private WHEN THE BATTLE'S LOST AND WON ♡ dawnglare

[MALLOWLARK]

It's dark.

It's not, really. The sky is alight with the wound of sunset. Crimson, but not that bleeding sort that wept from the sky the night he fell in love. It's an old injury, like a burst blood-vessel- slumbering beneath the surface, droplets beading through the pine-needles. Twolegplace gleams golden, looming to face them- the stink of Thunderpath, of bustle, of Twolegs and all their pets washes in like water lapping on the stones. Mallowlark does not take to the trees to gaze at the view, though. Saccharine sentiment about the beauty of the world, when he's just seen the worst of it, is shrugged from his shoulders like water.

It's dark because he feels it is- his heart feels rotted, chewed up and spat out by SkyClan's pretence, by their happy grins and hook-clawed temperament. A facade of happiness- and he believes, truly, that there's a scrap of it left there. For all the whirling evil ... all that would eject them, though ... it's home. There have been many homes in his lifetime, one sun-brushed, one decomposing... and this current, sheltered one, a sepia-painted side to lean beside, was meant to be forever. And he still wants that- to live his life, their life, watching SkyClan with a wisdom and humour behind their eyes solely shared by the two of them.

Above all, he wants him.

Sorrowful eyes of silver find his mate's figure, at last- a breath of relief snaps the bones of panic that had been fortifying within him. The eyes of the Twoleg nests seem to judge them, too... Mallowlark finds himself wanting after the past, something he's never bothered with before. The moon, fatally injured... its light was kind, was terrifying...

And this isn't the good sort of scary. His smile is worried and sharp, but an earnest exhilaration dances on dog-fangs... that he has found Dawnglare, and he isn't running anymore. "Dawnglare," he says. It's reminiscient of a million other meetings. Tears creak in the crevices of his voice, but he must smile where his mate cannot. "Come- come to me, please." He never asks that of him. And he doesn't like to, really. Mallowlark hopes this will be the last time.

\ @DAWNGLARE !! <3​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

Dawnglare runs to the edge of the world. It is here, that his life had first ended, and it was here that it would spring anew. It would be as if nothing had ever happened. It would be as if his moons spent in the forest had been a bad dream — the length of it only another cruel facet of the torture. He could assume his old name, assume his old things. He could be well and truly by Her side again, and not fret over the sunshine burning holes in his back. Even now, He watched him. Even though Dawnglare has bid Him farewell. Dawnglare stands at the precipice of it all, and He is intent on seeing him take the first step. Maybe that would bring Dawnglare the joy he's been searching for. The satisfaction of being right. The sink of his shoulders as he at last feels peace.

Why was it a step he was so afraid to take, then?

Suddenly unfamiliar, is the place where he had grown up. Where he'd spent all of his youth... Where he'd met his dearest friend. It isn't as if he was out of practice, no. He's never had to cease his trailing of Twolegplace. In all his excursions here scouring for herbs, he had never been anything but comfortable. Was it that the setting of the sun painted it so differently? Awash in dusk's light, was it a sight too grand to take in with the same sense of normalcy? There is a mold for his paws to sink into, pawprints waiting to be filled. He's known nothing but happiness here. Why, why does he hesitate? ( Surely, it couldn't only be how dreadfully different it would be without the fond chime of a bell-tone voice by his side; painted golden, blinking kind. Loneliness can't be the only thing that keeps him here, especially since... )

" Mallowlark, " the answering call is hardly above a murmur. He tears his gaze from the distant horizon, and the look he gives him is of a man caught amid a sin. For whatever reason, he could not say. It strikes him: grief for a thing that had not happened. " Mallowlark — Mallowlark, I'm sorry. " It's an apology for him and only him, and yet Dawnglare feels as if he should say it a thousand times over. As if he should climb to the highest treetop and cry it at the top of his lungs. Irrational, illogical, nonsense.

Dawnglare rushes to him; and aren't his paws infinitely more eager to take up that familiar warmth than they were to step into his new life? His crash into him is nothing elegant, unlike their nights spent beneath the moon, indulgent as if that night together may be their last. Dawnglare flings himself against his side; breathes in greedy mouthfuls of him. " I never — I wasn't going to — " He meets pallid eyes with fluttering blinks, stray tears slipping free as he does. " I w-wasn't leaving you. I would've come back. I would've. I just needed — I couldn't be there anymore. I can't be there anymore. " He hides away from the world, pressing his skull to his mate's neck, holding it there.

" Together — W-we'll go together. To Twolegplace. " He lifts his head and addresses the cluster of twoleg dwellings with a halfhearted point of the muzzle. " There's room for you there. There's room for us. " He heaves a trembling breath, smooths a velvet tail along his mate's side, a self-soothing gesture.​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

Ebony paws staggering at the collision, Mallowlark's breath rushes out of him- his eyelids flutter for a moment as if he is lost in dreams. Relief has knocked into him just as Dawnglare did- his head aches with it, and there's hardly anything he can grasp long enough to paint with his voice. I'm sorry, he says, an apology he had not been expecting. With the ferocity of their meeting, Mallowlark pants- argent eyes blink sorrowfully, despite the smile he holds fast.

