I'm Yours

''This is the sixth episode of Vale, season 4. Written by Rainy. Read, enjoy, & comment!''



I'm Yours
 "Good hit, Minkears! Okay, Breezeflight, you've got good technique, but try this: instead of standing so tall, slink down to the ground. Now go for her forelegs and bring them down from underneath her. There you go! Minkpaw, if you want to retaliate, try doing a flip, so that you crush the breath from Breezeflight... Oh,  nice ! That's gotta hurt."

"It really, really does," I grunted, shoving Minkears off of me. "That's enough for today."

We were in a sandy clearing just west of the camp, where the apprentices usually came to train. Actually, Daisyheart was also here right now, practicing some simple moves with Brightpaw. But Fire had offered to coach Minkears and I in some new, nontraditional fighting maneuvers, and of course we'd accepted the help.

Nearby, Daisyheart screamed, "BRIGHTPAW, GET OFF ME. YOU HAVE ALREADY EXECUTED THE MOVE, YOU DON'T NEED TO SIT ON ME-" She broke off as the apprentice scrambled off.

Eyes twinkling, Brightpaw said, "Just making sure you knew who won the fight."

Shaking sand out of her pelt, Daisyheart sniffed angrily. "Hmph. I'll have you know that I let you take me down. How else would you perfect the move? If I busted out my more advanced fighting moves, you wouldn't have stood a chance, and that's no good practice..." She trailed off as she caught my skeptical expression. "Oh, shut up Breezeflight."

I grinned delightedly. "I didn't even say anything!"

"It's true. The lady did not say a word," said a voice behind us. Ren padded into the training place, which in turn made Daisyheart look like she wanted to sink right into the sand underneath her paws in embarrassment.

I was absolutely terrible at recognizing romance, but I knew my best friend like the back of my paws. I didn't miss the way her eyes were fastened to Ren.

Not that she was crazy for staring. In fact, I almost dismissed her fascination as a superficial crush, like the one I'd had on Bluebird. Ren was certainly handsome enough to warrant one, with his intense yellow-gold gaze and the way his glossy stone-colored pelt rippled over his muscles.

Yet, I couldn't help thinking this was something more. And it was mutual. Ren was normally nothing more than polite, conducting affairs in a rather detached fashion. But there was genuine warmth in his face as he looked at Daisyheart, like the sun had come up in those gorgeous yellow eyes.

Very cute. They'd make an adorable couple, Daisyheart with her fluffy fur and constant smile, Ren with his stoic expressions and easygoing temperament.

I wasn't the only one who'd noticed the two of them looking all starstruck, but other cats were less subtle about their opinions. Other cats being Brightpaw. "Oh my StarClan, is he who you were talking about when you said you might be interested in a tom? He better be who you were talking about. He is cute. You two should be mates."

Clearly taken aback by this talkative little apprentice, Ren only stared, open-mouthed, his gaze darting between Brightpaw and Daisyheart nervously as his face grew redder. "Um... I- I actually only came here to see if any of you guys were interested in joining us on a hunting patrol."

"Who's us?" I asked curiously.

In response, Ryan and Bluebird came bounding out of the trees. To my surprise, they were laughing and play-fighting, chasing each other through the woods. They came to stand on either side of Ren, and Ryan gave the dark gray tom a friendly nudge. "So are the girls coming?"

Now there was something I never expected. All the toms forming some sort of brotherhood? That was actually really cute.

To make things even better, Minkears stepped up next to Bluebird, gently flicking his nose with her tail. "If you don't want to hang out with these freaks, rest assured that I'll be there too. At least there'll be one capable cat on this hunt."

Bluebird rolled his eyes and batted her ear with his paw. "Psh, she doesn't know what she's talking about. This one's got bees in her brain."

I smirked at the two of them. "I'd love to come hunting with you lovely cats."

"Yeah, I'll come too. Brightpaw, wanna come with?" asked Daisyheart.

Her apprentice shook her head. "I arranged to meet Flowerpaw and Sleepypaw for some playtime. But you have fun." In an extremely loud whisper, she added, "Make sure you stick close to Ren."

Then, with a cheerful wave of her tail, she bounded away.

