THE STOLEN || OLD - being rewritten

Chapter 2 - { Talk Therapy }

"Look to the black night sky,
and soar above the stars back to your hazy childhood memories.
Forget this place and all the blood.
You'll be safe up there with the moon.
Don't cry my love, I'll be with you soon."

Darkpaw sauntered into camp with a heavy heart and empty paws. Her gaze fixed on the earth in front of her, expression dark and furious, cats stepping away to avoid the storm that had just entered their camp. The tortoiseshell's tail lashed back and forth, claws tearing up the earth behind her as she stalked into the apprentices den. The apprentice flopped down in her nest, facing away from the den entrance. Curling her tail around herself she melted into her own thoughts, vanishing from her reality.

The soft nest of moss, bracken and feathers was nothing now. Her hard work yesterday and her hard made soft nest so that she could sleep well in anticipation of the assessment that she had failed was all a half-hearted attempt to comfort herself into thinking that she had a chance. Spiraling. Worthless. Stupid. Incompetent. Pathetic. Self-Pitying. Reckless. Irresponsible. Unwanted. Flicking her tail tip back and forth she clashed with the gnaw in the pit of her stomach. If it was this easy to crumble down into misery then she wondered who of her parents had passed it down and carried the same trait.

Perhaps it was Brightfur? She seemed the more emotional and sensitive of her two parents. She made an effort. She tried. She wanted to be a part of her childrens lives. Or maybe, it was Beechtwist? He seemed the bitter, miserable type. Darkpaw could picture her father in her head, curled up in his nest, just like her, gutting himself over his mistakes without doing anything about them.

That's where she and her father differed. After this failure, Darkpaw would stop at nothing until she succeeded and proved that she was able to do it. That she could succeed. Flattening her ears, she breathed, consumed, completely and utterly by the toxicity of her own mind.

"I heard you failed your assessment. It's no big surprise given your bloodline. Filled with traitors and pathetic weaklings."

Darkpaw would have almost better liked being alone to sulk for the rest of the day instead of having her local mountain lion enter the den and give more ruthless taunts. When she was younger it had been harder to take no notice of Smallpaw's nit picking. She had been more open to cruelty back then. That was before she decided she wouldn't be the insecure she-cats scratching post any longer.

"Coming from a half-clan cat, I find that pretty rich. Atleast my blood remains within BlazingClan territory." She mewed back in an even tone. It wasn't actually proved that Smallpaw was half-clan. No cat had any idea who her father was but it was well known that Bloomdance was a lover of love. According to Brightfur she had almost stolen her fathers heart at one point. But even though no cat knew who Smallpaw's father was, they all knew he wasn't from BlazingClan.

The cream tabby growled, her pelt spiking slightly. "You-" she started.

"You, what?" Mosspelt's shadow fell upon them both, instantly silencing them both.

Smallpaw whipped around, standing on her toes, tail sticking straight up. "I was just offering some support to Darkpaw. She seemed a little doom and gloom so I thought I could help her out!"

Mosspelt flicked an ear. "If only that were true." Her voice was blunt and unemotional.

Smallpaw flattened her ears, huffing before stalking back out of the den.

Mosspelt stepped further into the den. "Ivystripe wants to see you."

"Why doesn't she come and get me herself?"

"You'll have to ask her that." Mosspelt mewed with a calm disposition, her voice still firm from when Darkpaw had snapped at her earlier.

Darkpaw adored her mentor. Most of the time, Mosspelt felt more like her mother than Brightfur did. She had always known that the relationship between Mentor and Apprentice was something to be cherished. Like, Shadowpaw's relationship with Tigerfall for example. Shadowpaw and Tigerfall always enjoyed themselves and worked hard. She knew that Shadowpaw also adored his mentor. For the two of them, their mentors were like something descended from StarClan to save them from the cruel reality of their own dysfunctional and absent family. The wholesomeness ate away at any raw resentment or loneliness they felt, to replenish their joy with hours of euphoria. Perhaps it was bad to be so addicted to the mere presence of your mentor, but Darkpaw and her brother couldn't help but collapse in the comfort of the cat that rescued them from the pits of their own despair.