Swiftpaw's Chance: Chapter 5
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Cinderpelt, as it turns out, was completely serious about the nursery, and completely able to make it happen. In hindsight, Dogscar probably should’ve guessed as much.
Now, he’s standing in the entrance of the nursery, with Longtail—of course Longtail, who hasn’t so much as looked his way in days—right behind him, and four tiny faces peering out of their nests at him.
“Dogscar!” Sorrelkit yowls first, launching herself out of her nest at him.
She buries her face in his chest for a second before bouncing back again. “You came to visit us!”
“Uh, yeah,” Dogscar says, looking over her head at Willowpelt.
She’s just as guarded as before, and she shares a look with Speckletail, who curls her tail a little more tightly around Snowkit. Goldenflower, in the back of the den, is shrouded in shadow, and Dogscar can’t read her expression. He clears his throat.
“So, I thought I could teach you all a few basic fighting moves? So you can defend yourselves, or your mamas. As long as it’s okay with them,” he adds, nodding to the queens.
Sorrelkit whips around. “Oh, please , can we, mama?”
Her brothers join in immediately, and poor Willowpelt looks down at her three kits, then over at Speckletail, and finally to Goldenflower.
“He’s your son,” she says.
“They’re your kits,” Goldenflower replies. “I think they’ll be alright, especially with all of us and Longtail.”
Speckletail shifts in her nest and declares, “Snowkit can watch, to start.”
“Okay,” Willowpelt says finally. All her kits cheer.
Dogscar backs out into the camp, and Sorrelkit leads her brothers joyfully after him. She’s obviously the biggest of the litter, and if Dogscar didn’t know they were the same age he’d swear she was at least a moon older. She’s an awfully big kit.
“Alright,” he says, mostly to get their attention. Rainkit has already jumped on Sootkit for some reason. “We’re going to start with, uh, a fighting stance, so you can pounce on your enemies properly.”
He drops into the crouch, wincing a little where his healing wound pulls, and watches the kits untangle themselves and try to copy him. Snowkit stumbles forward a little like he might try to participate, and Speckletail tucks a paw around him with a hissed “ No, Snowkit.”
It doesn’t sting, because Dogscar doesn’t care. He rolls his shoulders a bit and focuses on Rainkit, Sootkit, and Sorrelkit. Sootkit is glaring determinedly at some unseen enemy, and he actually is doing well at copying Dogscar. Rainkit’s paws are out of place, and Sorrelkit is all but vibrating with excitement where she looks up at him.
He nudges their paws and bodies a bit to help them, then returns to his own crouch. “Okay, now you three pretend I’m a big old ShadowClan warrior coming into camp and attack me.”
The three of them waste no time in leaping at Dogscar and bowling him over. He has just enough time to turn so he hits the ground mostly on his side, mostly not on any of his big wounds. The feeling of tiny bodies forcing him into the dirt is uncomfortably similar to the feeling of massive paws pressing him into rotting leaves, and he hisses.
“Are you okay?” Sorrelkit asks from where she perches on his shoulder. “Did we hurt you?”
He grunts and gently rolls over, batting the kits away and standing over them all. “I’m fine. And there’s a lesson for you: the enemy will try to look defeated to get you to back down. Don’t do that.”
“Yeah, Sorrelkit!” Rainkit yowls. “ThunderClan shows no mercy!”
Dogscar shoots a sideways glance at the queens. Willowpelt looks nervous, so he grudgingly says “Well, ThunderClan can show a little mercy. We have to be better than the other Clans, after all.”
Rainkit nods seriously. “Okay. But we can still attack you, right?”
“You can try,” Dogscar says, and there’s just the smallest hint of a grin in it.
The kits tackle him to the ground again.
-0-0-0-
He’s sitting in the medicine den a few days later, getting the most thorough checkup he’s had so far, when Longtail finally looks at him again. Not in the impassive, distant, vaguely sad way he’s been watching Dogscar play with kits for the last few days, but really looking.
