[Fawn]

CROWBLAZE

39 Moons - RainClan - Tom

"may I ask what Hawkfall was like? I never got to know him."

Crowblaze flicked his tail, replying in a gruff voice that betrayed some of the hurts that had built up like scar tissue. "Neither did I. When you grow up in the nursery, you don't expect to stop seeing those faces throughout the rest of your life. I didn't know I could lose a brother. But I did. He left when he became an apprentice." His bulky form seemed to shrink slightly, as he hunched his shoulders, reliving a bitter memory. "He was always looking to the mountains. Always wondering about StoneClan. Said he... didn't belong in RainClan."

And that had sliced deeper than Hawkfall probably ever meant for it to go.

"He was my brother," Crowblaze finished, looking very very intently at the scenery instead of Owlflight. He didn't want her to see how much this hurt. "I trusted him. I protected him. We were friends. But he left anyway." The saddest thing about the whole stupid tragedy, in the dark tabby warrior's mind, was that he still to this day didn't know his brother very well.

They didn't find out each other's warrior names until a sudden meeting at the border - when he'd had to deliver news of another death in the family. Hawkfall was a stranger to him. He hated it, but it was how their lives were meant to be now. Hawkfall was a StoneClan cat. Crowblaze couldn't go giving his sympathy and sense of kinship to a cat in a different Clan.

He hadn't been the best warrior of RainClan, but he wasn't a turncoat. He would prove to the others that his loyalties had always lied with his father's Clan, not his mother's.

"He had his reasons. But now he's a stranger. He might as well be a ghost." Crowblaze lowered his gaze from the mountainscape, slowly letting his molten orange eyes come to rest on Owlflight. For all his aggression and bristly nature, he felt a little less... grouchy over those old memories. He would always feel bitter about it, Crowblaze was sure, but as it turned out, it did help to talk about it. Owlflight understood. It wasn't the same for her, but she understood.

PAIN, YOU MAKE ME A, YOU MAKE ME A BELIEVER
BELIEVER

Word Count: 366 Words
Tags: @sparrowkeeper
Notes: Time to start winding down the thread?