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PAWS buried within the yellow sand, the tom watched as gentle waves lapped up against the shore. He followed the water with his eyes and became dizzy with the thought of having lost his best friend. She was dead yet again having drowned under the tides of her longing. His heart beat matched the thoughts in his head, drumming within his chest. It knocked against his ribs so passionately, Beetleleap thought his heart would grow wings and fly out of the cage of his ribs. Follow her. His heart thundered. Get her back.
His brain spoke differently. Don't. His head was too rooted to follow such bad decisions. While his heart was unrestrained without an inch of sense, his head was quite the opposite.
But Beetleleap was a cat of heart. He always listened to the rhythm of it, the way his soul turned emotions into music only he could hear. This time, his music was drowning out his sense. It was too loud to simply ignore.
Beetleleap jumped into the lake. Larkmoon was his friend and if she was missing, his whole world was too. The purple tom plunged under the water, expecting it to embrace him warmly. Though the waves were traced with frost and instead of hugging him, they pushed the tom around. The water rocked back and forth, forcing Beetleleap's head to dunk under and come up every second.
The splashing of water stung him in the eyes. Blinded, the tom was doused under the flood, bubbles screeching in his ears. Panicked as he held his breath, time was running out. Beetleleap paddled his way to the surface, crashing his head above the waves and sucked in another large breath before he was tugged under again. For being a dead cat, he felt very much alive.
Finally, as he was on the last second of his last breath, a bright light emerged at the bottom of the pool. Though it was captivating, it was too powerful for his eyes. It wasn't long before Beetleleap was snapped into a different world.
The tom was thrown onto a new ground as a shivering mess. He didn't lie down for long before he realized: the ground! He was washed in relief as he began to climb to his paws. Just as he stood, his eyes were greeted by another pair of green ones.
"Beetleleap, I've been expecting you."
―
Larkmoon! Larkmoon! She could hear a voice call in the faint distance of the never-ending blackness. Her body twitched, wanting to turn around and respond to the call. There was nowhere to go. "Larkmoon!" Abruptly, the voice sounded right into her ear. The she-cat awoke with a mighty jolt.
Instantly, her eyes were submerged into a real world. Earthly colors she had longed to see in StarClan were thrown into her face. A grand breath filled her once empty lungs and made her heart beat in her chest again. Larkmoon was roused into life. And though it was painful, having her vitals once again work, it gave her hope.
"Hurry up! All the other apprentices are leaving already." That hope wasn't very long-lasting. The impatient noise belonged to her apprentice, Redpaw. Larkmoon studied her thoroughly having missed seeing her flaming red fur and brown eyes. She looked the same as Larkmoon had left her, eager and full of fire to learn.
"I'm alive?" Larkmoon mumbled under her breath, realizing the apprentice bouncing around her was real. Am I dreaming again?
Redpaw shot her a funny look, "Why wouldn't you be?"
Larkmoon ignored her apprentice's comment and gradually stood to her paws. She wobbled, feeling like a newborn deer. The ginger tabby cautiously made her way, slipping through the darkness of the den and into the light of the forest. Peeking her nose through the wall of brambles, the breath was stolen from her lungs.
It was breathtaking to see everything again. Her memories had overlooked the little details of the forest. She remembered how blue the sky was but forget the erratic nature of the clouds. She remembered how the leaves on the trees used to collect into a green crowd but forgot how each individual leaf had a different shape than the other. Oh, the earth! She thought as she pinched the soil with her claws. The relief felt like a storm in the depths of her soul. She was finally home.
"Good morning, sleepy head," A gruff voice snapped her from her haze of thought. Larkmoon turned her head, her eyes widening as she confronted the owner of the voice. It was the large tabby figure of Hollowhawk, a tom she had grown to know over time. "I've been looking for you all morning."
Before Larkmoon could respond to the ThunderClan deputy, Redpaw cut her short, "I was trying to wake her up." Her apprentice was full of comical annoyance, stomping around the two cats as impatiently as she could.
Hollowhawk spared a handsome grin, his alabaster teeth a big contrast to the yellow hue in his eyes. "Did you have a late night?" He wondered, focusing his stunning eyes back on the ginger she-cat.
"I- I don't remember." The ginger tabby mumbled, trying to search through her boxes of stored memories, searching for the moments before she left the earth. Nothing came to mind. Instead, she only saw Deadrush's violent green eyes. They shimmered fiercely, reminding her only of the wicked deal she had agreed to.