Daisyheart cleared her throat loudly, strutting past all of us. "Are you guys coming or not?"

Exchanging a knowing look with Minkears, I bounded after her.

For a group of six, we actually did good at keeping quiet enough for all of us to catch a piece of prey or too. Then, we promptly forgot about stealth and fell into conversation.

It wasn't all light-hearted, though. There were still so many unanswered questions regarding everything that had happened to the Clan recently, and the topic of discussion quickly fell to those.

Specifically, the problem of the third cat who possessed a power.

Ryan and I told the others an abridged version of what had happened with Aldereyes. Ryan clearly didn't want to share everything, especially not the part about the emotional and moral breakdown Aldereyes had foreseen in him, and I respected his wishes. The others didn't notice we were hiding anything, too busy trying to guess who the third cat could be, and what his or her power was.

"Let's see. Fire can sense pain, Ryan can sense the future. What else is there?" asked Daisyheart.

"Maybe the third cat can sense a cat's past," said Bluebird.

Minkears snorted. "Don't be stupid. What good is that?"

He grew suddenly quiet. "Your past can be important."

She didn't respond.

"What if the third cat can do something really cool? Like shoot flames out of their eyeballs or something?" suggested Ryan.

I wrinkled my nose. "You're spending way too much time around Specklenose."

"Can't help it. He's always with Cammy, so when I need to talk to her, I have to talk to him too."

"Specklenose and Cammy?" asked Daisyheart. "Huh. They're close, aren't they?"

"Who knows?" I shrugged. "Besides, at least it's not like you two are still together or anything."

Ren coughed. "Uh, Daisyheart... you and Specklenose?"

She flicked her ears. "We used to date. It's no big deal, really--we were both young. Breezeflight dated him too."

I scowled and mouthed, Thanks a lot.

She flashed me a sunny smile in response. I swear, that she-cat was evil. Don't let the facade of fluffiness fool you.

"Right, well, back to camp now," I announced.

- - - -

Bluebird tried to avoid Minkears. He really did, very valiantly. But she wouldn't be deterred.

Come evening, she finally managed to corner him inside the warriors' den, which was empty except for the two of them, a very rare occurrence. When he saw her, he attempted to bolt, but she blocked his path.

Ducking his head and slumping into his nest defeatedly, he said, "Uh, hi."

"Right. Hi. We need to talk."

He sighed. "Nah."

"What was that about?"

"What was what about?"

"Earlier today, when we were all hunting together. When I said what I said, and you said 'your past can be important'. The look on your face was so somber. Are you mad at me? Did I hurt your feelings?"

Bluebird glanced at her fleetingly. "What, are you going to call me a sissy?"

She frowned. "I'm being serious right now. What's going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not an oversensitive little kit," he countered.

Letting out a long breath, she lay down beside his nest. "I was afraid of this. Me being too austere, too jocular, and everyone always thinking that I'm incapable of emotion or empathy. Like I'm some sort of monster who will never understand anything."

"That's not what I think," snapped Bluebird. "I'm just not in the mood to share."

"I'm not in the mood for you not to be in the mood. You need to get it out." She tapped his foreleg. "You spew, I'll listen. Ready? Set. Go."

He glared at her. She met his gaze evenly. "I'll hate you for this," he said resentfully, shifting his weight.

She tapped her tail against the ground patiently.

He took a shuddering intake of air, as if preparing himself. "When you're younger... Everyone focuses on things like popularity and praise. It was nice, being brother to SpringClan's golden tom. Everything was so easy. Cats would stop me to tell me how cute Duskwatcher and Shinecloud were together. They'd tell me how I was every bit as handsome as Duskwatcher, how I was sure to pick up the next pretty she-cat and sweep her off her paws. That's all they cared about, knowing about my social life and feeling like they were connected to someone who knew Duskwatcher."

"When you're younger... no one tells you that those things are made of dust and feathers, and that they won't matter or help you later in life. No one tells you that they'll crumble around you and blood will pour down on you like rain. No one tells you that your sister-in-law will be brutally killed, or that your brother will lose his mind. No one tells you that he'll end up killing another cat for no reason, because he's broken and no one can fix him. No one tells you that you'll find your bloodline ostracized and ridiculed, suddenly regarded as the shame of SpringClan. No one tells you that your mentally ill brother will ignite alive and turn to ash."

