tainted line - chapter eight

Skypaw shuffled the moss between her paws, finding herself a little too focused on it as she scraped it away from the hollow log that was situated a short distance from the camp. She collected it mindlessly, her jaws gaping in a huge yawn. She shook her head to try and rid herself of the exhaustion, but it didn't do much to help.

Not only had their training intensified, but Skypaw and her denmates were also given more tasks to take care of around camp to keep them busy… and presumably out of trouble. That reason irked her a bit, but she did not take it out on the elders or Larksplash's moon-old kits. She genuinely liked helping them, but the chores weren't really the enjoyable part.

The only times she really got to speak with the other apprentices' over the last half-moon were during patrols or before settling into their nests for the night. Some might say that was enough, but after training for a majority of the day with Jaggedclaw or going out on patrol, she honestly wasn't feeling much up for talking when she got back.

She knew this was what Silentstar had hoped for; he said it himself, when he told them that stricter training schedules would keep them busy—less likely to "goof off," which was just a nice way of saying "less likely to plan ways to make trouble with your denmates."

With everything going on, Skypaw didn't really feel as though she "missed" her friends. Not that she didn't want to, but when she crawled into her nest after a long day, she could only come to acknowledge how long it had actually been since they just spent time together that wasn't quick "hellos" between their duties.

Tonight was the night of the gathering, which only served as a reminder that today was the last day that they would be worked to death. It seemed as though Jaggedclaw took special pleasure in working her even harder during training, which is something she underestimated. She had assumed his best was what he usually did while they trained together, but no. He proved that all those times they had practiced battle moves, he was holding back, which only made her more discouraged. Silentstar had only ordered more frequent training sessions, but Jaggedclaw had apparently taken it upon himself to also turn that into "train faster and harder."

Will he continue the training like this after today? She suddenly thought. It was a good question—on one hand, he could easily snap back into his old routine, but on the other hand, he could also continue on as he was now, thinking that she was adapting or would soon adapt to his more extreme training.

With these mindless questions running through her head, she didn't realize the mess she was making with the moss, and froze when she saw the small parts ripped away from her claws that only now became idle. Apparently daydreaming didn't stop her from trying to complete her task, and she let out a frustrated sigh as she began to gather together the shredded moss.

She felt the slow vibrations through the earth, but only when she heard a small crack did she snap her head around. She jumped at the sight before her, and in that same moment, she heard a loud, "Boo!" and felt a heavy weight knock her over and settle on her back.

"Great StarClan, Brackenpaw! You scared my fur off!" she growled, shoving him off of her. She could feel his exhaustion as well, as he didn't put up nearly as much effort to keep her pinned as he usually would. Either that… or he just let up on purpose.

The marbled tabby didn't even bother standing up, as he rolled onto his side right after she had pushed him away. He pawed her lightly in the side, giving her a look of exaggerated innocence. "Your fur looks fine to me."

Skypaw scoffed, giving his side a hard shove which caused him to tip backwards. "Whatever. I was working on gathering moss. Are you doing anything productive, or are you just messing around?"

Brackenpaw huffed in response, finally pulling himself up. "Keep your claws sheathed, Skypaw," he said calmly, grooming his chest that was now covered in specks of dirt. "Bristlefur told me that you might need help," at the same time, he glanced down at the measly pile of moss she had managed to collect. "From the looks of things, I guess he was right."

"I was just thinking," she replied defensively, scooping the last of the moss into her pile. "I just got distracted. I was planning on heading out to the old log by the stream to see if I could find more moss."

"Well, I think that task is best left until tomorrow," Brackenpaw told her. "The sun's setting—Silentstar wants us back at camp."

She held in an irritated yet somewhat disappointed grunt. Their leader had been doing that for the past half-moon—making sure they were safely in the camp before nightfall and not allowing them to go out after that point unless accompanied by a warrior. It wasn't too much of a problem, but that was mostly because she couldn't decide whether he did that to punish them or keep them safe from the threat of the rogues possibly returning.

"So what am I supposed to bring back? This isn't nearly enough for even half a nest," she finally protested.

Brackenpaw set his tail on her back. "This is just extra, isn't it? I'm sure Bristlefur has enough moss. We'll live," he laughed.

"I suppose," Skypaw sighed, picking up the small scrap of moss. Everything was appreciated, she knew, but she couldn't help being annoyed that she hadn't collected more—not because of a problem doing so, or not being able to find it, but her getting lost in her own thoughts and allowing time to fly by. Those kinds of things never ceased to make her feel guilty.

The walk back to camp started off simple, with them content with the silence, but Brackenpaw finally broke it when he asked, "So… have you talked to Snowpaw about what happened with Redwhisker?"

