Post by Phoenix on Oct 17, 2020 21:04:07 GMT -5
nature’s first green is gold
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay
When Sagepaw raced into the elder’s den, her dark gold eyes wide with some combination of harrowing emotions the tabby elder had hoped she wouldn’t experience for many moons to come, Gorsetail was alarmed. When she managed to choke out that he needed to come quick to Falconstorm’s den because Lionstar had asked for him, dread began to coil in the pit of his stomach. When he locked eyes with Feathercloud as they both stood before the entrance to the medicine cat’s den, the growing coil of dread took on a distinctly serpentine shape, lunging forward and wrapping itself around his chest like a constrictor. As if sensing the scene that lay inside and trying to escape before it could collect any more scars, his heart threw itself against his ribs at a breakneck pace.
The pungent scent of blood hung in the air, thick and impossible to ignore. There were three cats in the entire clan whose injuries would compel Lionstar to call him and Feathercloud together to Falconstorm’s den: Sprucefur, Sagepaw, and Acornpaw. The thought of any one of them – or StarClan forbid, all of them (though he had just seen for himself many moments ago that Sagepaw was whole and healthy) – laying injured on the medicine cat’s floor, covered in blood, sent a spike through his heart. Bracing himself for the worst, Gorsetail pressed his shoulder to Feathercloud’s, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
Never had he thought to consider that perhaps it was Lionstar himself who was wounded.
Merciless to the very end, the snake around his chest tightened its coils, and for many long heartbeats, he couldn’t breathe as he struggled to comprehend the sight before him: a regal body broken, marred by a gaping wound in his chest, and long golden fur that he remembered glowing in the afternoon sunlight stained red and matted with blood. He choked out some kind of quiet, inhuman noise, jaws parting in a silent scream. Sobbing, Ivyclaw had curled into her father’s side. Brackenstride sat beside him as if the weight of the world rested on his young shoulders. Falconstorm stood off to the side, and in that moment, the medicine cat’s inactivity silently conveyed more than words ever could.
Vaguely aware of Feathercloud’s noise of misery as the long-furred she-cat collapsed against him, he shifted on uncooperative legs to better support her, struggling to draw breath as the snake around his chest moved to twist more coils around his throat as well. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He wanted to cry and scream and fight against the wrongness of everything he saw before him. He wanted to close his eyes and collapse and fall apart, to curl into someone’s chest and hear whispered promises that everything would be ok, but who else would he turn to for such guidance but Lionstar himself? Lionstar, who had become so much more than just a mentor to a young tabby tom who had never known his own parents. That young tabby tom, whose chest now held an invisible wound matching the visible one marring Lionstar's frame.
“Wormpaw and Featherpaw.”
As if unaware of the fragmenting of the tabby’s entire world, Lionstar chuckled and addressed the two of them by long-forgotten names. Wormpaw. How many moons had passed since he had last heard it spoken? He had lost count, yet just like that, the elder was an apprentice again. Small and shy and insecure, he agonized over Featherpaw’s bitter feelings of inadequacy and the tension his presence introduced into her relationship with the golden-furred leader who had been her mentor first. Entirely unaware of what lay in store for him, he soldiered on under Crimsonpaw’s harsh words and Grayowl’s cold disdain, the first of the many twists and turns his winding path would take. The Lionstar of those days – and the Lionstar who featured so frequently in his memories – was infallible, untouchable. He was the renowned leader of TreeClan, wise and kind and patient and a father to anyone who needed one.
To see him lying there, wounded beyond Falconstorm’s expertise and speaking of the past as if it were— but that’s what it was, he realized with a sudden jolt: goodbye.
If he closed his eyes and ignored the rasp in Lionstar’s voice, he could pretend that everything was fine, that his leader and mentor and best friend had not called them all here to say a final farewell. As the golden feline addressed the she-cat leaning heavily on the elder’s shoulder, the tabby tom himself was sorely tempted to do just that – close his eyes and pretend – but he couldn’t, not when he knew what was coming and simultaneously wanted to commit to memory the light and life that still remained in those familiar features.
Lionstar didn’t let him hide anyway. Whether he knew it or not, the older tom never had, the weight of his expectations always pushing his apprentice and warrior and deputy and friend to do better.
“Gorsetail.”
