Clouded Skies - Wake-Up Call Four [p]

[dino.]

// @poppy.

>Buckbranch<

Despite the chill of leaf-bare in the night air, a brown and white shape huddled in an open space of ThunderClan's camp. Buckbranch's dull, mussed fur was not puffed up against the cold. His cheek rested against the trodden grass, while the rest of his body was pulled into itself in a loose ball. Green eyes stared blankly up at the clear night sky, scanning the stars silently. Cindersky's words resonated in him more than he cared to admit, and after a moment of squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his jaw, he let out a heavy sigh and forced himself to untense. ShadowClan scent had long mingled with ThunderClan's—he should have been used to it by now. But Cindersky's voice and Icicleripple's name kept circling through his thoughts, forcing him to notice it every time he inhaled. (Icicleripple... she had not visited him once in his dreams. Was she angry with him, what he had allowed himself and ThunderClan to become? She had a right to be. Was Cindersky right?)

Groaning to himself, Buckbranch shuffled around to bury his face in the grass. Whether it was to shut his thoughts up, or make himself stop staring helplessly at the stars, or an attempt to drive the ShadowClan scent from his nose, he wasn't entirely sure; it just felt right. He wasn't tired, he was rarely tired at night anymore due to sleeping during the day after his long night walks. He'd stopped doing those after Cindersky had gone off on him, but his sleep schedule was still wonky.

A fresh wave of irritation rolled over him and he allowed his limbs to splay out as he let out a soft growl. "Be quiet," he muttered to himself.

The former leader must have looked quite a sight, splayed out in the clearing, with a clearly uncared for appearance, grumbling to himself, in the middle of the night. It was probably not helping to improve his public image whatsoever.

[poppy]

// @Papaya

Someone was SNORING. It pissed Cloudypaw off, to be frank. It was like thunder, rolling out of her denmate's mouth, and the young molly knew she wouldn't be able to sleep or even rest peacefully with that rude little munchkin in there, so the newly crippled molly slipped out of the den.

Her eyes fell on a body splayed out in the clearing. Buckbranch? She saw the tomcat's sides heaving, but she still wanted to pick on him for looking so foolish. Limping up behind him, the apprentice frowned. This guy had been leader? Maybe there's a different Buckbranch. Not exactly knowing how to start a conversation, she decided to give into her late-night snarkiness. "Are you dead?" Again? She wanted to snip, but decided against it. "9 going on 10, eh?" How did it feel, dying nine times?

In defense of her sassy comment, he looked like a fresh corpse, posed like that. He should have known what ideas he would be planting in someone's head, laying on the ground like a dead body. Staring at him, moaning and groaning to himself, flopped out in the middle of the clearing at midnight, she wondered if he was going bonkers. She would, if she had died nine times then was pushed back into life. That would suck.

Plopping down unceremoniously beside him, she fixed her silvery blue eyes one him, tail twitching, and shifting her crippled, splinted leg beside her, trying to become comfortable. Maybe he would yell at her or very least, refuse to talk to her if she didn't apologize for what she said. As anti-social she was, she wanted to talk to this guy. She wanted to understand.

"Sorry, that wasn't very respectful. Dying nine times would be traumatic, I would think, I don't know why I said that. If you'd take an excuse, I didn't get out much as a kit." Yeah, because I was forced to live with an abusive rogue, but not getting out much is... true. I guess. Cloudy settled down, laying on her side, splinted leg resting in a more comfortable position.

"You look kind of stupid like that. Sit up."

[dino.]

// @poppy.

>Buckbranch<

Buckbranch jerked as a voice suddenly spoke out next to him, and lifted his head to stare at the speaker. Oh. Cloudypaw. "Uh." Quite frankly, he was a little flabbergasted at what the apprentice was saying to him, and that was the only response he could muster at the moment. He tried to blink away his surprise as she sat down next to him.