That certainly caught her by surprise. "Why do you ask?" she answered, speaking around the moss clasped in her jaws.

"Well, I know how things went down at the last gathering… and since there's another gathering tonight, I just thought I'd ask," he said.

Skypaw felt like a mouse-brain for not thinking of that sooner—but, then again, it was easy to blame the fatigue on her absent-minded habits. She hadn't really gotten Snowpaw's take on what happened at the previous gathering. Hailcry had told him, like she said she would, but her and her brother didn't sit down to really talk about it. It was only in passing that it was brought up, and from that, she didn't think that Snowpaw really had a solid opinion on it. He was the calm one—the one who took whatever was given to him. But even he could hide his true feelings if he wanted to.

"We… talked. If you call bringing it up every now and again 'talking,'" she said, rolling her eyes as she thought of the topic they had talked about. As good as Snowpaw was about hiding his opinion about the matter, Skypaw had no problem expressing hers, even if it was just in small gestures. "I don't know what he thinks. I don't feel inclined to ask. If we can just forget about this it'll become a thing of the past."

"I don't blame you for thinking that way," Brackenpaw admitted. "And I wouldn't find it unusual for you to have hard feelings towards Redwhisker, but… do you have any feelings about those two apprentices?"

Skypaw almost questioned which two apprentices he was referring to, until she remembered. After a long, calculated pause, she answered, "They mean nothing more to me than any other enemy warrior. They are apprentices of RavenClan, and we are apprentices of AspenClan. I don't think it would make any difference for me to have any other opinion on them." She kept it short, sweet, and to the point.

Brackenpaw seemed to pick up on this, and he did not question it further. "I think that's all they really are to any cat in our Clan. Their own Clan, though… I wonder about it."

"About what?" Skypaw sighed. She was tired of speaking about this, but she would at least allow Brackenpaw to say his piece.

"Their whole Clan knows about it. Do you think they kept it from them?"

"How should I know?" Skypw shrugged. "If we're thinking logically, they probably don't care. I've never met them, so it's not like I have much of an opinion."

"True," Brackenpaw concluded as they fell into silence once more. By this time they had already approached camp, and pushing their way through the bramble barrier, they saw that cats were already starting to gather outside of their dens, talking with one another about who would attend the gathering.

Wrenpaw was lounging around the apprentices' den, whereas Snowpaw and Whitepaw were sharing a mouse and speaking together near the fresh-kill pile. It didn't look as though either of them noticed her or Brackenpaw, as they appeared to be pretty involved in their conversation—a far cry from Snowpaw's original claim that Whitepaw seemed to be intimidated by him.

Skypaw dropped her moss next to the medicine den and, seeing that it wouldn't do much to approach her brother and Whitepaw, the two headed off towards their own den.

When Skypaw approached, the strong scent of herbs hit her, and Wrenpaw flicked her tail when Skypaw opened her mouth to comment.

"I've been helping Bristlefur since sunhigh," she explained, wrinkling her nose. "Scorchpelt apparently thinks the best method for me to help is repetition. This is the third day in a row! At least the last couple days I was just organizing herbs. It's not that exciting, but it's at least more interesting than going out and playing scavenger to try and find what Bristlefur already has."

"Punishment at its finest," Skypaw murmured, sitting down a short distance from her denmate as the smell was a little too strong for her. Brackenpaw did the same, choosing to sit beside her. "I would have thought that you and Scorchpelt would be getting along by now. Why don't you just tell him what the problem is?"

"Ha," she laughed dryly. "I'd like to see you complain to Scorchpelt."

"That's my sister," Brackenpaw said, voice full of fake pride. "She may be headstrong, but even she's not mouse-brained enough to do that."

"Oh, hush up," Wrenpaw flicked her paw in his direction, and he only grinned in response. "I don't see him much anyway. Outside of training, he spends most of his time with Scarletstream." Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, "I think they're planning to overthrow Silentstar and take over the Clan." After a few moments she let out a laugh.

"That wouldn't really surprise me," Skypaw said, only just picturing it in her head.

"And here comes our great deputy now," Brackenpaw said, and the two she-cats turned their attention towards Silentstar's den, where the black and white she-cat was just leaving.

"I bet she already took out Silentstar," Wrenpaw muttered in her ear, and Skypaw snorted, holding back a smile as Scarletstream moved to the center of camp, giving them a small glanced as she looked around the camp.

"We are almost ready to depart," she said. "Those who will accompany us to the gathering are Embercloud, Hailcry, Jaggedclaw, Scorchpelt, Brackenpaw, Snowpaw, and Wrenpaw."

