PATRON SAINTS ✩ lightstrike

[nightbird]

at least two days had passed since the caves were abandoned in favor of a colder, dryer air. they were getting closer to the cure, to having the luxury of turning and going back home to where their lives sat in idle wait. nightbird was restless to return, get away from these strange cats and difficult terrain. she liked structure, predictability in her schedule and that simply wasn't possible here.

and to think, only a few days ago she dreaded the idea of crossing into the oak forest. everyone had to be presumed dead after the rockslide, nightbird wouldn't let hope destroy her. going home with seven less warriors would have brought her enough shame that it would crush her chest, perhaps she wouldn't even be able to stay after seeing the look on everyone's face. but, she didn't have to worry about that now. everyone had survived by some stroke of starclan's might, nightbird had another chance at seeing them all home to their friends and families.

now, the sky glittered bright with stars as the cats settled down for another cool night. if she weren't so on edge, nightbird may have allowed herself to be enamored by their beauty. not far away, her pale gaze caught the form of lightstrike, she couldn't help but be flooded with relief every time she saw him upright and breathing. her job of keeping these cats alive wasn't easy, but her former apprentice was the one who was really giving her a run for her money. still, she couldn't be angry. not now, not when she wholly believed that he was dead up until she spotted his hunched form the day they left the caves.

"lightstrike," she greeted coolly, tail waving just slightly above her shoulders. words sat in her throat and made it tight with apprehension, but they didn't feel right. hell, their utterance would probably even earn a concerned glare from the young warrior. instead, she just let silence hang as she sat, sweeping her tail to lay it across tired paws. "i'm glad you made it out." there was a touch of guilt behind her words, she felt awful for not being able to see to it that he and everyone else was safe before she found cover.

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• NIGHTBIRD ✩ she/her, lead warrior of thunderclan, twenty-five moons
  ⭃ nightbird is a small black smoke molly with pale silver eyes. a loner turned thunderclanner, her loyalty and drive to provide for her clan is unwavering. however, she is not known for harboring a bleeding heart, instead equipped with sarcastically fueled wit, brutal honesty, and a sharply edged tongue.
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking ↛ see battle info here
  ⭃ penned by vayle ↛ @vayl3 on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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[LIGHTSTRIKE .]

❝ WE HAVE YET TO CRASH ✧°.☀ —————————————————————————————
Maybe, had Lightstrike been in a better state, he'd have fared no better than the shadowy lead warrior in the madness of darkness-bathed passageways. Worrying to no end that everyone else had up and died, that he, Stormywing, and the rest were all that was left. They weren't.

There was no room to feel guilt for the fact that the unknown state of his Clanmates hadn't eaten him alive. After all, they were alive, weren't they? All in one piece, save for the scratches and scrapes everyone had. Of course he'd had faith in them to make it out. ThunderClanners were strong. They had to be.

If he hadn't spent his time wandering the darkness feeling sick, dizzy, and exhausted every waking moment, maybe he would have thought about more than simply... that. Feeling like shit, worrying about his own ability to put one paw in front of the other, worrying about keeping his promise.

It was in the past now. A bad, terrible dream. Behind them for good, while they looked on to the mission they had set out to complete. Sure, maybe he still felt like shit, especially when the sun was in his eyes and making him regret having any at all, when he had a headache that never seemed to go away in full, but hey, he felt less shit than he had the day they'd gotten stuck in that whole mess to begin with which was a good start, right?

The funny part about Lightstrike always feeling tired was that when it was time to settle down for the night, the golden tabby was having a hard time actually going to sleep. It was why he sat awake now, gazing idly up at the stars with eyes half-lidded in a mixture of boredom and exhaustion. Hearing his name, the tom turned his head a few degrees.

A hum of query had risen in his throat by the time Nightbird sat down beside him. Green eyes flickered over to her, waiting, and for a few heartbeats after her admission he seemed to stare at her dumbly, as if uncomprehending. He blinked. "Huh?" he uttered as if he hadn't heard. Then, a flicker of recognition entering his gaze, he looked away. "Oh."

A beat of silence passed, and Lightstrike let out a breath that could have been a sigh. "It'll take more than that to kill me and you know it." A tinge of humor crept into his voice, although he didn't look back into her eyes. If he'd recognized something odd in her voice, he didn't comment.

"Glad you made it out too. Even if you are annoying sometimes." He let out a weak, empty laugh. "So it was the same for you too, then? Days of wandering the darkness? It's stupid how we never met up or anything."

[penned by its_oliverr - ☀]

——————————— ☀.°✧ BUT WE STILL MAY AS WELL ENJOY IT ❞ ​

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[nightbird]

her ears twitch at his blank stare, words that fail to register until moments later. she was no medicine cat, but it would appear that the new scar along his eye wasn't the only injury the young warrior sustained. or maybe her admittance of anything but displeasure had truly been shocking.

despite the way that humor squeezed it's way into lightstrike's words, nightbird felt her spine prickle with unease. speaking so frivolously about his death, she did the same before their departure. the lead warrior spouted dreary chatter to raccoonstripe, about how this was a more valiant way to go than waiting to succumb to yellowcough. she could only hope that lightstrike did not mean his words the way she did.

