[ an old contest entry for the theme "a death in battle" ]

"FrostClan, attack!"

Duskwater leaped into battle, Icestar's command ringing in her ears along with the already started battle yowls of her fellow Clanmates. A dark brown and heavily muscled tom, whose name Duskwater vaguely remembered as Ceder-somthing, charged at her and she leaped out of the way just in time, raking her claws down his side as he bowled by. Duskwater smirked internally. Stupid DarkClan cats. They didn't know how to fight, or for that matter, do anything except for slink around in the shadows.

Suddenly, something hit her with a huge impact and she was thrown forward, the air knocked out of her lungs. She picked herself off the ground and turned around to see the brown tom push off with his hind legs while swiping at the air with his front legs. She could see that in a matter of moments, those claws were going to swiping at something far more substantial than air: her face.

As she reared back on her hind legs, missing the blow by less than a mouse-length, she had just enough time to think that maybe DarkClan cats could fight after all. The thing she was most astonished by was his change of direction the first time he had ran at her. How could any cat turn with such speed?

But she didn't have much time to be shocked, as the persistent warrior came at her again. Duskwater crouched low and hissed. It was time to show him how a FrostClan cat could fight. As he neared her, she turned onto her side and as he faltered, confused, slipped under him and raked his belly with her claws. As the tom let out a screech and tried to back away, she got back on her paws and thrust upwards with her shoulders into his belly, hard. Then she slipped out from under him as fast as she had gone under and clawed his nose one final time before the warrior ran away, not into the bushes, but to pick on a weaker opponent. Duskwater sneered. Cowardly DarkClan tactics.

The dark silvery gray she-cat lifted her head to survey the clearing, intense blue eyes narrowed. Cats were fighting, and they were doing so viciously. Where such ferocity had come from, Duskwater did not know. A small border skirmish had let to a full-out battle. She mentally cursed her own apprentice, Seapaw. It was the hot-headed young cat's fault for throwing herself at the DarkClan apprentice. She had to learn to show a bit of self-control. It'd been 7 moons since her apprenticeship, for StarClan's sake! As the thoughts rapidly fired into her head, another, different, arguing one niggled inside, saying, 'But it wasn't all her fault. Stupid DarkClan creepers shouldn't have launched a fight. The warriors on both sides should've broken the fight off.'

Her thoughts were cut off by an enemy she-cat, her pelt completely black but for a tuft of white fur on her chest, bounding towards her. Duskwater was able to the register the cat's identity before she launched herself at her, snarling. Nightstone. The DarkClan deputy. Duskwater reared up on her hind legs, carrying out the process of the Upright Lock. But it seemed that her opponent was also familiar with this move and she copied Duskwater's motion. The FrostClan deputy couldn't help but notice that Nightstone's paws extended farther upwards than hers. The DarkClan cat tried to bring her paws down upon Duskwater's shoulders, but the gray she-cat made up for hind leg-strength in agility and Duskwater twisted around under and out. She leaped onto Nightstone before the warrior had a chance to recover from the shock of slamming her paws onto the ground and raked her back. Nightstone struggled, and went limp. Duskwater relaxed instinctively, and she realized her mistake just a second before the figure under her exploded, throwing Duskwater up into the air and she landed on the ground with a oomph!, the wily DarkClan cat of course already having pulled out from under her. Almost immediately, she felt claws digging into her side, sharp as thorns, and she let out a yowl, but there was nothing she could do the free herself, no matter how hard she tried. Nightstone had pinned her down.

A fearsome screech sounded from behind her and the weight lifted off of her, along with the claws. Duskwater struggled to her paws and turned to see Stormshade fiercely grappling with Nightstone, clawing at her belly over and over again. Cowed, the deputy ran off, glaring at him with piercing grass-green eyes as she did so.

Stormshade limped over to her, and Duskwater noticed that he was holding a paw off of the ground.

"You alright?"

"I'm good. Thanks to you." She smiled at him and he smiled back, his emerald eyes twinkling. "What's with the paw?"

He flicked his tail, dismissing the question. "Oh, it's nothing."

"You can't even walk on it!"

Stormshade sighed. "It's just...I'm in this huge battle and I get almost no serious wounds fighting and then I trip over a stupid branch and I can barely walk!"

Duskwater snickered and stopped at his glare. "Okay, okay, I'll stop." Before she could continue, a path seemed to clear in the mob of fighting cats and a group of cats whirled out and when they stopped, Duskwater could make them out as a trio of apprentices and it took her another moment to realize they were DarkClan. They looked particularly aggressive and she sighed before whispering to Stormshade, "I wish our apprentices could cut through a crowd like that."

Then, the apprentices attacked. Duskwater and Stormshade fought back-to-back, driving off the apprentices, who seemed to not run out of energy. Luckily, they were still in the middle of their apprenticeships, not quite senior apprentices or warriors, and so the two FrostClan warriors had an advantage over them that overpassed efficiency and numbers.

Just as Duskwater reared backwards to avoid an ash-gray apprentice's swipe, her hind paws struck something and she tripped, luckily falling on her belly and not back, which would've exposed her weak parts. She glances at what she had tripped over for a second, and then started to bound back to Stormshade and the apprentices, but she stopped dead. Slowly, she turned her head back towards the thing responsible for making her fall and horror rose in her chest as she recognized the shaggy fur, brown and white and black and every sort of color that could be on a cat's pelt, once soft and shiny, but now matted with blood and grit. Her apprentice's eyes were closed, and Duskwater staggered backwards, realizing that she would never see those mischievous light green eyes again.