Dogscar lets his eyes slide over to where Cinderpelt is sniffing at his back wound, the only one that hasn’t completely healed yet. “Is there a reason you’re being so intense about this? Look, it’s been so long Longtail had to come collect me.”
He almost adds the kits will be wondering where I am , but stops, because that’s ridiculous. The kits were just fine before he started teaching them basic battle moves and helping them hunt imaginary prey and submitting himself to games. They’ll be just fine without him, too.
“I am here to collect you,” Longtail says, “but not for the nursery. Cinderpelt decided you and Brightpaw can return to training today.”
“We’re warriors,” Dogscar muttered. “What do we have to train for.”
“You’ve been badly wounded and off of warrior duties for more than half a moon. You’re going to need a bit of work to get back to where you used to be,” Cinderpelt explains. “And take it easy with your back. I don’t think it’s at risk of tearing open again, but it’s getting close to being fully healed and I would really like to keep it that way.”
Dogscar stands up, lightly shakes some leaf litter from his fur. “Yeah, okay.”
Longtail dips his head to them both and leads the way out of the den. Brightpaw and Cloudtail, along with Whitestorm, are waiting outside—Brightpaw having been given as much of an all-clear as could be expected earlier that morning.
“Are we ready?” Longtail asks.
Whitestorm nods and they all start out of camp. Cloudtail included.
“Cloudtail, you can stay here. You’ve been away from warrior duties long enough already,” Longtail says, and Dogscar thinks thank StarClan.
But Cloudtail just shakes his head and presses himself a little closer to Brightpaw. “I’ve been working with her. On her blind side. To help her so she can be a warrior again.”
“And that’s really good,” Whitestorm tells him. Dogscar takes a sort of vicious pleasure in the patronizing tone of his voice. “But the Clan really does need you here, Cloudtail. Go hunting and feed the elders, we’ll be back before you know it.”
“But Whitestorm-“
“Cloudtail.”
The young warrior hesitates one moment longer, pressing his cheek quickly against Brightpaw’s, before he slips away. Dogscar takes his place beside Brightpaw, though not quite as close, as they pad out of camp. No one speaks for the entire walk to the training hollow.
“Well,” Whitestorm says when they stop in the sand, “We’d better get started. We’ll assess where the two of you are right now so we know what to work on.”
He glances sideways at Longtail for confirmation, and the tabby warrior nods, dropping into a fighting stance. Whitestorm moves himself and Brightpaw to the other end of the hollow.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Longtail says quietly.
Dogscar drops into his own fighting stance and waits barely a heartbeat before launching himself at his mentor. Longtail dodges easily, clearly expecting the move. He lunges at Dogscar from the side, pushing him over, but it’s so gentle , far more so than any other training session. Even before the dog attack Dogscar’s body was littered with scars from training that got too rough. He’s no stranger to bruises, and neither is Longtail.
So this? The sudden treating him like he’s something fragile, breakable? It’s not happening.
“Hey,” he snaps, rolling away from Longtail and back to his paws (which he can do, because his mentor didn’t even try to pin him down, StarClan ). “You don’t have to take it easy on me.”
He punctuates his statement with a favorite move of his, swiping at Longtail’s face with one paw and, while the warrior rears back from that, hooking his legs out from under him with the other. Predictably, Longtail goes down. Whitestorm sneakily taught Dogscar that move moons ago and Longtail still gets tricked by it. Dogscar lets himself smile, just a little, at the victory as he jumps to pin Longtail down.
“Oh, I don’t, do I?” Longtail snarls back easily, and he manages to get his hind legs up under Dogscar and push him off with surprising force.
He lands roughly, sliding in the sand, and a low, burning pain shoots along his back. The sky flashes above him, framed by trees, and then Longtail’s body is on top of him again.
His open jaws are nothing at all like the gaping maw of a dog. His pelt is all the wrong colors. He’s far too small, far too light, but his paw is one Dogscar’s chest and his body is blocking everything else out and Dogscar’s back burns and he’s back, he’s in that blood-smeared clearing by Snakerocks again and the dogs are growling all around him and somewhere Brightpaw is screaming-
“-ogscar! Hey, hey, come on, come back,” Longtail is saying, and Dogscar blinks at him.
