[Insidious]

The snow underfoot was so cold, so unbearably cold, but she was numb to the pain. She had stopped feeling it after a while; it seemed like she had stopped feeling most things. The camp was intolerable now more than ever. She couldn't face her clanmates, especially not her leader, when she was nothing more than a brittle shadow of the respectable cat she used to be. There was no recovering from death - and she wasn't talking about her own, even though, in some ways, she had been reduced to something of a zombie. When she opened her eyes every morning and saw that empty nest beside her own, slightly messy, still carrying the remnants of her scent, she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes again and pretend she had never woken up.

Pinkcloud had been her reason for everything she stood for, and now that she was gone, now that Bluejay hadn't been able to save her, what was the point?

There quite simply wasn't one, and worse than the sadness, the consuming grief that sat in her stomach, greedy, unsatisfied with merely ruining her, was the dreary acceptance with which she acknowledged that the point no longer existed.

She stared deeply into LightningClan territory, unmoving, expression eerily blank, wrapping her tail around her paws as though it would be enough warmth to keep her from shivering. She thought she smelled something, perhaps a cat or two, and while normally she would've wore a smile, she couldn't bring herself to pretend that she was happy. Her legs were wobbling, and she told herself it was because she was cold, because she was hungry, but she was just so tired. She would find her purpose again. She would do it because that was who she was, and because Pinkcloud wouldn't want her to sulk through the rest of her moons. But, right now, the cat she was - heavenly and bright - was a long way from home.

[Fawn]

Mudpelt
16 Moons. Tom. LightningClan.
»I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR A WAY TO BRING YOU BACK TO LIFE«

There was nothing to do but soldier on. With the absence of both parents and a prominent role model in Mudpelt's young life, he drew a page from Darkcloud's book of keeping a strong front in the face of tragedy. Striving to emulate his distant relation's cool acceptance of the darker sides of fate, Mudpelt was now first to volunteer for patrols.

While the rest of his Clanmates were run ragged by chasing after prey that wasn't there and shivering from the cold that was always there, Mudpelt trudged on. Grief had left him empty, like a rabbit warren beset by a fox (and it was fate's cruel claws that ripped out his heart, just like some wretched predator), but purpose filled the void like mist. Difficult to dissipate, though not substantial enough to sustain him for very long.

Sooner or later, he would have to fill the void.

But for now, this worked for him. With Gustclaw beside him, Mudpelt patrolled the wintry edge of LightningClan territory, the gorse and sedge buried deep underpaw by more snow than he'd ever seen in his entire life. As he walked, he always kept an ear swiveling to catch any tell-tale cry of winter birds roosting close by; LightningClan cats trying to hunt birds ended about as successfully as TreeClan cats catching fish, but desperate times called for many, many desperate measures.

Surly with conviction, Mudpelt had grown to ignore the snow that clumped unpleasantly in his fur, sticking behind his elbows and the backs of his knees for added coldness. So dreary was the landscape, that at first he did not recognize the gray-blue shape sitting at the treeline to be anything more than a fallen branch or peculiar-shaped rock. Yet something in Mudpelt's brain clicked, and he set course straight for it—for her. Why was she sitting there?
"Bluepaw?" Mudpelt called, his steps slowing with trepidation. "... What is it? What's wrong?" The she-cat didn't smile when she looked at him. Had something happened?

Automatically, Mudpelt began to look around for her albino sister, searching for that soul-stirringly pretty feline, with her berry-pink eyes and pristine white fur. Where is she? The breath caught in Mudpelt's throat.

»IF I COULD FIND A WAY, THEN I WOULD BRING YOU BACK TONIGHT«

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Word Count: 385 Words
Tags: Insidious , Phoenix

[Phoenix]

FAR FROM HOME ON A ROAD UNKNOWN

Balancing his reluctance to stray too far from Mudpelt with his need to maintain the fragile, independent strength that kept him on his paws these days required a delicacy that many would not attribute to Gustclaw. Yet somehow, he managed. They had become the charity case of the clan – the poor young brothers whose family had been stripped from them one at a time until only they remained standing. No one wanted to mention it, but the thoughts remained regardless. He did not want them to cast him in that light. He did not need their pity. He could take care of himself, and he could take care of his brother. He was strong; it was imperative that they see that instead of his wounded heart and shredded emotions.

If they believed that he was strong, then it was easier for him to believe it, too.

With a slight turn of his head, he glanced sideways at the brown tom beside him. While Gustclaw worked to construct a wall of strength through denial and sheer will, the other warrior had chosen to hide behind an avid dedication to his duties, and that was how the silver tabby found himself trudging through snow drifts on the outskirts of LightningClan territory. There was a strange disconnect. His world had changed irrevocably on that day, and yet life continued relentlessly, unsympathetically. Numbly, he felt as though the world should stop – or at least be transformed instead of simply continuing on as if everything was fine. Because everything was not fine. Nothing was fine.

