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Lionsnarl

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"LIFE DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE SINNERS AND THE SAINTS"​
He was staring at the sky again. He often stared at the sky, though very rarely did he do so from the confines of the camp. Tonight, however, he didn't feel the urge to go out. He didn't feel the urge to climb. He didn't feel the urge to do much of anything, really. He was tired. So tired. Tired of himself. Tired of his own mind. Tired of what he had become. Most of his clan-mates were asleep by now - the warrior's den was almost completely full, save the few daylight warriors that had gone back to their humans for the night, Wrath among them. With the nights growing longer and colder, the burly tom wouldn't be allowed as much freedom.

It was fine. He didn't need to sleep anyways. Instead, he simply looked up, not quite thinking, but not quite drifting either. He was aware enough to feel eyes at him at least.

"Isn't it a bit late for you, old man?" The ginger king grumbled, not turning away from his pointless star-gazing to address the fluffy elder that had approached him. @MORNINGBIRD​
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"I'm not the one who has dawn patrol tomorrow." Morningbird chuckles, no ridicule in his tone. It had been evident from the start that the norwegian wore his heart on his shoulder, hiding no ill intentioned thorns in his words or actions. He was simply as he appeared, and perhaps that is what made him mesh into the clan so easily. In truth, the elder's den felt empty without Leopardcloud. In such a short time she had become a constant in his life, so much so that when it was close to ending, he had forgotten that the ending was why she was there at all. It left him rather discontented in his nest, so he had come out for a breather rather than pace inside and wake his denmates.

The would-be old prince sits a comfortable distance next to the retired king, green eyes turning skyward. Blazestar had told him fully, of what the clan cats believed, and it was not too different from how his own family had thought. Part of him wonders if Nora and their kits wait for him alongside the family of clan cats, finding a new home in Starclan as he and his grandkits had in Skyclan. "Your thoughts are awfully loud son, heavy too. There is no need to wear a crown in front of me, though if you want...you can pretend its just the mutterings of a crazy old geezer." An opening, but not a prying one. Morningbird is concerned of course, but it is not his business whom the warrior does and does not share his woes with. That is his business and his business alone. ​
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"LIFE DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE SINNERS AND THE SAINTS"​
"I won't have to pretend much." The reply is given with his typical growl, though the malice is absent from his tone. The old man is of little consequence to him - not an annoying worm like one of Daisyflight's brats, nor one of the many warriors who found him too abrasive to even patrol with on most days. He is simply a being that takes up space in his own corner of the hollow. He stayed out of the ginger king's way and that's all that mattered in the king's mind.

Usually.

A sigh left his lips. Not a growl or a snarl or even a huff, but a soft puff of air that he seemed to be holding in for a very long time. "I've heard the things everybody has been saying. I fucked up with that girl, didn't I?" He didn't wait for the elder's response. "Nobody would believe me if I said it, but I didn't mean to be so rough with her, she just wouldn't move. I even told her to strike me first and when she just froze, I figured if I shook her a little, she'd snap out of it. She needs to."

He pauses and his gaze lowers to his paws, to the overgrown claws that always looked unsheathed now due to his lapse in hygiene. Sabers poking out of his fur, talons that grasped the earth. Weapons. "I just kept thinking of that apprentice that got dragged off. Of Haze. Of Finch. Ah, well, I know Haze wasn't a kid but he was my kid." His ears flatten against his head.

"N-not really. Just... Rain took me in after I lost my humans, my mate, three kits. All of it. He gave me home and I watched his boys grow up. I watched him grow up and I couldn't even be there when he died. I couldn't even bring myself to say anything at his vigil. He was just... gone. And I couldn't even grieve for him because the same monster that killed him had my kits under her paw."

A bitter laugh escapes him. "I see my kits in every one of these little brats around here. She had seven, you know. Fritter. Seven kits. And I thought that even if she did abandon me for a murderer, she would protect them, but she's not there anymore and now my children are at the mercy of a mad-woman. The offspring of a lunatic and SkyClanner. I see them and then I see Blaise and Daisy with their big, happy families with their big, happy smiles and their soft non-challenges and I wonder if they even realize how lucky they are to not feel like their children's lives are at stake simply because of who they are. I can't teach or protect my children from anything, I barely even know their names but they get to flaunt their gentle training like there aren't real threats in this world beyond this hollow."