His mentor’s nose is barely a whisker from his own, but the pain has receded and all the noise seems to have been sucked out of the air, so it’s okay. Kind of. Dogscar realizes he’s lying on his back and scrambles quickly to his paws, backing up several paces until he hits a tree. That’s good. No one can come up behind him, now.
Longtail is staring at him, and the look in his eyes is nothing short of devastation. Brightpaw stands just behind Whitestorm, like maybe she tried to run over and the older warrior stepped in front of her. Which is probably true, because apparently Dogscar just lost it and they all know how dangerous he is. How volatile. Anything could’ve happened.
Dogscar is distantly aware that he is shaking. And cold. A cold that sort of worms its way between all of his bones, not like winter, like...like a light freezing rain in an early newleaf. Soaking in slowly, but every bit as wet and choking as a gushing torrent.
“Dogscar,” Longtail starts, and then stops, like he doesn’t know what to say. Which makes two of them, at least.
“You need to see Cinderpelt,” Whitestorm says at last, taking a step forward. Dogscar’s eyes shoot to him, because apparently he’s managed to move steadily closer while Dogscar was focused on Longtail, and now he’s almost near enough to touch , and every instinct is screaming at him to not let that happen .
“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, and Whitestorm stops walking.
“Okay,” he agrees easily. Too easily. “Whatever you want. You look, uh, a little shaky, though, so I thought you’d like the support.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t, so d-don’t,” Dogscar growls, and then he wants to rake his claws through the nearest tree when he stumbles over the last word.
Whitestorm exchanges a worried look with Longtail that they don’t even try to hide. Dogscar grits his teeth to stop himself from flying at them. He’s not some fragile little kit, he’s fine , what do any of them know?
Except....it felt so real , for one moment, he was completely and totally sure that it had been a dog standing over him, and he doesn’t know what to do with that. He’s not crazy. He’s not weak. But if he can’t even let Longtail pin him on the ground without being thrown back into the clearing full of dogs, what chance does he have as a warrior?
“We should go back to camp,” Longtail says, and Dogscar growls as he whirls around.
The growl dies quickly as he stops dead. Whitestorm and Longtail and Brightpaw are behind him. He can feel rheir eyes on his fur and it’s—it’s so stupid , he should just...
He can’t have them behind him. Every instinct wants him to turn around, won’t let him have his back to his enemies. Nevermind that they’re his Clanmates and he’s supposed to trust them .
He doesn’t move, just stands there, his legs trembling ever so slightly, until Longtail comes up next to him. It’s none of the old closeness they used to have, no bumping shoulders or tails looped over backs or pelts brushing as they walk. Longtail is a tail-length away, wary, and Dogscar half wants him to come closer and is half certain he’d attack him if he did.
He hangs his head. “You...walk ahead of me. All of you. I just. I can’t.”
Longtail touches his tail to Dogscar’s flank before he has to try and explain further. Dogscar absolutely does not flinch. He waits there, staring at his own paws, as Brightpaw and Whitestorm walk past. Their pity and worry is thick in the air and Dogscar isn’t sure who he hates more: them, or himself.
He jerks his head to let Longtail go ahead of him and follows, a step or two behind. He’s still prickly and on high alert, but it helps, somehow, seeing the others in front of him.
No one says a single word the entire way back to camp. Dogscar keeps his eyes on the ground, but he can still feel them all glancing back at him.
There’s a few more glances when they reach camp, but nothing much—he and Brightpaw are slowly becoming a more common sight, their scars less and less horrifying every day. Dogscar doesn’t try to avoid the medicine den, just follows Longtail’s feather-light touch that points him there. He has two warring things inside of him, one holding so much of everything he could explode, and the other holding so much of nothing that he can barely keep himself moving. He’s not sure which one will win out, or if one even can.
“You’re back early,” Cinderpelt says. Concern colors her voice.
“Dogscar had a, um...” Longtail glances at Dogscar, as if he has any idea what happened, either. “Vision? Nightmare? I’m not sure how to describe it.”
