LIKE SOME DISGRACED COSMONAUT \ orangeblossom

[BLAZESTAR]

Camp is quiet for sunhigh. Silversmoke has sent out patrols, and it’s strange to see him sit where Thistleback had most recently—where Orangeblossom had before him—where Deersong, Daisyflight had sat. The ghosts of cats he’d loved and lost, with a single exception. His taciturn deputy is curled around her slumbering kits in the nursery. His visit surely isn’t unexpected—he takes an interest in getting to know all of the kits in the Clan, but the future leader’s are especially important. Besides, without Thistleback, his other lead warriors are too green to take up the job she’d been doing since leafbare without assistance.

“Are you good to talk?” Blue eyes skip over the tiny bodies of her kits. Tiny, but growing quickly. A smile twitches at his lips. Before they know it, they’ll be apprentices trailing after their mentors into the pines. “It’s nothing urgent… but…” But what? He feels lost, floundering, but hoping she’ll save him by letting another queen watch her kits while they go for a short walk.

// @orangeblossom
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[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[Orangestar]

I'm surprised Blazestar didn't pick you as deputy from the start. Orangeblossom had regarded Thistleback out of the corner of her eye as the rest of the Clan split into their post-meeting duties around them, but she had not given voice to the words circling her mind; scavengers though they were, waiting for their victim's final moment. Amidst terror and SkyClanners vanishing he'd been chosen to fill her duties while she reared her kittens, just like she had been chosen to when Deersond retired to raise her own. Yet, despite the similarity of the cause, the circumstances couldn't have been any more different.

But now, with the piebald tom missing (or dead, chimes her mind, gone like every other senior-to-her member of Blazestar's council), Orangeblossom wishes she'd swallowed her hesitation and gone on to explain her admiration of his loyalty and judgement. It wouldn't have changed anything and he would still be lost, she knows this logically, but the sunkissed molly can't quite stop entertaining the thought that maybe it could.

Pale eyes seek hers from the entrance of the newly-rebuilt nursery and Orangeblossom jolts, mind playing a cruel trick on her for a moment- but the owner is Blazestar, just Blazestar and nobody else, sunhigh eyes and awkward pawsteps muted as he enters the den. His attention flicks towards the sprawling kittens at her side, half-grown to apprenticeship and starting to spill over the sides of the nest, and Orangeblossom prepares an explanation as to why she absolutely won't be waking the two-moon-old scraps of energy who she'd finally gotten to take a nap; but it's unneeded, as he asks if they can talk.

True to awkward form, he trails off without fully explaining what he wants to talk about, but someone clears their throat to their side and Orangeblossom turns her head towards another queen, who gestures a silent go on with her chin towards their leader. She considers her kits old enough now to understand, at least partially, the concept of duty; and, though relieved to see her return, they're less freaked out when they wake up from a nap to find an Orangeblossom-shaped-gap in their nest. The first time had been an ordeal, but they're easier to settle with a short explanation nowadays; especially if another queen gives them a short briefing before she returns.

Careful not to wake any of her kits, Orangeblossom mutely untangles herself from the pile and stretches, piece by piece and limb by limb as she joins Blazestar in the doorway. It's not urgent, but ...

"But it's important." She finishes for him, voice hushed. She spares one last glance towards her kittens. "Your den, or do you need to get out of camp for a bit?"

— info

•  
• 
  orangeblossom. tags.
  — she/her, skyclan deputy.
  — mentor to eveningpaw.
  — attack in #e08550. uses trees as an integral part of her fighting style.
  — mean enough to note that her thoughts don't reflect my opinions as a writer haha.
  — penned by mercibun; @ me in any official tabbytales discord for plots. :]
  — art by merc!<3
  

​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Orangeblossom’s dark gaze meets his own, and for a moment, he’s thinking she will refuse. Her kits are slumbering peacefully—he wouldn’t blame her if she wouldn’t want to wake them. She does rise when a fellow queen gives her a perceptive nod, and he leads the ginger-splashed she-cat out of the nursery. “Your den, or do you need to get out of camp for a bit?” He turns to face her with a smile. “I should think you’d want to stretch your legs,” he answers. “How are you enjoying nursery life?”

