Warriors #6: A Kittypet's Destiny

Chapter 13

Swiftflight's POV

Sol, my former apprentice may be a cranky furball at times, but he's not a malicious bystander...

I could almost visualize the images and words bouncing off of the bramble walls as my mind spiraled with all of the moments I was reliving from yesterday's horrible events. They seemed to be haunting me as strongly as Ashfur ever had.

...Of course Swiftflight would say anything to help his reputation...

...Are you so sure about that? His past wouldn't do the best job of backing that up...

I let out a quiet, frustrated hiss, as those last words spoken by Sol always nearly felt like a physical scratch across my chest each time they crossed my mind again. His past wouldn't do the best job of backing that up...

I sighed and shifted in my nest from where I lied alone in the warriors den, going from lying on my back to settling down on my stomach, although every position I would attempt would surely not feel comfortable.

His past wouldn't do the best job of backing that up...

I let out a hiss of frustration, my thoughts jabbing at me like the most annoying woodpecker that could possibly be created. "Great StarClan," I muttered irritably to myself, beginning to push the mouse in front of me back and forth mindlessly with my paws. Why did Sol have to cause all of that to resurface in the first place? I certainly didn't need a reminder of how I used to act! I thought. How did he even know about how selfish I was? Why was he so horrible as to use it to his advantage?

I then angrily pushed my mouse to the side. And so many cats believed him... I recalled solemnly. They... they believed that I had been the one to lie. They barely had to give it a second thought!

I then felt my ears flatten and my shoulders sink as a sad, but truthful realization then seemed to be laid out in front of me. As much as I hated to admit it, these Clanmates who doubted me... honestly had all the right to. Sol was right - my past wouldn't back me up very well, and this situation had surely reminded many cats of how cold-hearted I had used to be.

They have all the reason to think that I did what Sol is saying that I did... or rather didn't do. That was my problem when I was under Ashfur's controlling trap. It wasn't what I did do, it was what I didn't do that made me such a terrible cat, I thought as I shook my head slowly. Wow... my past choices are definitely having an effect on my future, aren't they? But it all still feels unfair, because my past choices don't represent who I'm trying to be now.

I then let out another sigh and pulled my mouse back in front of me with a single paw, a piece of prey that Snowstorm had brought to me just a little earlier - Snowstorm being one of the cats that actually believed me, even despite all she had seen of my past.

And thank StarClan, she wasn't the only one. Goldenshine, Lilypetal, Thornclaw, Ivypool, Foxleap, Cherrypaw, and some senior warriors all had willingly defended me. They either trusted me, or just knew what Sol was like and were already set on not trusting a word that he said.

But yet, I had never known the strange calico cat at all, but I knew for sure that he was trouble. I mean, he lied. Unless I had been in some weird, unconscious kind of shut-down mode, and Goldenshine had been hallucinating, I had been the one to scare off the fox. Which I had - I would never forget how amazing I felt afterwards, having saved Cherrypaw and Molepaw from danger, and wiping away the only other scary memory of a fox that I'd had.

So, that meant that Sol had lied, which clearly meant that he couldn't be trusted. Even if cats didn't trust me, why couldn't they tell that Sol was trouble all on his own? He didn't need another cat in the mix to reveal his manipulative, deceiving ways. After what I'd been through, I could smell even the smallest amounts of manipulation and deception anywhere.