1x1 with Firedancer77

[Brim]

The tan apprentice blinked as he woozily watched the other apprentice seem to panic. He couldn’t help but feel bad for the lonely she-cat, although he found that he could no longer hear her. His eyes began to blink slower and slower, until the familiar darkness overtook him. As he began waking up, Coyotepaw swore that a sudden, searing pain erupted throughout his body, making the area around him flash white for a moment.

But a moment later, there was no pain, his jaws were full of water, and he was cold. The tan apprentice slowly opened his eyes, trying to remember what had happened. However, he didn’t get much time to get his thoughts in order, as a moment later, the shrillest scream he had ever heard erupted right next to his ears. Coyotepaw tried to scream as well (although he’d furiously deny it later), but ended up choking on the water, instead. He heaved and coughed, stumbling backwards and tripping over his paws. The medicine cat apprentice, still splayed out on the ground, spat out the remaining water as his gaze rested upon a small, orange tabby she-cat.

His eyes widened, as he remembered his so-called ‘welcome’ as a medicine cat apprentice. “W-” he broke off with a fit of coughing. Between wheezes, Coyotepaw managed croak out, “What-ack-What are you doing-ack-here?!” Was he still dreaming? He sure hoped so, as he looked around to see the concerned gazes of the other medicine cats. Evidently, they had woken up before him and had been waiting. But that would have to wait, as he had more pressing problems on his paws.

[Firedancer77]

Littlepaw froze at the voice, staring at the frozen cats in terror. Had they just spoken? Had she done something wrong? But a second later her rational thoughts kicked in and she remembered that a cat that was frozen was physically incapable of speaking. The idea that one of them had spoken to her was absolutely mouse-brained. So who did?

The orange she-cat slowly turned around, obviously nervous, before screeching at what she saw, all caution forgotten. There was another cat, who was very much alive. This in and of itself wasn't all that startling; after all, she had just been speaking to a living apprentice. But that was, in the end, where the issue lay. The tan tom staring back at her as if she were a Dark Forest cat come to steal him away was the apprentice she'd just been speaking to. Why was he here?

Actually, where was here to begin with? Though she'd begun to calm down - even with Coyotepaw's wide, amber eyes boring into her in apparent shock, or perhaps even terror - that question worried her all over again. She glanced about, finally noticing the other cats around them. She shrieked again, whipping her head about as she tried to look at them all before realizing that none of them were even bothering to look at her. They all were just staring at Coyotepaw like he'd grown a second head. Littlepaw would vehemently deny it if anyone ever asked about it, but at that moment she was actually a tad bit jealous. Did no one care that an apprentice had just randomly appeared in front of them?

"What am I doing here?” The smaller apprentice almost hissed the word, sounding a bit offended. ”I could ask you the same thing!” To add to her point, she followed up with, "What are you doing here, huh? And...uh...where is here, exactly?”

Narrowing her eyes, the she-cat stalked towards the cat closest to Coyotepaw, coming to a halt a few mouse lengths away. Considering this a suitable distance, she sat down and jerked her head in the direction of the tom. ”Is he always like that?” But the cat didn't say anything in response; they didn't even bother to glance in Littlepaw's direction, and it ticked her off. ”Hey! I'm talking to you!”

[Brim]

“Are you alright? Coyotepaw, what happened?” Came his mentor’s voice, completely ignoring the StarClan she-cat. The brown and tan apprentice stared from Littlepaw to Addercloud, trying desperately to think of what to say, and to who. Blinking rapidly, the tom hesitantly opened his jaws, but no words came out.

“Did StarClan speak to you?” the tabby medicine cat pressed. Coyotepaw turned to stare at Littlepaw, answering only with a nod. The medicine cat apprentice pressed his legs together, subtly using his claws to dig into one of his paws. He slightly grimaced in both pain and the realization that this was, in fact, not a dream. Was the StarClan cat a hallucination? But why would he hallucinate her? Sure, it may have been sad knowing she was all alone, but it wasn’t traumatic or anything. Besides, surely it wasn’t in his nature to be so broken up over a cat he’d met for only a few moments? While he was certain that this wasn’t the correct explanation, it was the only one he had.

Coyotepaw snapped back to reality as he saw movement flash in front of him. The other medicine cats had begun walking off, but Addercloud was still staring down at him with an unreadable expression on her face. “Uhhh,” he mumbled, realizing that the she-cat was waiting for him to speak. “I… We need to go back to camp, right?” Without waiting for an answer, he glanced back at Littlepaw, though he wasn’t ready to answer her questions. He didn’t even know if she was real or not. But, still… The medicine cat apprentice passed between Littlepaw and Addercloud. He allowed his tail to brush through the orange apprentice’s form, shivering as although it was able to pass through, there was certainly enough resistance to let him know that she was real. Face forming a more worried expression, Coyotepaw ran ahead. He refused to look Littlepaw in the eyes, or at his mentor’s own questioning look.