Aching face- he gathers his mate as close to him as he can manage, holds him. Every touch he meets tenfold, the brief terror of separation having speared through him like lightning. He drinks in every reassurance, nodding his head against his body, heeding every word and every insistence. It's a crevice in his soul to see him cry like this- happiness spills away by the second and Mallowlark clings on, stubbornly refusing to let anything else slip past.

"It's - it's fine." He chokes on the words, but means them wholly. It's alright, and it always will be. It's not dark anymore because he is here- his fur bleeds in the low sunlight, his sorrow seeps from his eyes. Soon the sky will shadow with dusk, and be cold upon them- but now it is glorious. "I know, I know..." Soothing, words dissonant with grin and tear-scraping. The familiar fissure of something missing begins to mend.

Can't be there- can't, like it's final. To Twolegplace. Mallowlark stirs- looks into drowning blues, feeling the waters roiling in his own heart, feelings snagged in a riptide. Would it pull him in two?

"I- I can't," he begs for understanding. "I've- I can't leave another life behind, Dawnglare. That's- it's our life, we earned it. They won't take it away from us." His voice shakes. He wants in his life to give Dawnglare everything he has ever wanted, everything he ever will want- but there is another way, Mallowlark knows it. "I'm s-sorry, I can't do it again. But- but I need you." Again he presses his head against Dawnglare's, brings them so close together that he can hardly tell which paws are his own anymore.

"So do they." Not as ardently, maybe. "Every one of them, they- they'll go mad without you," and there's fear in his voice. "It'll- it'll be just like WindClan. The whole place, nothing... nothing left of it." Everything good, withered and rended. He couldn't, he couldn't do it. Watch another pointless decomposure, watch ... watch the crushing of bodies beneath battering rainfall.

"They'll never touch you again." It's a promise he knows he can make. "I won't let them. I won't ever let them." ​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

Mallowlark meets him the way he always did, a spot of shade atop this scorching earth. Dawnglare is held tight by a smile, swept up in fur dyed golden. They tangle together in a mess of sunset tones. The shape of it curls in on itself, a fractal down to the shuddering of their breaths; the frantic thrum of their blood. Mallowlark will forgive him. He knows before the stutter of his word. It's nice, to be placated. Nicer still, to find understanding where he knows he always could. There wasn't a soul like him, now Dawnglare knew for certain. He's done nothing but wasted his own time with the rest, whittling down his word in hopes that he could scrape past the thick bone of their ignorance. He- he does not feel relief, not yet, but he knew that it would come swift. All he needed was this, wasn't it? His scrap of salvation, goaded toward their haven with the brush of a tail.

And then— Mallowlark is looking at him, this sorrowful tug in the sunlit silver of his eyes. Mallowlark could never deny him. Hasn't he proved it time and time again? But Dawnglare wilts under that hesitant gleam. The tufts of his ears flicker back against his skull. Muddled eyes are round and wet, afraid of a future that would not happen, could not happen; but he tells him then: I can't.

Dismay clouds his eyes, and along with it does a fresh brook of tears. He loses his voice all at once, the mousey uttering of What? left dead on arrival. Even in his mind, it is a pitiful sound. Mallowlark rushes- rushes to explain, and Dawnglare isn't sure how much he's hearing. His eyes are fixed to his face; on the frantic chittering of wolf's teeth. Dawnglare's ears strain for an answer, and he only hears I can't. I can't. He's tearing away, then, the gauze of Mallowlark's flank suddenly stinging. There's a fresh trembling of his limbs, one he could no longer rely on his love to cure. ( In reality, he is no cure, but perhaps a bandage. A cobweb wrapping that's come loose over time )

Dawnglare is stumbling, trying to break free the weaving they've made of themselves. It's the press of their heads that draws him back. Mallowlark tells him, I'm sorry. Mallowlark tells him, I need you. And it makes him stop. It makes him breathe. Dawnglare remains where he is, blinking upon the greys of his eyes, discerning just what kind of creature he was. Terrifying, unabashedly. The dip of the sun tries to remind him. That terror is not for him to feel, but for him to adore.

They'll never touch you again, he tells him, and Dawnglare cannot feel the warm flood of relief. He can't manage a smile, nor dissuade the tears from prickling his eyes; but he closes the distance between them once again, a hesitant stumble toward the dusk-reflection of Mallowlark's fur. " They don't n-need me. " He hiccups. " They— They used to, but now... " Who's fault was it? Was it Fireflyglow's, for soaking up knowledge the way he had? Was it SkyClan's, for driving him to the brink of insanity? ...Was it his, for not being as great as he used to be...?

" Is it my fault, Mallowlark? " The dam breaks. Tears can no longer incidentally shed themselves— no, his cries become ugly, suddenly. The breath he takes is one wrought with phlegm. It dribbles from his nose, streaking pale fur. " Is it my fault? " he pleads for an answer.​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

In the slight severing of them, the ravine opens its maw again- the ground rumbles its disapproval, and Mallowlark feels again that sharp sting of panic, that whirling vertigo. it's all he can do to keep black paws rooted to the earth- a refusal to waver clamping through every little muscle, every twitching tendon. It isn't right that they should be apart- and if Mallowlark has to return to SkyClan without him, he knows he will die of deprivation within a few days.

