IS IT COLD OUTSIDE? ★ Dawnglare

[Snowpath]

StarClan's luminous and bright fields expand, flowers dripping glittering dew and grass the color of pristine snow as far as the eye could see, the sheer glow of it was enough to hurt ones eyes at times but he had long since learned nothing could hurt him here. Pain was for the mortal plain, StarClan was unburdened by most things that would entail suffering outside the pang of heartbreak and homesickness but even those dulled in time. Cats didn't even have to eat here but sparkling mice would occasionally bolt from shrubbery to entice a chase, it was more for the joy of the hunt than sustenance. He didn't like it, at first, felt it a sort of mockery to the living, remembers the cold day he attacked a ThunderClan border patrol over a squirrel. It seemed to paltry now when he didn't feel his belly growl and make demands of him, but it had been a very real bout of survival then.
The velvet red tom was a stain on the otherwise flawlessly pristine landscape, he saw him a mile away and then more, acutely aware of their visitors but finding his focus only for the SkyClan medicine cat he had known his entire life.
"Funny seeing you again so soon, Dawnglare, but I guess that's the life of a medicine cat. Cats are very rarely ever truly gone for you." Pale white paws carry him over, his steps are light and each movement is a confident strut forward until he stood opposite the medicine cat with golden eyes narrowed skeptically, "Maybe its why you're so callous with the living."
His disdain for the tom was something he never hid, but Snowpath was emboldened by his new existence; with no rules or expectations of niceties and politeness pushed upon him he could speak his mind without worry or concern for consequence and he was more than happy to deliver the warning StarClan so deemed necessary.
"Tell me, who are the cats you care for in SkyClan. Who would make your heart ache if you lost them?"
​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

He wakes withen star - ladden fields.

In the land of the dead, he may be as oblivious as he chooses to be. The words he'd spoken to Ravenpaw are suddenly far, far, behind him, and all he thinks about is the way the grass nearly sparkles with morning dew, but is pleasantly dry and warm, regardless. The night sky would have you think that StarClan hunted in an empty, void plain, but the sky here spoke tranquility, oozing the color of the night, along with those of any other time of day.

Dawnglare resigns himself to lying amongst the grass, at peace, with the simplest of things here. StarClan's approach does not concern him in this moment, but absently, he wonders if he would be blessed with Beesong's starry presence. He supposed that even if they wanted to, they would have more pressing matters this night in particular.

When he hears the voice and raises his head, the surprise is not quite a welcome one. " Oh, you made it, " he says evenly. There is the slightest bend to his eye and displeased flick of his tail– it trying to hide flickers of annoyance by curling round his paws, only to take to irate twitching once again. Did Morningpaw feel loved, sharing this world with her murderer? Dawnglare follows the movement with his eyes, steel - set. A noncommittal hum in reply.

Maybe it's why you're so callous with the living. His brows lift, lips pressed - thin. " I don't know what you mean "

Tell me, who are the cats you care for in SkyClan. Who would make your heart ache if you lost them? Dawnglare blinks, off-put by the questioning. Loyalty wavers oddly between the moon and the earth. He has the gall to question, if need be. Moments above mortality were the only in which he may ever doubt himself. Intentions grander than him– than all of them, they were a tale to be told many a time. So Dawnglare as straight faced as he speaks, save for the narrow of his eyes.

" My heart ache? " To care for and to ache for are much different things in his mind. He cared for all, but he ached for little. And some of them would not appreciate him for it. " Mallowlark. " Or perhaps that answer was wrong, as Blazestar had deemed him less than so. Who knew which side the killer's morals lied on. Who knew, indeed?​

 

[Snowpath]

Oh, you made it. Maybe when he was alive the comment might have bothered him but he had Morningpaw’s forgiveness and his warrior name, like devout shields they protected him from any feeling he might have in regard to the cutting remark. Dawnglare had no power here. Perhaps he never had any power to begin with given the circumstances. Snowpath’s teeth show first in a mocking smile and then a sneer, black lips curled in response to the answer and his eyes flashed like the twin beams of a monster bearing down the thunderpath.
“You’re WRONG!” His voice booms, shakes, the star-laced field quivers as though bowing before the sudden ferocity of his tone, the weight of his words. The gentle breeze has stopped, stilled, the starlight that faintly dances around them akin to the very snow of his namesake. When he breathes his voice is a cloud, he can not tell what temperature it is here in this place of serenity but he hopes the fool’s blood runs cold with every moment that ticks by as his fur bristles in anger, peaked spires along his back.

“...that your answer is not your clan, your clanmates…all of them, is a sign you are unworthy.” Snowpath steps around, stalks to the red tom’s side and circles him like a carrion bird spiraling towards the remains of a feast, “You are a pathetic excuse for a medicine cat. Your heart should weep for each and every life you fail to save, that you help bring into the world, that you treat for sickness, that you mend for wounds. You should care. You should care for more than a SINGLE SOUL!”
Dappled tail lashes, he keeps circling and becomes acutely aware of every minute sound a living body makes as he paces waiting for a response; the pulse of a heartbeat is almost thunderous hear where no other cat carries such a burden any longer, one can almost hear fur raising to stand on end, the click of teeth, the rush of movement as an ear flicks or a tail glides across the floor. Dawnglare is noisier now than he ever was before.
"Speak your answer again."
​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

The reply brings him to a stop– blinking wide - eyed, bewildered as the starry tom shouts his response. The question itself was not one of fact, and so the possibility of wrongness is lost on him. It would have been, either way. He thinks it is questionable, weather the stars age a soul beyond their moons so quickly. It is difficult to see anything but a young fool. Someone who knew nothing but where to put their teeth in order to make it hurt.

