TAKE APART AND PUT BACK TOGETHER \ blazestar

[MALLOWLARK]

There were a lot of claws in his heart, nowadays. Grasping, squeezing the vitality out of it- he could picture it, if he thought hard enough. Sadness swirling and sucking the crimson out, and in his chest his life grew white and pale and shrivelled, and pulsed with colour only when he was at Dawnglare's side. It wasn't good, was it? For only one thing to make you happy, even if it made you so wonderfully happy?

And he had tried. With a smile dressed daily, with hunting, with doing everything he should. But there were glimmers in the eyes of other Skyclanners, sharp with signs they would never really trust him. Now, now- were they right, he feared? This... this rip in his chest, the tears that skipped on his lashline, this wasn't what a Skyclanner should be feeling, was it?

But then, how could he feel any different? He had known what he was giving up. He had known what staying there would have done- it never would have ended well. He'd have bore claws against friends and been thrown out of his own family's home. He'd have run everywhere and nowhere with Pollenfur, and seeing Dawnglare would have been even harder, and the love that now kept him smiling would have decayed in absence and been lost forever. This had been the only way- he clasped that truth as tight as he could manage.

Blazestar, pale morning light, drifted into his vision. Inky paws carried Mallowlark toward the leader, throat thick with predestined mourning. The leader was alone, for once- and Mallowlark was close by, for once. Had they ever been alone together? Had they ever even talked, really?

He supposed he could not blame Blazestar, just as he could not blame any other Skyclanner for seeing him as nothing more than a foolish, runaway Windclanner- an infiltrator. Smile-dressed as ever, for once Mallowlark did not show off his fangs- he say close-lipped, with a grieving glaze over his moonlike grey gaze. "Why do you think WindClan didn't show up at the Gathering?" His voice was not celebratory, and he only offered Blazestar a cursory glance before staring off somewhere unseen. Despite it all, he was upset, and so withdrawn that it was probably obvious.

But he knew Blazestar, of all cats, might nearly understand.

\ @BLAZESTAR !​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar is solemn this morning, lost to thoughts of his fractured family. He’d woken in bliss beside Bobbie, but a heaviness had flown over his heart, a guilt he cannot shake just like he cannot shake the leafbare frost creeping into his bones. While he sleeps comfortably beside the she-cat he loves, Little Wolf remains interred below the earth leagues from her children; while he nuzzles into the sweetness of Bobbie’s neck fur, Burnstorm and Moonwhisper, Skyclaw and Duskbird, remain parentless and alone in ThunderClan. When he wakes from his dreams, the sweetness lingers on his tongue, but his paws remain stained with sin, with blood he cannot rinse away.

Mallowlark’s approach would customarily earn a glint of teeth from a curled lip, a bit of hackle rising, but Blazestar is strangely complacent. The ever-smiling WindClanner carries a cloud of melancholy about him, one that matches Blazestar’s energy. He asks about WindClan—and Blazestar turns to look at the black-pawed warrior for the first time, really, since his arrival. “There’s no telling, but I doubt it’s anything good,” he murmurs, his tone dull. He blinks, his tail curling around his paws. “Perhaps Sootstar has locked her borders down.”

And what would that mean for those cats still pure of heart inside her gorse-enforced walls? What of the cats who opposed her, who’d spoken against her tyranny? Blazestar wonders which side Mallowlark’s kin fall on. “Are you worried about them?” His tone is curious, bordering on… sympathy.

, ”​

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[MALLOWLARK]

Admittedly, he felt a prickle of surprise at being addressed. Sad, wasn't it? Probably. To be shocked at anything that wasn't an immediate excuse. But it was impossible not to notice. I doubt it's anything good- and though it was not the peachiest of answers, Mallowlark could not help but feel a slight, satisfying twinge of agreement. At least he was not the only one who wandered down a pessimistic path. When dealing with Sootstar, it was near-impossible not to.

Mallowlark nodded, solemnly. It was depressing or pathetic or something like that, that he was surprised when Blazestar asked another question. And Mallowlark knew what the loyal-est, most-converted SkyClanner might say to a question like that. Because what Skyclanner would be worried? Anyone with a right mind would chant good riddance, they'd dance on the graves on the moorland, and Mallowlark would watch and have to celebrate too, without knowing whose corpse they stepped on, be it Sootstar's or Brightshine's.

So, he didn't lie. Silver eyes settled to meet the leaders for a few wobbly little moments. "I have baby siblings, there." His voice was thick and odd sounding, and not as cheerful as he'd like to be when thinking about them. And it wasn't really an answer, yet. "My mother, she- she hates what's happening with the place. But we were there first. She won't leave."

