sensitive topics UNDER THAT SKY, WE WILL REUNITE — private.

[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar has been stuck in a state of reflection since Bobbie had revealed her pregnancy. A lifetime has returned to him in little snippets. The first kit he’d held between his paws, cleaning the snuffling, sensitive little face—his firstborn, his son, now the hulking medicine cat-to-be of SkyClan. He has relived moments he’d hidden away from himself, tender and wreathed with heartbreak—lying in his den, five kits clambering over him, begging for stories, Little Wolf in the corner with her warm smile and her gentle admonishments. Morningpaw, her pelt crusted with red snow, lying weak and tired in Dawnglare’s den, her final words a plea: Don’t cry.

He would not cry. Today was for new beginnings. The sun is high and unseasonably warm—it has newleaf on its breath, even though the breeze that pulls through pale fur is cold and rigid as claws. He had asked Bobbie to accompany him to the border, unmarked and heavily-scented with his Clan’s patrols. They lie in a glade where the sun falls in strips between the pines that arc over their bodies, casting chilly shadows. Blazestar’s muzzle is buried in the soft fur between her ear and her throat, and when he withdraws, he’s smiling, laughter on his lips.

“Soon, we won’t be able to take walks like this anymore,” he purrs. “But I’ll bring you border tales while you’re in the nursery. I’ll tell them to you—and to them.” He brings his face close to a rounding belly, firm to the touch. Warmth spikes through him, torches him in a way the sunlight cannot. “What story shall we tell them today? Maybe LionClan?”

After a heartbeat, he withdraws, his smile softening as he meets Bobbie’s tender green gaze. “Lionkit. I would like to name one Lionkit, if you’re alright with that.” His tail reaches to twine with hers. Does she remember, as he does, their days beneath the holly, bruised and bandaged, edging their nests close together so they can murmur about the fierce Clans he’d learned about from Little Wolf, and her from her mother? His paws tingle at the memory. “Lionkit, yes.” A name of strength, of legacy.

[ @bobbie ]

, ”​

​

 

[DOEBLAZE]

When the fear had washed away, it had left behind sugary plains of love, of excitement. Blazestar is nothing like her first mate, she knows that much; he will not leave her, not unless he is torn away to the stars, and he has made promises to her. To be careful, to stay alive for her and their kits to come. It had taken convincing, tears, pleading, but she can believe it now. She has lived many turns of the moon with one life, and he can do the same. Their kits will grow with a father and a mother lavishing love upon them, with a Clan of excited warriors and safety and warmth and everything she had wanted for her first litter.

She tries not to think of how Crowpaw refuses to speak to her, of how she'd snapped at Lupinepaw. Of Blazestar's kits a world away, spitting fire across the border.

Bobbie inhales deeply, breathing in the first buds of newleaf in the warmth of the sun above. She focuses on her mate's muzzle nestled in the ruffles of fur along the side of her head, the first breaths of the warm season, the safe assurance of the piney SkyClan marks along the border. She focuses on the gentle swell of her stomach, the knowledge from experience that she will soon feel the first kicks of the kits born of their love, love that had mended two broken hearts.

Her purr is soft and humorous. "In a half-moon or so, we can guess at how many there might be," the tabby mews quietly. Secretly, she hopes for a small litter—given how many half-siblings the two of them wrangle, the fraught relationships they both have with their various children, one or two kits would be perfect. Bobbie smiles, and her next remark is biting but tinged with humor. "Of course, that does entail going to Dawnglare..."

"I'll be begging you for them. I can't say I'm excited to be penned up in the nursery again," she mews softly, unable to keep the smile from her face. The adoration in his eyes, the way he holds her close and looks to her slowly rounding belly as though it's the best thing he's seen in many moons and lives—it reassures her. Her mate promises tales of LionClan for their children to come, and the gentle twining of his tail of her shortened one as he suggests a name dedicated to the story of the great Clan that had bonded them so long ago.

"Lionkit," she breathes, tasting the name on her lips. It brings to mind a little maned kit, striped golden and lilac, begging for tales of the great cats she was named after—or perhaps a child masked with the sun, as her mate is, roaring ferociously at his denmates. They have murmured names to one another in the comfort of the den they share, but this is by far the best yet. "It's perfect," Bobbie mews, tipping her head against his chest, hearing the great soothing beat of his heart. "Reminds me of us, running circles around one another."

"speech"

​

 

[HARRIERSTRIPE]

Harrierstripe had not followed Granitepelt, he doesn't know why.

