Chapter Text
ROWANFLAME
THUNDERCLAN
“Rowanflame?” Galethorn's voice was unusually soft.
That was how Rowanflame knew.
She didn't turn to face her. Couldn't bring herself to even flick an ear in acknowledgement. Galethorn's scent coiled around Rowanflame like a snake; almost comforting in its familiarity, yet terrifying in its meaning.
“It's Stormwhisker,” she said, and the still, stale air inside the medicine cat's den shuddered beneath the weight of her voice. Rowanflame released a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. “He's dead.”
The storm arrived with a shiver, a roar, and a blinding crack across the sky.
For a few skipped heartbeats, the forest seemed to inhale, and hold. Waiting.
Then, the rain unfurled. A sudden deluge of it. Like the violent downbeat of collosal wings from some giant, startled bird taking flight.
The timing was oddly fitting. Stormwhisker had loved the rain. He'd said that when the stars wept, the herbs lifted their heads to listen; an old-fashioned medicine cat adage that he had loved to remind her of when dark clouds encroached on the horizon.
And now he was gone.
No, not gone – never gone. She would see him again. One day. When it was finally time to take her own pilgrimage to the stars.
“Have you told Badgerstar yet?” Rowanflame asked, as they began the trek to the Graveden. She had to strain her voice to be heard above the wind's keening shriek. It buffeted against them with a relentless force that made her ears pin flat.
Galethorn scoffed. “Now there's a hive of bees I'm not looking forward to sticking my paws into. Stormwhisker wasn't just his Starvoice. He was his littermate. He's going to throw a right fit, and the worst part is I can't even blame him for it. I'll bet a day's worth of prey on WindClan being able to hear him from all the way up on their moors."
“It's not like we didn't see this coming," said Rowanflame, numbly. "Stormwhisker was sick for a long, long time.”
“No, not sick,” said Galethorn, shaking her head. “Dying. That stubborn furball's been on StarClan's border since the beginning of greenleaf. It's a miracle he stuck around for this long. To tell you the truth, I feel like he was staying alive just to mess with me. He always did enjoy rubbing my fur the wrong way.”
“Galethorn!”
“What?" Galethorn blinked up at her, the perfect picture of manufactured innocence. "It's true! Hey, in case you've forgotten, I'm the Graveden medicine cat, and the Voice of the Dying, and whatever other depressingly morbid title you want to call me. It's why I have this sense of humor you love so much.”
Galethorn bumped affectionately against Rowanflame's side. But for once, Rowanflame didn't return it.
Stormwhisker hadn't been just any old cat.
He'd been a friend.
A mentor.
And her uncle.
Kin.
“Think of it this way,” Galethorn said, in that unusually soft tone of hers again. “He was in pain. Stars forbid what kind of illness he caught, but it took everything from him. Death was a mercy.”
“Death is always a mercy.”
“...You know what I mean.”
Each step forward seemed to drag into the other. An automated rhythm of painfully slow movement. Rowanflame tried to dredge up a feeling, any feeling. She'd take sadness, self-pity, denial, or, by StarClan's teeth, she would even accept anger, welcome it, too.
But the most she could bring herself to feel was a strangely medicated numbness. Like she'd swallowed double the recommended dose of poppy seeds. It was a sensation that started in her chest, traveled down to the pads of her paws and back up to the very tips of her ears. It left her feeling clinically calm.
And it also made her want to throw up.
An awfully inconvenient blend of sensations.
More than anything else, though, it made her feel like a ghost. Drifting and powerless. Observing the mechanical motions of a body that was no longer hers to control.
Galethorn had been right about one thing.
Stormwhisker had suffered.
He'd been the face of the Council of Medicine Cats, their one and only Voice of the Stars, and he'd been a fiercely loyal one at that.
Yet he'd still suffered all the same.
