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forestclan-clangen · 2 days ago

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MOON 12 (Part 2)

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Olive recovers from yellowcough. She can finally do her work as mediator. She offers to mediate between Windfur and Shiverpaw, who have a very strenuous mentor-apprentice relationship.

(Olive, mediator, female, 68 moons. Calm.) (Windfur, medicine cat, male, 26 moons. Lonesome.) (Shiverpaw, medicine cat apprentice, 12 moons. Loving.)

---

Olive had one job. Just one. She hadn't gotten the chance to do her job in a year. She just wanted to actually contribute to her new, gracious home, for once in twelve moons. What she didn't expect was for Clan cats to pull teeth trying to talk about how they felt.

Yes, she wasn't a saint. She knew how it felt to keep things repressed. But the Clan had started to feel the rift between Windfur and Shiverpaw, and she noticed some members of the Clan starting to subtly take sides over who they trusted to care for them. Considering the things in the woods, she wasn't keen on seeing a group of tightly-knit cats experience a divide of any kind.

Coaxing Shiverpaw and Windfur to gently agree to a mediation was easier than she expected. Getting them to actually talk wasn't.

"When did this truly start?"

Shiverpaw stared at the floor and shrugged. Windfur looked away into the treeline and didn't say anything. Olive sighed.

"Both of you agreed to be here today. This means you both acknowledge there is an issue. Correct?"

Windfur hummed in acceptance. Shiverpaw gave a single nod, still staring at the floor.

"...This also suggests you are both willing to find a resolution."

Still, a reluctant acquiescence.

"I'm here to prevent an argument, and to allow both sides to speak their thoughts clearly. For example," Olive stretched and rolled on her back. Her green eyes flickered with calm submission as she spoke. "What would be the ideal result, and what do you believe would be a realistic result to our mediation today? Windfur, we can start with you. There are no wrong answers."

Windfur froze, his tail tucked tightly around his legs. His dark blue eyes were filled with hesitation. After a few moments of collecting himself, he meowed, "I just want to…go back to how things were in early leaf-fall. But I know that's not realistic."

Shiverpaw's ears twitched, but she said nothing.

"What do you believe to be realistic?" Olive prompted.

Windfur's tail twitched. "...I don't know."

"Okay. Think about it for a moment then. Shiverpaw, how about you?"

Shiverpaw's eyes didn't leave the ground. Olive was patient, and allowed her to think. She remembered being tended to by the young apprentice, when her back was still broken. She was skilled, and gentle with her patients. But she was also anxious, and prone to allow her mind to leave her body. She had taught her how to ground herself, many moons ago. Olive blinked slowly at Shiverpaw, but said nothing.

Shiverpaw's claws stretched and tapped at the ground gently. Finally, she meowed, "In a world with no pain, I wouldn't be hurt in the first place. But I'm not in that world. I'm here."

"And do you think you can alleviate that pain in our world?"

"From others, yes."

"And yourself?"

Silence.

Olive suppressed a sigh and sat back up. "I'll give you some time to think. In the meantime - Windfur? Have you thought about what a realistic outcome today could be?"

Windfur paused for only a moment before sighing, his tail twitching. "Well, I tried to apologize before. So I don't know."

Olive tilted her head. "Okay. Shiverpaw, do you feel like Windfur tried to apologize?"

Shiverpaw seemed sheepish. "...I guess," she mumbled.

"Is forgiveness something you feel you can give Windfur one day?"

As Shiverpaw didn't answer, still refusing to look at either cat, Windfur's fur slowly started bristling. His ears threatened to droop. Shiverpaw must've noticed this, as she finally sighed, her ears flattened behind her head.

"I don't know if I feel comfortable saying anything while you're here, Olive. I'm sorry."

Olive actually brightened by this notion, her ears perked up. "If I left you alone for a while, would you feel comfortable talking about this yourselves?"

Windfur seemed resistant, but when Shiverpaw nodded, the medicine cat reluctantly agreed as well. Olive yawned, then stretched her legs.

"Very well. I will return to the center of camp. I will check on you two in twenty minutes. Is that fine?"

"Yes. That'll do. Thank you, Olive," Windfur sighed. As the two watched Olive step out of the quiet corner of camp and padding over to speak with Riversnow at the cooking fire, Shiverpaw finally spoke, her voice near-monotone.

"I could have died. Barleywave and Morningspot too."

"I know." Windfur's ears flattened and he stared at the floor in shame.

"So why? Why send me out there?"

"I didn't know you would struggle, or that the blizzard would get so bad so quickly."

