget clanmates, forget family, forget love. What did it matter, when a faded oblivion would come for them all? "What did you do? How did you live?" How do I not become like you? Everything he'd worked tirelessly for since he was old enough to reflect on life's meaning, his only true value, was becoming a legend. Anything short of that would mean his life would be a failure. After all, how else would he ensure that he'd walk the stars forever?