But he needs him, tells him it ... their promised-as-temporary parting, his phantom haunting ThunderClan instead, had been hard enough. A lost wraith shackled to the pines, from loyalty, from necessity- he'd wandered, and every day had scraped by identical. There had been less ire, of course, than he'd ever received on the moors... though in hindsight, it is not much less. To exist in SkyClan, he needs Dawnglare's credit, needs the good will, needs his companionship. Without it, he teeters on a void's sharp edge, and fears being cast out or forgotten.

There is no relief, anymore- only the white-knuckling tenseness of his apprehension, the brutal twist of fear in his gut, the simmering beneath his skin that anything might have wrenched this sadness to the forefront of his mate's mind. Cinnamon shining golden, he buries his face in his mane. In silence, he holds him- he will not dissolve in the face of this. The sob that suddenly stabs through Mallowlark then, needle-sharp ... he is sure that it will be the only cry he gives tonight.

"It's not, it'll never be." None of it. Mallowlark had flocked to him- that was the breaking of the code, a sour memory that should have been only sugar-dusted. The crime Dawnglare had committed there was simply of being so alluring, of understanding him in a way no-one else ever had, that Mallowlark's body was beginning to fracture at their forced distance.

He'd have died in WindClan, he's sure of it. "What have you ever done except help them, teach them, save them?" Is it his fault, then? For barging in on everything, for- for starry-eyed hopefulness, for want of a better life and a better cause with it? "It's..." For a second, his voice hitches. His grin wobbles.

It's mine, and it sits on the tip of his tongue, taunts him like approaching bile. His heart thumps, and he hopes desperately that Dawnglare will not come to the same conclusion.

"It's not your fault," he tells him again. A pointless repetition, possibly. He's stunned, and cannot think to say much else. "The mother talks to you. I-" he hesitates, but perseveres. "I came to you. It's... it's circumstance, it's..." Mallowlark is breathless, catches himself before he cries again. "It's- it's expectation, it's fate." His smile trembles again, but never before has Mallowlark been more resolved to keep it. "It will never be your f-fault that all these things chose you."​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

His breath hitches. A collapse of the skull, and Mallowlark is nestling his neck. The press of his grin is uncertain, and a sob parts it thereafter, sudden spike of a sound. It wrenches Dawnglare's heart, a sudden squeeze delivered by sickled claws. He tilts his head, returning the embrace with a press of his muzzle. Pathetic, is the quivering of his eyes. How he wished he had the words for him — reassurance, gospel in the form of star or earth-wrought word... but he is silent, left to do nothing but shake alongside him, the paleness of their legs knocking together.

" I... " Isn't it true? From the day he's arrived, he has done nothing but mend. He's helped those adjacent as well, in no way bound to this oath of his... ThunderClan, who Blazestar would've laid down his very life for, he is certain. What made it his burden, to continue caring for a people that did not care for him? What made this responsibility his?

Expectation. Fate. In the same way that lark's wings had found him, so too had SkyClan. An influence strong enough that it'd sought him from all sides. The stars had sung, Mother had prodded... Without that farewell flicker of a gold-striped tail, Dawnglare may never have lost himself, here. He was chosen. Even past the tears, such a truth was unmarred. A sorrowful, loving nuzzle would meet the side of his mate's head, looking to wipe away any glimmer of insecurity. He would not humor it— the thought that any aspect of their meeting was undesirable, unfortunate. " I chose you, too. " In that same breath, should he take the whole of his destiny in stride? Not only allow SkyClan to choose him too, but do the same back to it in turn? If only— If only he could embrace it the same. With loving touch and laughter lining the walls... He considers this just the way Butterflytuft had told him to. What was keeping him from that future? Nothing but their ignorance, he thinks.

But... he's mended wounds with care, before. He's laughed before, without the cover of moonlight or touch of wraith fur. Dawnglare's blink is watery. For a long moment, he is silent. " It's not- It isn't as if I don't care. " He'd said that, hadn't he? " He- He'd have my head if I didnt. So would Sh-she. Is that why...? " The tear-touched reverie in his ghost's voice. Sincere in what he says— Would Dawnglare shatter it, here? " She hasn't spoken to me. Mother, " He sniffs. What dribbles from his nose is only impeded for a short moment. " But I know she... I know she is there. Are they disappointed? Do they think I do not care? "

It was easy to imagine he didn't, with the sky fractured into shards. He had not blazed into the next life — no, His fall had been a sad snuffing of life, one that may have never come, if not for where He'd led the both of them... But perhaps, that too had been fate.

" I thought I didn't. I wish... " a broken phrase, trailed off into nothing. Would his life not be so much simpler, if had no care for any of it? But then, to wish for such a thing would be to wish for the death of Fireflyglow; to wish for the marring of Figfeather, her leg to never be mended. And if he had never stepped past white-painted wood, when would he have ever known love?

