[Fawn]

Lionstar

The crown is getting heavy
But they've written my name in the stars

This morning when Lionstar drew breath, he could taste the change in the air. It was not simply the transition of the seasons, the new growth and cool rains of Newleaf exchanged for the heat and splendor of Greenleaf. Lionstar stepped out into the early light, letting it wash over the lengths of his whiskers, over the flecks of gray upon his muzzle and mane like starlight.

Near the Ancient Stump, the towering dark figure of Pumafang stood sentinel, delivering orders and answering bleary-eyed questions of their Clanmates. Lionstar's heart swelled as it ached. Succession was a natural part of life. Dusty memories, almost too faint to make out, drifted through him of a time when he had been in Pumafang's paw prints, a deputy of a Clan he had only played a part in for less than thirty moons.

Now... Now he had given every moon after in service to TreeClan. Every breath he took, every claw raised, every word from his mouth - all for them. But there was still more Lionstar could give. His time mentoring apprentices was over, in the formal sense. There was one last student in need of teaching.

"Pumafang." He met the intense eyes of his successor, and did not smile. He smiled often, and he had many reasons for it. But this was not a moment for amicability. Quietly, as he slowly pivoted on his paws towards the exit to camp, Lionstar spoke. "Come with me."

The grass yielded beneath Lionstar's oversized paws, and the forest swirled around him in a convergence of life and sound and scent. The stiffness slowly began to leave, like an old friend he had to see off each morning or after every long rest.

Golden eyes picked a spot upon the horizon and he walked, conscious of the deputy behind him as he led him through the territory. Walking through spots of sunlight, the grass turned instead to roots as he brought them to the base of the Great Maple. The boughs swept up to touch the heavens, and the dense green foliage a canopy of birdsong and insect life. The bark felt good beneath his claws as Lionstar, with one low grunt of effort, heaved himself up the trunk and into a low, wide bow.

Here, they would not disturb anyone's hunting.

"Pumafang." Where to begin? Distantstar had never prepared him for the trials of leadership. TreeClan's brief, ancient leader before him had died and left Lionstar to protect the Clan as if it were a fragile sapling, a baby bird too close to tumbling out of its nest without proper leadership. Thankfully, StarClan saw fit to keep him breathing, and he intended to make use of his remaining lives.

"I have four lives left. That may stretch my lifespan for many more moons to come, or this could be my last season. I do not hold the answer. But what I do have, Pumafang, is a duty." Golden eyes were piercing, level and scrutinizing. "I have a duty to entrust this Clan to a worthy successor. I will be truthful. Gorsetail was my choice for leadership, and had he not been..." Ivory claws gripped the bough, scouring the bark as he searched for a word that would cause him the least amount of pain. "Had he not been cut down, I would be having this talk with him. But what's done is done. I chose Gorsetail for a reason, just as I chose you for a reason. But there is more to this than picking a strong cat of sound mind and body."

On the surface, Pumafang was a prime candidate. He was healthy. Young enough to have a promising life and legacy stretched out before him, but not so young that the bullheadedness of youth would cloud his judgment. But that was only the surface. A leader needed more than health and youth and fighting prowess. He could not claim to know what Distantstar saw in himself, or how he predicted Lionstar's reign may go.

Lionstar could, however, speak for his own dreams of how he saw TreeClan's future.

"You are inheriting more than a name change, Pumafang. I need to know if you have the compassion to lead this Clan. The empathy to hold it together under times of war and fear. Can you do that, Pumafang? You are good with your claws and your fangs. But are you good with your words? With your heart?" It was a tall order to ask of the cat who seemed to be forged in ice (much like his mate, Timberfrost), but TreeClan deserved nothing less than the best.

Lionstar raised his jaw, his words echoing through the boughs of the Great Maple. "If the answer is no, do you think you can learn?"