She knew it wasn't right to think. A pathetic and childishly intrusive thought that only kittens were prone to voicing. So, she didn't voice it. But she did think it. A private admittance she hoped not even StarClan would hear amid the howling of the storm. Stars above. It just isn't fair.
Rowanflame knew they were approaching the Graveden by scent alone. Mothshade and Galethorn had sown a barrage of new seeds during newleaf; the lilies were flowering in abundance now, their large milk-white petals flared out in welcome towards Silverpelt. The sweet scent of their new blooms was almost sickening.
But all the lilies in the world couldn't mask the distinct reek of death.
A subtle sourness rolled over the scent glands on the roof of her mouth. Rowanflame's stomach roiled in protest.
She couldn't fathom how Galethorn tolerated it. For her, this wasn't just a place where cats came to die; it was her home.
The rain refused to let up. A relentless drumming that punctured the silence like the indentation of teeth marks.
And there, amid a crushed patch of flowers, lay Stormwhisker.
Mothshade towered over him. Cricketpaw was glued to his side. His ears were drooped and he'd tucked his tail pitifully beneath his belly.
The Graveden stretched its cavernous maw wide open behind them. It was an abandoned badger sett that led underground to Galethorn's den. It was customary, however, for a dying cat to spend most of their time beneath Silverpelt, where StarClan could keep their many watchful eyes on them.
The Graveden was, after all, in stark contrast to its nauseating odour, a beautiful place to die.
The trees grew sparser here, knitting together to form a copse that cats who weren't Rowanflame or Galethorn called the Starhollow. A prettier and more palatable name than the Graveden. Galethorn liked the latter more, though, if only because it would set a cat's teeth on edge and make their fur prickle uncomfortably whenever she said it.
Rowanflame sometimes wondered if Galethorn was a collection of fleas dressed up in an elaborate cat-shaped disguise.
It would explain a lot.
A cursory glance up revealed a swathe of ominous black clouds. The earth had turned to slick mud beneath their paws. Would Stormwhisker's journey prove more difficult in such tumultuous weather? Would he blindly flounder and lose his way without the Startrail to guide him?
“Keep your distance,” said Galethorn, and Rowanflame was wrenched back into the present, soggy and numb and more miserable than an old tom with a tick infestation. “You know how much Stormwhisker meant to him.”
She turned to pad away. Rowanflame watched her go, alarmed.
“You aren't going to say goodbye?”
“I've said my goodbyes, Rowanflame,” said Galethorn tiredly. “Over and over and over again. Every morning and every night. I've made my peace with it. Now it's your turn.”
She settled at the very edge of the hollow, where the shadows swelled like a thickening bruise. Rowanflame felt a bit like she'd lost a limb without Galethorn by her side. Still, she forced herself to approach, keeping a respectable distance just to be safe.
Mothshade was a friendly tom, sometimes overly so; he was, as Galethorn would so eloquently put it, the kind of cat who loved to hear the sound of his own voice. So it was especially alarming to see him like ... this. Effortlessly quiet. Sallow. His whiskers sagged low, dripping rainwater, and he hunched over Stormwhisker like a crescent moon turned belly up, as if trying to shield him from the battering wind and rain.
Stormwhisker's body had crumpled in on itself like a wad of crushed herbs. His eyes were open. Vacant. His muzzle was twisted into a grimace. Foam gathered in pearly bubbles by his lips, and his exposed gums were an angry slash of infectious red.
It looked like he'd died in pain.
“Mothshade.” Rowanflame didn't even know where to begin. “I'm … I'm so, so, so sorry.”
Cricketpaw was the only one who reacted. He jerked up, eyes wide. Opened his mouth to speak. But then he bit down hard on whatever words were behind his teeth.
Cricketpaw hadn't earned his Voice yet.
Mothshade refused to meet her gaze. He was a slender tomcat, beautiful in every sense of the word, with blue eyes and a pale pelt that darkened to sharp ginger points around his muzzle and tail. It was difficult not to compare herself to him; where he was sinew and bone, wiry like a fox, Rowanflame was an abundance of fluff and muscle. Her dark ginger fur blended seamlessly into the muted browns and greens of the forest's foliage — she took after her father in that way. Mothshade, however, bore the unfortunate burden of looking like an outsider.
