I Have Friends In Holy Spaces [closed]

Nighttime was darker than usual this moonhigh. Sandblaze's footfalls were heavy as he careened through the dense forest canopy. He ran at top speed, leaping from branch to branch with confidence. Here was where he went to run away. No force of gravity kept its hold on him. If he should misstep, it wasn't an issue. He would take a little comfort in the embrace of the rocky terrain below, but, of course, Sandblaze never fell. He was born in greater altitudes than this, and to fall was something not known to him. He was most graceful here, moving swiftly in the trees, far away from the beautiful she-cat who wept somewhere in SkyClan's territory. His greatest mistakes had been made on the ground. He moved in a direction few had traveled before. Though he did not know his path of travel, he certainly recognized his destination. Many SkyClan cats spoke of driving off overconfident kittypets from this dangerous place before. Danger was of no consequence to Sandblaze tonight. Most visited Twolegplace with an air of caution, but he saw nothing to fear. His flesh and blood roamed these Thunderpaths like a king. The transition from tree to fence was certainly a strange one. He thought of his father as he teetered on the thin slivers of tree that the strange hairless things lined their territory with. Was this his home, after all?

The drop was easier. He landed on soft, plush grass. It was much different than the boulders and stones that covered SkyClan's neck of the woods. He found it hard to believe that Starlord left this place in the pursuit of merriment and she-cats. It seemed that everything his long-dead father could have needed was right here. He walked, no, ambled down the winding paths, peering into the twoleg dens that glowed like the eyes of their monsters. It was like they had sunlight captured inside, and it was almost enchanting. Hopefully, no one would look for him till morning. The warrior considered the possibility that Burningsun would come looking, but he brushed it away just as quickly. Nobody would look for him here. Unfortunately, Sandblaze quickly realized that he had no idea where he was, either. The Thunderpaths became a maze that he sought an escape from. He resigned himself to confusion and sat down on the side.

It was then that he saw a roundish shape lurking on the corner of the path. He narrowed his eyes, peering into the worrying darkness and inhaling. The scent that came off of this cat was far too wild to make him a kittypet. Was this some sort of loner? The glint of a shiny yellow rock dangling from the cat's throat further confused Sandblaze. This stranger was a hodgepodge of kittypet and rogue. Fat, collar wearing, and hanging around Twolegplace versus wild-scented, wary, and nocturnal. Sandblaze padded ever closer until the crimson tabby's wide yellow eyes became visible.

"Excuse me," he started as politely as he could muster, "I need help getting back to the forest. Will you quit hiding and help me, please?"

Lackadaisical strolling of this type was a treat for Jerry. The dark cloaked everything in a layer of shadow, a blessing and a curse for the tom. A curse, as he had to tread with caution, knowing that unwanted eyes could hide well; and a blessing, for he could hide even better.

On most nights like these that Jerry would find himself padding about, he was accompanied by a faint outline of himself cast upon the ground by the moonlight. Sometimes Jerry would stop, and sit to watch in fascination as the outlined-ground-cat’s tail moved perfectly in time with his own, and he would ponder how it could be so. When he was confident the two of them were alone, he would demand that the ground-cat speak, but he never did.

Tonight, he was nowhere to be seen. Yet somehow, Jerry felt less alone than usual.

Eyes he could not see bore into his pelt from distant shrubbery, from the very thunderpath beneath his paws somehow, making his steps feel uncomfortably short, as though he could not move fast enough away.

Away from what?

That was the worst of it. Jerry could not tell which eyes were the ones that spied his own pale yellow ones, and where he could even run as to avoid confronting whatever was attached to those eyes.

He could smell it now, wild like him, whatever it was. He shrunk down so his belly skimmed the smoothness of the thunderpath, his ears flattening down with him. The closest thing to anxiety that Jerry knew was coming to meet him with a vengeance, and his fur prickled, his eyes beginning to dart wildly from left to right. It was as he rapidly glanced from rock to bush to further up the rumble path that he caught the eyes of another cat.

Another tom.

The other cat strode closer, and Jerry pushed himself up from the thunderpath, shaking out his stiff ears and legs to sooth himself. The other cat drew closer still,  and Jerry resisted the urge to back away.

