[Fawn]

Assigned to a patrol with Ospreywing. She should've been happy about that. Why wasn't she happy about that? ... Probably because it felt like she didn't know him anymore. Somewhere along the way, they'd turned into strangers.

Skunkspots walked beside him, looking elsewhere, dismayed to no longer find she was comfortable enough to let her walls down around her brother. When he looked at a rock or one of the rare trees on StoneClan's territory, Skunkspots stole a glance, studied his features in case they had changed on her or something—in case there was a better reason for the sensation of... acquaintances.

Weird. He was her family, but what did that word even mean anymore? It doesn't mean we all stay one big happy family. Not lately. It meant they had once been a part of something bigger than themselves; warm, full of love, full of determination to survive. Now it was just them. Just two. Can you even call yourselves a family when it was so few? And what happens when there's only one of us?

A flower with two petals left was sad. A flower with one—that was a tragedy.

Skunkspots' heart fell with each step, both surprised (and not at all) by the crashing wave of pessimism that doused her like torrential rain. Maybe it was for the best, that they grew apart? That way... That way if... If one of them died, the other wouldn't grieve so hard? The pain wouldn't be as deep as it could've been.

That's a damn lie. Skunkspots' throat tightened. She'd miss him if he died. She miss him terribly; maybe that's what family meant—holding onto someone even if they left you. In that case, she... had a lot of family.

Look at you, you're falling apart! When did you get so pathetic? Great StarClan, what had started this mudslide of bad feelings? Her thoughts flashed back to her shoddy hunting trip with Maplepaw this morning; she felt guilty enough to hiss, knowing the little she-cat didn't blame her for messing everything up. Skunkspots was forced to relive the moment all over again, picturing the injured the blackbird, picturing Maplepaw dropping into a proper hunting crouch. Everything was perfect. Until her dung-brain of a mentor stepped back to give her space and snapped a twig.

The blackbird, along with Maplepaw's first chance at success, flew away. It carried her confidence in its talons, and dropped self doubt behind it like loose feathers.

Skunkspots barely noticed they'd reached the edge of the territory, only registering the change in terrain when she saw the thin, needle-like shadows of the skinny trees marking their border with RainClan. Hard to say who she felt sorrier for, really. Her apprentice, for getting stuck with such a lousy mentor, or her brother, for having her be his only family left?

Cricketleap would've been better. Badgerfang too. Anyone...

Word Count: 475 Words Tags: Phoenix Notes:

28 Moons. Warrior. StoneClan

[Phoenix]

i'm an angel with a shotgun fighting 'til the war's won

It was only now, when they walked beside each other with the silence of strangers hanging between them, that Ospreywing let himself truly became aware of how distant he and his sister had become. For quite a while, that knowledge had lurked in the back of his mind, buried and forgotten under the pressures of everyday life, and he had never stopped to consider it – let alone act on it. But now, alone with the spotted she-cat and nothing to occupy his mind, his thoughts began to wander, and he found Skunkspots at the forefront of them. As kits, they had been close. They had been happy. When had that changed? He wasn’t sure. He would never forget the night that shattered his happiness, but had it also stolen a close relationship with his sister?

From the beginning, they were very different cats, so it came as no surprise that they had dealt with the trauma in their own ways. Where the she-cat seemed to have found comfort in her closest friends, he had opted to lock everything away into the darkest corner in his mind and do his best to forget about it. He had found solace in his training and his work, and now that he thought about it, such dedication to his duties was the most likely reason for the distance that now stretched between them. Quickly, yellow eyes flicked toward her, searching her face before shifting away again. Their drifting apart hadn’t been intentional. It had simply… happened, and neither of them had made any particular effort toward stopping it. Skunkspots had her life in StoneClan, and he had his; it had seemed fairly unimportant that they rarely crossed paths.

Besides, he wasn’t entirely negligent. He knew the important events in her life. Right now, she was training Maplepaw, a rather sickly apprentice who was lucky enough to have been born after StoneClan’s victorious return to the valley. When Hawkstar had called his sister forward to receive her first apprentice, so much pride had suddenly filled him that he could barely breathe. Training one of the clan’s next warriors was one of the highest honors reserved for the best warriors, and even though he knew how much Skunkspots deserved the chance, Ospreywing understood that the she-cat herself did not. For as long as he could remember, she had always been more nervous and self-conscious than himself, and having purged himself of such self-doubt, he didn’t quite know how to deal with those insecurities. This, he had hoped, would help her do what he could not: boost her self-confidence.

And, perhaps, it would give him the opportunity he needed to start rebuilding bridges that had crumbled long ago.

But life, as it always did, had hindered his good intentions, and the opening had slipped like water through his claws. Everything – hunting, patrols, fighting practice – had gotten in the way, letting innumerable days pass unnoticed. Until now. Lost in their own thoughts, they walked together for the first time in who knew how long, and instead of feeling like brother and sister, they felt like strangers. A faint guilt began to coil in his gut, and feeling somewhat obligated to relieve this horrible silence, he finally spoke: ”How’s training going with Maplepaw?”

i don't care if heaven won't take me back

ospreywing | stoneclan | warrior | Fawn

angel with a shotgun | background image

[Fawn]

”How’s training going with Maplepaw?”