"annoying, right," she echoed sarcastically, brushing off the admittance that he was glad she made it too. "about, yeah. was weird being the only thunderclanner." nightbird had never really planned for a situation like that, where she was stripped from that familiarity. but this journey seemed to be oversaturated with surprises, starclan knew what would be thrown at them next. "could have been standing a fox length away and i wouldn't have noticed. i didn't even know where i was putting my damn paws."

"i'll never take a squirrel for granted again though, so i guess some good came from it." by the time she had swallowed her pride to eat a lizard she was so starving she would have eaten anything that skittered around. nightbird's jaws parted in a yawn that had her head tilting up, eyes grazing the starry sky. "since we're up so high now you'd think it'd mean starclan would hear us better. especially when we ask for rocks to stop being thrown at our heads."

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• 

• NIGHTBIRD ✩ she/her, lead warrior of thunderclan, twenty-six moons
  ⭃ nightbird is a small black smoke molly with pale silver eyes. a loner turned thunderclanner, her loyalty and drive to provide for her clan is unwavering. however, she is not known for harboring a bleeding heart, instead equipped with sarcastically fueled wit, brutal honesty, and a sharply edged tongue.
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking ↛ see battle info here
  ⭃ penned by vayle ↛ @vayl3 on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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[LIGHTSTRIKE .]

❝ WE HAVE YET TO CRASH ✧°.☀ —————————————————————————————
The only ThunderClanner. Oh, that meant... she'd been on her own. "I had Stormywing," he said quietly, not quite interrupting her words. Briefly, he wondered how much worse it would have been without a familiar face—or voice, rather—by his side. He found he couldn't quite comprehend it, so he stopped trying.

Somewhat belatedly, he let out a breath through his nose at her following comment. "Smogmaw sure seemed to uh, know where he was going. Said he could see fine enough. Guess he wasn't lying, 'cause we got out." From what he knew, everyone had been guided back to the light by one ShadowClanner or another. Strange how it had worked out like that. Or fortunate. Or both. "I couldn't," he added after a beat. Then, as if to clarify, "See."

Nightbird's comment about squirrels seemed to go right over his head, Lightstrike instead squinting tiredly at the ground in front of his paws. "Every sound felt like it was, like, extra loud in there, though. All that echoing, I guess. Probably would have heard you from Highstones or something." The dripping, the breathing, the scuffing of paws or claws on stone, the murmured conversation that may as well have been spoken regularly. "If we had met up."

Then, finally, he looked up at her. "Yeah. One of them hit me real good. I swear I went blind for a few seconds. Freaky." Lazily lifting a paw, he brushed it over his face as if to point out the wound. Lightstrike paused. "Oh, is that where you got your, um..." he trailed off, as if unable to find the words before concluding lamely, "...thing?" He tapped at his jaw. Her thing. Wound. That.

The golden tom leaned forward, head tilting ever so slightly to inspect the scrape upon the lead warrior's face. He wasn't sure that he'd really noticed it before. Well, he had, but... not really. "Looks like that one smarted. Think it'll scar up?"

[penned by its_oliverr - ☀]

——————————— ☀.°✧ BUT WE STILL MAY AS WELL ENJOY IT ❞ ​

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[nightbird]

nightbird was thankful to hear he hadn't been alone. she didn't doubt how he would have handled himself if not, but that comfortable sense of familiarity had hopefully bid him well. it seemed like smogmaw had conducted his refugees well enough in that cave, even without lightstrike's vouch for his success everyone had made it out again to see the sun. "seems only shadowclanner's were gifted with that, i guess starclan had to give 'em some bonus for living in that marsh."

she wasn't thinking about it much during the whole ordeal, but now out it was much quieter. her ears weren't flinching at the slightest of sounds anymore, the sound of her own breath much quieter when mixed with the wind. it would have been easy to hear her clanmates, maybe they hadn't been in the same cave at all. the thought that there were multiple of those hellish places in the same spot did not ease her mind. "if only."

"i saw." how could she not? a whole side of his face had been matted with blood, it was horrifying, less so now that it was cleaned up. nightbird blinked lazily as he trailed off, brow raised as lightstrike's paw motioned towards his jaw. she let out a huff of amusement and a nod, both of them bested by a damn rock. how embarrassing. "sure hope not, the clan sees that all it takes to beat me is a rock and i'll never hear the end of it." a bright scar to break up the dark tones of her fur, only it wasn't from claws or teeth but a pebble. "imagine that, i'll just have to say it was a mountain lion or something. maybe they'll make a kit's tale out of my heroic story," nightbird mused, tail sweeping over her paws. usually she was above white lies like this, but surely she could make an exception.

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• 
  
  
  

• 

• NIGHTBIRD ✩ she/her, lead warrior of thunderclan, twenty-six moons
  ⭃ nightbird is a small black smoke molly with pale silver eyes. a loner turned thunderclanner, her loyalty and drive to provide for her clan is unwavering. however, she is not known for harboring a bleeding heart, instead equipped with sarcastically fueled wit, brutal honesty, and a sharply edged tongue.
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking ↛ see battle info here
  ⭃ penned by vayle ↛ @vayl3 on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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