"A moon before that, I was almost killed by a Woodcrawler," Shiverpaw continued. Her voice held no sharpness, only sorrow. "Tree saved me. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have known it was there."

The silence was thick.

"And still, you sent me out in charge of a patrol, not even a moon after, in dangerous conditions."

"Because I trusted you," Windfur protested, his chest tightened.

"In a season I've never seen before?"

"Shiverpaw, please, you must believe me," the tom's tail twitched and his dark blue eyes were pleading. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. I just…I…"

"Did Chicoryglint treat you like this?"

Windfur looked at her with wide eyes in disbelief. His mouth hung open in shock. Shiverpaw gave him a stunned stare, as though the question surprised her as well, but her expression solidified, deciding she was satisfied with it. As Windfur finally processed the question, his fur bristled.

"Why are you asking this? How do you know her name?" he asked crossly.

"You mentioned her a few times when I was a fresh apprentice. You stopped talking about her not long after. The -....StarClan mentioned her to me last half-moon," Shiverpaw stumbled on her last sentence, momentarily guarded.

The two clerics stared at each other intensely for a while. The sounds of camp were drowned out by the anticipation of an answer. Windfur's ears twitched slightly, as though trying to parse his thoughts into a coherent answer. Finally, he closed his eyes, then forced his fur to lie flat.

"...Well?" Shiverpaw prompted.

"Give me a moment," Windfur replied, his voice tense. Shiverpaw gave him this grace. The two medicine cats remained in a tense silence as Windfur collected his thoughts. Finally, when the tom replied, his voice was quiet.

"...How old are you, Shiverpaw?"

Shiverpaw tilted her head. "Twelve moons."

Windfur blinked. That answer seemed to surprise him, for some reason. Just when she thought that she'd have to prompt him for an answer again, Windfur let out a deep sigh, then looked out into the middle of camp. His gaze was distant.

"...I've been thinking a lot about her. I loved my mentor. I really did. She was kind. Incredibly skilled. She challenged me to learn as much as I could, and taught me everything I know. She sang me songs. Helped me memorize treatments. I was devastated when she died." He paused again. "...I was twelve moons old when I became the sole medicine cat."

Shiverpaw didn't know how to feel. As much as she didn't like him, she couldn't imagine being left to take care of the clan on her own today. Did he really receive his name this early? She paused as her mind wandered to foggy memories of her kithood - Windfur always looked so tall and wise, just like all the adults. Is…that how Cloudthunder's kits saw her? She didn't feel like an adult. She barely knew what she was doing half the time. Windfur must've mistook her silence for pity, as he glanced at her and gave a hard stare.

"It's fine. I figured it out," he said. But after a few moments, he looked away. More quietly, he added, "...I wish I didn't have to."

"...You weren't left with much of a choice. She died," Shiverpaw murmured.

"No…she didn't."

Shiverpaw bristled. Suddenly, the words made by the beings not from StarClan made sense - asking if they knew where she was, as though there was a place outside of StarClan that she could be found.

"I thought she did. It was easier to believe that. Because if she didn't," Windfur swallowed. "Then it meant she waited until I was good enough to leave. And then I'd have to question the motives of everything else she did."

Shiverpaw was careful with her next words. She didn't know what kind of cat Chicoryglint was. But it didn't justify his choices to push Shiverpaw into situations she wasn't prepared for. It made her feel like Windfur didn't like being around her. When she opened her mouth to say something, Windfur interrupted her by raising a paw.

"This is not an excuse for my actions." Windfur lowered his paw, then curled his tail around himself. "I…acknowledge that this impacted my judgment over what you could do," Windfur struggled to finish his sentence. "And…I just want to apologize."

The sound of birds and Cloudthunder's kits squabbling loudly dominated the space left by their silence. Shiverpaw let herself sit with what Windfur told her. He said he realized how much his actions hurt her, but did he really? The moon that she and Talontooth first saw Nature's Mockery - that was what actually changed everything. Not the Woodcrawler she saw with Tree, and not the blizzard. He started growing aloof and more avoidant of her. When was the last time she actually went on a patrol with him? The fact that she couldn't remember upset her.

Is THAT what she wanted an apology for?

Shiverpaw sighed. She couldn't just hope that someone would know exactly what she wanted now. She didn't like the vulnerability. But she agreed to a mediation. If she didn't do something now, then what was the point of this mortifying endeavor?

"I know you want to apologize for the blizzard. But that's not the only thing I'm mad about. It's just…I felt like…" Shiverpaw felt heat swell up in her face in embarrassment and frustration.

Windfur's anxiety waiting for an answer must've boiled over. "Please. Please let me fix it," he mewed pathetically.

