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She wasn't the same Sunpetal her former mentor would remember, though she'd be willing to bet that Rosethorn was neither the same cat she'd once been either.
Since the accost of SummerClan's freedom and subsequent murder of her Papi, thank StarClan for his spare lives, the Garden Keeper roved around like a zombie - mindless, somber, and stifled. Pinesimmer seemed to be just as invested in her every move as was Doefreckle, and she was fast growing agitated by the constant surveillance she was subjected to, though there appeared no easy out. Except...
There was one other soul aching for vengeance in this camp. Rosethorn was wronged in different but just as devastating ways as Sunpetal, and it was her former mentor she sought out in the foggy dawn. The NightClan cats - save for the two guards making oogle eyes at each other across camp when they should have been paying attention to their prisoners - were all tucked into their confiscated nests. The cream-and-gray she-cat appeared to be too, but a well-placed, sharp jab to her shoulder roused her gaze to meet Sunpetal's shifty one. "Shh. C'mon." She turned and left without another word.
Rosethorn stirred, raising her head blearily before registering with considerable surprise who was summoning her. Damn Nightclan and their rules, she'd go out when she damn well pleased. She stood swiftly, following her former apprentice away from prying eyes and into the forest.
When Sunpetal turned to her, she raised her eyebrow, waiting for her to speak. The fog was wrapped around them like a cloak, hiding them from view, providing an insulation from the constant reminders of their clan's occupation. They have been a one-sided enemy before, but now they were allies in this matter, at least.
She didn't need any provocation for the dam to burst. "I'm so tired of this crap!" She screamed into the mist but nothing responded, only a resounding silence. "Everyone looks so hopeless and defeated like they're waiting for someone to save them. It's like they expect Papi to get better overnight and set things right, but he can't, and we're stuck in this, and I just want to everything to be normal again!" Sunpetal was openly weeping now, hot tears scorching down her face, unable to ground herself as she allowed the hopelessness to come crashing over her.
Rosethorn watched in shock for a few seconds, before stepping over and resting her tail gently on Sunpetal's back. She didn't coo over her or tell her everything would be alright- Sunpetal would appreciate neither the patronizing attitude nor the uncertain statement. "You're right," she said quietly, glancing up and off into the fog. "There's no sense of hope among us- and that's worse than any set of circumstances that could be imposed on our clan. For what it's worth, I'm sorry about your father. And I'm sorry my brother-in-law couldn't fight his way back."
The garden keeper sighed, flicking an ear back. "It's clear no clan's coming to help us. If we want to change anything about our situation, we're going to have to do it ourselves, which is easier said than done with our pacifist lot."
It was several minutes before the young cat collected herself, swallowing back the rest of her anguish. Though she wouldn't dare say so, Rosethorn's condolences were appreciated and her agreement brought a fresh wave of hope into Sunpetal's chest - the only sign of it a revived glint in her sapphire gaze. "I know. I-I'm scared," she admitted quietly. It was only due to Rosethorn's title as her former mentor, something that had garnered some modicum of respect from her former apprentice, that allowed her to be honest, be vulnerable. She didn't know how to navigate something like this without the guidance of her father, but with Ratstar's latest injury - of which she hadn't told the clan. Only herself, Pinesimmer, and the leader knew of what transpired in Vulturemalice's den that night, and even as she yearned to share the truth, it was just another bullet she had to bite back - she knew he couldn't be there to help her through this.
"I'm scared," she repeated hesitantly, "but I'm going to fight them. Bubbie and Fisherpounce taught me a little, hopefully enough to get me by, but even if it isn't... I can't just do nothing anymore. I can't just sit back and watch everyone I love suffer any longer."
"You can't fight them alone, Sunpetal," Rosethorn said, her eyes widening in surprise. "You'll throw your life away and nothing will change." After a long pause, she spoke again. "But if you want to do something about this, I'll help. I'd rather be dead in the ground than letting Nightclan trample over us like this."
