told them that they were the same command (c)

It was real. It was all real.

The knowledge left Dovetail half-stumbling in a daze, simply filling the pawsteps of his role while leaving most of his mind free to contemplate what it all meant. What it all could possibly mean. His first thought had been how it would affect him and his siblings--but now that the initial question was out of the way, so many more were left. It was no longer a question of "if" Starlingflare was real. He was; it could be no clearer. His siblings had all received similar dreams. This couldn't be a coincidence. They weren't making it up. He knew them, and he knew the light of honesty in their eyes when they'd spoken. So Starlingflare was real. The questions that were left, however, all cascaded one after the other. How did he enter their dreams? Was his purpose simply to get to know his kits, as he'd explained? If not, then what did he really want from Dovetail and his siblings? Why had ThunderClan cast him out? And... if the place that he spoke to them from was not StarClan, then... where was it? Though some part of Dovetail desperately wanted to simply dismiss these questions, to believe that Starlingflare was completely benevolent and his presence was not worrying in the slightest, the rest of him could not rest. Not when any potential threat to his siblings existed. And the fact that he was unsure of whether this even was a threat to his siblings was the worst part. They'd all seemed mostly all right with the dreams, some more than others, and so he hadn't really wanted to bring up his worries. Not yet, not without any concrete evidence. But the question of where he could possibly go, who he could possibly speak to about this, left him completely stumped. He didn't trust their ThunderClan allies--not any further than he could throw them. He might have gone to the medicine cat, but Littlesplash was younger than him and couldn't possibly be any kind of expert on StarClan at his age. And besides, there was no telling what might happen if he told on them. Though he had never sensed any hostility or malice from Perchstar, the fact remained that she could technically choose to throw him and his siblings out if she saw fit. That left him optionless, floundering under the weight of his self-assumed responsibility to look after his siblings and protect them from any possible threat. With no option... except one.

It occurred to him one evening as he saw Murkyriver, ever the silent sentinel, accompanying a frankly exhausted-looking Perchstar to the entrance of her den, but no further. The leader slipped inside--probably to rest for the night--but the shadowlike she-cat remained outside. She'd once followed him around like that, but recently she had taken up a post at the leader's side. After the war. After the knowledge of Mottlestar's death. When Dovetail had tried to comfort her, it had been like speaking to a stone wall. She'd holed herself up completely inside. It stung somewhat, that she'd been there for him after the death of Egretswoop and he had been unable to return the favor. He did his best to assist, still sleeping alongside her in their shared nest on the rare occasions that they slept at the same time, and trying to make sure that she remembered to eat. But it had grown emotionally exhausting, especially with his exacerbated worries, so it hadn't been the first thing on his mind the past few days. But tonight as he stood and looked at her, he remembered. She was from ThunderClan. It was possible that she had known Starlingflare, or at least heard of him. That could be a good place to begin investigating the source of his worries. She might have heard of why they'd killed him. Maybe she could give him at least some variety of advice. Dovetail began to walk towards her--but uncertainty stayed his pawsteps. Murkyriver had been more closed off than ever, recently. She was still grieving. Though she tried to hide it, it was evident in the dullness to her normally-fiery eyes and the slight slump of her shoulders. This probably wasn't something that he should bother her with. His compassion and his protectiveness warred within him for a brief moment, and his indecision was visible in the way he shifted his weight from paw to paw. Eventually, though, his protectiveness--his love for his siblings--won out. Whatever Murkyriver was to him, she had been trying to act as if she were fine. Obviously she did not want him to give her special treatment. He'd tiptoed around her long enough. Besides, maybe talking about problems unrelated to her current grief would help dig her out of the hole she was lying in. Most of these were justifications for his burning need to know, to protect, he was perfectly aware. But they were logical enough to finally push him forward and the rest of the way to Murkyriver.