Some queens take to their shifting role more easily than others. Daisyflight had worked right up until her kitting, and Orangeblossom in many ways had done the same. But Deersong, in the end, had chosen queen duties over her deputy position, and Blazestar half-fears he will be losing Orangeblossom to the same fate. There’s an anxious gleam in his tired blue eyes; perhaps she can tell that’s what he’s nervous about.

Still, Blazestar has grown even since then. He’d had a quiet resentment about Daisyflight and Deersong choosing not to follow in his pawprints, but he feels that silent judgment is misplaced now. All around him, the cats he’s grown closest to—the cats he’s sworn to duty—have fallen. Dead, missing. He suffers every loss like the passing of kin. The cats he hand-picks for his council all have a place in his damaged heart. One day, if Orangeblossom does choose to remain in her position and if she does not die before he does, she will learn how he has carried that burden, as she will carry it, too.

“I’m doing a lot of thinking,” he murmurs quietly. The pines drape them in sunhigh shadows. Greenleaf air is humid, but redolent with prey scent and birdsong. Yet, there are whispers in his mind, and he feels it’s finally time to give them voice. “About what’s to come.” He realizes as he speaks that he has not spoken to Orangeblossom about this before—about any of his misgivings with leadership. A part of him knows that the ginger-and-white warrior looks at him as a failure in many ways, but she has never given voice to this. Not to him, and to his knowledge, not to anyone else. Whatever she thinks of him, Orangeblossom has carried out her duties with loyalty and good faith.

He can’t fault her for her misgivings, can he? Not when he has so many of the same ones?

“I lost a life to that dog attack.” He shifts his shoulders, pale coat rippling with the movement. “It was my fourth. I will die five more times, and then I will join StarClan for the last time.” He sighs. “There was a time I was confident I would leave SkyClan in good paws. And that hasn’t changed—but now I have to consider…”

What he wants to say is, don’t leave me. Don’t let me down. SkyClan needs you after me. But he doesn’t know how to say this. Orangeblossom is not Daisyflight; she is not Thistleback. Her loyalty is to the Clan, not to him, and he knows this. Stars, he knows this. “My time is running out, I think. Are you still sure this is the path you wish to walk?”
​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[Orangestar]

"You're thinking correct." Orangeblossom, though her expression is schooled into the usual sombre neutrality, perks up somewhat at the invitation to leave camp. As much as she loves her kits, she's barely left the Clan's home in moons; and when Blazestar asks what she thinks about life in the nursery, she decides to be honest ... as soon as they're out of earshot of the kittens.

"I hate it. I love my kits, but I hate being cooped up like one. Even if it's safer, I know, and it's important to be around them ..." She sighs. "I never really fell into step with the queens in the same way I did the warriors; but it's always been like that." Even within the Pine Colony, she'd always taken more interest in the kits themselves- how their skills and personalities began to show at a young age, rather than the gossip of their mother and her own. There hadn't been any sort of the Clans' rigidity back then, no formality to ranks, no formal expectation that a queen stay with her kittens. But there'd been no official chain of leadership then, either. Just Rain and common sense. No duty to expect retirement from.

"I want to get out and get back to my life and duties, but ... I don't know if I want to see my kits apprenticed. They're still so young, and ..." She trails off, but unsung on the air rings and I know that Clan life doesn't sheathe its claws for young apprentices. She knows what Blazestar and his kits had gone through when Morningpaw had died and, rather selfishly, she hopes that she'll never have to suffer the same. He'd trusted Dawnglare then, too, a luxury Orangeblossom had never lulled herself into.

The space between their conversation is filled with the sound of pawsteps; nothing else but their own in this microcosm, and Orangeblossom takes the opportunity to relish what she's missed. The forest is the same as she remembers, drenched in pine-scent, but without the taint of twoleg traps, and, with twitching ears, she realises that the chatter of prey is closer here. Brown eyes track the shadow of a bird from tree to tree, but the ache in her leg and the company she's brought remind her from every angle that she shouldn't go chasing birds at a time like this.