Probably because, a long, long time ago, he'd been one.
“We'll hold a vigil,” she said, trying to remember all the appropriate things Stormwhisker had taught her to say. Funny how when it really mattered, the right words always seemed to slip her mind. “And ... and we'll honor him. As soon as the storm clears, we'll bury him beneath Silverpelt. His spirit will finally find its way home.”
Mothshade blinked. Even that simple, intuitive instinct seemed to take immense effort, like he had to remind himself how to do it. “It's okay,” he said, and his voice, usually as light and airy as spider silk, was ragged from disuse. “He's on his pilgrimage. All is as it should be, and all is as it will be, and all those worthy will eventually join StarClan's hunting grounds.” He paused, then added, like a final thorn being driven into Stormwhisker's corpse, “this is for the best.”
But his words felt empty. Rehearsed. Maybe even moreso than Rowanflame's own.
The storm intensified its assault. A violent whipping of wind and rain that lashed across their soaked pelts like unsheathed claws. And the three cats simply stood there, withstanding it all, staring down at an empty husk that no longer resembled anything close to the tom they'd come to love.
Stormwhisker looked so cold. Which was disconcerting, because he'd been anything but. He'd been warm, and wise, and wielding of a sharp wit that belied his age. How cruel, to take all those wonderful things from him, piece by painful piece; first his ability to walk, a slow and agonizing paralysis; then his appetite, where not even the smallest of prey could quite tempt him to swallow a mouthful; and finally, his mind. The most jarring loss of all.
She'd never seen an illness progress quite like it.
And now, with his death, that made three. Three victims. Three lives snuffed out by an illness they couldn't name. No, not couldn't. Wouldn't.
Naming it felt wrong somehow. Perhaps because names were given to things that could be understood. And this wasn't. Not by any of them. Not even close.
Rowanflame tried to say goodbye, but her throat closed in on itself.
You lost your chance to say goodbye a long time ago, a voice in her head said. And she couldn't help but agree.
The last time she'd visited Stormwhisker had been two moons ago. It had been to deliver herbs for his pain. He was still able to talk back then, though most of his words were fleeting, caught between rapid breaths and wracked by violent full-body shivers. He'd needed Galethorn's help with everything. Seeing him robbed of his typically stubborn independence had broken something in her.
The Graveden had always been oppressive. But Stormwhisker's presence made it suffocating.
She'd refused to go back. Hadn't wanted to see him get worse, a reality that Galethorn and Mothshade were constantly assuring her of in private. Better to preserve the memory she had of him, keep it pristine and intact. She told herself it was what Stormwhisker would've wanted, but even she could recognize the instinct for what it really was: an utterly selfish impulse that she felt powerless to fight against.
It was an instinct most other ThunderClan cats shared in. Death was usually something to celebrate. Death during a battle? Easy glory. Death in service to the Clan? A great honor.
But a death that occurred, slowly, on the inside? The kind of fight most cats couldn't perceive?
No-one said it.
No-one dared to even think it.
But such a meaningless death?
It was considered a waste.
She'd asked Mothshade to deliver his herbs after that.
Galethorn, for all her quips, never once judged her for it. Though Rowanflame suspected that, in the privacy of her own mind, she most certainly did.
After what felt like an eternity, Galethorn emerged from the shadows. "Okay. Enough moping. It's time. We should return to Camp, let Badgerstar know. He'll want to say his goodbyes too. Then in the morning, we can plan a vigil for all the Clan to take part in.”
