Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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Dawnflicker was unsure. Unsure about her place in Summerclan, her new rank, how to make everything up to Sunstar, specifically. She was unsure about everything. Surprisingly, admitting her guilt and apologizing hadn't resolved her of all the terrible feelings that came with it — her parents had been colder than ever recently, still upset about her recent absence and even more upset at her involvement; they hadn't taken the time to be proud of her for becoming the first Coast Guard, hardly acknowledged her new name change, her new self. And one thing was still weighing on her mind. Doefreckle, the recent exile. She had feared the same fate, had drawn Aspenstar to their lands because she couldn't keep her mouth shut, and yet she was off the hook. As she usually did when her head needed clearing, she left camp early, went on a walk, first down to the beach, to admire the early waves before realizing the sand was a little too cold and retreating, wandering briefly before heading out towards the thunderpath.
It was a strange place to go, not one she visited frequently due to her distaste for the scent. Beyond, the land sloped gently, giving way to unclaimed land for a little while before delving back into clan territory. It was a peaceful, chilly morning, thin snow clung to the ground, the road was half slush due to the warmth of the sun. Winter never lasted too long in Summerclan, always flipped between chilly and sunny, an uneven sort of season that was either always running late or staying too long. It was quiet, peaceful, and she found herself sitting down, staring down the path as it ran south, looking north to view the other side of its endlessness, then forward, towards the land beyond. After a few more long minutes, she got to her paws, tail swishing over the blanketed grass and pebbles that littered the edge of the thunderpath, went to turn and leave before something vaguely familiar caught her eye, a cat that almost made her heart stop. But she didn't pull her eyes away, met his head on from where she stood, frozen halfway in something akin to a crouch, like he had interrupted. For a moment, nothing moved.
He hadn’t been skulking around the edges of SummerClan, just pitifully looking in at it — he hadn’t. But when she appeared, the shining beacon of all he’d lost, he couldn’t hold back beyond the border anymore. Doe didn’t acknowledge to himself that this was where he had died, didn’t dwell at all on the safely tucked-away memories of bright yellow head lights, brittle screech as it swerved, pain — to him, it was just a meaningless scar on the landscape, unimportant and bleak. If he thought about it, he’d never stop cowering, never stop crying. So, in true Doefreckle fashion, he just marched, as best a cat with a broken paw could march, across it like it was any other surface not worth the faintest second thought, keeping his brutally icy gaze on Sunfreckle or whatever the bloody hell she was calling herself nowadays the whole time.
“Careful,” he laughed, and the boyish sweetness of his voice would almost be enough to make someone lower their guards, if it weren’t for the bitterness in his eyes, “you might meet some pretty tyrant out here again and give away more trade secrets.” He smiled at her, tilting his head. “But that’s alright,” he continued in a softer, reassuring voice, little more than a whisper, “everyone else but you will be the ones to pay the price. So, no harm done.”
He was angry, furiously angry; and though it wasn’t precisely at Dawnflicker herself, because truthfully he didn’t blame her very much at all for a slip of the tongue to Aspenstar — if Aspenstar was going to find out, she was going to find out, it was an irrelevant mistake that, really, he had sympathy and a gently aching heart towards her for — someone had to face the redirected aggression he couldn’t level at Rosethorn. Because where was the justice in that, where was the fairness — that she should be pregnant with Pinesimmer’s kits, about to bring his poisonous legacy into the world, and remain deputy, remain Sunstar’s closest advisor and friend, while he was run out of his home. How did intention factor in at all? How was that the deciding factor as to whether a crime was forgivable or not? So he’d known about Ratstar — he hadn’t done it to hurt his friend, it hadn’t been about her at all. But he was guilty. And Rosethorn was innocent. And poor Dawnflicker was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, again.
He missed Shaded. He missed Sunstar. He missed his den, his weird daughter, his stupid flowers. He missed it all so much. He was sick with it. And that grief, that bottomless grief that he could see no way out of because Sunstar was never going to stop being angry, made him volatile. He didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to be mean — but he was hurting and it seemed like no one else was, and if he wasn’t mean then he was going to break down and cry. This was the only thing keeping him going.
