Fading Light... It Flickers, Flickers

"...I'm dying, then."

The stars above twinkled peacefully between the shifting shadows of gently sighing leaves. Each of them etched out a patch of stardust, the outline ever-shifting, the sound a gentle murmur. This place was always like that - gentle, peaceful.

"I'm sorry, Minkstar."

The equally gentle voice came quietly from behind, and he could feel the gaze of others in the trees, sympathetic, little kit laughs distant like the trickle of the stream. His paws felt like they were aching, settled on a divide growing ever wider. The choice was being taken away from him.

"You have one life left," She murmured.

Closing his eyes, he felt more than saw the gentle landscape fade, the soft blades of grass beneath his paws losing texture as though turning to mist. He floated somewhere... inbetween. The glimmering starlight seemed reluctant to fade from his pelt, the breeze stroking through his fur with the loving texture of his mother's comforting tongue before dying away.

He opened them groggily to fronds of moss in front of his nose, the scent of herbs filling the air, the feel of hot pain and pelt-itching fever dull under the gunk and cobwebs coating his frame. I doubt I'd feel it much, anyway. There was a flicker of renewed energy, a last gift from the stars, but he knew his body was too broken down to keep it for long. This must have been what Bat had felt like, losing her strength, doomed to waste away in a nest. His heart clenched, longing, her green eyes dancing mischievously in his mind's gaze.

He coughed lightly, shifting and awakening a flash of pain. Though he grimaced at the sensation, it felt good in an odd sort of way. "I'm back," He mumbled, voice a rasp he tried to clear with another cough, eyes clear as he propped himself up, searching for familiar faces.

Appledapple was growing tired of her visits to the medicine den. Especially since Dovefrost was so busy, she hated bothering him whenever the badger wounds ached a little bit. However, recently her visits hadn't just been her and Starlingflare. The leader of ThunderClan was also taking the occasional visit, and he wasn't looking well. She winced every time she saw the mass of scars beneath his pelt. He was like a physical representation of ThunderClan: doing their best and pretending they're fine, while slowly dying. And now, it seemed, Minkstar had finally progressed to the natural ending of their current circumstance and lost another of his lives.

Though she knew he couldn't see her as his body went through spasms, she sat with uncharacteristic patience. A strange softness touched the edge of her gray eyes. Whatever her opinions on the current state of ThunderClan and how it should be run, Minkstar was her mentor. He was such a kind cat. Honestly, he was kind of like a father to the whole Clan. Though he wasn't perfect, he did what he thought was best. And he was suffering more than she could probably understand-- no matter how much she yelled at Stoatfur. The leader went limp for a few minutes, and then stirred again, still sounding weak. Though at least he was alive. Appledapple stayed sitting near the edge of the den and wrapped her thin tail around her paws. "Welcome back, Minkstar," she said, attempting a cheerful tone. "Feeling any better?"

The deputy's attention had been divided between a half-baked attempt to manage the sparse patrols that filtered in and out of camp, and pacing at the mouth of the medicine cat's den. Most of his twisted concerns were selfish ones. Thrushnose wasn't here, Dovefrost at her side had trotted in pursuit of some fanciful journey per Starclan's request. He wanted to yowl and curse and blame every single cat other than him. Yet, he'd already watched Minkstar go limp once; he'd already been utterly powerless once. Stoatfur's teeth clattered together ungracefully as he snapped his jaw closed to painfully grit his teeth together.

It was then that he whipped around and finally passed the threshold into the entrance of the den. He saw Minkstar there, his leader, his friend, in a weakened state. Appledapple was there too but he didn't have the energy to dwell over whatever fractured relationship had settled between them. There was no denying the way this cruel leafbare had repeatedly stripped the lives from the ginger tom. Pain ripped through his chest, realizing how small and weak the leader looked, which in turn made him feel infinitely smaller and weaker. The edges of his eyes stung but he quickly swiped up a paw as if to brush it of his ears and forehead.

Stoatfur had felt alone before, in fact, he often did. But it had begun to settle in that before was some level of a fabrication. Now, there was no cat at his side - he was the one everyone would look to. The little warrior settled a fair distance away from Appledaple, hunched against the side of the den. For a long time he was silent, looking like a storm was brewing above his head, and yet somehow also so utterly forlorn. When he finally meowed, it was pained, near defiant to block out the softer emotions simmering under the surface, "So what am I supposed to do, Minkstar? What's next? How do you expect me to do any of this without you?"

The words were almost venomous in nature, trying to block out what he felt even in the final throws of death. It hadn't been spoken, it didn't need to. Stars, he couldn't deal with it if Minkstar left him. The leader was one of the few things keeping his paws rooted to the ground. A silent sob stuck in his throat like a mouse bone as he stared at the ginger leader - eyes filled with equal part accusation and desperate plea.