Everything hurt, and it was hard to ignore. Walking silently alongside his brother with no conversation to distract him from his thoughts certainly did not help, but he could hardly abandon Mudpelt in favor of going and attacking something in a vain attempt to distract himself. Now, more than ever, he needed to be here for his younger brother, and he had promised himself that he would be. As it turned out, his newly strengthened filial loyalty would be needed more than he could have predicted, and it was with near-blissful ignorance of the heartache he was about to feel that Gustclaw trailed slightly behind his brother to stand opposite Bluepaw. “Bluepaw?” He found himself echoing his brother, heart stuttering as he began to recognize the look in her eyes. No.

Gustclaw | LightningClan | Warrior | Long Forgotten Sons - Rise Against

WE ARE THE LONG FORGOTTEN SONS

Insidious Fawn

[Insidious]

Her name was spoken once, twice, but even it had been spoken a third time, she wouldn't have reacted. She looked at the cat she knew as Mudpaw, the cat she knew as Gustpaw, her eyes expressionless, but guarded, not addressing either of them; had she not numbly lifted her chin, recognizing somewhere deep down that she was to associate with that name, Bluepaw, it would've appeared that she was blatantly ignoring them. That wasn't her intention. The cat she used to be would've already apologized for being so rude. The apology was there, settled on top of her tongue, fighting for an escape, but she had it caged, and she wasn't ready to release it.

"Hello." It was an odd thing to say, especially when all three of them could tell that something was wrong. She swallowed the lump that was rising in her throat. She didn't want to weep in front of these cats, and to simultaneously transfer her burden from herself to them - except it wouldn't transfer, would it? The pain wouldn't leave her, because just as quickly as it had come to her, it had become a part of her. She inhaled a sharp, stuttering breath, the oxygen catching in her throat and producing an awkward sound.

"Everything is wrong, Mudpaw. I don't think it will ever be right again. Isn't that awful?" Bluejay tilted her head, because she was genuinely asking, she genuinely wanted an answer, but just as quickly as her pretty eyes had fixed upon him they had fallen to the ground. She had never, not once in her life, spoken this way to another cat.

Like she believed in hopelessness.

She made as though to cross the border, to bury her face in his neck and take comfort in the pity of someone she barely knew, but she couldn't do that. Despite her pain, despite having lost herself to it, she had to respect the code. She had to because she was the cat who did what needed to be done without question. "My sister is dead." Her voice cracked, because saying it made it real. "This might not make sense, because I don't quite understand it myself -" she laughed, then, but it was a terrible sound, and nothing like the happy, cheerful laugh she once had. "- but when she died, so did I."

And then she collapsed, her grief no longer supportable. It weighed more than she could possibly bear.

[Fawn]

Mudpelt
16 Moons. Tom. LightningClan.
»I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR A WAY TO BRING YOU BACK TO LIFE«

"This might not make sense, because I don't quite understand it myself, but when she died, so did I."

Any other cat. Quite literally, any other cat that had said this, laughed as hysterically as Bluepaw had (if you could call such a tormented wail a laugh at all), Mudpelt would have slowly backed away, uncertain how to handle an obviously physical and mental collapse.

But this wasn't any other cat. This was Bluepaw. And the sister she spoke of could only be Pinkpaw.

Mudpelt felt as if he had been struck across the face. He felt stunned. Dazed.
"How...?" Words failed him. It was not a question of what had caused her death, or the circumstances surrounding it—it didn't matter—it was a much broader, much rawer question. How could Pinkpaw simply cease to exist?

The stocky tom's expression grew twisted, as if some part of him that was still sane, that could still process the shit storm that world had decided to drop upon him, grappled with the much bigger part of him that had cracked into a thousand pieces.

Mudpelt laughed too. It was jagged. It was hollow, yet each sound was punctuated with pain.
"I guess this means Gustclaw is next."
That was the natural progression of things, then. First their parents. Then Galekit. Pidgeonpaw. Blazefang. Now Pinkpaw.

How much heartbreak did anyone expect one tom to handle? If fate had wanted to push him to his breaking point, to push him until he resigned to the simple truth that nothing at all was within his control, then they had succeeded. Any meager light of acceptance and healing Mudpelt had gained since Blazefang's death, was mercilessly snuffed out.

On stiff legs, Mudpelt walked forward to stand beside Bluepaw, ignoring boundary lines. He did not pick her up. As if he had forgotten how to comfort the bereaved, Mudpelt simply stared at her, his own expression desolate. There was nothing he could say, or do. There was no rule in the Warrior Code to see them through this.
In a voice that was as small as it was sad, Mudpelt mewed the only thing that would suffice. And even then, as far as comfort went, these words fell so far, so very far from the mark.
"I'm sorry."
 

