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ask-the-half-moon-meeting · 5 months ago

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The First Half-Moon Meeting

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Jaypaw paused right as he was stepping out through the thorn tunnel. Before she'd even asked the question, his legs had already been trembling, itching to turn back.

"I know things haven't been smooth between you and Brightheart," she said. "But it feels a bit premature for you to quit. Maybe she just needs some time to grow into her role as your mentor."

The apprentice poised his tongue to say something in retort, but he stopped himself as he considered how much he ought to say.

It was true that his apprenticeship under Brightheart had been a fiasco so far. The level of fretting whenever they went out of camp was suffocating and the amount of chores she'd pile on him were clearly there just to keep him in there. He'd barely even been able to get to know ThunderClan territory let alone learn the layout and how to navigate it. But that wasn't the reason he'd decided to become an oracle apprentice.

The sweet-smelling molly he'd dreamed about when he fell down the side of the gorge. The raspy voiced molly with the foul smell who'd hissed at him and chased him out when he had that dream in which he followed a steep rocky path. They'd both felt too real for him to dismiss. There was something going on, something he suspected he wasn't supposed to know, and he had to get to the bottom of it.

"I don't need to take an apprentice just yet," Leafpool said, draping her tail across his shoulders as she tried to nudge him to turn around and follow her back. "I can still take you on as an apprentice if you decide later on that this is the path for you, of course, but—"

In a snap, Jaypaw was broken out of his indecisiveness and his itch to turn around. "I have decided already!" he shouted, shrugging off her tail and stomping out in a fury. "This is my path!"

"Jaypaw! Wait!"

***

"Uhhhh…" Kestrelpaw said as he stared at the half-moon hanging in the night sky above. He sat on the banks of the river that marked the WindClan-ThunderClan border, his tail twitching just above the water. He'd been sitting there wracking his brain trying to calculate what time it was, but something about Barkface's instructions on how to do that wasn't quite clicking for him.

"It's halfway to moonhigh," Barkface finally told him.

Broken out of his thoughts, Kestrelpaw turned to his mentor. His tail hit the water and he gave a shrill yowl of surprise at the chill that ran up his spine. He jumped up at that, immediately hitting his mentor across the face.

The older tom gave a quiet grumble at that, staring at the apprentice as he licked down his sides in an attempt to regain composure.

"That's late, isn't it?" he said.

"It is," Barkface answered. "Something must be holding up the others if they haven't arrived yet…"

"Oh, Stars, I hope nothing too bad happened to them," Kestrelpaw said. "It sucked so much when I got whitecough the last time and had to remain nest-bound. I hope Willowpaw and Hollypaw didn't contract it too. I really wanted to meet her, you know? Being that she's ThunderClan and all. I heard from Harepaw and Antpaw—"

"Kestrelpaw!" Barkface practically growled, fed up with the barage of thoughts tumbling ever faster out of the apprentice's mouth. "How about you make yourself useful while we wait? I want you to cast a horoscope and divine the following question for me: 'What will WindClan's relationship to ThunderClan be like within the next season?'"

"But—"

"You need every bit of practice you can get," Barkface insisted. "This is the single most important skill an oracle apprentice learns and you are already behind."

With a sigh, Kestrelpaw set to work and began drawing his astrological chart on the ground. With a claw still on the ground, he turned his eyes upwards and idly licked his fangs as he began trying to locate the constellations. This was going to be a very long night.

***

Willowpaw darted out of RiverClan camp as soon as Mothwing was done with their last minute patient and headed for the oracles' rendezvous point at the WindClan-ThunderClan border.

"Willowpaw!" her mentor shouted from behind, but she didn't pay her any mind. "Slow down a little! We're not that late."

The moon was a little over halfway to moonhigh —very much later than they would usually head out but not quite enough they couldn't catch it at its zenith at the Moonpool— and yet for the RiverClan oracle apprentice every precious moment counted.

Leafpool's apprentice had, admittedly, become a bit of a distraction since the last half-moon meeting. More than once Willowpaw had caught herself thinking about that sleek black pelt, those vivid green eyes, the awkward way in which she tried to hide her enthusiasm and appear serious and focused…

As they came closer to the border stream, Willowpaw slowed down. Her eyes scanned her surrounding quickly, and once she noticed Leafpool and Hollypaw hadn't come yet, she deflated with a sigh.

"Willowpaw, hi!" Kestrelpaw greeted, perking his ears and tail as he trampled all over the horoscope he'd been working on and bounded up to her to rub cheeks. "You're late, what happened? Herb gathering mission that ran on long? Clan meeting? You're not hurt, are you?"

