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When he is young, his father tells him about the beauty of the sky.
It makes sense. His father’s father had been born in SkyClan, after all, left behind with his sister as his clan was exiled. Oakstep can see his reverence for the sky in his shining eyes, his broad shoulders that relax a tiny fraction as the winds wrap around them.
Always look to the sky, Oakkit. Only the mightiest of oaks can ever truly touch it.
He can only see the hypnotizing beauty of the sky as a kit in the nursery, listening to his father’s rumbling voice, deep and steady like the thick trunk of an oak. As he closes his eyes he can feel himself on the tips of the trees, taken like a brother into the paws of the sky.
On his first day out of the nursery, when he eagerly looks through the foliage of the trees above, all he sees is a pale, barren, cold expanse.
As an apprentice, when he watches the leaves die and the prey die with it, with only the pale sky shining through, his fathers voice seems to fade.
As a warrior, when he watches Shinecloud flutter to the forest floor below, his father’s voice is gone completely.
~~
“Come on, Oakstep!” Shinecloud says and leaps from one thick branch to another, bold and daring, a streak of light against the thick green of the oak’s leaves. “You’re too slow!”
Oakstep bunches his legs and jumps, making the branch shake as he lands. “Good enough for you?”
She nudges him with her shoulder and looks through an opening in the leaves. “Don’t you love it up here? We’re so close to the sky!”
He shivers as a gust of wind strikes his shoulders. “It’s a bit too cold for my taste.”
She bares her teeth and laughs just as a burst of light breaks through the branches, illuminating her sandy-colored pelt in a blaze of gold. She’s standing, aflame with golden light, a smiling sun against the pale blue backdrop of the sky. For a moment, nothing else matters as he meets her piercing blue gaze, face set in the familiar fearless grin that makes his heart ache.
“What are you staring at?” She grins widely and he blinks.
“You,” he says simply and watches her eyes narrow playfully, feels the flick of her plumy tail on her nose, hears the leaves rustle as she darts off to the next branch.
There’s nothing more he wants to do than to follow.
And then she falls.
~~
Oakstep runs to her side on the forest floor, but he’s too late, has been in all the time it took for him to scramble down from the oak.
While Shinecloud had once been graceful and bright, she now lies broken and dark on the unforgiving earth. Dazedly, he brushes a stray leaf from her limp pelt, bright green against the golden yellow. A splash of mud is streaked against the white fur on her chest and he ducks his head, trying to groom the stain from her soft pelt.
Shinecloud’s love of the sky ends when it takes her into its embrace.
His son and daughter are barely old enough to know what happened to their mother, so Oakstep resolves to tell them when they grow old enough to understand. Instead, he gruffly asks a heavily pregnant queen to feed the little scraps of fur that were all he had left of the sun.
~~
“It’s good to see you again, Oakstep,” Shinecloud mews, and his heart catches in his throat. Even after the burning ache that comes with receiving eight lives, he knows that this meeting will be the most painful by far. The ethereal starlight catches the shine of her eyes just as the sun had used to, and Oakstep forgets how to breathe.
“I give you a life for acceptance. My death was not your fault, just like whatever happens in the future,” Shinecloud says, and touches her nose to his in such a familiar gesture that Oakstep, soon to be Oakstar, feels a trembling in his body. There is a sharp pain that sweeps through him in this life, but that’s fine, because it is nothing in comparison to the roaring gale that storms in his heart.
“Shinecloud, I -” he begins, but she flicks him across the nose with her tail just as she had on that fateful day.
She leans in. “Be happy, Oakstar,” she breathes in his ear, and suddenly StarClan is whirling away from him in a cold rush of starry light.
Oakstar! Oakstar! Oakstar! Oakstar!
~~
“Parents usually don’t mentor their kits, do they?” asks Frecklepaw. The speckled apprentice pads calmly at Oakstar’s side, enjoying the scents of the summer forest.
Oakstar regards her evenly. “No, they don’t.”
Frecklepaw nods as if unsurprised. “So why did you mentor me?”
Oakstar flicks her flank with his tail. “You and Birchpaw are all I have left of your mother. I have to keep you close.”
“Is that why Beetail mentors Birchpaw? Because you don’t trust any normal warriors to watch over us?” she says. There is no scorn in her voice, only mild curiosity.
