Dawnclaw typically found himself at the Stonemark when it was deserted. It was easier to run his eyes across the foreign markings when he was alone. There was some sort of shame, or embarrassment that came with his fascination, an echo of his father’s scorn. Sunstorm would mock him for his interest in MistClan’s sacred tradition. Who was to say his clanmates wouldn’t? Did they still look at him and see a RidgeClanner with no right to know their ways?

Stop it, he told himself. It had been a year; Sunstorm’s lingering presence in his mind was getting fucking old.

His big paws scuffed on the rocky dust of the Stonemark as he passed through its maw. It wasn’t a cave to swallow him whole, still with a clear view of the narrow sky above, and yet still it was a living thing. Maybe it was its proximity to the moonpool. Or maybe it was more than the presence of their ancestors here. This was the history of the Clan in its entirety, the tales of lifetimes etched into stone. A lengthy history he wasn’t a part of—none of his lineage was recorded here. In part, it was good. Sunstorm didn’t deserve such immortality.

But Hemlockheart did. There was no grave to visit. No markings on the wall. His mother only lived in his memory, the sharp details of her face smoothing out, eroded by the passage of time.

Dawn wasn’t watching where he was going, absorbed in hopelessly trying to make sense of the patterns, but his nose was as sharp as his vigilance. Just before rounding a small bend in the crag, a familiar scent reached him: Hawthorntail.

For as long as he’d been here, he’d yet to find time to really talk to the historian. He’d like to say it was simply because the other cat was just elusive, but he’d be lying. Nerves held him at bay. It took him half a moment to decipher what they were saying, and his ears burned with guilt. He needed to learn to sign better. Even if Hawnthorntail weren’t on the council, it wasn’t fair to keep a barrier like deafness between them.

”I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted,” he slowly said as he approached. He followed the historian’s attention to the markings before him—the ones that had been blatantly fresh when he’d first joined the Clan. His ears swiveled back, and he murmured as he signed, ”These are about the war, aren’t they?”

“These are about many things,” they said, surprising him with speaking aloud with their signing. He blinked and paid close attention, mapping out the movements with the sound. “But yes, those many things sum up to the war.”

He looked back at the markings, as if he might understand them if he just stared long enough. Hawthorntail pointed a paw at an etching in the wall, scratched with hard lines and a soft, half curve. “This is when you joined.” His eyes jumped back to the historian. “It’s part of the war, too. But a happier part.”

Words stuck in his throat, staring at them for a long moment in surprise. My name is here. It shouldn’t have come as a shock. He became a part of MistClan’s history the moment he crouched before Hailstar, begging for clemency. The day his life was irrevocably changed for the better, when he chose to be better. He blinked a few times and looked back at the mark, the one that was his name. His name. What a sobering fucking reminder of what he came here for.

“What brings you out here?”

He cleared his throat, and flashed them a sheepish sort of grin. ”I come here sometimes. Usually when no one else is here. I like to think I’ll just absorb all this knowledge by walking around. Like I’m the moss and this—” he gestured to the markings, ”Is the rain. It's mouse-brained.”

He shook his head to himself with what he hoped was a good-natured laugh. But he wondered, sometimes, when he wandered the gorge—what sort of tom would he have been if he hadn’t been shaped into such a violent soldier? Was he born this way? Or might he have been a scholar in another life?

”Is it these sort of markings that get painted on everyone?” he asked, rather than get into that mess of vulnerability. ”I wish I could see more of it. It feels like a lot of the valley’s traditions have waned since the tree fell across the river.”

“Yes, it’s mouse-brained.” Hawnthorntail smiled to spare his feelings, and Dawnclaw realized he had never actually seen them do that before. They didn’t interact much, if at all, so he guessed there was little opportunity; still, it bothered him. “You have to learn to read it if you want to absorb it, and moss cannot read.”

He grinned and chuckled, dipping his head as if to concede a spar.

"Some apprentices will soon get their warrior names," they signed, and Dawnclaw watched the movements carefully. "I'll ask that we're extra careful to decorate their pelts as we should." ‘

He thought of Milkpaw, warmed by the thought of her pelt painted, that fluffy chest puffed out in pride. The thought soured, though, when he remembered the decision he’d made. He needed to speak with Hailstar about having another moon with her, at least. She wasn’t ready.

"But, if you wish to see more of this, you needn't wait for apprentices to age. You can just come here and learn." They smiled again. "Actually learn. Not be moss."

”Hey. Have you ever actually asked moss if it can read?” he signed. His whiskers twitched with amusement as he sat himself down, sobering himself up a little as the offer sunk in. He looked around them, craned his neck to look at the markings. He had no ambitions to be a historian, but to be able to read and understand the history of his home, his kin, would be a priceless gift. He looked back at them. ”You’d really teach me?”

“I speak to moss,” they said aloud. “One must if one wants to know when it will rain.”

Moss could say when it rained? He blinked, uncomprehending. He knew to read the sky — the clouds, the winds, and the birds — they all spoke in tandem about the rain. But he’d never thought of looking down to predict the coming rain.

“It can't read, but it can write, if you learn how to read it,” the historian continued. "I'd teach you how to read moss. And I'd teach you how to read this." Dawnclaw swept his eyes across the stonemark and smiled. "Our apprentices get training when they're young. You weren't here to get your own training."

His ears turned back a little, but less with shame and more with regret. He thought about it sometimes. How different would things have been, had he joined MistClan young? If his eyes had opened up sooner to the reality of who Sunstorm was. If he'd convinced his mother to flee with him and his sister, would she have gotten better treatment here and lived? Or at least had her final days full of respite and relief at her children’s safety. It was a spiral he struggled not to get caught in.

"But you don't need to be an apprentice to learn.” Hawthorntail’s movements caught his attention, bringing him back from the what-ifs. It was hard to pay attention to both what they were saying and studying the signs at once. “You just need to be patient with how bad at it you'll be at first."

Dawnclaw smiled a little. “Shit, I hope only at first. I’ve always been bad at hunting, can never seem to get better at it.” His sister has always been the one who tended to that skill far better than he had. “I never had the chance to pursue anything but combat. I only learned a little of what all apprentices do. The histories, herbs, tracking. I don’t want it to be too late to learn. You'll have to be patient with me.”

He looked at the marking that was his name. A crease formed between his brows, and he smiled, just a little. It looked like a rising sun.

Please don’t let it be too late to change.