I've been building up all these kingdoms for so long
It's good to be king

114 Moons || TreeClan || 798 Words || @jet Phoenix (Gorsetail mention!)

[Deleted]

BELIEVE IN STRENGTH

Pumafang

TREECLAN - WARRIOR - 45 MOONS

Silence.

Pumafang had listened quietly, like an empty shadow in the morning light. Opposite to Lionstar he sat, a panther in the boughs of the Great Maple. Empathy? Heart? His tact was proficient and unwavering, but it was far from eloquence. Pumafang spoke with his mind and ambition, his desire for progress and success ruling all motives. Who did Lionstar think he was?

He let the birdsong reign for a few moments, wind rustling the forest growth with a warm, morning breath.

"I've turned pain into power, and hell into home." Pumafang rumbled, blinking slowly. His cold, dead amber eyes clawed into Lionstar’s gaze. "You don't know very much about me, Lionstar. Compassion is a weighty request for the oppressed."

It had slipped from his maw, and he couldn’t take it back. Pumafang’s ears flicked nervously, and his eyes flashed with a momentary discomfort. No matter. He thought, composing himself. It was but a vague glimpse.

Goldenflame made sure to leave his apprentice in a state like no other. He had created a sociopath, a monster, slapped Pumafang around enough to numb him from his environment. Though that neglect instilled an overpowering ambition in Pumafang invisible to the naked eye. It seemed to be a responsible resolve in the eyes of the clan, despite its egocentric roots. He suspected Lionstar had mistaken it for something else, judging by his demeanor.

This was a difficult test of his skills. Manipulating Lionstar himself was a feat like no other. The tom sat before him, regal and golden like his namesake. Lionstar’s moons of experience, his social mastery? Pumafang grinned inside. He wouldn’t back down from a challenge. The chocolate black tom was curious anyways, if head or heart would win in the end.

He was just about to speak, to enter this game of insinuation. He was just about to agree, to follow Lionstar’s rule like the mindless drone he played out to be.

He was just about to, but the words caught in the back of his throat. He looked away, flustered, eyes burning with hate.

Dead and alive Goldenflame manifested himself in Pumafang’s psyche. Part of him wanted to soil the tom’s name and legacy, though part of him understood the futility of criticizing one over acts already completed.

He couldn’t change the past, but he could learn from it.

And that’s just how Pumafang justified it. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He shut the world out, pushing away compassion and pain. Feeling had only brought him to his knees, and kings didn’t kneel.

The world was beneath him, and the stars were too.

“Empathy is what fills in when intelligence runs out.” Pumafang meowed lifelessly, his numb, amber gaze still averted. The massive, chocolate black deputy shifted his posture from a stoic sit, sprawling out on his branch peacefully. His thick, long tail twitched as he lay, and what seemed to be a forced, lazy gaze found its way back to Lionstar.

If felt good, peeling back a corner of his mask, but his chest tightened. His truth was unbelievable. His truth was one-sided. Lionstar has no reason to question Goldenflame, and Pumafang would never give him a reason to. That opportunity had been buried with the tom himself ages ago.

What are you doing? The inquiry burned behind Pumafang’s amber eyes, Goldenflame’s voice pounding through his head.

TreeClan’s deputy blinked very slowly.

Are you scared? The voice from his past sneered. You should be. A warrior faces reality, outmatched or not.

Pumafang looked back at Lionstar, though his eyes rested at the tom’s paws.

Look at the eyes. Goldenflame hissed. Pumafang could almost feel the tom’s wrathful blows, and automatically his gaze locked with Lionstar’s. The eyes tell you everything.

Pumafang felt his claws sink into bark.

I wish you could see me now, Goldenflame. Pumafang sneered to himself, beaming inside. I made it farther than you ever did.

Word Count: 683
Tags:
Notes: xxx

[Fawn]

Lionstar

The crown is getting heavy
But they've written my name in the stars

"No," said Lionstar softly, his voice tinged with a touch of reproach. "No I don't." Compassion is a weighty request for the oppressed. Golden eyes narrowed, searching for the thread that would lead him to whatever complicated memory or tapestry of memories Pumafang was referring to. Despite his heavy involvement with his Clan, Lionstar could not have eyes everywhere.

