"No, no. I would have brought Mothbite if I wanted to waste daylight and dream. Our conversations tend to be less cryptic than bugs."
Wolfpack let out a humoured huff at the words. Sable wasn't wrong about that much.
"True." he relented, " But at least Cicada doesn't scowl at me like I kicked them out of their own nest whenever we talk. Just uses me as a walking storage unit."
The deputy didn't mind it, though, in either circumstance. Mothbites unfriendliness towards him was neither unexpected nor a nuisance to him. Just a curiosity. And it was Wolfpacks own paws that often stilled rather than carry him past whenever they spotted their healer out foraging, caught by something familiar, something he thought he might recognize.
From there the conversation turned to… other matters.
When Sablestar had first claimed to have been made 'champion' by a spirit who wished to resurrect their extinct clan, Wolfpack had called bullshit. There was nothing after death, most definitely not spirits with the power to grants extra lives to the mortal realm. The temptation to prove Sablestar a liar had been strong– to just kill him and take the clan for himself until someone was good enough to knock him off his throne– but perhaps suspecting the threat that sat looming over them, Wolfpack was placated as Deputy instead.
But after the situation with the bones. The strange things he'd experienced but couldn't give reason to. The shared dream that some of them still got upset over. It was hard to be completely skeptical. To not at least think that something was going on. He'd spoken to Cicadabuzz about it somewhat, but it was all still just words. Nothing tangible. Nothing he could see or experience for himself.
The spirits, if they existed, didn't speak to him or the rest of the clan.
So when the ink and bone tom began to speak of it all, Wolfpack listened. Not because he believed Sable was above lying to him, but because until the spirits chose to reveal themselves to him, the word of his leader and medicine cat was all he'd ever get, it seemed.
And Sablestar delivered.
Ridiculous. Was his first thought, his nature having always been bound to the reality he knew– but was it, really? If a cat could die and become a spirit. If that spirit could speak to the living and grant them extra lives. Why couldn't there be entire clans of dead cats as well? He had so many questions. So many suspicions. What business did the dead have with the living? Why had Starclan chosen Hawthorne? And what had made her choose Sable?
Just when he was about to ask what the point of telling him all of this was, the other tom drove the final nail home.
"I want you to do it."
For a moment, Wolf was sure he'd misheard, but the more the shadowclan leader spoke, the more the mottled tom realized that wasn't the case.
"Kill me. This life is yours."
His sharp exhale of disbelief was enough to tell the other just how he felt about that, but just in case their were any misconceptions, Wolfpack would say it to his face, also.
"Dogshit. What is this, some kind of test?" The words weren't snarled or spat, but it was clear he didn't buy it. That he didn't understand why Sablestar would want to throw a life away just because he was scared. Assuming he had the lives at all. "You need to know if I'll stay loyal or show my teeth the first chance I get? Is there a patrol waiting in the brush to jump me if I do?"
It wasn't a bad idea. Tempt the beast, prove it's dangerous, then eliminate it.
But Wolfpack had been given plenty of chances in the moons since Shadowclan formed. What would be the point in doing this now and not earlier?
Wolfpacks brows furrowed as he studied the other tom before him, and he wasn't sure how to feel about what he really saw. They didn't have that vigilant look to them of a cat expecting trouble. Didn't have any hint of smugness sitting in the corner of their mouth or the light of their eyes. If anything, Sablestar looked… rattled. But not by Wolfpack, or Fourtrees, or anything around them, really, despite him watching for a nervous flick of their gaze to give away what was truly eating at them.
"You're serious." His tone shifted into something less accusatory as he realized the other was truly struggling with this.
And that.. That changed things.
Because if Sablestar wasn't bluffing or baiting him or playing some kind of game, then this was just them– just a leader asking their deputy to fix a problem. And Wolfpack was good at that, particularly when said problem could be solved with violence.
But if he did this, it wouldn't be to help Sablestar.
"Okay." he said after a long moment of consideration. "I'll do it."
There was a brief pause as mismatched eyes bore into their own, sharp as the talons of a hawk.
"But when you come back, you have to tell me everything-- what you saw, where you went, all of it." Even if it there was nothing but a black void, or if to Sable it felt like going from one moment to the next– one moment suffocating in Wolfpacks hold, the next opening his eyes with nothing to recal in between– the deputy was determined to add to his limited notes on the matter in any way he could.
"Consider it my payment for guarding your body from the scavengers until you come back." he added, the corner of his lips twitching upward into a smirk. "Do we have a deal, Sablestar?" he asked, claws slowly unsheathing in the grass beneath him.
