SNOWBLIND — smokethroat

[iciclefang]

Beesong has left them alone. The medicine cat's den is cramped, heady with the spice of herbs, the bitterness of defeat weighing heavy on everyone's tongues. Iciclepaw had not seen Smokethroat since before the battle -- when their camp was still unspoilt, when their dreams were undisturbed with the threat of intrusion. Before Clearsight was dead, before Gloompaw had disappeared.

She is tired. The tortoiseshell has never felt so much like a scolded kit as she stands before the makeshift nest her mentor is bundled into. His wounds are deep, worse than hers. Only because that cat spared me, she thinks dully. The tom she'd faced in battle could have ended her life in moments. Could have forced RiverClan into mourning two, instead of one. He showed me mercy.

Her voice is hushed. "Are you okay?" She knows he is, because he's Smokethroat -- but she has seen a warrior die, a warrior she's known her entire life. The earth has given beneath her paws, turned into water deeper than the river that runs through their home.

Iciclepaw sits and curls her tail around her paws. Her eyes are heavy -- it pains her to lift them. She does not deserve to sit here with a warrior who would have given his life twice over for RiverClan. She cannot compare. She is a fool to ever have thought she could.

"I'm sorry," she says, humbled for the first time in her life. It had taken only one quick motion -- scruffed like a kit, dangerous fangs around her neck, the weight of a skilled warrior bearing her into the earth. She unsheathes her claws, and they sink into the dirt like flesh. "I don't deserve to be a warrior. I failed. I couldn't..." It hurts, his mercy had hurt worth than her death would have, and this shames her further.

Iciclepaw's eyes begin to burn. She will not cry. Not in front of Smokethroat, not in front of anyone, but damn if she doesn't want to. "I failed RiverClan. He had me beaten so fast..." She moves her face to the side, sucking in her breath. "I tried to use what you taught me, but it wasn't the same, it didn't work the same. He knew what I was going to do before I did it."

How was a young fool to know the stakes were so high when death was on the line?

// @Smokethroat​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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[SMOKESTAR]

Resting irritated him, he despised how long it took the body to recover and how often he was forced to remain here in this nest while the clan continued onward outside. His legs tucked into his body close, he could feel the plaster of whatever nonsense Beesong had put upon his stomach to ease the pain of what might've sent him to StarClan if it had carved any deeper. At least the belly scar would not be visible when he stood. Smokethroat was content to lay his head back down and sleep until he was given freedom but the quietly uttered apology has his ears pricked back upward as he turns to his apprentice to the side.
Are you okay? "Of course." He answers calmly, but realizes there is a quiet, shell-shocked expression on her face he's not seen before. Even when Cicadastar had died before them, she had not looked quite so lost and horrified then as she did now.
I'm sorry...I don't deserve...I failed...I couldn't...
He'd seen some of Iciclepaw's battle in the distance, but not enough of it to realize how outclassed she had been-his focus had been purely on Weaselclaw alone and even then they had torn eachother to shreds equally up until a final well-placed claw to the stomach had nearly ended his life a second time.
"...you deserve to be a warrior more than those wretched moorland fools, attacking us in the dead of night because they need the advantage to have a chance; knowing we would shred them in an instance if they faced us on even levels."
Once again he lost a fight because his opponent had given himself the best chances, attacking him in a group, when unguarded, it was that tabby bastard's brand of arrogance; he had even attacked Cicadastar similarly before in a stealthy assault on the tom's return to RiverClan with his lives.

Perhaps it was a failing on his part, he had not prepared her properly for an opponent who outclassed her by far and she felt confident in herself enough to challenge them all the same. Pride mixed with uncertainty in his chest, tightened like a vice. He wanted to feel relief at the fact his apprentice was spared, but at the same time indignant outrage they thought themselves so superior as to spare a cat's life when she would have happily killed them if able to.
"You're going to make him regret letting you live." It was strange to hear of a WindClanner who would not kill an apprentice on the battlefield so readily, he wondered what foolish softheart had fallen into Sootstar's claws now. But he had no time nor care to consider the debate on moralities. The only good WindClanner was a dead one.
"...I suppose some of this is my fault. I'm training you to defeat me but I am not your enemy...perhaps we change tactics. Face you against cats with different methods than I have."
Things to consider when they were not trapped here in this horrid den, but...he pauses to look at her more properly. She was almost his size now, not a kit in the nursery any longer, not a child, and he had never coddled her or comforted her because it was unecessary and infantilizing but...just this once perhaps he could offer more than biting words and an insistence she try harder.
"...you were prepared to die for your clan, a more noble act I can not think of." He rises to stand, stiffly and with a groan because the ache is layered and his body hurts but its with a purpose and Beesong will understand when he moves to sit before the apprentice and lean down, a gentle touch of his nose to the top of her head in a very brief and light gesture. "We will give them back what they have done twofold."

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[iciclefang]

Iciclepaw studies the white tips of her paws, but she feels forced to lift her face when Smokethroat speaks. "You deserve to be a warrior more than those wretched moorland fools, attacking us in the dead of night because they need the advantage to have a chance." The ice of her gaze meets his single fiery eye, and she's startled by the intensity she sees there.

She starts to shake her head. "But I couldn't do anything to help RiverClan," she murmurs. Smokethroat isn't one to offer empty reassurance, and she knows this of her mentor -- she tries to hold back the overwhelming bitterness of her self-pity.

"You're going to make him regret letting you live." A promise. Iciclepaw echoes, "I'll make him regret letting me live." Said out loud, it's a vow, even in her strangely off-kilter voice. She tastes the promise, feels it between her teeth.

Smokethroat tells her they will change tactics, and Iciclepaw nods at him curtly. She will have to try harder, is all. If a WindClan warrior could beat her so easily, she is not as skilled as she'd thought. Iciclepaw unsheathes her claws, digging them into the soft earth floor of Beesong's den.

"You were prepared to die for your Clan. A more noble act I cannot think of." He rises from his makeshift nest, and despite the pain he's in, he presses his nose gently to the top of her head. Iciclepaw's eyes burn at the gesture -- and she knows she cannot let him down. She bows her head, and when she speaks again, her voice is steely. "We both will. Sootstar won't have a council by the time we're through with them."

She would clear the moorland of all of its inhabitants alone, if only she could.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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