"I mean. You could- you know what, sure, yeah, don't even worry about it." Man, he couldn't even come up with some funny quip to shoot back, that's how bad things were getting. Yikes. "I'm used to those kinds of jokes." Dark humor, one could perhaps call it. He'd gotten used to hearing them over time.

Hastily, he pushed himself up into sitting position. Grass stuck to his chest and belly and cheek and he tried for a moment to brush some off, only to give up in a couple of seconds, gaze drawn towards Cloudypaw's broken leg. Guilt sparked like tiny embers in his chest as he recalled the first day ShadowClan shoved their way into ThunderClan's camp. Had it been that mean-looking brown tabby who'd done that? It had all happened so fast, and he'd... he'd stood frozen.

He swallowed and glanced to her face, looking much like a sheepish kit and not at all like some glorious former leader. "I'm sorry... about your leg. I didn't- I should have done more, to protect you, and everyone else. I didn't- I'm sorry."

[poppy]

|| @Papaya ||

Cloudypaw was startled at not being rebuked. What the hell? She had been disrespectful, that usually sent old cats into a frenzy. Pursing her lips, the apprentice almost felt like she was being cheated out of a scolding. Not that she want to be yelled at... but still. Holy crap. "You... you're supposed to yell at me." She pointed out bluntly, tail switching to and fro. "... you're used to it, but you put up with this bull because.... why?" She became even more aware of his movements, following his gaze as he looked in her direction.

Buckbranch looked at her leg, and she winced. He was going to- yep. Apologies, apologies. Tipping her head back, the crippled molly blinked her silvery blue eyes at him. "I hear that one a lot." It was supposed to be kind of funny, but ended up just being... not funny. Shifting her paws, she stayed silent for a moment after that, not really sure how to follow that up. What did one say after that?

Her mind flash to Cougarivy's torture methods, the teethmarks deep in Cloudy's belly, the clawmarks down her back. Latching onto her leg and then rolling and rolling until her leg twisted so bad that it popped and splintered at the same time. Shuddering, she switched back to looking intently at Buckbranch. Grass was scattered in his fur, and she huffed.

"What are you trying to do with your life?" She said tartly, swiping a pale paw at his messy fur. "It's like you don't have any will anymore. To be frank, you look like crap. What's going on with you? I wasn't even alive when you were leader, but I bet you weren't always like this." Her tongue swiped the inside of her mouth, and she did her best to clear his chest fur of any litter.

[dino.]

// @poppy.

>Buckbranch<

He raised one eyebrow at her quizzically. "...Why would I yell at you? They're just... jokes, they don't affect me." Hell, he'd even cracked a few about the same thing. It didn't make sense to him to get angry at others for doing the same as him. He curled his tail over his paws and tore his gaze away from Cloudypaw's broken leg as she spoke up again.

"Ah, right. I-" Quickly, he cut himself off, a second apology dying on the tip of his tongue. She got those a lot, she said, so why would she want to hear another one? He tilted his head at her curiously, and then jumped as she reached out to brush the grass away from his fur. That... was unexpected. And so was the question that followed.

'What are you trying to do with your life?' Something he'd heard several times before and still had no answer for—or he had had an answer at one point, but no longer did. Gently, he lifted a forepaw to nudge her own away. It didn't feel right to let her try to clean him up when he refused to do so himself, and brushed the rest of the mess out of his coat. 'You look like crap.' What an understatement.

"No, I wasn't," he said after a moment. "And I'm sorry you have to see me in this state." Ah, shoot, another apology. Too late to bring it back now. "I just... I tried so hard to raise this Clan back up and I still managed to screw things up, and now we're back at our lowest point. Hell, we had to bring Dawnstar in to make us fix ourselves, and seeing that? It's crushing."

He tipped his head up to look at the stars. Those same cold, distant, unforgiving stars he'd spent so long cursing because of what they'd done to his Clan.

Maybe it wasn't their fault. Maybe it was his, for refusing to step up when ThunderClan needed him. What did it say about him that he needed to talk to a kid to realize that?

