narrator // tending to graves

Despite her role in the Clan, Cottonpaw does not visit the graveyard often. It is abundant, just as she imagines any Clan's dead-field would be, but in a manner she believes unlike the other Clans. She can decipher the graves of rebels and loyalists, just as she can remember that many on both sides were not given the grace of a proper burial. She had been there - she had cleaned Hummingbirdheart's body and stood tall over her burial. She's marked with feathers, some blown away, some burnt to a crisp. Yet Larkfeather's body is lost to the gorge, tossed away like rotten prey. All the same - her mother's body was left to rot beneath ashen ground with no distinction to mark her, and Icebreath's effective headstone stands tall. They are marked by a small regrowth of wildflowers. They are remembered.

She knew not the inner turmoil her former mentor faced. Her lips trembled whenever she spoke, but she broadened her shoulders and hardened her expression regardless. Their fur ruffled, their tail fluffed - but in the face of fear, of reprimand, Icebreath did not waver. She recalls watching the blue point follow through with Sootstar's demands, questions (if there were any) unspoken. She remembers perhaps countless nights the tunneler would spend in beside Firefang, and in her silence of watching her former mentor with her brother's, she waited for them to announce their relationship. Icebreath reveled in normalcy when everything was so terrible in the otherwise. Cottonpaw perceived that what they had then was exactly as Icebreath would've wanted it - as any of Sootstar's loyal cats would've wanted it.

Cottonpaw had wondered if her mentor would've supported her escape, but she did not ask. At the time, she feared the worst; the worst came in the form of her sister, but she cannot help but wonder if their lives would've been different if Icebreath found her instead. Would the other live, still, if she defected sooner? Or was their belated revelations written in the stars somewhere, unavoidable? In every timeline... are they cut down in their prime, their blood spilling before anyone of notice could find them? Were they always destined to follow bloodied paws and turn the last second, to see the blinding light of morning, and then close their eyes forevermore? Even as a sprouting medicine cat, Cottonpaw does not know.

Cottonpaw weeds the wildflower plumage that designates her former mentor's grave. She says oh-so little as she prunes out unsightly grass and a few dandelions for their collection at home. Ever the she-cat of a dozen mentors, she truly fears the demise of them all - and yet to be standing, unwavering, above the one who cradled her first... she doesn't know how to feel. Icebreath's existence in her life had been cut short far before the Clan split in two. The she-cat feared the world, feared leading her leader's child into unknown dangers - Cottonpaw was placed and replaced again, out of Icebreath's reach over and over, and the two of them never reconnected.

She wishes they did. Maybe then, this effort wouldn't feel so misplaced.

"I hope StarClan has accepted you kindly, Icebreath," Cottonpaw says, finally. She intends to spend the day cleaning up a few more graves, but she takes her break before that of Icebreath. Her prayers remain beneath her breath, and she hopes her first mentor hears them clearly. A solemn thank you, and an even quieter, you did well.
 
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TAGS — It's been a long time since he's seen Icebreath. It's been a long time since anyone has seen Icebreath, truly, or at least it feels that way; though the rebellion was still fresh in WindClan's history, it feels moons away now. Smokestep still isn't sure what he feels about it. Obviously, he stands here now, and he has ascended into the good graces of the Clan at large, but.... Well, it's difficult to sleep under the stars sometimes, knowing that Sootstar is not among them — knowing that he was her apprentice, and that he would have liked very much to see her well but he never tried to help her and now he obeys the tom who killed her.

Certainly his own turmoil cannot be comparable to the turmoil her kits feel, but since Sootstar's death he has wondered what would have happened if she had won. He remembers her before they were even born; before Cottonpaw was Icebreath's apprentice; before Icebreath was even Icebreath, and they were all in the apprentice's den together. He remembers Sootstar, but the cat he misses is his friend.

He doesn't often visit the graveyard himself. Icebreath's grave is relatively recent compared to the rest, so he thinks he has an excuse for not visiting so often, but really the reason he avoids the site is obvious. It's uncomfortable. It's upsetting. They had been tunneling partners, and though Smokestep would not dare to claim he was closer to Icebreath than Firefang was, it certainly didn't make his grief weigh less. On top of the grief, though, he feels guilt. He'd been in the battle with the loyalists; he'd seen Icebreath fight for Sunstar, and he had too, but.... It's different, he thinks. It had been different. She'd turned teeth and claws against the cats that Smokestep had still idolized — against the cats that he only fought because he knew they would lose. She'd done it because her heart was in it, really and truly.

Smokestep doesn't realize this, of course. Instead his heart just beats beneath a thick, oozing blanket of sick. Scarred paws tuck neatly beneath his white-laced tail as he seats himself in front of Icebreath's grave, not trying to intrude on Cottonpaw's moment but not intending on leaving either way. I hope StarClan has accepted you kindly, Icebreath. Smokestep nods, quiet. "Me too."

 

Bearflight's grave was fresh- it was easily picked out by even an inexperienced gaze. Her soft-hearted, strong-clawed brother... who had all the power, all the prowess he needed slumbering within, and yet referred to use it. Featherspine had always feared that Bearflight would meet his end faced with someone intolerant of his pacifism. It was easier to protect him, predicting that future. But as her warring mind always surprised her, with violent flashes and shadow-crafter creatures, so too did the flames that had whipped toward his brother and snatched his life away, incinerating it beneath the pressure.

This was Featherspine's freshest grief. Perhaps it was pathetic, time-wasting... but he found himself walking through here often, even if just to gaze upon Bearflight's resting-place for a few moments before departure. Usually there was no-one here- today, Smokestep and Cottonpaw sat side-by-side, an odd-seeming pair. Cocooned in their tones he heard the name Icebreath... a departed warrior, in Featherspine's hazy memory. She had been barely an apprentice when the battle had star-bursted... since the last time she had been seen. From Bearflight's resting-place, Featherspine watched Cottonpaw's claws, picking at sprouting weeds.