A smile creased his maw, lighting up his eyes. "Appledapple, hey." The rusty purr in his throat caught a bit on some leftover gunk, and he cleared his throat again, eyes squinching slightly at the discomfort that brought. "I feel less like monster-kill, but I don't know about better," He returned wryly with a lopsided smile, shifting slightly to help ease the vague aches making their presence known all over his frame. A hint of hesitation flickered in his expression, his maw parting. "Though I don't...."

He trailed off as someone else brushed into the den, outlined against the dim light from outside, familiar brown and white blotches on an amber-eyed face fading into view as he came in. A quiet mental sigh brushed the corners of his mind, that expression achingly familiar. In a way, it was like looking at a mirror of himself, standing above the dead body of his leader, shell-shocked and numb, grieving and yet having to think of the future; his head splitting, chest aching, muddled thoughts vanishing as soon as they appeared. It was a wonder he could suddenly recall it so clearly - so much from that time was simply... gone.

Perhaps it was because he had half a paw in StarClan.

He knows. A distant murmur on the edge of hearing seemed to agree with him, and he sighed out loud this time. A soft puff of air between his lips. When his signature smile - inherited from his father and made his own - tugged at the corner of his maw, it was soft, sad. "C'mere, kit. I'm not dead yet - you don't have to hang around in the corners, you know."

He shifted again, tucking his forepaws underneath him, feeling the steady beat of his heart. There was some time left, and stars strike him down if he wasn't going to stubbornly cling to it with everything he had. "Let me tell you a story," He said softly, his voice more at its proper pitch, the rusty edge mostly gone, "about a cat standing where you are now, looking at his dead leader. This tom didn't think he had what it took; he ran from responsibility, he bared his teeth at adversity and lashed out at anything and everyone. Sounds like a mess, doesn't he?" A wry huff of laughter escaped his lips, a hint of pain tinging his gaze as he locked it with Stoatfur's. "He was. I was. I don't think I ever told you much about that. But I was pretty messed up in every way you could possibly think up, mostly because of an injury I got during the whole Asylum thing, but also because of... me." The smile faded from his maw, a paw lightly touching the side of his head, remembering. "I hated myself; I hated the mistakes I made that let everyone down. When I first became leader, I put off my ceremony for a moon because I thought StarClan would reject me. I believed with every part of me that they should reject me. Dovefrost, Mossbloom, Bat..." His voice softened, a faint crack on the last name. "They said I was wrong. And they were right. Everything I have and everything I've become is because of the cats at my side. Cats like you."

He lifted his eyes again, distantly aware that they'd wandered as he relived the past, and letting them settle on his grandson in particular. "Stoat, I'll tell you now I've never known what I'm doing. I don't know the consequences; I can't see the future. I can't tell you what will happen because I don't know. But what I do know is that you don't need me." He gestured with a light flick of his tail, indicating everyone else, a faint smile on his maw. "You need them. And they need you. What's next? What's next is what you make of it, kit - it's your family, it's your friends; it's your Clan. You'll make mistakes, you'll fall, but with them by your side you'll get up again." A hint of ferocity lit his gaze. "You'll feel alone - there are always times you'll feel alone - but you won't be. And if I have to kick your tail from the stars nine times to tell you that like I've been told, I will."

Minkstar called him forward and he hesitated. He wanted to instinctively listen, pad after the tom who had taught him so much over these moons, but another part of him said that doing so would mean accepting the circumstances. Slowly, he pulled his tail around himself and padded the short distance. The deputy's movements were slow and stiff and his feet dragged ever so slightly across the den. It was nearly impossible to register Appledapple's presence in moment; it felt like it was just him and Minkstar, he wanted it to be just him and Minkstar.

Stoatfur's legs crumpled easily underneath his little frame. He settled about a tail-length from his leader, close enough to read his features and soak in his words. The pain in his chest radiated and swelled in size with each word. But he clung onto it. This was all that they had left, a final moment to share between kin, leader and deputy, mentor and apprentice in a way. Minkstar had taught him so much and pried open parts of him that he still now hardly wanted to look at. For a second, his eyes squeezed shut and he swallowed,

Cats like you.

His leader needed him. Minkstar needed him as much as he had needed Minkstar. As he heard the rest of the words, passing through his ears and soaking into his mousebrained head, Stoatfur couldn't help the torrent of emotion that overwhelmed him. A cracked sob broke from his throat, one that swiftly transformed into a wheezing laugh. This carried on for a breath or two before he finally regained his composure and met the eyes of the ginger tom. Tears stung the sides of his eyes. He found himself nodding up and down slightly, "Okay, okay. I'm- I'm going to figure it out, Minkstar. I-I'll figure it out. I'll make you proud. I'm... I'm going to miss you regardless. You made me the cat I am today. I owe you everything I'm... okay."

