private DESIDERIUM || emberstar

[FLICKERFIRE]

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

She shouldn't be here.

The Thunderpath roars in her ears as she nears her border with ThunderClan. The earth firms, loses its spongy richness and becomes sifting and soft between her pawpads. She can see the inferno of crisping tree leaves as she pulls away from the shadows draping her territory.

Flickerfire waits a few heartbeats. Waits for her own to slow, to sync. A monster flies by and her instincts scream at her to crouch and flinch away, but she's so lost in her thoughts that she only stares into the forest beyond. Its filthy wind batters her fur and stings her eyes, but she just blinks the tears away.

A paw presses onto the strange asphalt. Another. She's crossing into ThunderClan territory. Her apprentice is elsewhere, thankfully, and the other warriors occupied. It's darkening, sunset becoming night, and she figures she'll make up for her infidelity to ShadowClan by bringing something nice back for the fresh-kill pile.

No one will know why, but her, and she's okay with that.

Blazing copper eyes scour the shadows, waiting. When she finally glimpses the pale fur of the ThunderClan leader, the tension is sapped from her shoulders, and she smirks Emberstar's way.

"Hey, Softiestar." She hesitates, if only briefly, gazing at her paws before bringing her fiery eyes to meet Emberstar's rainstorm gaze. "Last time I saw ya, it wasn't so nice, but... nothin' I could've done about that." She flicks an ear, her smile stale. "Glad to hear your Clan is... safer, now."

She knows Emberstar doesn't want to talk about it, not anymore, and so she skips over the subject. She didn't come here to berate the flame point -- she really didn't. "I didn't come here to talk about her, or Pitchstar, though," she murmurs, getting to her paws. "I came to... to just see you. Didn't like that last meeting at all. Don't wanna see anyone talk to you like that. Unless it's me." Her smile transforms again, is playful, and she strides forward to bump noses with Emberstar.

Awkwardly, though, she pulls away and stares around them at the forest. "Leaf-fall okay for y'all?" Her paw pads are prickling. She doesn't know why.

@emberstar​

- ,,​

​

 

[emberstar]

"AND THOUGH THE EMBERS ARE NEW, WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T LET THE FIRE DIE"​

They keep meeting here. It's not a plan really, more like coordinated coincidence. Emberstar just so happens to come by the Shadowclan border more often than not whenever she goes hunting. The only thing giving away what she was hoping to find was her occasional glances toward the thunderpath.

Catching sight of the dark pelt she was looking for, Emberstar gave up all pretense of hunting. She pulled herself out of the underbrush eagerly, heedless of the nettles tugging against her as she did so. There were more important things for her to concern herself with right now. "Flickerfire!" she greeted brightly, a smile springing to her face effortlessly. "Heya!"

Her enthusiasm wavers, if only a touch, at the mention of their last meeting. "I know you had nothing to do with that." She reassured, though her ear flicked. "You're new leader is, uh, interesting." That had not been how she was intending to finish that sentence, but she wasn't sure what she had intended. Not because she didn't know how she felt. She hated Pitchstar, she knew that. Hate was a uncommon feeling for her though. One she didn't like attaching to herself.

Then Flickerfire touches noses with her and her concerns are instantly forgotten, lost in a burst of giggles. It feels as though the nettles are pricking her again. A buzz that races through her body.

"I'm glad you did!" Emberstar declared. She was a bit disappointed when the other molly pulled away from her, she liked being close with others and no one does it as easily as Flickerfire. Or as well. She reached out her tail to touch the other's side affectionately, just to be touching again. "We'll be alright. You?"​

⁎ ✦ ★ ✦ ⁎​

 

[FLICKERFIRE]

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

Flickerfire is sorry to have dampened Emberstar's joy. Seeing the smile light up her face makes the tortoiseshell forget, if only for a moment, that she shouldn't be here, that Pitchstar would be especially furious with her if he knew she was friendly with ThunderClan's leader. Emberstar, as usual, doesn't let her warmth die entirely, but her words bring a guttural laugh from Flickerfire's throat. "Your new leader is, uh, interesting."

"Guess you never knew 'im, since you were in Rain's group, but he's always been a little shit." She twitches her nose dismissively. "He's different now, though. Since Briarstar." Despite everything, there's a strange sense of loyalty to her leader forbidding her from mocking him further, and so she shrugs and lets the subject die.

At the brush of their noses, Emberstar begins to giggle, and Flickerfire can't help but snort with laughter herself. "You're ticklish, aren't ya?" Emberstar returns her question, about ShadowClan, and a hint of a frown darkens her features. She dares not tell the ThunderClan leader how they are already seeing their prey dwindle, how cats have taken to the Carrionplace for rats riddled with disease and died.

No. She only smirks. "We'll be fine, too. I'm sure of it." An idea sparks across her fire-bright gaze, and without warning, Flickerfire flings herself at Emberstar, aiming to pin her so she can tickle her with sheathed paws and a winding tail.

