Private tones will change, curtains will drop // cicada

[SABLESTAR]

SABLESTAR
he/him
sixty-four moons
shadowclan leader

PENNED BY gonkpilled

"Magpiepaw's told me you've recovered all that you can." Sablestar meowed in a gentle hush. Bugs memory still wavers as they fail to recall the face of their own apprentice but Sablestar is selfish to know what of their memories may still be intact. The full season's cycle they spent at each other's side, and the moons before even that where Cicada mended trivial broken flesh and fur in the Colony. Did bug see his face with recognition? His instinct tells him no, when Magpiepaw wears nearly the spitting image of himself. There is something about the potential rejection that churns in his gut, though.

"Unfortunately, we can't keep you in the medicine den if there is nothing more Magpiepaw can do, and you're not suffering." The tom continued, stretching the words as he built courage to wield. So odd, how the emotions stirred with a newfound strength. Sablestar had been sick with grief for days, believing bugs grave would be next after Coalstrike's. Yet, while they still breathed and lived before him, it did not change how his feelings had hung in suspense. The moons of their shared moments were gone from bugs mind, but his replayed over and over whenever he sank into the quiet.

"You're not skilled to be called a warrior, at least not to the degree of those in it. The apprentices den is... unbecoming to the memory we have of you. I thought it would be fair to offer you a place in my own den instead. It has the same quiet space you liked about the medicine den, the bush in front of the tree keeps out the cold and blocks the suns heat. There isn't much in it other than moss, but I wouldn't mind anything you wanted to bring...?" He is speaking far too much but he cannot seem to seal his mouth shut until he ran out of words to spill. Ending on an awkward pause, unsure how to say what he meant without pouring out a heart that already felt so tattered with guilt and fear.

​

OOC: @CICADA

 

[CICADA]

Cicada listens without interrupting. They have learned, in these days of returning clarity, that listening costs less than speaking and often reveals more. Sable's voice moves carefully, like a cat stepping around a thin patch of ice. Gentle. Measured. Afraid of cracking something that has already fractured once. They do recognize his face. Not sharply, not in the way recognition once came—clean and immediate—but in layers. An outline first. Then weight. Then the quiet certainty of this cat matters. Only then do pieces creep back. The colony. Following him after a battle. But most of the memory does not return as images so much as gravity. Sable has it. So does Magpiepaw, whose name now settles correctly in Cicada's mind, no longer slipping away like water through reeds. Magpiepaw, who smells faintly of moss and flowers, who has learned the rhythms of their breathing, who brings water without being asked. Who has been taking care of them. Cicada knows this. It is not guesswork.

When Sable—Sablestar? They think they remember someone saying that name—speaks of recovery, Cicada does not bristle. They have already accepted that what is lost is not coming back in a neat bundle. There is no sudden remembering of herbs by name, no cascade of old certainty. There is only now, and the knowledge that now sticks. New memories root themselves firmly. They do not slide away. The words about leaving the medicine den land with a dull weight, expected rather than cruel. Cicada has been aware of the den's borrowed nature for some time. They no longer belong to it in the way they once did, whatever that way was. The herbs smell familiar but uncooperative. The tools of the role sit heavy and unresponsive in their paws. They are not suffering, as Sablestar says. That much is true.

The rest—about warriors, about apprentices, about what is 'becoming'—passes over Cicada with little sting. They have never measured themselves by Clan categories as carefully as others seem to. Skill is practical. Titles are convenience. They are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It is the offer itself that draws their attention. The den. The quiet. The bush that breaks the wind and the sun. Sablestar knows what they like, even if they cannot remember when they said it to him. That realization settles slowly, deliberately. He is not offering from obligation. He is offering shelter. Cicada studies him. His words have run ahead of him, tumbled out in uneven piles. Guilt threads through them, tight and persistent. Fear, too—less obvious, but louder. They shift, careful but steady, testing their weight on the ground.

"Your den would be suitable," Cicada says at last. Their voice is quieter than his, but it does not waver. "I don't need much. Moss is fine." A beat passes. Their gaze drifts, briefly, toward the entrance of the medicine den, where Magpiepaw might appear at any moment. "I'd like him to know where I am," Cicada says. "He's been… consistent." It is the closest thing they have to gratitude, offered plainly, without ceremony.