A decision looms above him. Meadowpaw had offered it to him, though not directly; her eyes had shone with something akin to hope, or even desperation, if Bengt really thinks about it. Plopping right in the middle of Clan life had not been a plan of his... but he hasn't exactly minded, not when the cats of WindClan had more or less accepted him without a second thought.
"Yes, Dustystar?"
Dustystar approaches him on a sunny day, and she offers him power.
That's not all that it is about, of course. Dustystar, too, is putting her trust in him: she is asking him to put aside his previous life and to assimilate into WindClan fully. His paws had stopped working—an act that seems to come naturally nowadays—and his attention is on the leader fully, expression betraying nothing while she speaks. Bengt cannot say he hadn't expected it. He had not known
how to expect it, is all.
And despite the late night talks with Meadowpaw, he doesn't have an immediate answer for Dustystar. It is not something to be decided on a whim... but then again, Bengt doesn't have much, if anything at all, to lose. He thinks about his days spent aimlessly; though he had grown to adore the simplicity, the freedom that comes without responsibility to anyone but himself, he knows deep down that he doesn't want to
end it that way. A purpose... isn't that what he always wanted? Even in the face of his parents' wrath and their disappointment, all those seasons ago?
"A healer,"
he says at last, turning the word over in his mouth like he has heard it for the first time.
"You probably don't know this, but I haven't exactly been known to heal."
he offers an ounce of honesty without it sounding like a direct rejection. Dustystar deserves as much, if she is ready to make him into her subordinate. Bengt looks down at his paws as if to make a point, the ones that still peek out from behind his tail due to their sheer size. His claws had only ever dealt damage—torn flesh, spilled blood. The only times he had used them to mend something had been to serve himself.
Then, he thinks about Owlbear and Gorsepaw. He had helped them without much to gain himself, hadn't he?
His mind circles back to power. These cats are expecting him- no, hoping to hear him say yes, so that he can fill a role that had gone vacant unexpectedly. It's an almost maddening thought for someone like him.
"I've been assisting Meadowpaw as a thank you for saving my life,"
he continues, words picked carefully.
"I've been taking care of your Clanmates as a thank you for allowing me to stay."
Now his stay comes to an end—because surely, he cannot stay without bearing the name of a "warrior" forever.
"I see no reason not to continue."