Mothshade rose to his paws, bones creaking stiffly, as if he hadn't moved in moons. “Come, Cricketpaw. We're done here.” He walked off in a direction that definitely wasn't towards Camp. Cricketpaw hesitated. He looked back at Rowanflame, something soft and unreadable flitting across his face. She wondered, only for a second, if he were about to break the Code, open his mouth, and speak. But then he turned away, head hung in quiet shame, and padded after Mothshade's steadily retreating tail.
Rowanflame went to follow them. But Galethorn blocked her way.
“Leave him. He's grieving. You won't get anywhere good with a tom who's grieving.”
“We need him, though. Badgerstar's not going to take … any of this well. And Mothshade's good at calming him down.” Second only to Stormwhisker, she thought bitterly. “You think he'll want to hear this news from us?”
"He's not going to have a choice. We do as we must. If Mothshade wants to throw a pity party in the woods, let him. Time doesn't wait. Not for your grief, not for mine, not for his, and most certainly not for decomposition." Galethorn's bluntness made her wince. "We're a Council for a reason, and we all have work to do."
Rowanflame met Stormwhisker's vacant blue gaze again. The peel of his cracked lips. The limp flop of his swollen tongue.
She finally looked away.
It was so much easier not to look.
“C'mon. Let's get outta here.” Galethorn bumped against her side. “I've got an angry badger to placate, and I'd rather eat a pile of fox-dung than face that grumpy ol' lump alone. Together?”
Whatever would she do without Galethorn? Rowanflame couldn't stop the weak purr from welling up in her throat. She leaned down to bump her head against Galethorn's own. “Okay. Together.”
“Well,” began Galethorn with a sigh, as they walked the well-tread path home, “let's look on the bright side, shall we? That's one less mouth to feed. Give or take a few more moons, and the two of us might have all the prey in the forest to ourselves. We'll be drowning in fresh-kill!"
“Galethorn,” said Rowanflame sternly, “too soon.”
“It's true though, isn't it? Cats are dropping like flies. First it's our annual greencough outbreak. Okay, sure, whatever. Devastating, earlier than expected, but predictable. Treatable. And now it's an illness we have no name for, that doesn't respond to any of the treatments we know, and condemns a cat to a slow, agonizing death that they are powerless to fight against. Yay. Fun. At the rate we're going, by newleaf there won't be any ThunderClan left."
“You say that every season.”
“Maybe this season it'll finally be true,” said Galethorn quietly.
Rowanflame shook her head, if only to convince herself. “You know I won't let that happen.”
She snorted. “Cute.”
“Cute?” Rowanflame wrinkled her nose.
“It is cute. Oh, I remember being your age. So young. All that naivete and hope.”
“You're only six moons older than me.”
“And six moons wiser, my dear Rowanflame! Trust me, it makes a difference.”
Galethorn leaped up onto the corpse of a fallen tree. Even with the wind angrily howling against her, she strutted confidently along the trunk's weathered bark. For once, she was bigger than Rowanflame, her shadow dwarfing the larger cat's own.
Galethorn bore a striking resemblance to a hedgehog; her gray fur stuck out in every direction but down, and she always had dark wisps of sleep-gunk wedged in the corners of her eyes. No matter how many times she tried to swipe it away with a paw, it returned with a vengeance the very next morning — an unwinnable fight. She was matted with leaves, snapped twigs, and twisted knots that no amount of sharing tongues could improve, and, as if to add insult to injury, she was also easily the smallest fully-grown cat in ThunderClan.
A fact she loathed being reminded of.
“Where does it go, I wonder?” she mused, and Rowanflame, baffled, thought she meant the tree before Galethorn went on to explain. “All those hopes and dreams, I mean. I dunno about everyone else's, but I think I puked all mine out when I ate that rotten mouse a few moons ago.”
“I mean … not to say I told you so but … I did tell you to stay away from that mouse.” Rowanflame flicked an ear at the memory. “It smelled bad. You didn't listen to me. What was it that you said? 'Waste not, want not?'”
“Are you trying to make me feel bad for not wasting food? After a leafbare famine, no less?"