“There is no such thing as a normal warrior,” Oakstar says firmly. “But it is true that I trust Beetail more than most to be responsible because of his duties as deputy, especially with Birchpaw. Where he gets his energy is beyond me.”
Frecklepaw bounds in front of him, weaving through the bracken with consummate ease. “I have lots of energy too,” she throws over her shoulder with a laugh.
As he watches her go, he remembers what path they are walking on. Where it leads.
“Frecklepaw, wait!” he yells, but his golden furred daughter is already gone. Throwing all grace to the winds, he runs after her, barging through the bracken like a badger gone wild.
He’s at the jumble of rocks and he leaps to the top without regard for his own safety, not seeing anything of Frecklepaw. Memories flash through his head of a sand gold she-cat lying broken on the forest floor and he swings his head from side to side, searching, because he can’t lose her too -
“I’m here,” Frecklepaw chirps from behind him, safely on the ground, away from the rocks. Oakstar bounds down from the rocks, brushing his pelt against her flank.
“This place is very dangerous,” he tells her, heart still beating like a cornered mouse in his chest. “Adders live here and can kill cats in one bite.”
“You looked so afraid,” she whispers and nuzzles her still-kitlike head under his chest.
Oakstar forces his chest to fall flat. “I thought I’d lost you,” he says.
~~
“Why is my name Birchpaw?” the small tom mews curiously. “I don’t look much like a birch.” The tom’s pelt is dark brown, nearly black.
“Your mother wanted to name you after a birch tree,” Oakstar says. “She used to love the way they looked standing together in leaf-fall.”
“Oh,” chirps the little cat simply. “Like those?”
Oakstar follows the point of his tail. A couple tall, willowy birches stand together alongside a mix of oaks and pines. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Yeah, like those.”
“D’you think I could climb them?” Birchpaw asks. He jumps into one of the lower branches of the tree, perching narrowly on the thin branch.
“Be careful,” Oakstar mews, not taking his eyes off the little tom. Birchpaw pads along the thin branch, so triumphant and proud and confident, so eerily familiar.
“It’s easy!” he squeaks.
It happens so fast Oakstar can barely believe he reacts. The left forepaw of his son slips as he takes his next step along the branch. Birchpaw squawks and falls, crashing to rest on Oakstar’s brawny shoulders.
“Wow, that was awesome!” Birchpaw mews as he jumps back to his paws. “You totally saved me!”
Oakstar looks at the low branch. It’s barely a couple mouse lengths from the ground. “It’s time you should start being more careful,” he mews. “I won’t always be around to save you.”
~~
He never talks about his warrior name. To acknowledge it would be to make it true.
Oak, the first part of his name, isn’t out of the ordinary. It promises strength, steadfast resolve and a good and noble heart. Star is added when he becomes leader, which only enhances its meaning. ThunderClan has a leader of true nobleness, sturdy and fair like the ThunderClan leaders of old.
When he was named as a warrior, it was during the floods. The river had risen and destroyed everything, except for the massive oaks. Step was a term usually used to describe cats with quick and light feet, but when added to Oak, it meant something different.
When step was added, he became the tall oak, rooted to the ground through his paws, doomed to stand tall and noble even as everything around him was swept away.
~~
Oakstar sits at the mouth of the ravine. It’s a beautiful day - in front of him the forest stretches endlessly, healthy and green in the soft light. Small pink flowers spring up from thick grass, dotting the forest with a splash of bright color.
A bee hums lazily in front of his face, coming down to land on one of the flowers. He watches it as it industriously works at collecting the nectar within, losing himself in the lacy white patterns of its wings.
The bee startles, buzzing up into the air and away into the forest. Oakstar glances up, sees the approaching patrol of warriors and gets to his paws.
Beetail’s face is grim, and the warriors behind him look equally as unhappy. Their faces are a kaleidoscope of shock, anger, and grief.
“Beetail? What’s wrong?” he asks. A terrible foreboding builds in his stomach as he scans the ranks of warriors. “Where’s Birchface and Flowerpaw?”
“RiverClan were on Sunningrocks,” Beetail begins. “I sent Flowerpaw back to camp to get reinforcements, but that brave, stupid cat ignored me. She said she wanted to prove to Birchface how good of a fighter she was.”
Oakstar sits and listens. There is nothing he can do but listen.
“Birchface was fighting Appledusk at the edge of the rocks. He was winning, but Appledusk pushed him and he fell - ” Beetail says, tail lashing in the dust behind him. “I tried to help him, but he had disappeared over the edge and I was fighting two warriors.”
