Beeches get Steeches [C]

Bloodstrike had a few starlings hanging from his mouth when he entered the run down twoleg nest that he and Beechfang called home. He dropped them in their makeshift freshkill pile before he settled down in the corner of the building. His "nest" consisted of fluffing and foam from furniture, likely a mattress. It was good enough though, and he didn't want to admit to Beechfang that his joints ached sometimes, particularly when storms were coming. The cushioning of the foam was a comfort on those miserable days. For once, not hungry, and managing to surprise a young rabbit far earlier in the day, the starlings were for his daughter, should she want them.

His mind wandered to Skyclan, now that his temper had cooled significantly, and he wondered how they were doing. At minimum he wanted to speak to Briarstar again. Some of it was to apologize and some of it... well, lets just say he was interested in trying to get Beechfang back in and to the Dark Forest with whatever the other clans thought. He was aging and he knew he would not be around forever. Sure, Beechfang could care for herself, but things happened. The last thing he wanted was for something awful to happen to her and she was sentenced to a slow and painful death.

The evening was closing in and he felt his eyelids grow heavy. What in the world had happened to his youthful vigor? Rogue life was a young cat's game, that was for sure, and he was far from being a young cat. He imagined Beechfang would be back soon, and if she wasn't, then he would go out and find her.

Beechfang padded back to the derelict twoleg den she and Bloodstrike had taken for their own, large paws heavy on the stone beneath. A small bundle of herbs was in her jaws - cobwebs, a bit of coneflower, dock and ragweed. The bare minimum, just in case. As much as Beechfang had hated being a medicine cat, the training had come in useful. Even Skyclan-bred pawpads were bound to crack against the strange stone that made up the pathways of twolegplace, and herbs to slow bleeding and help prevent infection were simply good to have around.

Every once in a while her gaze would stray in the direction of the fence that separated Skyclan from twolegplace. She hadn't seen her former clanmates or family in moons now, and the anxiety was slowly starting to eat at her. She wondered how her kits were doing. Fogpaw and Plumpaw must have earned their medicine cat names by now, and Birdchaser had been deputy the last time they'd spoken. She missed them and their siblings, though couldn't quite seem to make herself stray too close to the border. It wasn't her place to, she told herself. She wasn't Skyclan anymore. She needed to distance herself for their sake as well as hers, otherwise she'd do nothing but lurk on their borders. She'd forced herself to roam twolegplace as a distraction, exploring where she could and taking note of which areas to avoid and which nests had kittypets. Not that it worked as a distraction, but being more familiar with the miserable place she now called home was important.

With a huff, Beechfang forced her gaze away from the distant fenceline, forcing her paws to move. She was careful to keep an ear out for other cats, but by now other rogues knew to stay away. Clementine hadn't been back, as far as she knew, and that was how she wanted it. The nest came into view as the sun was starting to set, and the fluffy tabby made her way inside.

"Hey," Beechfang offered a tired greeting. Bloodstrike was already in his own nest, some of the strange twoleg things. "Good hunting, today?" That wouldn't last much longer. Leaf-fall was around the corner. A small, sheltered corner of the nest served as an even smaller herb store, and she swiftly deposited what she'd found before turning towards the fresh-kill pile and picking up one of the birds.

Beechfang wandered in with herbs, though Bloodstrike smelled her coming before she appeared. His nose was still as sharp as it had always been. He looked at her and nodded once, a small smile on his face. "Birds again, but not bad for now. Hopefully there won't be another leafbare as harsh as the last one." Leafbare always seemed to bring bad things. The Asylum prison and being in death limbo were the first things that came to mind. What did the cold snowy underworld have in store for him this time?

Smokefeather had always liked the snow... a bittersweet memory of their snowball fight came into his mind, but it never showed on his face. "Anything interesting happen for you today?" He wasn't going to dwell on what he lost. He couldn't. "I thought about going to the Skyclan border and seeing if Briarstar would take you back in. All she had to do was banish you, correct? She did. Now she can take you back. That wasn't specifically stated that you had to stay exiled." He smirked, a somewhat frightening thing really. He didn't imagine Beechfang liked being away from Skyclan, but maybe she did? It would be a good time to voice it if so.

"Can't say I'm looking forward to it." She responded. It seemed as though leafbare brought nothing but tragedy and pain. The Asylum, the dark forest, Featherkit, Smokefeather... Or perhaps it was all just Dawnhawk. She shook her head, frowning. Even now he haunted her every step.

