Chapter Text
Featherpaw wasted no time in rushing towards wherever she wanted to show Spider. Said she-cat was struggling to keep up in the still unfamiliar territory, slowing their pace down. The apprentice didn’t seem to mind this, however, brisk as she was.
Spider wondered what the hurry was. Is she just excited or does she really need us to rush there? She didn’t dare voice her questions though, somewhat afraid of the answer. What if it was short-lived and they missed it because of her? What if it wasn’t and she looked stupid for asking? She’d much rather not take that risk.
She was, luckily, experienced in the art of acting good enough for the most likely scenarios without committing to them, so that she could find out what to do without embarrassing herself.
The she-cat then purposefully stumbled on her path, taking a pause to steady herself to either get the apprentice to slow her place down or tell her to hurry up.
“Come on! It’s about to start!” A voice ahead of her called.
Bingo.
Without stalling any further, Spider sped up her pace through the forest and continued on their path towards– if she remembered the layout of the territory correctly– the lake. And if Featherpaw slowed her pace ever so slightly and went in a relatively easier path to follow, neither of them mentioned it.
The light of the sun started descending as they trod through the territory, occasionally shining into the blue-eyed molly’s face and making her wince, and it only got more frequent as the trees thinned out and the grass mixed with sand instead of dirt.
Featherpaw burst through the treeline and skidded to a stop in the beginnings of the lake bank, while Spider followed much more hesitantly.
She looked towards either side of the shore, surprised when she spotted the mountains so close. It was easy to forget how near they were to them under the cover of the trees.
She turned to Featherpaw questioningly, weariness and hesitation starting to drag their spindly claws down the back of her head and making her hackles rise in a way that could be excused as the increasing chill of sundown. Said she-cat giggled, unfiltered excitement showing in every ripple of her pelt and every shuffle of her paws.
“You’ll see” She said in singsong and dragged out the end as she raised her chin, interrupted once again by giddy laughter. Spider subtly rolled her eyes with a huff, scanning their surroundings again, eyes drawn to the sky's reflection on the lake’s surface broken only by small waves in the clear waters.
The sight was an overly pretty one, it felt good to get lost in the colors and movement, golden shimmers with a pink undertone to them swimming across the water. Her gaze was diverted from the lake however, when Featherpaw spoke.
“You’re looking at the wrong place”
“Huh?” Spider’s head snapped up with poorly concealed embarrassment.
Featherpaw motioned upwards with her muzzle, and after sparing the apprentice a questioning glance, the black she-cat turned her head up to the sky and, after she let her eyes adjust to the light, felt the air leave her chest completely.
The sun was slowly lowering over the treeline on the opposite side of the forest, clouds steadily gliding over it all.
And Spider gaped .
She could feel her pupils widening as much as they could without letting too much light in to take it all in.
The molly couldn’t remember ever seeing such a beautiful burst of color in her lifetime, blue mixing into gold and the deep red of the lowering sun, the pink-ish tint that adorned fluffy clouds that gave life to the picture, while thinner ones hovered overhead and framed the picture perfectly. It was by far the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
She let her eyes wander over the horizon, fixing and dissecting every aspect before quickly flicking forward onto the next, thoughts too fast and loud to pick out over the magnificent sight.
With a rushing thought, she remembered the sliver of moon she had seen just mere moments ago and looked for it in the splash of color, and sure enough, there it was, framed by clouds and adorned with color just like everything else, and she couldn’t contain the breathy giggle that came with being correct.
The color in the lake was somehow brighter, now that she knew where it came from, but it was underwhelming compared to the grand everything above the trees that circled it.
She watched amazed as the blue darkened overhead, orange turning red and into a dark pink and finally a somewhat bright purple that melded with the deep blue-turning dark overhead.
Even after the sky was drained of most of its color, the clouds remained highlighted in bright oranges and yellows, the darker clumps a foggy red that stuck out against the purple-black background of the sky. They slowly shifted and thinned out as most of the light vanished, leaving thin trails of light gray in the gradient welkin.
She turned to Featherpaw when she finally snapped out of her daze, breathless, thoughts running wild inside her mind. The cream apprentice was looking at her with a wind-flushed face, split by a smile just as bright as the sunset had been. The sky was almost fully dark now, stars twinkling in the corner of her vision.
“That was incredible,” she breathed out, looking out over the lake once again, hypnotized by the ripples in its surface reflecting the dawning moonlight and the still fading sunlight.
“Then you’re going to love this,” Featherpaw replied softly, amusement sipping into her voice. Spider’s gaze reluctantly slipped away from the reflections in the water, landing on her company instead. Said cat nodded towards the sky, raising her gaze towards it.
The blue-eyed she-cat searched her expression, letting her eyes drift across her’s for a moment before following them up– The air rushed out of her lungs all over again.