It stung knowing that even in her final moments he had not held a spark in her eyes. He had done everything he could to bring victory to WindClan- no, to Sootstar, but he had failed, and it's costed him everything.

As he stalks through the trees is he still WindClan? Or is he a lousy rogue? A filthy clan-less cat? Sometimes he wonders if it would've been more noble to have joined the former ShadowClan cat, but his heart couldn't take it anymore. His mother had been the only cat who truly had his loyalty, he wouldn't have been able to provide anything for the tom-cat and the other WindClanner's who joined him.

It was time to make his own path, live life the way he wanted to live it. Perhaps whether Sootstar was dead or alive she'd know of the deed he did today... perhaps he'd finally have her approval. If not, at the very least Weaselclaw would have his final wish carried out.

As he treks through the forest, he knows the pelt of his brother should be walking alongside the chimera. If only you had stuck by her side... if only you all had. He thinks, reminiscing about his litter-mates. StarClan knows I'm sorry, Shrikethorn. But you should've listened...

At first when he spots the golden pelt he can't believe it... He does a double-take as if staring upon a fat rabbit in the midst of leaf-bare. His chance, it's arrived...

Stumbling out from a nearby tree, Weaselclaw's son reveals himself. Blazestar isn't alone, the massive tom is with a cat he recognizes as one of their lead warriors... his mate based on the way she speaks to him. They speak of kittens, of Lionkit, a momentary shiver of reluctance travels down his spine. He pushes any reluctance he feels back.


"Blazestar, you're the last one. How- how are you the last one?!" He hisses, seeming almost mad. Bobbie and Blazestar could easy mistake his rambles for nonsense, "I'm- I don't think- I'm not a killer. I don't think- I ever wanted to be. But what else am I supposed to do? They're gone." Where else was he supposed to find worth if not killing his parents' foes? If not fighting their battles? "Sootstar- Sootstar and Weaselclaw send their regards." Why did the words 'I'm sorry' sit on the tip of his tongue?

Harrierstripe rushes past Blazestar, kicking his shoulders with his powerful hindquarters. Now positioned behind the leader he leaps onto his back, the same move that had been used against Harrierstripe by Snakehiss. Thorn-sharp claws burrow into the large tom's flesh, he moves his forepaws to the tom's head and aims to push down with all his might in an effort to send him to the ground.

With incredible speed from where he still stands atop the tom's back he digs into Blazestar's scruff, his teeth pulling and yanking on the sensitive skin. Like a dog to it's favorite toy he thrashes and rips up fur until blood begins to seep into his mouth. Harrierstripe spits out the crimson before going in for another, deeper bite. His jaw looks almost as if it unlatches when he takes his teeth to the leader's neck again, only this time instead of a dog's toy Harrierstripe goes in as if Blazestar is an oversized rabbit for the kill.

☾ INFO BATTLE

• 
  » Harrierkit . Harrierpaw . Harrierstripe
  » WindClan Warrior
  » He/him
  » A black and chocolate chimera with golden eyes.
  » "Speech" ․ thoughts ․ attack
  
• 
  » A foe who uses jeers and taunts to distract his opponents.
  » Excels in using terrain to his advantage.
  » Fights to overpower and see another day.
  » May powerplay minor harm. Can powerplay healing

​

 

[DOEBLAZE]

Bobbie is shutting her eyes against that great, steady thrum, relaxing into the warmth, the safety, of her mate, when it happens. She does not see Harrierstripe as he staggers, crazed and rambling, from behind one of the pines she's always associated with home. Perhaps this is her mistake. She opens her eyes slowly, sleepily, when the strange voice hisses out. Drowsiness and the beginnings of kit-heaviness weigh her eyelids down. Perhaps this is her mistake. She does not recognize the strange young tom; she is not familiar with the forest's tangled grudges. Perhaps this is her mistake.

Does it truly matter which it is? She makes a mistake, a mistake she can never afford to make, and before she can move she's sent sprawling by the force of Harrierstripe's charge, coughing in the frosty dust underpaw, peering through her fur. It takes her a moment to process, and that moment is a fatal suspension in time as she watches the stranger leap onto her mate's great back, sending him to the ground, viper - quick, quicker than the lead warrior can blink.

The sound of his flesh tearing is loud, so terribly loud. The sound of blood spurting from the jagged gash ripped in Blazestar's neck, his gurgling gasps as crimson sprays the fluffy golden mane she so loves to press her muzzle into. Is the blood spraying her? It must be, because something is smearing the edges of her world scarlet, sending her head spinning and the world tilting sideways. She staggers, once, and then the red makes a nest in the far points of her vision, leaving only Harrierstripe's blood-smeared face in its heart.