He feels lonely, impossibly lonely at the side of his mate. Had he not washed away all his problems, once; swallowed them whole with a snap of glinting teeth? It's dishonor in his name, to feel anything but relieved in his proximity. It's a meek thing, the rasp of his tongue against a sun-drenched coat. " I- I can't return. I can't, " an unsteady whisper to the side of Mallowlark. " Not- Not after everything I've said. "​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

The only certainty in this cruel, crushing world is that there exists no regret between the both of them- for that, Mallowlark is glad. That all they have ever done for each other is still strongly loving, enough for the brush of a muzzle to thaw the cryogenic prickle of his blood, is the greatest balm that nature has ever carried. And all of it comes back to him, doesn't it? Nature does its orbiting dance, forever around them. Time marches on, and they will always be in the centre of it.

He's going to stop crying. He swallows it, stuffs it down his throat- that there can be his own sadness now is ridiculous. He must stride into the role of a beacon, must stay here and stay smiling, must guide his mate with steady flank toward a tomorrow that they had always promised to share. Mallowlark keeps his eyes open long enough that silver expanse might dry completely of his tears- and his head thumps with the force of it, but he manages just well enough.

It becomes less forceful the more Dawnglare speaks- as ever, he listens. Really listens, enraptured in silence, a kindness they had since the beginning of it all afforded each other. She hasn't spoken to me ... but I know she is there. Shock is evident on Mallowlark's face- glassy grey widens, impossibly. Lips part, but make no sound. Still, his ears are angled, and he makes no interruption- watches every movement of Dawnglare's maw until he is finished. "They can't... they can't think that now."

Argent eyes, ample with adoration, glistered a little. No, it's impossible... to witness Dawnglare's spirit so bludgeoned, and to think him apathetic still. There is nothing he knows for certain but that Dawnglare could never be a disappointment, but that his soul was a knowing and loving thing. "I've only ever known you to care." For him, for Blazestar... for SkyClan, even if sometimes begrudgingly. But who wouldn't be a bit begrudging, met with that sort of endless clamour?

Calmness, muted, begins to spread between them. When only moments ago Mallowlark had feared their parting forever, had dreaded something final and sickening would befall them... he now feels a security that, even though Dawnglare still rests fragile against him, nothing can come between them. Still, endless ebbing of emotion aches long ... he feels it in constricting silence, one that is not at all comfortable. If he could pick himself clean for Dawnglare, just to see a smile again...

"They'll be glad to see you safe," Mallowlark murmurs. In the broiling, nasty heat of it all there'd still been those who had pleaded without raising wretched tones for a better resolution to it all. And that would still come, it would ... with every pint of blood in him, he bid it be. "The dust'll settle, they'll be embarrassed. Please, trust me." It shall be the last request he would make tonight.

"We- we don't have to go right back." He says it earnestly, draws back slightly to meet Dawnglare's gaze, the blue enriched by the flooding golden light around them. "Let's- let's watch the sun go down. Stay, as long as you need. And I'll be with you." Always, always with him.

He refuses to let his gaze leave Dawnglare's for a moment. It's crucial that his attention does not waver, that he doesn't for a second risk breaking something so precariously mended. A scent, rancid, floods through him- of Twolegplace nearby, no doubt. The cracking of pine-needles can't even break his focus. Whatever it is, it matters less than Dawnglare.​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

Content Warning: Descriptions of violence.

Their shared silence is brought with a mutual understanding, a tether between them that wouldn't wind its way quite the same around any other. All the things he had said — and yet he could not fathom what he would do without this. Adoration without words. Dawnglare feels wanted just in the way that Mallowlark hears him and never relents his hold as he does. In a world where he'd never met him, he supposes the mercy would be not knowing what it is he's missing. He knows it. Knows there is no point in dwelling on that feeling of loss when it is so paradoxical in nature. Regardless, he grieves. Mallowlark dries his eyes for the both of them, the swell of Dawnglare's tears never quite relenting. Oh, he is grateful for this life of his. And beneath the bask of the blood moon, he has been happy before, but never grateful. Not that.

He hopes what he says is true. Hopes that he would find absolution, with the tear-slick shine of his eyes. And if he need kneel by their graves to shed his tears, then it would be so. Perhaps it is with that promise, that all of it, at last, washes away. He feels the sun for what it is, a warmth-filled blink, nothing but kindness in that one true eye. It winks at them kindly, now, as the sun begins that grasp for the horizon. Dawnglare burns under that absolution, but it is a kind sort; vivacity that threads through his soul.

Uncaring, complete apathy... He had thought it of himself, but wasn't such the complete opposite of blistering rage? Of unending joy? Of harrowing sadness? If he well and truly wanted nothing, neither of them would be standing here; would've kept away by a thousand unseeable things. " You've always known me best, " he presses the words to his skull. SkyClan would not know it as intrinsically as he did. ...Perhaps Dawnglare himself would not know it as intrinsically as he did. He's blessed by the brightness of those eyes, alight with a knowing that— impossibly, improbably, Dawnglare himself had been blind to.

He's afraid. He knows that's what he feels now. For once— a swapping of roles— Dawnglare hangs off of his word. Please, trust me. Would it be a lie to say he's never trusted anyone more? It shakes, the breath he takes. Dawnglare does not answer with words. He holds his head there, blinks the final remnants of tears from his eyes. His tail finds the sunset-streaks of his mate's flank.