Thousands of sparkling stars adorned the dark cloak of night, blue and purple streaking it in complex shapes and creating patterns within it as the last strokes of day disappeared under the veil of nightfall.
All of this time, and she had not once wondered about what colors could adorn the sky once it has fallen dark, and yet the sight is one she only thought she’d see in her dreams.
“Whoa” she breathed out, eyes flicking from star to star, space cloud to space cloud.
“Starclan tends to have that effect, yeah” Featherpaw’s voice interrupted her gawking.
There it was again, that name. It was said in passing, often in curses, but she didn’t remember hearing of any Starclan cats, or where their territory started. Nobody seemed to mention it outside of that, as far as she was aware. It was always 'The Two Clans, Mountainclan and Shadeclan'.
“What’s starclan?” The words left her mouth before she could think twice about them, stilling immediately after.
A pause.
“You don’t know about Starclan?” Feathepaw turned to face her, perplexed.
“I– um, I–” She floundered. Just why did you have to open your mouth? Spider thought, berating her traitorous mind. And here you are making a fool of yourself, you should have stayed quiet and figured it out on your own, like you always do.
“No, no! Sorry! It’s just– I guess I’m so used to the concept?” The apprentice interrupted her mental scolding uncertainty. ”It didn’t even cross my mind that non-clan cats wouldn’t know about it,” She chuckled nervously at that, “I’m a bit surprised nobody told you.”
“I– It’s come up, a few times, I’m– I just– I didn’t think to ask,” The black she-cat admitted
“Starclan is–” Featherpaw cut off and looked up, a complicated expression taking over her features before vanishing, replaced by an unbothered one. “It’s where we go when we pass”
The placid front the black molly had managed to build cracked slightly. Despite her age, Spider was no stranger to death. She had looked into its victim’s eyes more than once, and the memories that haunted her the most and couldn’t seem to stay forgotten surged from those encounters.
“What?” She asked in a small voice. The cream molly continued on, unaware of the turmoil brewing in the other’s mind.
“Clan cats, at least. I don’t know if kittypets or loners have a different afterlife or not. Who knows?”
Featherpaw’s voice seemed to dim in volume with each passing heartbeat, muffled as if underwater, drowned out by the rushing of her thoughts. Black, slimy tendrils reached out from the dark corners of her mind, flailing and grabbing at her, wrapping around her and squeezing–
“And I guess there’s the place of no stars too, but only the evil cats end up there”
“Evil?” She echoed in a thankfully steady voice, too focused on keeping her breathing even to respond with anything else.
“Yeah! The ones that go against their leader, or hurt their clanmates, even kill them. But I don’t think there’s a lot of them. We would have heard of them through nursery tales or something like that if there were,” Featherpaw reasoned, seemingly unperturbed by her own words.
Spider’s mind unconsciously wandered to Bull at the topic, and she reeled it back in violently, tail bristling beside her and, luckily, out of her company’s sight.
Stay calm, sit still, be quiet, nod when needed, don't get provoked, don’t let your mind wander, face blank, breathing even, don’t give a reaction, stay calm–
“Are you alright?”
“Hm?” She hummed, broken out of her stupor by Featherpaw’s voice once more, doing her best to keep her expression neutral and eyes guarded.
The apprentice opened her mouth once again to speak, lime eyes glinting worriedly in the moonli– moonlight?
Spider sprung into a stand, tail bristling with worry.
Shouldn’t we be back by now? They might worry where we are? Oh stars it’s so long after sundown what was I even thinking–
“What 's wrong?” Featherpaw jumped to her paws after her, voice sounding as panicked as Spider’s mind was in the moment.
“Shouldn’t we be back to camp by now?” She asked shakily, fear already making its way around her chest and constricting her breath. The apprentice, however, seemed to let out a small breath of relief.
“I come here often, most of the clan already knows where to find me during sundown,” She said with a chuckle, settling back down. “There’s nothing to worry about. Although I guess it is a bit late, I doubt they will mind.” She shrugged with a yawn.
Spider did her best to keep her breathing under control, ignoring the way her heart spiked at the mention of the time.
“I think we should go back” She choked out as steadily as possible, met with a momentary frown from the cream she-cat beside her she would have missed if her eyes weren’t fixed on her.
“Alright.” Featherpaw agreed easily, starting toward the treeline. Once she reached it she turned back to see Spider fixed in the same spot as before.
The black molly took one last steadying breath and followed after the apprentice, climbing up the small path she made skidding towards the bank when they arrived until she reached the top, where she was met with a reassuring smile from the she-cat before she took off.
Spider hesitated and let herself look back at the sky above the lake, taking in the sight one last time before she turned and disappeared into the night.