"No one tells you, and you know why? Because there isn't anyone. No one's there to tell you. Somewhere along the way, they've turned their backs. You're left alone, floundering in waters you can't swim in. Too deep in for your paws to reach the bottom, with no sign of a lifeline..."

Anger suddenly crept into his voice. "I have no one. They never... never warned me... that it would be this lonely..."

"Bluebird-" Minkears began.

He whirled on her. "Even you! You've got your friends! I know they don't like me. They're all wondering what a snotty, annoying tom like me is doing, butting in on their group. You belong with them. Not me. I don't belong anywhere."

"Calm down," she said. "Please. That isn't true."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" he shouted. "It's one thing to have everyone against me. It's another for you to strut into my life with that stupid know-it-all look you have and try to assess everything about me!"

''Don't. Don't lash out. He's hurting. For the love of StarClan, curb your temper,'' Minkears begged herself. Whatever you do, don't- "And that's why you're alone." Minkears couldn't stop herself, didn't know how to filter the killer venom that poisoned her words. "You're alone because you're selfish and don't want to let anyone else in."

"Oh, right, because you're so open to everyone? You're such a hypocrite," he hissed.

"You know what, Bluebird? When you stop being so obsessed with yourself and realize there are other cats in the world, we'll talk. Maybe that's always been your problem. You can't see past your own big head. You share this huge piece of your heart, and then you're like 'Oh wait, did I actually show emotion? Better be a jerk so she doesn't think I'm a real cat!'"

Too furious too even look at him, Minkears darted out of the warriors' den. As she streaked across the camp, she almost tripped over Cammy and Specklenose, who were asleep on top of each other, looking as comfortable and happy as could be.

Swearing, Minkears skirted around them and sped into the woods.

- - - -

Ryan and I trotted alongside the stream, watching the evening sun shimmer on the water. "Today's been a surprisingly peaceful day," I said. "It's weird. Makes me jumpy."

"It's sad, how things seem too good to be true right now. It should be normal, all of us young cats becoming friends and hunting and talking together. But..." Ryan shrugged.

"There's a shadow. Something hanging over us..." I agreed. "I just don't know what it is. GreenClan? The League?" I sighed, gazing down at my own reflection in the quiet stream water. I dabbed my paw in the middle, sending ripples throughout the image of my face.

The ripples shook up the surface, making it seem like Ryan and I's reflections were merged together, a single black cat with one beating heart.

That was a silly thought. It must've been the beauty of the evening, making me all sentimental, so that the thought of me and Ryan like that actually gave me chills (Weird, I know. The good kind of chills).

"Tell me about your kithood," I said unexpectedly.

He looked at me curiously. "Uh, okay. There's not much to tell, really. Chamomile was the quiet one... Lily and I were the wild ones, pushing each other along the riverside and coming home looking like twin clumps of mud. Needle and Spine wouldn't win any commendations for their parenting skills, but they were still our mother and father. They picked us up when we fell, yelled at us when we accidentally caused a minor mudslide that may or may not have wiped out our first home, and took care of us as best as they could. I loved them. I still miss them sometimes."

"I know how you feel," I said softly. It felt offensive to speak too loudly, to break the spell of the evening.

"Lily wasn't always this jaded, you know. Back when we lived by the river, before GreenClan went on their massacre, she used to be so much fun. So loving. And I do love her, you know. I feel awful that she feels like I don't, but... she's so easy to rile up these days. She can't understand that Chamomile and I have found a semblance of happiness here."

I turned towards him so fast that I got a stitch in my neck. "Wait. Are you guys staying?"

Evading my question, Ryan continued, "I just wish Lily could settle down as well."

"Cats can change in response to sorrow. This is gonna sound really bad, but I was eavesdropping on Ren talking to Daisyheart earlier. He said that he and Saori used to be best friends with another street-cat called Timmy. Apparently, Timmy died in the Red Arena--that's a fighting place they have in Twolegplace. He was brutally murdered. Timmy had been their best friend since they were kits, living with their old Twolegs, and he and Saori had fallen in love. Ren says that he and Saori have done everything they can to escape the memory of the incident. Saori goes out with every tom she can find, but he says she still has this unfixable hole in the middle of her heart, and it's like she's just surviving, not really living, without it healed."