“I am judging you for eating the mouse covered in flies, yes. Maybe a prescription for a healthy dose of shame will stop you from doing it again."
“Cruel. Yet fair.” Galethorn reached the end of the tree, and jumped down to face her. At this angle, their height difference had never been more clear. Galethorn barely came up to her chest. “I've taught you well. You're mean, Rowanflame."
“I don't think that's the compliment you intend it to be.'
"Sometimes being mean is a good thing."
They both took a moment to catch their breath and escape the storm, taking shelter beneath a towering oak. Neither would admit that it was to delay the inevitable. Rowanflame, however, could feel the pressure mounting inside her, like trapped steam.
“So, what?” she snapped, suddenly overwhelmed by it all. “Are we supposed to just ... sit back and watch our Clanmates die? We're the Voices of the Council, for stars' sake! Curing sick cats is what we do."
"We don't cure anyone."
Galethorn's words cut the air between them with surgical precision.
"We buy time," she continued softly. "We bargain and barter and grovel, but not even a cat with nine lives can outrun an ending. Your precious medicine can only do so much, Rowanflame. You can treat someone in pain with all the poppy seeds and poultices and honey in the world, but sooner or later, every last wound or cough or achy joint will catch up with them. That's the price we pay for living, I suppose. Our gift from the stars."
She paused, seeming to consider her next words. Then, in a voice barely audible above the rain, she said, "nobody ever tells you how hard a dying cat fights to stay alive."
For a few heartbeats, the only sound between them was the rain drumming against the earth, as it spilled in silvery sheets off the oak tree's snarled branches.
Rowanflame looked down at her paws. "That's it, then? We're powerless?"
“I dunno. Maybe? I know one thing for sure, though. Sooner or later, a medicine cat must accept that they only have so much power. Nature will do what nature does best.”
“And what does nature do best?"
Galethorn shrugged. “Kill.”
“...Awfully cynical for a medicine cat, aren't you?”
“You can actually thank Stormwhisker for that one,” chuckled Galethorn fondly. “Another one of his tried and true adages. Most of them were far too sentimental for my liking. But this he shared with me only a moon ago, before the illness made him lose his head. I think the medicine you prescribed for the pain was finally giving him some much needed clarity. You know what I said to him, after he told me that?”
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway. I said, 'finally. A quote of yours I can actually get behind.'"
Rowanflame was unamused. “You're awful,” she said, tone flat with disapproval.
But she didn't really mean it. How could she?
Galethorn rolled her eyes. “So I've been told by many a sick and dying cat. You know what, someone has to be the cynical one 'round here. Between you and Mothshade, all your time would be spent picking apart the theories of the universe and dreaming up strange new plants to grow. I, on the other paw, prescribe something far more beneficial than any of that nonsense."
"...And that is?" she asked, though she already knew exactly where this conversation was going.
Galethorn grinned. "A healthy dose of reality!" She slapped her bushy tail across Rowanflame's face as she sauntered back out into the rain. "You can't wound me anymore, Rowanflame. I've got skin as thick as an old badger's hide!"
Rowanflame watched her go, absently rubbing a paw over the sting in her cheek. "...And the stature of a malnourished shrew to go along with it," she said under her breath.
Galethorn recoiled as though she'd been struck. She whipped around so fast that raindrops flew from her whiskers. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating an expression so outrageously indignant that Rowanflame nearly choked on a laugh.
So much for that impenetrable badger hide.
"Hey," said Galethorn petulantly. "That's too far."
She couldn't hold it back any longer. She mrrr'd with laughter. “Sorry. Too far, too far, you're right. I take it back. Promise."
“No you don't.”
Their pelts momentarily brushed as Rowanflame padded ahead. "No," she agreed, "I don't."
The relentless ache of Stormwhisker's death had loosened its grip. It was a dizzying relief that Rowanflame knew wouldn't last, couldn't, but she leaned into it all the same.
She supposed she had Galethorn to thank for that. Depressingly dire though their conversations were.