There's no word, no simple matter of syllables to describe this moment. The raw scream that rends her ears, echoing from some distant wail (because surely it's not her screaming like that, because that would make all of this real), even, cannot speak in a thousand years of anguish to this single second. Her life is torn in two. She is torn in two; because what is a moon without a sun? Nothing, nothing, nothing at all. The screaming is getting closer and her throat is burning and blood is dripping over the curve of her muzzle and everything is turning into nothing. Into emptyness. Into the darkness of a grave, sun buried under drifts of dirt. She is turning into nothing. She wishes she was turning into nothing.

Maybe she is turning into nothing, turning into poppy-flowers and bloody sunsets, because everything keeps getting redder. Why is it getting redder?

"I'll kill you." It's a low and rasping whisper, breaking in when the shredded and distant scream ends. Someone else is saying it, not her, because she could never—would never—kill someone, but the world is smearing around her and, oh, she's moving, and that great burn in her chest is breaking out in a shriek. "I'll kill you!"

She's on Harrierstripe a moment later, the red mingling with black and brown fur as they tussle in the sort of vicious, tangled-limb grappling she'd fought the rogue with. I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you, pounds through her head and soft heart as claws tear and flesh rends on both sides. She's rearing up to strike at the tender skin of his throat, world spinning dizzy scarlet, when fire screams through her face.

Pressure, pressure, pressure until she thinks she'll tear her own body in two before she endures a second more—and then a horrible sickening give and something's gushing down her face, her ears are aflame, half her world suddenly washed in oozing carmine. Harrierstripe's claws tear free from her face, from the mess of red where her eye had once lived. The world descends further into nauseous static, into the taste of copper and the wildfire tearing through her softened ears, the lost click of bobby pins, the claret dripping from the ruin of her face.

She sees a glimmer of golden fur and she's on her paws again as if she never fell, tearing towards Harrierstripe far faster than anyone so wounded, so shredded should be, driven by the diseased scarlet eating away at the edges of her vision. A crouch and she's rearing up once more, this time with her fangs lodged in the soft flesh of her opponent's underbelly, spilling gouts of blood and viscera.

The world spins red. Red, gushing from Blazestar's neck, choking his spastic breaths, spraying skyward with each arterial spurt. Red, dripping down her muzzle, sprayed across her face, filling her mouth with the tang of grave-salt copper. Red, oozing in a slow river from the hole torn in Harrierstripe's gut, crimson guilt soaking her paws. Red, smearing the edges of the world, turning every soft-hearted thought into scarlet fuzz, burning a hole through her heart. It's all the same red, when you get down to it.

She staggers back, falls, lands on something soft and turns once more. He caught her, like he always does.

"Blazestar...." Tears mingle with the blood dripping onto his fur, already soaked in crimson until she can barely see the golden glow of the sun. It might be hers. Harrierstripe, spluttering scarlet behind her, life spilled onto the ground, is forgotten. The hurt, the taste of metal, the black slowly overtaking her mind, is forgotten. "Please—please don't leave me."

// permission to powerplay obtained from ava! <3

"speech"

​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Bobbie purrs back at him—the sound sparkles in his ears, against his body. Blazestar stretches, her warmth flooding through him like greenleaf sun. “We’ll go to Dawnglare together,” he murmurs. He wonders if there’s time, before the kits are born, to mend that relationship, too—whatever had strained between the medicine cat and his mate is fixable, he’s convinced. To his pleasure, she agrees to Lionkit—and she tells him, “Reminds me of us, running circles around one another.” He laughs gently. “We’ll have so many stories to tell them, won’t we?”

He’s so caught up in her, in the sweetness of her fur, the gentle swell of her belly, that he does not notice the strain of heather and musk that infiltrates their space, not at first. Blazestar does not notice Harrierstripe until he mews, voice slow and rambling and broken, “Blazestar. You’re the last one.” He jerks his head up, the silken fur bunched at his neck and shoulders beginning to spike. How had he slunk here unseen? The WindClan warrior is thin, bony, his pelt sticking up in odd, disjointed tufts, blood from fresh wounds leaking into dark tabby fur.

Blazestar rises to his paws, slow and lumbering like a badger, a growl beginning to unfurl in his throat. “What are you doing here?” His tail bristles; he lashes it, a banner of fire streaking between him and his pregnant mate. He would protect her—he would die for her. “Where’s the rest of your putrid Clan?” He tastes the air then—but there’s nothing, nothing but the clear, clean scents of leafbare and the blood-washed scent of a cat who looks more rogue than warrior.