At the sound of his name, the snake around him tightened and sank its fangs into his heart. Another noise, a cross between a pained moan and anguished whimper, escaped him. Lionstar spoke of his unwavering faith in the elder’s selflessness and love, but the words did not provide him with even a fraction of the comfort they were supposed to. But you taught me all of that! He wanted to argue. How to be kind and patient and compassionate – I learned all of that from you. And now you’re—
Did Lionstar even know how much he mattered to him? Had he ever stopped to tell the older feline just how important he was, just how much of an impact he had had on the elder’s life?
“My son.” Even as Lionstar addressed the current deputy of TreeClan next, the phrase bounced around in his skull. My son. My son. My son. The tabby elder didn’t want this goodbye. It wasn’t enough. Stop talking! He wanted to scream, suddenly desperate to get in his own farewell before their time ran out. Time – there was no time – there had been so much time, yet he had wasted it talking of other matters, of clan business, of war, when he should have stopped to thank Lionstar for all that he had done and to tell him just how much he loved him.
I am who I am today because of you, Lionstar. The words wouldn’t come. He tried to force them out but it was like trying to speak around a stone lodged in his throat: they fizzled and died long before reaching his tongue.
You took an orphaned kitten under your wing and gave him the love and support to grow into someone who has only a fraction of your generosity and kindness.
Lionstar was leaning into Pumafang’s shoulder now, growing weaker with every word.
You have always been there, taught him more than anyone else, and even if he never bothered to tell you, know that he has always loved you for it.
Desperation swelled within the tabby tom. With Feathercloud leaning on his own shoulder, he was frozen in place, unable to move. He turned on himself.
Say something, anything, you useless lump of fur!
Ivyclaw and Lilybreeze reluctantly exited the den at their father’s request. Brackenstride was the last to leave, with a horrible broken noise. A part of him, the tiny part not fighting a panicked battle against his body’s limitations, approved. Kits did not deserve to see their father die. They deserved to remember him as he was. There were others who could bear witness to Lionstar’s final moments.
In the end, death came silent and swift. Golden eyes closed for one last time. Were it not for the stillness of his frame and the gaping wound in his chest, Lionstar might have been sleeping.
“Father,” He croaked out finally, far too late to be of any use. You are the father I never had. The walls of the den came crashing in over the tabby tom, who felt in that instance more like Wormpaw than Gorsetail. He couldn’t even say goodbye properly. How was he to look after the clan when he couldn’t even force a single word out of his mouth until it was too late? How could he teach anyone what it meant to be a TreeClan warrior when the very cat who embodied all of those ideals had bled out in front of him? What did Lionstar’s regard for him matter when the tom himself was dead and he was left, alone and unprepared, to pick up the pieces?
What did the strength of his love matter when even the ferocity of his love for Lionstar couldn’t stop the leader from dying?
There was no greater thing than love, Lionstar had said. But there was: love wasn’t enough to stop death. If there was no greater thing than love, then StarClan would send Lionstar back and give Wormpaw more time to find the right words to say. If there was no greater thing than love, then StarClan would realize that Wormpaw had no idea how to even imagine a TreeClan without his beloved mentor and friend and father at the helm, and they would send Lionstar back to teach them all what Wormpaw never could. And they would send Lionstar back to heal his shattered heart.
The frantic desperation to say something – anything – to Lionstar had evaporated, leaving behind a hollow emptiness that had his shoulders sagging as he stared at the lifeless body before him. The untouchable, infallible leader of TreeClan was gone, and in his place were instead limp remains, frail in old age, small in death. There was gray in that golden fur, he noticed, and his pelt was not as full as it had once been. In the end, Lionstar, too, was mortal. And now he was gone.
It would be Pumafang’s job to tell the rest of the clan, as if word of Lionstar’s passing wouldn’t have already spread through camp like wildfire. It was just as well that it wasn’t Wormpaw’s—Gorsetail’s job anymore. He wanted to run and hide and scream at the world, but his limp ensured that he would never run again and there was nowhere he could go that wouldn’t remind him of who he had lost and once he started screaming, he had no idea if he would ever be able to stop. He didn’t know if he would have been able to pull himself together enough to even stand on top of the Ancient Stump and not collapse as he thought about who should have been standing there instead, let alone manage to find the right words of sorrow and comfort to tell the clan.
