Darkstar's Wrath - A Faith's Journey Super Edition

Chapter 49

Darkblood felt a shadow cross over his form.

Blinking open his amber eyes, he caught sight of something. A wisp of shadow was weaving its way across the den toward the entrance. 

Darkblood couldn't quite tell what it was.

Getting slowly to his paws, more alert than before, Darkblood rolled his shoulders in an attempt to shake the lingering sleep from his pelt.

The shadowy figure didn't stop, it simply kept going forward. Exhaling, Darkblood followed after it, picking his way through his sleeping clanmates as he did so.

At the top of the slope, Darkblood looked around the camp clearing, his eyes searching for what he saw.

"Hello Darkblood." A voice called out to him.

Whipping his head around and toward the sound, Darkblood watched with widening eyes, as the shadow moved and formed into the shape of Shadowripple.

Shadowripple stood, watching Darkblood with his gray eyes, looking more silver than normal.

"What are you doing here?" Darkblood demanded, his claws pressing into the ground.

"I wanted to see you." Shadowripple said like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Darkblood thought for a moment, blinking at his old mentor.

"Am I awake?"

Shadowripple nodded. "Yes, you are."

"Why?" Darkblood asked him. "Why are you here? I haven't seen you since..."

"The Dark Forest. The night Pinepaw was killed." Shadowripple finished.

"When you did nothing to help!" Darkblood countered, narrowing his eyes. 

"That was something you had to face. On your own." Shadowripple looked him in the eyes. "You see Darkblood, when certain things happen to you, you learn that you can only focus on yourself."

"What do you know?" Darkblood growled, images of Pinepaw beginning to fill his mind.

"You don't want to hear that?" Shadowripple questioned, not answering him.

"No, I don't." Darkblood answered.

A pause rose to fill the gap in conversation.

"I haven't seen you in moons, only for you to show up now." Darkblood turned toward the Warrior's burrow, not wanting to see what his past contained.

"Darkblood, don't." Shadowripple started to say.

"Who are you, Shadowripple?" Darkblood turned toward him again.

"Who am I?" Shadowripple rose to his paws. His shadowy form padded closer to Darkblood, until they were a mere tail-length apart. "I was once like you Darkblood. Lost, looked down upon. My clan turned their back on me." He swept his gaze around the clearing before coming back to Darkblood, locking their gazes. "This clan, to be exact." A growl slipped into Shadowripple's voice. He began to sound angrier than Darkblood had ever heard him. "I was thought of as weak. No cat thought I would survive past kithood. But I did. And they continued to hate me because of it."

Darkblood's mouth was slightly agape as he listened to Shadowripple's story. Part of him wanted to turn away and bury it down, but another part of him chose to stay.

"I showed them." Shadowripple continued, his claws coming out, glinting silver in the pale moonlight. "I showed all of them. I proved to FoxClan that I was not weak. Not a weakness. I trained harder than any of them. Worked harder than any clan cat. I could overcome any enemy that crossed my path. All with the Dark Forest's help." Shadowripple gray eyes bore into Darkblood's. "You're not the only cat to have killed as an apprentice, Darkblood. They got what they deserved." Deep in Shadowripple's eyes, he looked to be remembering something. "The Dark Forest was there for me when no other cat was. For that, they will have my allegiance before any other. I thought we shared that sentiment, Darkblood. I thought you and I were alike. To show that we are more. But you turned your back." Shadowripple took another pawstep closer to Darkblood as he said that. "When those close to you turn their back, you do the same, huh?"

"You don't know me." Darkblood said, looking into his former mentor's eyes. "Not anymore."

"I don't know you? I was you, Darkblood. The Dark Forest made me who I am. Let me tell you this." Shadowripple answered. "The past will always be chasing you. It won't let you go. But you can be so much more than it. Trust me."

Darkblood opened his mouth to reply but Shadowripple turned around in a blur of darkness. His thin tail came up and hit Darkblood's chest as he turned away from him. A moment later, Shadowripple disappeared right in front of him, a few pawsteps away, leaving Darkblood alone in the darkness of the clearing.