THREAD THE NEEDLE | thriftfeather

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

The morning's patrol is just the two of them. Some clanmates bumped him by the shoulder as they left, whispering conspiratorially that they'd join them, just say the word. Safety in numbers and all that. But even though Thriftfeather stands a bit taller and far more burly than him, Sedgepounce doesn't think he has the heart to fight. Not when all he's worth is back at camp, still too young to even leave the nursery. That family's his anchor.

It's also only half the size he thinks it is, but that's neither here nor there.

They slip past long, frost-scorched fronds of heather and grass. Somewhere behind them, Sedgepounce left a mouse, dead and bleeding from the neck, buried in a semi-shallow pool of earth to be picked up on their way back to camp. He swipes a bit of blood from his whiskers.

They're nowehere near the border, but Sedgepounce can't shake the image of that small, patchwork apprentice that Viperpaw chased away a few moons ago. He thinks of them everytime he sees Thriftfeather's face—or Vulturepaw's.

"...What do you guys teach your apprentices?" he says, the quiet peak of his voice breaking a whole patrol's worth of long, drawn out silence. An array of thoughts rages through his head, sticking together in growing clusters. "About WindClan, I mean." His eyes find Thriftfeather beside him—his look is more contemplative than it is judgmental.

@Thriftfeather
​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Sedgepounce's voice rises from the Leafbare quiet.

A weariness comes over Thriftfeather at once — you guys, Sedgepounce says, as if Thriftfeather is still DuskClan. A sting catches his chest like a splinter beneath his pelt. He's never had the allowance of being fully WindClan; was he always to be burdened by what came before?

(But was that not what Thriftfeather had deserved? The most recent separation between himself and WindClan — was that not his own doing?)

That hurt, as it will always be, is pushed aside.

"In DuskClan?" Thriftfeather asks, if only to allow himself the space to think — it could only ever be about DuskClan.

"I had an apprentice, there," Thriftfeather's ears fold with an old guilt — would Gravelpaw be a warrior by now? "But I wasn't — I don't think I made for a good mentor. I told her that we had slept without shelter and — and some things about StarClan," Wondering could be his undoing — should Thriftfeather had told her more? Less? "She would have heard more from the others."

From those hurt and bitter about WindClan's fracture, or those who had never known it.​

WINDCLAN QUEEN ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ ✦ TAGS​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

Sedgepounce stares at Thriftfeather's face for a few drawn-out moments, eyes flickering, searching for something, before he turns away with a breath. Thriftfeather's answer is...disappointing. It's probably his own fault—Sedgepounce should know better to expect some huge, earth-shattering, suspicion-confirming confession from him anymore.

Another bout of silence passes by. "I would have thought—" he starts. A concession to wondering instead of knowing. "—that there'd be a lot of propaganda, or something. About Sootstar and how totally awesome she was. To make them hate us or whatever." Otherwise, DuskClan would have shriveled up and died by now. They keep bringing in kits somehow, though, and judging by the lack of apprentices pleading for acceptance at the border or in the barn, he assumes there isn't a whole lot of truth-telling going on.

He kicks at a bit of snow as they walk. His heart's started to do this weird constricting thing in his chest, like he's standing at a cliff edge, staring at the river at its bottom.

If he keeps it to himself, things would keep going as usual. If he says something, though...Where's the line? What's going to make Thriftfeather hurl himself off the point of no return?

"There was this apprentice on the border, not too long ago." He spies at Thriftfeather through his eye's corner. "Kinda small. Black and white fur...She was looking for you."
​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Those who had remained in WindClan never seem to have DuskClan right. They couldn't know that it was a place defined by absence, about the Leafbare thin moons even in the heights of Greenleaf or the slow drain loneliness would leave on one's chest. Both an experience Thriftfeather would never wish to fall upon anyone and one he knows countless are condemned to, and will continue to be condemned to.

"It's more rogues than WindClan," Thriftfeather angles his head as he speaks, imagines he is facing DuskClan's camp from this distance. The cold finds a home beneath his skin, shivers him, "And they — I doubt they know of Sootstar beyond a name mentioned in passing. They dislike WindClan because it is what they are told to dislike."

