Swiftpaw's Chance: Chapter 16
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The days following the battle with BloodClan are peaceful. Swiftscar slowly, slowly starts to spend more time with Cinderpelt, and every cat that was injured begins to heal, and everything is good, really and truly, for the first time in a very long while. Maybe, Swiftscar thinks, for the first time since Tigerstar was a warrior.
Snowkit is cleared for light apprentice duties pretty early on, and Swiftscar joins Cloudtail and Brightheart when his ceremony is called to begin. They all watch Brackenfur, beaming like anything, as he walks forward and touches his nose to his new apprentice’s.
The whole Clan yowls Snowpaw’s new name, and more importantly, there’s the stamping of dozens of paws shaking the earth. Swiftscar watches Snowpaw turn around, curious, and watches his face light up as he realizes.
He’s going to do fine as a warrior. Swiftscar is sure of it.
A few days later, once they’re healed up, Firestar makes Fernpaw and Ashpaw warriors. Ferncloud and Ashfur. They’re excellent names, and no one yowls them louder than Cloudtail, beaming like anything and racing forward the second the ceremony is over to congratulate his siblings.
Everything is good. Swiftscar officially becomes Cinderpelt’s apprentice, and has to make his first journey to the Moonstone for the half-moon meeting.
He meets the other medicine cats (whoever they are idk) and the five of them walk together to Mothermouth. Swiftscar doesn’t have much to say, but he walks next to Cinderpelt and listens to the medicine cats talk like old friends, like one Clan. Like more than that, almost—Swiftscar has never had a relationship this close with most of the cats in his own Clan.
The thought strikes him that he could, someday, be a part of this group. It’s a warm thought.
“So, Swiftscar, what made you decide to become a medicine cat?” Littlecloud asks once there’s a lull in the conversation. “We ex-warriors outnumber the regular medicine cats, now. I’m curious why.”
Swiftscar shrugs while he tries to think of a way to explain his reasoning. He’s not entirely sure he knows how to explain it to himself. “I’m good at it,” he says at last, “and I’m not very good at fighting anymore. I could learn, but...”
“You don’t want to,” Littlecloud supplies. “I can understand that. What about the other cat....Brightpaw, was it? I remember her from a Gathering or two.”
“She’s Bright heart , now,” Swiftscar corrects him, unable to keep the touch of pride from his voice. “She’s doing really well figuring out how to fight. We’ve even been talking about her giving special training to the other warriors in case they get a similar injury, so they’ll know what to do.”
Mudfur makes an appreciative noise. “That’s a smart idea! She sounds like a strong cat.”
Swiftscar ducks his head a little. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “yeah, she is.”
Cinderpelt nods along beside him, but no one gets a chance to say anything more before the scrubby grass beneath their paws turns abruptly to stone. Swiftscar looks up from the ground to stare at the entrance of Mothermouth, and then immediately looks down again at the pawprint indents in the stone. Hundreds of thousands of paws must have slotted into the exact spaces over generations.
His own paws slip easily into the marks as he follows the other medicine cats into the cave. For a brief moment, the moonlight around them dims and vanishes, leaving them blind in the tunnel.
There’s only enough time for fear to settle cold in his veins and panic to writhe like a live thing in his belly before Cinderpelt touches her nose to his flank from behind.
“Swiftscar,” she says, barely audible. “Breathe. It’s not a long tunnel. The others are just ahead of us. Keep going.”
He only realizes then that he’d been holding his breath. Shakily Swiftscar breathes in and then out, and in again. His breathing evens out to something almost normal, and a few seconds later the light begins to filter in around the bodies of the cats ahead.
Runningnose ducks to one side, revealing the cavern and the Moonstone. It’s absolutely massive, a white stone maybe three tail lengths high, reaching toward a hole in the cavern ceiling where the moonlight shines through.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there staring before Cinderpelt speaks. “Before we begin, there’s a ceremony to be conducted.”
Swiftscar blurts out, “What?” before he can think to stop himself.
Cinderpelt tips her head at him. “Didn’t you--no, I suppose you wouldn’t. Medicine cats have private ceremonies for their apprentices, aside from the regular Clan ones. It’s nothing scary, I promise.”
“I wasn’t scared,” Swiftscar mutters, and she gives him a look.
“ Anyway ,” she continues, moving to stand directly in front of him. She takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and standing as straight as she can manage. That alone, the sense of importance, makes anxiety curdle in his gut despite what she’d said. “Swiftscar, is it your wish to enter the mysteries of StarClan as a medicine cat?”
Inwardly Swiftscar mulls over the words mysteries of StarClan, but aloud he says, “It is.”
Cinderpelt steps to the side, giving him a clear path to the Moonstone. “Then come forward.”
A little warily, Swiftscar moves to stand so he’s nearly touching the Moonstone. Cinderpelt turns and aims her muzzle toward the stars and the moon visible above them.
“Warriors of StarClan,” she begins, “I present you with this apprentice. He has chosen the path of a medicine cat. Grant him your wisdom and insight that he may understand your ways and heal his Clan in accordance with your will.”
