backwritten never meant to know | stagcrest

J

JACKDAWHEART

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[ set a few months ago for anyone looking for clarification! ]

The sun is a cold, wintery thing overhead, but the moors are thawed and temperate. The flowery tops of a few trees jut out over the horizon, and beyond them lay the mountains; too far to see from this part of the field, but apparently not too far to travel from.

Jackdawheart does not glance at...Stagcrest...beside him. He'd seen enough of him when all the rogues were brought into WindClan camp, smelling of snow and thinner air and carrying the whispered tale of their leader being felled by the resurrected Moor Queen. For the most part he looks the same as he always has, if a little cleaner, a little less hungry.

(He tactfully does not comment on the missing leg. Stagcrest's most comfortable walking speed has always been a bit slower than Jack's, so he doesn't even need to think to accommodate it now that they're side by side again. All that's different is the cadence).

"ThunderClan's thataway," Jackdaw says, jutting his chin at the border now that they've wandered closer. "And in between's...ah, Fourtrees. They do monthly meetings there."​
 
He doesn't think too hard about it either. Not of Jackdawheart, and not of the way that moorland wisp had risen from a pool of her own blood. Stagcrest had thought of him then, too, the way green steel had flashed behind a spray of red.

He notes how easily he falls into line at Jackdawheart's left flank. Stagcrest had favored his right side back when his temple was still raw, speckled with scabs beginning to give way to newborn skin. Soon enough he'd migrated to his left, where his clumsy gait wouldn't mask the half of hearing that remained. The scar winks in the reedy shadows as they step along; in, out, in, out.

Jackdaw breaks the silence he hadn't even noticed had fallen upon them. Stagcrest imagined he'd be unnerved without the constant background thrum of the city, but silence fades into his consciousness all the same. "Have you ever been invited?" he asks pleasantly, turning to blink at Jack instead of trying to scrutinize the blur of trees in the distance.​
 
"Nope," Jackdawheart shoots back automatically. His eyes are still trained on the horizon, but the occasional twitch of his whiskers and remaining ear give away the fact that he's quite keen on their immediate surroundings. He doesn't smell the presence of any strangers. Which, in of itself, is a bit of a feat. It took him quite a while to be able to smell anything under the suffocating air of earth and wheat and wind. That was more simple in the city—anything that didn't stink of smoke or asphalt was easy to notice.

"Good riddance. Everyone comes back from it all pissed off, 'nd 'm not exactly chompin' at the bit to brush pelts with a buncha nobodies." Nothing against all those other clan cats. Jackdawheart doesn't necessarily share the intense prejudice of other WindClan cats, but that doesn't mean he's fully willing to interact with anyone else, either. It's nothing personal.

This time, he does hazard a glance toward Stagcrest. Tall and imposing but soft-faced—a people's person, despite it all. "You'd do well," Jackdaw remarks dryly.​
 
Stagcrest flicks an ear at the description, crass but not unexpected. Even in the most dire of situations, cats squabbled and split just as often as they drew closer. (He wonders what they were: split or drawn closer?) Jack doesn't return the favor, so he quietly lets his eyes wander as well.

WindClan, like Gin's ragtag gang of rogues, is not his allegiance by choice. He is not a moorland creature, though he would scarcely call himself a city creature either. Remarks on the other clans haven't gone unnoticed by him, mostly of distant kin who'd taken their bond for granted, or forgotten enemies now too close for comfort. Regretful circumstances, but he finds himself a little grateful to be spared from all the priors.

Jackdawheart's gaze skims the side of his face, and he catches it evenly. A small smile tugs at his cheeks. "I think you might find it entertaining, at the very least." Tender shoots fold beneath their paws as they continue. Beyond a thin line of trees loom mountains, jagged things that pierce the pallid belly of the sky rather than brush it as buildings do. "Who is at our other borders?"​
 
Stagcrest's warm amber eyes and unassuming smile would be more disarming had Jackdawheart known him any less; as it is, he's distinctly familiar with the fact that Stag is a bit of an ornery jerk in his own stiff-postured, levelheaded way. Not that it's a specifically bad thing—that stubbornness has saved Jack's ass more times than he can probably even remember. Something akin to warmth, or maybe amusement crosses his face, slowly like dye bleeding through water. "Hm," he hums, bland but amiable. Then his eyes turn toward their surroundings.

He nods his head to a spot over his shoulder. "RiverClan, that way. They're a group t' watch out for—bad blood." Jackdaw frowns as he says it, pensive. It's not that there weren't grudges between cats in the city, but they were largely unified by a bigger, badder danger roaming the streets. Safety in numbers. But here the forest is pleasant and agreeable—there's nothing to focus their efforts. "ShadowClan's the opposite way. Closer to our allies than anyone else in th' forest, I think. Then SkyClan's a way's off from Thunder. Housecats, by the sound of it. But plenty a rogues there too, 'm sure."