He could not see every shadow. Was this another one of those shadows, sitting in front of him? Like Grayowl. Like Mockingbird. Like Magpiewing. Like Adderpool. Foxdung, he hated how easily suspicion grew inside his mind like fungus over a corpse. Pumafang was a good warrior. That his answers were disappointing did not mean he could be painted with the same dark brush as so many others. Pumafang was not exempt from a criticizing eye, however. A cat truly fit for leadership could eat crow and move forward with renewed strength.

"Empathy," he corrected, "is what separates us from cold-blooded murderers. It is what keeps us from being strangers, detached from those around us. Empathy and intelligence are kin, united by the concept of understanding. You walk alone, Pumafang, I know this. If you cannot understand your Clanmates, how can you ever hope to lead them? Or settle disputes? Or share in their successes?"

Lionstar shook his head, his first question going unanswered. Pumafang had not clarified if he was willing to learn these things - and why would he, if he viewed them as weak? The Clan's leader met Pumafang's stare evenly, staring deep into those eyes that seemed to be trying their best to look... neutral. That won't help you here, Pumafang. I need to know what kind of cat I am leaving the care of my children and my children's children to.

"Tell me how you picture yourself leading this Clan. Do not try to honey your words; do not insult me by trying to lie. Tell me what kind of cat you are, so we can be clear about TreeClan's future moving forward."

I've been building up all these kingdoms for so long
It's good to be king

111 Moons || TreeClan || 329 Words || @jet

[Deleted]

BELIEVE IN STRENGTH

Pumafang

TREECLAN - WARRIOR - 45 MOONS

"To prosperity." Pumafang's dead words rolled off his tongue just as Lionstar finished his, answering his leader’s latest question and refusing to address the rest. For now. Irritation boiled under his skin, though he couldn’t understand why. “It's what TreeClan deserves.”

Pumafang felt...disoriented. He was glad his body was pressed lazily against a steadfast branch. Did Lionstar actually believe that charisma offered him anything more than power and influence? The deputy couldn’t help but wonder how commiseration could do anything other than distract from reason and resolution. Decisions must be made with confidence and logic. He told himself, amber eyes still drinking in Lionstar’s passionate gaze. Though Pumafang suspected Lionstar didn’t disagree. His tail twitched.

Was there more? Was he missing out on something that could instill within him even greater power than he already had? Could Lionstar's wisdom be what gives him ultimate influence?

For so long he had felt the heart to be misleading, a brackish ocean sucking its victims out to sea. He had been there, a long, long time ago. He had almost drowned, and since then Pumafang kept his paws on cold, hard ground. Though perhaps he was more naive than he thought. Something so invisible and impalpable couldn’t begin to solve a real, living and breathing conflict.

An opportunist like Pumafang couldn’t resist. He was like a cup with no bottom, and it wasn't often that he could investigate his leader.

“From my experiences, understanding is individual.” Pumafang rumbled. “Intimate even.”

Nothing beats a story told by the hero himself. His tale. His process. It's different when it's repeated by someone else. They weren’t there. They didn’t feel what he felt, or saw what he saw. Smelled what he smelled. Heard what he heard. Stepped where he stepped.

They didn’t think how he thought.
They weren’t him.

“How could you truly understand someone else’s feelings when you’re a bystander, processing their reality from the sidelines?” Pumafang started. “Empathy is an insult. It will always induce either belittlement or exacerbation. A kitten’s broken toy could match the pain of losing a sibling for all we know. Mitigation.” Pumafang continued, voice strengthening in defiance. “Intellectual prioritizing. This is where knowledge overpowers understanding, is it not?”

He didn’t understand. He didn't empathize. He never would. He couldn't help but feel his feelings were immeasurable. Though wasn't it best if everyone's pain wasn't calculated and compared, but addressed and accepted?

