Private StarClan dragon in the new warm mountain, i believe in you // thornstar

[rowanpaw]

☼ Ever since learning about Starclan, Rowanpaw has been trying quite desperately to… to go there, to see it– she'd left the clearing at the four trees before the star speckled cats had come down, and there's a lingering thought, a small ember– that her littermates are up there, and her mother, her birth mother…

In an attempt to connect better with the stars, tonight, she'd dragged her nest to the mouth of the apprentice's den, so she could see the stars and the moon as she fell asleep. It seems… that perhaps it had finally worked, whether it be her stubbornness or the fact that she was sleeping in the cold beneath the stars– something had worked, anyway, because when she opens her eyes, she's not in the camp anymore, but lying in a wide field, not unlike the one she'd seen in her dream after she fell from the tree– although here everything was tinted in shades of blue, flowers twinkling like stars.

She gets up, stretching her legs, flexing her claws against the soft earth. She looks around, listens– it's quiet here. And where is here? Is this Starclan? It would be nice if it was. It seems like a good place to rest. She walks around for a while– whether it's minutes or hours, she's not sure.

Time seems strange here, soft and malleable, bending in on itself and stretching out… eventually she sees a shape shift into view, a familiar back, though somehow softer. Perhaps he isn't as malnourished, here. Perhaps here, he never runs out of prey. She's almost too scared to speak, like if she does, he'll disappear again. Slip out of her paws, like he had only hours after she'd become his daughter.

"Haw– Thornstar…?" She says softly, carefully. She hasn't said his name out loud since they dragged his body back into camp, broken and bloodied. She hadn't called him… not since that night. She could barely bring herself to think it. But if that's really him, if he's... and she misses her chance... "Father?"

creator, you destroy me

you know my hunger well.

• ooc: @Thornstar
• 

  
  

  rowanpaw, 9 moons, thunderclan apprentice
  russet furred she-cat, lawful neutral
  healing and soft powerplay allowed

 

[Thornstar]

"That you still deem me worthy of the honor of that name despite leaving you as I did, I have no words but I'm thankful for it." The tabby striped tom smiled, expression warm despite the chill his presence often accompanied, he steps forward, becoming more visible with each paw placed until he was cloaked in a wreath of the stars that made up his incorporeal form and could present himself before the apprentice properly. She's grown, not a lot, but enough its noticeable. When Serpentberry made the russet molly her apprentice he had not been sure how to feel but those mixed feelings faded the moment he realized it would let him be a little closer. Thornstar knows, deep down, that clinging to his old life did no one any service but his blood was still freshly spilled, it had only been several moons since and he struggled with letting go more than he realized he would.

"We have sensed your need to speak to us, I was more than happy to be the one to answer it." The stars, still burning but freshly sparked, struggled sometimes to know when they were being called upon; perhaps it was a combination of distance, perhaps it was not being used to the tug of mortal tethers once more, the ancient StarClanners especially didn't seem to feel the earth below as they once had, countless moons of being dormant and unremembered taking from them the feeling of life pulsing under paw. "What is it you seek, little tree?" He sits, curling nearby and if he were visible to any without the blistering lights and translucent pelt it could have been a father and daughter talking into the night. Thornstar wishes he had gotten the proper chance to be a parent, both for Rowanpaw and his kits but she at least had met him and he knew in knowing the heartbreak was all the harsher. It didn't matter what she wanted, he was just content to be here and he would be fine being trapped within StarClan for a period after to recuperate from the visit if it meant reconnecting with his kin. If it meant being there for them.

 

[rowanpaw]

☼ Worthy, she thinks, what does he mean? Of course she found him worthy– he had agreed, hadn't he, to adopt her and her brother? He had chosen to be her father, even if only for a moment… he becomes more solid, but somehow more ethereal as he steps closer to her. He speaks again, his voice warm, though the blueish glimmer around his maw gives away the cold of reality of death.