Blue moons lift to that of pale silver, and he finds what he needs in the wideness of them. " ...Okay, " he says; holds his gaze. In his mind he repeats the words, I'll be with you. Despite everything, he would not dare call him a liar. He nestles his head against his mate's.

Dawnglare blinks the last glimmer of star-shine from his eyes; feels nothing but the press of their heads together. Their gazes reflect each other, pale in their own right, backlit by the sun. Perhaps there was no escaping that blazing thing. Perhaps he would learn to live with it. Mallowlark would be here, all the while. " I love you, " he tells him. His word burns no less vivid than it had the night he'd first told him.

So goes the thundering of his pulse, so goes the anxious shrieking of his head. He bids it's cease, with the press of their noses. And he's patient, waiting for the embers of apprehension to snuff themselves out. Nonsense is wiped away as he entrenches himself in him. It is his scent that he focuses on, rather than the smell of twoleg rot. Blood, of a dozen bone-picked gifts, bleached and macabre. Herb-twinge, from time spent by his side, dipped in the nettles of their nest.... Sunken in pine, the mark of what it was that made them both: SkyClan. When they returned, perhaps he would consider himself one of them proper, no matter the shrillness that was thudding through his skull. He is better than it. Above it, he thinks. He knows. And suddenly, then, it howls in his ears. Ensnared in fondness, his slow turn is not quick enough—

A snapping of teeth, more doggish than anything Mallowlark has ever worn. Terrifying, but not in the enthralling, love-struck sense. The mutt that's blazed toward them is more than his mind, and the crushing realization of his mortality meets him with a savage bite to the flank.

He is denied his comfort of blood-tinged herb scent. Ichor's bursts forward without subtlety, the flood of his senses nauseating. And never has it made him lurch in quite this way. No, never as he placed paws over the wounds of his charge. Never as prey-blood coated Mallowlark's paws. Dawnglare would not like to believe the inside of him was the same as anyone else's; still bleeding red. If he was crushed beneath the beasts paws, would he be much unlike a roadkilled squirrel? Ribs to fragments, a hole through the skull, brains left to bleed. He believes there's intention in those beaded eyes, believes there must be, as it wrenches him from his love with a tug of teeth.

Dawnglare screams, claws for a hold. " Mallowlark! " the cry burns his throat. Tears thought dispelled spring anew. He needed just one more thing from him. Just one more thing atop devotion till time's end— " Help me! "

Teeth dig into him. He had no time to say goodbye— Insignificant in dog's eyes, the two of them are split. A pain that's blinding, blinding, sinks into the meat of his flesh, and suddenly, he regrets every threat he's ever made upon any soul. If he was so deluded, he could believe the pain impossible. He could think the strike of lightning up his nerves to be something divine, instead. Oh, he could keep his jaws sewn shut and never scream like this. He could be confident that death was not for him, and that it never would be. Was this fate, just the same as the rest? Karma due the first moment he could truly feel it, a fear that grips him with such ferocity that he shakes.

His flailing is useless. Claws unsheathed can hardly find more than torn earth. Is it foolish, that he reaches for Mallowlark, more than he does for the throat of the beast? There comes tearing, the snap of sinew. Tossed aside, the feast before the mongrel opens up as something grand; and with hungry fangs, it dives for whatever it can. It does not even seem to care, no, only wants to paint Her earth red with blood. Blood that is woefully mortal. Nothing divine, nothing unkillable. With its claws come gashes dug into its prey. With its teeth come a hefty bite. There's a twist of something that should not be twisted. Mother's forest groans with the weight of Her sorrow, with the drip of his nose, with the sound of his cry. He's picked up by the leg, tossed onto his side. In his bile, there is blood.

The world spins around him— darkens at the edges. Spinning at the center of it all, there was Mallowlark, and Dawnglare tries to lift his head as if his presence alone would heal him. Crueler than anything that had come before it, Dawnglare finds that he cannot. He was not made of anything that other cats were not. His flesh screamed just the same as theirs would. It is selfish, the eyes he glimpses him with. One last time, he would like to be saved by the gossamer of his flank. And if Mallowlark still stood, he could cling onto that immortality he so wanted to believe in. With the press of their noses, he would be safe. He'd clean the blood from him the way he has before. There is a pleading in eyes tinged blue. ( For more things than him, he realizes. For all the things they would be leaving behind, he realizes. He pleads for the chance to say goodbye to them all. He pleads for the chance to say I'm sorry. )

The spiders-web sense of reality buzzes behind it all, though. It pleads for Mallowlark to run as dog's paws hurtle toward him.​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

CONTENT WARNING: Descriptions of violence.

Mallowlark does not run.

He hears I love you, words that harmonise with all the earth no less than they ever had. Whether without description, on a bloodsoaked night... whether said in sickness, in health ... said before a disapproving crowd, or beneath the healing glow of sunset. Grinning lips had been, forever, ready to return it. But just as quickly as his heart swelled with joy only a moment ago, does it now stop with shock, with horror, as everything he knows is taken.