Pumafang blinked slowly, intrigue sharpening his gaze.

Word Count: 438
Tags: Fawn
Notes: xxx

[Fawn]

Lionstar

The crown is getting heavy
But they've written my name in the stars

"Empathy," said Lionstar softly, "is a gift. The power of empathy lies not in its complete success, but in trying. Respect is earned. Patience is earned. Forgiveness is earned, if you show a willingness to look at things from a perspective not your own. You do not understand your Clanmates, Pumafang. You do not understand them, because you expect everything and everyone in it to behave in a rational, logical manner. Logic is an unmarked grave, knowing that all things will die. Compassion is your loved ones sitting vigil, because your life meant something. Compassion, sympathy, carefully allowing one's heart to be an active participant in decision-making is the hallmark of a good leader."

Slowly he drew breath, allowing only a few seconds to pass before continuing. "Like the mind, allowing too much reliance on the heart can produce a leader like Darkstar. What do you get, Pumafang, if you listen only to your mind and never the heart? If you look for solutions only, and do not examine the causes? The reasons, no matter how frivolous they seem to you? Distance. Compassion helps connect us, and when you lack that connection, you lack the things that come with those connections."

Trust. Friendship. Legacy. Family.

Lionstar swept his tail in the direction of TreeClan's camp, picturing before them the many varied faces of their beloved Clan. He knew the hopes and dreams of many. He knew their struggles. Their fears. And those he did not know, he tried to know. His reign was long and his temper could get out of hand, he knew this, but never once had he tried to make himself anything out to be bigger or mightier than he was.

"If I acted on logic alone, TreeClan would be very different. A colder place. Unkindness brought on by an adherence to rigid principles and mitigation. Do you think your denmates would fight for expansion for expansion's sake? Or do you think they would fight for the chance to have more food, to make sure their loved ones have the chance to prosper? Logic lights no fires, Pumafang. It merely lets us skirt the flames and keep ourselves at a distance."

Pumafang's dark eyes seemed fathomless, and Lionstar looked as long as he dared, believing the coldness he saw, the devil's advocate smiling back at him to run more than simply surface deep. You have ideals etched in ice, Pumafang. But even the hardest ice can be melted. If Pumafang left this conversation with his mind churning, with his thoughts rushing and colliding and turning over everything he had said, then Lionstar would consider this first task complete. There was so much strength and decisiveness to Pumafang.

His future place of leadership held promise.

But it lacked a heart.

"If you had to, Pumafang, do you have what it takes to motivate your Clanmates to run alongside you in battle? To die, because you have convinced them that your cause is a worthy cause to lay down their lives for? The Code will do some of the work for you, but as a leader, your word, your beliefs, your passion on display will determine outcomes no amount of logic or compartmentalization can get you. There is nothing logical about passion. About the desires of the heart. And yet it is responsible for weaving us all together beyond simply circumstance and lineage."

Lionstar battled that iciness with fire, wanting to stir the thirsting spark of curiosity he thought he glimpsed in the deputy's unbroken gaze. Curiosity was kin with openness. Curiosity was kin with learning.

I've been building up all these kingdoms for so long
It's good to be king

114 Moons || TreeClan || 597 Words || @jet

OC: omg I'm trying to do a good job don't judge Lionstar too harshly, his speech-writer is a hack.

[Deleted]

BELIEVE IN STRENGTH

Pumafang

TREECLAN - WARRIOR - 45 MOONS

Pumafang listened. It was one of the things he did best, though he couldn't understand what Lionstar saw in compassion. It all led back to emotion: or what he liked to describe as turbulent illogicality. Though Pumafang tried. For his leader he tried. For himself. That small spark of irritation he sought out, a glimpse of any feeling, but they vanished with every word his leader countered.

Then, it occurred to him.