The tom Jerry faced now was leaner and taller than himself, and he was greeted with blue, round eyes and a pale pelt. When he spoke, Jerry was a bit taken aback.

“Will you quit hiding and help me, please?” He said, with a hint of what sounded to be desperation.

Jerry stumbled over his words, looking for the right thing to say. “I- sorry, don’t think I know you?”
He took a shaky step forward.

"Yeah, you definitely don't," Sandblaze laughed weakly. There was a comfort in being unknown. Who would he be today? This collared creature knew nothing of codes or exile or murder. None of it meant anything to him. Tonight, Sandblaze did not have to be anyone at all. "Hasn't anybody bothered to tell you about what's in the forest? You must know a little, at least, you don't smell like a kittypet." The tom circled the short fat tom with a critical eye, his pluming tail flicking with a little curiosity.

"I came from out there. I need to find the fence. Do you know where SkyClan is? I need to get to that part, not ThunderClan." They'll kill me, he refrained from saying. The warrior paused for a moment. He never told the strange cat his name, had he? "Since you're so concerned about not knowing me, my name is Sandblaze. But, uh... If that's hard for you, you can call me Arno." Speaking it verbally felt like taking a breath after being held underwater. He had never used his father's name for him before. He supposed it was a safe enough bet. He had the luxury of being in Twolegplace where nobody would catch him. "C'mon, there's too many twolegs here for my taste, housecat!"

“Sandblaze.. ” Jerry echoed in almost a whisper, like it was something he knew he shouldn’t be saying too loudly. Arno would almost definitely have been easier for him to get the hang of, but Jerry was much more focused on the implications of a name like Sandblaze instead.

Any cat could claim valiantly that they needed to know the way to SkyClan’s or whoever’s territory, could just as easily scold Jerry for his lack of knowledge about the forest. But to have a name like that? Well, that was all the evidence Jerry needed.

”C’mon, there’s too many twolegs here for my taste, housecat!”

Jerry must’ve been staring.

He blinked hard, trying to collect his thoughts, to force them to form something coherent.

“Right,” he started, “the fence.”

Jerry turned to lead the other tom. While he didn’t know much about clan affairs, about whose land was whose and where territories turned from Thunderclan’s to SkyClan’s, he knew the fence exceptionally well. It was almost boring sometimes, how easily he could find it, in relation to any place he had dared to explore before. Jerry almost wished it would move every now and again, for a change of scenery, a little challenge.

Tonight he was fortunate to be so learned in the location of the fence, he didn’t have to think too hard. At least not about where he was going.

The gentle padding of paws was all that could be heard between the two for some time. Jerry occasionally turned his head just so as to steal glance at Sandblaze.

The more Jerry thought, the more he realized that the leaner tom was justified in being so eager to get away from twolegplace. A cat like Jerry could bounce about at any time of the day there and go unnoticed. Jerry knew that a tom so obviously wild as Sandblaze wasn’t guaranteed that safety even on a night as dark as this.  

Even more, Jerry couldn’t believe he was the one leading a clan cat. A cat with a name as wild as  Sandblaze and a pelt even wilder needed his help. Jerry couldn’t help but grin to himself impishly.

“You’re a clan cat then,” Jerry found his voice, even if it was shaky with a mix of nervousness and excitement. “ so what’s your business here?”

Sandblaze felt himself fizzle out as he talked along the side of the empty Thunderpath with the loner he had found. His angst and pain lifted for a moment and he was immediately slammed with guilt for what he had just done to Burningsun. To his friend. He thought of the good times they had shared in their apprenticeship, before Delta went missing. He ducked his head in shame.

"What's my business?" he sighed, "My business is in running away. I did something horrible, housecat." Gauging the shorter tom's reaction, he backtracked a little. "I didn't kill anybody or nothing. I just... broke somebody's heart. My sister ran away from home, and we thought they wouldn't let her back in. Clans are like that, you know? If you want to live in them, you have to let your loyalty lie with them. But they gave her a choice! I tried to stop her. She's my only sister, and she left us without a second thought. And now, the she-cat that could've been my mate is out there crying because I let her down." Sandblaze shook his head. "Well, I don't know why I'm telling you all this. Maybe it's just nice to know that none of it'll follow me home."