Nothing more uniting than an enemy in common.

And then Sedgepounce mentions an apprentice, and Thriftfeather freezes with one of his paws still suspended above the snow. Guilt is an arresting thing.

"You knew," It doesn't leave him as an accusation. It should leave him as an accusation.

Thriftfeather resumes movement, finishes the step as if it had never stalled, follows with another as if he knows what he is supposed to feel in any of this.

"She wasn't born into DuskClan," Eyes back to Sedgepounce — searching, "Lonerborn, lost her mother. I thought…" Thriftfeather trails off, shakes his head as if he could ever dispel such thoughts, "Did she seem — how was she?"

The answer could be a much needed balm, or it could be another weight on his spine.​

WINDCLAN QUEEN ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ ✦ TAGS​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

They dislike WindClan because they're told to. Sedgepounce's mind flits, unwittingly, to Thistlepaw. To this crusade he has against RiverClan.

A contemplative hum passes through him, his gaze passing over a cluster of twig-like grasses jutting out along their path. It shouldn't make much of a difference to him. Sootstar loyalist, rogue, lonerborn or not, DuskClan will come back to the moor and wreak havoc against them again, eventually.

Sedgepounce freezes when Thriftfeather does. "You knew?" he shoots back incredulously. He wasn't even allowed out of the nursery yet! How could he have—oh. "Vulturepaw," Sedgepounce whispers, head tilting absently. The puzzle pieces are clicking together.

They start walking again. Thriftfeather starts to needle him, meek enough to be characteristic, but more than he usually ventures during their conversations. He's actually asking questions. "She was..." he runs his tongue across his teeth, considering. "I mean, she looked like a loner. Scrawny and all, but...healthy otherwise, I think." How much had Vulturepaw left out? "Viperpaw gave her a couple scratches, sent her running home. Nothing serious." With that, he spares a serious look toward Thriftfeather, as if it would convey his sincerity.

Thriftfeather dropped DuskClan faster than a rotten mouse to follow Bluefrost and their kits back to WindClan. Sedgepounce wouldn't have thought he was leaving anyone behind, really. He mulls over the new revelation quietly. "You said you thought," he starts again. "You thought...what?"
​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Scrawny, but otherwise healthy — news that is better than Thriftfeather knows how to expect. But then Sedgepounce continues and explains the inevitability that Thriftfeather should have expected. A new worry blossoms from the same space that holds his old guilt. Thriftfeather doesn't have the heart to remind Sedgepounce that DuskClan is without a medicine cat and that something that sounds as trivial as a couple scratches could easily spiral into far more.

Thriftfeather nods instead, accepts the knowledge for what it is.

"You said you thought," Sedgepounce prompts and Thriftfeather doesn't freeze.

His ears pivot towards Sedgepounce and he feels his heart stutter against his ribs, but he doesn't freeze. Thriftfeather swallows down the immediate, childish reaction to deny that he had ever said anything like that. Thriftfeather had thought that Gravelpaw and himself had more in common than they had differences, but that is too large of a beast to contend with. It feels like too big of a beast even now, with a gulf between them and moons without words exchanged.

"We're alike in that — me and Gravelpaw, that is," It feels somehow embarrassing to admit, and simultaneously as if Thriftfeather has just shown his throat.

Thriftfeather had once imagined what it would mean to tell Sedgepounce, if not the whole truth, then enough for him to understand the weight of that. He imagines it once again and is stalled by the harsh curdle of his gut.

A tiny reflection of himself — one he couldn't save.

"I didn't like her being in — she shouldn't have been brought into DuskClan. But there was nowhere else I could think to bring her," A thought that had followed him his whole life: if not here, then where? Pulled from their original shapes and made to fit somewhere new — but Thriftfeather has always been a coward at heart, had never been brave enough to confirm his suspicions about Gravelpaw, "Vulturepaw thinks I should have done differently."​

WINDCLAN QUEEN ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 22 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

Sedgepounce fixes Thriftfeather a scrupulous stare from beneath his knitted brows. Struggling, for a moment, to understand what he means. Gravelpaw was an orphaned loner just like him. He'd thought them similar, so...what? That doomed them for DuskClan?