"Oh, no, no," she reassured, getting back on her feet and rubbing back as her friend circled and sat down in front of her. "Not me at least. Swallowtail just had a flare-up of her joint pain and we had to treat her. But it's routine at this point, you know? Elder stuff. What were you—"

Before she could finish that thought, a blue-eyed silver tabby —an apprentice judging by his size— emerged from the undergrowth at the ThunderClan side, panting as he caught his breath.

Right away, Willowpaw could tell who that was. But as she poised her tongue to ask him what he was doing here, Leafpool emerged right behind him and began chastising him. "Jaypaw! If you're going to be my apprentice, you can't be going off on your own like that! Especially not on your first half-moon meeting! Thank StarClan you ended up right where we needed to be!"

"Oh." Willowpaw muttered, then spoke up in surprise, "Wait! 'Apprentice'? What happened to Hollypaw?"

"She quit," Jaypaw answered immediately. "Job was too gross for her, so she ditched you and left it all to me. Better get accustomed to seeing my face around."

Leafpool swatted him across the muzzle with her tail. "Hollypaw found out this was not her calling, is all," Leafpool said. "Jaypaw showed interest in being my apprentice so I let him join us instead, at least for tonight. Please be patient with him, he—"

"I'm blind, not a kit," Jaypaw grumbled, swatting Leafpool's tail away.

***

"I see…" Willowpaw said, letting out a wistful sigh. "Well, I hope we can get along, anyway." She came closer to brush cheeks with Jaypaw, to which he immediately recoiled.

It wasn't too long after that Littlecloud joined the rest in the clearing. "I'm late it seems. So, so sorry, I was attending to Tawnypelt's kits. You know how it is the first few moons. Always something new with these. It seems they caught a bit of a fever but nothing I couldn't handle."

The oracles soon arranged themselves into their usual formation, with Littlecloud and the two senior oracles at the front, Mothwing and Leafpool just behind, and at the very back the three apprentices.

Jaypaw walked a fair bit farther away from the other two. His face was kept low to the ground as to allow him to better gauge the terrain with his whiskers. He seemed intently focused on it, keeping a steady and somewhat slower gait than the other two.

Noticing this, Willowpaw drifted closer to him, swinging her tail in such a way as to try to to let him hold onto it with her mouth. "Grab onto it," she commanded as she nearly smacked him on the face with it.

"I prefer to navigate on my own," Jaypaw said, gently pushing the tail from in front of him.

"It'll be easier if you let me guide you," Willowpaw insisted, once again almost smacking him with her tail as she offered him to hold on.

"No thanks," he grumbled this time, bringing a paw down on it.

"Don't be stubborn," she started once again. "The path is dangerous, if you don't know what you are doing—"

Jaypaw growled, raising his head as to be on the same level as Willowpaw. "I'm not some helpless little—" In his distraction, Jaypaw tripped over a hole in the ground. Willlowpaw grabbed at his scruff and pulled on it, all the while the silver tabby hissed and tried to claw at her. "Let go! Let go!"

"Jaypaw!" Leafpool chastised him. "Behave! Or I won't make you my apprentice!"

"But she—"

"I was trying to help you, you stubborn bee-brain!" Willowpaw said, releasing her hold on him. "Be grateful for once. I told you it was dangerous."

Jaypaw snarled about to retort, but Leafpool's stern "Jaypaw!" deflated him. "Apologize," she commanded.

For a moment a silence lingered among the group as the incident between the apprentices became the focus of attention, but eventually Jaypaw muttered a quick "I'm sorry" and continued along his way.

Willowpaw huffed in response, letting him on his own as the group continued on after the little incident. "Can you believe him?" she vented to Kestrelpaw. "What an ingrate!"

"I don't know, maybe you should have just let him do his own thing from the beginning," he said. He glanced at the silver tabby apprentice as he continued to navigate with his whiskers close to the ground. "He did tell you he prefers to do it that way."

Willowpaw glared at him from the side.

"You could have still helped if he was about to make a dangerous misstep," Kestrelpaw said. "Just, you know, maybe trust that he knows what he's doing? I mean, he made it here on his own. He must know, at least a little bit"

Willowpaw simply flicked her tail in dismissal, and the apprentices spent the rest of their walk up to the Moonpool in silence.

