oathkeeper ⚜ // warrior cats

Chapter Two

     "You did well." Cinderfoot's praise used to bring me warmth, but now I just think of the queen and the kits she lost, born and unborn alike. Doing well meant sacrificing her for the future. Her life was the price for prosperity. Doing well can be exceptionally cruel.

     We walk together along the river, having brought the kits to their Clan, leaving them just outside the camp. No one saw us, though someone might have smelled me (and not Cinderfoot, lucky ghost that he can be), but they are likely too preoccupied to search out their heroes. So we walk alone along the river, pretending everything is all right, and that we are not killers as much as we are protectors.

     Once, I asked Cinderfoot how he coped with the oaths. Most are like this one, requiring us to humor malevolence to encourage later benevolence, asking that we play the role of hero and villain alike. At first, he said nothing. Then he said that he just lived oath to oath, and counted his remaining moons of service when he could. Because it would be over someday, and someone else would have to wrestle with his burden instead. That someone being me. So we don't talk about it, because that's easier, and nothing else is so easy in our half-lived lives.

     Where the river curves, streams pour into it, swollen from new-leaf rains. At the first of these, we branch away from the main course and head for the trees, following the path that brought us here, smelling of minnows and misfortune. The first few tail-lengths within the fringe are dry and scattered with gnarled shrubs ready to unfurl as new-leaf marches on. Then, the canopy of the forest grows denser, blocking out the light and throwing shadows across the earth, shadows that grab and reach, threatening to tear out the heart of anyone who strays for too long. In this region, we find the circle of stones that will return us to the fields of StarClan to await the next oath we must keep.

     "Will you be staying?" asks Cinderfoot. I shake my head, stepping into the circle beside him. The stones glow with a soft green light that never fails to make my stomach churn, even after almost thirty moons. We travel in this way, pulled from this place and that time, back to StarClan's fields, or the reverse. Between assignments, I use the circles to visit my Clan, and in that respect, this oath is no different from any other. Cinderfoot will return to seclusion among the dead, and I will enter the one realm where I can be a ghost, in seclusion among the living.

     The world blurs, swirling out of focus before snapping back in a flurry of moonlight. I sway, searching for my balance, and as soon as my head clears, I leave Cinderfoot behind. He is already loping away to his den, hidden by a stream, tucked underneath a rocky overhang. That is his peaceful place, tranquility made tangible. Mine, though, is through another portal.

     He used to try to keep me in StarClan. His reasoning was that it hurt to go back, and he wasn't wrong. It hurts so much every time I look on my Clan, alive and thriving without me. Granted, it's the oaths I keep that allow them to prosper, but being a part of the grand scheme of thing feels the same as not being important at all, not that that stops me from being a glutton for punishment. By myself, I enter the other portal and reappear in a forest touched by the sun, still dripping from greenleaf rains. It is a beautiful day to break my own heart again.

    This is the one world where I am a ghost, albeit not by choice. In my own timeline, no one can see me, and I cannot change anything. There are no oaths here, and even if there were, a different Oathkeeper from a different time would address them. StarClan has accounted for conflicts of interest by making me powerless in the one place that I would give anything to bring about change.

    At least there is peace now. The itch to alter the world hasn't crept up on me yet, though it's only a matter of time. I follow the familiar tracks back to camp, relishing the roll of pebbles below my paws as I stroll, drinking in the old scents that have been ground into the earth. This is home, no matter how many moons go by, and every step is familiar as it was the day I died. The narrow track between rocky shelves is as worn as ever, and the ferns around the corner are out of control. Hawkstar could order them trimmed back every moon and they would still spring back, lush and so alive. I slide beneath their fronds, arching my back into the curves, and then hurry to move aside as Yarrowtail skitters through, on a mission to please her mentor if I had to guess. But today, she is not the one I'm looking for.