Jaggedstar's Choice {COMPLETE}

Chapter 43

Jaggedtail had barely slept in the past few days, his mind was plagued with thoughts of LichenClan's future. He had gone over so many different scenarios, but the only ones that he saw working were the ones were Elmstar was no longer leader. He didn't know what to do, he didn't know if he could bring himself to kill his best friend, even the thought made Jaggedtail sick.

Three sunrises had passed since Elmstar took a swipe at Jaggedtail and he hadn't said a word to his leader, he kept patrols going but morale in LichenClan was incredibly low, in the days that followed, Cedarcloud and Poppywing had lost their lives to sickness and the once full elder's den was only inhabited by Barksong, the old she-cat was incredibly upset by the death of all of her friends. There was no more sickness in the Clan, but only because it had died out with the cats who carried it.

The cats who fought in the battle were recovering, the worst had been Fieldfoot, Mousethorn and Cherrypool but all were recovering well. Jaggedtail was glad that his mate was doing well, but there was a dark cloud over LichenClan and if Jaggedtail didn't do something soon, then a violent storm would be unleashed upon the Clan. Snow still covered the forest floor and the cats were still cold with prey running lower and lower. Leaf-bare is far from over, and the same can be said for LichenClan's strife.

Jaggedtail needed advice, usually he would go to Maplepool, Cherrypool or Elmstar but he felt that none of them could give him the answers that he needed. Instead, Jaggedtail found himself walking to the medicine cat den. He stepped inside where Barkclaw was cleaning up his now empty den.

"Barkclaw, I need to talk to you." He spoke once inside.

"About what?" Barkclaw's voice was dry, the medicine cat sounded so defeated. Jaggedtail felt a pang of sympathy for the young medicine cat, he had lost so much in just a few short days. A lot of us have.

"Elmstar."

Barkclaw tensed but sat down, facing Jaggedtail. "Go on then, talk."

"I know now that I made the wrong choice." Jaggedtail began, but he could tell that the medicine cat was confused. "Sorry--" He cleared his throat. "Before Sagefeather died she told me that I would have to make a choice, and that this choice would change LichenClan forever. I made a choice to follow Elmstar into that battle when I should've tried to stop it."

Barkclaw nodded slowly. "Sagefeather had mentioned something about a choice, but never explained it."

"I see now that Elmstar needs to be stopped, something happened to him and he is going to destroy this Clan if he isn't stopped. I needed to know if StarClan told you anything about Elmstar's dreams."

Barkclaw shook his head. "StarClan has been silent."

Jaggedtail flicked his ear. "Well I need to do something, and I know that Elmstar won't step down. I need to chase him out of the Clan, then maybe I could take the leadership from him."
Barkclaw sighed. "Unfortunately, it won't be that easy." He mewed.

"I know it won't be easy."

"That's not what I meant," Barkclaw rested his tail across his paws. "If you do manage to chase Elmstar out and go to the Moonstone to get your nine lives, you won't get them. You'll get one life, which isn't much different than now."

Jaggedtail flattened his ears. "What? Why not?"

"As long as Elmstar still has lives you won't be able to get all nine of yours, even if Elmstar was on his final life you would only be able to get eight. If you want all nine lives, Elmstar would need to lose all of his or have them removed by going to StarClan and stepping down as leader before then, which you said he wouldn't do."