camp THE SUN'S SPOILS 𓆩♡𓆪 RECOVERY

[DAWNGLARE]

The moon casts its glow upon camp, halted only by the long shadows of winding pines. Faint clouds drift lazily overhead, revealing the stars, obscuring others of their kind. Did they watch the ants that milled below them and laugh at their misfortune? Were they joyous, to curl their bounty from yellowcough's spoils, soul after soul— more company in a realm that stretched infinitely? Dawnglare had very nearly been one of them. Stripped down to blood and bone, no longer liaison, but god— no, a poet.

That is how they acted, weaving their words into warnings. The guise of god was unfaithful, if they hadn't the power to resew his strings without leaves from seasons away. It was untrue, if they hadn't the power to undig the grave for the devout.

Or perhaps they had it, but cared not enough to act.

In the quiet of camp, he cuts a stone figure. Eyes tinged silver and gazing aimlessly at the moon. He is returned to flesh— but that too is red and white; blood and bone. His stomach churns quietly for prey, for the first time since moons ago, since yesterday. A plume - like tail cradles his being as if he were small, once again. Stars reflect themselves in pale whiskers.

Were a soul to glimpse his face, they would see no sign of sickness. He is well - groomed, and there was no rattle to his lungs. The breaths he takes are deep and greedy. Any wetness by the eyes is an infliction unrelated to sickness. Recovery, in reality, is never sliced so cleanly as it may appear to be on him. You would not lose your lungs, and then find them again with a single night's rest. Think him a spectacle— something beyond the normal; it's what he had always believed. What need was there for your nose to be dried and your throat to be soothed, when you could simply be better? Be well.

The truth was that he should've been out of his nest several sunrises ago. Inadequacy had kept him occupied.

A WISE WOMAN SAID I'M ALIVE 🍷 NOBODY'S EVER TOLD HER SHE'S WRONG

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• ( I'M AS ALIVE AS HER BEARD IS LONG ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  𓆩♡𓆪 He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  𓆩♡𓆪 Currently 59 moons old as of 11.20.23. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

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[MALLOWLARK]

And hadn't he been stupid to worry? To think that anything would go wrong, that anything would ever... oh, it had been idiotic of him. Faithless. Yet, yet- yet. It still ate at him like nothing else, the fear. Fear he'd never felt before. He'd seen it in his mother's eyes when she'd looked at him, a wavering, teary worrying. She had not looked at him and seen a cat incapable of dying.

And Dawnglare, afflicted with the same cure- he could have died, too. Despite the reverence he held from the earth, the time he always took to listen- nature and its whims, its unpredictable and unavoidable whims, could have stolen his mate from him. Then what would he have left? Not his mother. Not anyone from his family. Would SkyClan even want to keep him, anymore?

Feeling inky paws hit the ground with not a single note of uncertainty, Mallowlark had to remind himself that- though he looked at the stars- he was not yet among them. Neither was Dawnglare. He caught the still-sat shape of his mate and brushed close against his side, unable to resist the temptation of it. He could not lose him. What would he do?

It was a sad realisation, and- Mallowlark did not want it to be so. He should be happy, should be, and so smiled to try and force the other feelings away. Eventually, he hoped its emptiness might fill out, and it'd become genuine. For now he was silent, silent and accompanied. they were not dead, yet. They wouldn't die, yet.​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Someone stirs in camp. Blazestar lifts his head from the crook of the nest he shares with @bobbie , letting the softness of her scent gather in his nostrils. The moon filters in through the openings left by an increasingly-stripped elderberry bush, and through the pallid light, he sees two figures milling about, one gazing aimlessly at the icy eye of the moon. He turns to gently nuzzle the plush fur at the nape of his mate’s neck before he pushes himself to his paws, exiting the den and feeling the cold night greet his face.

“You’re better,” he murmurs, his voice soft and pliable in the darkness. Dawnglare looks impossibly gaunt, insubstantial—but he lives, blue gaze trained on the sky as though he reads the stars. Mallowlark lingers at his side, their pelts brushing. Blazestar’s gaze flashes with unreadable emotion—but he quells the fire, lets the relief that remains scatter.

He approaches the pair of them, but hesitates before drawing too near. “I’m—” His nostrils flare, remembering the life that had left his body, the spirit that had fled his remains as Dawnglare looked on with helpless misery. “I’m glad,” he finishes lamely, eyeing Dawnglare’s mate and turning his face away—toward the same moon Dawnglare regards now.

, ”​

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[DOEBLAZE]

The mountains had been unforgiving. Bobbie suspects the ordeal of the journey may have been more effective in shaping her for warriorhood than formal training—their party had seemingly endured half the trials the world had to offer. For many sunrises, her eyes and ears had been attuned for a hundred threats—falling rocks or swooping eagles, prowling foxes or oncoming snowstorms. The sound of motion wakes her in an instant, green eyes wide and alert before she realizes it's only cats stirring in camp.

