[silver.]

batpaw
he/him // 16 moons

---

It didn't matter how exhausted he was. It didn't matter how heavy his eyes were or how his paws ached. Once all the formality was finished with he didn't need to waste any more time talking to cats he didn't care about. Not even Dawnstar herself mattered to the young tom. Not ever, really, but especially not in this exact moment. Not bothering to politely excuse himself he makes his way to the apprentice's den with a lack of grace only a half-blind creature such as he could possess. Once at it's entrance he stares into the darkness with an owlish expression, one iris a bright, gleaming, familiar orange, and the other more dull. Clouded. Different. Ugly. But even if it was something that marred his appearance it didn't seem to bother him. Because his eyes were upon her. The one he had been anxious to see again.

Midnightpaw.

There she was in all her glory.

Without a lick of hesitation he pushes forward, past the entrance and closing the space between them. Gently his forehead meets her shoulder and rests there as he finds comfort in her familiar scent. Her warmth, her very presence. She was still here. He didn't come back to find her missing just as he had been. Snatched away in the night on an outing he shouldn't have been on. The cavern of gleaming silver had drawn his attention that night only to begin the suffering that was his time away from Shadowclan. But he didn't care to think about that right now. All he could think about Midnightpaw, Midnightpaw,

"Midnightpaw."

Stars, the last chant of her name marching around his mind escapes him into the silence of the den but he doesn't regret it. Doesn't flinch or recoil at the sound of his own voice-- at the sound of it using her full name instead of the nickname he had gotten so comfortable with saying. He missed her. Worried about her. Wanted nothing but to get back home to see her again and return to the way things had been. Of course he knows things will never be like that again but it's a soothing thought nonetheless.

He was home. He was with her again. Midnightpaw... He was home.

midpaw | @Omari