private my heart is made of fear ✧ hazecloud

[lichenstar]

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Eyes linger on a figure that moves like billowing storm clouds across the plains... she seems almost unbothered, if not for the context behind the necessary walk. They needed space and it was hard to find it between six sets of now toddling paws... and with half of them old enough to understand the words spoken tersely, Lichentail refused to be caught having a grown-up discussion where tiny ears might hear them. Where they might be misunderstood as angry... or sad... or resentful.

Hazecloud is almost too quiet and there is a tension in her shoulders that hardly lessens even as they grow more distant from the crowds of watchers and listeners... it isn't like her, it doesn't match the softness of her fur that the pale furred deputy has buried herself in for months. It isn't the same humming purr that sings her name in lulling tones that ease her to sleep. It feels far more frigid... sharp as an icicle dangling from the trees above.

"I... I need to talk to you," she says after they've wandered towards a half-dead field that had once been a place of joyful reunion, a place where they always seemed to crawl back to. It had been flowers in bloom, the last touches of warm sunlight. She remembered the way her claws felt buried obsessively into her skin, was afraid of what that meant. What did it mean, that she had missed her so terribly despite all the hurt and anger that she had been willing to sink into her that tightly? Would she crumble apart without her now?

"I feel like... we never talked about all of this... Are you doing okay?"

Her perfect daylily... her sweet sunshine smile... she missed seeing it. Missed the bubbling song of her waterfall falsetto. Was afraid she might fall apart when finally alone to be with her thoughts... to be with her like they had been months ago. When things had felt easier. When they had been overjoyed and full of months of suppressed love, bursting to be expressed. When they'd had a little bit of hope still.

"You look so beautiful...." she murmurs, searching her mate's face for threats of tears before rubbing her head against the tender under-side of her chin, drawing in breath to be overwhelmed by the scent of milk and lingering touches of long-dead spring flowers. She relished in it... to be this close, in private.

@hazecloud

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I HEARD "WHO HAS MADE YOU CRY LIKE THAT?"

THERE STOOD APHRODITE WHERE I WEPT IN THE GRASS​

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[hazecloud]

It had felt a lifetime ago since her eyes had caught sight of what lay beyond their little island. Hazecloud must have lost track of time as she spent her days focused on keeping Smokestar's kin safe and so soon her own. Rearing two different litters at two different stages had been far more work than she was expecting. While she had poured every bit of love and attention in the older three it still surprised her how much they sought after her affection, knowing she wasn't their true mother. (A fact Pebblekit reminded them of frequently).

Now that they were meant to wait even longer to become apprentices, she would be overseeing them even longer while juggling the growing mobility of their younger denmates. It would be loud, it would get cramped in that sedge den, and it would be hard to keep under control for much longer. Hazecloud avoidance in asking for help might just be the cause for her to crumble under the pressure, but stubbornly she would bear the weight until she could not physically continue any longer.

By some miracle, now she's been coaxed out of camp after moons and moons of living safely behind its walls. Hazecloud had been a careful queen, dutiful to the nursery and watchful over every kitten. So adamant about staying within it that she had made space for Lichentail to rest with her in the nursery and her friends to share their meals right beside the entrance.

Something today had been different. It could have been that their own were not so small and fragile anymore that she thought looking away for even a second would be cause for disaster. The anxiety of so much distance placed between them had shown in the tension she carried. Not a single glance taken to admire the changes to plains had taken during leafbare, nor a comment on how thrilled she would be once spring blossomed again. Her thoughts swirled loudly over the words of her mate, holding her muscles taut until the lynx point spoke again, at last gaining her attention.

"It's a bit overwhelming, but nothing I can't handle. Nothing we haven't talked about already, I think." Hazecloud sighed as she felt the exhaustion deep in her bones. She rest her chin comfortably between Lichentail's ears and mirrored a long, deep breath in attempt to release the tautness in her muscles.

"You can keep going about how beautiful I am." She purred while curling her tail close to her mate. Despite the days of tear-streaked fur and shaky breaths between words Hazecloud didn't appear so overwrought by their loss anymore. She hadn't even muttered Snowflakekit's name since granting it to him that fateful day. She hoped in Lichentail's inquiry that she wasn't trying to pry it from her, that her answer may have been enough of a clue to how she felt about it. ​

 

[lichenstar]

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The pressure of her head leaned comfortably on top of her own pulls a soft, rumbling purr out her... the moments they had to relish in the things that had brought them close before being parents felt few and far between. It had been months of this now... between the promise she'd made Smokestar, the casual threat of leaf-bare and the new, surprise wards that had jumped their timeline to parenthood forward... the last chance they'd had was but hours before they'd welcomed their litter, the sunrise before.....