[Firedancer77]

"Hey!” Littlepaw shrieked yet again as Coyotepaw ignored her, walked through her, and then ran off. She glanced back at the cat she assumed was his mentor, who still didn't even look at her as they hurried after their apprentice, and resisted the urge to snarl. What in Starclan's name was going? "Hey, wait!”

Tripping over her paws, Littlepaw narrowly avoided falling on her face as she took off after the tom, fury fueling her moments. "Coyotepaw!” She managed to mew the words through her heavy breathing, slowly gaining ground on him. In a twist of events, her paw went straight through his mentor as she ran past, and she had to resist the urge to scream yet again. "What's happening?”

She was terrified. Starclan cats didn't dream, right? They were in Starclan, after all. They couldn't dream, let alone have nightmares. It wouldn't make any sense. So if she could cross that idea off as mousebrained, that left only one option. At least, only one she could think of. She obviously wasn't alive, but Coyotepaw could see her, and no one else could. Had she somehow crossed back over with the tan apprentice? That didn't make any sense!

"Please,” The orange apprentice was basically begging with the other apprentice as she continued to close the distance between the two, about ready to cry because she was so confused, "Help me understand what's going on! I don't understand what's happening. Talk to me! Answer me, please! Anything! Why can't anyone else see or hear me?”

So caught up in her panic, the poor she-cat tripped over her paws, and ended up flying right through Coyotepaw and landing on her stomach on the other side. It wasn't very painful to anything beyond her pride, though an argument could be made that it did very briefly hurt. Forcing herself to stand again, Littlepaw whipped around to glare at the tom, as if it was somehow his fault she'd fallen.

[Brim]

Coyotepaw sucked in a breath as he kept going. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to say… Oh, StarClan… What was he going to say to Addercloud when he got back to camp? He couldn’t tell her the truth! She would think he was crazy! Or if she believed him, then she’d know he wasn’t accepted by StarClan! If she knew, would she make him go back to being a warrior apprentice? Coyotepaw slightly shivered. He didn't want to go back to being Stormfang's apprentice. His ears flattened against his head as Littlepaw bounded alongside him, hissing at him for answers he didn’t have.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, trying to find any words to offer her. The brown and tan tom paid no attention to the scenery around him as he did before. His head was spinning far too much to appreciate it. The medicine cat apprentice picked up the pace a bit, hoping that some thought would come from it.

As the she-cat’s fear began to slip into her voice, the tom’s defenses began loosening. His shoulders sagged a bit, his tail drooped, and he opened his jaws to deliver the bad news. Then she tripped. Coyotepaw’s eyes widened in surprise and let out a soft, displeased moan at the unpleasant feeling of her falling through him. He instinctually skidded to a halt in front of the other apprentice, not wanting to run her over. Emotions back in turmoil, all empathetic feelings were gone as she stared him down.

He picked up on the challenge in her gaze, and Coyotepaw felt he had no right not to take it. “I. Don’t. Know,” he snapped a bit louder than he intended. He glanced around for a moment before lowering his voice. “Listen here, you whining kit. I don’t know what’s going on. I was just there to be accepted as a medicine cat in training by StarClan! Instead, I got you! You’re the dead one out of us. You’re the one who made it to the living world, which is much weirder than any living cat visiting the dead world. Shouldn’t you know?”

[Firedancer77]

Angry tears threatened to spill from her eyes as Coyotepaw spoke. He was right, though she wouldn’t tell him that. She was the dead one. She should understand what was going on. But she didn’t, and she had no idea what to do.

"How could I?” She shot back, still unable to keep her fear from mingling with her anger. "I died, and I wasn’t even brought into Starclan correctly! They left me and I don’t know why!” The apprentice struggled to force back her tears, not wanting to cry in front of this miserable excuse for a cat. "I wasn’t even supposed to die!”

And that statement brought her angry statements to a halt. She wasn’t supposed to die, and she hadn’t even gotten to go to Starclan. They left her, and now she couldn’t even remember what happened that caused her to end up dying. She just knew it was an accident. For Starclan’s sake, she couldn’t even remember her family!

"I didn’t ask to end up with a miserable piece of fox dung.” The smaller apprentice tried to sound spiteful, but ended up just sounding a bit pathetic. "If I’m here, I can’t go to Starclan. I can’t see my family again and I can’t. Get. Closure.”

