❦ story ❦

frecklepaw and pebblepaw quickly got back to normal after the shock of martencry's death had passed. one time, while he and his siblings were chatting, he'd heard havenecho go "if only all relationships could be so easily saved." frecklepaw had shot a questioning look at the cream-colored cat, but havenecho had just pretended to be speaking to blackthorn at the sense of frecklepaw's gaze.

frecklepaw did understand why pebblepaw had needed his personal space back then. but no matter how he tried to frame it, doubt wormed into him every time the memory resurfaced.

how had he not noticed what pebblepaw had really needed? words couldn't solve every problem. consolation wasn't what everyone needed.

ever since, frecklepaw had taken on a new philosophy. don't help others unless they ask for it. after all, they might not want it in the first place. after all... words can be just as damaging as they can be helpful, and you don't really know what yours will do until it's too late.

...

but talking to other cats was what frecklepaw was best at, right?

it was what he'd dedicated his time to: talking to others whenever he thought they needed it.

frecklepaw held out against his nature for a good couple of moons before he inevitably slipped back into his old self.

***

it was five moons after the incident; a blazing greenleaf day where the sun beamed upon as much land as the eye could see. birds sang from the sea of green overhead, and squirrels scurried over the dry earth in their hunt for stray nuts. far away, the bright river bubbled away, its white froth appearing and disappearing with every passing second.

five moons... and a sunhigh after the three siblings' warrior ceremony.

the cheering of the clan was only just dying down. there they still were, mentors with new warriors, sitting on the sidelines, their heads and tails raised with pride. withermist in particular was cheering herself, yelling akin to a wolf's howl, if howling was considered joyful. pebblerain was purring too loudly to speak and had his face buried in newtwake's shoulder- an odd sight considering pebblerain had grown to be taller and broader than the petite smoky tom.

but there was one cat who wasn't caught up in the jovial atmosphere. it was havenecho... he was gazing at newtwake and pebblerain, swaying back and forth, his melancholic eyes glazed as if he were in a trance.

it was obvious what was on his mind.

not far off was a black cat with a flurry of snow blooming on his body. his light green gaze fell upon havenecho, lost in thoughts, all alone in his grief in the midst of his cheering clanmates.

despite himself, the freckled tom approached havenecho.

despite himself, the question spilled out of him as a tentative murmur. the same one that he'd asked five moons ago.

"are you okay?"

havenecho flinched at the sudden voice beside him. "oh. yeah, sure."

it didn't take much to tell that havenecho was lying.

the white-mottled tom took a glance at hornetstar. with the ceremony over, the cream and white she-cat was retreating into her den, while her deputy dolphinriver clambered up the boulder which served as the leader's den, ready to give orders and assign patrols.

recently, the number of loners and rogues had spiked around deltaclan territory. though they were mostly not hostile, younger cats were advised to stay in camp unless accompanied all the same. but two warriors should be able to hold their own.

"... let's go for a walk, shall we?"

"what?" havenecho started, gazing curiously at the new warrior. "w-why?"

"why? because you need it," came the curt reply. and because this time i know what not to do, the black and white tom added mentally.

that doesn't mean i know what to do. i just know that i can't fail again.

***

"let's be honest, havenecho; i know exactly what's on your mind, but no clue how to help. it's martencry, right?"

the sun dappled through the broad leaves onto the two cat's backs and down the deep auburn forest path. both were walking at the same pace and were shoulder to shoulder, even though one was a full year older than the other and therefore should've had longer legs.

a bee buzzed past havenecho's nose.

"am i being that obvious?" the cream-colored ticked tabby- feeling more like a tom over a she-cat today- pitched his head slightly sideways in a questioning look. his copper eyes seemed unfocused.

his companion simply answered with a nod.