She stepped off after nosing her shoulder one last time, sighing thoughtfully. "I admire your bravery- and I'm sure if the clan had someone to rally around, we could find a way to come together. As it is, they've done a good job of separating us and breaking our spirit."
Rosethorn's gaze returned to Sunpetal with a hint of an idea in her gaze. "I've been gone a long time, and I've brought back this disaster on my heels. But you... you're Ratstar's daughter. You were involved in parts of his leadership. You've got a good head on your shoulders and the cats of Summerclan trust you. If you can hold off on the attack and be patient, I bet the two of us could get the others into fighting shape and put together a plan."
Her shoulders were able to relax momentarily, comforted by Rosethorn's offer. She'd dreaded going into this all alone and not knowing how she'd come out on the other side, but at least for now they could forge an unlikely partnership.
I'm sure if the clan had someone to rally around... Hadn't Doefreckle said something similar to her before, when he'd begged her to escape? The memory felt fuzzy, as if some distant flame in this suffocating mist, but it was real and she dared to believe she felt its warmth across the void. "Even if we could rally everyone, who's even going to listen to us?" Some of the warriors sneered at their prowess, citing the Garden Keeper profession as the weaker link among SummerClan's ranks, and she wasn't sure they could alter that opinion in its darkest days. "I only know a little about fighting, and you... You don't fight at all."
“I can fight, now,” Rosethorn admitted, glancing back at the fog. “After I lost my kits… I lost a lot of my aversion to death. Phantomfox taught me the basics- and my sister Orchiddrop is an excellent fighter. If we can find ways to sneak around the guards, we can train- and train others who want to learn.”
Rosethorn half smiled. “Give yourself some credit. Fat lot of good the warriors did when we were invaded- they have no room to criticize. The former deputy and the daughter of a leader should have enough pull to organize cats who are better at fighting. It’s that or go one on one with Aspenstar and die in less than a minute flat.”
The flame was brighter now and there was no denying the heat it was outputting. It was making her overly eager, spurned on by that far-off glow that might be what would lead them out of this endless night. "I had an idea, too. When we were patrolling with one of the guards, Sunpaw saw fireflies for the first time and I thought that, maybe, the NightClan cats would be out of their element too. I thought it was a stupid thing to think at first but now... Who knows SummerClan territory better than its Garden Keepers? If we can learn to fight, maybe we can lay traps for them or ambush them!" Maybe, just maybe, they could actually pull that rebellion off if they used their wits to supplement what they lacked in martial conditioning, and the prospect had her speaking her thoughts in rapid succession.
When Sunpetal finally allowed herself a pause, she took a step closer to Rosethorn, eyes flickering to the new scars adorning her chest. "Phantomfox is... the big one, right?" The ugly brute at Aspenstar's heel, she thought, but he looked terrifying and merciless, poised to attack anyone who tread too close to him. She gazed at Rosethorn in a new light; she wasn't the same cat who'd left, but Sunpetal wasn't the same Sunpaw either. "Will you teach me? Please? If you can teach me, I can believe we can do this."
“Very innovative. I think it could work,” Rosethorn said, with a growing smile. There was a glimmer of hope in her own heart, and she’d never been one to take abuse lying down. She’d do whatever it took, but Sunpetal’s idea made her think they might have a fighting chance. “Good thinking. It’ll take time to organize, but it’s clever.”
Rosethorn glanced down at her scars with a rueful smile. “Yes, that’s the one. My former husband. He taught me a decent amount, and we can supplement our learning from elsewhere.” At Sunpetal’s last request she grinned, bumping her shoulder lightly. “Of course I’ll teach you. What else are mentors for?”
Sunpetal's ensuing smile was faint - the only transferral of an apology she was willing to give. "I promise I won't be as resistant as I used to be," she vowed, following her reappointed mentor into the gloomy woods. The further they were from camp, the higher the chances were of remaining undiscovered. "Okay, I'm ready when you are."