At first, Skypaw hoped she had heard wrong, but when she went over it again she felt a sharp twinge of disappointment when she realized she would not be attending the gathering. This was the first one that she would not be a part of, and she inwardly cursed herself for assuming that she would go to every one. It only made sense that she would stay home every now and then.

What bothered her was the small look Jaggedclaw gave her from across the camp as he spoke with Bristlefur. For whatever reason, he had purposely requested she be kept from the gathering. The most obvious would be the confrontation that took place half a moon ago, but they seemed to have put that behind them. Or at least she thought.

She briefly caught Bristlefur's eye as he glanced at her as well, and her fur fluffed up when she realized they must be talking about her.

"Well, that's foxdung," Brackenpaw huffed. "Sorry, Skypaw."

"It's fine," she reassured him, trying to cover up her anger and overwhelming curiosity at what Bristlefur and Jaggedclaw were talking about. She didn't want him to misunderstand where her annoyance was stemming from. "I'll probably just finish up some chores and then head to sleep. I don't think we'll be woken up early tomorrow," she said, and actually brightened at the idea of getting a rest that was long overdue.

"Well, if you're still awake by the time we get back I'll let you know what happened," Brackenpaw promised, standing up to join the patrol. She batted him away when he licked her ear, as he knew very well that it was one of her greatest irritations. "See you later."

Whitepaw had no problem expressing her disappointment, both at not being able to attend and having to cut her conversation with Snowpaw short. It was a humorous sight, with her brother apparently promising Whitepaw the same thing Brackenpaw had promised to her.

When she turned her head, she noticed that Wrenpaw had already disappeared, which she found strange. She looked back and saw her friend trotting over to the cats that were called for the patrol, feeling slightly dejected that she didn't even get a goodbye.

She needed to do something productive. It dawned on her that since she was not going to be busy tonight, she could finish up with whatever chores she had left in camp. She passed Whitepaw—still sitting near the fresh-kill pile—on her way to the medicine den, evening managing to catch Wrenpaw's eye from across the camp as well.

Looking disappointedly at her pile of moss, she picked it up from where it lay beside the den and moved inside, setting it in the pile where Bristlefur kept it.

"Whitepaw!"

She almost jumped when she heard Scarletstream's call, and glanced outside the den in time to see the small tabby scampering over to the deputy, not wanting to keep her waiting. She wasn't entirely sure what the she-cat would want with her denmate, but she wasn't feeling up to eavesdropping to find out.

Skypaw rolled the moss into a more compact space to make room, and shuffled towards the back of the den to see if she could find the herbs that Bristlefur had ordered her to bring to Rushfall for aching joints. He told her that he had set them out to where she would be able to see them, but when she came to the store area, there were three piles set up. One was thrown about as though the medicine cat had stopped in the middle of organizing them, so that left the other two as possible options.

The camp eventually grew quiet—a signal that the patrol had left—and she went back to work with the slight envy being pushed to the back of her mind. She sniffed at both piles of herbs curiously, pulling back when the sharp scent of the first hit her. She let out a soft grunt as she picked up the second one, but the sounds of pawsteps alerted her to the presence of another cat. At first she thought it was Bristlefur, but then she remembered that he had gone along with everyone else to the gathering.

Turning around, her body jumped when she came face to face with Wrenpaw, the herbs she was previously carrying falling from her mouth and scattering around her.

"What is with cats sneaking up on me?" Skypaw hissed, breathing deeply to calm her frantic heartbeats. "Why aren't you with the patrol? They've already left, haven't they?"

"Yeah, they did," Wrenpaw said. "I told Scarletstream to let Whitepaw go in my place. I think she wanted to talk to Snowpaw some more, so I decided to be polite and let her go instead."

Skypaw rolled her eyes as she gathered the herbs towards her. "Wow, all this for Whitepaw, huh?"

Wrenpaw gave her a look, and then relented. "Okay, fine. I felt bad that you couldn't go. I mean, any other time it wouldn't have mattered—" Skypaw gave her a dirty look at this. "—but with what happened… It was mostly on me, and I was still allowed to go when you weren't. Equal actions, equal punishment."

"Is Wrenpaw finally going soft, actually taking responsibility for her actions?" Skypaw responded bitterly.

The she-cat raised one brow and let out a soft growl. "StarClan's kits, Skypaw! Can't you just appreciate it when a friend wants to make it up to you?"

Skypaw closed her eyes and took a deep breath, realizing that the fatigue was probably getting to her. "Okay, okay, you're right. Sorry. I'm just… really eager to get this done so I can finally sleep," she said.

After a moment, Wrenpaw finally sighed. "Yeah, whatever. Apology accepted. What are you doing right now?"