"you know the feeling. they were your sibling as well as my oldest friend." havenecho gazed at the sky as he padded on. "you probably don't know this, but after kingfisherpaw's death- i don't know if skylark told you who she was, but she was martencry's littermate. she died right before you were born. anyway, after her death, martencry got really broken up." havenecho shook his head and winced, recalling the bad memories. "they'd be fine one moment, and then the next second they'd be- i dunno, struck by the memory of her death or something, and all of a sudden that smile on their face was fake. one time, they couldn't even make it out of the apprentices' den, and i remember having to cover for them, saying they had a stomachache from a bad piece of fresh-kill."

havenecho paused. "i underestimated the depth of their pain. having your sister die is hard enough as is, but martencry was right there." havenecho's meow grew thin. "they were with her up until her last moment, and for the moons that followed... they were just... empty inside. i wanted to help. when we were together, it seemed like they'd be okay, but then they started to become that husk even when we were supposed to be having fun. i hated seeing them like that... hated seeing them in pain."

havenecho stopped in his tracks and plopped down on the ground, crushing a twig as he sat. his voice was husky and thin and bitter, strained by the thoughts that swirled in his mind. "i-i just thought i could draw them out of that hopeless haven that they'd crafted out of grief. i kn- i thought they didn't want things to be like this, to stay miserable their whole life; i knew for sure i didn't want them to be stuck in that dark place... so i tried to help." the cream ticked tabby cast a miserable glance downwards. "but i'm not like you."

"every time i even suggested that they could've been bothered, they just either lied and said they were fine or lashed out at me, saying that they didn't want me hovering over them, acting like there was a problem- but there was a problem, you know? i didn't know what i was doing wrong. i thought it was just the grief speaking. but that wasn't true. martencry made sure i knew it. they... it was always my fault that i'd become such an inconvenience to them, o-or i should've just left them alone to steep in misery. what do they think now?" havenecho's gaze flicked upwards once more. "even now, i don't know if martencry blames me for those futile attempts to h- to- to support them. i just... they kept saying that they didn't want me to abandon them, but i don't think it's true." havenecho's voice caught, pitching higher with a sob. "because they were so angry with me, and with my sister- you know mottledsap, back then she hardly spoke to anyone- she and martencry looked so close... it was like watching her take my place as martencry's friend! we just grew more distant- i mean, i don't mind mottledsap and martencry being friends, but when you get thrust out of the picture when you didn't even mean any harm and was trying your best for- for some fantasy of a friendship, it hurts."

"... but i guess want isn't everything. i still lie awake replaying those scenes in my head. even now, i remember my past self and wonder if i was at fault. in the beginning, i thought martencry was just being stubborn. now, i doubt myself, even after all these moons. had i just listened to martencry all that time ago, they might still be alive."

havenecho collapsed under the weight of his tale. his eyes glistened with unfallen tears. of course he blamed himself. martencry had run away and died after having an argument with the cat who had been his close friend turned enemy.

"what... what did you do that martencry so hated?"

havenecho closed his eyes and blinked slowly; it was a count of five before his copper eyes reappeared, still half-closed with mingled remembrance and tiredness.

"tried to make them confide in me. thought i could help relieve their grief. there was no one else back then, not when mottledsap wasn't their friend yet. didn't work, obviously. always said they were fine, but they were lying. i hated them for putting on a façade against the world that no one but me could see through. hated myself for making things worse in the only way i knew how to help. hated the world for not being able to help, too." havenecho laughed bitterly. "and where my words failed and mottledsap's silence won, i thought it'd be wise to break away from martencry- you know, we were just making each other miserable, and it wasn't healthy to go on like this forever."

a sidelong glance at the freckled tom. "they said it wasn't true, that they still wanted me. but i insisted. and i turned to leave, and they jumped on me, disabled my foreleg so i couldn't follow them when they ran. pebblepaw was far too small to catch up to a cat like martencry; they always loved to run, even as an apprentice."