What words could be more than mere platitudes in the wake of such a beloved cat's death? How could anything anyone could say ever be enough to break the deafening silence or to fill the empty space left behind by a life departed?
Gorsetail didn’t know. For the first time, he found himself feeling grateful for his life-changing injury; an inability to talk meant that no one would expect him to speak, and that was just as well, because he had no words of comfort to offer to anyone.
Not even himself.
The pungent scent of blood hung in the air, thick and impossible to ignore. There were three cats in the entire clan whose injuries would compel Lionstar to call him and Feathercloud together to Falconstorm’s den: Sprucefur, Sagepaw, and Acornpaw. The thought of any one of them – or StarClan forbid, all of them (though he had just seen for himself many moments ago that Sagepaw was whole and healthy) – laying injured on the medicine cat’s floor, covered in blood, sent a spike through his heart. Bracing himself for the worst, Gorsetail pressed his shoulder to Feathercloud’s, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
Never had he thought to consider that perhaps it was Lionstar himself who was wounded.
Merciless to the very end, the snake around his chest tightened its coils, and for many long heartbeats, he couldn’t breathe as he struggled to comprehend the sight before him: a regal body broken, marred by a gaping wound in his chest, and long golden fur that he remembered glowing in the afternoon sunlight stained red and matted with blood. He choked out some kind of quiet, inhuman noise, jaws parting in a silent scream. Sobbing, Ivyclaw had curled into her father’s side. Brackenstride sat beside him as if the weight of the world rested on his young shoulders. Falconstorm stood off to the side, and in that moment, the medicine cat’s inactivity silently conveyed more than words ever could.
Vaguely aware of Feathercloud’s noise of misery as the long-furred she-cat collapsed against him, he shifted on uncooperative legs to better support her, struggling to draw breath as the snake around his chest moved to twist more coils around his throat as well. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He wanted to cry and scream and fight against the wrongness of everything he saw before him. He wanted to close his eyes and collapse and fall apart, to curl into someone’s chest and hear whispered promises that everything would be ok, but who else would he turn to for such guidance but Lionstar himself? Lionstar, who had become so much more than just a mentor to a young tabby tom who had never known his own parents. That young tabby tom, whose chest now held an invisible wound matching the visible one marring Lionstar's frame.
“Wormpaw and Featherpaw.”
As if unaware of the fragmenting of the tabby’s entire world, Lionstar chuckled and addressed the two of them by long-forgotten names. Wormpaw. How many moons had passed since he had last heard it spoken? He had lost count, yet just like that, the elder was an apprentice again. Small and shy and insecure, he agonized over Featherpaw’s bitter feelings of inadequacy and the tension his presence introduced into her relationship with the golden-furred leader who had been her mentor first. Entirely unaware of what lay in store for him, he soldiered on under Crimsonpaw’s harsh words and Grayowl’s cold disdain, the first of the many twists and turns his winding path would take. The Lionstar of those days – and the Lionstar who featured so frequently in his memories – was infallible, untouchable. He was the renowned leader of TreeClan, wise and kind and patient and a father to anyone who needed one.
To see him lying there, wounded beyond Falconstorm’s expertise and speaking of the past as if it were— but that’s what it was, he realized with a sudden jolt: goodbye.
If he closed his eyes and ignored the rasp in Lionstar’s voice, he could pretend that everything was fine, that his leader and mentor and best friend had not called them all here to say a final farewell. As the golden feline addressed the she-cat leaning heavily on the elder’s shoulder, the tabby tom himself was sorely tempted to do just that – close his eyes and pretend – but he couldn’t, not when he knew what was coming and simultaneously wanted to commit to memory the light and life that still remained in those familiar features.
Lionstar didn’t let him hide anyway. Whether he knew it or not, the older tom never had, the weight of his expectations always pushing his apprentice and warrior and deputy and friend to do better.
“Gorsetail.”
At the sound of his name, the snake around him tightened and sank its fangs into his heart. Another noise, a cross between a pained moan and anguished whimper, escaped him. Lionstar spoke of his unwavering faith in the elder’s selflessness and love, but the words did not provide him with even a fraction of the comfort they were supposed to. But you taught me all of that! He wanted to argue. How to be kind and patient and compassionate – I learned all of that from you. And now you’re—
Did Lionstar even know how much he mattered to him? Had he ever stopped to tell the older feline just how important he was, just how much of an impact he had had on the elder’s life?
