[Fawn]

It was too much. Nettleheart had fled the valley the same as the others, but beyond the desperate need to survive, she wasn't in mourning. Not the way her Clanmates were. The press of bodies, the worried faces, the wide eyes and shaking limbs - everyone was living this same nightmare.

But hers was different. For a horrible stretch of time, Nettleheart felt like Scrap again the first time she'd stayed in NightClan's camp. Strange scents mingling so much it made her nose hurt; whispers and unfamiliar faces. Only there was no Snake here, to press her pelt against.

Snake had been gone for a long time.

Instead, Nettleheart felt overwhelmed, choked by the grief and unease of others, her empathy already a hard thing to muster - now it skittered away like a starving, wary animal. All she could think to do was escape.

"What happens now?" She heard an apprentice whisper as Nettleheart slunk through a sea of bodies. "When can we go home?"

Home is gone, said a fierce voice inside her head, and the clarity of that statement, timed with a breath of deep, clean mountain air when she finally excited the cave, grounded her.

NightClan hadn't been home for a while. And Nettleheart...didn't want to go back. To keep going through the motions of warrior life, numb because it was all there was. Here, here, in the middle of this calamity, Nettleheart saw an opportunity to just…walk away.

Buckfur. Would he go with her? It was selfish and rotten to ask him to leave behind everything he'd ever known, but the only thing that frightened her these days was living in a world that didn't have him in it.

Her attachment to NightClan lived and died with him. He's all I have. If he comes with me... I can finally be free. Her debt to NightClan was paid; she'd kept her head down and given them moons of her life, even as she failed to feel like it was truly home.

Yes, she had a friend in Graywolf, but Graywolf had the ability to be anyone's friend. Nettleheart swallowed hard, picturing the sorrow on the gray molly's face, and it pinched the sliver of her heart that hadn't already made up it's mind.

Behind her came the soft footfalls she knew to be Buckfur, and Nettleheart at once felt calmer. "Buckfur... This is all I need. You, and the freedom to hunt and sleep and walk where I please."

Dull-yellow eyes were unusually bright in their intensity as she turned to face him, heart in her throat. "I don't want to be a Clan cat any more. Snakestep and Briarthroat are gone. There's nothing left for me in NightClan. I... I have to leave. The longer I wait, the harder it'll be." Nerves gripped her heart like Demon's teeth, her blood speeding up with a building sense of fear.

Still, she managed to push the words out. "Come with me, Buckfur. I need you. I know that's selfish and you have a family here." Even if that family was a wretch like Blackstag. "You're the only one that matters, for me. The life I want and the life I'm living aren't the same. But I can't have the life I really want without you in it."

Already Nettleheart was picturing his soft, heartfelt refusal. Picturing her heart shatter, picturing the cost of freedom being the last few pieces of compassion and warmth she had. She would become solitary, unable to give up her independence, but forever knowing how much better things would be if he had just said yes.

Nettleheart's mind burst with imagery - curling up beside him in a nest they made somewhere safe, knowing that she was surrounded by his fur and his scent. Knowing that whatever happened, they could handle it. Nettleheart would fight tooth and claw for that future, sink her teeth into it and never let go. But some things couldn't be gained through resilience alone. Nettleheart's mind was made up - but what about his?

Nettleheart

51 moons. nightclan warrior. words.

Ghost the Undead Goddess

[Ghost the Undead Goddess]

Rewrite your history

He couldn't sleep the first few nights the whole of the valley was shoved within the cave of the Tribe cats. It could have been shock, it could have been fear of the unknown, it could have been the silent breaking within his heart. He swore he could still smell the harsh scent of his brother's blood bathed upon his massive paws, as an almost obsessive need to clean them pricked within his head constantly. 

Eventually it started to get better, though for a massive cat like him surrounded by piles of bodies and fur, he suddenly felt alone and lost. 

Grief can do harsh things to a cat's mind. He had seen it constantly eat at Nettleheart within the wake of her brother's loss. He had seen it within the brilliant green hues of Graywolf after she lost many felines who bore a closeness to her heart within the last few moons. He didn't know his mother, but he could recognize the similar expression within his own father's statue up until the point he had taken another mate. 

