private MIDNIGHT MASS ; blazestar

[DOEBLAZE]

When she finally comes to broach the subject, both of them are battered. The spidery cuts that burst radial from the notches of her vertebra are newly patched, and clots of dried blood still spike the occasional tuft of lilac fur. Dawnglare's indifference towards his patients is well-known, and she has no qualms about slipping from the dark discomfort of the medicine den. If she does not talk to him about this now, she may never—and would there be a greater tragedy than that? Bobbie inhales icy air, sharp and bladed, and leans into the familiarity of the den they share.

"Blazestar—" she pauses. The tabby has always been judicious with her affections, since she learned not to bare her heart quite so rawly, but they should be past that. Are past that. "My love," she murmurs, finally, slinking inside. Bobbie no longer needs to hold back, as she had in visits drenched in summer's humidity; when she steps inward, it's nearly directly into his embrace. Spiderwebs of pain up her back are ignored in favor of pressing her muzzle into the golden fur at his chest, careful of the healing wound to her mate's throat.

The scent of elderberry and juniper is bruise-familiar, buried under the sharp pine-smell the whole Clan shares. When she draws back, her shadowed eyes are dark and fierce. "Your lives." It's almost accusing, the way the words dig, brittle bone, into the space between them. Love makes her vicious, makes her clutch at things with claws. She knows this. Bobbie curses herself, inhales, tries again, gentler: "You—I—" A false start, emotion strangling her throat like that fabled creeper vine. "What happened? Don't tell me you're fine—please—"

"I can see how Dawnglare keeps looking at you. I saw how bad it looked when you first came back." She remembers their last conversation about this: him promising to die for her, die for the Clan, when all she wants him to do is live for her. Selfishly, so selfishly, she doesn't regret that. He has belonged to this clan for long enough; can't he belong to her, in these last dregs of those star-blessed lives? Bobbie pauses, her voice a choking whisper. "How many left?"

How long until I lose you? There aren't so many left to lose, after all.

// @BLAZESTAR !!

"speech"

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[BLAZESTAR]

“Blazestar,” comes a voice soft as rabbit’s ears, a touch that causes weary bones to melt inward. The familiar warm scent of the SkyClan leader’s mate is tampered with bitterness, with blood and fear, and he moves to give her muzzle a gentle brush with his own. The pain in her eyes is unguarded, vulnerable. “My love,” she says, and the words soften his inhibitions. His lives, she says, and he has to pause, unwilling to break her further. “I’ve said what happened,” he murmurs, and though his heart aches to share the truth with her, he will not. He cannot. He made a vow, and it’s one he will not break—Skyclaw and Duskbird’s secret will go to the grave with him, he will let it wither into dust just as his bones will. “The fox… it’s teeth were sharp, and they cut deep. I fear you already know the truth, but…”

He meets her gaze solemnly. Blue shadow stretches toward tender sage. “How many left,” she asks, and Blazestar hates to tell her what she fears already. “This is my final life. I’m sorry.” He reaches to settle a massive golden paw atop a battered lilac one, to draw her closer to him and into the sadness that leaks from his eyes. “But you have only the one, too. Bobbie… we will share what’s left of it together. I will live… for you.”

, ”​

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[DOEBLAZE]

The fox. She had been on the patrol. If anyone had scoured the earth for a single tuft of scarlet fur or a whiff of rank predator-stench, it had been her. And yet—and yet there had been nothing, no distinctively brutish pawprints or blunted claw-marks dragged through snow. The land near the ThunderClan border had been utterly pristine, pure white snow driven into great drifts and smoothed into slippery pathways. Her eyes bruise olive-green, spearing him, but her prying questions die in her throat. She cannot fault him if he keeps his secrets, and her distrust of him, however instinctual, feels like some great sin.

"One?" The words leap accusatory before she can help it, tumbling hateful off her tongue. "How—How could you be so—" She stops herself before she can finish: so careless. So foolish. The silvery tears beading at the corners of her eyes and sloping down the curve of her muzzle are testament enough that it's love, fear, premature grief that sours her words, not anger. "I'm sorry, I just...." His sorrowful promise soothes her, but only slightly. "You have to, please—"

"Please—" she stumbles over the word again, pauses, his weighty paw, glowing golden in the darkness, pressed atop hers. Her words are rasping, choked, and the tear-slicked face she turns upwards is pleading. "Please stay with me. After all this, after everything—" a broken inhale, "After everything it took to find you, I can't lose you. Not now." She hates herself for the way the emotion in her voice strangles her. For the way it leaves the air heavy and silent if not for her soft, ragged breaths. For the way it strangles him, too, with the burden of her love.

"I don't know if I could live without you," she admits, hating herself, too, for her disbelief. Because she cannot believe his sad, murmured promise to live for her, this promise that's all she's ever wanted. "Is that terrible of me?"

"speech"

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[BLAZESTAR]

Bobbie doubts him; he can feel it in the stiffening way she shifts her body, in the piercing green that sears through his gaze. Blazestar holds eye contact, unwilling to turn away, despite the secrets laid bare in his expression. He wants to say more—to apologize for holding her at arm’s length, perhaps, when he’s never wanted her closer—but he does not. He waits for her incredulity to bubble over. “How could you be so--,” she says, she stutters, and Blazestar flinches. “Birdbrained? I’ve always been a fool, Bobbie.” He says this mildly enough. It’s easy for most of his Clan to believe—that he’d wandered too-close to the fangs of a fox—but his mate, his deputy, his medicine cat, they’d all been tougher to fool. She apologizes for the outburst, and he shakes his head gently—right, left, center. “Don’t be. I know. I know you’re worried, but…”

He trails off, unsure. How can he reassure her, when he feels starry eyes hanging onto his pelt? He feels their pelts swish against his, their tails twine with his tail. Death follows him like his shadow. It has since he’s received his StarClan-forsaken nine lives.

She almost begs him to stay with her, and his heart begins to crack—his voice, too. Blazestar reaches to nuzzle her slick, tear-stained cheeks. “I will never not be with you,” he says, his voice soft. “Even when I must leave this forest and join StarClan, I will be with you. Every step you take, I will take it beside you.” He prays fervently, behind closed lips, that it’s the truth.

“I don’t know if I could live with you… is that terrible of me?” “You can live without me, though, Bobbie,” he murmurs, something fierce stirring in his blue gaze. “You can, and you will—but not for many, many moons. I have one life to live, just as you do, and I don’t intend to waste it.”

He does not say this aloud—but he had not intended to waste any of them.

, ”​

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