»IF I COULD FIND A WAY, THEN I WOULD BRING YOU BACK TONIGHT«

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Word Count: 400 Words
Tags: Insidious , Phoenix

[Phoenix]

WE'RE ALL OK UNTIL THE DAY WE'RE NOT

“Oh, Bluepaw.” Uncharacteristically quiet and soft, his voice was almost pleading. He knew the strong devotion the TreeClan she-cat had always had for Pinkpaw, and he knew only too well the heavy, relentless weight and the sharp, pointed grief that came with losing a sibling. It was incredibly, unspeakably unfair that Bluepaw should have a similar understanding. In those two words lay all of the crushing emotion that was impossible to verbalize. How could one hope to describe the deeply visceral rawness that came with having one’s walls torn down and world turned on its head? The vulnerability, the sorrow that permeated everything, the constant hope that one would wake up from this horrible nightmare, the refusal to believe that she was dead because how could someone so alive be anything but? – Everything felt so visceral that any attempt to explain it would never do it justice. “I am so sorry.”

He had always considered those words a parody of comfort, but time and time again, he found that he had nothing better to offer. They were so inadequate and so obvious. Of course, he had never wanted Bluepaw to lose her sister – it was a fate that he would will upon no one – and as he had not personally ended the albino she-cat’s life, he had nothing to apologize for. What they meant when they said it, he knew, was that they were sorry that he and Mudpelt and now Bluepaw had to feel this pain. But when the only thing that would close his open wounds was the impossible, their well-intentioned condolences seemed so very small.

Gustclaw moved to press his shoulder against his brother’s, hoping to provide some semblance of stability as any progress that had started since his death was brutally ripped away. The silver tabby himself had only known Pinkcloud through Mudpelt, and though he had met the unusual she-cat with a heart of gold, he had been perfectly content to watch his sibling woo her before teasing him about his obvious crush whenever he could tear his eyes away. What tore at his heart was not so much that she was dead – though he found himself slowly comprehending that knowledge with a numb acceptance, because it felt as though everyone they cared about would end up prematurely joining StarClan, so why would she be the exception? – but rather the effect that it had on the two cats before him. Bluepaw, normally so strong for her sister in a way that Gustclaw was now attempting to emulate, had broken, and he was currently looking at what was left. Mudpelt – poor Mudpelt, who had lost so many in their short lifetime – he found, with some surprise, that he feared finding out how much damage this latest blow had caused.

When the pained mutilation of a laugh escaped his brother, Gustclaw turned his gaze toward the other tom, heart breaking at what he saw there. Mudpelt’s words simultaneously sent a shiver down his spine and refueled his burning determination to take care of his brother in the way their parents should have those many moons ago. “Mudpelt,” He spoke slowly, a quiet force behind his words as he willed his brother to see the truth in them. “I’m not next. I will never be next, because I’m not going anywhere.” Logically, he knew that he promised something he couldn’t keep, that there were situations simply out of his control that he couldn’t account for. But StarClan knew that he would fight tooth and claw against anything that might drag him permanently away from the smaller brown tom. He could only hope Mudpelt, through the overwhelming haze of pain and grief, could see that too. “I am not leaving.”

Had his brother not stepped forward, bringing both of them across the border, Gustclaw might have turned to attempt to offer some better support for Bluepaw, who would have just had to see a display of what she had lost. He felt a little guilty at that, but not enough to take back his actions. In the hierarchy of cats who mattered to him, Mudpelt would always be his priority, now more so than ever, and he would not regret the collateral damage of any action that he took for the sake of helping or comforting his brother. With a devastated expression on his face, the tom of his thoughts offered his own condolences, and it struck Gustclaw suddenly that he was probably in the best shape of the three of them. At that, he choked down a horrible laugh of his own. That anyone would consider his current wreck of a mental state the best of anything was laughable, and yet, here he was, attempting to be strong for another – now two other – cats more lost than he.

“I know you’re in a different clan,” He spoke again, addressing Bluepaw in a voice that sounded rough and was not without a touch of awkwardness. He was not used to exposing himself so fully in front of a cat who was not necessarily one of his closer friends. And maybe you don’t want this… “But that goes for you, too. The three of us – we should stick together as best we can.”

Gustclaw | LightningClan | Warrior | Audience of One - Rise Against

THE SURFACE SHINES WHILE THE INSIDE ROTS

Insidious Fawn

[Insidious]

She rested her head against Mudpaw's leg immediately after he crossed the border, letting her tail sweep across the snow to lay against Gustpaw's, too. Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of her mind, she caught both of their new names, but she couldn't bring herself to congratulate either of them. Their words were no different from the sympathies of her clanmates; Gustpaw - no, Gustclaw - spoke of how they needed to stick together, and she mustered a weak smile in response because she knew, she knew, that when worst came to worst that couldn't be true. The two of them could be there for each other, and she would need to learn how to be there for herself from now on.