First, Dawnflicker looked at him fearfully, nervously, apprehensive as she waited on the cusp of his words, watched as he crossed the road with enough ease to send her stepping back. She wanted to be bitter with him, for no other reason than she felt she had too echo Sunstar’s distaste, to convince herself he had deserved it and she shouldn’t feel bad. But it was empty, meaningless. Secondly, when he spoke, she met him with a defiant, borderline offended look, because who was he to talk? She could feel his anger, his resentment, and it settled into a fresh knot of guilt, but she continued to meet his eyes.
“Careful,” she echoed, “you might get caught. Summerclan certainly wouldn’t like to find you so close.” Though it was clear she didn’t mean her insult in the same way Doefreckle did, that she only returned fire. She had never been the confrontational type, never the one to fight or argue, would gloss over wrongdoings and misdemeanours, stay quiet about the things she’d done wrong — save for the few cats she showed any real bitterness too, her sister for ‘replacing’ her, Vulturemalice for a similar thing — and now, she was entirely faced with the problem. There was no running, no forgetting, no keeping it quiet.
“You know I didn’t mean to do any of that —“ her voice was quieter, like she was attempting to convince even herself still. “Not like you, you knew what you were doing.” There it was, the hints of anger that she usually kept locked away. Dawnflicker felt less inclined to be the perfect, happy child since she had first left, tried to fit into the role again on return to no avail and simply stopped trying, and even though her words held no real weight, it was a step away from what she would have said before, when she was trying to hide.
Doe could have gotten angry, wanted to get angry, could have snarled so prettily and lost his temper and said all sorts of nasty, personal things like he did when he was panicked and cornered and had no other way to regain his pride or get back the upper hand but to deny and attack — but instead he just deflated. His shoulders drooped; a desperate, hunted look appeared in his eyes, like the Doefreckle from a second ago had just been a disguise and this, the frightened, pleading one with no way out, was the real one; and he pulled his lips back in a wounded exhale, eyes darting across the ground and head sagging.
“I know,” he replied, and it sounded like a tired, desperate keen. He paced in one direction and then raised his head to look up at her, eyes bright with the need to be understood, to be listened to. “But I wasn’t thinking. You must know what that’s like. I was hurting from some stupid break-up and I’d never properly dealt with my feelings about being usurped by Ratstar and I was out of my mind with pain from the night of the invasion — and I wanted to hurt and be hurt.” He suddenly whipped away from her, breaking eye contact and going back to his frantic, limping pacing. “Too much information, I’m sorry, it’s a problem of mine… But I really did just go in there that night to have my paw treated.” He looked up at her again, fell still, stared at her with miserable eyes like he had to be believed — he had to be believed or it would kill him. And then he was looking down again, returning to his pacing, letting out a wretched little breath. “I don’t know what happened,” he finished in a scared, quiet little voice, so defeated. It didn’t explain all the other times, but then Doe had a problem with addiction to bad things; it was something he was working on even harder since his exile, something he was beginning to see real, positive, meaningful change in, but it wouldn’t matter to anyone else. They wouldn’t see the small stages of progress, wouldn’t believe him — they’d just see the big, glaring mistakes.
“And anyway,” he continued in a more abrupt voice, his tail lashing once, because he could never go for very long being vulnerable before he had to put the walls back up again and lash out, just for good measure, just to keep everyone else but Shaded away, “if you hadn’t been so stupid, we wouldn’t be in this mess — sorry or not, you still did it.” He was silent for a few more laps before finally huffing out in a soft, defeated little bubble of a laugh, too drained and faintly nauseous from living in a state of stress for so long not to, “it’s pretty ironic, though, that two siblings caused such hell for us both. Me and the inferior calico -freckle.”
It was almost funny how much she related to him — sometimes she didn't think, sometimes she acted out of impulse, she always avoided her real feelings — so, as he continued to speak, her rough expression turned into one of sympathy, avoided eye contact just as much as he did, eyes cast to the ground. Then, without lifting her head, she looked towards him again, the kind of look that said she believed him. But I really did just go in there that night to have my paw treated. Suddenly, quietly, she laughed, a light sound that was an attempt to break their tension, "and I was just escorting her to the border." When she'd dropped her off, thought over their conversation, how well she had thought of Aspenstar after she left, how polite and kind she had seemed, Dawnflicker really thought she'd done what a good warrior would do. She had been stupid, giving out so much, and she didn't even realize it at the time, because then it had just been pleasant conversation.
