Closed Thread A Belated Return

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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It had been longer than usual when Petalsnap returned, Sunbear had noticed quickly, in spite of the lack of chatter from her, she was still as observant as ever. And while she didn't admit such things to any other cat, she worried about Petalsnap. She was Emberdawn's sister, Sunbear was sure she would never hear the end of it from one cat or another if Petalsnap had gone missing too. Aspenberry... Cedarpaw... Sunbear was shocked that the WindClanners were still in such high spirits.

When Petalsnap approached with a limp, Sunbear's eyes locked onto Petalsnap in an almost commanding way that called for attention, a wordless judgement... or perhaps a speechless question of 'What in the name of StarClan happened to you?' but her expression gave up its harshness as she took a glance around the territory. All the cats that seemed to allow her here were almost completely gone. The cats making her feel like she had a true place here that wasn't sitting around taking up space, they had died. She had living kin, of course, but Fennelwhisker was gone, Honeystar was gone, Aspenberry was gone. It was a matter of time and training until Rowanglade would be joining her and the other elders too. Where had the time gone?

"After you go get that sprain taken care of, mind sharing that rabbit with me?" 

The reason people have problems is that they have too much time to think.

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Petalsnap's ears tilted back guiltily when she caught sight of Sunbear's expression. She straightened and braced herself for a lecture that didn't come. Petalsnap nodded in response to her offer, relieved. She supposed Sunbear would want her to explain herself while they ate.

After dropping the mouse in the fresh-kill pile, Petalsnap set the rabbit down near the talking cliff and said, "I'd rather eat first— I'm starving. My paw should be fine as long as I stay off of it. It isn't broken." That was what Nettleplume had told her, anyway. She didn't mention her other reason for avoiding Rowanglade: the medicine cat might want to examine the injury herself, and if her methods were anything like Nettleplume's it would be painful. 

Petalsnap settled down near the rabbit and waited for Sunbear to take the first bite.

"I'm really sorry for being back so late. I ran into some trouble on the RiverClan border. You weren't… um, waiting for me, were you?" She couldn't keep the embarrassed tone out of her voice.

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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"Worried? Not really." Sunbear answered Petalsnap honestly, giving her ruddy fur a shake before her claws ripped into the fur of the rabbit, pulling the fuzz out of the rabbit until there was enough room to tear into it and take a bite. "If anything, I was curious as to what was keeping you." Sunbear added, curling her tail as she craned her neck to rip a piece of gamy flesh from the rabbit.

"Emberdawn, however, he was a little concerned for your safety. He'll be glad you're not gravely injured." Sunbear added, she had been Emberdawn's mentor before she retired, it was and honorable experience before her body started getting the better of her, but she promised herself that she'd never be some bedridden scrap of fur covered in ticks and who knows what. 

With a gruff huffing sound, she leaned over to the rabbit again to take another bite from it. After she chewed, she turned back to Petalsnap. "What sort of trouble?" She asked bluntly, not planning to pry if she didn't want to tell her, but curiosity did still nip at her like a stubborn tick.

The reason people have problems is that they have too much time to think.

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Petalsnap relaxed. If all Sunbear wanted was a story, she would gladly accommodate.

“Well, I was hunting near Treapass point.” Petalsnap took a bite of rabbit and swallowed before continuing, “Then I heard a yowl behind me. I turned, and there was the RiverClan medicine cat with a hawk diving at him. I got to him before the hawk did, thank StarClan. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to kill it, but it flew off after I attacked it. I couldn’t leave him alone out there knowing the hawk could still be around, so I escorted him back to RiverClan’s camp.” 

Her tale concluded, Petalsnap dug into the rabbit some more.

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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Petalsnap's tale brought a light twitch to Sunbear's torn ear. She had no doubt that the story was true, at least to an extent, Petalsnap had the sprain and the stale scent of the river to prove it. She simply nodded at her, she would be the last cat to judge another for meddling with other clans. Ol Clanswapper Sunbear, as she might be known as. That was just what she was named by clanmates now, she accepted the insult as fact, as she did with most things.

"I'm glad RiverClan isn't down a medicine cat." The dark colored she-cat gave her forepaws a few licks before waiting for her turn for a bite of the rabbit, but she was in no rush really. Just... not necessarily glad, but not upset that another cat had accepted an invite to talk, a more compassionate cat even more so. "So that's why you were gone so long, sprained paw and a trip across the clans. You must've had an exciting day."

