like an anthem in my heart (c)

Perchstar was getting used to the changes in the leader's den. When Poppyshine had moved in eagerly, she had subtly begun shifting the way that the small cavern was situated. It used to be a bare cave with reed walls, solid floors, and a few keepsakes carefully tucked under a single mossy nest. The differences were miniscule. First, a few dried flowers were pressed into the sparse walls. Then a few patches of soft grass lined the tough floor. More goose feathers somehow found their way into her utilitarian nest. These things all happened gradually, but Perchstar knew they were her friend's doing. And... though they were different, somehow, they did not seem bad. Perchstar had never felt the need to give herself nice things, or decorate, or own many shiny or pretty objects like was such a culture in her Clan. She did not dislike such things, she just thought that acquiring them for herself was a waste of time. But--if her small trove of sentimental keepsakes wasn't a dead giveaway--she did not mind owning a few. Perhaps that was why Poppyshine was going out of her way to make the small den feel more like a home.

However, there was only one thing left that Poppyshine could not soothe. The rumbling guilt from her moon of absence still lay dormant in Perchstar's chest, awakening whenever she herself tried to get some rest. She tried to convince herself that it was not a bad thing--that it was not her fault--that nobody needed to know. But everything was conspiring against her. The revelation at the Gathering; the conversation with Sprucebark; the ever-growing curiosity in the eyes of her kits when they saw whole families, mother, father, and kit, sitting together. The truth would not stay buried. She had never intended for it to. But, if she was going to be telling people... if she was going to be telling anyone... she wished to confide in her most trusted friend first.

So it was that, one evening when they were both getting ready to sleep after a long day of responsibilities, when the distant sounds of crickets were heard and the cool breeze of night swept into the small hollow under the willow tree, Perchstar decided that no better time would come. It was better to say things now. Her voice was hushed as she whispered it into the dark twilight air. "Poppyshine, may I speak with you?" The only light in the den came from the dim glow of the distant moon, gradually waxing in the sky. Another Gathering would come soon. If--in the worst case scenario--her own crimes were to be declaimed, she would not want her deputy to be caught off-guard.

Their nests were close enough together that the light from Poppyshine's luminous green eyes--the sparkle for which she had been named--was visible once she turned her head. Perchstar tried to settle into a comfortable position in her own nest, reasoning that she would be here for a while anyway, but no matter how she shifted, everything seemed just a little bit too tight or too loose. She eventually gave up on the perfect stance, choosing instead to simply fold her paws beneath her and make sure she could see her friend even in the sparse lighting. It was impossible not to second-guess herself. However, her resolve remained strong. There was no more postponing the inevitable. She wanted to tell those who needed to know--and the first of those was Poppyshine. The calico had never hidden anything from her. Now, she would return the favor.

Perchstar's voice was low as she spoke, and the hint of hesitancy she felt may have crept in despite her efforts to speak it as matter-of-factly as if it was nothing more than an observance on the state of the weather. "The father of my kits is not a Clan cat." There. It was said. Of course, it wanted more saying and explaining than just that, but even just having those words out in the open air of the den made the churning in her stomach just a little bit less painful. Uncertain blue eyes sought out Poppyshine's in the darkness. She felt her tail tip twitch. Her friend--her friend would not judge her. She hoped. But that was the least of her concerns. "I... I suppose it was probably obvious. I do not intend to lie to anyone about the origins of my kits, and I intend to tell them soon. I simply do not want them to be looked down on. And I... I would prefer not to be looked down on, either." She had truly come to respect the opinions of her Clanmates. She did not want them to look at her the way that Mottlestar's Clan had glared in shock at the Great Rock.

An anxiety-induced nausea began to rise up within her throat, and she tried to swallow it back down. "I did not mean to," she murmured. "That is what vexes me most about this situation. My kits are... very dear to me, and I would not replace them with anything else. But I did not intend to have them. And certainly not with a tom who could never be there for them." Perchstar felt her eyes stray to the empty corner of the den for a moment, before fixing them on the reed-lined wall instead. She attempted once more to speak normally, but her emotions would not be so easily stifled in the presence of the one cat who could be allowed to see them. "I... loved Ashflight." The words were true. That was why they were so painful to say, like thorned barbs protruding from the soft flesh of her mouth, hurting just as much to let out as they would be to keep trapped inside. "But this loner--I did not love him. I appreciated his help in navigating Twolegplace, surely. But I had no intent to share my life with him. To... share a family. That was not what I intended. I did not want such an outcome. It worries me that the stars may not judge my actions properly." Her torn ear flicked, a familiar gesture of thought, accompanied by slightly more frustration than normal. Yet the phrases that tumbled from her mouth were nothing more than strained whispers. Distant forest crickets would have drowned her out if she did not lay so close to Poppyshine. "Would RiverClan hate me if they knew? Would they call for my removal or death, as at the Gathering? What about my kits? Would they be cast out?"