"Murkyriver." He spoke quietly, so as to not awaken Perchstar from her well-deserved rest. Besides, this was... not a conversation that he wished the leader to overhear. He didn't think it was, at least. "Will you come on a walk with me? I'd like to talk with you." Hopefully his anxiety did not betray him--the twitch of his dark brown ears, the flick of his fluffy tail. He wasn't wearing the fox pelt; he would feel odd bringing it with him for a simple conversation. The last thing he wanted Murkyriver to feel was threatened by his presence. They were friends, or something... weren't they? Briefly the word "nest-mate" entered his brain, before being shoved out by his other tangled feelings. He had far too much to worry about in order to let that haunt him. The silence between them though, even momentary, was stifling. Before she could glare at him with those orange eyes, before she could protest, he needed to head off her potential excuses. Dovetail spoke again. "Perchstar will be fine. Most of the warriors are in camp; they have guards, and plenty. Besides, you could use a break. Right? I don't want to walk alone." He shouldn't ramble. He closed his mouth, swallowing the other words that jittered around in his mind. He just had to sit here and wait and look as if the anxiety weren't eating him alive.

She was not new to grief. The concept of it had not been lost upon her, not in the slightest. She'd gone through the motions of loss before, had the claws of death tear her very heart to pieces the one time it was ever bared beyond its shadowy walls of protection. This time, it felt different. She couldn't quite wrap her head around why she felt the need to grieve, why she had felt such the strong pull to plunge once more into the comfort of those cold, shadowed halls that meant she did not have to contemplate what it was that she felt. Feelings were only ever a distraction, only ever unproductive barriers to being able to make the best decision. She didn't like feeling. There were rare exceptions, but they came in such infrequent bursts, it wasn't as if she spent much of her time contemplating it.

Having taken her station outside of Perchstar's den, though, she allowed herself to relish in a singular feeling-the feeling to protect. Her Leader needed protection, and that was all that mattered to the warrior in that moment. It was the perfect distraction from her own emotions and it was, by all means, productive. She hadn't been chased off yet by the leader, and that counted enough. Anyone who was ready to disturb the silver and white molly's rest would be met with a glare that normally was reserved by any other cat for a mortal foe, but for Murkyriver, it was simply her typical face.

She had been more than ready to give that glare out to the tom that next approached... had it not been one of the few cats who ever got a break from her otherwise amply-provided ire. Regardless, she immediately assessed him. Was he attempting to pull her to rest? Murkyriver had told him it was her evening to keep watch at Perchstar's den. Her features were still tugged into their typical frown, overall suggesting uninterest in what it was that he had to say. If he truly needed the company, she would consider it, but... He was rambling. He couldn't stay still. She knew what every bit of his body language read. She had seen it from him before, when they had first considered sharing a nest. A very slow blink was her very first response.

Go on a walk? She was here to keep watch, but... Something told her to go. An inkling, a feeling that trickled down her spine. Words didn't immediately come to her tongue, but the silent, steady sentry finally moved. She broke from her position, rising to all four paws, and stationed herself at Dovetail's side. "Lead on." Her voice was an even quieter whisper than Dovetail's, somehow almost nothing more than a small breath. As much as she didn't want to break her vow of vigil, and as much as she didn't want to admit... she missed the tom's company. His stockier frame was steady like the roots of a tree, and internally, she willed herself to have the same steadiness for the walk they would go on. If he asked her about how she was feeling, though? Admittedly, the molly was mentally preparing herself for turning around. She would be there to support him.

It was easiest to protect instead of be protected.

For a few moments, Dovetail worried that she would not come with him. Her face remained set in its usual implacable frown, and her ember-orange eyes--dulled more than usual ever since the war--took in every inch of him as if she were seeking for something. Was it so odd for him to approach her? He had spoken to her less since the war, it was true, but only because she had been far less open to conversation. She had not wanted him to approach; she had ignored his attempts to console, something that still stung if he was to be honest with himself. But his whirling anxiety quieted itself momentarily when Murkyriver finally moved from her stone-still position, finally spoke. She would come. The relief that flooded his veins caused a small smile, directed towards her. "Thanks." I knew I could trust you. That was step one. Now for the more difficult part.

