TAKE WHAT YOU LEARNED | downypaw

[SOOTSPOT]

Sootstar's attention was one scarcely given and hard-earned. As her first son, he should've been the apple of her eye and the angel who could do no wrong - it was an image he had tried to carefully cultivate for his clan even when the truth was greyer than the fur upon his spine. The one who had approved of every machiavellian landgrab, the one who could be trusted above all to see WindClan's future through, the one who had helped to start two wars because it had been 'the right' thing to do in Sootstar's eyes. To the forest, he was an extension of his mother; they didn't get to see the disappointed looks he had been given, the constant mispronunciation of his own name, the blatant dismissal whenever he moved mountains in favour of his younger siblings who could barely throw stones. Approval and acknowledgment should've been his... but then, three little monsters appeared and ruined it all. Sootspot could imagine the conversations and they scorched his ears: 'Why did you let your apprentice do that? Can't you be trusted? You need to do more.' Fictitious words that repeated over and over until they seemed true: Downypaw had forsaken him.

His tail lashed uncontrollably as his eyes settled upon them, frustration burning in the thin slits of his pupils. This was the conversation he had promised, alone, but he still felt Sootstar's shadow upon him even as she lay in her den. "When there is a fire, we do not run into its flames." Downypaw had chance after chance to admonish their sibling and come out of the situation unscathed, instead, she had run into the embers with Pinkpaw, admitting guilt as if a sliver of treason had actually crossed their mind. "You temper it, you push another into it if you must survive, you might even run away if you find yourself unable to do either." The green-eyed, ashen inferno that sustained WindClan was not to be crossed. It'd been an unspoken rule since the day his eyes had first opened, it'd taken Downypaw less than a moon of apprenticeship to tempt fate. "Anything you say or do reflects on me as your mentor, and today, not only did you jump head-first into that fire, you dragged me into it too. You said sorry four times, how many times do you think I will need to say it for giving you the freedom to make such mousebrained decisions?"

The fur along his neck bristled. He did not expect an answer, he was not even sure if he wanted an answer, but he held his tongue all the same as he glowered at the one opposite him. Unsheathed claws dug at the earth as if trying to breach it, the faux friendliness he kept up around his clan long since vanished as he tried to think of ways the situation could be redeemed.

@downypaw
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[downyfur]

Downypaw had felt a great absence of any feeling at all when they (and their sisters) were finally dismissed. The panic only returned once the two were well out of earshot of everyone else, and its slow creep was worse than any wave of fear that Sootstar had sent crashing over her head. The apprentice felt like a walking wad of moss, every one of their fibers filled to the brim with wet panic, and every swing of Sootspot's white-tipped tail twisted the knot of their insides a little tighter.

Her mentor pauses after what feels like far too little time. Even though they keep their gaze trained on their paws, they can imagine the acid of his stare as vividly as though they were nose-to-nose with him. They don't immediately understand why he brings up fire, but regardless meows a meek, "Yes." It's only as he continues do they realize he's not talking about fire itself. Just as he related spiderwebs and ambitions, so too does their teacher puzzle together the ill-fitting pieces of flame and his apprentice's great mistake.

She doesn't know what the word "temper" means, but she is rapidly struck with the meaning of the next clause. Shock ripples through her at the very thought, even though mere moments ago she'd come to the exact same conclusion beneath the pressure of Sootstar. It would be so easy to blame Pinkpaw for all their troubles, and yet—they don't have the time to acknowledge the rest of it. The prospect of simply running is a little more appealing, but there's a worming suspicion its definition extends farther than "walking away from Pinkpaw."

Only when Sootspot begins to talk about himself does she feel the telltale prick at the corners of her eyes. Oh. Of course. They'd thought about him the moment Sootstar's glare had pierced the veil of her den. How he'd react, how he'd feel more than that. Her ribs try to knit themselves together; her intestines are already hopelessly snarled. Their face burns like their cheeks are clouds beneath the searing stare of the sun.

"I, um," they start, fumble. They don't know what had possessed them to try and speak (again!) without the thoughts to back them up. She just wants to say sorry again, as though if she says it enough times, piles all those apologies up, he'll eventually accept the offering and retreat. Still, they wholeheartedly believe the draconian gaze demands an answer before any more sorries. "You'll...maybe...have to apologize a lot." They blink away the tears and watch them spatter invisibly into the dying Leaf-fall grass. She prays Sootspot doesn't notice them with her head still bowed.