Sunbear's words weren't laced in destain, just that stone faced demeanour that she displayed rather often. something that rarely changed if ever. It was true that she didn't really go out much to see other clans, the furthest she would argue was meeting Dawnflurry, ShadowClan's deputy, near Fourtrees, but that was moons ago. Part of her wondered if she'd ever find an old clanmate back there, but the other part of her knew that very little that were her clanmates back then were her clanmates now. It had been a long time. Petalsnap only ever knew Sunbear to be a WindClan cat, so did many others, more than likely it was something in common with ShadowClan.

The reason people have problems is that they have too much time to think.

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Petalsnap had always appreciated Sunbear's straightforward manners. Too much talk could be tedious, too much emotion would turn any interaction cloying. Sunbear was a little like Nettleplume, Petalsnap realized. In the ways that endeared them to her, anyway. She nodded.

"That's one way to put it. If you can believe it, Nettleplume scolded me for saving him!" Petalsnap laughed. "He's hilarious— dour as a rock. I wonder if he only acts like that with me because we're from different clans."

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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"Maybe he was worried the hawk would kill you instead?" Sunbear answered, hawks were dangerous, no matter what type of hawk it would have been, those things always have intention to ruin someone's day, maybe that's why one of her littermates were named after them. She concealed a chuckled at the thought.

Sunbear stretched her jaws out in a yawn, twitching her nose as her mouth came to a close. But it was when she glanced back over to Petalsnap. "What you did was a noble act but it was a dangerous one. Perhaps he hoped WindClan wouldn't suffer more than we already have." Perhaps Sunbear was overthinking it a little, she didn't know how to think like Nettleplume, but if she had gotten a hawk fought off for her, she take a snap at the cat for risking their life just for her own.

The WindClan elder took another, tentative bite of the rabbit's innards and rasped her tongue over her maw to rid herself of the blood across her teeth. "I'm sure the other cats would be glad you're back... virtually, unharmed." She added that harsh expression still present as she glanced at the hurt paw on Petalsnap. But her eyes softened slightly when she looked back to the warrior. "Anything else new with you?"

The reason people have problems is that they have too much time to think.

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Petalsnap considered Sunbear's words as she chewed, then shrugged. She was probably right. 

At Sunbear's implied accusation, she flicked an ear and glanced away, a bit embarrassed to be reminded that she had injured herself. 

"No, not really," She replied honestly. Lately, her waking hours had been split between patrols, training, and hunting. It could get lonely; she couldn't always find clanmates to join her on the latter two activities. "Anything new for you?"

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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Sunbear new the returning question would come when she had thought about asking about Petalsnap's recent ventures, but she knew there wasn't much of an answer she could give that made the truth seem appealing. Sunbear shrugged, the old she-cat straightening out some of the slight knots in her thick and puffy chest fur.

"I'm an elder, I eat, sleep, watch over the camp, go on the occasional walk... not much else if not getting the occasional visit from the kits." Sunbear replied, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that Sunbear was rather bored of what her past grief had brought her to, and this was considered the best case scenario. A huff left her muzzle as she glanced back at Petalsnap. "Basilflame will occasionally come with me, on my walks, but the most interesting thing was me running into Dawnflurry late last leaf-bare. It gets rather... boring, getting old." Sunbear spoke, she didn't expect Petalsnap to recall immediately that she had hailed from ShadowClan lands. It was past her time.

"I don't usually complain, but I've sort of... gotten used to death and things of the like, there's very little that surprise me anymore to be honest." 

Sunbear's eyes moved to the rabbit, suddenly, she felt a little less hungry than she did before. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to? Maybe she just wanted some sort of presence, to ease the boredom. "You know, WindClan wasn't where I was born." She hummed, flicking her tail around herself, if the rest of her life was going to be boring, might as well tell some cats the facts of where she came from, why she left. Hopefully some cat won't see her as any less. Even if she was well used to it by now.

The reason people have problems is that they have too much time to think.

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Petalsnap just barely suppressed a shudder and an exclamation of sympathy as Sunbear described her daily life, though she could hardly have expected a different response. Getting old sounded like an absolute nightmare. She sincerely hoped StarClan would take her before she had to retire. 