Sorry or not, you still did it. She cringed, but nodded through it. A silly thought, to think that it would blow over with Doefreckle the same way it had with Sunstar, that her acknowledgement of the fact would mean it made everything better between them. She felt almost confused, had the need to still defend herself yet admit her guilt once again. "Yeah … sometimes I can't just keep my mouth shut," her words were edged with another laugh, a more humourless one, acidic and sardonic.
"I feel the name might be cursed." She shrugged. It wasn't the reason she'd asked for it to be changed. Sunfreckle simply never felt hers, really, and technically she hadn't earned either. She had left before she even got her warrior name, hated not feeling good enough in Summerclan yet couldn't bring herself to ditch the territory, stuck near the edges, the Witch's House, where the flatlands turned into slopes. She was simply given it upon return, and the fact always weighed on her, even if it was near the back of her mind. She didn't earn anything, but she supposed she earned Dawnflicker.
She looked over her shoulder, towards the expanse of Summerclan, nodded north where the road stretched on, asking him to follow. They could stick around the edges, but she didn't want to stand there. It felt too idle, awkward, stiff.
And I was just escorting her to the border. Doe raised his eyes, same as her, without lifting his head, and just held her gaze — soft, like he finally understand what she had been trying to say for moons, like he was afraid to believe she actually understood him too, was willing to lay both their crimes aside and quietly close the door on them. Finally one corner of his mouth tipped up into a little smile and he let out a soft breath of laughter, dropping his eyes again. Sometimes I can’t just keep my mouth shut. “I never have that problem,” he replied in a dry, quiet voice, scuffing his paw across the ground to let out the bit of anger still scraping at him. At her half-joke about their suffix being cursed, he let out a snort, eyes still on the ground. God, he even missed the ground. “It was fine before you took it,” he muttered, all Doefreckle arrogance and refusal to accept his own culpability, to admit he’d ever done anything wrong, but it was a lazy joke; clearly it wasn’t ever fine.
When she nodded further along the territory, Doe raised his gaze and eyed her warily, slightly standoffishly; he still didn’t particularly like her, they weren’t friends, and exile had made him more distrustful. But, finally, just because he wanted to be within SummerClan’s borders again and she’d be a convenient shield for his transgression if they were caught, halving Sunstar’s wrath onto herself, he stood and followed, still keeping his distance. As he limped along beside her, he hardly acknowledged her at all, just drank in as much of SummerClan’s sights, scents, feelings like he was starving for even the faintest hint, and he was. His eyes became wistful and loving and sad, full of hungry yearning, and he looked to and fro, at every bird and every beetle. The cranky Doe disappeared and this soft one who’d found the only home he’d ever cared for here took his place. Being away from it was torture; being here was heaven, if he could forget for just a few seconds that the clock was ticking and he wasn’t welcome anymore; but having to leave it all behind again would be worst of all, like ripping his heart out all over. Taking Doe out of SummerClan, taking SummerClan out of Doe — they were impossible things. And he hadn’t even realised it till it was done, till it was gone. More than anything, this was the purest love story he’d ever been part of.
Finally, though, he remembered Dawnflicker and cast a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. A moment later, remembering his manners, he turned his head to look at her fully. The guard was back a little over his eyes; it dared her to say anything about his emotional lapse. “You don’t have to do this, you know. We hardly know each other. We’ve always moved in different circles.” He was more popular, he meant. They ate on opposite sides of the cafeteria. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. You’re very… sweet.”
She felt a little worse, unsurprisingly, as she watched him look around, could see just how much he missed it. She was directly going against Sunstar's orders, knew she'd be upset if she ever found out, but she still thought she should make it up to him somehow for the exile. She believed it wasn't the best solution — there were many other ones that didn't involve sending him away, she could think of a good few off the top of her head, but maybe that was her painfully simple, good nature speaking. She wasn't sure where she stood with him; they weren't friends, not even acquaintances, they'd gotten off on the wrong foot, there was still a slight tenseness to the air around them, and she felt uneasy, but she didn't dislike him, particularly.