"now..." havenecho's meow was desolate. "i'm the one to blame for their death. i didn't know when to shut up. i didn't know the right solution- i still don't! now i can never reconcile with them. all they ever wanted from me was for me to leave them alone. i'm so confused!" havenecho suddenly exclaimed. "when i talk to them they get mad at me, and when i try to leave, they also get mad at me. why can't i do anything right?" havenecho buried his face in his forepaws, seemingly shrinking into himself out of pure misery.

"did you ever... try just being there?" the black and white tom asked tentatively. "i can assume that's what mottledsap did. sometimes your presence speaks louder than-"

"you mean, did i ever just watch silently as my friend suffered?" havenecho choked on another sob. "y-yes, but not on purpose! that time, that one time is the day i learned that martencry saw me as an inconvenience- after all my time yearning for the old martencry, after all my senseless, annoying-"

"why do you keep saying that you were an inconvenience?"

"-because that's what martencry thought!" havenecho snapped. "i lose my tongue one time, and you know what martencry says? they say 'thank starclan'- 'thank starclan' for relieving me of this pest! like i was just an inconvenience, like they wanted to stay miserable forever and i was in their way!" havenecho jumped to his paws, claws digging into the ground. "that's when i knew that what we had before was lost. because if they'd valued me, if they'd actually wanted me around, they wouldn't have thanked starclan, they'd have thanked me. that one word was the difference between knowing whether they saw me as a misguided friend or as an obstacle to be purged."

havenecho's eyes shone with anger. it wasn't like anything that the new warrior had seen before. it was a primordial sensation, a deep black hell with blinding sparks of hatred- hatred that wasn't directed at anyone on the outside. instead, the fury boiled deeper and deeper into havenecho's body, and his muscles spasmed as new self-hatred was spread from his heart, getting fiercer and fiercer by the second. a pack of dogs could've come and ripped havenecho limb from limb, and the pain would've been swamped by the intensity of the self-loathimg that havenecho now bore.

"i'm not like you, frecklewater!" havenecho sharply threw his head back, his paws almost automatically churning over the ground, tearing the dirt beneath him apart. "we were both so stubborn. you would've known when to step down and actually succeed in helping them a little. but i failed at the single most important task i had, and now martencry's dead because of my mistakes."

"you think i know when to give someone space?" frecklewater almost laughed aloud. "when your patrol returned, i didn't. i tried and failed to help pebblerain-"

"but pebblerain is still here. you two made up." havenecho's anger slowly seemed to melt away, leaving an equally strong anguish in its wake. "... i guess some of us are just destined to fail."

"honestly, havenecho, you're forgetting the reasons why you pushed martencry in the first place. you knew that being quiet wouldn't solve martencry's problems."

"pushing didn't, either. they told me to stop, and i didn't." havenecho sank down onto the ground, with his stomach lying flat on the soppy dust.

"but you tried. you knew that sometimes the thing someone needs is also the thing they least want." frecklewater tucked his paws under himself, settling down to meet havenecho eye to eye.

"martencry's response was all their own, not yours. you gave them what they needed, not what they wanted, unlike what most cats would do in your situation. you were choosing between giving in and letting martencry rot in their sadness for their whole life, or pulling them towards a consistent happiness for the rest of their life. do you think that the first option is better?"

frecklewater could've imagined it, but after a long pause, havenecho's head have the tiniest shake from side to side.

"listen, havenecho. i'm not going to barrage you with yet another 'sorry for your loss' or 'it was their time to go'. your feelings are real. losing martencry is going to royally suck for a while, who knows for how long. moons, years, the rest of your life, maybe."

havenecho looked up.

"had you played to martencry's wants, they would still be silently anguished and lying to the world day by day. you were the only one who even tried to change that- not even mottledsap did. she offered them solace in their misery, but you offered them a way out. they chose not to take it, but then, you had no say on whether they did or not. who knows, maybe their despair would've driven them to death anyway, and we would still be here, with you beating yourself up for not trying hard enough."