They've reached a natural stopping point in the trail. Pale grasses give way to a well-trodden border, behind which stands a wall of tall, thin trees. They're easy to peer through for a ways. Jackdawheart looks up at the pockmarked canopy with idle interest. "Any unsavory types on your side?" he asks. By the sounds of it, Gin's rogues had the option to either fall in line or suffer death. It's an ultimatum he's well acquainted with.​
 
Jackdaw's congenital scowl gently loosens its grip on his face. He must be too aware of the fact that, if Stagcrest had the opportunity, he'd drag him along to the Gathering. He breaks his gaze in unison with Jackdawheart's, politely following as his flits past them. His smile gently unravels behind his back, a thread being drawn out of its pale knit.

He rattles off descriptions other Clans, dismissive, succint, vigilant. "I see." Is Jackdawheart aware he does it automatically? He remembers an asocial urchin, barking at him with all the couth of a dog—one would think he'd sequester himself behind the involutions of the plains, whistling easily between the thin shadows, ignoring the faceless masses looming at their edges. He has others to fight his battles now. WindClan has more bodies in one place than they'd ever rallied together in the city.

Well. Jack has never thought of them as just bodies.

His mossy eyes snatch what faint blue clings to the sky when he looks up. Stag has never noticed that they did that. Jackdawheart is nearly a head shorter than him; Stagcrest's ignorance is not for his lack of reason to be looking up. Is it that the smog-choked sky had never been blue enough, or that he'd never simply stopped and noticed before?

"Any unsavory types on your side?" "Many." He doesn't discount himself among them. Ochre eyes find the trees and, immediately, what lies past them. His nostrils flare; the chilled, montane scent is faintly ruffled with the greenery they stand before. "I don't know how much longer they would've lasted had she not killed Gin." The rogues were an uneasy peace, and he hadn't gotten the chance to find out how long they'd survived like that. He supposes he didn't need to find out at all. "Some of them had no other option." He says it lightly.​
 
It's not that he dislikes WindClan; the moor that they claim, or the clan cats within. The moors are rather easy to fall in love with, in fact. Sprawling hills as far as the eye can see, blooming beneath the freshest, brightest sky that he's ever seen in his life. It's a feeling that he often doesn't know what to do with—a melancholy fondness which fills his otherwise empty, cavernous chest and overfills, unfurling into the passing breeze every time he stops and stares out at the fields.

But there is a mundanity to it, too. A grounding sense of reality which never leaves, muting all the miraculous colors of the world into soft, senseless grays. He almost never takes that moment to pause and ponder, so everything passes over his eyes in glassy currents, and all he thinks about are potential dangers, or threats, or vulnerabilities. It's not even borne out of a particular sense of anxiety, it's just...his life. How he lives it.

Even now, gazing up at the rustling leaves and the new growth sprouting among the branches, his thoughts are on how he ought to check some of the new tunnels, make sure they're sound. A cat could die in a collapse.

"Most usually don't," he says in return. Perhaps not softer, but more understanding nonetheless. He's quite familiar with how the world works.

Jackdawheart grants himself the brief reprieve of a deep breath, the cool moorland air expanding his lungs in one slow draw that leaves him almost dizzy before he's looking out at the length of the border. "C'mon. We'll go tour th' other side of the fields, circle back to camp," he remarks. Then, in a complete deadpan, "I don't want you gettin' cranky without your naptime." Brushing his shoulder against Stagcrest's side as he turns.​
 
"Most usually don't," Jackdawheart says, like he, too, had resigned himself to such a fate. There it is, again. Somewhere between his heart and his diaphragm: a twinge, a quiet snap. Stagcrest had stopped looking at him by then. "We didn't either," he could laugh, the joke pained and obvious between the two. He could, but it wouldn't make sense anymore. Not where they stand; scarred limbs swallowed by this plush, gilded sea; tattered ears annoited in the fresh sunlight.

Below the wind, he hears the self-comfort of a big, long breath. The kind that inflates one's very veins and unchokes their imbrued pits, the kind that buries part of the world in cottony black. A moon ago, he'd experienced the same for the first time. He had faced the wind headlong and let it find his own breath for him, then sweep it straight down his throat. An irrational thought: how long had Jack kept this luxury to himself?

He hears the grassy shuffle of Jackdaw turning around. "Alright," he hums, letting himself be guided by the touch. "I don't get that cranky." Stagcrest flicks his slate-hued flank with his tail, the little smile rematerializing on his face. It doesn't reach his eyes—but has it ever?

His gaze lies coolly upon the fields ahead as they amble along; they look identical to the fields on their left and right. The meager observation gives him no comfort. WindClan's camp would be centered between this border and RiverClan's, with no particular reason to push it towards their riverine enemies or the street they called the Thunderpath. With the sun overhead now, and with their pace, they'd make it back at the same time the dusk patrol would be leaving. "We can catch something on the way back." No use in their prolonged absence resulting in poorer graces, and Jack has the stamina for it anyway. "Do you have a favorite?"​
 
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