He wasn't blind. Or deaf, as it turned out, as many apprentices would seem to hope. Briarpelt had heard the whispers that followed his apprentice like a shadow, suspicion and dark speculation; he knew that Wolfpaw was distrusted for his name.

His name.

As if Briarpelt's name made him good at mending nests (paws clumsy and fuse short, the weavers had been quick to overlook him for consideration). As if Mothdapple fluttered around at night on powdery wings.

As if Wolfpaw had the same hunger as the last.

The lanky tom hit the ground with a hff of expelled breath, winded, and he lay there for a beat longer than he should have. When he stood again, it was on another breath that almost sounded like a sigh. Ah, more of this, then. It was hard for Briarpelt not to notice the kid was a mountain away from his body during training; he soaked in the technical aspects just fine, but when it came to practical application, he moved like a kit who didn't know what all its limbs were yet.

"Where's your head?" he asked gruffly, padding over and giving the side of Wolfpaw's head a soft-pawed cuff—ignoring, of course, how high he had to reach to get to it; damn boy was already taller than him. "Definitely not here. How 'bout you tell me what's eating you before I do, hm?"

Briarpelt would be the first to confess he wasn't the best at talking, but he knew if he vented to Mothdapple or Lichenflight about feeling like he wasn't getting through to the kid, they'd both suggest doing that first. Honestly, he'd prefer to skip that step and all the teasing it'd entail.

Right. Talk to him. "Is it, uh... Did the other kids say somethin' to you?"

Briarpelt watched as a mirror of his own youthful rage boiled behind his apprentice's eyes, as a mirror of his own old loneliness dragged at his shoulders, and when his pale ears flicked back, he knew the conflict that coiled tight in his chest like a snake.

And then came the crux of the issue.

Do you think I'm like Wolfstar?

His first instinct would have been to snort, because the notion itself was so ridiculous. But Wolfpaw crouched there against the frost-brittle leaves, ears down and tail drooping like the most miserable kit in the world. He ached to see it from such a spirited young cat.

For a moment, he was quiet. Stepping closer, he sat down beside Wolfpaw, huffing a bit at the ache in his joints, and curled his tail around his paws to keep them warm. Letting his gaze settle across the clearing, he gathered his thoughts.

"You weren't even born yet when Wolfstar died," he said quietly, then snorted. "But I'm old; I was there when he was still Wolfsong—stars, when he was Wolfpaw. Those apprentices telling you that you're like him? They don't know what he was like—they don't know their own asses from a fox burrow."

He exhaled a sharp breath through his nose.

"Wolfstar became who he was for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't his name. No, kid, I don't think you're like him, not in any way that really matters; anyone with half a brain can see that."