"Explains why Ren is so withdrawn. Though he seems to be making strides towards coming out of his shell," mused Ryan. "Isn't it... weird? How easily the heart bruises. It's like, how much can a cat take? How much can you lose before you lose yourself?"

I was quiet.

"But I have you..."

Again with the whiplash. I couldn't look at him fast enough (or long enough, it was beginning to feel like).

"... and... everyone else." He looked flustered, like he didn't know what else to say. "So it's like, it sometimes doesn't feel so hard to keep going."

"Uh. Yeah," I said intelligently.

Oh, StarClan. This wasn't going like it was supposed to, was it? I felt like if someone else were looking in on the scene, it'd look... well, there wasn't really any other word for it, romantic. Two cats sitting side-by-side on the bank of a river, pelts glowing in the soft light of the sunset, sharing bits of their lives that they'd never talked about with anyone before.

Except I wasn't romantic. Ryan wasn't really either, it turned out. And I sort of--this is going to sound crazy, and you're going to seriously doubt that I'm the same cat who chucks mice at other cats' heads--wanted it to be romantic.

So I decided to take matters into my own paws. Worst decision of my life. Clearing my throat, I began what I knew was going to turn into a wreck faster than the mudslide that "may or may not" have destroyed Ryan's family's first home. "So, uh, Ryan... I've been thinking about things."

"What do you mean by things?"

Good question. "Like, you know... us... When we first met, how we'd mock each other nonstop."

He cracked a smile. "I never was good at flirting."

Flirting? I tried to regather my scattered thoughts, which had scattered like feathers in a breeze at hearing that simple word. "So, yeah. Uh, anyway." StarClan, was I incapable of speaking coherently? "I just wanted to say that I'm glad that you decided to stay in the Clan. I know that there were a lot of odds stacked against us ever meeting in the first place. Pretty miraculous that we're sitting here in this moment, having been through all that we have. And well, I can't... I can't imagine my hypothetical life without you. Hypothetically."

Ryan raised one eyebrow. He was gazing at the stream, so it was impossible for me to tell what he was thinking, or gauge his reaction to my babbling.

In vain, I tried to save myself. "Whew, awkward... I just made everything awkward. Imagine that, me being awkward. I swear, I'm so socially disabled. It shouldn't be this weird. I mean, we're not strangers. We're friends, we care about each other--oh fox-dung, not to just assume that you care about me. Or even that we're friends, or anything. Is it hot out here? I think I'm going to-" I took a casual step forward and almost fell into the stream.

Noble as ever, Ryan deftly hooked a paw around me and held me back. "Careful." His gaze was unusually bright and warm; those gold-amber eyes were normally cool and collected, but not at this second. I could hear his heart beating really fast, we were so close together, and I wondered if it was because of me. "And Breezeflight, you're not assuming. I do care about you." The slightest bit of his regular smugness returned in the form of a half-cocked smirk. "Hypothetically."

I have no idea what I would've responded with, but I didn't get a chance to. Minkears came bursting out of the trees, yowling loudly. "There's a dog at the edge of our territory," she said, skidding to a stop in front of us.

Ryan and I jumped apart. Eyes wide and fur puffing up, I said, "Is it causing trouble?"

"Not yet, but here's the thing. It's crazy. It's got the madness."

A bolt of ice-cold fear streaked through my body. We'd all heard about the madness. When it took hold of an animal, there was no saving them. It robbed them of their mindset, their ability to control their body, their sanity. They wasted away, possessed and driven by the madness, foaming at the mouth and staggering uncontrollably.

A dog with the madness was a near certain death sentence. It was already at the edge of our territory, and it would only come closer and closer.

"What are we going to do?"

Minkears shook her head. "Just get back to camp. Quailstar's putting us on lockdown while we decide. No one's allowed in or out."

Ryan and I nodded gravely, and the three of us tore through the woods back to the camp.

The End