She gave a slight twitch of her whiskers, "Yeah, hopefully it'll get better now that I've changed it. Dawnflicker, now, let's hope I don't ruin that too." It was slightly scathing, because she was in the deprecating, self-loathing mood today. Though she attempted to cover her words with a slight breath of a laugh.
You’re very… sweet. She laughed nervously, gave a small, genuine smile, "it's really no problem — besides, I prefer to move around, you know?" A canopy of trees lay ahead, sided by a sloping, grassy wall. For a few moments, she let her gaze trail it, before turning back, watched as the road slowly curved and, eventually, turned into a different direction. She knew they've always been on different standings — the previous leader of Summerclan certainly a bit above a failed medicine-cat apprentice, because no matter how nice and welcoming the clan was, there would always be cliques. She was the one everyone could recognize, liked to make pleasant, one-off conversation and help whoever she could, but didn't have many friends outside of that, never formed lasting bonds, and perhaps that's why she always found herself sharing too much with cats in different clans, trying to make connections where she couldn't.
"But, uh, I really hope you're ... you know, good. Safe, I mean, right now." She felt the urge to apologize for it, but pushed it down, because she hadn't been the one to exile him. Now it was just awkward, tight conversation, the worst kind of small-talk built on a mutual conflicted feeling and the knowledge that, really, he shouldn't be here at all, that she should be keeping her distance.
At her jibe about herself, Doe looked up with a grin, trying to soften the mood and guide her away from that line of thinking; as sad and angry as he was, however selfish, however bitter, he was still gentle, and however reluctant and tired the feeling might have been now, like forcing himself up out of a dark, heavy pit, he still couldn’t stand to see her being cruel to herself. “Well, it’s nice — but you’re still plagiarising me. Like, first -freckle, now a D and F naming sequence — if you’re totally obsessed with me it’s fine, you don’t have to pretend. I’m obsessed with me.” His smile was big and boyish, and he’d reverted from posh talk to slang; he could feel himself growing more relaxed. He’d never been daunted by social situations.
But, uh, I really hope you’re … you know, good. Safe, I mean, right now. He dropped his eyes again, head bowing, and his smile faded. The tiredness seeped back in. “I’m fine,” he shrugged, because he was always fine. His voice was slightly tragic, how hard he was trying to sound unbothered. Strong. “I like moving around too, so… it was about time I moved on, I suppose. From SummerClan. I’d been there a bit long.” He flashed her a smile that was meant to be reassuring but that just looked pained, and looked down again a moment later. It had been true, once, but it wasn’t anymore. He’d found where he wanted to spend the rest of his life… But he supposed he had to start looking again. The thought was exhausting. Heartbreaking. Empty. He wasn’t that young, cheerful tom anymore. He wanted to settle.
Breathing in the fresh, cold air, he looked up and forced a dimpled smile back on his face, looking out over the trees. “I hardly ever come down here. Came down here, I mean. Everything’s always centred around the meadows, the witch’s house… It’s nice, to be reminded there’s more to the territory. Was more…” He let out a soft laugh, the constant slip-ups and corrections wearing him down, ramming it home every time that this isn’t your home anymore. “Sorry. Uh, are we going anywhere in particular or are we just gonna walk till we smell a patrol and then you’ll throw me off the path and I’ll land in a bramble thicket and have to stay quiet while you talk to them like nothing’s wrong until they leave and then I get out and say ‘phew, that was close’ and then we laugh about our close call that brought us closer together and strengthened our unlikely, mismatched bond in the face of shared trauma?” He smiled at her, tired and joking.
Dawnflicker didn't believe him, couldn't with the way his shoulders sagged, how he refused to meet her eyes. She had always been the type to be on the move, but her limits were always the Summerclan borders, but she'd never realized that, maybe, that lifestyle would drag on, that eventually you would have to settle. His chance to do so was taken away. She stayed quiet, looked up towards the sky, admired how the leafless branches made a spiderweb into the sky. There was no returned smile, just the silence she had let settle, like she wanted his words to sink in.