Blazestar breaks the silence between them with a murmur. Orangeblossom turns her head immediately, scrutinising. Their steps continue at a slower pace though do not still as the cream-pointed tom admits he lost another life. His deputy takes a breath in. It doesn't precede words, nor is it entirely voluntary. It's no secret that a Clan leader receives nine lives from StarClan, and no secret that this revival is a fact; Orangeblossom had seen it herself before, when Blazestar had been killed at the claws of a WindClanner. She hadn't witnessed him lose his first two lives, so seeing his breathing still and his wounds close as if moons had passed him by in the blink of an eye had shaken her. Having been chosen as deputy not long prior had made it all real; that would be her someday. And he admits hit again now, another loss at the gnashing jaws of a dog.

Four down. Five to go. Her ears twitch backwards, slightly and briefly offended at the implication of leaving SkyClan in good paws, as if she is not worthy of inheriting the weight of the Clan; but, though her eyes narrow, she does not say anything as he admits that his opinion has not changed. They narrow further over but, the great equaliser.

"Better not be," she warns under her breath as he admits his time is running out; but she clamps her scarred jaws shut as he continues, turning luminous eyes on her once more. After a heartbeat, a charged silence, she averts her own. Is this the path she wishes to walk? Without Blazestar, she doesn't know. He's been a constant since the Clans were first formed, a stranger back then, when she was younger and wary of the kittypet-king chosen by forces unexplained and given extra lives to govern, but Orangeblossom couldn't imagine life without him now. Orangeblossom turns her muzzle back to face her leader, scars and all, chin lifting to fix him with a determined stare.

"I'm not going to abandon you, and I have no intention of dying before that point." She affirms. "I've walked these pines since before SkyClan was even a thought in StarClan's sparkly heads-" probably- "and I won't leave them now. SkyClan will need a leader after you're gone, and I'm happy to do that, just ... don't rush on getting rid of us, okay?"

— info

•  
• 
  orangeblossom. tags.
  — she/her, skyclan deputy.
  — mentor to eveningpaw.
  — attack in #e08550. uses trees as an integral part of her fighting style.
  — mean enough to note that her thoughts don't reflect my opinions as a writer haha.
  — penned by mercibun; @ me in any official tabbytales discord for plots. :]
  — art by merc!<3
  

​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar’s whiskers tremble with amusement at Orangeblossom’s blunt honesty. It’s one thing he does appreciate about her—she will not speak honeyed lies to comfort him or even those she’s closest to. The flame point listens to her express worries about their pending apprenticeships. He nods, thinking—as she is, unbeknownst to him—about the dangers life holds for cats so young. “You will always worry for your kits, even when they’re on the brink of warriorhood.” He blinks in understanding. “But they are especially vulnerable when they are new apprentices. With any luck, SkyClan will continue to stay out of the conflicts of other Clans.” They are friends with ThunderClan, neutral to allied with RiverClan, and so far from the other warmongers that it hardly matters what their relations are most of the time.

Seconds pass slowly. Blazestar watches her with wary blue eyes, studying her scarred features for any twitches, any reaction at all. He wonders if his speculation—the last of his lives dwindling away—is the point at which he has lost her. He remembers Daisyflight’s defeated expression, Deersong’s look of guilt. Would Orangeblossom mimic her predecessors now?

“Better not be,” she tells him, referencing his belief that the sun is beginning to set on what’s left of his lives. Blazestar’s ear twitches, but he says nothing, waiting still for her admission, her desire. When she does finally tell him the truth, a sigh of relief escapes him.

“You don’t know what a relief it is to hear that.” He smiles, some of the ease returning to his features and body. There will be a capable warrior to guide SkyClan once he’s gone, and that’s his greatest wish. Their Clan deserves protection and ferocity and love. They deserve the best either of them have to give. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I assure you that I could not have chosen a better cat to follow in my pawprints.” Blazestar stares ahead, acknowledging her request but taking several heartbeats to say anything.