Lionstar didn't tell him he was wrong. He just explained to him why he was right, sentences filled with something Pumafang couldn't quite place his paw on. Oh, right. He thought complacently. Garbage. The insults were rich in his leader's speech, demeaning if not blatant. Pumafang's tail twitched, though he didn't give Lionstar the pleasure of looking away. The tom held his leader's gaze relentlessly.

It sounded like Lionstar. Respectable enough not to blatantly oppose a perspective, but convincing enough to make the other party feel like they're wrong. How manipulative. Pumafang thought. Lionstar was far more conniving than he thought, and that offered the elderly tom a touch more respect.

Though Lionstar was a righteous one. He'd been on his pedestal too long, so long that everyone beneath him looked a little bit smaller than himself. Pumafang ruminated over the golden tom's words, the lion roaring and the panther looking on unphased. Patience. That would be what would set Pumafang in his leader's place. It took everything inside Pumafang not to knock Lionstar down, to stifle him below with the rest of the clan where they all belonged.

If there was one thing Pumafang truly hated, it was being underestimated. Lionstar's repeated belittlement made Pumafang's pupils dilate, opening up the tom's soul. It was black, burnt by the fires of rage and disparagement. The only thing that resided there was a shrieking dread, leaking from Pumafang's depths like a sour smell wafts from carnage. He did know one thing for certain.

Just because it worked for Lionstar, didn't mean it would have to work for him. Pumafang felt obligated to offer compliments in spite of the tom's relentless coercion regardless.

TreeClan's deputy shifted slightly. Respect is lost, not earned. He thought, rivaling Lionstar's ideals. Did his leader not accept the legitimacy of an attempt unless it was laced with empathy? Perhaps he did expect too much rational thought in the valley. Pumafang sat unassuming as Lionstar's words rang through his head.

"If you look for solutions only, and do not examine the causes?"

Pumafang felt something boil under his skin, something akin to injustice. Did Lionstar truly think he didn't trace back a conflict to its roots? Just because he didn't commune with sentiment didn't mean he didn't acknowledge it. The tom almost scoffed out loud, but he kept his flat expression, face growing more rigid and icy with Lionstar's accusations.

"The reasons, no matter how frivolous they seem to you?"

Reason was what the valley needed more of, and to say that he was careless? Pumafang's face creased in a snarl and his eyes narrowed. Lionstar was acting like him leading a life of logic would be cold and inhospitable for all of TreeClan. Sure, Pumafang's life would always be, but that was his choice. The clan would live on in a similar light they had been living in. He didn't have to conform them to emptiness, nor would he try. Pumafang pulled himself to his paws.

"Effort should be equally respected, whether it roots itself in logic or compassion." He objected. "So why is it you assume my logic isn't backed by reason, Lionstar? Just because I don't commune with sentiment doesn't mean I don't acknowledge it." Pumafang repeated the words straight from his mind. He hated the feeling, the crippling obligation to justify himself. It was for those lesser, to appeal to those greater, and as much as he despised to admit it, Lionstar was his superior. For now. Disgust tore at his entrails like a badger's claws, though he continued, words dripping from his tongue like gelid poison. "The clans condone the orthodox. The warrior code is the very credo that demands conformity. I'd argue the valley itself is far more influential and infinite than even the worst leader. They run their coarse like mild poison, the valley vindicated from their injustices in due time."

"Besides," Pumafang growled. He still didn't forgive Lionstar for his crude aspersions. "I'd argue it has been your compassion that has led TreeClan astray more often than your dialectics, Lionstar."

He was testing his boundaries no doubt, but Pumafang felt obligated to bring the tom's degradation to light.

If there was one thing Pumafang had learned so far, it was that his next deputy needed an irrefutable heart and a silver tongue. He needed a charismatic speaker. A cat with stoneclad morals driven by the stirrings of compassion, a place where Pumafang was, ironically, in the dark. He needed someone's light to rival his shadow: a cat keen and familiar to dispute without fear of judgement.
Pumafang looked away with an annoyed twitch of his tail.

