If one could only claim holiness, he imagined a clan like RiverClan would line their nests with stars among the other feathers and shells they gathered and collected. That the prismatic lights above would be decorative garlands for their pelts and dens.
“Don’t.” The apology is met with an almost righteous fury in his stare, “...my troubles are no less important-” He repeats dutifully, “-because they are your troubles as well. From a different perspective I suppose…” What worry fretted that mottled crown was the same anxiety that gnawed his own stomach at times, stress for what was to come and what would pass. The two-legs a drop in the river, a small ripple among other ripples and eventually enough would hit the water that he feared a great wave would rise up. He recalls the description of the sea from Kelpie and Coast, the monstrous size of it that made their own river look a paltry puddle in comparison.
His ears flick dismissively as the ShadowClan medicine cat is brought up, he recalls her only vaguely at the gathering. Quiet and kept to herself, a black and white cat with orange eyes…who brooded. Instantly his nose wrinkles at the comparison and he gives a small haughty shake of his pelt in response followed only by a quiet nod. Couldn’t deny the truth, after all. He did have a tendency to brood, disliked talking about himself though he wagered it was more that he was hardly interesting. His past was simple, yet he’d already lived it, there was not much time to dwell when there was much to do in the present.
There is movement at his side and his head tilts at a side glance to watch the other lay down.
Once, while out with Moss, he recalled a wounded deer they had come across being followed by carrion birds and foxes eagerly awaiting it to finally fall. He wasn’t sure what had wounded it so terribly, two-legs perhaps, but he knew the powerful antlered beast was on its last leg when they spotted it. Moss had warned him not to watch before briskly going about her business but he had not followed, instead his orange gaze was riveted onto a creature who was fighting death itself and losing but clung desperately to its pride. When it finally gave in it lowered itself gently to the ground, tucked its head back serenely to rest upon its own shoulder and in the image of perfect grace and composure it closed its eyes; a quiet dignity remained even as the scavengers came bearing down upon it.
While not dying, he watched the mottled tom settle down in a similar manner despite the awkward length of his legs; somehow managing to fold into a neat sit effortlessly.
‘I’m tired.’ Spoken with the finality of a weary king, he was not surprised by the admission but was startled to hear it spoken. As a cat accustomed to keeping things to himself, seeing others be so open was still something he was adjusting to. Perhaps it was something he need adapt to doing himself one day.
Smokethroat sat there silently for a moment until the words began bleeding apologies and he shook his head.
“If I didn’t think my own shoulders had room for added weight I wouldn’t have asked.”
Sometimes he felt like ancient ruins, unearthed and exposed to the sun after so long, crumbling and derelict; his bones archways and his insides hollow and full of dust. But his was not a brow heavy with a crown bestowed by the stars, there was more he could burden himself with before collapse. Perhaps it was a mercy he had known no one prior to the clans dividing, he didn’t have to register the pain of losing someone close to you across borders and born of duties. He pondered briefly what he would have done had he been asked to lead a clan of cats and abandon the life he once knew; Cicadastar was made of far stronger stuff than he, a cat who would have turned tail and ran as far as he could away from the stars and their divinity, their expectations.
His solitary lifestyle had both been a blessing and his undoing it seemed.
He wondered if maybe the dappled tom should take a deputy as the other clans had, but could not for the life of him think of a cat who might fill such a role. There was Willowroot, of course, dependable as always but she had also never hid his dislike of the man who led them though she did her duties all the same. Cicadastar knew of it, surely, that he would give her the responsibility of a lead warrior despite that was a shine on his character; he did not let personal and trivial things drive how he lead his clan, nor what was best for it.
It was one of many qualities he found admirable. Nobility was not oft found in loners, he had not come across any cat he would consider honorable in all his time wandering lost and alone. It was refreshing in a way.
The dark tom continues sitting there for a moment longer, eyes cast to the side uncertain of what comfort he could offer outside his words and those alone were never adequate; he could never determine what to say. But then again he'd always been a cat of action, his body language spoke more eloquently than his mouth ever could and he liked to imagine he told his tale at a swift glance.
Maybe he was seeking the idea of comforting from a wrong perspective then, while other cats tended to console verbally, he knew how he was. It was best to simply do as he felt was proper instinctually.
With less grace and far more reckless abandon in just dropping to the ground to lay, the white-speckled tom takes a moment to shift into a more comfortable position with his paws folded; making deliberate effort to be closer-enough to touch alongside, storm cloud skies blending into star dotted night.
"I'll not bore you with saying it gets better, because I don't know. I can't read the stars, can't feel a storm coming from the tingle of my tail, but I can say again that this is a lot for one cat." His tone remains the same as when he'd spoken the phrase already-carefully guarded, but he continues with it, "You are not one cat. You are several. From mud-colored pelts to eyes like clear water, fire branded obsidian, smoky brambles and darting silvers like the sheen of a fish in the river. I'm loathe to bother thinking of how other clans are with their leaders, if previous gatherings are anything to go by they hold an authority as a leader should but you hold a heart."