private YOU ARE STILL MY LOVE AND MY LIFE // MALLOWLARK

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

// @MALLOWLARK

Ever since arriving in ShadowClan, she had been looking forward to this moment. Not like this, though. Not with her beloved son ill with Yellowcough, the same disease she had suffered from before Wolfsong gave her one of the last sprigs of lungwort. She stands just outside the medicine den, brows tented and tail hanging low. She can see his hulking white form deep inside, flank rising and falling, and the breath catches in her throat. She has not seen her son for seasons, not since he told her goodbye that night and fled to the pine forest. She hears from Pollenfur that he is happy with his mate, and it makes her glad. That does not mean she misses him any less.

"Mallow?" She chirps, ears falling back. She shuffles in, eyes round and heart fluttering with excitement. "Are you awake, Mally?" The nickname he had grown up with. She cannot rest until she is able to look him in his silver eyes, see his heartwarming smile. Another step in, unafraid of sickness. What can it do to her now? She has already recovered from the ugly thing. Her eyes remain locked onto his curled form, waiting for any sign that he heard her.​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

Sometimes it was not so cold. Sometimes feverfew's touch seeped through the layers of sickness and beckoned him out of mist-eyed delirium, for a moment. Sometimes if was not so hot, but perfectly warm at his mate's side.

Today was a good one, better than most. Not perfect, but not freezing or melting. The figures of other cats were not messily-mixed smudges, anymore- they were identifiable, welcoming. Especially the snow-splashed and fire-splayed pelt of his mother, a pelt he's resigned himself unlikely to see again. The wisdom of nature had been on the money, once again- torn flower petals hadn't told lies. She was safe, even in that pit of everything-awful, even amongst the rot.

Her smile was as shiny as ever, and on his face there had never been a paler imitation. The happiness within that too-wide grin, weak as it was, was genuine still. Mally, he'd not heard that in a while...

"Yeah," he said in a breath. Like he'd ever sleep through it. "'M awake." Slowly, as if it weighed twice as much as his puttied limbs and body, he lifted his head. Eyes creased with his smile and glinted with the sharp sting of effort. "I'm, I'm- awake, you... shhh-shouldn't be here..." His voice shattered, broken by sobs that were too much too soon. Everything always came all at once, overblown and sudden. He'd never been able to help it. At least she'd understand. ​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

She is already shuffling forward despite his arguments, eyes shining. "I've already been sick. Who knows if you can get it twice?" She chirps, ever cheery. That smile that he gives her warms her heart and she purrs loudly. She'd missed that smile more than anything.

Her belly brushes the floor as she scoots forward, emerald eyes squinted with her own grin. "Mally, I've missed you so much. How are you? How is SkyClan? Are you happy?" She rambles, at least smart enough to keep her voice down despite its sing-songy tone. His mate. Is he happy with his mate? Is he happy he left? She hopes so. All a mother wants is for her kits to be happy, and even if she must remain in the confines of WindClan, she is glad he has found joy and peace elsewhere. "You have new sisters, you know," She whispers, eyes gleaming with excitement. "They're in the nursery right now. You'll meet them someday. At a Gathering, maybe."​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

Tears always burst out of him in onslaughts, and today was no exception. Silver eyes gleamed with the sheen of tears, with wetness and delirium. But he wasn't going mad; she was here. Even if she shouldn't be. Because what did they know about immunity? What could they possibly know?

And yet and yet and yet. He should have pushed her away but he didn't- selfishness, you could call it. But she wanted to be here- he was doing what she wanted. What he wanted, deep down, was to have her here. Selfishness and selflessness twisted together into an ugly amalgamation that made him feel sicker, and his shoulders shuddered, and he was happy. Yes, he was happy to see her.

"I'm happy... I'm with Dawnglare. Means I'm really happy..." he said, voice coarse and quiet. It was genuine, completely. Of course he was happy- what horrible twist of fate would it be if he wasn't? Fleeing only to collapse into something worse. He was loved in SkyClan. Not by SkyClan. "I learned to climb." Inky paws twitched against an invisible tree-trunk. He hadn't really answered the question. Sense dwelled elsewhere, just out of reach, and sometimes he snagged it just enough to string out a sentence.

Fever thrashed drumbeat in his skull. You have new sisters, she said. Mallowlark's smile wavered from deadness to something more. A gleam. Pollenfur had told him... and they were here. "Www- what's their names...?" A simple question, but there lay within bleary eyes a real want. To know them, in any way. If he couldn't know them as a brother should. ​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

Her smile brightens, shoving away any sadness she feels about her son's distance all the way in SkyClan. "I'm so glad," She tells him, eyes shutting due to how big her smile is. "Climb?! I don't think I could ever do that!" She laughs jovially, imagining her ivory-furred son flying through the branches like a squirrel. She's just glad he's fitting in. She wants that for him, even if she can't be there.

He asks his new siblings' names and she smiles, eyes shining. "Pink-kit, Heathkit-" She hesitates briefly, for a heartbeat considering telling him the truth. But there are too many cats around. It's too risky, so she shoves it aside for a later conversation perhaps. "Downykit, and Finchkit. Oh, you'd love them, and they'd love you! They're so much fun, Mallowlark. Pink-kit would get along with you really well, I think! You'd entertain her a lot!" She giggles at the thought of her loud daughter intrigued or equally weirded out by anything her son might tell or teach her.​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

It was either the heart or the sense he lacked to tell his mother that she would probably be better at climbing than he. Oh, he was no pine-born Skyclanner, lithe and small. He lumbered up those branches like a thrown rock, but at least he could go up.

News of new siblings, though, that was where his brain kept settling. Pollenfur had said they would kit at the same time, and this meant- this meant, surely and absolutely, that next time he saw his aunt she would have kits. Next time, next time. A time in the future, where he hadn't rotted of disease and his eyes were clear, and every day as a good day. Next time kept him breathing. Next time kept his smile on his face, still.

Pink-kit, Heathkit, Downykit, Finchkit. The named are whirled around and around in his head. WindClan apprentices, eventual WindClan warriors. Maybe it would have been better not to know at all. "I'm glad," said he, though, and he was not lying. Whether he should or shouldn't have known, he was glad he did. Tiredness heavier his eyelids. "Are they... happy...?"

As if he could do anything about it. There was no flitting over a border, anymore. The'd have to love the rot while surrounded by it. The ruined home. His shoulders shook with laughter, out of nowhere. In front of his mother, strapped with sickness, he didn't bother choking it away. "They s-sss-sound happy. Would be nice to, to see'em at a Gathering, to... to... say hello... one day..."​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

She can see the exhaustion hanging from his face; her own expression seems to droop in reply. He looks so unlike himself, so small, like when he was a kit. She wants to curl herself around him like she had when he was just a little one, although he dwarfs her now. He'll still always be her baby. And when his laughter breaks into what sounds more like sobs, though his grin stretches wide, she loses all self-control.

She slips forward, presses against his ivory pelt without caution. Her cheek presses to his skull as tears fill her eyes. She misses him. She misses him too much for words to describe. "I'm trying to make sure they're happy," She replies, fighting back tears as she presses close to her first-born. "You will meet them. After all this is over, I promise. We'll find a way." They're kin, for crying out loud! Sootstar can't keep them apart. She has kept you apart, She is reminded, but shoves it down, focusing only on nuzzling her son. "I promise," The calico repeats quietly.​