the mortal boy king [C]

Nestled in the sea of pink and blue and purple, Adderpaw sat quietly. He'd asked Whisperear if they could go out, do something with their time, even made the offer to seem useful and practice his hunting if they agreed. Thankfully they had, but despite his promises, Adderpaw couldn't bring himself to get much done in the way of hunting. Once they had reached the blooming fields, he'd just quietly sat himself down between the petals, sighing quietly and gazing out into the sky.

Malaise had overtaken him, numbness too. Exhaustion seeped into his every action, even the smallest ones. Rousing himself from sleep in the morning had suddenly become the hardest thing he'd done, and it'd only been days. Anything that required more energy than that was overwhelmingly daunting; the thought of any sort of training or attempting to contribute to his Clan made his limbs briefly lock in his stress. Quietly he worried that even after moons, after seasons, he would still be dragging his paws listlessly through work.

Sniffling, Adderpaw blinked a few times, refocusing on the stretching expanse of blue above. It was a beautiful day, mildly warm and with only a few thick, downy clouds to mar the sky. With a snort, the apprentice cursed the daytime; he wanted to look at the stars, not squint into the sun. He was certain that if he looked at the stars long enough, counted them enough times, he would spot the place Goldenpaw had taken in the sky. Then again, the stars had always looked the same to him. He couldn't recall counting any new ones. Maybe cats went nowhere, after all.

Eventually: "I wonder if he ever came here." Adderpaw offered no context to his thoughts, nor did he lower his head to see if Whisperear had even remained near enough to hear him. For all he cared, he was muttering quietly to himself.

The sound of Whisperear's voice made Adderpaw's whiskers twitch and, a bit begrudgingly, he turned to look towards the taller cat. It felt like they were privy to his silent thoughts, quietly mewing something about how there would be a star in the sky, just for Goldenpaw. At that, the small tom huffed, dropping his gaze to look at his own paws. They stirred through the flowers, accidentally separating petal from stem as they worked against the earth.

"And what if there isn't?" Adderpaw responded, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "I've never known someone who– who... died before, but the sky has looked the same since I was a kit." It wasn't saying much. He wasn't particularly old; the sky hadn't had much time to change. Still, it only looked different when it was cloudy. There had been no blazing light in the few nights that passed between now and Goldenpaw's death. Nothing looked different.

Sighing, Adderpaw shuffled briefly off his feet, edging closer to the warrior until they were sat side-by-side. He considered leaning against Whisperear for a brief moment, but just as quickly decided against it. It was hard, to feel so torn between seeking comfort and being adamantly opposed to looking as sad and small as he felt. If asked, he'd excuse it with not wanting to bother them with holding him up.

"How do you know? That he's up there?" Adderpaw went on in that same soft tone, a sniffle accompanying his words. "If I can't see it– I mean, I'm sure he is, just... how do I know? I can't know it, like I know where the flowers are, like I know what they feel like right now." For emphasis, he pressed his paws again into the bundle of colors– more careful this time, so none of them were pulled apart. "He's... not here. I do know that. How do you know he's anywhere else?"

Adderpaw listened intently, quietly focused on the gentle way the breeze stirred through his fur, the way it almost tried to carry Whisperear's gentle cadence off with it. It was like another voice had joined the conversation, soft and rustling as it blew through the field. The thought of the Moonstone daunted him, and of Goldenpaw being the one to meet him there even moreso. He wasn't sure he could handle that, if it were the case.

Whisperear went on. Adderpaw was smart enough to guess what they were talking about– only so many times had StarClan come down before the heavens. It'd been just before his birth, too. Something still troubled the little apprentice, though. Even if his worries about the presence of StarClan had been momentarily quieted, why did they have to exist at all? If StarClan was so powerful as he was meant to believe, or as they'd seemed to be when they'd rejoined their living kin for the war... shouldn't they have been strong enough to stop the march of death entirely?

It was as he was dwelling on the breadth of StarClan's power that a sudden, trembling breath rattled through his chest, and Adderpaw found his soft sniffles had turned into a sob. Just one pained noise, but he could feel the hot burn of tears in the corners of his eyes where there hadn't been just moments ago. "But it isn't fair," he protested weakly. "If they're so good, why do they die at all? Why do I– we –have to see the cats we care about there? Why can't they just–" Adderpaw trailed off, leaning against Whisperear with a shaky breath. He'd forgotten his composure; all he cared about in that second was the warmth of his friend beside him.

"What if I don't want to see anyone in StarClan? I want to see them alive, Whisperear, and well. It's– it's not fair, and it's hard, and I hate it."