The two of them set off into RiverClan territory, another silence settling between them. It was not the place that either of them had been born into by blood, but by this point they were both very comfortable with its intricacies nonetheless--far moreso than the territories at the lake, anyway. Dovetail knew which places puddles formed and did not wince when his paws got wet. He knew where the clumps of willow trees hid their entrances and where small creeks flowed off of the river's wide mouth. He was not even going anywhere in particular; he simply wandered, allowing himself to bask in the evening light of the moon and the comforting surroundings he was used to. He was RiverClan. He was a RiverClan warrior, and ThunderClan had no hold over him. No hold that he would not allow. But still... still, he wondered, if only for the sake of his siblings and not himself. He could not simply close his eyes and be content to ignore the possibility of where truth could lead him. It scared him, but he could not walk away from it. Not on the off chance that any of his siblings would be in danger. And quietly, shamefully, some part of him held its long-stifled curiosity. Who was his father, and... why? Why was he dead? Why did he see him? What did he want from him?

At no point did Dovetail stop; his paws continued to move even as more and more stars appeared in the sky. They were probably going in a wide circle at this point, but he would appear less anxious if he were already moving. His paws would have no chance to knead the ground if they were busy going across the ground. However, he did turn to look at Murkyriver, trusting his instincts to lead him around any obstacle. Pale gray-blue eyes seemed almost more luminous in the moonlight as they sought her gaze, trying somehow to reach past her inscrutable expression and understand her. Why she quieted as she did; why she came with him when she obviously did not want to; what on earth he even meant to her. But none of those were why he had asked her to walk with him. She would not talk about herself--not under pain of death. So he would coax something else out of her, instead.

"When you were in ThunderClan--" his throat was dry. Dovetail coughed, flicked an ear, and tried again. Why was this so nerve-wracking? What if she hates you for bringing up her past? You've never talked about it before. And yet, she'd introduced him briefly to her brother at the Gathering. So she couldn't feel entirely badly toward her past, right? Even if they'd never spoken of it; even if he still did not know why she had chosen to join RiverClan. He had to ask this. She was the only one he could trust--the only one he could ask. He tried again. "When you were in ThunderClan, did you ever know... or maybe just hear of... a tom named Starlingflare?"

Mottle-toned paws placed themselves one in front of the other in a manner that was best described as a march as she followed the lead of the earthly-ombred tom, her head having lowered to be near-level with her shoulders to create a lethal arrow to dart forth at any time. Her leaffall-speckled ears were on a consistent swivel to listen for any matter of threats that could potentially draw them from their places. Even then, she was still tracking the path they walked, and it was quickly realized by the molly that there was no pattern to where they went. They were simply wandering. The fact was stored away in her mind to be used as a rebuttal in case she needed to conduct any sort of investigation as to what the actual motives of the tom were in getting her to go on a walk with him. Anxiety rippled off his pelt in such a thick wave that the warrior may as well have been able to lap it up as if it were another pool of water in their territory.

Just like the tom, she herself had come to find complete comfort within the Clan that found itself sheltered in the water. The scent of water and fish did not make her snout scrunch as it did for all of the other Clans. She was able to find the relaxation that came with the full-body workout of swimming, comfort in the ache that followed from pushing her frame to its limits. However, unlike the tom, she had not spent her entire life and training within its borders. In fact, it was still with a majority of her life that she had grown up sheltered by the bracken and brambles, her paw steps having learned how to maneuver the prickly terrain just as fluidly as she now navigated these lands. Thunderclan did have claim over her in her upbringing, and such a steadiness still found itself imbued in the way she walked. Though she was as swift as the currents of the budding newleaf streams, her steps were more sure than the water ever could be. Every step of hers was with the confidence of a well-rooted tree, but they were not as heavy as it would be if she had truly allowed herself to become one with her former Clan. Instead, she'd given herself to the rivers and the shadows it hid, a perplexing combination she would continue to take advantage of.