The gentle press of Blazestar's muzzle to her nape solidly grounds her in soothing reality, as his touch is prone to. She draws herself to her paws gradually, unappreciative of the attempted blandishments in the form of crystalline rays of moonlight. Early chill nips at her white-soaked paws, slinking from the comforting warmth of their den. Bobbie prefers to have her mate within sight when she can, an effect magnified by the spiking tensions within the forest. Call her possessive—call her clingy—she isn't sorry about it.

Perhaps it's these drowsy thoughts that soften her at the sight of Mallowlark and Dawnglare. She has no lost love for the pair of them, Dawnglare in particular—but their reunion in health is difficult to look upon with hateful eyes. Bobbie has not pressed at the sore spot of Blazestar's history with their fox-pelted medicine cat, but he, too, appears willing to discard any bad blood. She trails her mate, blinking sleep from her eyes, regards the pair of them with uneasy relief.

"Good to hear," Bobbie mews awkwardly. She shifts on her paws and nearly wishes she'd remained in their shared nest, though the mere presence of her mate makes the discomfort worth it. Her pale gaze stutters toward the chilled moon, uncomfortable at the idea of eye contact. She takes a half-hearted stab at a joke, willing the tangible weirdness in the air to dissipate. "Stars know where we'd all be without Dawnglare."

i'm a moon ☾ ( constantly chasing you )

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  bobbie ; lead warrior of skyclan
  x. she/her ; 43 moons ; tags
  x. small, scarred lilac tabby and white she-cat with green eyes
  x. played by dejavu
  x. mother to lupinepaw, crowpaw, and drowsypaw. mate to blazestar.

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[DUSKPOOL]

anger makes you stupid . stupid gets you killed .
︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

Another late night for the wooly-furred warrior, glancing up at the blooming moon resting lazily in the sky, blanketing everything in a cold icy glow of leaf-bare. Duskpool breathed in, taking in the familiar scent of pine and camp when a glowing molten copper settled on Dawnglare’s recovering form, looking worse for wear, but recovering from the death-seeking illness. A sigh of relief escaped a clenched maw.

At least their journey had not gone in vain, watching ill cats emerge from the medicine den one at a time. He figured the lot of ‘em would want to get back to their duties, but even Duskpool was a little weary of the assumption. He shook his helm, padding up to the gathering cats, determined to waste little time than to say a few simple words to the fated pair.

“Glad to see ya back on yer paws.” He spoke to both Dawnglare and Mallowlark, glancing idly to the other couple with a dip of his helm in silent acknowledgment before slipping away to drop a scrawny-looking squirrel in the fresh-kill pile. Shaking his wooly fur, Duskpool left the four to themselves to slip out of camp again. ​

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thought speech​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

It grounds him— the touch of his mate, snow-brushed coat close to his; all bone and no blood. Only the moon - like silver of his eyes; only the black reaches of his paws, sinking so seemlessly into shadow. Wraith - like, is what he was. It is a comparison he means to be only kind; only reverent; full of love and endearing touch, but in this moment; it only has discomfort prickling at his spine; the claws curling further. What a feeling, to fear death. What a feeling; to be like everyone else. Mallowlark reminds him that nothing has to change. That they are still them, with pelts bleeding close and eyes that look near the same beneath the light of the moon. Nevermind death. Nevermind anything. Dawnglare leans into him, as he has for moons.

Blazestar's voice cuts through the night like a ray of sun. The moon threatens it's leave— even as it hangs heavy above them. The stars whisper goodbye's; even as the pinks of dawn are far, far away. He would glimpse his old friend from the side of his eye, blinking slow. And plainly said: " I am. " ( But was that the truth? ) He feels like death, even if that was long, long gone. It was long gone for Blazestar, too, but it would come again.

Dawnglare wonders if he would feel for him similarly, were he to ever die.

( Ridiculous. It would never happen ). Giggling voices. Faces in the gloom.

Willingly, he misses the way moss - eyes follow from the leader's den. Her kindness is the last thing he expected; but he hasn't the energy to refute it, either way. The moon's gaze is much more welcoming than his own, evidently. And that was but a fact— not something he would bare teeth at, though his gaze hangs regardless. It is a rare moment, where he would not meet her with hostility or a bristled back. He gazes at her with muted curiosity. Wicked words pull strange strings at his heart.

Stars know where we'd all be without Dawnglare.

And isn't that the thing? Dawnglare had not risen to chaos or to burning. No permafrost, nor impenetrable mist. It is like he'd never been gone to begin with. It is as if they didn't need him at all. Stars know. Indeed they did.

He lets himself smile at her words regardless, a turn of the lips that she would not see. Neither would she witness how close he would hold it to his heart; how he would need to in order to feel normal, again. Mallowlark's scent is pine - thick beside him. Nothing needed to change.

Only when Duskpool speaks, does he find that he knows how to reply. A solemn dip of head is what he is given, tail curled around him thick. It is quieter than he means it to be, when he says, " Thank you. "

A WISE WOMAN SAID I'M ALIVE 🍷 NOBODY'S EVER TOLD HER SHE'S WRONG

• 
  
  

• 

• ( I'M AS ALIVE AS HER BEARD IS LONG ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  𓆩♡𓆪 He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  𓆩♡𓆪 Currently 59 moons old as of 11.20.23. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

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