And he has always known the world to be a cruel thing, full of rot... nature to be a wholly unbiased being, killing where it pleased. When cats walked the earth and tried to bend it to their will, he laughed in their faces- Sootstar had been swallowed by her own rot, in the end. But never had he attributed it so cold as to cleave the union of its most pious, most honoured servants, so swiftly.

Moments before, there was only trust. He'd felt fulfilled, felt complete. And now he has never been more unravelled.

His bones break beneath his skin, his eyes do not move, his heart quickens and stills all at the same time. Mallowlark feels dead, and springs without thought. A charge, a call to action- but the thing's fast, it's fast as a monster, it's a reckoning brought upon them by something wicked and uncaring. He cannot get there in time, and for the first time in his life Mallowlark curses that he is not a Windclanner- that he is not fast, that he cannot run the thing away and let it take him instead, or lead it astray and let two brains spray across the Thunderpath.

He has seen Dawnglare coated in blood, but never once has he seen his mate bleed.

And his phantom looks- is he stupid to think he is reaching for him? The distance between them stretches long, and his pulse cymbals so loudly that Mallowlark is almost surprised it does not drown out Dawnglare's screams. And how he wishes it would- that he wouldn't have to hear it anymore, because he's sure it's distracting him, making him slower, more and more unable -

For everything he's been able to give in words, he can give none of it in violence. Viscera hurls across the ground. Mallowlark too screams, and it's a noise wholly unfamiliar to him, a sound he doesn't think he's ever made before. It thrusts through his throat with all the spiny ferocity he wished lay in his teeth. Not a word, not a shriek, but something uncanny and in-between. And he is not smiling, anymore.

Pale face crumpled into a snarl, he does not run. Mallowlark hurls into it, the beast- he doesn't think anything about where, how or why, he just knows he wants it dead. It would die beneath his claws, beneath his judgement- they would have to go back to SkyClan, because Fireflyglow would have to heal his mentor. It would be alright - this was the path they were supposed to be on, right? That there is anything else, Mallowlark cannot bear to think. Claws spring from midnight, and he finds anything he can to hold onto- the thin muscle of the beast, its sinewy flesh.

But he has never killed before. He picks apart the cold and dead only. That much has never been more apparent than now- Mallowlark flails, scrapes at anything he can- fastens his fangs on flesh, but it seems to do nothing at all. Nothing lies in his sight but ichor and fury. The fur of the beast cottons his mouth. He rips, rips away- claws find something tender, but the mutt's reaction is not to whine and run, but to bite down hard on his shoulder.

Scarlet weeps across snow. Balance teeters, and that is all the invitation it needs- the horrible thing, it finds his stomach, finds his leg. He is tossed like nothing, like a being who never wanted, and never loved in his life.

He barely feels it as his skull strikes the ground. If there is any good in this all, he lands to face his mate.

They are agonising inches away. Dawnglare's eyes hold a rhuemy deadness Mallowlark had only seen in squirrels, in eaten prey, and not the one whom he'd given everything. Oh, and he'd been glad to give it- and he still is, if this is the last thing he can give him now. He tries to speak, but can't. Blood rolls from beneath his tongue. The red rivers of their bodies begin to weave together.

White paws are newly scarlet. Mallowlark's pupil flickers to find Dawnglare's again, to discover with hopelessness that his face has not moved. There is no flicker about him at all, and he is losing the breath to check for it anymore- rapidly, rapidly. The world bruises, blackens. Silver eyes lose their wideness, but he fixes them upon his mate's face, soul crying for anything- any twitch of a whisker, any sign. I was never to die as long as you lived. It's a vow they made so often, so flippantly. That there would be immortality so long as Dawnglare walked on this earth, immune. This is the cruellest reminder of all, of their folly. Of little things said in jest, tempting fate ... an end so far away it was fine to say whatever you liked about it.

Black paws, too, are rendered near-purple from the clotting lake that haloes them both. I can't fix you, he realises, and if he were not wobbling so closely on the brink he would have cried out. In the many moons of his life, Mallowlark's paws had never mended. They could never take away each gash on Dawnglare's body- he could never smooth out the gaping holes punctured into the cat who had made him whole.

So what could his paws do?

With dying energy- with the last, spinning ounce of his strength, Mallowlark moves his leg. Oh-so-gently, a feathery touch, he finds Dawnglare's limp paw with his own. Despite it all, there is still a flicker of warmth to be found there.

"I love you too," he says, with another trickle of blood from between his fangs. At least, he thinks he says it. With a final, jagged sigh Mallowlark fixes all of his focus onto the ghostly blues that brought him here to these pines, brought him away from everything he had ever known and toward everything he had ever loved.

And he stills. ​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar weeps. His paws touch the earth, crunch the pine needles; misfit silver streams from storm-blue eyes. He crouches over Dawnglare's stiffening, scarlet-streaked body, and he weeps.

This is the cat who'd blinked back at him from his window with round, kittenish eyes — the one who'd followed him into the forest, suspicious — the one who'd seen the birth of his first litter, exhausted— the one who'd held his daughter's broken body as the life slipped away from her, stricken — the one who had watched him die again and again and again.

Blazestar knows that agony now. Even this once is too much for him to bear.

