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Blacktail and Dashclaw:
Dig, Pull, Push and Press





Dig, pull, push and press. Such a simple yet strenuous cycle, he had come to realize in his short yet difficult moons of becoming a tunneler. Birchstep was a good teacher, he had to admit, but Birchstep was also not an old cat. He and the more skilled tunneler were similar in age. Even so, Dashclaw was too caught up in his own thoughts and emotions to even dwell on that.

He needed as much teaching as he could get if he was to catch up to the rest of the tunnelers. If he was to honor his father in the way he had not been able to before. His chest ached with self-blame and misery. He missed him, more than anything. He missed Rabbitdash’s long winded tales of grandeur as one of the clan’s best Tunnelers, the adventures and stories he had compiled from moons of digging and pulling and pushing and pressing. His moons of service and battle alongside the cats of Windclan’s past.

Dashclaw thought of Harewhisker, the anger in his eyes and the accusation in his voice. As much as Dashclaw missed the breeze in his fur and the grass upon his paws, he’d never admit that it was the banter and the companionship of his brother that he missed the most. No, they had never been as close as they could have been, but they were close enough once, before he had let down his father, before he had messed everything up.

Starclan, he hadn’t even been there when Rabbitdash took his last breath. He didn’t blame Harewhisker, for his accusation and anger. Harewhisker had every right to hate him and then some. Nothing he could say would fix that.

But he could at least try to make something right.

So he pushed the breeze and the grass out of his mind and focused back on the inky darkness and musky scent of dirt and stone. It wasn’t awful, really. It was quiet and usually he was left alone and work was far more efficient down here than on the moors, where the young ones raced around and goofed off. Tunneler apprentices seemed more careful, and far more mindful of their surroundings. Siltpaw was already learning as much as he was, and the tom was barely 9 moons old!

Dashclaw shook his head lightly. He needed to think about something that wouldn’t make his paws tremble and his eyes droop with heaviness. His mind went quickly to his mate, and he found himself feeling better knowing that even if Harewhisker never spoke to him again, that the bright green eyes of Grasslight were always there to welcome him to camp. He found it almost insane, how through all his stupid decisions, that he had at least made this one right.

Some days he felt he didn’t deserve her blinding light and love. In his choice to become a Tunneler, he had left her to run the moors on her own. She was scared of tunnels, the only thing in the world that scared her...but somehow, she had made even that into a bright moment. She refused to let him go, and for that he was grateful. He needed her now, more than he could ever admit.

And their kits. He was terrified of disappointing them, of being a father they were ashamed of. But, everytime Antkit poked his head out and cried out his name, or when Weaselkit followed him around camp with brave marches, or when little Soarkit begged him to look at the stars with him, Dashclaw felt his doubts fade a little bit. He wondered how such happy kits could be born of his blood. He knew how rough he could be. He knew how he could mess things up. But kits were forgiving, and Grasslight’s brightness was enough to overpower the dreary doubts, he supposed.

He suddenly gasped, as the dirt to the side of him began to crumble. No! He had spent nearly an hour packing that in! He tried quickly to press it back, but found himself bumping harshly against the side of the wall. He felt an instinctive wave of panic that he had felt the first days in the tunnels, and began to bristle. Starclan, why couldn’t he get this right?

“Fur down, Dashclaw. Stay still.”

A voice pierced his ears, deep and so achingly calm and collected. While the former Moor-Runner still trembled with tenseness, he found himself at least stopping enough to not hit the walls again. He crouched a bit, swallowing, and listening to the voice, though his own mew was rich with annoyance and exasperation by instinct.

“I’m trying, alright? Everything was perfect, and then it just…”

Dashclaw couldn’t turn around to see them, but he could feel the piercing yellow eyes behind him.

“It’s alright. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been down here longer than many of the others, and that in itself is commendable...but you are beginning to falter, and the dirt is falling apart because you more than likely have not added enough stones to the outer layer. Do not fret. I’m going to pass you some between your paws for you to press in. Are you ready?”

Dashclaw could only swallow down his frustration, too tired and upset to be stubborn right now. Besides, his fur was burning, at the realization that the darkness made it unable for him to see if he had used enough stones. He nodded, and mewed.

“Yes. I’m ready.”