"you will never be able to know what would've happened if you'd acted differently. all that matters is that you cared. even now, you still do; everything you did for them, you had their happiness in mind- even breaking off from them was an attempt to end their inner torment. and it's true that you might never know how martencry really felt about you, and that's torture at its finest. and you might continue to agonise over this for the moons to come. but you know how you feel, even if no one else does, even if martencry never knew in their whole lifetime."

"of course they didn't." havenecho swallowed. "they saw me as a trial that starclan had set for them. and when my persistence disappeared, they thanked starclan that the torment had ended. i pretended not to care about them after that- look at me, making a façade of a hollow lie!" havenecho spat. "since when was i such a hypocrite?"

"you know how you really feel," frecklewater repeated. then he paused. "but even knowing that, you still won't feel any better, will you?"

havenecho shook his head, this time stronger than before.

frecklewater and havenecho only existed in the middle of the forest then, silent as seconds came and passed.

"see? here's me trying to help, and here's you mentally clawing at yourself anyway." frecklewater's meow was not bitter. in fact, the statement was matter-of-fact, confident; possibly frecklewater had known all along that his efforts to alleviate havenecho's pain would fail. "your feelings are proof that martencry's pain couldn't have been healed purely by your efforts. you know you did your best, and you weren't perfect, and i won't pretty up the situation with words like 'that's all fine and well'- it didn't work out, and it feels terrible, and you might not forgive yourself until the day you die. nothing i say will ever be able to magically carry away your grief and your hatred and your regret. nothing you said could've done likewise for martencry."

"then why did you drag me out here?" havenecho looked sideways at frecklewater, who offered him a half-smile.

"to tell you that you're not allowed to carry your burden alone."

"not allowed?"

"you have every reason to be upset, havenecho. you think your best friend wanted you gone for moons before running away in a display of their hatred. then you found out that they were dead and now you can't see them until you also die and go to starclan."

frecklewater's eyes flashed in an uncharacteristic sternness. the white-speckled tom pushed himself up, gazing down at havenecho with, for possibly the first time in his life, undiluted graveness.

"don't let the heartache consume you. i don't want you to end up like martencry did. for the time being, just be sad, and if you need it, ask me or someone else to just be sad and bask in life's depressing glory with you. also know that if you act like you're fine when you're not, i will call you out on your hypocrisy and drag you out here again. and after today, this conversation never happened, unless you say it did. understand?"

havenecho stared up at frecklewater, stunned. frecklewater expected the ticked tabby to scold him, or even to swipe at him, and he unconsciously tensed as he braced himself for a blow, mental or physical. instead, to frecklewater's surprise, havenecho laughed. it wasn't quite as bitter as the last time. it still held bitterness, but this time, havenecho sounded vaguely amused at frecklewater, like his newfound sternness had awoken something in the hollow cream-ticked warrior.

"you really are something else, frecklewater. thanks for that." unsteadily, havenecho pushed his paws against the ground, almost stumbling as he stood up. "now i wish i'd said all those things to martencry."

"wouldn't have helped," frecklewater dismissed. "didn't heal you."

"if you didn't help, then why do i feel... relieved?" havenecho yawned and rubbed his eyes with his forepaw. "i just need a cat like you, who'll look me in the eye and say 'life is a monster, you feel worthless, the world despises you, suck it up'."

now it was frecklewater's turn to laugh... it was a clear, hearty sound that even made havenecho smile.

"who, me? i did nothing more than throw the truth in your face." but there was warmth in frecklewater's tone.

"yeah, you did," havenecho murmured. "but it helped."

❦ winners ❦

first place: hushh--child with frecklewater (good reasons that you connected with your suffix)

second place: cinnamonbunns- with frecklemoon (also well explained reasons, but not as many which is why you're second)

third place: -aceisforeverloved with frecklehound (creative and good reasoning, i just didn't find that -hound as a word suited him very well)

❦ honourable mentions ❦

redrosestoo_ with frecklespeckle (frecklespeckle.)