Shiverpaw burst. "If you wanted to fix it, why did you avoid me?"

Windfur's eyes widened for a split second.

"When's the last time you invited me on patrol? When's the last time you weren't actively trying to ignore me unless you had to teach me?" Shiverpaw failed to stop the words from pouring out. "Two moons into my apprenticeship, and my mentor starts avoiding me. Like I did something wrong, something to make you hate me." She hated that her voice cracked. "So of course I gave up after the storm. Why bother? I was a kid whose mentor shoved her into danger without help. How else was I supposed to interpret your actions? If you actually cared about me, why did you only start trying when you realized it made you look bad?"

Shiverpaw finally bit her tongue and suppressed a hiss. She was angry and upset and guilty, it was just tragedy after tragedy, and she felt like it was all her fault that Talontooth was -

The bottle exploded.

"I have to go," she blurted quickly before getting up and quickly distancing herself from the lonely corner, her heart filled with pain and anger. She didn't look back.

Only when she found a way to sneak out of camp and climb into a pine tree did she finally let herself wail.

---

When Olive returns and Shiverpaw is absent, she decided to help Windfur work through his feelings alone. The conversation does help Windfur decide what to do next, and he thanks her for it.

(Olive, mediator, female, 68 moons. Calm) (Windfur, medicine cat, male, 26 moons. Lonesome.)

---

Windfur failed. He horribly, horribly, horribly failed. This was the worst possible way this could've unfolded, and Windfur felt like he may as well have been stabbed by a Woodcrawler. At least then, he could atone in a way that mattered.

But no. Moon after moon, he had one more failure to add to his ever-growing list of evidence for why he was the worst cat in ForestClan, and he would deserve it. A terrible cat who was mentored by a terrible mentor that nobody liked except for him - and he hated himself for still being unable to acknowledge her folly.

He was so caught up in his self loathing, staring at his paws with his tail thrashing that he didn't notice Olive padding back up to him.

The she-cat tilted her head at Shiverpaw's absence, but her eyes flickered with some expression of knowing. "Where's Shiverpaw?"

"...I don't know."

Olive's ear twitched, but her tail remained still, making her true thoughts unreadable. "What was said?"

Windfur was resistant to speak, but as Olive pointed out that she was here to mediate communications between cats, he defeatedly went through key points. When he finally said that Shiverpaw felt like he had ignored her for moons, he left Olive with silence. He felt like the most pathetic cat to ever exist.

Because she was right. He was scared of her. He grew paranoid of the idea of her being some sort of link with the Iris, due to her trances. StarClan never had an answer for him - until last moon, when they finally managed to confirm for certain that no, he had not doomed cat-kind by bringing her to StarClan, and no, he had not failed. But what good did that do now? Shiverpaw hated him and wouldn't ever forgive him for his actions. And why should she? He was a fraud of a medicine cat, failed Chicoryglint's expectations, failed to prevent Cloudthunder's two kits from being taken -

"Windfur." The tom felt Olive's tail rest on his shoulder gently. Her sage eyes were calm, filled with empathy. "...I see it in your eyes. You have a lot of thoughts in your mind, all of them dooming. I'm familiar with it too."

Windfur froze. He dug through his memories and remembered Olive spiralling and assuming catastrophe at every turn. He remembered that she refused to name Branchpaw and Perchpaw for almost three moons. "...It's not the same. You had Queen's Grief. You had a reason," he argued.

"An explanation is not an excuse. You already know that well." Olive let her statement settle on him before removing her tail and wrapping it around her paws. "...So. What now?"

Windfur sighed deeply. "I don't know. I guess I will give Shiverpaw her name next half-moon and let her be rid of me," he said glumly.

"Is that what she wants?"

Windfur scowled, his tail thrashing. "I don't know, alright? I just know that I've ignored her, hurt her, and an apology isn't enough. There's nothing I can do to fix that."

"Who taught you that you couldn't fix your mistakes?"

Windfur finally tore his eyes off the floor to glare at Olive. In a moment of vulnerability, his memories dug themselves out of their graves. He remembered being asked by Chicoryglint to watch very, very closely at what she did and to engrain it into his memory as though his life depended on it. He did so as she gave him melodies to memorize the procedure. He remembered the guilt he felt when he failed to retrieve cobwebs correctly. She was staring with wide-eyed terror and started counting the remaining bandages they owned. He remembered the small lives stolen by the Living Tendril. He couldn't bring himself to maintain it as he found a layer of sorrow in Olive's eyes.