Hazecloud lets out a small, tired breath as she explains her adjustment to her role, that it isn't anything new but the exhaustion of chasing six instead of three. Unwillingly, her eyes well with tears, to have to acknowledge how much time she was missing. Clenching of teeth keeps a soft whimper locked behind her lips and quickly, a foggy hum asks for more, teasingly. More praise, more affection, more compliments.

"Are you sure," she asks, voice wavering slightly to try to match the light-hearted tone. "I think.. big, beautiful waterfall might be the best I've got." She thinks of the cheek-splitting smile and confused green eyes that had met her the first time she'd said that and prays she might get a glimpse of the sunshine grin again now too.

She stays surprisingly quiet for a minute, hunched over to fit like an overgrown kit under the shorter queen's head. She felt gangly... misplaced... and overcome with a torrent of yearning. She'd stayed quiet, been a stone in a tumultuous tide if it meant Hazecloud might have something to cling to. "Hazecloud..." and her voice comes out in a croaking whisper, "I... miss our son...."

And she knew well enough that her misty daylily would just assume she meant Howlkit, would suggest they turn around and go home, might tease her that she was choosing favorites because she'd picked his name. "Snowflakekit... You. You haven't said his name...." Her brow furrows, face pinching into a pained glower as she struggled to hold back bottled tears. Possessively, fearfully, she wraps her foreleg quickly around her to grip the molly's shoulder, claws pricking at her skin in a subconscious fear she might run away.

"Stop... leaving me behind. Please talk to me," she hissed through gritted teeth, unwilling to tear watery eyes from the spot on the ground they were firmly affixed to. She wanted the chance to hurt too... to not be wrapped around her mate while verdant eyes wept into the scruffy fur of her chest while she murmured reassurances with stony-eyed stares at the nursery walls.

Could she be small enough to fit...? Could she shed the responsibility of her roles to grieve now too? How many had she buried... or carried home bleeding in the last two moons alone? In some small way, they all felt like they had been her fault. Maybe if she'd been more patient... been more stubborn... been faster... anything. Would Clayfur still be here? Would Reedbite have been noticed before the cold caught them? Could her tiny, silent son have the chance to see the spring?

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I HEARD "WHO HAS MADE YOU CRY LIKE THAT?"

THERE STOOD APHRODITE WHERE I WEPT IN THE GRASS​

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[hazecloud]

Lichentail has made her recall to when they had last made rested beneath the blooms. How she had bowled into the then-lead, appearing like a phantom spill every bit of emotion she had bottled from their messy breakup like sand. How she had thrown the other into such confusion that she had to clutch her like she was going to float away, back to the mountains and all she break was-

What's a... big... beautiful waterfall like you doing asking a stupid little fish to love her?

The memory has her cringe again but, it still drew a small laugh. "Can't you use your big deputy brain to think of something else? Or is it full of patrols and taking back Sunningrocks now?" Hazecloud teased and in their pause she adjusted to comfortably fit her mate beneath her. If comforting so many young hadn't become part of her daily duties for the kittens she would have been so bold as to verbally equate Lichentail to one. Compare the way she shoved herself further and tried to force room where there wasn't any the same way Shellkit would when she had to feed the younger three.

Her purring stilled to ask- Comfortable? But she was beat in speaking first to fill the quiet. She swallowed all the air left in her and felt her bones turn to stone.

She knew. She wasn't stupid, and neither was Lichentail for assuming she would deflect it to their remaining son who was still blessed to breathe. But that name is spoken, thrown to her and made too real for her to face. An instinctual reaction told her to pull away. To run away from this like she had been but claws prick through her fur and find skin. Held in a barbed trap, the first feeling that spews is anger. Anger because she cannot escape the way she wanted and it twisted itself clear in expression.

Stop leaving me behind. Her mate is pleading to her. The wall of brambles she's raised around her heart in regards to their lost lamb is struck, breaking but not beaten.