"That's... kind of you to do." Featherspine's voice was quiet, and dared for a few moments to be vulnerable. It was good to know that, shoudl it become too painful to drift by here, that the graves were in good paws.
✦ penned by pin
 

She'd watched many of her clanmates die, too many. She thought as an apprentice she'd grow used to the horror of discovering the mangled remains of a felled clanmate but that horror would persist, she'd be as cold as the leafbare chill if she felt nothing. Firefang had seen the crumpled sickly bodies of those who couldn't fight the infections in their chest, she's seen the horror sprawled on the faces of those not ready to walk the starry path to their ancestors embrace and she's seen the grizzled rumpled bodies of warriors she fought besides whose eyes still reflected their jubilation, their pride and their anger all for their final battle etched in stone into their hollow vessels. Many of the loyalist died with their pride intact, fighting until their last breath - wasted blood, wasted life - sometimes when she closes her eyes she can see them their snarled faces pointed at her and their eyes glistening with a new emotion; of familiarity they beckoned her to a grave she continued to run from. They were far from the only faces she remembered and saw in the depths of the terrors of her own making. Those gazes meant so little to her compared to the saddened solemn gaze of her love that never was.

Starclan how she wishes she could remember Icebreath as she lived; sleek and gorgeous with eyes like the sky and fur like newleaf-clouds. They'd grown up together, fought together and slept side by side sharing the same destiny sharing the same loyalties and sharing an unsaid promise of devotion. She can't even remember what she sounded like anymore. She was everything she wasn't every bit her better half, she should've went on to do great things should have been able to usher in this new dawn. Instead she died another soldier in a war that should've never been fought, suffering and alone as battle raged around her. Firefang had promised to protect them. She never got to say goodbye - never got to say 'I love you'.

Of all the former dead loyalist she was glad Icebreath had the honor of being laid to rest with the rest of Windclan's former great warriors. Yet, she can't stomach visiting - it'd only be admitting that she was truly gone nothing more then a phantom haunting her dreams. She has no right to mourn, she should still be here - and Firefang should be nothing more then a feast for the worms but she was too much of a coward to face Starclan's judgement, to much of a coward to even confess her love. Moons have passed, seasons even she watches as Windclan becomes something neither of them would've expected but her hurt hardly dulls. It would always remain, it was a thorn she'd never want to remove.

She doesn't know what motivates her to come here after so long, it's almost as if she's being dragged unconsciously. She's had so much time to little but meander through past memories, opening half healed wounds while her burn scabbed over but this wound had been left raw and festered and maybe now she tries to treat it. Her gaze is morose, she keeps her distance almost a fox-length away - it's a coincidence Cottonpaw attends to her mentors former grave and her brother visits his friend - they have more reason to be here, they hadn't failed her not like she had. She wishes she'd been alone, her heart hardens to steel and yet her gaze glistens for a moment and she prays they don't see the way her paws almost lose balance. She doesn't make a noise, doesn't bring any attention to herself - she hopes to leave as quickly as she came and yet for this moment she stays planted even as she wills herself to leave. To try and forget all over.

She stares at their marker and wonders what Icebreath must think of her now from where they rest in silverpelts embrace.




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    Firefang She/Her, Warrior of Windclan, 24 moons
    Black tabby she-cat with amber eyes. former-loyalist of Sootstar, Moorunner.
    peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
    penned by Kedamono@legmeatt on discord, feel free to dm for plots. ​
 
Death is a. . . complicated thing, to Sparkspirit. It had seemed so normal. Was it always meant to be this way? The day that his mother had been taken from their territory, a solemn apprentice had decided that she was gone for an eternity and he had moved on as if nothing changed at all. His grief was deep-rooted but starved. Intentionally unfed where it sat in the corners of his mind. Larkfeather, though– that he has not come to terms with. The brutal death of his littermate should have solidified precisely what he thought of Sootstar. Everything should have been made clear in that moment.

Why wasn't it made clear?

Loyalty was a river of murky waters that he tried his best to peer through, but he would never see what came out the other side. Maybe there was no end to loyalty at all. Maybe each strand of attachment he had formed was meant to live on forever in his heart so that he may mourn both the good and the bad in equal measure. Or what if there was no good and bad at all? Simply strings, and memories, and reasons that people thought and felt and wanted what they did. None of it important. None of it worth severing ties over. Everything that mattered in the end were those that he cared for. Nothing could take that from him now. His heart reaches tentatively for each of the cats settled here now. Hoping, perhaps, to turn a new chapter with each of them.

In the end Sparkspirit sits beside Firefang. His thoughts are not with Icebreath, or with Bearflight. Not Larkfeather or Weaselclaw, or even Sootstar herself. A new morning would have to dawn at some point, wouldn't it?
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  • OOC.
  • 🗲  .   ˚ .  SPARKSPIRIT. HE - HIM - HIS. 17 MOON OLD MOOR RUNNER OF WINDCLAN. VERY LOYAL TO HIS CLAN. PENNED BY REVELATIONS.  ————
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    ——  a trim mock tortoiseshell tom with mostly black fur splashed with the occasional patch orange. he has a singular white mark on the back of his neck shaped similarly to a lightning strike, and a small scar across the bridge of his nose. his eyes are a shocking electric blue.
    ✦ ECHOLIGHT x ELMBREEZE. ADOPTED BY YEWBERRY. BRIGHTFAM, BUT SOMEWHAT ESTRANGED DUE TO HIS LOYALTY TO WINDCLAN. ————————
  • "speech"