Behind her, Galethorn scoffed.
“Yep. Just as I thought. Beneath that polite and demure exterior? Mean. And that one's not a compliment.”
Another burst of lightning split the world into shattered fragments of white. The wind had picked up, a keening shriek, blowing the rain against them like a barrage of little wasp stingers that they had to narrow their eyes against. They arrived at the Camp entrance, thoroughly soaked and bedraggled. Rowanflame's yowl could barely be heard above all the noise. “Brambleberry! Are you still on watch?”
ThunderClan Camp was tucked in a ravine, which was both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that they were hidden from enemies, shielded by towering oak trees that were countless moons old, and surrounded by tangled brambles and thorny bushes that only an experienced ThunderClan cat could confidently navigate their way through. The curse, however, was that when the wind screamed a bloody yowl, such as tonight, the ravine created the perfect funnel, and their dens (and Rowanflame's immaculately planted herb gardens) paid a heavy price.
A dark shape flitted by at the top of the ravine. It disappeared, reappeared, then slipped, tumbled head-over-paws down a stony slope, and was swallowed whole by a crop of fern bushes.
There was an obnoxiously loud rustling of leaves, and then a furry face popped out, whiskers trembling nervously. "Hi, Rowanflame! Hi, Galethorn!"
"Hi, Brambleberry," said Rowanflame kindly.
Galethorn already wore the long-suffering expression of a cat condemned to endure Brambleberry's enthusiasm.
"Yep," she began, in a voice so fast-paced that her words almost seemed to melt into each other, "I've been keeping a close watch all night. I've seen birds and mice and more birds, and I think one of those birds was an owl 'cause he was eyeing me up like a tasty snack, but it was fine, he flew off when the storm came, and I definitely didn't let any cats leave during Mooncall either —"
Galethorn snickered. "You let cats leave during Mooncall? Which ones?"
Brambleberry flinched. Guilt flashed across her face. She was only twelve moons old, made a warrior two nights ago, fresh as new blooms in newleaf. "Uh, no? I said I definitely didn't. Didn't. You might want to get your ears checked, Galethorn. I wouldn't let any warrior break Mooncall under my first ever watch. That'd be so silly."
Galethorn and Rowanflame shared a long, knowing look.
“Look, kit,” said Galethorn, “I really don't care which mousebrains muscled their way past you to go galavanting around in the middle of the night heckling stars' knows what.” She paused, and Brambleberry looked relieved. But only for a moment. “But I would like to know, if only because I'd like to laugh in their faces when they come back. They chose the wrong night to go ticking off Badgerstar, I'll tell you that much.”
“Oh.” Brambleberry flattened her ears. “Badgerstar's mad?”
“Not mad,” said Rowanflame quickly. She pierced Galethorn with a glare. “Not at you, or anyone else. It's complicated. You'll find out in the morning.”
“So ...” prompted Galethorn, motioning with a paw. “Did a bee sting your tongue? Out with it. Who's the lucky cat who decided that tonight, of all nights, was the perfect time to break Mooncall?"
“It was Whitewhisker!” Brambleberry squeaked. She covered her muzzle with a paw, as if shocked by her own betrayal. She got over it quickly, however, because the rest of the names spilled out without hesitation. “And Birdblume. And … and Scuttlebark! They broke Mooncall! I told them they shouldn't, really, I tried to stop them, but they laughed in my face and shoved me aside. I couldn't do anything. You gotta believe me. Those three? They're trouble!”
“Why am I not surprised?” Rowanflame sighed.
“Oh, yeah. Trouble. Please,” Galethorn scoffed. “Those three are about as harmless as a nest of baby sparrows. All squawk, no bite. Next time they threaten you like that, Brambleberry, you tell them big ol' auntie Rowanflame'll teach them a thing or two about what happens to rule-breakers.” Her eyes twinkled in the darkness. “And their paws.”