The dark brown tabby sits down and takes a deep breath. Beetail shakes his head from side to side and another warrior, Bloomheart, nudges his shoulder comfortingly.
Oakstar sits and waits. There is nothing he can do but wait.
“Flowerpaw threw herself in after him. She was too small to pull him to the surface, and they both disappeared around the curve of the river,” Bloomheart steps in and finishes.
Frecklewish makes her way to his side and when she hears Bloomheart’s words opens her jaws in a mournful yowl. The sound is eerie, frightful.
“We haven’t found any bodies,” Bloomheart starts, but Oakstar cuts him off. He knows the currents of the river all too well.
“No, Bloomheart. They’re dead. He’s dead. My son is dead.”
~~
Oakstar has never been so angry. Not even at the news of Birchface’s death was he as angry as he was now. As he watches Mapleshade’s tortoiseshell tail swish as she leaves the camp. As he hears the mews of Appledusk’s - not Birchface’s - kits.
Birchface’s kits.
He would have been a grandfather.
~~
Beetail and Doefeather crash through the camp wall. This has happened before, a season ago.
And all Oakstar can do is sit and wait and listen.
“Frecklewish is dying,” Beetail says, regretfully, as if he does not envy Oakstar for the pain that comes with the sentence. No cat would.
“What happened?” Oakstar asks, trying to keep his voice calm and steady. He fails miserably.
“It was Snakerocks,” Doefeather chimes in. “She fought Mapleshade, and fell off. An adder bit her. We can’t move her further than the outskirts of the clearing.”
If there is any cat Oakstar hates more than Appledusk, it is Mapleshade.
“Take me to her,” he mews gruffly. Doefeather nods sharply and darts from the camp. Oakstar has one last glimpse of Beetail standing in the clearing, shoulders trembling, before he is dashing through the forest in a blur of brown fur.
There is a terrible sense of deja-vu when he arrives at Snakerocks. Another sandy, golden brown she cat that meant the world to him lies limp on the forest floor,
“Oakstar?” she mews, scrabbling at the loam. “Dad? I can’t see. I can’t see.”
“Shhh, shhh, you’ll be okay. We’ll fix you up,” he says, knowing that they won't - that Ravenwing and all his medicinal knowledge lies in repose in a cairn by the Moonstone, that no cat in camp knew enough to save her and that the venom was in her bloodstream.
“I know you will,” she sighs and lies still, closing her cloudy eyes, and he feels his heart shatter for a third time.
The first time when he had watched Shinecloud flutter down to the forest below. Again when he had pulled Birchface and Flowerpaw from the river weeds, their faces twisted in a mask of terror, her teeth still fixed in his scruff.
He wonders how much more his heart can take before it stops working completely.
~~
It seems like some cats' hearts can take far less than his.
Oakstar stands, watching the river from the muddy bank. The leaf-fall winds sweep against the trees. Russet brown leaves fall, scattering around Oakstar, falling, falling from the trees to never get up. He wonders if it is in his destiny for everything around him to fall.
“I want to move to the elder’s den,” Beetail says, coming up by his side.
Oakstar doesn’t blame him for anything, he knows deep within his heart that it was purely by chance that Beetail witnesses the death of both of his kits, but it is all he can do to nod tightly.
“Very well,” he mews. Beetail simply nods. It is enough for them both.
“StarClan be with you, old friend,” Beetail whispers, turning to make the long, slow walk back to the camp. Oakstar stays still, keeping his eyes locked on the water. Mud covers his paws like they were the roots of a tree.
It sometimes felt like they never were.
~~
Oakstar’s heart still has a bit to give. If Shinecloud had been sky, then Sweetbriar was earth - stubborn, serious, unyielding. Something about the flash of her green eyes hooks his heart with thorn sharp briars that never let go.
“Oakstar, let me help you,” she says crossly as he struggles to untangle a particularly large bramble from around his leg. “Why is it that you will never let me do anything for you?”
Oakstar stays silent, he doesn't tell her that he’s become attached like the bramble that grips his leg.
“Is it because of Shinecloud?” she says.
“No,” he tells her, when so much of it is.
“You’re scared,” she accuses, standing bold and brilliant against the light of the moon. “You’re scared that you’ll lose me, too.”