"Bristlefur wanted me to bring these herbs to Rushfall for her joints," she said, finally piling up the last leaf.

Wrenpaw let out a laugh. "Well, I doubt Rushfall is going to benefit much from those," she said, indicating her pile. "She'll probably appreciate borage leaves a little more." The tabby passed her and moved to the storing area, picking up the second pile that Skypaw had left and returning a few moments later.

Skypaw looked at her skeptically. "How would you know? Maybe you're just trying to confuse me."

"I'm not trying to kill any of our Clanmates, if that's what you're thinking," Wrenpaw chuckled, although the double-meaning was hard to miss. She clearly hadn't forgotten the guilt that came with her being half-responsible for the incident with Whitepaw. Thankfully, there were no deathberries around this time.

"There are ten different ways to use a single herb. I can't be expected to know," Skypaw defended herself.

"When you've been stuck in this den and have had to taste this herb over and over again, you tend to remember things." Wrenpaw shuddered, and for the first time Skypaw felt relieved that Wrenpaw was there to take care of a job like this. "Since you have those, I suggest you take that to Larksplash; it'll help her milk come easier. That was what I was told to do earlier, so we can just switch."

"Okay," Skypaw replied.

They both padded out of the den and to the left with Wrenpaw pulling ahead a bit to reach the elder's den that was farther along. Skypaw stopped outside of the nursery for a moment, taking in the milky scent, before entering.

It wasn't often that Skypaw visited the nursery. She found herself to be a bit uncomfortable and embarrassed around kits, but it was nice enough speaking to Larksplash. The tortoiseshell and white queen lifted her head when Skypaw dropped the herbs at her paws, looking welcoming.

"Hi, Skypaw," she said, stretching out her front paws as the kits sleeping beside her twitched. "Are those for me?"

"Er… yes," Skypaw responded. "Wrenpaw told me these were for you."

Larksplash looked doubtful. "Wrenpaw's making orders now, huh? I'm not sure I trust you two to keep up with what herbs go to what cat."

The words stung, and now Skypaw was beginning to realize why Wrenpaw wanted to put their mistake behind them.

Not a moment passed before Larksplash chuckled. "I'm just messing with you. I know what happened was a mistake. Besides, after taking the same herbs for a moon I think I can tell when they're the right ones." The she-cat scooped the herbs into her mouth and swallowed quickly afterwards.

Skypaw stood there awkwardly, still slightly taken back by her previous comment, but Larksplash reassured her. "I'm serious. Skypaw, don't worry about it. It's in the past. I think Mallowkit agrees with that."

The silver and white tabby suddenly noticed the small tortoiseshell kit padding towards her. Although already a moon old, they were still quite small, and Skypaw knew they probably wouldn't be running around until at least their second, maybe third moon. She not-so-subtly inched away as the kit approached, and her mother smiled, amused.

"I'm… gonna go see how Wrenpaw's doing," Skypaw said, slowly backing out of the den with the she-kit making a move of following her. She was out soon enough and moving quickly enough to outrun the kit, and she took refuge in the elders' den when she could hear Hollowstripe rambling from inside.

"…and that's what happens when I even attempted to teach Jaggedclaw to climb a tree. He—" the ginger and white tom paused, finally realizing that they had another audience member. "Oh, hi Skypaw. Have you come to hear my list of embarrassing stories? I have quite a few, you know."

The offer was definitely tempting, especially with what she could learn about her dear old deputy, but she found the more pressing issue to be Wrenpaw, who was curled up beside the sleeping Rushfall—the herbs pushed to the side—as she appeared to be listening to his story.

"You having fun, Wrenpaw?" she asked.

"Tons. Thanks for asking," Wrenpaw retorted, winking at her.

Her friend patted the spot between her and Hollowstripe with her tail, and Skypaw finally let out a long sigh, giving in to take a short break before finishing up with her chores. She could feel her muscles start to relax as she moved to settle down, but a low growl from outside was what brought her back up again.

"What was that?" Wrenpaw was on her paws as well, and Hollowstripe seemed to hear it as well. Both apprentices slunk outside of the den and looked around, searching for the source.

Another low growl was what led them to exit the camp, and they arrived just in time to hear Quickbreeze's voice asking, "Who are you and why are you trespassing on AspenClan's territory?"

Skypaw assumed that Quickbreeze had been on guard, and she could already hear the other warriors approaching to see what the trouble was about as well. She and Wrenpaw moved around the she-cat, their neck fur bristling. If it was an intruder, she would gladly chase it off.

But instead of standing against a group of outsiders, she came face to face with a red tabby she-cat that was undeniably Redwhisker's daughter.