As much as he hated to admit it, TreeClan needed another Lionstar.

Word Count: 873
Tags: Fawn
Notes: xxx

[Fawn]

Lionstar

The crown is getting heavy
But they've written my name in the stars

"I do not assume you act without reason behind it, Pumafang." He retorted, curt and with a flash of his eyes. "I believe that when you weigh the causes of conflict and the possible resolutions, the emotional impact ranks low on your list of priorities. If the grief a kit feels for the loss of a toy matches the grief felt for a lost loved one, then what does it matter anyway?"

Pumafang was getting angry, he could see it in the hard lines on the large tom's face, the way the shadows seemed to deepen and wrap around the deputy's body. There was a hint of a smile - sharp, antagonistic - that crossed Lionstar's face. There it is, Pumafang. There is that fire you try so hard to hide beneath layers and layers of ice. He did not know what kind of training Goldenflame had given Pumafang to corral the other's incendiary reactions, or if Pumafang had created his own ironclad armor, or if it was some unwieldy mixture of both.

"Besides," Pumafang growled. "I'd argue it has been your compassion that has led TreeClan astray more often than your dialectics, Lionstar."

"I am not without fault," Lionstar's voice was low, quiet but with a hardness he did not try to hide. "I'd be interested to hear your arguments. But this is not a discussion over my moons of service - this is a discussion of what's going to happen when I am gone. I have chosen you as deputy, Pumafang." Do you think I am a fool, Pumafang, to not realize how dangerous you are to my Clan? My family? You act believing your way is the right way, and take offense when suggested otherwise. I have been to the water's edge. I know what arrogance and pride looks like. I have seen my reflection.

"If you cannot handle this conversation without your hackles raising and your teeth bared, then we can end this discussion right now." Lionstar's claws gripped the bark, unconsciously holding firm to his philosophical position as well as his physical one. "You may think this conversation is unwarranted, that I don't have enough faith in you. For that, I apologize, if that is how my behavior has been interpreted. Though I speak of your faults, I can see your strengths before me plain as day. But I have not forgotten the suggestion you made when this trouble with NightClan began. Your solution was to drive NightClan out of the forest, to cull the Clans from five to four. After all they have done, sentiment says I should agree. Logic says I should agree. But I do not. Because I know such a solution would breed more hate than any border skirmish, any wounded deputy ever could. It would birth a hideous cycle far worse than what we have now. When the sun sets on my time, Pumafang, I want to know if you can grant TreeClan the prosperity, the contement, the safety it deserves - without empathy. Without some semblance of moral decency. Without the compassion that is sometimes needed to keep from turning enemies into a nemesis."

Lionstar hovered at the edge of a great divide. On one side, he saw Pumafang, and he wanted to reach him. He wanted to understand the cat to whom TreeClan would be bequeathed. He wanted to give him all the tools Pumafang would need to lead TreeClan - or at least convince him to take a second look at the tools he had already cast aside. Yet another part of him was weary. Tired. Tired of having to fight for everything good in this world; fatigued that he had to spend his golden moons training his replacement when his first choice had been so perfect.

That tiredness seemed to diminish the strength of Lionstar's presence, for just a moment. But the key to his strength had always been his ability to press on - for the sake of others, for the sake of decency, for the sake of living up to the cat this Clan believed him to be.

Lionstar's jaw raised, his posture straightening as if the bones of his back had been reinforced by his sense of duty. "If this conversation is for nothing, and your rule over TreeClan brings prosperity and good health beyond measure - I will humbly take my rest, I will admit my wrongs and I will ponder your words from the stars. But for the sake of this Clan that I love so deeply, I will push and prod and I will pull aside your mask to see what lurks beneath."

I've been building up all these kingdoms for so long
It's good to be king

114 Moons || TreeClan || 729 Words || @jet

[Deleted]

BELIEVE IN STRENGTH

Pumafang

TREECLAN - WARRIOR - 45 MOONS

It hurt.