Right, Sunbear was from… ShadowClan, wasn't it? Petalsnap recalled her mother mentioning it to her at some point. The information had lain undisturbed in her mind along with all her other memories of the cat who had borne her. Coming from another clan must have been horrible, she thought. The shame of it! Petalsnap assumed most cats would prefer death to leaving their clan for another—and rightfully so! She herself was proud of her WindClan blood. Sometimes she even pitied the cats of other clans for their lack of it.

"Really? Why did you come to WindClan?" She asked. 

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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"It was the only place I knew that would make me feel safe." Sunbear answered honestly, curling her tail tightly around herself at the memory, having to leave her first litter due to the nightmarish behavior of her mother and littermates because of them. "The cats I was supposed to be able to lean on let me fall until I had no other choice but to lean on another." She added, glancing over to Petalsnap. Did she really care about all this? or was she just asking out of courtesy? Sunbear wasn't sure.

With a sigh, Sunbear looked at her paws and then looked back at the young warrior "Some cats didn't see me as their own, I never really expected them to. Some still don't, but StarClan had said that I was meant to be here. Meant to be a WindClan cat. I had Basilflame a few moons later." Sunbear continued, an almost pleasantly nostalgic look in her eyes that darkened with an unpleasant memory. 

"Yet they still punished me, Basilflame had a littermate, I named her Hazelkit, but she died before her first moon. Saw it as some sort of divine punishment. But maybe it was just circumstance." She murmured, finding a small twig on the ground and rolling it back and forth absently with her paw. "It still hurt like StarClan cut claw wounds in my heart though, her personality was just peaking through, then she died, I requested to bury her. She was my responsibility." She sighed, giving her paws a clean.

"But that's in the past. I've seen far more death than you have. It's not something new to me." She added, a little louder this time. "Sorry if I dampened your mood today, you asked and I got carried away."

The reason people have problems is that they have too much time to think.

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Petalsnap listened intently, the rabbit left forgotten on the ground between them. The story saddened her, but that was the bittersweet joy of companionship: to feel another's pain and triumph, to make marks on a fellow creature and be marked yourself.

When Sunbear finished, she shook her head. "No, I really don't mind. I was right there when Aspenberry died, actually." Realizing that the statement might make Sunbear feel obligated to express sympathy, she added, "No well-adjusted cat can afford to be jumpy about death. Especially since we have StarClan to look forward to." 

Death was just, well, death. Green-leaf gave way to leaf-fall, and even now the pair of them stood over the remains of what had once been a living creature. To Petalsnap, it felt sentimental almost to the point of indecency to mourn cats when she took lives every day. Life wasn't a right; it was a limited resource like any other. What had Aspenberry lost when she left her body and returned to the sky from which she had come? Some time with her family, perhaps, but time that would almost certainly be made up when they went to join her. 

Like the sun, I may burn fiercely, but it's my fire that warms those I hold dear.

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Sunbear's ears drooped in the relaxed way of an elder that had been through more than she deserved and had the time to relax. She took note of the rabbit that had been left ignored by Petalsnap and pulled it toward her with a large paw. "That's how I imagine it. Nothing here is guaranteed, not even our safety. Learning that early in life is a lesson that gets carried with you forever." Sunbear sighed. She knew Aspenberry was going to die eventually, she just didn't think that the time would come before Sunbear's.

She still recalled the little spotted kit and her sister wriggling at her belly next to Basilflame in the nursery. It was almost as if time had ran away too fast for her and Aspenberry had been taken with it. But thus was the way of life. But Sunbear couldn't help but miss her, even if some cats deserved to grief her more than she was. There was a little bit of peace in the fact she wouldn't need to wait very long for them to meet again. For her to meet all the lost cats she had missed throughout the moons.

"I look forward to joining StarClan." She added, a comment that was slightly off the cuff but it was the truth. "But that doesn't mean I want to go anywhere anytime soon. I'm just not afraid of when that day comes. I've still got moons in me yet." the ruddy she-cat stated as she took another bite of the rabbit, of which was slowly ebbing away into fur and bones. "But you best get that sprain looked at before it the damages becomes permanent. From what I've seen, you've got no intentions to join me in the elders' den any time soon."