She moaned in frustration, laying down and covering her face with her paws. "What if, because I’m not in Starclan, I fade away? I don’t want to die twice!” Her voice dropped to a whisper Coyotepaw wasn’t meant to hear as she mewed to herself, "Why did I die when I’m just an apprentice?”

[Brim]

Coyotepaw gritted his teeth as he sat back on his haunches. How was he supposed to reply to that? He closed his eyes for a few moments, trying to calm himself down. He was far too worked up at the moment, and that was doing him more harm than good. The medicine cat apprentice took a few deep breaths and tried to convince himself that there was a solution to all of this. He wasn’t on a time limit. This’d get fixed, in time. Littlepaw would get her closure, and Coyotepaw would become a true medicine cat apprentice.

Slowly, he opened his eyes to see the small apprentice covering her face with her paws. The tom softly sighed and averted his gaze. “I’m sorry I don’t have any answers for you, Littlepaw,” he mumbled. “We’ll find out what’s going on, though. Somehow.”

The brown and tan cat noticed something a little odd. All of the medicine cats were gone; out of sight. He could no longer hear their pawsteps or their murmuring. Coyotepaw looked around the surrounding area for his mentor, trying to figure out just how far behind she was. He gathered himself to his paws and stretched to his full height, craning his neck to see in the distance. If he squinted his eyes, he could see his mentor’s light brown and white blob heading towards them. Great StarClan, how had they managed to fall so far behind, but got so far ahead as well?

He shook his head and looked over back at Littlepaw. “We should keep moving,” he decided. He carefully picked his way past the orange tabby and kept going. If he needed to speak to the other apprentice again, he felt no need to have his mentor think he was losing it.

[Firedancer77]

Littlepaw gave a pitiful nod, forcing herself to get to her paws. "Okay. It’s okay,” She mumbled with a nod, trailing after him. As she did, she took deep breathes, knowing it’d be no use to keep panicking. She wasn’t helping herself, and she certainly wasn’t helping Coyotepaw either. It would be best to make up for her previous behavior and prove she wasn’t an awful cat to him.

After a moment, she hesitantly mewed, "Why do you think no one else can see or hear me?” She cringed as she asked, immediately trying to backtrack. "You don’t have to answer that. You just said you have no answers...” The orange cat trailed off, staring at the ground for a moment before looking back up. "I just don’t understand any of this. I’ve never heard of this happening before. I-It’s crazy.”

Even scarier was the fogginess of her memories, that felt even foggier now, though perhaps that was the smaller she-cat’s imagination. She bit back any comment on the subject, too nervous to reveal just how much she wasn’t sure of. It was actually quite terrifying. Why couldn’t she remember so many things that should have been clear to her?

Why couldn’t she remember how she died?

It was probably the most important event in her life. After all, the she-cat hadn’t lived all that long. Her death was really the only big event that happened in her life. So why couldn’t she remember it? It should be the one thing she had no trouble recalling. Instead, she was left with a huge blank spot in her memory, filled only with a sense of coldness washing over her body and screams.

It was then that Littlepaw realized she’d unconsciously drifted closer to Coyotepaw, close enough that they were almost brushing sides as they walked. The orange she-cat quickly pulled back, averting her gaze in embarrassment before looking back at Coyotepaw to see if he had anything to say.

[Brim]

Coyotepaw padded along as Littlepaw came alongside him. He kept glancing over his shoulder, as he couldn’t help but feel paranoid over whether his mentor was getting too close or not. He hesitated as the small, orange she-cat began talking, then stopping. “Uhh, it’s okay, I guess,” he said uncertainly. He softly sighed. This whole situation was throwing his confidence levels off way too much. He needed to get his tail back in gear before any other cats noticed.

“We can theorize, at least,” he suggested, trying to hold his head up a little higher. “It might not help the situation, but at least we won’t be doing nothing, right?” The medicine cat apprentice thought for a few moments more. Just what could have caused this? Littlepaw was right; this was crazy. Maybe it was StarClan’s doing? But what they gain from denying an apprentice entry to StarClan? That had to be all types, shades, and colors of wrong! But what else could it be? A trick? A rite of passage? A punishment? Maybe they were both edging closer to death a second death in littlepaw’s case wait was that even a thing and that was why they were drawn to each other?

Suddenly, Coyotepaw’s head was spinning again. The tom allowed himself to breathe in and out deeply. He needed to get to camp and sit the hell down. He needed a proper nap. Maybe then he’d be able to perform a little better. *Ah! That must be it! I’m just tired,* the brown and tan tom seemed to relax a bit, as he now had a nap to look forward to.

[Firedancer77]

( ahhh, I'm sorry! I thought I'd already posted my response on here! ;-; I swear I'll respond super soon, I can't believe I missed actually responding. )