As the last word left his maw, he drew close and pressed his head into Minkstar's chest. It was such an odd thing to see from him, uncharacteristic. Stoatfur was hardly a physical creature - he'd abandoned the practice early into kithood. But this felt right. Nothing felt more right than being next to Minkstar right now. He struggled to fully consume what the leader had said, to know that he could walk this path alone. Eventually he abandoned any attempt at trying to think. Instead, he sobbed. He sobbed and sobbed. But a smile crossed his maw as he did.

What a cruelly complex thing it was to love.

A soft smile creased his lips, a stinging pricking at the corners of his own eyes, a light breath escaping his maw as he pressed his nose into the back of his grandson's neck. "I know," He murmured, ignoring the ache of wounds the contact brought, the scent of the younger tom a comfort to his herb-numbed nose. In that moment, it was just him and Stoatfur, a softness to this one crystalline memory as the fire that had fought and blazed for so long flickered low in his chest.

He closed his eyes as he pressed against the warmth of life, the throbbing grief of it, the soaring joys - all in the pulsing beat of their hearts. He could remember when Stoat had been born, the little forms of him and his siblings - the newest members to join their ranks - wriggling and mewling in the nursery. Could remember when Sable and Quail and Kestrel and Hickory and Oak and Thrush and Wolfblaze and... and Bat.... When they had been together; when the days were warm and the breeze sighed softly through the trees; when the eyes of his loved ones met his with sparkling joy. When the world was right - not because there was no pain, but because they were together.

"It's okay, kit. It's okay." A longing tugged at his heart even as he whispered comforting nothings to the sobbing kit pressed to his chest, a sunny something in the distance that beckoned with golden rays pulling at the fringe of his senses. "I'll miss you too, you know."

The warmth seemed to slide from his squeezed lids, an unquenchable smile tugging at the corners of his maw even as they shivered. Memories flickered at the speed of light: weeping at a cold body lying on the stone of a distant mountain with ginger patches much like Stoatfur's brown ones, breaking down and crying his anguish out into Dappleshine's fur at the death of his entire family, at being alone - the grief that pricked at his heart with each departure of the ones he loved.

Oh, how he wished that Thrush and the others were here now, that he could see them one last time....

But he couldn't cling to this broken shell any longer, all of its hopes and dreams poured out and finally given over to the whims of this cruel world. It felt as though the warmth of Newleaf was seeping onto his pelt, the soft, green scents of plants blooming and the forest turning golden once more brushing his nose. The sparkle of the river as it chuckled softly and the burble of little wavelets breaking against the shore called to his ears. Blue eyes beckoned on its other side - a soft smile in a gentle face, kits laughing as they splashed at her paws.

The image grew in clarity, his awareness of the here and now drifting, slipping.

One moment more?

Her eyes soft, she nodded, ever so slightly, her tail curling around an errant kit and drawing it under her rasping tongue. Ready, waiting, patient. She knew he didn't want to leave just yet.

Not yet.

A shuddering breath shivered in his lungs, and he rasped his tongue gently against the back of the younger tom's ear, slowly, soothingly. One last sharing of tongues, one last perfect moment. "Take care of your mother for me when I'm gone. Everyone else has left her... you're all she has left, kit," He murmured.

Long, slow, comforting strokes. He could feel his mother's warmth in each one as he did for his grandson what she hadn't been able to for him, the glow of that distant shore beckoning. "Tell her I love her. All of them." More of a sigh than even a murmur, a quiet rumble in his chest, a hint of a sorrowful purr.

Come, my son. It's alright.

The medicine cat den was a fuzzed, blurred place - half of it in golden sunshine, half in cold shadow. The warmth grew clearer, the tempo of his heart softening, slowing. In every beat he could recognize the feeling - the drifting, the soft slip into darkness. Yet somehow, this last time was different.

He stood at the gritty sand of the shore, hesitating, the hushed rush of the wind through the reeds not quite masking the quiet lap of wavelets at his paws. Gently caressing his skin in a cool, tingling touch, the water drew him in, the current welcoming him like an old friend. It washed over him as he dove into its depths, playing in eddies against his strongly churning legs, smooth swirling water that propelled him onwards and drew him ever up, the glittering flickers of golden grief forming into every moment of his life from kithood to dying breath in a cascade of gleaming bubbles.

It was a great story, huh?

Eyes closed, he could feel the flares of surface light playing over his face in little beams that shafted down to his lids. Every moment, every pain that never faded away, yet somehow never stopped the magic of it all. A scene in particular came back to mind; the Great Rock rising tall over the grassy clearing at Fourtrees, an achingly familiar black pelt standing out against a rippling, leafy background at the top, her fur shifting in the breeze. Twinkling green eyes turned to him, a whisper on the winds of memory tickling at his ears.

"This is where we met... Where everything started."

