how the mighty fall ❧ // warrior cats

INTERLUDE III

     As he helps to treat the sick cats of BreezeClan, obediently trailing Crookedfoot of WillowClan to the ill, Coal hears cats ask for guidance from StarClan. From what he gathers, the Clans believe their ancestors to be sage messengers, stoic guardians, invoked in times of bounty and need alike. With the rabbit sickness running rampant, this is certainly a time of need.

     Unlike the Clan cats, Coal does not pray. If there were spirits waiting to guide their kin in desperate times, his mother would have spoken to him by now. She was so steady in life, so sleek and sure and sweet.

     In death, she is silent.

     Truthfully, he cannot recall her voice. Her final screams are carved into his heart, the first taste of sacrifice he has ever known, but when he tries to dredge up simple sentences in her voice, he fails. Even his own name eludes him. Did she ever speak his name at all?

     Coaxing a frail apprentice into swallowing the bitter herbs Thrushpaw brought to ease the sickness, Coal despises the details that have yet to desert him, the awful memories so intrinsically linked to his mother no matter how often he wishes they were not. Sometimes, the wind is still and the sky clean, and yet he smells smoke. It assaults him, makes him want to retch. If he's in private, he often does.

     Other times, like now, as he finally succeeds in dealing with the brown tom before him, he feels stinging on his skin, hot and prickly, like the sizzling touch of embers. There is never anything there, though, when he itches and scratches and gnaws at the sensation. He has learned to ignore it, to pretend he does not believe there are a thousand ants crawling beneath his pelt. No one knows.

     Thankfully, time has dulled these hallucinations to a mere nuisance, not a debilitating intrusion. They have lost their bite to long moons of the barest survival. One, though, is still a steady ghost, haunting Coal mercilessly, and living among ShadeClan has taught him that, were he a religious cat, he would pray to be left alone.

     The yellow eyes never fail to jar him, to set his fur on end. They hover in bright flashes of lightning, and occasionally stare at him from the round moon. But lately, they follow him critically. To make them go away, he must either make eye contact or look aside, because they watch him only from the fleeting corners of his vision. The former technique, however, has become much less successful. Often, when he looks up, those yellow eyes remain.

     One day, Coal suspects that Stonetail will ask why he avoids her gaze. He plans to tell her nothing, or at least not to make a verbal confession. With any luck, bowing his head and keeping his distance will convince the grey warrior that he fears her, or at least defers to her. Feigning submission is so much easier than looking her in the eyes.

     Sometimes, most of the time, her gaze is a pale green, like her mother's. But Coal has seen her wear the yellow eyes like a second skin. She doesn't know, of course; she cannot see the yellow eyes like he can. No one can see the yellow eyes like he can.

     Left alone as Crookedfoot goes in search of the next patient, Coal feels smoke trickling down his throat, and though he is not a religious cat, he closes his eyes and prays.

     "Kiona. Mother. Take them away. I've done my best to get away, and I've kept Clay safe. I can't rest, though; the eyes don't leave. Please take them away."

     He sits in silence for a heartbeat. The smoke tickles his lungs, in no rush to depart. But he quickly realizes that this smoke is more than his harried heart playing tricks on him. It is a secret, biding its time but ready to emerge, fully realized.

     "Take them," he asks one final time. "If they're here, I can't stay. And I want to stay."