THE MAP THAT LEADS TO YOU [ ✦ ] scorchstreak

[Bluepool]

How long has it been? Bluepool wonders. How long has it been since she was able to lay golden eyes on tortoiseshell fur, to run her tongue along a familiar pelt, to share a meal, to share the wool she had gathered for their individual nests. How many agonizing days had she stared at Hightstones with the hope that her fellow lead warrior would come home? (And that is all Scorchstreak is to her, a coworker and a friend, nothing more she swears it.) It has been too long, she decides, and that is why today she is so excited. Her and Scorchstreak are the only ones now. Weaselclaw was gone, may he rest in peace and Sunstride had ascended to a higher position in the clan.

Despite the fact that Scorchstreak is a tunneler and Bluepool was a moor runner, she would ask the other to accompany her on a border patrol anyways and is delighted when the molly agrees. They depart swiftly, and it does not take long for them to fall into a leisurely pace, strides slow and deliberate and the blue molly just happy to be in the others company. "So" she says after only a short time has passed, the camp just out of view. "Tell me, how was the journey... You must have seen some spectacular things.." things Bluepool could not even imagine. A part of her does feel jealousy, but the other part of her knows she would not have been content in leaving WindClan behind and besides, what if she hadn't been here when the rogues had attacked? Who would have convinced Sootstar to retreat then? Who would have kept WindClan safe with Scorchstreak gone, Weaselclaw laying sick and dying, and Sunstride so busy in his new position? "It must be strange" she adds her voice quieter "To come back and have so many things be different" She cannot even imagine.

// @SCORCHSTREAK

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[SCORCHSTREAK]

The calico trots alongside Bluepool at a matching pace, in no hurry to end the border patrol she’s been invited on. After so long with no tunnels in sight, she has grown more used to being aboveground, but it still feels odd to traverse the territory with paws drifting across grass and not dirt. Her ears are tilted attentively in her companion’s direction, intent on catching every word that Bluepool says. It’s nice just to hear her voice and walk beside her again. Scorchstreak intends to take it all in as much as she can. "You’re right, I saw so many amazing sights out there. It was dangerous, we were lucky to survive, but I saw things I’ve never seen before—from the mountain we could see a lake larger than you would believe, and before we got fully into the mountains we could look back over all of the clans’ territories. It was nice see everything, and to get away from WindClan for a while, especially after Badgermoon and Curlewnose…" She trails off with a sigh, shaking her head. Her friends’ betrayal and subsequent exile still weighs on her, but at least the journey into the mountains had given herself and her kits time to come to terms with it.

She doesn’t wish to mislead her fellow lead warrior, though—golden eyes shift to Bluepool, a smile flitting across her face. She had missed her clan while she was away, especially when the mountain chill set in after the sun had disappeared behind the horizon. She had missed her friend, as well. Over the course of the journey, she had found herself wishing for the moor runner’s company many times. Bluepool would have been a comfort, especially during the more difficult times in the mountains, and it would have been nice to have another WindClanner close to her own age with her. Periwinklebreeze had been the oldest of her clanmates to volunteer for the trip, and Scorchstreak is far from considering Bluepool’s former apprentice good company. "It would have been better with you there… but it’s good that you stayed. The clan needed you here." She knows that fighting had occurred, that the clan had been displaced for a time; she wonders whether Bluepool had helped to fight off the rogues when they first attacked, or if she had helped others to escape. She wonders how lucky it is that any of her friends had survived at all.

More than that, as Bluepool mentions how strange it must be to return to so many changes, she wonders whether Bluepool has changed since she’d left for the mountains. Just as Sootstar had become more volatile, and as Sunstride had become remarkably more serious, has the silvery tabby become a different version of herself? "I heard things weren’t easy here. I can’t help but wonder whether I should have stayed behind." Would she have been able to stop the rogues from taking their camp—and thus stop Sootstar from deciding to bring a pair of ShadowClan kits back to the moorland with her? The tunneler’s tail lashes, and she avoids looking at Bluepool for a moment, concerned about what the other she-cat may see if she looks too closely. They are supposed to support Sootstar as her council, but as the tabby said, so many things are different now that she’s come back. Her clan has changed without her here, and it will take time for Scorchstreak to fit back into her place.​

[ BE A FIRE, BURN THIS DOWN ]​

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[Bluepool]

The way her friend describes the journey, how beautiful and dangerous it was, sends a thrill up Bluepool's spine just thinking of it. She imagines cliffs taller than high stones, she imagines walking along a ridge and not being able to see all the way down, careful paws placed one after the other and her heart roaring in her ears. "Perhaps it is for the best I had not gone, I never would have wanted to come back" she says with a small laugh, not able to tell if she was just joking or not. A part of her had always longed for adventure, for an incredible journey to find herself, but she knew she had been needed here. She loved her family, but they are the chains that hold her in place, tethered to the moors that she loves more than life. No. She could not have left as thrilling as the idea of an adventure sounded in her mind. She is glad when her friend trails off after the mention of Badgermoon and Curlewnose. It is selfish but she does not wish to speak about them, not now and perhaps not ever. She had been starting to trust Badgermoon, to grow used to his presence. His betrayal had been like a claw twisting in her heart. In all of their hearts, she could imagine.

'It would have been better with you there' the admission is enough to make Bluepool blush, heat rising to her cheeks and the tips of her ears. "It was good I stayed" she agrees quietly, a nod of her head an affirmation to her own words. "My sister - Sootstar. She needed me. When the rogues attacked... they would have killed us. I had to practically beg her to retreat. Oh Scorchstreak you should have seen her. She looked like she was going to rip out what remained of my tail. But if we hadn't... it is likely you would not have had a WindClan to come home to" would the fiery molly behind her think less of her for her actions? She does not know but it feels good to tell her, feels good to say the words out loud to someone who cares.