But the overwhelming grief and guilt and uncomfortableness that wound it's way around Buckfur's stomach like a vicious snake was slowly chipping away at the massive tomcat's conscious. The first few nights after he was able to finally fall back asleep had been fruitless, as he'd wake up in a start because of the same reoccurring dream. The same image of his brother's dying eyes as his blood coated Buckfur while the ground angrily shook and cracked.  

He hadn't known of another time in which he had been so shook, not even when Deathclaw had attempted to rip his stomach out by her claws. 

His mind had been a storm, never stopping since they day he murdered Blackstag to the point that the clans were out looking for what remained of their home. He had kept close to Nettleheart, finding comfort in her solace and silence. It reminded him of a simpler time, away from the lingering scents and warm bodies when the two of them spent days searching the Pines and the Mountains for any trace of Snakestep.

For the first time in his life, Nightclan didn't feel like home. 

He had always had a different attitude from the mass of those within Nightclan, especially when it came to pure-blood and violence but that had never stopped him when it came to following the cruelty that his black hearted brother displayed without remorse. He had loved his younger, half-siblings though it seemed that only Cricketchip had gained that sweetness that Nightclan as a whole lacked. 

And Nettleheart...

Heh, well Nettleheart had been the breath of fresh air that his lungs so desperately needed. Despite the tininess of her size compared to the massive beast of Buckfur, she had managed to sweep him off what he thought were steady paws. The more time he spent padding after her, the more he realized he cared less and less about the mass of cats who lived, or who used to live within the confines of the marshy pine woods. 

If he sat there and honestly thought about what really held him to Nightclan... was it the kits? Even though none of them were his, he enjoyed spending time with the most innocent and the most tiny forms of life within the clan but... couldn't he eventually have that same form of enjoyment with Nettleheart? He supposed there was the idea of training the youngsters, but... even then he was not the best hunter and he was tired of training cats to fight, the violence that came with wars and conflicts. 

His family? All he had was Cricketchip, he wasn't close to her brothers, nor was he close to her mother and the fact that their shared father had not made it out of the earthquake truly left him alone in that aspect. His friends? Graywolf, Mothlight, Mousepetal... they all had good hearts despite the darkness of Nightclan but in the end they all had their own reasons for staying within the comfortableness of their clan. They enjoyed being around others, not the solitude of living past borders. 

His sleep was dreamless for once, but when Buckfur rose from it, he didn't feel any less tired. A yawn parted the handsome tabby's jaws before his green hues shifted to try and find the shape of Nettleheart that was normally curled up against his lengthy coat. For a second a panic tried to take over his heart, a kind of daze within his head as he couldn't remember where he was for a second before relaxing as the overwhelming sound of multiple mews and several different mixing scents broke through his fog.

Standing, and stretching out his legs, Buckfur gave himself a good shake to fully awaken before he turned to pad his way through the throng of cats still within the stuffiness of the Tribe's Cave. His green hues slowly shifted over different cats that he past, searching for the familiar dilute coloration of the molly that held his heart within her small paws. Her scent was faint beneath all the others, but fresh as it led him towards the exit of the cave. 

His thudding footfalls were quiet against the rocky underground but she shifted and turned to face him as he came up behind her. Immediately he felt a wave of comfort, of support wash over his massive form the second those beautiful eyes of hers laid upon him. It was like the weight of his guilt and night terrors were being pushed back as his ears flickered within her direction the moment her voice broke the silence between the two of them. 

He listened to her, feeling the organ within his chest tightening at her pleas. A small smile brushed against his maw, she still didn't seem to believe that Buckfur would literally walk to the ends of the earth with Nettleheart. Wherever she padded, he would follow her like a shadow. It seemed that this time, her needs and his feeling of being separate from what Nightclan once was were intertwined. 

Perhaps it was Starclan's desire for them to pad a different trail. 

"As you wish..." He said in that soft, deep voice that rumbled within the depths of his chest. He didn't need to say anything else, it was so many responses wrapped into one nice package. It meant that he would follow her, he would leave behind the life he once knew as a clan cat to wander the wilderness together. It meant, for now and forever that he loved her with his whole being. 

Shifting forwards, Buckfur pressed his head against hers softly to give her comfort but at the same time to breath in the scent that he had come to know as his home. Her scent. 

Light up your wildest dreams

BuCKfUr

55Moons Warrior NightClan

Fawn | 1153 words | Be Still My Heart