pafp FOOLISH HEART // disappearance

[RAINWHISKER]

"Oh my sweet Brook... I warned that the world away from our homeland is cruel and unforgiving..." Grace, mother, coos as she pouts her lips. The faux news of Lightning's death had just fallen on her ears, yet there was little trace of genuine shock or sorrow in her voice. Brook use to not be able to hear her mother's lies, she use to hear her deceiving and comforting words and eat them right up as a child. Ever since Brook learned the truth about her she's never loved her the same... she used her children as fodder. If Lightning and Brook hadn't escaped their childhood home when they had, they too would've become nothing more than currency to spend.

"Come home where you'll be happy. Come and meet your new siblings! They need their big sister at home for them Brook." Siblings.
Though she cannot see with her eyes Brook can still speak with them. They grow big and round in absolute shock, she's had more kits?
The news of more siblings does not spark joy but instead fury, of course, she would've! With her two children run off and gone, she needed more kits to raise and pawn off... and of course, Grace would use them against Brook.

And it worked.

She agreed to go back home with Grace that night. Most would call it foolish, but all Brook could think about was her new siblings. Could she really stand idle and allow them to suffer the same fate she nearly had? To grow up surrounded merely by faux love and care? She couldn't do it... she had to return and be there for them. Try and give them good lives.

In the middle of the night she vanishes, but she leaves a flower behind... Tucked within her brother's nest was a coneflower.
He'd know what it mean, and with it came a silent promise.

I'll be back.

// @LIGHTNING ​

---

 

[LIGHTNINGSTONE]

Lightning stared at the pink flower for several moments in silence. For what felt like hours, he only stared, tail flicking and curling as if he were in deep thought. Coneflower. It was a flower that brought back many memories of playing hide and seek and tag with Brook back when they were kits. Their home was filled with these things.

The silvery blue tom prided himself on his intelligence. He tended to pick up on things quicker than most, and so it wasn't confusion that caused him to stare for so long. No - for the first time in many moons, the tom felt fear. True, genuine fear. Mother was here. And Brook went with her. A harsh swallow finally broke his expression and he turned sharply, leaving the den and stalking to the edge of the island camp. He had to go after her. Who knows what that monster will have told her?

His paws halted at the edge, toes sinking into the sand. Upon his face was a bold grimace, creasing his features as fangs peered out from behind pale lips. There must've been a reason Brook went. She was no mouse-brain (no matter how often Lightning accused her of being one). She knew was their mother was capable of. And yet she went anyway...there had to be something that made her go. And there was a reason she didn't tell him. If I show up, what danger will that put her in? Put both of us in? So he stayed there on the shore, never leaving the island he had since sworn to protect as long as his old groupmates lived there. Here, he would wait for her. She'll come back.
​

"speech"​

 

[Foxpaw—]

The big blue tom stands precariously at the edge of camp, as though a cavern has opened on the other side and he cannot venture further. Fox's skin tingles with warning -- something is off, something she's missed. The pink flower means nothing to her, isn't even noticed.

She hesitates. Lightning isn't fond of marsh cats. But she isn't a marsh cat. I'm not a ShadowClanner. I'm in RiverClan. She frowns, ignoring the tug at her heart. The betrayal she's left her siblings with in order to be surrounded by thickets of strangers, to feel alien in what should be a home.

They're Clanmates now, for better or worse. And something seems wrong, and... she knows what that's like. To have everything wrong, to have no one to tell.

She pads forward on quiet, unassuming paws. She says, "Um... is... everything okay?" Amber eyes dart to and fro. Is he waiting for someone? His sister, Fox can't remember her name, is usually not far from him. But there's no one else.
​

PENNED BY MARQUETTE​