“My son.” Even as Lionstar addressed the current deputy of TreeClan next, the phrase bounced around in his skull. My son. My son. My son. The tabby elder didn’t want this goodbye. It wasn’t enough. Stop talking! He wanted to scream, suddenly desperate to get in his own farewell before their time ran out. Time – there was no time – there had been so much time, yet he had wasted it talking of other matters, of clan business, of war, when he should have stopped to thank Lionstar for all that he had done and to tell him just how much he loved him.
I am who I am today because of you, Lionstar. The words wouldn’t come. He tried to force them out but it was like trying to speak around a stone lodged in his throat: they fizzled and died long before reaching his tongue.
You took an orphaned kitten under your wing and gave him the love and support to grow into someone who has only a fraction of your generosity and kindness.
Lionstar was leaning into Pumafang’s shoulder now, growing weaker with every word.
You have always been there, taught him more than anyone else, and even if he never bothered to tell you, know that he has always loved you for it.
Desperation swelled within the tabby tom. With Feathercloud leaning on his own shoulder, he was frozen in place, unable to move. He turned on himself.
Say something, anything, you useless lump of fur!
Ivyclaw and Lilybreeze reluctantly exited the den at their father’s request. Brackenstride was the last to leave, with a horrible broken noise. A part of him, the tiny part not fighting a panicked battle against his body’s limitations, approved. Kits did not deserve to see their father die. They deserved to remember him as he was. There were others who could bear witness to Lionstar’s final moments.
In the end, death came silent and swift. Golden eyes closed for one last time. Were it not for the stillness of his frame and the gaping wound in his chest, Lionstar might have been sleeping.
“Father,” He croaked out finally, far too late to be of any use. You are the father I never had. The walls of the den came crashing in over the tabby tom, who felt in that instance more like Wormpaw than Gorsetail. He couldn’t even say goodbye properly. How was he to look after the clan when he couldn’t even force a single word out of his mouth until it was too late? How could he teach anyone what it meant to be a TreeClan warrior when the very cat who embodied all of those ideals had bled out in front of him? What did Lionstar’s regard for him matter when the tom himself was dead and he was left, alone and unprepared, to pick up the pieces?
What did the strength of his love matter when even the ferocity of his love for Lionstar couldn’t stop the leader from dying?
There was no greater thing than love, Lionstar had said. But there was: love wasn’t enough to stop death. If there was no greater thing than love, then StarClan would send Lionstar back and give Wormpaw more time to find the right words to say. If there was no greater thing than love, then StarClan would realize that Wormpaw had no idea how to even imagine a TreeClan without his beloved mentor and friend and father at the helm, and they would send Lionstar back to teach them all what Wormpaw never could. And they would send Lionstar back to heal his shattered heart.
The frantic desperation to say something – anything – to Lionstar had evaporated, leaving behind a hollow emptiness that had his shoulders sagging as he stared at the lifeless body before him. The untouchable, infallible leader of TreeClan was gone, and in his place were instead limp remains, frail in old age, small in death. There was gray in that golden fur, he noticed, and his pelt was not as full as it had once been. In the end, Lionstar, too, was mortal. And now he was gone.
It would be Pumafang’s job to tell the rest of the clan, as if word of Lionstar’s passing wouldn’t have already spread through camp like wildfire. It was just as well that it wasn’t Wormpaw’s—Gorsetail’s job anymore. He wanted to run and hide and scream at the world, but his limp ensured that he would never run again and there was nowhere he could go that wouldn’t remind him of who he had lost and once he started screaming, he had no idea if he would ever be able to stop. He didn’t know if he would have been able to pull himself together enough to even stand on top of the Ancient Stump and not collapse as he thought about who should have been standing there instead, let alone manage to find the right words of sorrow and comfort to tell the clan.
What words could be more than mere platitudes in the wake of such a beloved cat's death? How could anything anyone could say ever be enough to break the deafening silence or to fill the empty space left behind by a life departed?
Gorsetail didn’t know. For the first time, he found himself feeling grateful for his life-changing injury; an inability to talk meant that no one would expect him to speak, and that was just as well, because he had no words of comfort to offer to anyone.
Not even himself.
to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die