Amber eyes narrow and flash, hatred and something like regret mingling in their depths. I’m not a killer, he says, and Blazestar’s body stiffens, halts in place. Something isn’t right—this isn’t an attack, this isn’t an ambush, but it’s something, that much is clear even before the young tomcat speaks his final words.

An apology. A warning. A message.

“Sootstar and Weaselclaw send their regards.”

Blazestar does not have time to blink. The WindClanner moves like dust-colored lightning. Claws sink into his shoulder, fed by a powerful kick, and he crumbles like a tower built of wet sand beginning to dry. A weight falls atop him, slamming him face-first into the ground. His jaw clicks together; his tongue is bitten, bleeds metal into his mouth. “Bobbie,” he rasps as claws begin to shear his flesh, as teeth begin to pull and tug at his scruff. “Bobbie, run!”

There’s a ripping sound, louder than thunder in his ears, and the pain is blinding, blinding. He thrashes under Harrierstripe’s weight, under the pressure of his fangs, but soon his head is snapping weightlessly, his neck losing its strength. It flops helplessly now, until his head is tilted onto its side, his face pointed skyward. He can see—he can see Bobbie out of the corner of one eye, even as blood slips down his cheeks and into his vision, clouding it. His ears—his ears are ringing, but he hears her shrieks of outrage, of pain, her vows of vengeance.

“No,” he cries, and his limbs flail, flop back to the ground. He can’t get up. He can’t move his head. The world is spinning under him—around him, above him—and he can’t get up. Scarlet wells around his neck, seeping into his neck fur, and then she’s beside him, and her face—he can’t see it well, but it’s red, too, there’s so much red…

“Bobbie, I—” His tongue stiffens in his mouth. Blood bubbles unceremoniously from the corners of his lips. He wants to tell her so many things, he wants to apologize, he wants to love her, but there are shadows creeping across his vision now, as though night is falling and obscuring the sun.

Somewhere, paws begin to shift, begin to move toward him. He can’t turn to look at her, but he feels her here with him, his daughter.

“She’s… she’s here, Bobbie,” he rasps. Crimson spit flows past his jaws. He trembles, mindless nerves cut and sparking. “She’s come for me. StarClan—StarClan is here. I’m—” He shakes. He stops, he starts. His tail begins to thump against the ground, once, twice.

It stops, just as a delicate, tiny pink nose pushes into his fur.

“I’m… not… leaving… you…” His eyes glaze.

For the last time, a spirit tugs free from his body, wind and fire and starlight, and he looms over Bobbie, sobbing wretchedly into broken body, blood-splashed fur.

“We have to go now,” Morningpaw tells him, and he looks at his daughter, and he nods.

It’s time for him to go.

, ”​

​

 

[HARRIERSTRIPE]

Harrierstripe succeeds, but Bobbie ensures the first shall be the last.

Even as he feels his belly spill victory shines in his teary eyes. The pain was unbearable, and he slowly falls to the ground. He watches the maimed lead warrior huddle beside her dying mate, Harrierstripe looks on as the king of Kittypet's takes his final breath.

'Weaselclaw... Sootstar... did you see me? I did it...' His inner voice squeals with kit-like excitement. In the depths of his mind he's still just a kit, big yellow eyes beaming innocently up at Sootstar and Weaselclaw, their eyes lacking warmth as they stare down upon him. Still, nothing but love for them swells up inside Harrierkit's body, Harrierpaw's, and even now as Harrierstripe.

In this moment he finds himself wanting to curl up along the belly of Kestrelsnap, his wet nurse as a kit. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so cold, so alone.

An entire cycle of seasons ago, Weaselclaw named the middle kit of his litter. 'Harrierkit' He meowed, touching his nose to his mate's ear. 'Like his brother, he'll be a cat feared in all the forest for his strength and loyalty to StarClan. Tales will be told of all our children... but Harrierkit...' He meowed, looking at the tiny kit before him ' will soar high, I know he will.'

Harrierstripe smiles.

In his final breath he thinks of his kin, of WindClan, and the hills he had called home.

☾ INFO BATTLE

• 
  » Harrierkit . Harrierpaw . Harrierstripe
  » WindClan Warrior
  » He/him
  » A black and chocolate chimera with golden eyes.
  » "Speech" ․ thoughts ․ attack
  
• 
  » A foe who uses jeers and taunts to distract his opponents.
  » Excels in using terrain to his advantage.
  » Fights to overpower and see another day.
  » May powerplay minor harm. Can powerplay healing

​