Dawnglare had healed SkyClan's wounds since its inception — but who, now, would heal his? Blazestar folds himself next to his oldest friend, and love bleeds from his heart. It's a love unlike the yearning he'd felt for Little Wolf, unlike the fire that had chased him with Bobbie. This is the love of two cats who had pressed together in the presence of god, who had faced them without fear, who had returned to earth wearing god-names and god-powers.

But it's Valentine, not Dawnglare, that Blazestar cradles now.

When StarClan had been in its infancy, Blazestar — then Blaise — had felt the prod of an insistent paw in his ribs. He'd stumbled, half-somnambulant, after Valentine's fox-tinged tail, had listened to his insistent whispers: She calls us. They had crowded together against that moonlit monolith, their pelts brushing, their noses cold, two kittypet transplants away from the only world they'd known, thrust into silver-dusted darkness.

I was a fool then, to forsake you. But you never forsook me, did you? Blazestar strokes Dawnglare's matted fur with his tongue. "I will never give up on you again. I'm here for you until the stars themselves die."

Blazestar hears Mallowlark — sees the way the white warrior's eyes glaze with pain, the way his limbs lock. He had denied their friendship, their love — and why, why, when it would be under one sky that they'd all rule one day? "You served your Clan for many seasons. You deserve to rest… so won't you, please?"

A golden paw reaches for Dawnglare's face. It hovers, then slips, caresses the silk expanse of his cheek. "Come back to me. Be happy with me — with him — with all you deserve." He reaches, presses his nose to his old friend's, and it's this touch that severs the bond between soul and body.

, "​

​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

His voice had long deadened. His screams were silent, trapped within a body that refused to bend to his will any longer. He was no god — he knew it now as this mess of flesh and blood. He was ripped open as easily as easily as prey, discarded as quickly as crowfood. Left to bleed. Left to die. Maybe it was only to prove that he could. To prove that he'd woven falsities into the heads of all he'd met. Immortality, the promise of it to others — he'd doled it out with carelessness, and now the world laughed. With gnashing, blood-stained teeth, it laughed at him and Mallowlark both, his muse and him. The one who had soaked in his word upon first meeting, and only swelled further with each thereafter. Their penance was due, behind the glass of his eyes, he supposed.

It was the last thing he saw with mortal eyes, the blind rush toward danger. While he was still alive, Dawnglare dared to hope. Cloyingly, he clung onto a wish for something impossible. He would save him, as impossibly as he had blown into his life upon first meeting. As impossibly as he had mere moments ago, dredging him from the edge of something he'd thought unavoidable. He was no Medicine Cat, his ghost, but he could work miracles in his own right.

Like his eyes, it was a dull hope, he knew. He thinks it eased the agony of his slip into nothing, to cling onto it.

The crack of his Mallowlark's skull was deafening. He could not possibly spell every apology he'd like to give him, beyond the coldness of dead eyes. If it was a shared delusion that they must be punished for, was it a kindness, to share this too? He could not think so when imposed into the role of soulless onlooker. The face his mate dies with is not one he was meant for. He regrets not being able to return the touch— he regrets more than that, innumerable things. He sees him. Trapped in this lifeless body of his, he sees him.

Always devoted, always his, always with him. The last of ghostly breath is stolen by him, in the utterance of, I love you too. No one would hear Dawnglare's mourning cry.

Then comes the sun.

A golden light that not even death could quell. Dawnglare would not dare say He'd shone any less bright while He had lived. The roll of tears, he imagines, feels like falling stars studding the stone of his body. Dawnglare could not glimpse him fully, like this; rooted and immovable. He was not sure that he deserved to, when he passed up on the chance time and time again. He expects anger, expects vitriol— and for once, he would not deem himself undeserving.

Dawnglare is not lambasted. No, Blazestar curls at his side as if he is something to be revered, rasps a tongue over him just the same, uncaring of the blood. Past the limits of his corpse, his very self seems to tremble. What an honor it was, to be adored like this, for no other soul had been in the way that Blazestar was. In the way Blazestar is, his name still a ready whisper amongst those he's left. He speaks to him... and this must be his parting gift: his oldest friend. Here with him always, he says. And perhaps it made Dawnglare a fool, to believe him so easily.

He feels relief, at the regarding of his mate, lacking that note of disdain it surely would've had in life. They had all kept things from each other, hadn't they? More than secrets... Understanding, kindness.

A weary soul is warmed, with the paw at his cheek. He sees him fully now, a golden face unburdened with the stress of nine lives. Stormy blues, stained by the sheen of his tears. Tears meant for him, after everything, still. He wants him— asks for him for the first time in moons. Dawnglare had tried so hard to stay away, knowing that falling back into him would be as easy as this. He could not refuse. He would not, even if he'd had the will to nudge his head. The light inside him is pulled to open air with a willowy sigh. He closes his eyes upon impact, and so too, does he weep. A new youth lights his features. He basks in the sunshine. " Blaise, " he says it like a prayer. Oh, indulgent, this creature, a narrow head lilts to meet the caress of Blaise's paw. " I missed you, " with a whisper, he admits.