His eyes lift into crescent moons, silver - tinged eyes follow the steps he takes. The grass itself seems to ring in dozens of little bells with each ethereal step. His smile is incredulous, a too - wide thing inflicted upon his face. A voice rises in hilarity, " Unworthy? " lilted high, because it is so unbelievable. " Have I ever turned a soul away? Have I ever let any body rot to death, despite what I think? " It is nothing but nonsensical, to expect him to cry for any soul he shares breath with, to weep over every cut and sing praises with every screaming birth and stick given. Anyone who did would lead a miserable life, and perhaps that was the matter with all the rest. Dawnglare would not break himself over tragedy hardly business of his own. Was it bitterness, that he had not cried for his dear mother? That he has not made Blazestar's deaths his business.

The air is stagnant now, and his voice bellows with cold. Dawnglare would not falter beneath someone like him, who had no right to judge what worthy is. " I do as I am meant to. I was torn apart for the sake of their plague. Anything possibly preventable has been so. " Why should he hold to fondness faces that came and went with the wind? The cat before him was just one of them in a void sea. Pathetic was for those who did not see the stars, who shed blood rather than hinder it, who leave, rather than do as they are meant to. " I care for them. " I give them life. " But I will not mourn. "​

 

[Snowpath]

He bellows out protest, claims he does his job, yet he is only the extension between knowledge, herbs and the dying forms of cats; he can be replaced. He will be replaced. That he so believes himself to be above it all speaks the volumes he often tries to. StarClan knows no one has the time to listen to such hot air.
"Then no one will mourn you." It was succinct, quietly spoken and the wind slowly picked back up; the air warmed. StarClan seemed to snap back to as it was only moments before, the serene landscape of the afterlife, untouched and unspoiled by mortal paws. Snowpath lifted his head up, lips curling in judgemental disdain, "I have given you the warning you don't deserve and when you inevitably die I will personally fetch you because there won't be another soul who wants to." His tail flicked and he turned without another word, to any protests thrown at his back he ignored, to any complaints, any indignant wails of irritation; the blue tabby would not answer. He'd said his peace and he'd done as he was told and he had no further reason to linger here.
Snowpath might say goodbye normally, but there was nothing good about it. The wind picks up and the force of it hits him, scattering him to pieces, listlessly drifting motes of light like snow on a cold morning and he's gone.
​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

Dawnglare waits and waits. His jaws are twisted in a smile as he awaits what drivel the tom would spew back at him– meaningless words and whispers. Why, he was hardly StarClan at all. He does not belong here, he is sure the others are ashamed to admit. For while Mother below could be nothing but just, the stars themselves were mortal once, and not all hubris could be left within the bones so easily. The grey tom has stopped his prowling, and Dawnglare takes the chance to glower at him himself, plume - tail a whip, eyes buzzing. He dares him to say that he is not worthy again, when he has outlived the rest of the worms that have come before StarClan.

He does not, though. Instead, his voice is quiet, and the world seamlessly loses the hostility it had held moments before. Dawnglare's gaze is unwavering.

It is logic he does not follow; fairy flying by unseen, only the echo of glittering bells remains. The law of equivalent exchange did not apply here– in fact, he believes it a myth, that it exists at all. Generations have been born with him here. He has interpreted and foresaw; checked on those who did not deserve checking on. He was unlike the common pest, with not a thing to their name than being an annoyance. He was not like them. No, he never would be.

He supposes that Blazestar would not. Fine. And the feeling was mutual, wasn't it? It is more of a question than he means it to be.

" Your inane logic knows no bounds, " he snaps. And in the corners of his mind– buzzing like a fly that needed to be squashed: ( How did a killer end up here then, with folk who mourned him, and then sees himself with the authority to say Dawnglare is doomed with his stainless claws? Is it because he is foolish enough to cry over any and everyone? Even he could not be foolish enough ) Surely not.

He has wholy had enough of this, and as starry fog comes to swirl around them both, Dawnglare watches him vanish with ice in his eyes. He thinks he's the clever one. Inexplicably, he does. Dawnglare had no loved ones in StarClan, that much was true. " Because I've yet to fail anyone, " he tells him. Morningpaw would be here, but that was not his fault. " But we are not the same, hmm? " His voice blusters icy in the wind, even if the climate should hardly make it so.

And then, he wakes.

OOC 𓆩♡𓆪 7.18.2023 𝘚𝘠𝘕𝘖𝘋𝘐𝘊 𝘚𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘖𝘕 𝘛𝘖 𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘌 𝘖𝘜𝘛 𝘖𝘍 𝘏𝘐𝘋𝘐𝘕𝘎

• OOC: —

• 

• ( 𝙒𝙃𝙔'𝘿 𝙄𝙏 𝙏𝘼𝙆𝙀 𝙎𝙊 𝙇𝙊𝙉𝙂? ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  —— He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  —— Currently 54 moons old. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  

  Currently in an era of questioning; upset and uncomfortable by things he should not be.​

  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

​