private LAYMAN'S LAW ☽ HOWLINGSTAR

[WOLFWIND]

It's been some time now, hasn't it?

It's been a moon now, since Howling Wind returned as Howlingstar. Her eyes had burned with fresh vivacity– revitalized. The lot of them rose in shared reverie for Emberstar. Shared determination to drive the beasts from their territory. Wolfwind had stood with them. She wanted them gone as much as the rest of them, even if her eyes didn't shine quite as bright, even if per paws still dragged in the fight itself, even if she found herself distracted by the change of a name – something appearing out of nowhere; sudden insecurity. Wolfwind had blinked. She'd thought it nothing.

But that thing remained, even after the dogs were driven out. Stress still, from the fish-brains in RiverClan, she figures, Even though she knows it isn't true. She's slipping, dangerously close to a fall. So she seeks out who she always had.

"Howlingstar?" It feels strange, a name she hasn't called out for in anything other than a battling cry. But it's the same person, her Grandmother. Strong since the beginning, and strong to the end. An upward glance– Howlingstar's always been bigger– Wolfwind's expression is Hollow. A million questions in her eyes swirl into mud and slush that makes nothing in the end. "I know you're busy–" Too busy for her, probably. "but– Can we... talk?" A glance away. Her posture is far from the confident stance she had taken in her youth. "I feel funny."

[ @HOWLINGSTAR ]​

 

[HOWLINGSTAR]

Her beloved granddaughter's scent is so familiar to her, she knows she is outside her den before she hears her voice. "Come in," Her trill is light and inviting - a visit from Wolfwind is always welcomed. She turns to face the lit entrance of the small cave to see the smaller form of the gray she-cat, sunken and defeated. Her ears fall back; she hasn't seemed the same for some bit of time.

A gentle smile and tilt of her head, she draws close and presses against the young warrior. "I'm never too busy for you, love. Talk to me. What's on your mind?" She swipes her tongue lovingly over her velvety ears and wraps her tail around Wolfwind. The pain that is so evident in her kin brings a sting to her own heart. If it is in her power, she will fix it.​

 

[WOLFWIND]

"That's what you say... " she huffs. It's only half a joke. Her family grew bigger and bigger by the moment, apparently. Little Wolf daring to have another litter and having enough missing brains to name that kit as she did. There were bound to be favorites, weren't there?

It's irrational, she knows that. None of them have treated her any differently, so why did she feel like they all blamed her, when she wasn't looking?

Wolfwind shuffles her paws, lips-quirking only for a moment as a tongue rasps over her ear. It seems so long ago now, that she'd felt closeness like this. And– her thoughts are jumbled. It barely makes sense to her own mind, to put it succintly... Wolfwind grimaces. "I'm about to sound real stupid, right now," she warns the molly. She teeters on the edge of something and nothing, once again, before barely-filtered thoughts would spill unbidden.

"You're leader now... and stuff." Real eloquent. "And I know... I know that means you have more lives. More than... any normal cat could dream of havin' ya know?" It sounds like a dream Little her would've been ecstatic. Would've found Howling Wind–star, even more invincible than she already had. But it isn't that way, and it's stupid. "But you feel even more vulnerable, now? And... I guess..." A pause, she feels like she should shut up then and now; nearly quits, thinkin' that some whiny words weren't nearly worth this damn effort.

"'Cause... 'cause you were just Howling Wind before, you know?" Before the clans, shaded within the marshes. Head of the family, even if Hare Whiskers was technically their 'leader' "But now you're... you're... like her? Like Emberstar?" Just staying that makes her feel like she should cut off her own tongue. Emberstar was somewhat nobel in her own right– stuck to her beliefs, and Woldwind could respect some of that. But damn, if those beliefs weren't dumb as a kittypet back from the cutter. It works though, for what she's sayin' now at least. She assumes Howlingstar knows she wasn't to call her stupid. "And she... She had all those lives too, and she lost them all. Every last one, minus... one or so..." Her gaze is blank as she looks to the ground. "Was protectin' someone, wasn't she...?"