They walked in silence, and Sandblaze regarded the strange place his guide lived in. It was like a forest of its own, really, but with odd twoleg dens and strategically placed trees. It hit him, suddenly, that this might have been where his father came from, with a name like Starlord. When he looked at his companion to ask about the cat, he was reminded of his sister. The ginger cat was similarly ditsy and skittish. Save for the tom-ness and chubby belly, he even looked like Delta. It made Sandblaze miss her dearly. He blinked back the feelings and cleared his throat.

"Out of curiosity, did you know a tom named Starlord?" Sandblaze asked tactfully, "He was ginger? Blue eyes? Apparently he was, uh, quite the charmer. Does that name mean anything to you?"

He was quite relieved to hear that the other tom had relatively normal issues. Drama with other cats, as Jerry knew it from what others had told him about clan life, seemed to be all claws and teeth, literally. He had heard stories of kits who didn’t live through Leaf-Bare to see the next. He had heard stories of cats younger than him coming out of violent battle, holding onto life by a mouse tail.

“I never knew a Starlord,” Jerry said, reverting his gaze back to the thunderpath beneath him. “Was he a friend?”

Jerry didn’t get to see the tom’s response, but he could feel the question hang in the air. He suspected the answer was complicated, or that Sandblaze simply wasn’t interested in filling Jerry in on the details necessary for him to understand.

Still, Jerry couldn’t curb his curiosity now.

“That name surely means something to you?”

Sandblaze remained quiet for a long time, ignoring the tom's question. Hopefully, he'd recognize that it was a sore subject and let it go. Of course, that wasn't what happened, as Sandblaze should have expected. He didn't seem to be a cat of tact, anyway. What was the harm in telling him, though? Tonight, there would be no secrets, no prophecies, and no forbidden love.

"My father," Sandblaze said simply. "In the clans, it's grounds for exile to take a mate outside of your clan. They say it creates a conflict of interest, but my mother couldn't have understood that. She's deaf, she can't even speak. Her name is Firflower, the greatest she-cat I've ever known, and I don't believe she did anything wrong." Sandblaze fought back the tears that pricked his eyes. He hadn't cried since Delta's trial. "I am the only one who knows. If anybody in SkyClan found out, they could exile my mother. My brothers would go with her, because she's too vulnerable to be on her own. My family would be split apart."

In that moment, Sandblaze understood what set him apart from his clan, a deep rift in his psyche that Tinystar could never understand. He was born among strange cats, in a place far from the forest. While he loved the thrill of the branches underfoot, his defining moons were spent in fear. That dark cave was full of tension and turmoil. The only friendly faces were his littermates and mother. She could not speak or describe the values of the world they would soon join. Sandblaze had no concept of code and honor at the age of his apprenticeship. All he cared for was his family. For the rest of SkyClan, their duties came first. Protection and safety reigned higher than freedom and kin.

Was this why Delta left?

The thought struck a chord, low in his belly. He went where his brothers were. He could not have changed Delta's mind, could he? She made her decision and she ran where her paws guided her. StarClan had no hold on her. Tanglekit told him to protect his siblings from the wrath of the code. Delta would have faced its wrath if she had stayed. Even so, she left her brothers. She did not choose family, she chose herself. What did it all mean? Who was he meant to save? Sandblaze blinked, cleared his throat, and looked up at the wide expanse of stars above. Smoke came from some of the strange tunnels atop the twoleg dens. There were the sounds of barking dogs and laughing twoleg kits. The jingling of the gold rock around the housecat's neck kept time with their pawsteps. What a strange place, this was. It was beautiful in its chaos. He liked the change of pace.

"I can't believe you live here," he said in hushed reverence, suddenly realizing his impoliteness, "You never told me your name, did you? I'm sorry! Tell me, I love loner names. Our names have too much meaning, I think. As an apprentice, I tried to rename myself 'Fur.' Just Fur! Apparently, you can't do that, but it was worth a shot." A sad smile crossed his face for a moment. "Our father gave all of his children names, in case they one day decided to go with him. My siblings are Delta, Caspian, and Calder. That's why my other name is Arno."