He is slow to his paws, fears the lingering of pain, at first. He hopes that Blazestar would rise with him. Further still, hopes he would allow him a press of the skull to his mane, one that lingers with a thousand words left unsaid. " ...I'm sorry, " he tells him. What for, he could not say. Any of it, all of it. Evident, is the wrongness of it all. He hasn't the humility to look down on himself, bloodied and beaten.

To Mallowlark, he surges. And there's sweet relief in the way his eyes light. It had been nonsensical, the fear that he would not join him, here. ( Perhaps the fear that Blazestar himself would not welcome him. In his grandness, commanding all of the stars in their whole. ) Did he feel the same relief that he did? Relief in being a SkyClanner, by the word of Blazestar himself. His regret— oh, far from his only regret, was that the rest of their Clan may not know it, and perhaps they never would. Dawnglare presses his head to his, holds it there.

" I don't... " his voice warbles. Wisdom does not flock to him the way it should, after death. He is still caught in the memory of his own bleeding stomach; of his mate, twisted into something unrecognizable. He presses himself to his side, and there was a chance he may never move from it, again. " ...I don't think I'm ready. "​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

He is himself again, as quickly as his breath had stopped. Mallowlark's soul rouses from paralysis- he finds the light of sun makes him gleam like stars. He wonders, does he burn so bright that he becomes void? In the reuniting of old friends, a gentle brush and tender, familiar greeting ... will he part like the clouds, a wisp that drifts from the rest?

He rips himself away from the dog-torn husk that lies on the earth. Pooling blood does not react to his footsteps, does not stick or ripple. He finds a dryness in his throat, but- for what seems like the first time, he meets Blazestar's eye and unearths a kindness there. Soft, bruise-blue acceptance. Silver cannot quite find a reflection of it. He expects still to hear the beating of his heart, feel the buzz of blood beneath his skin. Expects there to be any vitality in this all.

But it's always been a meandering, unexpected thing, this life - why would afterlife be any different?

Relief is a small ember within him at Blazestar's smile. Mallowlark's visage is only a few stray furs younger- under scrutiny, he looked tinged red, his body lit by a benevolent moon. This glimmering soul is fashioned from the fabric of a blood-soaked sky, a fragment of the night he fell in love. You deserve to rest, and it's odd that even a spirit can ache. His maw trembles, and finds its grin again- he feels quavering strings in his throat plucking with thick emotion, but no stricken chord weaves a single word. Gratitude shines argent in owlish eyes.

He finds Dawnglare as eagerly as if they had not been knitted together only moments before, and forcibly unravelled. Ribboning forms twine, gossamer against each other. Uncertainty prickles like nettles on paw-pads, but Dawnglare is balming dock-leaf; he finds it, and a weakness is betrayed to him, a fraying string of fate that Mallowlark can only wind with his own. "Me neither." And yes, his voice is his own. It thrums from lungs that do not stretch, organs he'd felt riving and splintering only moments ago. That such pain was possible, and yet survivable here, now... a soul, imbued within the earth forever...

Soon, his skeleton will whisper to curious few. Perhaps two lovers will meet atop his grave, trying to decode the clatter of his jaw for secrets. It's a small delight.

Below and above the earth, he shall be. Encompassing, surrounding it all. Never has Mallowlark felt so powerful and so powerless at once. Never has he felt so benevolent. For he loves the nature he would shelter- loves every silver trail that brought him here, despite the violence of today. It's amazing, really- in cold, uncaring death, Dawnglare's side is still as warm as ever- he feels their ribs might slot together, and there would be no reason ever to part.

He is silent for a few moments, smile fastened. Silver eyes find the horizon, the last sliver of sun that drags itself across the sky ... a corpse of a thing, leaving a sprawl of golden blood in its tracks. He thinks of his mother, his sisters, watching that same sunset. That they will find out about this from any maw but his own wrenches his gut. And where is Pollenfur, too? She will be watching the sky - she's always been a bit closer to the breeze than any of the rest of them. Perhaps she will hear the world whispering of something fallen. He hopes it does not fill her with too much dread.

It will be wonderful to see them again, even if it must be from an observant distance. That had been resolved the moment he'd split from them, his choice made. That choice is, and will always be, at Dawnglare's side. A Skyclanner. One of StarClan's harmonious rank, now... he hopes he might add a little bit of dissonance to the choir.

There is one thing Mallowlark can do that Dawnglare cannot- eyes torched with the noveau brightness of paradise fall to fix upon what he is leaving behind. Who, even. He feels that the corpse is still him, save for one tiny thing. Without a smile on his face, he doesn't look right- there's a grimace of blinded anger there instead, stained from his last moments of fight- agape, lips peeled backward, fangs showing. Oh, he hates it... glistering paws want to reach down and meddle, wants to fix it so it looks like, in death, he expressed love in words and grin both.

The brush of their paws, forever still and growing frigid, will have to do. A final display of devotion that will never die. Perhaps that is what they've always meant by immortality.

He bears not to look at Dawnglare's corpse- but he can find his mate's self, promised to walk forever at his side. "Me neither," he repeats it. Oh, closing throat... creeping anxiety. But everything will, has to be be alright. Mallowlark begins to move, slowly- he ensures Dawnglare's steps mirror his own with every inch. "But I think we have to be. The sun's going down."​