A clap of thunder followed her threat, as if StarClan were rumbling in approval. Brambleberry somehow looked even more terrified than before.
“Why are you offering me up for torture?” asked Rowanflame, offended. “I'm not breaking anyone's paws.”
“Don't underestimate the power of a very mean medicine cat," said Galethorn with a wicked grin.
Rowanflame shook her head exasperatedly. “This has gotten off track. Brambleberry, don't worry about them, they'll be the least of Badgerstar's concerns." That, at least, was probably true. "I do need you to bring him to us though. Can you do that for me?”
Brambleberry glanced between them, as though she'd somehow stumbled into the wrong conversation. “You want me,” she began, enunciating each word slowly as though talking to newborn kits, “to wake up Badgerstar?”
If Rowanflame brought the news to him in his den, he'd know immediately. Just as she had when Galethorn walked into hers. No. Best to lure him outside Camp, away from prying eyes and sensitive ears. He'd thank them for it later.
“It's really important. And it needs to be you.”
“It's a great honor," added Galethorn. Rowanflame resisted the urge to stamp on her tail.
Brambleberry didn't look convinced. Excitable, maybe. But a fool she was not. "I don't know. Won't he be annoyed? Is this … are you punishing me for letting those cats leave? I'm really, really sorry, I know I messed up, but I promise, it won't happen again! Aren't medicine cats supposed to be merciful?”
Galethorn laughed, a humorless sound. "Merciful. Funny."
“You haven't done anything wrong.” Rowanflame whipped her tail over Galethorn's already half-open mouth. Sometimes a silent Galethorn was a preferable Galethorn. “Honestly. It's the least of our worries, too. But we do need Badgerstar. Now. We need to have a conversation with him. In private.” She must've stressed the last word with too much intensity. Brambleberry's eyes lit with sudden understanding.
“Oh. Stormwhisker,” she whispered. “Okay. I'll go get him.”
She pushed her way back into the bushes, loudly crunching sticks and leaves underfoot as she went, sounds thankfully eaten whole by the wind. “And keep that part a secret,” Rowanflame yowled after her, but whether she heard her or not, she gave no sign.
“Mmf. Yew 'ow sh' cou'n't 'eep a shecret 'f 'er lif' de'en'ed o' 't.”
“...What?”
Galethorn spat out her tail, hacking up a cloud of dark ginger fur along with it. “I said, you know she couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it! She's gonna let it slip in there and we're about to face a storm even more ugly than the one raging over our heads. Ugh, this isn't going to be pretty. Brace yourself, Rowanflame. Oh, great, and now all I can taste is your wet fur on my tongue. Can this night get any worse?"
"Brambleberry's got more sense than that," Rowanflame replied, a tad defensively, but already, she knew Galethorn was right.
It happened then, this sudden, wretched sound, like a wounded dog caught in a twoleg trap. A yowl. Deep and haunting. Twisted vocal chords, frayed into snapped strings. Even the storm couldn't whip it away.
Badgerstar knew. He knew. Rowanflame felt her heart quicken. Heard the yowl again in her memories, an echo, that same strangled scream. “Only one left,” as her mother desperately tried to groom some life back into her littermates. Stormwhisker had held Rowankit back, teeth sunk so deep into her scruff that the scent of blood welled into the air. “Please, no. StarClan, no. Don't punish me again.”
“I can't do this,” she said, and it was an instinctive response, automatic and thoughtless. Rowanflame didn't even feel particularly scared. There was that clinical numbness again. Light-headed and sedating. She blinked. Tried to will it away. Was she broken?
She didn't even notice Galethorn pushing up against her. Pelts touching. The curl of her obnoxiously bushy tail around Rowanflame's own.
“Together, remember?” Galethorn said, around an obnoxious mouthful of her fur.
She closed her eyes.
“...Together,” Rowanflame affirmed.
And the storm chose that moment to sputter and die.
Just as Stormwhisker had done.
StarClan was nothing if not poetic.