For the moment, however, with two LightningClan cats across the TreeClan border, she tried to convince herself that none of them had somewhere to be.

The process of getting back onto her paws would be impossible, and accepting the bleakness of her current state, she released a shaky breath. "Thank you. Both of you. I know that -" Bluejay lifted her eyes to Mudpelt's, " - you cared about her, too." It wasn't to say that Gustclaw didn't, so much as to say that Mudpelt especially did. She always meant to ask her sister about him, but she never got the chance. How opportunities slipped away.

"It's Bluejay, by the way." Everyone had laughed, albeit darkly, miserably, but she found herself doing it again. It was such an insignificant thing to say. "And hers was Pinkcloud." It felt like she was sharing a deep, dark secret, but somehow it felt important to give Mudpelt that small piece of her sister to hold onto. Saying the name out loud was dizzying, and she leaned farther into Mudpelt without meaning to. Her world had become so depressing, hadn't it? She had been sitting out here, along the border, all by herself, frozen, and did she even intend to go back? Her lip wobbled, but there was no sound. She merely lay there, sprawled, lifeless in spite of her breathing, in complete oblivion to the golden lion's approach.

OOC: ending this post on the assumption that you're still bringing in Lionstar to retrieve her! If not, I can change the last sentence.

[Fawn]

Mudpelt
16 Moons. Tom. LightningClan.
»I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR A WAY TO BRING YOU BACK TO LIFE«

The youngest of five siblings, the 'baby' of the family, Mudpelt had never found himself in this position before. He had never had someone lean against him as if he were the only thing stopping them from teetering over the edge. The role as a bulky support system served him well, though it surprised him at first that he could offer the she-cat any comfort at all—but broken as he was, he knew what shattered looked like, and as small and sharp as his pieces were, hers were infinitely sharper and heinously smaller.

If all that was asked of him was to stand there, be a rock, then he could do that. But it was not as if he had to do this alone; Bluejay's pain was a mirror of his own, and in turn, a mirror of Gustclaw's, all three of them united by a common tragedy. The death of a sibling. Though Pinkpaw and Blazefang couldn't have been more different, the holes they left in the hearts of those still living were identical, the edges ripped and frayed.

The three of them, this miserable trinity. They were broken, but not irreparable.

Clear as daylight, Gustclaw's words reached out to him, pulling him out of grieving seas and onto the shores of acceptance. A glimmering hope that he may just survive this. That they may all survive this. Yet, could he trust in the days ahead? Fate was a cruel, cruel device, and it seemed to seek him out, hellbent upon forcing him to live his days utterly alone, his life empty of the ones he loved most. Gustclaw must not die. Please, StarClan, if he needed a miracle in the future, if he could ask this one favor of them—let it be that his brother lived. Let it be that they both lived.

Any further devastation would be the final straw.

Pinkcloud. Her name was Pinkcloud. With a fresh ache, Mudpelt wore a small, lifeless smile, trying with a heavy heave of his heart, to make it count. "Thank you," he whispered in Bluejay's ear. "Her name matched her well." She had been a cloud, a single fluffy white cloud, with the support of her blue-sky sister always behind her. She had brought warmth and kindness into his life.
"I'll never forget her," he vowed, slowly withdrawing as a tall golden figure steadily approached from TreeClan's territory. Even if he hadn't been aware of the boundary markers being crossed, he would have retreated just the same. In what little part of Mudpelt's brain that was not numb to life in general, recognized the rippling mane and stern golden gaze of Lionstar. He had never seen him this close, and did not, at that moment, wish to be introduced.

Quietly, Mudpelt put on a stony mask, hiding his sorrow from those it did not immediately involve. With a faint touch to Gustclaw's shoulder with the tip of his tail, he retreated back over LightningClan's scent marker.

Lionstar loomed protectively over Bluejay, a commanding stare forcing the young LightningClan warriors back to their own lands. Had it not been for the obviously bereaved mood permeating the immediate area, Lionstar would have flown into a wrath. Bluejay, lying so still and broken on the snow, could have just as easily been mistaken for dead, with the two LightningClanners to blame; the Dark Forest harbored no fury as strong as an avenging mentor's. Least of all a mentor such as him.
"Come home, Bluejay," he gently nudged the gray she-cat to her feet, prepared to carry her like a mother carried their kit if her legs proved too weak to support her.

»IF I COULD FIND A WAY, THEN I WOULD BRING YOU BACK TONIGHT«

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Word Count: 612 Words
Tags: Phoenix , Insidious