Smoothly and precisely, he could hear and feel the clink of stone against dirt as three flat and sturdy stones were pushed between his hind paws and up to his front paws. He carefully felt around, already feeling the emptiness of the dirt wall, where he could put the supporting stones. Once he pressed them into the wall, the crumbling dirt began to cease, and the tunnel felt strong and firm once more. He hid a sigh of relief, and mumbled his thanks.

“You can thank me by stopping for the night and coming back to camp with me. You’ve worked well enough, Dashclaw.”

“Blacktail, I’m fine, I don’t need-”

Blacktail’s voice may have been calm, but the sturdy tom could be as commandeering as any deputy or leader when he wished to be. He left no room for argument, an urging and knowing tone in his voice as he spoke.

“You’re a dedicated warrior, Dashclaw, but a dreadful liar. Your tail is in muzzle distance, I can pull you out if I need to.”

Dashclaw gave a hefty sigh, but finally gave in, hearing the white tom’s paws shuffle, indicating that he was backing out of the tunnel behind him, experienced and swift in his departure. Dashclaw followed more slowly, not wanting to ruin any work on the tunnel. His paws ached and his pads were sore from stones, but Dashclaw hardly cared. Tunnelers thrived off soreness and stone cuts. It made their pads stronger, their claws sharper in battle. He only wished he could get used to it by now.

Once out of the tunnel, the cool night breeze ruffled his short fur, and Dashclaw’s eyes adjusted gratefully to the light of the moon and the stars. Even so, darkness marred the clear sky, and Dashclaw found himself glancing up, guiltily basking in the fresh air. He scowled lightly, heart sinking with disappointment. He looked at the white tom beside him, watching the jet black tail that gave the tom his name sweep through the soft grass and around his paws, hiding the white fur behind a bar of black.

“I’m serious, Blacktail. I don’t feel tired, and I promised the others I’d make sure the tunnel was reinforced.” He argued sharply.

Blacktail didn’t seem to react much to the annoyance in the younger tom’s voice, and Dashclaw found himself both bothered and impressed by the senior tunneler’s relaxed nature. Instead, Blacktail cast his yellow eyes at the sky, and traced them downwards, reaching out across the moorlands below them. He inquired.

“You don’t need to prove anything to me, you know. You’ve always been so brash, with your words and your choices. You think one mistake will cost you more than you can regain.”

Dashclaw felt himself bristling once more, and he narrowed his eyes at his paws.

“Hasn’t it? And they’re not mistakes, they’re my choices and my problems, and it’s nobody else’s problem but mine. I chose this rank, so I’m going to work hard at it.”

Blacktail’s gaze was almost bothersome, and Dashclaw felt himself wanting to turn away from the piercing yellow that he knew was trained on him. Of all the cats he could embarrass himself and his new rank in front of, it had to be the most senior tunneler in the clan.

Blacktail’s voice danced with both heaviness and airiness. A hefty chuckle accompanied the deep gravel of the older tom’s voice.

“All these moons, and the clan still raises its kits with the same mindsets. That your paws are planted only on the grass...or only in the dirt. Where along the way had we forgotten to poke our heads out into the greenleaf breeze, or to press our muzzles into the safety of the darkness when danger raced at our paws? Oh Dashclaw. Your rank may have changed but you have not.”

Dashclaw lashed his tail.

“If you’re here to scold me or my “mindset”, you might want to remember that I haven’t been an apprentice for many seasons. If you have a problem with me, just say it.”

Blacktail shook his head calmly.

“I have no problem with you, Dashclaw. But you seem to have a problem with yourself. You’re no apprentice, at least, not with Moor Running. But what’s the shame in having such a title? Apprentice, Warrior, Tunneler, Moor-Runner. They’re just names, in the end. Just jobs and dividing titles. And yet it is tearing you apart, these names, these ranks.”

Dashclaw felt his teeth grit. Not because he was angry…

But because deep down he knew it was true.

It tore so deeply, to remember how proud Rabbitdash and Harewhisker had been, to be tunnelers like their fathers before them. He remembered the looks of unsureness, when he felt the word, Moor-Runner, call to him in a way that Tunneler never really could. He had been selfish, surely.

But it felt so good, once, to just run and feel the wind and see the stars and smell the grass.

But he was no longer a foolish young apprentice, or a fiery young warrior. He wasn’t the same tom who had rallied for Snowstorm’s punishment. He wasn’t the same tom who could ignore his family’s legacy, who could ignore and defy his father’s wishes. He felt his eyes droop lightly, and he could only bark out.