Oakstar dips his head. Some part of Oakstar knows that someday he won’t see her so alive and bold and triumphant.
Someday he will have to fill his claws with mud once again.
Dig yet another hole.
“You listen to me, you mud-brained excuse for a cat. I’m not going anywhere. Not now, not ever!” she spits, her green eyes flashing.
“Is that any way to speak to your leader?” he half murmurs, half laughs. Shinecloud’s voice seems to echo through his memories. Be happy, Oakstar.
“Get out of that bramble, come on,” she mews and yanks the bramble savagely, snapping it in two. Her teeth meet in his scruff and she hauls him to his paws.
Eyes meet eyes, and for the second time in his life, Oakstar forgets to breathe. “Sweetbriar,” he murmurs, but the she cat has already whipped around, stomping off into the foliage.
Oakstar takes a moment to gather his thoughts, mind still spinning, and then takes after her, away into the starlit forest.
~~
They don’t know what to name their son. The strong little tom runs around the nursery, eyes opened, but it has been a moon and he still goes unnamed.
Oakstar wants to name him Foxkit. His pelt is reddish brown like that of a fox, after all, and it is a strong and warrior-like name.
Sweetbriar wants to name him Earthkit. It is a strong name, but odd. Oakstar doesn’t want to name his kit after one of the elements. The pressure would simply be too much.
~~
Oakstar pushes through the gorse tunnel, searching for any hint of the scrap of fur. Rain patters down, bouncing off his nose, soaking his glossy brown fur.
“Have you found him?” Sweetbriar demands. The rest of the clan stands by, faces set in an expression that pulls at his chest. They have already seen him experience too much heartbreak.
“No, but I’m not done looking. I’m bringing the patrol back - they’re exhausted. But I’m going back out,” he says, panting heavily.
“I’ll go with you,” Doefeather mews bravely, but he waves the exhausted, battered deputy back.
“Go to your nest, get some sleep. You can resume the search tomorrow,” he commands, sternly but giving the deputy a small nod. Doefeather dips her head and trudges off in the direction of her den.
The rain comes down with a stinging slap. Winds howl and scour at his rain soaked pelt and skin. Oakstar blinks water out of his eyes and continues to move through the dark, rainswept forest.
It is hopeless. The winds are too loud to hear the screech of a kit, and his son could be anywhere, under anything. But Oakstar lowers his head against the rain, looks from side to side, pricks his ears against the wind.
Bright blue eyes flash from the bushes.
Something gold moves in the foliage and Oakstar chases after it, crashing through the leaves. The chase feels familiar, like he has done it all before in some other time. The elusive entity keeps out of sight except for an occasional flash of gold or the wave of a plumy tail.
Eventually the eyes peer from the boughs of a tall pine tree swaying in the wind.
“Thank you, Shinecloud,” he mews to the darkened forest, and for a brief moment, he smells the scents of his lost family, so achingly close .
Oakstar throws himself at the tree, clawing his way up the thin bark until he stands on the crook of two branches. Nestled in between the two boughs is a small scrap of red-brown fur with small green eyes that peep from the dark.
It comes to him in a moment. “Pinekit,” he murmurs. “Your name is Pinekit. My son. My precious son.” He reaches down to pick up the kit to bring him home to his mother.
Pines grew tall, too.
~~
The RiverClan warrior’s claws slash through his throat and he collapses to the rocks with a gurgle. He is too old to be fighting in this battle anyways, too worn down by nine lives of never ending loss and constant fighting.
“StarClan no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it -” the RiverClan warrior stammers, pushing her paws over the gash in his throat. As if anything would heal such a wound. “Help! Some cat help me!”
“It’s okay,” he rasps, pawing at her flank. “Let me see the river, please.”
The RiverClan warrior helps him to crawl to the edge of a rock. He lies down with a thump, gazing out over the river and the land beyond it. “Thank you,” he gasps, breath beginning to fail him now.
There’s mud on his paws, but he doesn’t mind. His throat is soaking wet but he doesn’t feel it. All he feels is the caress of the wind on his pelt.
The river’s currents are steady and unchanging despite the crimson red blood that drips down into their waters. As Oakstar watches, he sees Birchface’s face smiling at him in the water, Frecklewish at his side, Shinecloud watching from behind. Oakstar’s eyes begin to close as he hears Pineheart’s yowl and his pawsteps hit the rocks.
Oakstar won’t dig the hole this time.