“All that work to stop being an apprentice and here I am again,” Swiftscar jokes.
Cinderpelt hits him with her tail. “Touch your nose to the rock, mousebrain.”
“You’re not being very nice to your apprentice,” he tells her even as he leans forward to touch the Moonstone.
If Cinderpelt replies, it’s lost in the swirling blackness that swallows them.
Seconds or hours later, Swiftscar blinks and takes a step back, staring around at the cavern. It’s filled with cats, starry figures standing in rows all around the medicine cats.
“Welcome, Swiftscar,” one cat says. He looks around a bit wildly before spotting the starry figure of Whitestorm. The former deputy looks younger than he did in life, with no scars except the jagged mark of the wound that killed him.
“Whitestorm!” He says, bounding forward to touch their noses together. “I miss you. Brightheart, too.”
Whitestorm’s body rumbles with a light sound that’s nearly a laugh. “I miss her too. She’s growing up into such a great cat. You tell her I said that, alright? I’m proud of her. And you, too.”
“Thanks,” Swiftscar says quietly. “I will.”
Whitestorm dips his head and retreats to the ranks of StarClan. Another star-speckled figure peels away from the crowd and pads toward him, almost wary. She’s so much younger and healthier looking than she was in life, with a gleam in her eye that’s completely unfamiliar, that Swiftscar doesn’t recognize her for a long moment.
“Bluestar?”
She smiles, sadly, and nods. “Yes. I wasn’t sure if you would...want to see me. After everything I’ve done.”
“I’m not sure I want to, either,” Swiftscar admits. “But if you have something to say, I’m listening.”
Bluestar nods and sits down. Swiftscar doesn’t. “I guess I deserve that. I’ve had a lot of time and distance up here, to think. It’s easier to see the whole picture from above, especially when you’re not always, you know, worried about your own Clanmates killing you. I realize that I...wasn’t the best leader, the last few moons. Wasn’t even a good leader. Firestar made the right decision, changing your names back. Swiftscar suits you.”
“I...” Swiftscar isn’t exactly sure what to say. It sounds like an apology, even if Bluestar hasn’t exactly said “I’m sorry” yet. “Thank you,” he settles for, eventually.
“I know it isn’t good enough. I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven. You’d be a warrior right now if I’d been better, and for that I’m sorry.”
He shifts uncomfortably, glances back at Cinderpelt. She tips her head slightly, waiting. “Being a warrior was the only thing I wanted as an apprentice,” he begins, and Bluestar winces. “But I’m a different cat now, for better or for worse. Being a medicine cat wasn’t something forced upon me, and it’s not second-best, or pitiful, or anything else. I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t want it.”
It’s not forgiveness. Bluestar doesn’t take it as such. She just looks at him for a long while, and finally dips her star-speckled head. “You’ve grown up, Swiftscar. But you didn’t come here to talk to one old she-cat.”
As she steps back into the starlit crowd, a host of other spirits begins to melt free. Swiftscar recognizes Yellowfang’s broad face first, as she approaches, and behind her is a pretty tortoiseshell that can only be Spottedleaf. A few dozen other cats step out to surround him, but a small group, maybe ten, stand alone.
“These are our medicine cat ancestors,” Yellowfang says. “Every last one who has ever walked the path to this cave before you. When you die, you will join their number. In life, they will guide you to the best of their ability. Is this your wish?”
“It is,” Swiftscar says instantly.
He’s busy scanning the gathered medicine cats, but it isn’t a lie. There are so many , stretching back generations. His eyes skip over a gap in the middle of one group and go back. It’s not a gap, just a she-cat standing there, so faded she’s nearly invisible, ghostly white except for her green eyes. She must be ancient, and for some reason Swiftscar is drawn to her.
“Who...who are you?” he asks.
She smiles. “My name is Moth Flight. I was the first medicine cat, so many seasons ago. Or, at least, the first one to know StarClan. I discovered this cave. I made the first medicine cat codes.”
Swiftscar nods along, half awed at this cat who lived so long ago and made the first journey into this cave, and then— “Wait, you wrote the codes? Even the one about mates and kits?”
“ Swiftscar !” Cinderpelt hisses, appalled.
Moth Flight looks strangely guilty. “It’s alright, Cinderpelt. I’m just a cat, after all, if a very old one. And...it was a mistake, in hindsight, to make that law. I know it was a special set of circumstances that weren’t likely to ever be replicated, but at the time I was just trying to keep other cats from being as overwhelmed and conflicted as I was. If I could take it back, I would.”
“But...it’s in the code,” Mudfur says. Several StarClan spirits exchange glances.
“Codes are just words,” Swiftscar says quietly. “We’ve added to them, why can’t we take one away?”
Moth Flight looks at him, and it is hard to tell, with how faint she is, but she almost seems to be sizing him up. “You may be right, Swiftscar.”
And that, besides being one of the strangest half-moon meetings Cinderpelt has been to (in her words), is also the catalyst that amends the medicine cat code.