“There’s no hurry,” he says after a period of silence. “But I’ve come to realize the purpose of these nine lives… they are not as Dawnglare says, given to lead a long, fulfilling life, to watch the cats you love wither away or be slaughtered in front of you.” He speaks with conviction, as he had to the medicine cat. “StarClan has given me these lives to protect my Clan, and I will do everything in my power to do so.”

With a breath, he looks at her and murmurs, “And someday, you will carry that burden.”
​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[Orangestar]

Orangeblossom nods along to Blazestar's advice, trying to take it in, but she finds it does little to soothe her worries. SkyClan's enemies are on the far side of the forest, singular in number unless ShadowClan elects to try their luck, but it's still too many. Too close, and that was if the twolegs on their other flank didn't decide to start trapping them like caged birds again. Agitated, she finds her claws flexing in and out of the dirt, but the conversation flows through them like a breeze, shifting towards the topic of leadership.

Mutely, Orangeblossom nods, but a warm glow of pride rises in her chest even as the weight of responsibility settles on her like a shroud. Their leader - her leader - is some twenty moons older than Orangeblossom, closer to the age of Heavy Stone than herself, but the ginger-and-white molly has never been as acutely aware of their generational difference as she is now. Even without the burden of leadership, he has always been ahead of her in life experience.

Yet they have at least one thing alike, that protective spark towards SkyClan, the inherent fierceness and want to protect the home that they've made. Though she doesn't say anything, Orangeblossom finds new understanding in this common ground between them. Blazestar is sentimental, and places the opinions of his kin's kin too far high up on his list of priorities. But he is also brave. That love does translate to SkyClan; if it did not, he wouldn't be here. StarClan wouldn't have chosen him (though, for some arcane reason, they did pick Dawnglare, and she fully intends to ask the first StarClanner she meets one day why).

"Prepare me for it." Her voice is flat, as if giving an order on where to place patrols, but it's a question more than anything. "What can you tell me about being a leader that I haven't already seen?"

— info

•  
• 
  orangeblossom. tags.
  — she/her, skyclan deputy.
  — mentor to eveningpaw.
  — attack in #e08550. uses trees as an integral part of her fighting style.
  — mean enough to note that her thoughts don't reflect my opinions as a writer haha.
  — penned by mercibun; @ me in any official tabbytales discord for plots. :]
  — art by merc!<3
  

​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Orangeblossom’s request—flat but determined—causes Blazestar pause. “What can you tell me about being a leader that I haven’t already seen?” He looks down at her, blue eyes narrowing imperceptibly. “You’ve seen a lot. And I know that. But it’s less about what you see and more about what you lose.” He tilts his head to the sky, blinking at the wisps of ivory blown along by sturdy, hot winds.

And what can he tell her about loss? “I’m not just talking about Morningpaw. Not this time.” He sighs. He’s sure his daughter’s death had been the first thought to graze her mind. If not her, perhaps the mate and kits he’d given up to remain SkyClan’s leader. “I’ve lost much more than that, though perhaps nothing as precious.” He muses, “I’ve lost peace of mind. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t worry for every member of SkyClan, from the tiniest kit to the frailest elder. I’ve lost pieces of myself, all things I’ve had to give up to make sure my Clan would not have to suffer in the same way.”

He blinks again, memory glazing his eyes. “I’ve lost hope many times, though StarClan sees fit to bring me back. I’ve lost the respect of many cats I called friends once, who I trusted deeply. Cats who questioned my judgment and used it as a personal vendetta to harm my daughter.” His eyes flash with anger, but he continues. “Every move I make, I’m scrutinized, I’m questioned. Not only by SkyClan, but by every cat in this forest. By StarClan themselves, I’m sure.”

Blazestar shakes his pelt out, as though he could fling his troubles away like dust on his fur. “Leading SkyClan has been rewarding. But I would be lying to you if I told you it has not drained me.” He looks at her, ears flicking. “And I will not lie. Not if you’re expected to follow me.”

✧ INFO.

•  
• 
  — blaise . blazestar
  — he/him ; leader of skyclan
  — pansexual ; divorced ; single
  — longhaired flame point Ragdoll with blue eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Mercibun

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