THE DEAD WILL LIVE AGAIN -- cosmospring

The young mackerel tabby had been sitting alone, gazing into the distance. He sometimes left the camp alone, sometimes to go on walks, sometimes to just sit away from all the crowds. It was an at least somewhat efficient way of clearing his head.

Unfortunately, Cosmospring's head became clouded with worrisome thoughts at the sight of the huge tabby ShadowClanner he had seen earlier. Grizzypaw - Tigerflame's lookalike. Immediately, he felt a sickening, squirmy feeling in his stomach. They just looked so similar.

For a very brief moment, the slender, light furred warrior felt his eyes tear up a little. He really missed his dad, and this guy was doing him no favours. But he needed to face him, have a proper conversation with him, come to terms with the fact that yes, Grizzlypaw was a spitting image of Tigerflame, but that didn't mean that they were the same cat.

Rising to his paws, the tall tom strolled casually towards the younger tabby, though his eyes, fixed on Grizzlypaw determinedly, betrayed that he had a clear purpose in his mind.

"So, how did talking to StarClan go?" he asked, ignoring the way his head span at the sight of the medicine cat apprentice. Why did he look so similar to Tigerflame? It was stupid, and didn't make sense in the slightest. "Let me guess - they didn't say anything to you. You wasted your time, Tigerflame."

Cosmospring's heart dropped like a heavy stone into the pit of his stomach upon realising what he had said. Tigerflame? Are you completely stupid? Panicking, the young warrior quickly tried to fix his mistake. No harm done, right? "Sorry, sorry, I meant Grizzlypaw. I'm not great with names." He was fighting to stay calm, desperately hoping that this young tom didn't know who Tigerflame was, so they could avoid a possibly awkward conversatiom regarding the deceased tom.

"you're gonna go far kid."

Cosmospring was glad when Grizzlypaw decided to answer his question anyway, hopefully ignoring the young warrior's blunder when it came to his name. He wasn't at all surprised to hear that StarClan had decided to ignore Grizzlypaw. "Yeah," the tabby snorted, unable to resist feeling a little smug over his correct prediction. "Told you so."

Unfortunately, the smug smile which had made its home upon the male's face didn't stick around long, as Grizzlypaw chose to question him about his mistake anyway, asking what he knew about Tigerflame. Cosmospring had two options in this situation - lie, or tell the truth. Opening his jaws, Cosmospring was about to tell the medicine cat apprentice that he knew nothing of Tigerflame and had just heard of his name through the chatter of older warriors, but the words got stuck in his throat, pain suddenly striking at his chest like a dagger.

He couldn't just lie about his dad. It didn't feel right.

Sighing, the brown and white warrior confessed, "He's my dad." He then waited, watching Grizzlypaw carefully, wondering how he might react. Looking at the younger cat's face made Cosmospring feel quite uncomfortable - he really could see no one but Tigerflame in the boy's features. Looking at Grizzlypaw only made Cosmospring miss his dad even more.

"you're gonna go far kid."

An apology. Cosmospring hadn't been expecting such a thing, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Of course Grizzlypaw felt sorry for him - his dad sucked. His dad had done cruel, disgusting things over and over again, and had made the lives of so many cats miserable.

There was no way that the young warrior could ever confess how he actually felt about Tigerflame - that he loved him, that he missed him. Many cats wouldn't understand that - he didn't even know if his own siblings would. Cosmospring had been trying his best to distance himself from his past. He had moved from DarkClan shortly after Tigerflame's exile, determined to find a 'new beginning' in WindClan. And yet it seemed like his past would always follow him. The news of Tigerflame's death had hit the boy like a ton of bricks, and Grizzlypaw's appearance, so alarmingly similar to Tigerflame's, really didn't help.

"Well, yeah. I hate him, and I'm glad that he's out of my life," his voice cracked a little towards the end of his statement, and he cursed inside his head. Cosmospring hoped the apprentice didn't notice the pained expression on his face - and if he did, he hoped that the kid would dismiss it as disgust towards his father rather than grief. "You... weren't alive when he was, were you? You should count yourself lucky."

For a few moments, the light tabby had to stop talking. He looked away from Grizzlypaw briefly - the resembalance between him and Tigerflame was becoming too painful for Cosmospring. The young male counted to three in his head, before turning to face the tabby apprentice again. "It sucks, having a dad like that honestly. I don't want to be associated with the guy - I'm nothing like him." His voice sounded insistent, but almost desperate, as if he was trying to convince Grizzlypaw that he really meant he was saying. And he did - Cosmospring could never do the things that Tigerflame did. But that didn't mean that he didn't want Tigerflame to be proud of him. He hoped that his dad was watching him, and he hoped that he was proud.

But why would he be? I abandoned my mother and my siblings to go and live in WindClan by myself like a loser. I don't deserve his pride.

"you're gonna go far kid."