His tail thrashes and he realizes he's angry again, but the anger is different. He reaches a paw to his face and realizes - to his own disgust - that he had begun to cry. "There were children in the Great Battle. One of my sons was named after one. There were innocents slaughtered in the Great Battle. I know, I -" He didn't mean it. "I know because I killed one. It's how I got my name. 'Crimsonbite', I'm called now, for my 'skill in battle.' Because I ripped out a man's throat without a second thought. No wonder I'll never be anything but a monster to that kid. I am one."​
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Morningbird sits, he sits and he listens to the warrior spill out everything that he's been holding back like opening a reservoir's dam before it can break. He does not speak, and he does not look as the other begin to cry for he does not need eyes to smell the salt permeating the air. Something tells him that if he drew attention to it, it would negate any progress.

"Parenthood and mentorship are much the same, in that mistakes are inevitable for the young and the old, but also in that our life experiences change how we approach them. You saw Butterflypaw's weakness in combat, and in your own fear for her safety, hurt her because you thought it would prevent more pain later. This does not mean that you were right, but it does mean that you cared." He murmurs, neither condemning or justifying the actions taken, but explaining them to show he understood why. "I can't speak for the Great Battle, I was not there. I stood guard that night with my Nora, beyond the moors, hearing you all fight as my family stayed safe inside. I did not see your anguish, or the anguish of any cat for that matter, but I heard it, and I heard when the battle stopped and the forest which had once been thundering with pain became the held breath of dozens of to-be warriors." He looks then, eyes weary with wisdom.

'Too much, they have all seen too much in too little time.' He thinks, and its as if he can see his younger self behind the warrior whose calling he dare not think, dare not speak. "Son, you are no monster, for no monster feels their heart be torn with the force of ravaging beasts at the thought of their crimes, no monster looks at others and thinks 'I have to help them now so they will not suffer later at the claws of someone worse'. A monster does not weep at the cruelties of life they were unable to change."

"I ask, who are you? And do not tell me again the name of your crimes, of your guilt that has been shackled to you."​
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"LIFE DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE SINNERS AND THE SAINTS"​
CW: suicidal thoughts

"Who am I?" It's been so long since he's even tried to give himself a name, to give himself a purpose or identity. It's been so long since he felt like anything worthy of a name or a being, he had long since thought that he simply wasn't allowed such luxuries. "Once upon a time, I was the Rum-Tum-Tugger, King Among Kings. Grand Champion. Best of Breed. Best in Show. He died with that storm and Tugger was born with Rain. And then I was a soldier. I was kin to cats I would've thought beneath me. I was part of something. I don't know who I am now. I'm told I'm a warrior of SkyClan. I'm told I'm strong. I'm told a lot of things. I feel like nothing."

He spits. The tears are still evident on his cheeks, the frustration and desperation still warming his undercoat uncomfortably. "I am nothing. My name was taken from me and the one I have now is a curse, a warning to all cats to stay away. And they do. Good. I don't need their judgement. I don't need their pity. I don't need their mockery. With luck, those damned stars will take me before leafbare. They've taken everything else from me."​
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Name after name, mask after mask, and yet life seemingly hasn't let the tom be anything but who others see him as. Yet he can't, he just cannot call this young tom by a name that so obviously brings him pain. "You are indeed, a warrior of Skyclan, but you are a warrior in the way I am an elder. That is not, and never will be all we are. You are a friend to so many, to Wrath and Deersong and Baguette, I can see the way Fireflykit's eyes spark when he sees you coming in from patrol, even if you want to keep your big gruff demeanor....you care for all of them. Everyone is a garden of all the cats they have ever met and ever loved, but there is always a tree, bigger than the rest, that makes up our core being." He begins, slow and yet there is a firmness in his tone. As if to speak these words of praise into the air turns them to stone, turned them into simple fact.

"You are a bearish tom, with all the protectiveness of one with cubs, and you have a lion-like heart. To me, until you and perhaps Blazestar, find a name that suits you, that brings you some sense of peace in the way this one does not...To me? You will be Tugger, of the time when you seemed the happiest. You do not have to be Crimsonbite and all he entails, even if that anger is apart of you. You are still young, you still have time to prune and cultivate that garden into whatever you want, and I believe that one day, when I ask you who you are? You will be at a point where nothing is coming from such a small voice in your head that it cannot be heard over the cat you become." He is not sure if all his words are right, if they would even help, but he cares for the maned, flat-faced cat beside him. He cares for all of Skyclan's cats, no matter what they may think of him. That is who Morningbird is, that is the answer he found to his question many seasons ago.

With his words, he offers Tugger a home to return to, a foundation to build whatever life he wants from the rubble of those that were built for him. He offers him support in doing so, because that is all he can do, the old tom cannot make that first step for him.​
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