Thriftfeather elaborates, and Sedgepounce stacks his thoughts into neat columns and rows—the crease in his forehead begins to smooth. "Really?" he murmurs. He wouldn't have expected that level of derision from Vulturepaw. He'd half expect Periwinklebreeze's soft-hearted child to wish that everyone could clasp paws and learn to love each other sooner than he'd think Vulturepaw would argue against Thriftfeather's choice like that. Not that he blames Vulturepaw for their empathy. It's a good quality to have when it doesn't border on naivety. When it doesn't reek of danger.

This time, Sedgepounce agrees with Vulturepaw's assessment. "Probably," he concedes flatly, albeit not unkindly. It was a toss as to whether WindClan could take on a kit at any given time. Definitely more than Sootstar's WindClan, he refrains from pointing out. But there was always the Horseplace. Or SkyClan, even.

Anything would be better than DuskClan. Right?

"I...I don't get it," he huffs. A cascade of mist puffs from his teeth. There's been this feeling bubbling up within him since they started talking. Since before that. Since Thriftfeather somehow convinced him that he was serious about abiding by his family; since Gravelpaw skittered along the border, absent of the vitriol he should expect of DuskClan otherwise. It courses through him now: frustration. "Like. Either you're totally lying to me, which is—whatever." He's projecting out at the narrow, deer-trod pathway carved before them. "But if you're not. There's no...preaching Sootstar's will. Or loyalists scheming to take us down. Then—you're just a bunch of rogues out there. So–"

He turns on Thriftfeather, wild-eyed. "What's the point then? Why attack us? Why—" the crux of it all. "Why steal our kits?" Why do anything, if Thriftfeather regretted it all in the first place?
​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Probably is not the response Thriftfeather would have wished for, but he should have known better than to expect understanding. Thriftfeather would agree, if only he could have thought of a solution — if only he could allow himself the space for what-ifs without being swallowed by them. But what happened is what was, and Thriftfeather couldn't undo his inaction any more than he could have undone his actions. Gravelpaw and Hungerpaw have been left behind, and Thriftfeather's life since then has been the reward for that.

In profile, Sedgepounce's confusion makes him look severe.

Why is no simple question. Why DuskClan as a whole, Thriftfeather thinks, or why me?

Why either or why anything at all — Thriftfeather slows without stopping, considers his words around the stone in his gut.

"I respected her," It feels wrong to discuss this with someone other than Bluefrost — Thriftfeather's eyes flick away, seeking the gray horizon, "But I'm not — when have I ever preached her will? As an apprentice or — or any time beyond that?"

WindClan had belonged to Sootstar; she had pulled it together from strands of moorgrass and her own determination. No amount of new leadership could change WindClan's bloody genesis or could change that it is a clan stolen — but what was Thriftfeather meant to do with that, other than to continue in the WindClan of now? Sootstar has been dead for moons and Scorchstar is the one who he now defers to, and that is what it means to be loyal to WindClan.

"The raid was for — it was for the same reason that Granitepelt found welcome for those rogues. He wanted DuskClan to have — he wanted numbers, above all else. Enough bodies for revenge or to satisfy his own ego. The promise of food or protection was enough for the rogues," And kits could be brought up in a world like that and find normalcy in it. They didn't need Sootstar as a figurehead to worship; DuskClan was a consuming enough concept on its own, "And we all listened because to go against — any disagreement from the whole was putting my throat up."

Thriftfeather hadn't meant to include himself, catches his slip only after it has been said. The change in expression that follows is subtle: the start of a grimace that is snuffed before it can bloom, the careful folding of himself back to baseline.

"You know me," There is something like exasperation in Thriftfeather's tone, too worn to be so in truth. "You know I was never the zealot."

Terrified or desolate or resigned to the life he had found himself in — but has that not been his life since his start in WindClan, trembling beneath the scant shelter of Ghostwail's belly?​

WINDCLAN QUEEN ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 22 MOONS ✦ TAGS​