Suddenly, the young cat's eyes flickered open. "Duskwater," she panted out. "Duskwater, it hurts. Make it stop."

Her panting and exhausted voice made Duskwater's heart break. "I'll try. I'll try my best, little one." The deputy straightened, a determined look creeping into her eyes. She would do whatever it took to save this apprentice's life. Seapaw had to live. She couldn't die. Not with her mother back at camp, half-mad from grief caused by her father's death, eased only by Seapaw's existence. Not with her brothers, entirely dependent on her, fighting on, hoping, knowing, that they would see their beloved sister after the battle. "Stormshade!" Duskwater called out, her voice loud and clear.

Stormshade broke away from the apprentices, which now there were only two of, giving them a last sneer as he joined Duskwater. "What happen-oh. No. No, this can't be happening!" Worry widened his eyes and he paced back and forth with concern for his sister-from-another litter. "Oh, Duskwater-"

"Cover me." Duskwater slid under Seapaw's unmoving body and stood up, the apprentice's weight balanced unevenly on her shoulders. She started to move forward, towards the bush she knew that the medicine cat and her apprentice were camped at. Stormshade understood immediately and backed them up from behind, hissing and clawing at any enemy cat who even dared to glance at them. Slowly, but surely, they made progress, and soon they were depositing Seapaw at Dawnleaf's paws.

"Oh my," the rather young medicine cat said as she checked over Seapaw. "This isn't good. Not at all."

Duskwater turned to Stormshade. "Go. They need you out there-" she waved her tail towards the fighting cats "-more than we do here." The light gray tom scowled, but did as told, sneaking glances at Seapaw as he went.

Duskwater gazed at Dawnleaf. "What do you mean? Do you know how many lives are depending on this one apprentice?"

Dawnleaf held Duskwater's steady gaze. "I assure you, I know the importance of Seapaw living. But unfortunately, the number of cats that need her do not give her invincibility. She's been wounded badly." The medicine cat gestured at the apprentice's torn belly. "Look at that. She's-" The she cat lowered her voice to a whisper so that Seapaw wouldn't hear, though Duskwater thought that there was no point in it as the apprentice was barely conscious. "-been ripped open. It looks more as if a fox fought her than a cat. I don't know what the warrior code's come to these days, attacking an apprentice that savagely." Dawnleaf shook her head unbelievingly, and Duskwater almost let out an irritated sigh, annoyed with the medicine cat's hassling.

"But Duskwater-Duskwater, the important thing is...she won't make it." As the deputy stared at her incredulously, Dawnleaf continued. "This isn't a guess. It's the truth. There is no possible way she will survive this. The only thing that I can do know is make her journey to StarClan easier. I think...I think that maybe...I should give her deathberries."

Duskwater grew even more astonished. Deathberries? Dawnleaf thought that Seapaw should be given deathberries? You didn't have to be a medicine cat to know about the very special herb. Every cat knew that they were extremely poisonous and caused almost immediate death.

It was also known that they were only used in the most extreme of cases.

"Listen Duskwater." Dawnleaf put her tail comfortingly on the deputy's shoulder. "I want you to know, this isn't your decision. You are not the one giving her deathberries, nor the one who is making the choice. That goes to me, and me alone. It has nothing to do with you." Duskwater understood why Dawnleaf had made that particular comment. Duskwater would've blamed herself for moons to come and gone to StarClan thinking that everything was her fault.

When she spoke again, Dawnleaf's voice was sharp and full of heated anger. "Go back in, Duskwater. Go back in there, and fight. Fight for all of us, for you, for me, for Seapaw. Win for all of us."

The FrostClan deputy's blood began to boil under her skin, but she stopped herself. "Before I do, there is one last thing I have to do, Dawnleaf."

Duskwater padded over to Seapaw and put her nose close to the dying apprentice's. "Seapaw, you have proven yourself as a loyal and great cat, one worthy of being a warrior. From this day onwards, you will be known as Seashimmer, for shining bright and providing happiness to all around you." Duskwater wasn't sure. She wasn't sure if Seapaw could hear her. She wasn't sure if she was allowed to do this, as a deputy. She wasn't sure if Seapaw was trained enough to be a warrior. But she didn't care. Being a warrior had been Seapaw's greatest wish, and that was what Duskwater needed to fulfill.

A weak voice called Duskwater back to reality. "Thank you...Duskwater...so much..." She looked down to see Seapaw — now Seashimmer — looking up at her, her eyes with some of the old twinkle back. "But now...he's here. My father. Good...bye." Her voice trailed off in the end, as the light in the green pools dimmed and the slowly moving chest stopped altogether.

Seapaw, Seashimmer, her apprentice, was gone.

Duskwater allowed herself one long wail, pouring all of her grief into the sky through the cry. Cats nearest to her, glanced over, but did not stop fighting.

Then she stopped. And she turned to Dawnleaf. "Now I'll go. Now I'll fight. For Seapaw." As she turned to go, she looked back over her shoulder. "And you." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "I'm glad you didn't have to use the deathberries."

The medicine cat smiled, a smile full of sadness and grief and fury all mixed into one, and her amber eyes glowed. "Thank you, Duskwater, and so am I."

The FrostClan deputy dipped her head and leaped into fray, letting out a loud yowl, more of a screech, that made cats around her wince.

It was said for many many seasons after that the deputy of FrostClan fought like all of LionClan and TigerClan combined that day.