A smile was more than Rosethorn could've hoped for even a few weeks ago. She smiled back- she'd never been the one with the grudge, after all- and stopped in the misty hollow at the far end of the territory. Mentoring was natural for her, easy, as she'd trained Sunpetal as Sunpaw and also given Foxpaw some pointers. The only thing to do now was shift her mind from teaching garden keeping to teaching fighting...
"Give me a little demonstration of what you already know," she said, sitting back and watching as Sunpetal complied. "I suppose we can start with some of the underhanded strikes Phantomfox taught me. Hold your paw like this..."
The rest of the time was spent like this, with Rosethorn drilling and testing Sunpetal. She was more insistent, a little stricter, because with the lack of time on their side this was no casual training. But at the end, she smiled, signaling for the younger she-cat to stop. "You've got a sharp mind, and you learn fast. You always have, but it's coming in handy now. You must've learned it from me," Rosethorn said, rolling out her stiff shoulders. "We should get back to camp before everyone wakes- what do you think our next steps are?"
"You give yourself a lot of credit," panted Sunpetal, pleasantly exhausted. She never thought she would have missed the simple autonomy of training whenever she pleased or the way her body strained to its limits. She certainly had more endurance than she did the last time she and Rosethorn trained - gasping and red in the face by short runs - and it was showing now, evidenced in her capacity to train longer.
She flexed her claws as they turned to go. "We should keep this up for a few days - whenever we can. We can mention it to others casually, but we'll have to be careful of drawing too much attention. Too many of us leaving at once will be impossible to conceal."
The heat of the sun had mostly burned away the mist, only a golden haze drifting between the trees now, and up ahead was the tangled mass of the camp's dense bramble barriers. The sight was usually one that beckoned cats forward, towards it, but there was a great, ruinous apprehension looming as Sunpetal gazed at it. Stepping back inside... it meant losing their freedoms again, letting go of everything that made them SummerClan. She hesitated, shifting so her pelt brushed Rosethorn's, for the first time seeking comfort from the she-cat she'd spent her life resenting. "We're going to end this," she murmured, "I know we will."
"Not fair- I gave you plenty of credit too," Rosethorn said with a laugh, before the topic they shifted to forced her to sober up. She listened, nodding along at Sunpetal's suggestions, and exhaled softly. "It'll be an exhausting time of training in secret and arranging meetings until this thing is over with," she muttered, mostly to herself.
She leaned into the touch slightly, a bit in awe of how hard times rewrote old relationships for good and for bad- never did she think she'd be fighting Phantomfox and Aspenstar alongside her old apprentice. "We should spend some time at night strolling through the territory as casually as we can manage- but mapping out routes that we could lead Nightclan cats along into traps."
"C'mon," she mumbled quietly, nudging Sunpetal into motion. "We will end this, you're right. But for now we need to get back and act normal. I'll see you here again tomorrow."
Melding back into their new twilit routine came naturally. Everyone in SummerClan was blurry-eyed and foggy-headed, as such neither Rosethorn nor Sunpetal's exhaustion roused any suspicions. Slowly, despite their sense of urgency, their clanmates began to sacrifice the precious allocations of sleep NightClan offered them to join the trainings, bolstered by sun-warmed pelts and the height of their collective hope. Their captors read this as a sign that their resistance was dwindling; however, the burning sun only highlighted their resilience.
-
"We're getting close," Sunpetal remarked to Rosethorn one night, crouched on one side of the squirrel they were sharing. She glanced up as one of the guards, curiously in a much better mood of late, made her rounds, but she quickly diverted her gaze back to her companion. "I'm going to be ready soon - and I think everyone else will be, too."
The chilly night was silent and unmoving, the stars hidden behind a cloud-dappled sky, but there was the sensation of something lurking in every SummerClan cat, furtive glances cast to one another and wry smiles turned away from their oppressors. Digging graves was now in these dirt digging hippy losers' wheelhouse. If SummerClan's princess could learn to hold her own, then damn it, they could too!