“What do you want? It may not be important to you, but ranks and titles are important to me. To my family. It’s not your business anyway…”

For a moment, Dashclaw was worried Blacktail’s silence meant that he had offended the senior tom, and he instantly felt self-scolding, and immature. Why couldn’t he just walk away for once? Keep his big mouth shut?

His thoughts were interrupted by Blacktail’s hum, and the older tom looked back out across the moors.

“When I was 2 moons old, I remember the first time my father pulled me and my brother from my mother’s belly to teach us how to dig a hole properly. I didn’t understand at the time why my mother got so upset when each time out of the nursery to learn digging got longer and longer. But I remember clearly just how sure my father was, that my brother and I would dig the perfect hole, and that we would follow in every pawprint he placed in the dirt before us. Boulderfoot took it with stride. And I didn’t mind it. It made them happy, when I dug. So I dug.” Blacktail swished his tail languidly.

“But...as moons went on, and I grew older, I remember so clearly, watching the Moor-Runners return from their patrols, I remember how my mother yearned to return to her days on the moors, and above all, I remember the other kits playing tag around the nursery. But one day, very vividly, I remember my mother being the one to take us out. All she did was walk us out of camp for a moment. But I just remember looking out, and across at a world I had never seen before. The moorlands take your breath away in a way that I still cannot describe. One look, and the same moors that my brother looked at with boredom, awoke in my heart a thirst for adventure. I was always quiet, and always appeasing. But for the first time, I felt happy because I made myself happy. Not because it made others happy.”

He stared out across the moors, and Dashclaw found himself doing the same. Remembering the same flash of love in his heart, the same hope and freedom. The same look of unsureness in his own brother’s eyes. He remained quiet, not sure why he was deciding to listen to words he knew wouldn’t change anything.

“So when the time came, when 6 moons approached, I was horribly conflicted. I wanted to make my father proud, to be with my dear brother and to honor the rank of the leader we had lost. Wolfstar made tunneling something to be proud of, back then. But...the other half of me wanted to run with the wind in my fur and the stars above my head. All the other kits knew what they wanted early on, but me? I worked up a frenzy, I remember hiding in the gorse walls and trying not to cry because I couldn’t choose. Scarstar found me that day, and I remember her pushing into the gorse wall next to me. Fresh from the moonstone, her old eyes alit with lives and new responsibilities. I didn’t want to admit my feelings, but I couldn’t help it. How could I tell my father without disappointing him? How could I tell my mother without getting her hopes up? Scarstar calmed me down, and she told me it would be alright. To trust her. So I did. I left it up to her. I expected to become a tunneler by legacy, and I just remember feeling heavy, and selfish. That I wanted my paws in both worlds and that I hated having to choose.”

Blacktail gave a small smile then, and brightened as thought back in the days of his youth, seasons and seasons ago.

“I was the last to be given a mentor and a rank. My denmates and parents and brother all looked at me, and I remember hiding my sadness. I heard the call for me to be a tunneler, and I expected it...but then she said it would be she that would mentor me. The clan was confused to say the least, and I remember my father spluttering with confusion. I myself was simply lost for words. But Scarstar calmed the clan as she did so well. She stood firm, and she said that Windclan was one clan. That if a tom born for the life of a tunneler desired to step into the world of a Moor-Runner, that perhaps it was time a cat like her, born the life of a Moor-Runner, to step into the world of a Tunneler. She told us that the moment she accepted her lives, was the moment she stood to represent Windclan as a whole. Not just Moor-Runners. But Tunnelers as well. And most of the clan did not agree, but in that moment, I didn’t care what the others thought. Scarstar had listened, and Scarstar had given me the one thing I wanted.”

His happiness grew heavier then, and his eyes wrinkled with age and memory, memory that Dashclaw could never see himself.

“They never stated so, but I know it was my desires that put a wedge between Yellowfoot and Gorseheart. For a while, even Boulderfoot was upset with me. I felt selfish. I felt alone. Everytime I would hear my mother and father fight, I’d try to beat the indecisiveness out of me. Even then, the ranks only served to divide. I was a tunneler by rank, but I ran with my mentor in my free time, and I dug my tunnels with ease and pride. I was both, in my heart, I was just...me. I was Windclan. That’s all.”

