where are you now | shadowclan burial

[BONERIPPLE]

There is no thought process moving through her skull. Everything is mechanical as she moves with the body back towards where the gathering had once been started. Where she remembers not long ago her sister stood up on the Great Rock and spoke with power thrumming through her veins. Power stripped ruthlessly away from her by Starclan. She feels almost dead herself, having to see her most treasured sibling taken from her just like that. After everything they had survived together and now she is gone. Taken out as if she was no better than a piece of prey. She can taste her sister's blood on hee tongue from her bloody scruff. Torn open body dragging as she finally makes it there. This is where the battle happened. Where Amber had been struck down ruthlessly by that Skyclanner. A rough sigh leaves her and she starts digging.

Claws moving through earth to tear it up and make a whole. Widening it, lengthening it. Making it look perfect for her sister. She never imagined this day passing so soon. Her tears have all dried up and once she is finished she turns to those of Shadowclan that were able to come. "My sister...she was your first leader. The first leader of Shadowclan, there was hope. She led us strongly with what that accursed Starclan gave us. Now she is gone to rest with her mate. She will be burried here in remembrance of her sacrifices. Say what you want before she..." Her throat tightens up and she looks away. It pains her too much to continue. This is the end.​

 

[Firedawn]

YOU WILL ALWAYS BE ENOUGH​

---

Firedawn would not be far behind Bonejaw, her own tears flowing freely for their lost leader. She would attempt to help carry Briarstars body where she could, but Bonejaw seemed numb to the world around her, though Firedawn couldn't blame her.

As the medicine cat began to dig her sister's grave, the ruby warrior would delicately step forward to offer further assistance. Once they were done, Fire would step back and listen to the grief-heavy words and fresh tears would spring into the younger molly's eyes. She sits tall though, Briarstar would have wanted that. She sits tall and proud as she listens and when the invitation opens for cats to say their final goodbyes, Firedawn would be the first.

Looking down at her leader's mangled form, she would swallow hard before bowing her head so that her nose touched the now cold fur of the she-cats forehead, "You were there when the group found me...do you remember?" She spoke in a whisper as if only wanting Briarstar to hear her, "You looked so strong, even then. I'm going to miss you..."

Her words choked her for a moment before Firedawn licked Briarstars head as gently as she would a kit, "Shadowclan will remember you with pride, our kits will be told stories of you and how you brought Shadowclan into being. I swear it, Briarstar..."

One last nose touch and Firedawn would move away, at last, walking over to Bonejaw and would attempt to bury her nose in the meddies' fur as well, both to give comfort and to seek it as well. ​

 

[FLICKERFIRE]

The sun had set on Briarstar's reign, and though Flickerfire has never not known a world in which the spiky-pelted she-cat had led her and her Clanmates, it seems too soon. The dark tortoiseshell watches with grief-clouded eyes, lowering her head in a rare show of respect as first Bonejaw, then Firedawn give their eulogies.

"Respect," she murmurs to herself, chuckling weakly. "I never gave you any of that, huh? Always talkin' back. Givin' you grief. I hope you know I really did... I did respect you." She grimaces in pain, a flood of memories rocking her body.

"You let Moth accept me into the group, even when I was spitting and biting and ungrateful. A brat. You never treated me or anyone else in the Clan as lesser... no matter what our background or our attitude was." She tilts her head to the sky. She does not feel the same rage at StarClan that Bonejaw and Pitchsun do, but she finds herself questioning, again, that they have any powers at all. "I hope you're happy again, up there, with Amber... we'll miss you. I'll miss you, despite everything."

She bows her head, quiet for once in her life.
​

PENNED BY MARQUETTE​

 

[wolverinefang]

I've no time for confession​

Wolverinefang feels perhaps effected in a different way than his clanmates, no stranger to death from being around the sick and old so often. He's just never seen something so visceral and much less out of a monster strong enough to strip a leader of all of her lives just like that. He's almost ashamed to feel so sick to his stomach at the memory and it's sad that mere kits witnessed as well. Now one is missing along with their leader in the same instance and it just feels like a sick joke.

What use were those nine for their Briarstar anyway. It didn't do her much good in the end and it only affirms to him what he's suspected for a while now- that Starclan are only good for watching them suffer and having a place to crash when they all meet their inevitable ends. Premonitions too he supposes but looking up toward Bonejaw and her attitude, he feels like that's more a curse than a blessing at this point.

The large tom's eyes flick down toward what's left of their leader and a surge of sickness takes him again. She didn't deserve this nor did her kits. Briarstar did what she could with the sorry land they were allotted and set them up to continue on even after all this travesty. What good is doing right when you can be taken out so dirtily. He snaps his eyes up to the sky, trying not to make a face at the stench of the dried blood and listening to his clanmates articulate things he can't. All these passions make the once sickly creature feel like he's looking into a window to a world almost alien to him.

Wolverinefang feels compelled to say something for the fallen queen but he isn't sure what. So he just sits there, numb mouthed, and keeps his head tilted down as he mumbles, "Sorry..." What a childish thing to say, he thinks, but he's too dumbfounded to expand. ​

✦ ★ ✦​