"I haven't ran into anyone, which is fine by me. Some of the kittypets I've met around here... They're like actual kits in an adult cat's body. I can't imagine living like that." And that was to say nothing of the one actual rogue she'd encountered. Clementine hadn't been back, and if he knew what was good for him, he wouldn't be any time soon.

Bloodstrike's smirk hardly phased her at this point, though she was sure it would've frightened any kittypet into running. But then, some of them hadn't seemed frightened of her appearance so... Maybe kittypets were too dumb to feel fear. The idea of going back to SKyclan... She'd been trying to ignore her own thoughts, and Bloodstrike was, picking at them. As he did best.

"Do you think that's a good idea? I can't see what Riverclan calls leadership being happy about it if they found out... Skyclan doesn't need a war with leafbare on the way." And... Maybe she was starting to get a little sick of the violence, after all. There was still a part of her that would've enjoyed tearing the fur off of whatever filth threatened her family but... She was tired. Killing Cloverheart had... Foxdung, what had it been? A mistake? At times the term felt too light, at others she still thought she had been justified. As time went on it was becoming harder to rationalize it.

"Briarstar... We... Talked, before everything happened. We're not... friends, I don't think. But... I don't know. I think she'd put Skyclan before one cat. Which she should."

"I think Birdchaser would want me back. What in the stars was Briarstar thinking, making her deputy? She's more like me than Truffle...paw...? - foxdung - is." She didn't know if Trufflepaw had earned her name or not. And Fogpaw and Plumpaw... It frustrated her that she couldn't be there for any of them. "Fogpaw and Plumpaw-" Had they earned their names? "-are medicine cats, too. I fear for Skyclan, honestly." Not just Skyclan, but her kits, too. How many cats had she known that had been destroyed by being in those positions?

"What about you? Or are you just done with the clans?" He'd condemned himself to exile with her, but Beechfang was sure it had been more for her benefit than anything.

He listened patiently while she talked, but he wasn't sure how he felt the more she said. This wasn't the Beechfang he had known for all of his life. She was like him... she was tired. Bloodstrike would always be ready and willing to fight... but even he had noticed that he would rather avoid it if he could. He hadn't been the leader he had hoped to be in his youth. So much had happened... so much bad had happened.

"I have always put Skyclan ahead of myself, but my family I have put ahead of Skyclan as a whole many times. Was that wrong to do?" He didn't know that he actually wanted her to answer that.

"I would go back to Skyclan if you could come with me. I'm tired of losing my family members. I don't think I ever truly recovered from losing Mistrain. It pains me that I am even forgetting what she looked like." He looked down at his paws, and for a moment he looked exactly how he truly was: A tired old tom. He had been beaten down for so long he forgot what it was like to be at peace. "Anyway, I don't think I could ever join a different clan, but I need more out of life than the loner life too. I need a job. I need a purpose. I won't find that in the life of a rogue."

His words were soft, almost like he was saying goodbye...

Beechfang's ear twitched at the question posed as she thought. "I don't know." She answered, only to shake her head. "Family should come first, I know I failed at that plenty." Birdsong and Shadewing leaving had been proof of her failure, even to those blind to it. "The clan is our family. Mostly." The last was said in amendment.

"I want to go back. I'm not sure if what I want is what's right, for me or the kits. Or Ravenclaw." Birdchaser and Trufflesnap had been so vocal about their displeasure at even the idea of her leaving, but would time have changed their views? Would they see that avoiding war had been the prudent thing to do, at the time? Then Fogfeather... He'd seemed like the opposite, withdrawing from her completely before she'd even left, practically the second she'd confessed. Wolf and Plum... It was harder to tell, with them. But her kits were all she had, for all that she'd been gone from their lives. The kits, the only sibling she had left, and her father. And at least some of those she should have been trying to distance herself from, if the choice to rejoin the clan she'd been born to was truly lost to her.

"Mistrain... I remember her. Kind of, she was shy. That was a long time ago." Something about being a brat came to mind, but she'd never known her aunt well-enough and she'd died before Beechfang could really get to know her. "I still miss Dustpaw." And all that had been lost after her. Copperfox, who had always been a bright, calm presence in the storm that was Skyclan.

"The thought of joining another clan never crossed my mind." She admitted, "We were born Skyclan, that's the only place I would return to." With Dovefrost there hadn't been much time to think it over, and after what had happened to him, Thunderclan would've never been a home for her anyways. Her eye narrowed slightly at her father's next words, "When have rogues ever had a purpose? Aside from trying to destroy everything we know?" She asked, "I hate that we're reduced to that, this life was never meant for us."