Sunpetal rolled one of her shoulders, pleased to feel the soreness had mostly ceased. There was a little sting with sudden movements but it was more tolerable than their first few days of mutiny preparation. Now she could both feel and see the results; both she and Rosethorn sported more muscle, perfectly veiled by their long pelts, and she felt more confident now at the prospect of facing off against Aspenstar than ever before. She wasn't sure she could be victorious, but if she only succeeded in inspiring her clanmates to defy this new reality, then she could live - or die - with that. "Did you finish up the last few traps yesterday?"
"I did," Rosethorn mumbled in response, after finishing her bite of the squirrel. She and Sunpetal had done a good job of using the gossip Summerclan loved so much to send carefully worded messages, to align everyone's goals and prepare them for the job that was to come. It certainly wouldn't be easy, but she owed it to her son and to her sister's family to try.
"We should get a few days of actual sleep before our chosen date," she said, pushing the squirrel to Sunpetal. "So we're not fighting through exhaustion. And we should call a meeting ahead of time, as risky as it is, so we can all be absolutely sure of the plan. You and I can discuss the specifics, but you should be the one to relay the instructions to the fighters."
Sunpetal nodded, chewing thoughtfully and then pushing the remains of their meal to the side. "A few nights ago, right after those storms and the cold moved in, there were some two-legs down at the Southern Sea gathered around a fire. I remember Papi saying they do that a lot in leaf-fall. The NightClan patrol looked pretty uncomfortable by it," she remarked, casting a sly grin towards her former mentor.
Rosethorn returned the grin. "Then we'll have to take advantage of that," she said, straightening up and rolling out her shoulders. There was a moment of thoughtful silence between them, before she spoke again.
"Whatever happens out there, Sunpetal... I'm proud of you. Summerclan is proud of you. You're one of the bravest, most intelligent cats I know, and I'm honored to be your mentor." Rosethorn wasn't sure what was going to go down- if Phantomfox would hurt her or Sunpetal would get injured somehow- and she knew she had to say the words, to lay their old one-sided feud to rest.
Sunpetal's cheeks burned a slow, rosy pink at the compliment. "I'm only able to be like this because of you and everyone else who didn't give up on me." She knew many had come close- hell, most did give up on her. She was unpleasant at first jump and few saw the worth of trying to wade past that- and the fact that Rosethorn had been the lone bearer of her unjustified wrath yet still soldiered on at her side... Respect, gratitude, a deep and rapidly intensifying love all gazed at her mentor through Sunpetal's eyes.
"I wouldn't be able to pull this off without you, you know? I gave you a hard time as your apprentice the first time, but I always valued our lessons, even if you'd never get me to admit it. SummerClan values you too," she reached across to rest her paw atop Rosethorn's, "so when this starts... Don't do anything stupid, okay? SummerClan is going to need someone to look to if I..." She trailed off but the implication remained. Phantomfox would no doubt prioritize his former mate, but Sunpetal's capture or murder would be a high priority among the rest of NightClan, that she knew. The fear would have been insufferable if it wasn't muted by a cold, numb resignation.
"I can't promise anything," Rosethorn said quickly. "I need to protect Foxpaw, and the easiest way to do that is if I engage with Phantomfox and lead him away- besides, it'll help everyone else out too. He'd cause more casualties if I did the smart thing and avoided him."
She rested her tail on Sunpetal's shoulder. "I don't know what's going to happen. But trust me to do the right thing, even if it's stupid. And I'll trust you. Thank you for all your kind words, Sunpetal. To seal our newfound friendship... I want to apologize for calling you snotty nose. You have the driest, least snotty nose I've ever seen."
The former deputy smiled- the simultaneously cheerful and melancholy smile of a woman clinging to the good parts of life in spite of the bad. She may have been dreading the near future, but at least this old part of her past had been redeemed. "Are you ready to go back?"