"But...you're Sootstar's son." Again her first instinct, desperate: to reassure, to relieve. His unsheathed claws perforate the edges of their vision. "Everyone likes you." It's a lie and they both know it, yet said in the hopes he wouldn't know they knew. Everyone is supposed to like him, in their deepening understanding of the word. In an ideal world, everyone would be supposed to like Downypaw too, and everyone would do it because they really did like her.​

 

[SOOTSPOT]

Shame filled the apprentice's body language and Sootspot didn't know if it made him angrier or calmer. It was a war of opposites, 'why did Downypaw feel so embarrassed when they should be more worried about how he felt?' one side argued, the other told him that her hung head was a sign that she did care about his feelings, rather than just the consequences. His limbs tensed like an angry serpent's, chartreuse eyes seldom seeming to blink as he tried to decide what to do, what to say. Penance was needed, an example needed to be made to show the clan that he would not tolerate disrespect, but with no one else around, such actions seemed pointless. "Correct, and I do not want to apologise, because I did not believe I was wrong to give my apprentice more autonomy than most WindClan apprentices get." He stamped his foot against the ground like a moorland rabbit to accentuate his point, leaning forward with fresh kill still lingering on his breath. "I do not like making mistakes." Brows flash as their tufted ears sought a counter from the other that his 'kindness' hadn't been a mistake, that she would prove herself, that they hadn't made him wrong.

A different rebuttal came instead, a reminder of his bloodline, a reminder that he was a thing to be paraded about... before last newleaf shattered his false reality. A smile appeared on his muzzle, grim.

He was standing before a child who had not yet learned to lie, her words revealing a thorny truth he tried not to dwell upon. His expression darkened from grief. "They do not like me, they pretend to like me because they want something from me, just as they pretend to like my mother." Dandelionwish, Badgermoon, Galeforce, Yewberry, Daisypaw, Curlewnose, and those who still lived within WindClan: Sunstride, Wolfsong, Scorchstreak, Quailsong, there were too many liars and thieves. It was a force impossible for the little tom to fight against, he thought his claws were too blunt and his words too clever to ever enact justice by himself. Downypaw would be no help either, the fledgeling lacked their feathers and would do until the next greenleaf. But, fairweather friends were still better to have than enemies, and Sootspot found himself wanting to talk to them about WindClan's social structure before they learned the hard way. "Everyone has something to gain from doing the things they do and saying the things they say, the thing you need to learn Downypaw is that our home is blighted by self-interest." He did not have enough toes to count the traitors upon them.

"When someone smiles at me, I know it is because they want the name I carry, or the blessing to do whatever they please as they think friends of my mother do. But... when we have nothing more to offer, they turn vicious and they curse the very moors we walk upon. I protect myself as best as I can, I do not invest my energy in those who make bad choices at WindClan's expense. I suggest you think about who you invest in, before you become someone's bad choice."


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[downyfur]

The soft whump of Sootspot's paw against the earth presses her ears a little deeper into her skull. Their mistakes are Sootspot's mistakes, that's the message he wants to get through their ears. What had their mistake been? "Autonomy." They grasp the word in their mind and try to wring meaning from it. Connections stream through the folds of their brain like water. In the eyes of the clan, they are an extension of Sootspot, another limb, another mouth. A tongue couldn't just flop out of its owner's jaw on its own; it had no will of its own, and its owner's will was more likely than not to keep their tongue. Downypaw's mistake had been there. They suppose autonomy is just another word for disobedience.

Sootspot's aggrieved expression is hidden from their eyes, still at their feet. Pity curls nauseatingly in her chest. They don't question how he knows, only that he does. They can't bear to imagine a world where everyone dislikes them and lies about it. Maybe, though, that's better than having it thrown in her face. Their mentor's tone seems to level out a little as he continues, as though a sheet had been dragged across the shifting dunes of his words, leaving their crests a little flatter in its wake. Downypaw turns his ideas over their mind, one at a time.

Everyone wants what is best for themselves. This, they can understand. Why one would want another name, or how it possibly related to the idea of "self-interest" is beyond them at the moment. The idea of someone so suddenly and immediately turning on her goes the same way. What else? She has made a bad choice. If someone else makes a bad choice, and Downypaw makes that bad choice too, the bad choice glues them together like sticky sap. She presses her eyes shut, trying to catch a notion coherent to a four-moon old from the stream of words, but the task is like trying to catch a fish with moorbound paws. "Okay," they murmur. They can't think of much else to say. She's so tired now; she hopes Sootspot is done talking.​