The bile doesn't swallow easy. She nearly chokes on it along with all the fears that formed an ugly, uncomfortable lump. Never had them before. Sucked to have, now. She wants to cry, and its stupid. "And I'm... It's... What if that someone is me...?"

And she thinks of that crazy old tom. She'd thought him nothing, an old geiser that refused to retire; and in a way, she hadn't been wrong. Howlingstar had been fine– but what if she hadnt been? The next rumors wouldn't be of her almost-death, nearly escaped, but of a ripping of life that was real. And would she have to near it nine times? Would it be just once, taken in an instant like so many others had been? "You were almost too much like her. Almost had your turn to be ripped up by a resident freak"

Shaky breath. Nevermind when she faced those dogs, or raced and weaved between the trees in her apprenticeship. These were the strangest breaths she's ever taken– too-thick and shaking with the weight of it in her chest. Was that selfish of her to think? That if there was anything Howlingstar would lose all her lives for, it'd be her? She's not that important. But someway... she'd manage it. At least one of them, she'd surely rip away. "I feel like I'm gonna eradicate this whole damn clan." She shakes her head cause she knows how stupid it is. "I shouldn't have those apprentices. I won't do a thing good for them."​

 

[HOWLINGSTAR]

Her head cocks to the side and she pauses her licking to peer at the blue she-cat. "I'm sure that's not true," She murmurs assuredly, brow furrowed. Howlingstar nods along as Wolfwind begins to speak, briefly wondering where this is going. She brings up Emberstar and her ears pull back against her head knowingly. Her granddaughter thinks she'll give up all of her lives to save someone, too. And not just anyone, but Wolfwind herself. The young warrior continues to shakily explain her fears as the leader wraps her tail tighter around her in an effort to comfort her.

"Wolfwind..." Her heart breaks to see her beloved kin like this. She leans into her, rubs her muzzle lovingly against her own. She has realized what this all falls back to. "What happened to Morningpaw was not your fault." The fault lies in her birth, the border that needed to separate her from one side but instead was walked carelessly over so, so many times that it meant nothing for those kits. A meaningless line in the sand that pulled her heart in two directions when it came down to it. But Wolfwind? No, it had never been her fault. "Listen to me, love. You can't hold onto this fear that you're some bad luck charm. You are so, so special, do you know that? Your apprentices now, they look up to you. They need you." And you need them, too.

"And I'm not going anywhere," She purrs, rasping her tongue once across the gray she-cat's forehead.​

 

[WOLFWIND]

It's too much. The words come, and then she's saying too much, speaking madness of every thought and tear that's touched her mind within the past few moons. She shifts under the weight of Howlingstar's gaze; beside the tail that seeks to comfort her. She was not a kit who needed to be consoled– but she appreciates it, all the same. Her breath comes out shaky, and she allows herself to indulge for just a moment.

Howlingstar's touch brings her back to the waking world, a comforting brush of something, to ground her. Not her fault. It's something she'd been trying to tell herself, but it only sounds like a lie. Wolfwind's disbelief is plain in her frown and glassy eyes. Wolfwind looks away. "No, I should've...," been faster? Been keeping a closer eye on her? Tell her to stay out of it all to begin with, even though she knows a young Wolfpaw would've been leaping into the very same skirmish with a gleam in her eye and vicious, practiced snarl plastered on her face? (It's not realistic, she knows, she knows...).

Wolfwind scoffs, only softly– she couldn't bring herself to do much more to her kin, now leader. "They don't..." A mistake, it must've been. Sparkpaw had been Emberstar's fault. And Frecklepaw? Wolfwind chews her lip. "They need Raccoontail, or... or Flycatcher or Nightbird. I'm just– I mean..." Her body is tense, shoulders pressed together. Flickering eyes can never stay in one spot for too long. "I mean, look at me..."

Being groomed like a kit, and a broken purr comes, despite herself. Her lips jut in a pout. "Y-you'd better not..."​