"Too many to count," she says, settling down beside him. She's afraid to touch him– afraid he'll fade away into the night once more if she does, like he's only a mirage. Although, perhaps he is. She's not sure. "I… I didn't get to see it, when the Starclan cats arrived that night after the battle. Maple took me away– after he'd… after he'd killed that cat, the one that tried to kill me, and…" she shivers once more at the memory, pressing her eyes shut. "It was all my fault, that cat died because of me," she mumbles, fighting off tears once more, tears she'd already shed when she told Serpentberry, tears that she knows won't stop coming if she lets it start. She shakes her head, swallowing roughly. "I believed, I did– but I wanted to see it for myself too, I wanted to know… if– if my mom, my birth mother… my litter mates… are they– are they here too…?"

creator, you destroy me

you know my hunger well.

• ooc: -
• 

  rowanpaw, 9 moons, thunderclan apprentice
  russet furred she-cat, lawful neutral
  healing and soft powerplay allowed

 

[Thornstar]

Being a parent was not simply a task nor decision made lightly, it was a gift - it had always been a gift and Rowanpaw had given him that gift in accepting him as a father. The big family he'd always wanted existed, even if he was not there to care for them, to protect them; in a way it was bittersweet, he would not miss anything gazing down from the stars, but he would also never be a part of it.

A pale nose touches her temple gently at the tears, he wishes he could touch in a more meaningful way but at the very least he could rustle fur like a cold breeze, a whisper of something affectionate.
"That death was not your fault, even before becoming a medicine cat you have taken the burden of life onto your shoulders but sometimes cats simply die. That is the nature of things, your brother did what he had to do to protect you and no cat could condone him for it-nor should you in carrying the weight of guilt."

He is quiet for longer than he intended, his star spotted pelt flickering as his gaze drifted briefly upward, "No." He says simply at first, his tone soft, "To join StarClan you must know StarClan, cats who do not simply exist elsewhere in a place we can also visit but is so vast it seems almost impossible to find a single soul at times. It's peaceful there. My father is also somewhere in its mists, I would wish to bring him to StarClan with me should I find him and...we can do the same for any cat if you so choose." Purrgatory was a place he did not often travel but had drawn his interest plenty over the several moons since his death, it was both its own sanctuary and a divide; a barrier between the stars and...something else. Something unknown and a little scary.
"Don't cry, little tree, death is never the end of things-in a way its just another path we all travel."

 

[rowanpaw]

☆ Thornstar reaches out, his nose brushing her temple, a cool feeling rippling across her fur, like a cold wind on a hot summer's day. His words of comfort reach her, wrap around her, but… the weight does not ease. That any cat should die for her to live… she doesn't like it. But she stays quiet, waiting for her father to continue, nodding. She cannot hide her disappointment, but why should she? He is her father, after all.

"I… I'm not sure," she says, eyes leaving her father to fixate on something far off. "She was… I don't think my mother liked me very much. But I still miss her sometimes. As for my littermates… they were all stillborn, so… I never even got to meet them. I don't remember what they look like, I never saw them– Maple buried them before I opened my eyes. I'm not sure I'd know them even if I saw them. That sounds horrible, doesn't it?" She says, and the tears that had been threatening to fall for so long finally do, quietly so, and she squeezes her eyes shut. "Perhaps they're happier together, without me. My mother would just… she would just be angry that I was bothering her, I think."

She swallows roughly, shaking her head. "But I have you now, and Serpent, and… and Maple. And the kits, too. They're… they're wonderful." She looks back at Thornstar, eyes still brimming with tears, and smiles. "I'm sorry, I've just been talking about myself. You must miss them. I… before all this, before I knew about Starclan, when I thought death was just quiet blackness, nothing– I didn't think about how hard it must be for the cat that died. But to you, it's probably like everyone else died, and you're the only one living, right? You're up here alone… watching us down there… like we all left you behind." She sniffles, ears flicking with irritation as the tears keep falling. "But I'm the one crying like a kit. I'm sorry, I… I've tried to be strong, I really have. For the kits. Because I… at least I got to know you, just for a bit."

Another sniff, which turns into a choked sob as she leans forward and cries, digging her claws into the starry dirt. It was all so unfair.

☆ ROWANPAW. 14 moons
mentored by serpentberry,
adopted daughter of serpentberry and thornstar
peaceful powerplay allowed
ooc -