- ,,​

​

 

[emberstar]

"AND THOUGH THE EMBERS ARE NEW, WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T LET THE FIRE DIE"​

It should have inspired sympathy in her, she thought, to hear that Pitchstar had changed after his mother died. It was sad. All Emberstar could think of though was how he had so brazenly threatened her clan, her family, and how he had paraded the actions of Thunderclan's and Windclan's medicine cats around the gathering like he enjoyed it. Even when her own mother had died, she never could have imagined being so cruel.

"Hmm." Was all she managed in reply. Her tail flicked.

Emberstar perked up as Flickerfire reassured her that Shadowclan would be fine. That was a relief. However despicable their leader, she didn't wish the other clan to starve. Not just because that would mean Flickerfire might starve too. "That's good to hear!" she said brightly.

Suddenly, the other molly flung herself toward her. Emberstar blinked in confusion, though not fear, as she was pinned. She trusted Flickerfire, after all. Only when she began to get tickled did she begin to struggle furiously to free herself her eyes widening. "St-stooooop!" she whined through her giggles, wriggling with all her might. "I'm not- hehe- I'm not ticklish! I swear! I swear!"​

⁎ ✦ ★ ✦ ⁎​

 

[FLICKERFIRE]

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

Flickerfire can't help the laughter that bubbles in her stomach; she flings it free to the heavens, letting some of the burdens she's been carrying for the past moon and a half go like trapped birds. Their wings beat madly around her mind, and then she's strangely free. Lead warrior and Geckoscreech and the charred scent in their territory and the loss of prey and Pitchstar -- all of it is gone.

All that exists is here, the fire-hot warmth of her fur brushing against Emberstar's, shadow and sun mingling even as she struggles under Flickerfire's regrettably small weight.

It's cool, but the leaves are an inferno of auburn and scarlet above and around them, and she can feel Emberstar's heartbeat when she's so close. She can feel the light that burns inside her, and it flickers back in her, a response, a message.

There's still good inside of here, it screams. There's still a cat worth saving.

She stops tickling Emberstar, and her grin becomes strangely soft as it loses its mischief. Her grip relaxes, so the other she-cat can easily escape if she really wants to. "Y'wanna know somethin' funny?" Her heart skips a beat. She herself doesn't know exactly what she's going to say. Does she?

- ,,​

​

 

[emberstar]

"AND THOUGH THE EMBERS ARE NEW, WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T LET THE FIRE DIE"​

Emberstar felt the grip on her loosen, but she didn't move. It made her feel comfortable, to be this close to Flickerfire. At least, now that the tickling had stopped. She stilled, staring up into the pair of fiery eyes above her. Something inside her chest felt a bit funny.

"What?" Emberstar asked breathlessly, unable to look away.

It felt like this moment might last forever, and she half wished that it would. Never before had she felt less alone than in this moment. She'd made so many new friends when she joined the pine group, made even more when she founded Thunderclan, and now she had a whole camp full of cats who knew her name and asked her opinion and cared about her truly and deeply. Yet somehow this single second was more than all of that.

She didn't know how to explain that. It didn't make any sense to her. Never in her whole life had she felt anything like this.

The slight chill in the air could barely touch her, the light of the sun was just a touch brighter, and she felt more alive than she had in moons. It was amazing.​

⁎ ✦ ★ ✦ ⁎​

 

[FLICKERFIRE]

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

Emberstar stops her struggle as Flickerfire loosens her grip. The tortoiseshell is again lost, lost in the closeness the two of them share. Closeness earned in blood, forged in flame. She remembers the day she'd met Emberstar, so long ago. Then the day they'd re-encountered one another, developed a silly rivalry that had ended only in hurt feelings and bruises at the Great Battle.

Flickerfire is lost, for a moment, in eyes the color of a storm. Her own eyes are burning the trees around them to cinders, passion and anger and impulse. But when she meets Emberstar's, despite the fire in her name, Flickerfire feels the rain in her fur, the wind battering her back, the ferocity and yet the gentleness of the water renewing the earth, soaking ash into the earth so the forest can grow.

"I think about you. So much," she all but whispers. "Sometimes, it's the only thing... the only thing that makes me happy."

Her skin beneath the dark, freckled fur begins to heat, but she doesn't move away. Doesn't do anything. Her muscles are liquid now.

"I..." She what, she what? She doesn't have the words for that. The capacity. Flickerfire has all of the darkness of ShadowClan within her, but when she's here, away from the marsh and the life that now plagues her, she's Flicker. She's the kit born in the oak forest, the kit playing in leaves, the kit who has lost nothing.

"Knowing that you died..." She clenches her jaw, but the rest of her sinks, unbidden, into a pool of dark fur. She no longer pins Emberstar; she's just lying against her and speaking. "I hurt. It's like I died." She laughs. "And I haven't. Not really. Not like you have, and Pitchstar. And Briarstar."

Their bellies touch now, and she can feel the other's ribs, the other molly's heartbeat. Flickerfire is hot with embarrassment, but there's something else, too, that makes her belly feel like it's full of something slithery.

"You're the only cat I... I care to know like this." It's the closest thing she can say to what she's feeling. With a quick and shameful movement, Flickerfire licks Emberstar's cheek. She pulls back, suddenly afraid of what reaction she's going to get.

- ,,​

​