Perchstar couldn't help but be lost in the swirl of her own fears. She hadn't meant to keep this a secret... she hadn't meant to let it continue eat her up from inside, clouding her mind with dark fog, consuming her every time she mentioned her ancestors or the code in any ceremony or conversation. She just hadn't wanted to tell them. No one had asked, she pathetically reasoned with herself, but she knew it was just an excuse. Of course they hadn't asked. They were all afraid of her. This she knew already. All of them--Rowansong, Sandyshell, probably even her own kits. She was feared. Whether it was due to her position of power, or her lack of expressed emotion, or even both, Perchstar was not affectionately loved like other leaders might be. She wasn't like Poppyshine. She couldn't be like Poppyshine. That brightness, that radiance, was not something she could ever hope to learn, or even mimic successfully. She was a failure. It should come as no surprise that she had ended up breaking the code.

But even as the spiral began once again, memories distorted replaying in her mind, they were interrupted--like the moon moving out from behind a cloud--by the sensation of a gentle paw on top of her own. Perchstar blinked, raising her eyes from their blankly panicked stare at the wall to look in confusion and wonder at the soft, brilliantly white paw resting on hers. Poppyshine. Of course it was Poppyshine. The sun, the sun herself.

The calico's words were warm and reassuring, like a gentle grooming from a companion after a night's unrest. She professed that Perchstar's fears were unwarranted. She claimed that RiverClan would not hate her--that they may not even feel strongly inclined one way or the other. That this might have been a small affair, as the leader so desperately lied to herself, and even lighter than she believed. That this was not the same as Mottlestar's travesty that led to the Gathering's chaos. That the Clan... loved her.

Love?

Love, her?

Who could love her?

“I love you too, Perch.”

The recollection of the words--heat, fire, warmth, sun--was almost too much to bear. Perchstar felt their weight collapse upon her shoulders, even as they began to ease the burden that had been crushing her ever since her fatal realization. To her everlasting shame, she felt that same heat begin to burn behind her eyes, and she furiously attempted to blink back the tears that would well up in them. The warmth crept behind them, melting the ice that always lay there, and the runoff began to leak. "I... The stars..." she whispered brokenly. "I always feel... I... They fear me, they hate me. My Clan..." Her words, always so eloquent, usually able to convey in sounds what her facial expression could not possibly hope to, failed her. She could not say what she meant. The sentences fell shattered from her mouth, shards cracked in the face of the overwhelmingly bright glow radiating from her friend. Everything that seemed so true, so real, when considered in the dark of night, crumbled away under the midnight sun.

"I would stand at your side and tell them that they are wrong.”

There was no more point in trying to use her words. There was no more reason to stifle her tears, which had long since broken past the wall she attempted to keep up, falling fast and warm from her eyes and dripping on the paw that Poppyshine held. Perchstar could no longer properly express herself through the only medium that she had ever found any success in. And so, faced with a shocking inability to communicate, she enshrouded her fear of vulnerability. The leader turned sharply, burying her face in her friend's soft fur. Her terror, her long nights of shame, her gratitude could not be properly spoken. So she did not attempt the herculean task. She simply pressed close to Poppyshine's side. Physical gestures had never been her strong suit. At any other time, she may have been embarrassed by the sudden act. But now it seemed the only way--not only to hide the way that unrestrained sobs of held-back panic shook her frame, releasing spontaneously when confronted with the unyielding warmth of Poppyshine's love, not only to keep from the desire to run and leave and keep from showing the emotion she could no longer disguise, but the only way to properly understand what she had said out loud only once before. I love you, Poppy.

Thank you. I needed to hear that. I don't know if it's true... but if you believe it is, then that is all I need.