"Well, no worries then." Hollowhawk ruffled his soil-colored fur and noticed an elder was calling him from across the campsite. He let out a tired sigh, "I'll have to catch up with you two later." He dipped his head in a matter to excuse himself politely. "Happy hunting!" He shouted before proceeding to scurry away.
Larkmoon watched the deputy leave. Now that she had returned, she seemed to take notice in every little detail. She admired how Hollowhawk walked; how he carried himself in such a kingly manner, one would think his head was holding a crown. The way Hollowhawk walked made her think, wherever he went, I would surely follow.
"Are you in love?" Redpaw ambushed Larkmoon's thoughts while also bearing a cheeky smile.
Larkmoon huffed, wanting to avoid her apprentice's query. She made a beeline for the thorn tunnel, eager to see the woodlands again. She wanted nothing more than the wind in her fur and the soil beneath her claws. Finally, she exclaimed to Redpaw, "It's a long story that I don't have time for."
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Ever since he was a kit, Hollowhawk admired the elders. Though their eyes were old and going a little blind, they had witnessed pieces of history. And though their minds were graying, they held the wisest advice. There was no cat, no position in the Clan quite like the elders.
"Hollowhawk," A scratchy cough summoned his name. Hollowhawk. He hated his name. Every time he heard it, it brought back millions of memories he didn't want to remember.
"Please, just Hawk is fine." His late mother gifted him the prefix 'hollow' but it wasn't much of a gift. He liked to believe that she named him Hollowkit out of the hollowness in herself; in regards to the void in her heart.
Even now, when she was somewhere buried beneath the earth, Hollowhawk could still feel the terror she gave him. The feeling of when he used to stare into her blue eyes and only see her emotions frozen in ice. Hollowhawk learned from too young of an age, that if he slipped and fell under, he would be greeted with what felt like death. So, he stayed afraid.
"You should keep your name. It honors your mother." The elderly she-cat insisted, drawing nearer to the deputy. "She was a wonderful cat. If only she was here to see you now."
Hollowhawk's head slumped in sadness. "She was a stranger to me." The truth was almost as cold as her eyes: when his mother died, it was like the death of a stranger.
Hollowhawk never wasted a tear on her corpse, instead, he found her death to be a blessing. For the reason that if she had lived now, Hollowhawk would be the one underground. "Enough about her." He changed the subject calmly, "What did you need me for?"
The elder didn't mind moving from the previous topic, she eased right into the next one, "Who was that she-cat you were chatting with?" Once again, she proceeded in nosing her way into Hollowhawk's life.
Hollowhawk would usually find it strange that an elder didn't recognize a warrior, though he knew that with time, memory fades. "That was Larkmoon." He would never forget her. Larkmoon lived in, not only his memories, but in everything he did. She could be dead in real life but still be alive within him.
"Larkmoon?" The elder suddenly seemed extremely startled. She backed away a couple of steps, her face scrunched in mighty confusion. "But-" She sputtered, "But she died moons ago."
Hollowhawk hesitated. He stared at this elder under a harsh eye. She doesn't know what she's talking about, he thought, there's no way- "You must be confused."
"Don't mistake my old age for madness, Hollowhawk." The elder warned with a sharp tongue. She was right and wrong at the same time: right because Hollowhawk shouldn't judge her for being old, wrong because Larkmoon was surely alive.
It made him angry. The deputy's insides were coated in an nettled emotion. How was he having an argument about living proof? "If she is dead then how is she standing here, right now?" This was a waste of his time and breath. He was the deputy, for StarClan's sake, he shouldn't be here, coaching elderly cats back into their memory.
"I don't know-"
"Exactly my point: you don't know," Hollowhawk had enough arguing for the day. He strode for the exit swiftly, declaring"Farewell," as he left. He stepped back into the golden light of the sun, the warmth trickling through his long furs. The tabby tom strode through the campsite, greeting his fellow warriors with a kind smile. However, the elder's words hung like storm clouds in his head. Reflecting on what had been said, his eyes followed where Larkmoon had walked, imaging her ginger coat right before him. He respected the elders too much to ridicule them, though this one's words, he found hard to believe. Larkmoon, dead? Not a chance.
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