He shut the memory out of his eyes, and he turned back to Dashclaw.

“You make Windclan proud, Dashclaw. You’ve made me proud. I watched every single cat in this clan grow from kithood, and I have watched every cat choose their place. I love being a Tunneler, Dashclaw. But you don’t need to ever stop loving being a Moor-Runner. Your choices will not always be accepted. You may feel like you’ve pushed your kin away. But I knew Rabbitdash long before anyone else did. I knew your father loved you, even when he imagined you digging at his side. But this decision, Dashclaw. Don’t let it be decided by anyone but yourself.”

Dashclaw shook his head sharply, hiding the pain in his voice with a sudden snap.

“I let him down! Don’t you get it? This is the only way I can make anything up! This isn’t about what I want! This isn’t about having paws in both worlds...I wasn’t even there when he died. I let him down, and I can never take that back.”

He dropped his head, and he held back a hiss of frustration and shame. He didn’t want to look weak in front of the senior warrior, but the tiredness of digging and pressing and failing was becoming too much.

He didn’t even move when Blacktail’s tail rested on his shoulder as the older tom padded towards him. He blinked, and Dashclaw’s eyes opened slightly at the soft response.

“I hope one day, you realize that nothing in this world is assured. That family can mend, if you desire it to. Maybe not today, maybe not in a moon. Maybe I’ll be dead and gone, by that time, but I only speak out of my experience, and out of the past. Harewhisker will not understand, not yet, and that is okay. You are doing your best to make it up, and you are doing fine. If you will not believe me, at least listen to me when I say that you should take time off from tunneling night after night, and spend it with family that does understand you. Grasslight is a rare cat. Your kits are your future. Do what you believe is best for them. I certainly know it’s not bringing yourself down.”

Dashclaw took a heavy breath, heart constricting with faint agreement. He may have lost Harewhisker, but he had another family too. And he realized suddenly that his new family was Blacktail’s too. Bouldefoot’s daughter. Grasslight never even met her father, as Dashclaw had never met his mother. But Windclan had raised him either way. And he could at least remember the days he slept at his father’s side and played in the gorse with his brother.

He looked at Blacktail and realized something. The tom wasn’t just a senior warrior. Blacktail was the oldest living cat in the clan. And he wasn’t even close to the old age of cats of the past. Scarstar, Flamefur, Redpetal and Hawkfury...Rabbitdash…

But Windclan had lost so many of it’s older generation. And now, Blacktail was one of the only ones that remembered from that far back. Yet, through all the loss and pain of the past, he remained calm and optimistic, understanding and...different, than almost any cat he’d ever known. And life was short, when the clan’s oldest cat was still a warrior, and if tunnels could collapse and foxes and dogs could outrun the swiftest cats.

If wind could tear open the sky and destroy so many cats that Blacktail and himself had grown up looking up to.

Things were bad, but hope wasn’t lost...not yet, he hoped. He didn’t know how, but the older tom’s firm and calm words had managed to ease his mind more than he had expected. He didn’t say it aloud though, not wanting, even now, for anyone to know that he depended on anyone but himself and his mate and kits.

Blacktail seemed to know though, without words, that Dashclaw felt faint appreciation. He suddenly stood, and Dashclaw lifted his head with sharp confusion.

“I’m guessing we’re going back to camp.”

“Yes...but before we do. Run with me.”

Dashclaw’s eyes rose sharply.

“What? Blacktail, I don’t think that’s-”

“Leafbare brings snow and drives rabbits away. We adapt and change to fit the cold and the struggle, but that does not mean we stop looking for rabbits. We’re Windclan, Dashclaw. Tunneler, Moor-Runner, Kit, Apprentice, Warrior, we still run faster than any other clan, even under the ground.”

He stretched, and Dashclaw tried to push back the surge in his body, the quiet whisper in his heart to run, to accept the challenge and to shake the dirt and conflict from his body.

Blacktail’s eyes gleamed with energy, and the older tom smiled.

Dashclaw could see Scarstar in his stance, and Rabbitdash in the dirt that stained his snow white pelt. Hear Windclan echoing in his voice as he leaped from the hilltop, bounding down under the star-dappled sky.

“Run with me.”

Dashclaw’s heart would always be torn, but tonight, his paws touched grass and his fur felt the wind he knew once before.

And so he ran.