[poppy]

| @Papaya |

The paw he raised gently to nudge hers away was met with a sharp intake of breath, and while she didn't flinch physically, she did on the inside, mentally preparing for him to hit her. Then when instead her paw was moved away gently, she exhaled a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Cloudypaw opened her mouth to apologize, then closed it. Apologize for what? Thinking he was the kind of cat that beat young cats when they did wrong?

Her face dropped to almost hide, looking at the ground, she didn't want him to see her expression. As he finished brushing his fur free, she let out a quiet, shuddering sigh. Then she looked back up. He was apologizing again for something else, probably for a young cat like her having to see an adult like him in a life crisis. I'm not a KIT! She thought through clenched teeth, looking up to meet his eyes with a fiery pale blue gaze. I may be young but I've seen death, I've known loss, I've killed, I've known pain, so stop tiptoeing around me, for the love of stars!

But Cloudypaw stayed quiet, listening to his woes. Instead, her mind flashed to the fire Cindersky had told her about. And for a brief moment, she was back at the Weeping Tree, looking at her mentor's distant face as she seemed to relive the horrors of the fire. "Nectarflame brought Dawnstar here, there was no "we", it was just Nectarflame "taking charge" and making us look like a joke. And there were 3 leaders after you that could have stepped up and fixed things, but they didn't. If you can find a way to turn that around and pin in on yourself, I'd love to hear it."

Her mind flashed to her mother. Promising she would come back... promising. But she still wasn't back, and it had been a hard, painful time since Larkfrost left. But Cloudypaw would be a liar if she said it had been the hardest moon of her life. Her face seemed to fall apart, anger and grief and fear and pain and countless other emotions all taking a turn as her expression. "Believe it or not, the world doesn't revolve around you. The Clan being screwed up wasn't entirely your fault, it seemed to be a team effort, and you aren't helping or showing your regret by being a depressed, useless lump."

Briefly, she wondered if she crossed a line, and her eyes darted to his paws. Even though she was pretty sure it had been established that he wasn't going to beat her, she still glanced carefully at his paws as a habit. But Cloudy had learned an important lesson from the crap she had been put through in her kithood. If someone hit her again, she wouldn't submit and cry. She would hit back.

[dino.]

// @poppy.

>Buckbranch<

Concern flitted across his features at the sharp intake and exhale of breath, and he carefully drew his paw away from her. He wasn't going to strike her, he would never even consider such a thought, surely she hadn't thought so? The look in her eyes changed to something fierce, so suddenly that if he had blinked he would have missed it, and he swallowed as he rolled his shoulders. It reminded him of Cindersky, of Cinderpaw, even of Sparrowflight, and he braced himself for yet another burst of well-deserved burst of anger that would send him reeling.

It wasn't as strong as what he had been expecting, but still there, nevertheless. He listened as she spoke, took in every expression that crossed her face, and something closed around his heart once he had finished. For now, he couldn't quite pinpoint it—perhaps he would be able to do so later. But it was there all the same, not unsimilar to the claws that had gripped him when the other three had spoken to him, the only difference being its lightness.

She was right, wasn't she? It wasn't entirely his fault. It had been a group effort, as she'd said, and of course he hadn't helped anyone by lying around doing nothing. If anything, he'd only added to the difficulties ThunderClan—HIS Clan—faced now.

He watched as her eyes directed themselves to his paws, and carefully wrapped his tail around them. He wasn't sure Cloudypaw had gone through to make her so wary of them, but he didn't want to make it worse. "...You're right. Of course, you're right." A third apology wanted to bubble to the surface, but he forced it down again. "I'll try to fix it. I'll do my best. I just... thank you. I shouldn't need to be told this by someone so young, but... thank you. If you ever need someone, I'm here, all right?"

He offered her a smile, one that was slightly lopsided and made the corner of his eyes crinkle slightly, kind and grateful and gentle in all the ways he could muster.