Cinderpelt frowns. “What?” She rounds on Dogscar. “What happened? What did you see?”
“I saw, um, the dogs,” Dogscar says. “It was...it was exactly like being back in the battle. Like a nightmare, I guess, but...”
“You were awake,” Cinderpelt says gently. “I’ve seen this before. Sometimes cats will....relive their pasts, if something happens to trigger it. Did anything in particular happen before it started?”
Longtail answers first. “We were sparring. I pinned him down. I didn’t think that would happen, or I would never -“
“I know,” Cinderpelt interrupts. “It’s not your fault.”
“Is there a way to stop it?” Dogscar asks. “If I can’t even fight my mentor without this happening...”
He trails off, lets the truth speak for itself. Cinderpelt shifts a little awkwardly. “It’s...hard to say. With time, and some practice, you could learn to work around it. But the mind is a tricky thing, and not exactly my area of expertise. We don’t have herbs for this kind of thing.”
“Right,” Dogscar says, bitter. Time is all it takes to do anything. He doesn’t want to wait , he’s the fastest thing in the Clans, he doesn’t want to lay in his nest and watch the sun leap across the sky and show him every single day he’s missing because he can’t get over himself.
“Do you need anything, Dogscar? I have some poppy seeds-“ Cinderpelt starts, and he shakes his head viciously, angry again, at himself, and her, and every other thing in the world.
“Just leave me alone,” he growls, and pushes past her. He curls in his nest, back to the entrance, and squeezes his eyes shut.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, he sees the dogs again. Noises in the background turn into snapping teeth and low snarls, and the fur on his back prickles where he could swear something was watching. Hunting.
He squeezes his eyes tighter and doesn’t move. He is stronger than this. He will not let this control him. He will not let this stop him from being a warrior.
“Dogscar.”
He doesn’t flinch. It’s fine. It’s under control.
It’s Cloudtail.
“What do you want ,” he snarls.
“Brightpaw told me she was worried about you. She has nightmares all the time, y’know, and sometimes she wakes up and she’s convinced they’re real. So I know a thing or two.”
“You want to help ?” Dogscar snaps, except it comes out a little less harsh than he wanted. “What’re you gonna do, snuggle me?”
“If you want,” Cloudtail says. “It helps, actually , and since you’re doing a real nice job of throwing every other cat you know away like crowfood, I thought I’d offer.”
“Well, I don’t want your help, so you can go away and leave me alone. Get back to Brightpaw,” Dogscar mutters.
Instead of leaving, he gets Cloudtail’s paw pushing at his shoulder. “Shut up and move over. I can see you shaking from practically the other side of camp, and I’m tired of your little loner act. Plus it makes Brightpaw miserable .”
Of course. Dogscar nearly scoffs. Of course Cloudtail’s only here to appease Brightpaw.
“What part of go and away do you not understand?”
Cloudtail pushes at him more forcefully and settles into the nest at his back. “I am going away. Going away from camp. Towards your nest, because StarClan , even you don’t deserve this. Someone’s gotta try.”
Dogscar just puts his head down and doesn’t bother with a response. He’d never admit it in a million years, but having Cloudtail curled around his back does help some. He stops shaking so much, at least.
“Dogscar,” Cloudtail says, just firm enough to get him to prick one ear. “We are going to lay here in this nest and you are not going to say anything, and you’re going to do what I tell you. Got it?”
“For how long?” Dogscar mutters.
“As long as it takes you to stop trembling hard enough to cause an earthquake,” Cloudtail says. “Now shut up and breathe with me so I can help you out and you can quit making everybody sad.”
Dogscar growls softly but grudgingly does as he’s told. Slowly, his breathing matches up with the slow, deliberate rise and fall of Cloudtail’s flank against him.
Cloudtail doesn’t say anything else, but slowly, his head comes to rest across Dogscar’s shoulder blades and his long, ridiculously fluffy tail curls around his legs. He presses a little closer to Dogscar, one long line of warmth along his back, and Dogscar can’t help it. His eyes drift closed and he falls into sleep.