It hurt somewhere deep, deep down, but that pain was buried so far it didn't even warrant a flicker of feeling in his chest. He sat in silence for a few moments. There was no shame for what he had said, but what made him recoil was the glimpse of tiredness Lionstar omitted. Pumafang was perceptive enough. Everything he knew about social standards was mathematical and calculating: body language was an invaluable key to a cat's soul, and Lionstar was not exempt from his scrutinizing, nor was he exempt from his apparently. Silence was a close friend, but in that desolation Pumafang battled the thoughts away.

From an idea or realization grew emotion, though he never let it sprout, scraping away its life with a suffocating paw if it even showed its face above the ground. The reality that he was never Lionstar's pride and joy, that he never would be, tore into him like a monster regardless. The fact that he was threatened by the figurehead that had been the closest thing to a father he had ever known? It swayed him, and the ground beneath his feet felt softer. For just a moment.

Pumafang didn't need a father. He never did, and he turned out perfectly fine.

He wasn't waiting for a hero, a savior, someone to cry to. Not anymore. His warrior name brought on the responsibility of a man, and "Men don't cry. Men don't ask for help." Pumafang felt bile rise in the back of his throat as his grandfather's words rang through his skull like a rockslide. He hated them. Men only sought to push him down into the dirt, to beat him bloody and blame him for their injustices. Not anymore. Pumafang repeated to himself, his cold ideals expelling all hope of remission. His heart darkened a shade past black, ink-like, a hole to oblivion. Pumafang did the only thing that had ever saved him, something he had done since apprenticeship.

When the world became too much, he shut it out.

Pumafang didn't have any words for Lionstar. It was a draw, and he knew his reticence would be tested tenfold in the moons to come. The question was, would Lionstar find out what he hid in the darkest parts of his mind, or would Pumafang manage to suffice until the tom's demise? TreeClan's panther sat across from the icon that made the clan's decisions his entire life, watching, waiting, envisioning himself in the Ancient Stump. Envisioning himself turning TreeClan into the most powerful clan in the valley.

Isn't that what Lionstar wanted? Isn't that what TreeClan wanted?

"You have time yet, Lionstar." Pumafang’s voice cracked slightly, his deep rumble laced with a crippling emptiness. "Don't waste it on a lost cause."

Word Count: 474
Tags: Fawn
Notes: xxx

[Fawn]

Lionstar

The crown is getting heavy
But they've written my name in the stars

"You are not a lost cause, Pumafang." Lionstar made sure he kept his gaze fixed in place, wanting to meet the deputy's eyes so that he might see the truth to his words. "Every day with my Clan, with my family, is a gift." There was no waste about it.

He could see Pumafang pulling away though, retreating into some dark, cold cavern that existed in the center of his chest. Was he so far in that StarClan could not reach? That words would ring hollow, and not even persistence could drag him back out?

To Lionstar's surprise, he felt that familiar prickling sensation of concern - like a father would a child. Pumafang was no kit anymore, and yet something in the emptiness of his deputy's response reminded him of one. Lionstar withdrew his verbal attacks, letting the weak points in Pumafang's armor go unmolested. Armor was there to protect. The emotional divide that had suddenly widened between them was a defense mechanism.

Lionstar did not try to leap across. Not yet.

This was not something he was going to charge recklessly into. I need to know more. I need to understand you, Pumafang. Sometimes the best way to learn about someone was to speak to their peers. Pumafang's list of 'kin' was short enough to only encompass Blackwater, but Timberfrost had only recently become Pumafang's mate.

Somewhere in the back of the old lion's mind, he privately hoped that the arrival of kits might soften the jagged ice inside the tom's soul. Just a little.

For now, he vowed to set aside some time to speak to Timberfrost, and see what sort of answers he could glean from a she-cat who had been nothing but candid with him.

I've been building up all these kingdoms for so long
It's good to be king

111 Moons || TreeClan || 289 Words || @jet Ghost the Undead Goddess