private here comes the rain again — gillpaw

[CLAYFUR]

No one expected one of RiverClan’s best to die, slain at the paws of some WindClanner who isn’t even half the warrior that he was. When the enemy clan retreated, when he heard his name echoing through the trees, he hadn’t expected to see Clearsight there, broken and bloodied and… dying. He’s almost certain that something, somewhere deep down inside his chest maybe, snapped. Some tether holding him to awareness, to his future, to his hopes and dreams. They’re all out of reach now—gone on the wind, washed downstream.

He knows that he isn’t the only one hurting, knows that it isn’t just his heart that feels like it’s been shattered. Something fragile, bashed against a rock. Still, he hides away in his nest, burying his face into the only thing that still smells of his love. It’s been a couple days—long days, filled with fitful sleep and seemingly endless tears. He never knew he could cry so much. Life will continue on, it seems, but he doesn’t want to move on with it.

Still, there is someone else who must surely be just as wrecked as he is. Just as lost, untethered, consumed by grief. Clear had felt so strongly for his apprentice, his little charge who he’d watched grow from barely more than a kit, to a near full-fledged warrior. (But he won’t be there to hear Gill‘s full name.) He finds the black and white apprentice after only a short while of stumbling around aimlessly, flinching each time he catches a clanmate looking his way. He feels like a wreck, is sure he looks like one too. But he doesn’t care, not really. There’s not much to care about anymore, is there?

His eyes are already filled with unshed tears when he settles in front of the younger tom. "Hey, Gill. I just…" There’s a sob trying to work its way out of his throat, wretched and ugly and too large for the space that it fills. He clamps his mouth shut even as it twists with emotion. "Just wanted to check on you. See how you’re… holding up." It seems too soon, almost, but he has to be here for the boy. He has to check in on him—because if he doesn’t, who will? It’s what Clearsight would have wanted.


// @GILLPAW
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[ YOU ARE THE STARS TO ME ]​

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[GILLSIGHT]

Anger and sorrow, anger and sorrow.

It's all the boy seems to feel these days, nights growing more and more restless. Each day, he wakes up for training. Each day, he walks out of the apprentice den expecting Clearsight to be there. Each day, he is welcomed to an empty spot where his mentor once stood, disappointment and loss welling up inside of him again.

And though it's only been a few days, it somehow feels like more. And while it feels like more, the thought of it actually being more is unbearable. The clan shouldn't be able to move on without Clearsight. His mentor should be here too. He should be able to enjoy new-leaf, should be able to enjoy greenleaf after that. Should get to see Gillpaw become a warrior and live his days alongside Clayfur.

It isn't fair.

It never is.

The boy trains on his own, now. Tries to at least. Tries to remember all the things Clearsight would say to him in hopes that he's doing all his practices correctly. It's difficult, and though that might be in part of his still-healing injuries, Gillpaw thinks he could never mentor someone.

He sits alongside the river, two paws buried in water, his gaze staring down. He'd been able to stand completely in it before, during their last training session, but now? Now he can't bring himself to do it. As if progressing more than what Clearsight had last seen will wipe all of his mentor's efforts away, erase him from history.

A voice says his name, and he looks up - expecting yellow, only for hazel to stare back at him. Oh. Clayfur. He... He doesn't look the greatest, does he? Does Gillpaw look the same? A mess?

"H-Hey..." he says quietly, looking down at the water once more. Clayfur asks how he's doing and... stars, does Gillpaw have the words for that? He doesn't know, really. The boy shrugs, shifting a paw in the water as tears begin to well up in his eyes once more. "I-I miss him... a lot. S-Sometimes I'm... sad. S-Sometimes I'm a-angry." Gillpaw pauses, thinking for a moment before looking up at Clayfur, tears threatening to fall.

"I think... I th-think I'm just sad, r-right now." The tom sniffles, before moving to sit closer to Clayfur. "Y-You must b-be sadder, though." He assumes such - losing a mate must be different than losing a mentor.
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[CLAYFUR]

The boy looks up at him, and Clay sucks in a breath at the sight of his face. Gillpaw looks like he’s just as crushed as Clay, or perhaps even more. Clay wonders what the apprentice is thinking, though, sitting so close to the water. Is it an attempt to be closer to his fallen mentor? Clearsight was so good at fishing—is it a skill that he’d gotten the chance to pass along to his apprentice?

The monochrome tom’s response draws a deeper frown across Clayfur’s face, and his ears pin themselves against the top of his head. A white paw lifts to wipe at his eyes, coming away wet with tears. "Me too, Gill," he admits. It’s tiring, how much he’s flipped between being helplessly sad and chillingly furious. He’d nearly turned that fury onto a well-meaning clanmate earlier in the day, claws unsheathing themselves as if on their own when the warrior had told him that he needed to eat. He doesn’t need to eat, he needs his mate.

And Gillpaw needs his mentor. The chocolate tabby leans in to brush his pelt against Gill’s, gentle despite the feeling that there is nothing he can do to help the younger cat. And—hell, Gillpaw is worried more about him, saying that he must be sadder. The lump in his throat grows, and he shakes his head sharply. "We can both be sad. It isn’t fair that you… you lost your mentor." So close to the end of his apprenticeship. He’s so close to gaining his warrior name, being rewarded for all his work put in during training, and the tom who’d trained him for so long isn’t even going to be here to see it, to hear Gillpaw’s full name.

"It’s just… I keep looking around, expecting to see him. And it’s just so hard to think that I… we’ll never see him again." At the back of his mind, there’s a rousing speech, a monologue of some sort. An attempt to cheer up the apprentice, rather than just commiserating with him. But he can’t bring himself to say it; Gill might be the only other RiverClanner who feels worse than Clay does.
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[ YOU ARE THE STARS TO ME ]​

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