He let his non-answer sit in limbo for a few seconds. "So yeah, I'm worried." Shrugging, his smile trembled on his face. Imitation, always paler. "I know if she did anything, Sootstar would'a killed her and everyone else in my family."

And would Brightshine not flee to him, if she managed to get out? Two ways about it- she and Heavy Snow and all of his siblings, Lilacstem and Sparkfire and Morningsong, were trapped there or dead.​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

The former moor-dweller seems to hesitate in the face of Blazestar’s question, simple as it is. The Ragdoll says nothing, only motions for him to continue, and something within Mallowlark seems to convince him to do so. He speaks of baby siblings, of a mother who had lived her life on the moor before Sootstar had brought WindClan to settle on the land they’d always lived on. He hadn’t considered that. When he had claimed the pine forest in SkyClan’s name, cats had lived here, but they had already co-existed under Rain’s leadership and guidance. The transition from band of cats living in a colony to SkyClan had been almost seamless for many of them, even if they did have misgivings about his claim to Rain’s position.

He closes his eyes, imagining wind-blown plains, a place where a generation of kits had been raised before Sootstar had ever stepped paw onto her new territory. He thinks of the blood spilled in WindClan’s name, in StarClan’s. “That must be hard,” he mews softly. He turns to blink at Mallowlark, and though there’s a trace of sympathy in his expression, his voice remains carefully neutral. “I mean—I know it’s hard, to have kin in another Clan, but… Howlingstar would never mistreat my kits.” He paws at the ground after a moment, imagining a world where Moonwhisper and Burnstorm had been raised under a dictator’s shredding claws. He has to suppress a shudder—he’d have never made it to his ninth life. He’d have spent every one acting as a battering ram against her forces.

And how can I blame him, for leaving a place like that? A tiny voice whispers to him in the back of his head, but it’s firmly replaced: I don’t. I blame him for stealing Dawnglare away from me.

, ”​

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[MALLOWLARK]

That must be hard. Mallowlark's shrug gave way to a slow, almost reluctant nod. It was difficult, that was undeniable- but it had been his decision to leave, after all. "It would've been harder to stay there," he murmured after a few moments, and the croak in his voice betrayed that it wasn't so hypothetical for Brightshine, for the rest of his kin. And it would have been crueller to ask Dawnglare to stay there with him, and be adamant about it, and rip their love apart if he said no. A victim of circumstance, he remembered Dawnglare saying, that darkness-drenched day at the border, filled with rage and tearing claws and a sorrow he and his love had caused.

He was not the victim of circumstance.

The look on Blazestar's face was still, and near-unreadable to Mallowlark. It was difficult to see the best, to turn a blind eye, when the leader's gaze seemed so much warmer when regarding everyone else. "Even though ThunderClan's nicer than WindClan, it's..." His voice balanced precariously. "It's just as hard for you." Sincerity swooped through the notes of his dissonant voice. "Even if it's more likely I'll fight my family than you'll fight yours, the fact it could happen is the same either way."

He shrugged. Though his words were steeped in sorrowful circumstance, Mallowlark's demeanour did not change from forced optimism. "It's the way it's gotta be, though. I'm not complaining. I was lucky that I got a say in it." His jaw tightened, thoughts foraging for the brighter side. "I'm grateful to you, for that." ​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Mallowlark dips his head, his voice soft and strained with emotion. It would have been harder to stay there. Blazestar thinks about the line of separation between himself and Little Wolf, their final goodbye in the dense grove of a leafbare-stripped Fourtrees. He remembers the taste of forest secrets on her fur, the broken green moons of her eyes. He had given her up—but it had taken an act of StarClan, an act of the gods themselves, and even then—even then, he thinks, a paw snaking toward his throat, I still brought Duskbird and Skyclaw into the world. Against their will, they were born to codebreakers.

His hypocrisy soaks his pelt, shames him. He had been so angry with Dawnglare, with Mallowlark, for not giving their love up when he had, but the kits who’d watched him die, one with his blood on their teeth, are proof that he is not as innocent as he claims. Blazestar closes his eyes against the emotions that batter at him like fierce wind. “You shouldn’t thank me for that, Mallowlark. I’m…” He tilts his face toward the sky. He is exhausted. He is so exhausted, so tired of feeling shame for every action, for every word. His life has been one long mistake, it seems to him sometimes. “I have done many wrong things in my life. The way I shut you out—the way I shut my closest friend out—that’s… that’s only one of them.”

Blazestar sighs. It’s bitter, tastes of defeat, but there’s a honeyed note of acceptance at its core now. He turns to look Mallowlark in wide silver-gray eyes. “You belong here, with him.”

, ”​

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