A medicine cat may take a mate and have kits, as long as they have trained at least one apprentice.
The Clans, at first, aren’t too happy about it. But turns out all the medicine cats testifying that Moth Flight herself amended the rule changes a lot of minds very quickly. Brightheart, Cloudtail, and Swiftscar spend days celebrating, in their own small way. Cinderpelt agrees that Swiftscar can even sleep with them in the warriors den, as long as they don’t have patients.
Life goes on.
Sorrelkit, Rainkit, and Sootkit are made apprentices a moon after the battle, and even though Swiftscar still wishes he could mentor Sorrelpaw...Sandstorm is perfect for her. Cloudtail gets Rainpaw, and Longtail gets Sootpaw.
They’re excellent matches, and Swiftscar makes sure Cloudtail knows it when he frets later over a shrew about not being a good enough mentor.
Brightheart doesn’t get an apprentice, not yet, and she tries to be happy for Cloudtail, but Swiftscar knows—she wanted one of the kits herself. He tells her there will always be more kits who need mentors, and she’ll have an apprentice soon, and be the best mentor in the Clan.
The seasons change. Time moves quickly , so fast Swiftscar can scarcely believe it as the apprentices grow. Ferncloud and Dustpelt become mates, and have a litter; two toms, Spiderkit and Shrewkit. When no cat is really paying attention, Swiftscar watches them play, and thinks of Sorrelpaw and her brothers, and something aches in his chest.
And then Brightheart comes to him as he’s sorting herbs with Cinderpelt, seeming almost nervous, and he drops everything right away.
“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?"
“Everything’s fine!” she blurts, too quickly. “I just...my belly’s been feeling strange for a few days, and I wanted to ask you to take a look? Just in case.”
She’s talking too fast and the way she keeps looking at Cinderpelt means something, but Swiftscar settles for giving her an odd look and leading her to one of the spare nests. He feels along her belly carefully, and then he feels it.
“Cin—Cinderpelt? Can, can you come here?” he glances back at his mentor as she comes to check. “Is this...what I think it is?”
Half his body is sick and trembling with nerves, the other half warily, tentatively hopeful. Because if this is what he thinks it is...
“Swiftscar,” Cinderpelt says. “Brightheart came to me days ago, to be sure. She’s pregnant, Swiftscar, and the kits are yours and Cloudtail’s.”
He’s a father.
Brightheart smiles up at him, the most radiant thing he’s ever seen, and Cloudtail slips up behind him with a grin that means he knows, too, and Swiftscar has never been happier in his life.
When their daughter is born (just the one, pure white like she took after each of them and with green eyes all her own), she’s absolutely perfect and has all three of them enthralled from the first moment she comes into the world.
Brightheart shyly suggests they name her Whitekit, after Whitestorm, and it’s perfect.
The moon waxes and wanes. Whitekit’s three parents dote on her endlessly, and she melts every one of their hearts when she proudly tells Spiderkit (Spider paw , by then) that Swiftscar isn’t her mama’s friend, he’s her papa , and Cloudtail is her dad. Later, when she’s an apprentice at her first Gathering, she’ll say the same to any apprentice curious about the three cats watching her from a distance, and just like her fathers she’ll defend her mother’s scars (Swiftscar’s, too, and if he gets emotional about that, well...). She’s a wonderful little cat.
But before that comes to pass, Sorrelpaw is struck by a monster. Swiftscar never feels quite so horribly awful as when her battered body is carried into camp, when he looks at Cinderpelt and sees old fear in her eyes. He ends up taking care of her wounds, because Cinderpelt simply can’t—her body trembles and she keeps forgetting what she’s doing and when he finally pushes her out she sits and nurses her injured leg like she does in the worst of leafbare, when it bothers her most. Her own painful memories.
Sorrelpaw makes it out alright in the end, though, but her brothers become warriors while she’s healing, Rainwhisker and Sootfur.
Sandstorm has kits in the meantime, Leafkit and Squirrelkit, two opposites. Spiderkit and Shrewkit become apprentices, to Mousefur and Thornclaw respectively. Whitekit follows a bit later, to Tawnypelt. Swiftscar, Brightheart, and Cloudtail cheer her name loudest of all, and Swiftscar makes sure he’s the first to tell them both they’re going to do a wonderful job. Tawnypelt looks like she’s about to burst with pride, and he knows she belongs in her Clan at last. She’ll train her niece well.
There’s a brief time when Swiftscar thinks Leafkit might ask to be a medicine cat apprentice. It wouldn’t be impossible , he’s just never heard of three medicine cats. Leafkit certainly hangs around the medicine den often enough for it to be possible. But in the end she shakes her head when Cinderpelt asks and becomes a warrior alongside her sister. Squirrelkit gets Dustpelt, and Brightheart finally gets an apprentice in Leafkit.
Sorrelpaw gets discharged from the medicine den, starts training in earnest to catch up to her brothers. Swiftscar treats colds and minor battle wounds and the aches of the elders, and when he isn’t doing that he sits with his mates and watches his daughter grow.
It’s wonderful, right up until it isn’t.