- Feb 14, 2023
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HE SAID, "WELL MY NAME'S JOHNNY, AND IT MIGHT BE A SIN
BUT I'LL TAKE YOUR BET, AND YOU'RE GONNA REGRET, CUZ IM THE BEST THERE'S EVER BEEN."
OOC- replies are totally optional! Just wanted to write this because I had the muse and it's something that's been on my mind since the code was announced! Johnnys basically just taking his night of silent vigil, even though it's more symbolic than mandatory since he's already received his name. Mans is currently stationed outside of the camps entrance, standing guard <3
It'd been right around this time last year that Johnny had first joined Skyclan. When a mysterious tomcat with silver eyes and more scars than he could count had slipped from the treeline to join him on his fence. His world had changed that day, stubborn as he'd been to first accept it. He'd started out as little more than an excited but guilt-ridden stranger to the clan, so eager to explore this new life he was being offered, but terrified of accidentally betraying the twolegs who'd given him so much. Those first few months had been difficult, and he'd had to learn how to walk away from that fence during the days without feeling like a traitor. The fact that Skyclan made him so happy had only piled onto his worries, because what would happen if his twolegs decided they didn't want him taking off on them? What would happen if they felt like Johnny was leaving them behind?
He'd been lucky though, luckier than most- but hadn't he always? Maybe he hadn't had parents or siblings while growing up, but he was always loved and warm and fed. He had more toys than he could count and was given all the freedoms a cat could want in the form of the cat-door leading out into the backyard. He even had friends- kind of. More like friendly faces in the form of neighborhood cats, never really having a chance to cement a strong bond due to his twolegs moving around a lot. But it'd still been good. He'd still been happy. And that hadn't changed. There'd been no horrible repercussions for his daylight ventures. No shoe waiting to drop. His twolegs greeted him at the end of each day as happily as they always had, and if he came back banged up a little from time to time due to a border skirmish or predator on Skyclans forest, they never punished him by keeping him away.
And so slowly, or maybe all at once, Johnny had come to realize he could have both.
And there was no putting into words what that meant to him. Skyclan was not an easy or safe place to live. It wasn't like his twolegs nest where anything he needed or wanted was right there waiting for him, handed over without any fuss or struggle. Living in Skyclan was work. It was risk. But it was also reward, perhaps the most addicting that Johnnyflame had ever come to know. Thistleback had been right all that time ago when he'd told him there was more to life than what twolegs could offer him. And maybe those things weren't meant for everyone, but there was no doubt that they were meant for him. Back then he hadn't been so sure, but now? It was an unflinching truth in his life. If he were to wake up tomorrow to find that everything between then and now had been nothing but a dream, life would be irreparably shattered for the bobtail. It would strip so many parts of him away that he'd feel like little more than a shell of the cat he was meant to be. It scared him sometimes, to think of a life without Skyclan.
But he let himself think of it tonight. Let himself sit in the weight of just how important this place and it's cats had come to be.
When he'd gone to Orangestar that evening to ask, she'd told him that a silent vigil wasn't necessary for the warriors who'd already received their names. But when Johnny had explained that he wanted to, she hadn't denied him the opportunity. Sitting still and being quiet weren't necessarily traits the tabby was known for, but even those could be trumped by the sheer amount of determination that the bobtail was capable of rallying.
Besides... it was different when he had a reason.
It was good to be reminded of the weight of his role, of the responsibility he was agreeing to.
Of how important all this was to him.
Not that he felt he could ever forget it, just...
It was hard to explain when he didn't even understand it himself. A part of him was always trying to get closer to what it meant to be a Skyclanner. Sometimes he wondered if he'd still feel the need to reach for it if he'd been there since the start. Hell, he hadn't even known there'd been a start to the clans until Silversmoke let it slip that he'd been a rogue before Skyclan. If Johnny had fought in the great battle, if he'd seen starclans intervention himself, would he still feel like there was some kind of gap he needed to close?
Would starclan even take him when he died? Who would even come to greet him when his spirit left his body? Blazestar? Brightflame? It was hard to imagine they would stop their otherworldly lives just to come and find him. Brightflame had died under his watch after all, and while he couldn't imagine Blazestar abandoning him, they hadn't exactly had a close emotional connection. They weren't best friends. They weren't family. There were surely other cats the old leader would need to be focusing on.
It doesn't matter. Even if nobody come when I die, I'm still Skyclan right to the end. he thought to himself stubbornly, lips setting into a firm line as he looked out into the darkening woods beyond.
He was sat just outside the camps entrance, the dark of night having settled and yet he made no move to begin the trek to twolegplace. He sat firm in his spot, back straight and chin held high as golden optics blazed like the sun. Tonight he'd complete his silent vigil, and would hopefully bridge that unexplainable gap just a bit more.
Maybe then, he could stop reaching.
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