Somewhere far-off, one of the rivers thundered, aggressive due to the slowly melting ice. Uh, are we going anywhere in particular — she laughed, "hopefully we don't need to do the second option, but if we had too … I can make a very good distraction. I have this dance routine I've been practicing, I'm sure they'd be enamored." Not really (only sometimes, when she was alone and absolutely convinced she could dance). She didn't exactly know what he meant by shared trauma, because as far as she was concerned, her entire life had been a perfect, blissful dream, and all her stress and unhappiness was unfounded and ridiculous. Suddenly, she skipped ahead, jumping, straight-legged, into an elevated pile of snow, sending flurries around her, watched as they clung to her fur. As she jumped ahead, seemingly engrossed in her own little world, she matched her steps up until it created a long, single line of pawprints until she grew bored, looked back at Doefreckle like she just remembered he was trailing behind her.
"I wasn't planning anywhere particularly, but I did have my own little secret spot somewhere up ahead, I think," not counting her place under the deck of the Witch's House, that was a different place entirely, "I would hang out there sometimes. Are you a good climber? My sister wasn't, I always had to help her up," she laughed, but it was a forced thing, "it's still near the edge of the territory, don't worry, I liked the view here but I haven't been there since, like, before I left."
I have this dance routine I’ve been practicing, I’m sure they’d be enamoured. Doe let out a genuine laugh, soft and dainty, and gave her a little half-grin, the wariness in his eyes beginning to dissipate. When she skipped ahead and leapt into the snow pile, he just limped along behind, very used to being left behind and forgotten; not melodramatically, just in a natural, tranquil way — it was the way of things, the thing he was used to after his daughters. They ran ahead, he watched them in the distance and slowly, unhurriedly, caught up by the time they’d collapsed out of exhaustion in some thicket. So, he just watched Dawnflicker with that same calm half-attention, glancing at her with a small smile every so often between just looking around.
“Am I a good climber?” he echoed with a blunt, involuntary snort of derision when she wandered back to him and stopped, raising his brows at her as he leaned a bit of his standing weight on his broken paw. “Think very hard about it, Dawnflicker, and I think you’ll figure it out.” Really, he wasn’t terrible — he’d somehow scrambled up the Gathering tree the first night he’d spent out with Shaded, when he’d fallen asleep against him — but the attention-seeking part of him liked to make it out to be much harder than it really was. Everything was more difficult, more pitiable. But on this path to redemption, you had to leave him some toxic traits. Like he didn’t know why she was still hanging around, even though he’d just been the one to make out like it was an issue, Doe raised his brows higher and gave a pointed nod forwards, inviting her to lead the way. Then a boyish little grin spread across his face and he trot-limped after her. “Y’know, I’m in a better mood already,” he told her with self-deprecating cheerfulness, his posh language relaxing into slang. “Being rude and bossy always cheers me up.” He laughed. “Sorry. I could totally say living with the League is rubbing off on me but really I’m just completely obnoxious all on my own. Mama would be,” he hung his head melodramatically and gave it a little shake, “so proud.” He raised his head and beamed at her; now that he’d opened up and stopped letting the popularity rankings divide them, he was his usual sunny self. The hazing was over. They were officially friends. This was the side the general hoi polloi of SummerClan didn’t get to see: Sunstar, Rosethorn, Shaded, the ones he liked and the popular ones, they got soft, bashful Doefreckle, or catty, gossiping Doefreckle lounging with the she-cats in the evenings and holding court on the correct side of camp; all the others, the ones who didn’t make the cut, who didn’t get the party invites, who weren’t in the right crowd, they got prissy, aloof, arrogant Doe. These easy jokes — had he still been in SummerClan, it would have meant she was in.