"...I won't speak of others' grievances. But, I was reminded a few days ago how I didn't name my children for a few moons. I pretended they didn't need them. I knew it was wrong. But I was hurt and afraid. And I am telling you this," Olive emphasizes as she saw Windfur open his mouth to interrupt. "Because an apology won't fix it alone. Changed behavior, on the other hand, will. You said Shiverpaw was hurt that you ignored her. Did she tell you outright that she didn't want you to change?"

There was a tense silence as Windfur's dark blue eyes wavered. His jaw was clenched. Eventually, he shook his head.

"Then…what do you want to do?"

"...I want to apologize…and…I don't know. I guess…not…avoid her?"

"What are some things you can do to be present with her?"

"...More patrols together?"

"That's a good idea."

Windfur waited for Olive to continue, and felt tense when she just let that statement hang. "Do...you have any other ideas?"

Olive licked her paw and groomed her ear. "I'm not sure what Shiverpaw would like. You could ask her yourself what you could do together."

Windfur shuffled. "But...what if she doesn't want to?"

"She agreed to a mediation in the first place, no? Deep down, then, she likely also wishes for solutions."

Windfur kept staring at the floor pensively. After some time, Olive's tail twitched.

"Windfur. Can I offer you some advice, as a friend?"

Windfur suddenly looked surprised - as though the notion that Olive was his friend didn't even occur to him. "Uh...yeah, sure."

"I come from a place of kindness when I say this," she started carefully. "Perhaps you'll consider me a...what do you Clan cats say? A mousebrain? For saying so. But...you are the adult here. You may not feel like it, but Shiverpaw has known you her entire life as the fully-grown, adult medicine cat who gave her checkups, and then mentored her. The fact that you didn't feel like an adult when you took her on as an apprentice, does not mean that you weren't perceived as one by other cats."

Windfur's pelt bristled, but he said nothing as Olive continued.

"I will not ask how you ended up with the sole burden of caring for an entire group of cats. That's a conversation for another day, if you wish," Olive said with a flick of her tail. "But Shiverpaw speaks from the heart of a child who never received an apology. Give her that, and recognize that time, and changed behavior will repair your relationship."

Windfur paused, and forced his fur to fall flat. Eventually, he meowed, "...I understand. Thank you."

Olive shrugged. "I'm happy to be of service."

Finally, Windfur got to his feet, dismissed Olive with a nod, and walked away. In that time, Windfur allowed negative feelings and self-loathing to slowly leave his paws and into the wet grass beneath his feet. He allowed Olive's words to sink into his system. For a brief moment, he remembered when he went to Chicoryglint's so-called grave last leaf-fall. He remembered how he begged her for answers, guidance, anything. The silence that followed. The realization that he was never going to get an apology from her.

Windfur closed his eyes, and sighed.

...He was never going to be able to reconcile that his beloved mentor had hurt others deeply. And even if he knew the truth, he couldn't separate the kind mentor from the cowardly and selfish molly. That was his friend. His teacher. The melodies she taught him were ingrained in his bones. They would turn to vile ash in his mouth. He just couldn't embrace that truth. Not yet.

But at least today, he could give Shiverpaw what he knew Chicoryglint would never give him.

---

The next day, Windfur offers a genuine apology, acknowledging how his distance hurt Shiverpaw and promising changed behavior. While Shiverpaw says that it will take time to forgive him, she appreciates his apology and is wiling to put in effort to have a more cordial relationship.

(Shiverpaw, medicine cat apprentice, female, 12 moons. Loving.) (Windfur, medicine cat, female, 26 moons. Lonesome.)

Riversnow has a long conversation with Olive, and finds that they have a lot in common - outsiders with former apprehension to the Clan, pregnant at inopportune times. Riversnow seeks advice and comfort from her.

(Olive, mediator, female, 68 moons. Calm.) (Riversnow, warrior, female, 61 moons. Adventurous.)

Windfur approaches Redstar and tries to tell her about Bracken. Redstar promises to tell patrols to keep an eye out, and to try to invite her into the Clan again, if possible.

(Windfur, medicine cat, male, 26 moons. Lonesome.) (Redstar, leader, female, 70 moons. Strict.)

At the next half-moon, Talontooth visits Shiverpaw. She breaks down and apologizes, to which Talontooth responds with teasing and reassurance. He says that he's okay...well, as okay as he can be. But he gets to see how vast the territory actually is from StarClan, and it's beautiful. He sheepishly asks if she could tell Morningspot that he's okay. Shiverpaw agrees. It's the least she can do.

(Talontooth, male, StarClan cat. 16 moons. Adventurous) (Shiverpaw, medicine cat apprentice, female, 12 moons. Loving.)

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