"It wasn't easy no" it is easy to say because it was true. Long nights spent awake in a territory that wasn't theirs, so much fighting to reclaim other clans homes. Cats dying from this horrible plague left and right. She is sad Weaselclaw is gone but she also cant help but selfishly think ' that the stars it wasn't Mintshade' she was not ready to lose her other sister, not yet. She wanted to hold tight to her and not let go. "But it is good you went. I have no doubt that they needed you" she thinks about the cats who had went, all so young and with stars in their eyes. Young and stupid and so so infallible. It is a wonder any of them had come back alive. Though they had not come back unscathed.

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[SCORCHSTREAK]

Bluepool jokes that she may not have returned, had she gone on the journey, and Scorchstreak is reminded of the ShadowClanner who had remained in the mountains. Is he still alive, that tom? Or has he met a cruel fate, with no other clan cats around to watch his back? It’s best not to consider his circumstances, she decides. But it is good to consider her own circumstances, and what had happened over the course of the journey. It wasn’t all beautiful sunrises and foggy mountain views. "I’m sure you would have been ready to come back after the cave-in. I had half a mind to turn back after that." She won’t add how much she had thought of Bluepool during that time, comparing her own rampant fear to the moor runner’s avoidance of the tunnels. The darkness was familiar, unconcerning, but the separation from her clanmates, believing them all lost in a rockslide, had nearly been enough for her to abandon their journey altogether. She grimaces at the memory. She is glad that she stuck it out, both to save the sick clanmates back home and to watch over the younger cats in the mountains.

The moor runner describes the rogue attack, how she’d had to persuade Sootstar to retreat. "It sounds like you saved the entire clan," she murmurs, but the mention of Sootstar makes her prickle slightly. Bluepool is not a safe cat to speak to about her doubts. Still, that doesn’t mean she can’t ask after their leader’s well-being. "How is Sootstar doing, lately? I… I had a hard time hearing that we didn’t come back soon enough to save Weaselclaw."​

[ BE A FIRE, BURN THIS DOWN ]​

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[Bluepool]

She is relieved, then, when Scorchstreak does not judge her. Instead, she praises her as a hero, says that she saved the entire clan and Bluepool feels heat rising to her cheeks, to her ears. She pins them against her head and casts her glance away, embarrassed. At the time she had not felt like a hero. Sootstar had called her a coward and she had believed it. She had been desperate. "I just didn't want to see everyone be ripped to shreds" she says quietly and it was true. She was a good fighter, and she considered herself rather brave. Always willing to throw herself head first into battle with little consideration of the consequences. But in that moment, on that battle-field, she had not felt brave. She had felt scared and she had not liked it.

Mercifully, the cat beside her changes the subject but it is to one she wants to speak of even less than the rogue battle. The well being of her sister. She flinches at the mention of Weaselclaws death and for a moment she is silent as she mulls over in her head what she could and could not tell Scorchstreak, if the molly would take her thoughts and go straight to Sootstar with them she has no doubt that her throat would be laid bare for claws to rake across or teeth to sink into, regardless of the fact that they shared blood. She was not a traitor, not by any means of the word, but her sister was spiraling and anyone with eyes could see it. "She is not well Scorchstreak" she finally says, her voice trembling slightly with fear. "Weaselclaw died and it's like my sisters mind went with him. Claiming high-stones, stealing kits. Denouncing StarClan." in her mind the last thing is perhaps the most egregious, she had always been devout in her belief of the starry ancestors, had always thought her sister was too. "She's not the same cat I once knew" her sister was lost to her, she thinks. She watches Scorchstreak carefully for her reaction, golden eyes flickering nervously to that tortoiseshell face, half-tail flicking behind her.

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[SCORCHSTREAK]

She had asked after Sootstar for good reason, and yet she regrets it as soon as Bluepool speaks. The moor runner’s voice quakes, and Scorchstreak’s ear flickers in recognition. She aims to lean in closer to her friend, hoping to offer some sort of comfort to the other she-cat. Bluepool continues to speak, telling her that Sootstar is unwell, is just as lost as her fallen mate. The calico winces at the thought of Weaselclaw, but her expression is carefully gentle as she listens to the other lead warrior. Sootstar has truly severed her ties with StarClan, then. The list of Sootstar’s crimes has only grown, and as Bluepool says, the leader hardly seems the same cat that Scorchstreak had once thought she knew.

If Bluepool has also noticed the problems that are arising with each of her sister’s actions, then perhaps she is trustworthy. The silvery tabby’s account of Sootstar’s condition could surely be dangerous for her to admit even to Scorchstreak—the calico frowns, head tilting to one side. "That’s… troubling to hear, I’ll admit," she says, golden gaze narrowing as she meets Bluepool’s eyes. It seems that the rot within Sootstar runs much deeper than she’d thought. "The other clans won’t just put up with this. They’ll do something in retaliation." If not the wrath of the stars, then surely the moorland clan will fall to a strike directly from the stars themselves. "What are we going to do?" She is a member of Sootstar’s council. No matter what happens, or what has happened in the past, she is complicit. She is a bystander, a supporter of the smoky-furred queen of the moors. There is blood on her paws, whether she likes it or not. There is no outrunning guilt. But is there a way to do something, to lessen the impact of Sootstar’s actions?
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[ BE A FIRE, BURN THIS DOWN ]​

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