“So,” he continued with that same open, warm cheerfulness, trot-limping along beside her as she led the way to wherever they were going, happy to let her take control. Their calico pelts both glowed yellow in the wintry sunlight. “Why’d you leave, anyway? I don’t really remember.” He didn’t remember her at all. “I swear, though, it’s like some curse just came down over SummerClan, y’know? At that time. I don’t believe in curses but, man, if I did…” He chewed on his lip, looking out over the gold-washed trees as he bounced along. He didn’t notice the way she said ‘wasn’t’ about her sister; when he was in his self-absorbed mood, Doe wasn’t the best listener. And right now, he was thinking about fun times in the past.
attempting to shake all the evil character vibes from my system
She grew very awkward, apologetic, in a simple moment, giving Doefreckle a look of horror like she had just said the worst possible thing ever, like he would damn her to hell for it, and his sarcasm wasn't particularly helping. She looked around for a moment as if it would ease her, "Uh … maybe I … misjudged," her words came out slowly, like she was testing them out as she spoke them into existence, practically sweating bullets the entire time. She turned away quickly, face burning, and moved ahead, leading them towards the spot she had claimed as an apprentice, and hopefully she actually remembered where it was. Being rude and bossy always cheers me up. She laughed, a little tightly, because being rude and bossy always made her feel terrible afterwards, even if she couldn't stop it at the time, and she could hardly understand where his joy came from, but he had recently been exiled so perhaps she could simply let him have it. He was being friendly with her now, all previous grievances essentially gone to the wind, forgotten about, and now she had to work on truly being comfortable with him (though she probably shouldn't, Sunstar wouldn't be too happy, she'd be betraying her all over again, but caution be damned — she felt bad).
Occasionally, she would let him catch up, walk along beside him for a moment before speeding ahead again, something similar to a scout, peeking through bushes and behind trees for danger (though she wasn't really … not often, at least), like Doefreckle was fragile. He wasn't, she knew that, but what she was really looking for were other Summerclan cats.
Why’d you leave, anyway? Dawnflicker paused, opened her mouth as if to say something before closing it again, though perhaps she was just shocked at the bluntness of the question. She didn't mention that she was born after he had already died. Perhaps Summerclan was cursed, in the strange, sunny sort of way where you wouldn't expect anything to be wrong in such a beautiful place, but everything under the surface was dark and depressing and desolate. But it wasn't quite that either. It had just been her.
She moved ahead a little, looking around, attempting to find a certain familiarity in her surroundings, "well, I guess I was upset," she started, quieter than usual, but not allowing any sort of regret into her voice, "but I didn't really leave … I say it was more like a break. I had just dropped my position, which I felt terrible about, and then my sister took it over just after me and that felt sort of like salt in the wound, you know? I don't really blame her, personally I think she would have done much better than me," there was a silence after the words, but she quickly moved on, "I think my parents were mad at me, but I was mad at them too, so I sort of just … left? I never actually completed any training, funny story," she didn't laugh, "and by the time I regretted it I went, oh, it's too late to go back now they probably think I'm dead! And so I waited longer." She had just met the guy and already he was subject to her life story, apparently, but maybe it was the fact that she had just met him that made her all the more willing to share, to be open, because it wasn't like she would be seeing him around any time soon, as much as she felt bad that the thought had crossed her mind at all.
Looking around again, she spotted a great oak in the distance, branches spread wide and thick, leaving a nearly flat space in the middle — her face lit up suddenly, "oh! There it is, look," she hoped the tree was distinct enough. At the bottom was an old den dug out, a small thing, presumably left by a fox decades before, and the roots formed naturally around it. She used to hide whatever she'd found in there, or occasionally sat there herself.
As Dawnflicker led them along, deeper into SummerClan territory but still so achingly close to the periphery, Doe’s gaze filled with more longing, but now it had a true purpose, someone he was truly hoping to see. He craned his neck up every few moments, looking over every far-off bush, eyes picking out every patch of tall grass with a sad sort of hopefulness. And every time he lowered his head again, every time he gave up, it was a tragedy. While Dawnflicker dreaded an encounter, Doefreckle ached for it. It wouldn’t be too hard to arrange to see Shaded — he could send a message with Bluebelldream or, now that WinterClan was so intimate with SummerClan, Lilydawn, which he was sure she would have loved, being an errand runner. Or he could just hunker down at the border until he inevitably came to hover wistfully by SpringClan. But, for whatever reason, he hadn’t done it yet. And he missed him. Missed him like he was missing half of his heart, like he was half a soul trying to breathe with most of himself miles away, past trees and meadows. Sometimes, lying in the silent, incense-sweet emptiness of the cathedral, gazing sorrowfully at a water stain in the old stone wall with his mind hollow and quiet, he felt like he could almost hear the SummerClan camp, like he could almost see it, but all the shapes, all the colours, were blurred. Like he was there with him. Like he was him. Now, he wanted more than anything to ask about him from Dawnflicker, but he stayed silent, head bowed and limping steps heavy.