***

Jaypaw had trouble believing he was in StarClan at all at first. It all appearead the same to him: the same texture of the stones underfoot, the same nighttime breee ruffling his fur, even the same eery quiet that hung over the Moonpool. But as he began navigating around the stone hollow, he couldn't find any of their other cats. Not by scent, not by touch, not by any other sensation he could feel.

Jaypaw paused as he heard wings flapping and felt an unnatural shiver run down his spine. Soon enough a familiar sweet scent began wafting towards his nose. Then came the sound of pawsteps, and he instinctually went into an alert stance.

"Well, what have we got here," she said in a playful tone as she circled him. "I see that your curiosity ended up winning, eh? I'm glad that you decided to join us. That sister of yours… Not exactly what I was looking for." She paused. "If you meet Firestar up here don't tell him that I said that."

Jaypaw didn't drop his stance. "Who are you?"

"My name is Spottedleaf —you wouldn't know me, but I was ThunderClan's former oracle," she said.

Jaypaw paused for a moment, relaxing his stance somewhat. "That other molly is also a StarClan cat isn't she?" Jaypaw asked. "The raspy-voiced one who smelled like she hadn't washed in moons."

"That sounds like Yellowfang, so yes," Spottedleaf replied. "She spoke to you then?"

"She growled at me and told me to stay away last time I was here," Jaypaw confirmed. "What is happening here, then, that you want me here but she doesn't?"

Spottedleaf hummed. "I don't think you are ready for me to tell you that." She saw Jaypaw bristle at that. "Buuuut. I think I can say just a little bit about it if you answer a couple of my questions."

***

As soon as Kestrelpaw awoke in StarClan, among a heather meadow very reminiscent of his own home, he ran towards the edge of the cloud island and looked down to his home. It was his absolute favorite part of the meetings, to be able to look down at everything with this new perspective. The young apprentice would have stayed there all night observing where it not for the sudden shiver that announced the presence of a StarClan cat.

A small brown bird with long, narrow crescent shaped wings —a swift, Kestrelpaw could tell— glid down onto the sky island and in a blinding flash it turned into a star-speckled ginger and white tom. He looked to be about Willowpaw's age, awkwardly proportioned as he finally settled into his adult size. He was obviously a WindClan warrior apprentice, however, with that lean muscle showing on his long legs.

"Hey there!" he chirped. "Kestrelpaw right?"

Kestrelpaw nodded, lowering his head in a sign of respect as Barkface had drilled into him.

"Oh, come on, don't be that formal," the StarClan cat said as he slipped his own head under Kestrelpaw's chin. "My name's Gorsepaw."

Recognition immediately flickered in the oracle apprentice's eyes as he heard that name.

"I really wanted to come meet you last half-moon but you weren't here. I want you to tell me everything about how WindClan is doing."

***

Willowpaw sat at the edge of a lakeshore reminiscent of her own home, lost in thought as she waited for the StarClan spirit who would talk to her that night. Though she of course knew better than to listen to that brat Jaypaw, doubly so now that she'd actually met him, she couldn't help but come back to what he'd said about the reason for Hollypaw quitting.

"Job was too gross for her, so she ditched you and left it all to me."

Was the job really what she found so gross? The few times she saw Hollypaw she was bursting at the seams with enthusiasm for it! Willowpaw had heard the dumb mumblings about RiverClan, how their silky, glossy pelts and heavy frames were spoiled by their fishy scent. It was a ridiculous thing to say, and yet it swirled in her head how maybe, just maybe—

A shiver ran down Willowpaw's spine and she craned her head upwards, seeing a star flicker away in the distance then suddenly a large black bird —a cormorant— dived down and plunged into the lake until it emerged with a trout in its beak. The bird swam towards the shore and set the catch between himself and Willowpaw, not bothering to change into a cat form or dry off.

"Mudfur," Willowpaw acknowledged as she bowed in respect. "It is an honor to see you again."

"I would say it's an honor to once again meet with our Clan's future oracle," the StarClan warrior replied. "But it seems there is something else clouding your thoughts as of now, something unbefitting of your station as an oracle's apprentice."

Willowpaw jolted in surprise at those words. "I assure you I'll get over it. I know it's silly, but…" She trailed off and remained silent for quite a while until she gave up trying to find any words that would properly explain it. "How about we get on with—"

"It is actually my business of tonight," he replied. "I know that kind of forlorn expression. And as RiverClan's soon-to-be oracle, and the only one who can talk to us as well, this is something that has to be addressed. So…"

#warrior cats #wc #warrior cats au #jayfeather #kestrelflight #hollyleaf #leafpool #mudfur #gorsepaw #spottedleaf #haneossia #story

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