He found himself locked in her gaze, something special forming in that moment - something that drew him beyond the Clans and back again, into danger and fire and joy and acceptance and love. Something that drew him here. Yes, this was where everything started. A soft, irrepressible smile curved at his maw, his eyes opening to the shifting of the sunlight on the surface, a gentle curiosity drawing his paw upwards to poke lightly at it, his nose barely a whisker's length from the blurred sunlight above. And a warped reflection peered back at him with a dark face instead of his own, green twinkling mischievously back at him as his nose touched warm flesh and drew in the sweet scent of a Greenleaf day. Laughter edged a purr that filled his ears.

"Strom... It's good to see you again."

Appledapple felt strangely out-of-body. It didn't really feel like she was there, sitting in the corner of the room, witnessing this scene that she likely had no right to witness. She should have felt jealous that her mentor loved Stoatfur more than her. She should have felt frustrated that Stoatfur showed his emotion to Minkstar instead of her. She should have felt grief, felt rage, felt anything. Instead, there was a strange calmness that shouldn't exist, dwelling in her heart and almost forcing her to not intrude on the interaction. Stoatfur wasn't just showing emotion. He wasn't just crying. He was sobbing. She knew that he felt emotions, she knew that he had a lot to deal with... but he wouldn't lean on her. It was always someone else. A slight regret tinged her gaze as she watched her leader and mentor pass away, watched Stoatfur bury himself in the tom's fur and let out all his emotion.

As Minkstar whispered his last words, as he slowly fell limp, Appledapple's paw made a convulsive movement toward him-- but she stopped herself. This moment wasn't for her. It was for him. And just like that, without so much warning, he was gone. Dead. For the last time, this time. And Stoatfur's face was buried in the fur of a corpse.

Couldn't he live for someone else, too?

Cautiously, after allowing him another moment, the tortoiseshell approached him. She was far more subtle than she normally was-- but this was a moment for subtlety. First, she sat next to him, not touching, just being near him. Then, her thin tail slowly reached around him, wrapping gently around his back, barely even there. Her white paw was placed on top of his. All of this, done slowly, with little conscious thought. All she knew was that this was her chance to maybe understand the enigmatic deputy. To let him let her in. Maybe, just for a moment, to see him. "You know," she meowed quietly, her solemn gray eyes gazing at his hazy, teary orange gaze, "maybe you don't have to do it alone. Maybe there are other cats who care about you, too."

The convulsing of his frame eventually slowed into mild shivers. Minkstar's voice was soothing, a guiding light in these final moments. He wished Thurshnose were here to spend this moment with them and so that he could curl up at her side like a kit. It was almost laughable, how was he supposed to be a leader when such pain reverted him immediately to a kit-like demeanor that had been abandoned so shortly after he was born? Pressing impossibly closer to Minkstar, he tried not to think to much, ignoring the thoughts that tore as his pelt like the teeth of vicious dogs.

Slowly, he felt the final life die away from his kin's body. Movement stopped, breathing shallowed and then ceased entirely. Stoatfur didn't pull back. He was determined to sit here and bask in the last frail wisps of warmth that radiated from the still ginger frame. Minkstar had been the only cat he had truly opened up to. Thrushnose was a close second in that their relationship had become bound in more than their kinship, but a shared past tainted by a tom who had cast both of them aside like a rotting piece of freshkill. They hardly spoke of him, they never had to, their bond went deeper than that. But Minkstar had pried away at him until he was sick. It had been a painful process but one that lead to their final moment together - one that lead to him now being a young cat about to lead a clan.

There were so many things he regretted not saying it life, not thanking Minkstar for, or not doing more for the leader before he passed. But his kin seemed to trust him, and understand. Somehow that was not a reassurance, it made it worse and better in equal parts. After a long time, without a sound echoing through the den, he felt the warmth and presence of Appledapple. His nature compelled him to want to pull away but he had not energy to do so and simply accepted it. When his own pelt had finally stilled into a resigned acceptance, the brown and white tom slowly sat up. For a long time, he stared at Minkstar, and bowed his head one final time.

When she spoke, he couldn't bring himself to look at her, glancing up for a brief second to meet her gaze and then pulling away once more. Stoatfur sat like that, sucking in a breath and letting the air fill his lungs as if it had been days since he last gulped down air. And an exhale, "Maybe." Eyes glossed over as he stood, stretching himself out after being curled for so long. The time for self-pity was over; the clan needed to know, and they needed a leader to tell them. He headed for the mouth of the medicine cat's den, briefly leaving Minkstar behind. Before the gathering, they would prepare his body the best they could and a vigil would be held after they returned. Stoatfur would then head for highstones.

As he left the den, the traces of his overwhelming grief faded - pushed aside. He flicked his tail, beckoning Appledapple to follow. It wouldn't be said but the thought of her presence would make these next moments easier.