“Mmm,” Doe hummed as he listened to her, head still down, eyes on the ground. His heart ached with a weight he’d hardly known before. “I know the feeling. It’s easier, sometimes, to torture yourself than it is to do the thing your heart really wants to do. ‘Sometimes’ — always.” He snorted quietly. “It’s the purest thing in the world, and yet somehow we’re still so stubborn.”
When she stopped, he looked up, eyes finding the sprawling oak. Ah, marvellous, he wanted to say. A tree. But he held back. Instead, he replied, in a quiet, tired voice that echoed with genuine earnestness, “we have oaks in SummerClan?” He still forgot it wasn’t we anymore. Doe limped closer, gaze so sorrowfully interested. So innocent. “When I was in NightClan, there was an oak I really loved. It was a little like this.” Half circling around it, head tilted back to take it all in, he finally scrabbled up the low trunk, using his hindpaws to push himself up when his broken forepaw failed. On the flat centre, he looked around for a moment with a small, far-off smile, caught up in memories he had never been fond of until lately, before limping over to the base off a wide branch and, with surprising inelegance for Doefreckle, flopping down upon it, neck stretched out so his chin could lie flat on the bark. “It was a lot like this, actually,” he whispered, eyes closed. For a long while, he was silent. And then, finally:
“How’s Sunstar?” he breathed, eyes still closed, and his voice was little more than a whisper. Like if he didn’t ask the question loudly, it didn’t count. He hadn’t asked it. Doe had calmed down since his fight with her, had settled into wallowing in terrible, nagging guilt, and now it felt more like a bitter, guilty friend break-up, where one party checked up on the other without wanting to seen to be doing so and would deny it if accused, and not a leader exiling a warrior. He cared about her, even if he hated her. But, as terrible as his exile had been, it had also given him a time for healing and growth like he’d never had before — not even when he’d spent two years with nothing but time, nothing but regret. Already he felt different. Lighter in a way he couldn’t describe. Calmer. Softer. Being forced to confront all the pain, all the sadness, he’d spent his whole life running from was gruelling, and terrifying, and heartbreaking, but it was something he had to do. He’d spent too long hurting others for his own fear, his own pain. It was time. And being able to finally breathe without his chest hollowed out by self-hatred, or hollowed out a little less, was a feeling like no other. One that almost made him proud of himself. Almost. Small steps.
She didn't miss his ache, his yearning for Summerclan. She understood at one point, even if she never properly left — the territory was nice on its own, held its own beauty, but she liked the cats; it wasn't a home without them, as distant as she had been when she came back. Dawnflicker pretended she didn't notice, instead pointing out the nice things they found along the way like flowers and beetles, always having some life story to attach to it that always went on for longer than it probably should have. As the oak came into view, she nodded at his question, "yes, of course! You find them more in the deeper deep lands, but there's a few on the edge of the territory too, like here!" She skipped ahead, tail waving contently behind her, and raced up to the tree ahead, staring up and taking in its beauty, letting nostalgia wash over her. It was almost a surprise that he was so quick to follow and clamber up — she was going to offer to help him, had her mouth open to ask before she closed it and followed. The flat centre was smaller than she remembered, more cramped with the inclusion of herself and Doefreckle, but she made it work, bunching her muscles and placing her feet close together. Her tail wrapped around her paws, twitching.
How’s Sunstar? Dawnflicker blinked, looking out towards Summerclan territory as if the name would summon the leader herself. She thought it over for a moment. "She's. . . she's good. I think a little stress, but she's. . . she's good," then her voice lowered, "personally, I think she regrets it. You know? Exiling you and all. A split decision — because if she didn't, I think she would have exiled me." It was the only thing that made sense. Dawn knew they were close, she'd seen them talking in camp, chatting aimlessly. If Doefreckle wasn't out, or with Shadedsun, he was probably with Sunpetal. "Everyone is good." She added as an after thought.
"I'm sorry about it all, by the way. I don't think it's fair."