"What else is there to talk about?" Despite the anger in her face her voice trembled the same. She had pushed her grief far, far down in hopes they would never have to dig it up again. They could overlook it when they had those still living but she hadn't prepared for how little control she had of herself when confronting this again.

"It's-it's my fault it even happened. Even though I did everything right. Even though... even though I put my life in their paws it wasn't enough. And I was a fool to think it was. And now I've hurt you, again." She would have pulled away again but pin-sharp claws remind her to stay, so she does. "Talking about Snowflake... kit is-" She doesn't have the words to describe it. That she's not strong enough to overcome the pain it causes.

"Don't you feel it too?"​

 

[lichenstar]

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The joke is light-hearted and if she weren't already pained for the loss of quiet, shared moments of peace, it might be funny. Sunningrocks didn't stray far from her thoughts, patrols too were a daily requirement for the survival and success of the clan. She had duties, burdens, that did not match others her age, that the lead warriors couldn't shoulder for her (she wouldn't let them be buried under the weight of her fate)... Already the consequences had lit up like fireflies on summer nights- Petalnose, so devoted to her clan she nearly starved to see everyone else hale and healthy, Clayfur, who'd been willing and ready to lay down his life stolen from them in one quick, methodical movement, Reedbite, lost in the chill and cold of a wasteland of frost and ice, and how many more? How many more would suffer while she clawed at the red twines trying to tangle and untangle them so that the nipping teeth of StarClan did not pluck lines short again?

Don't.

And under the gaze of the heavens does she try to run anyways. She feels it in the tug of fur under her claws and like ice down her veins does that withdrawal sting like rejection. Pupils narrow to dagger-sharp slits, an uncomfortable heat churning in her belly that starkly contrasts the cool, blistering of tears- You're leaving me, she thinks with a desperation rising in her throat like she might suffocate on it.

"What else is there to talk about?"

Her teeth grit in held-sob frustration, feeling they might break in her mouth under the pressure of her own bite. Might burst apart and litter the ground with another coat of dusted white... no one would be able to tell... She thinks of Snowflakekit, rested in the middle of camp almost indecipherable from the snow he was named for. Remembers how she felt to lie there with him, content that maybe she could just be done too... that if they both just kept perfectly still they'd meld into the flurries and be carried away on frigid winds.

And there is that ruthless, summer-hot sun in her gut, burning and thrashing about like an animal caged in sweltering fire. Furious, horrified, afraid. Was she really so mechanical that no one thought her half-lidded stares were not from exhaustion? So reserved and withheld that her silence was a virtue rather than willful punishment? So sturdy for one that needed strength most that it was just assumed she didn't care at all?

Why did it always come back to this? Always a chase. Always a mournful cry to be heard after moon cycles of festering under the surface.

"It is StarClan's fault," she seethes, not willing to hear her mate's admission of guilt. They had done everything right... Had bowed in reverence, gone on missions of near-guaranteed suicide, shared their wishes and dreams with those stars and still. Still they spited them at every turn...

"Don't you feel it too?"

"How could I possibly not," she asks, though she seeks no answer. What judgement Hazecloud faced was reserved to those with the audacity to seek her out in the privacy of the nursery. She did not receive every passing, vindictive glance... did not lay with their dead son all night while others shouldered past with half-hearted apologies. She'd stayed in the quiet warmth.... padded with feathers and kitten-soft kisses. Got to absorb every perfect moment with not just theirs but the ones they'd fostered too. How humiliating to be a mother that hardly bathed in the presence of her children. To have missed things.

"The luxury you have to assume I do not suffer his loss every day... The willful choice you make to pretend he doesn't exist. He exists, Hazecloud!" And she hadn't realized the way her voice rose to shouting, all the while still glaring at the ground where gray paws shift uncomfortably below her. "I won't steal their brother from them a second time by denying them the right to know him. And you shouldn't either."

. . . . .

"We're still... in the middle of camp.... without you."
A warble of barely more than quiet bird song, "What's the point in a name... if you won't remember him?"

Timidly and yet frantically all the same, the lynx point tilts her head to look at emerald shores- the reflection of waterfall eyes making the dampness of her cheeks realized.

Still the same whiny, tearful girl that had courted her two seasons' cycles ago... Damn it.

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CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS

FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY​

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