They really were strangers. If they had been closer lately, he'd know just how badly it was going. "Like hawkdung!" She snapped, more angry at herself than him for bringing it up. Her ears folded apologetically. That outburst had been unnecessary; she just felt... like a terrible mentor. A terrible cat, come to think of it.

"Sorry," Skunkspots began to mumble, her legs folding into a sit as the words came tumbling out. "Sorry. It's just not going well. I didn't mean to rip your throat out. I don't really want to talk about it, Ospreywing." It'll just make me feel worse. Ospreywing might've had advice worth listening to. Or maybe not? He had always been a level-headed warrior, he just seemed so much better at everything... Did him not having had an apprentice previously disqualify him for giving advice?

Skunkspots' whiskers twitched, ears no longer pressed flat to her skull but flared out sideways in obvious displeasure. It won't hurt to ask him anyway. Unless he just thinks I'm unfit to be a mentor. In which case, he'd be right. Why did Hawkstar think she could do this? She wasn't a total screw-up, in fact, most of her anxieties were probably making mountains of mole-hills, but Skunkspots didn't know if she could help that.

She couldn't remember thinking of herself in any other light but shadow.

Word Count: 232 Words Tags: Phoenix Notes:

28 Moons. Warrior. StoneClan

[Phoenix]

i'm an angel with a shotgun fighting 'til the war's won

Her outburst had the fur along his spine bristling with surprise, and he cast a somewhat alarmed look in her direction. That had not been the reaction he had hoped for, and the anger in her voice had him furiously trying to work out how to proceed. He was entering a minefield, and he never knew where to step. How could he possibly respond to that? Emotions – for that was what this was – and comfort – for that was what the situation undoubtedly required – were not his thing. He didn’t do them. He never knew what to say, and every time he tried, his efforts fell horribly flat until he learned to simply not try. Other cats had all the right words spring to the tip of their tongues, and he was always left there, wading through the murky waters without a light to guide him.

That is was Skunkspots standing before him rather than some unrelated clanmate didn’t make it any easier. He knew his sister had her fair share – probably more than her share, if he was honest – of anxieties but he had never been good at dealing with such matters. His own weaknesses, his worries, his fears all stayed buried deep, and he pretended they didn’t exist. Experience told him that attempting to treat his sister’s the same way would be about as effective as trying to catch water with unsheathed claws. She did not have walls built of the same, impenetrable material as he, and he did not understand that foreign softness. Comforting others did not come naturally to him when he treated his own wounds by brute forcing his way through the pain.

Ospreywing didn’t know what to say. She said she didn’t want to talk about it, and his first instinct was to drop the subject, to veer away from what would clearly be dangerous ground fraught with feelings. But what else could they discuss? He had brought up the topic with the hope that it would start to chip away at the barrier that had risen between them, but her outburst and his – his inability – to handle it had the wall stretching even higher. Perhaps this was the root of their problem. They were so fundamentally incompatible that communication was a painful affair, one that was easier to forego than to even attempt. So why did he even bother?

Because she’s my sister, and because she’s the only one I have left.

He had to say something; not doing so was not an option, not really, not if he wanted to repair broken bridges. This was how all of their other conversations had ended – in silence, with each of them lost in their own minds and secretly counting down the seconds until they could be free of the other’s suffocating presence. Gathering his resolve around him, he started, ”If I asked Maplepaw, I doubt she would say the same.” It sounded horribly stilted to him, but he was trying. ”I saw her talking with her sister, and they were both laughing. I think she likes training with you, so it can’t be that bad, right?”

i don't care if heaven won't take me back

ospreywing | stoneclan | warrior | Fawn

angel with a shotgun | background image

[Fawn]

“How do you know they weren’t laughing because of me?” She couldn’t resist retorting, her insecurities suddenly given a voice. Maplepaw was a sweet little kitten, and Skunkspots, when she wasn’t worrying over her teaching methods, found that she actually kind of enjoyed her company.

But Skunkspots was plagued by fears; they bit and clawed at her like dogs, worrying her self confidence down to the bone, and even then they started gnawing at that, determined to leave nothing left. Apologetic all over again, Skunkspots’ ears flattened against her skull, her voice a cynical murmur as she struggled to both shut up and explain herself at once.
”Sorry. I just don’t think I’m doing a good job. I don’t want to disappoint her or Hawkstar, but I’m not cut out to be a mentor. Some cats are great at it, but cats like me…” We suck at this. There was no use pretending otherwise.

”Maplepaw deserves a mentor who knows what she’s doing, not one who freezes up every time she’s around her.” stop talking. Ospreywing doesn’t want to hear about your failures. What kind of a sister are you? You don’t talk for moons and suddenly here you are, spilling your guts out over this apprenticeship thing.

Skunkspots growled at herself, shaking her head; even if the insults were not voiced aloud, it was obvious she was beating herself up. ”We can change the subject. You don’t want to hear about this. Anything new with you?” If there was, Skunkspots hadn’t noticed. That was the problem with being an awkward social slug instead of a butterfly; she was too concerned with her own unpleasantness to notice what was going on around her.

Word Count: 297 Words Tags: Phoenix Notes:

31 Moons. Warrior. StoneClan