She had stopped looking at the path ahead. Just when that had happened was a time she couldn't exactly place, but as she followed with her shoulders aligned with Dovetail's flank, she was focusing elsewhere. Her eyes, whose embers had dimmed, entirely now bore into his pelt. Silently willing him to say just what it was that had him pulling her from her position as a sentry. With that willingness came something that Dovetail was likely to easily miss: the absolute trust that came from allowing her focus to slip from always watching. There was no other cat that she trusted so deeply to allow herself to take even one sense off of the forest around her. Never her mother from the time she had been independent, never her kin that she had to so ferociously protect. Not even him, the one who had crowned her a queen in her own right with the circlet of lavender.

Finally, when she felt as if her gaze was going to singe a new set of brown fur into his side, he spoke. Her gaze flicked upwards to try and catch any features of his face that she could, and her head dipped just slightly lower as she listened. Something in her features sharpened at the mentioning of Thunderclan. Just what did he want to know? His nervousness was slowly beginning to unnerve the molly herself, too. Was this going to be his attempt to have her regale her childhood in some attempt to process her grief? She didn't need to process it. Were there more shattering secrets that her mother had kept? She wouldn't have put it beyond the tortoiseshell. After all, the 'beloved' leader had an affair with another one of Starclan's so-called 'righteous leaders.' The venom that came with that statement coated the back of her maw, a muscle in her jaw twitching at the same time of Dovetail's cough. Murkyriver swallowed it right back down. There was no need to show him her ire, no--

"When you were in ThunderClan, did you ever know... or maybe just hear of... a tom named Starlingflare?"

Her unnaturally steady steps faltered stumbled entirely over her own paws. Whatever tumult of flame and shadow seemed to entirely disappear as her mind processed that statement. Memories surged forward, the mental ilk of shade that had long suppressed them and buried them away charging forth in a tsunami to attempt to once more smother them. She did not want to remember. Her first foray into affinity for the tom that bore the dual-spirited pelt, the tom that had stood as her mother's former right paw during the trial of a murderer, only to split into insanity at a slight. The command that had her attempting to pull him away, only to be spat at and scorned, disregarded as if she were nothing more than a nuisance. The murderer brought to justice in an ungraceful act of ire. The arbiter of justice forced and confined for insanity, only to once more become an isolated figment of silence that was shattered by the wolves of the lake. The mouthpiece of the stars who had been lost to time. Her mother, the judge that sat high above, and did nothing more than speak. She did not act. Every cat that mattered during that trial had now perished. All, except for her, who bore the memories in bitterness.

Why did he want to know? What connection could he possibly have? Was there chance that he had been the murderer of a relative? That one of the cats who had suffered under his claws held some significance to the warrior that had seemed so troubled to ask the question? No, surely not. If he was hoping to be regaled of vengeance, he wouldn't have been so nervous. Her eyes narrowed into calculating slits to attempt to piece together just what it was that linked the two together. "Yes." Cold, unnatural calmness permeated her tone in a frost that was nothing short of chilling. "I witnessed his execution." There was much more about it she could share. Would have, too, but the shadows claimed her tongue. If she loosed it, there would be too much for him to know. Far too much. Not in fear of sharing it with him--but because she did not want to feel those emotions again. The hurt. Always, always hurt.

Nothing could stop Dovetail's paws from wandering, leading--not even the uncomfortable silence that settled again after his words. He could hardly bring himself to look again at Murkyriver, eyes instinctually falling to the dimly lit ground instead. What would she think of him bringing this up? The worst she could say was that she didn't know anything... right? No. It's worse if she knows. It's worse if it makes her suspicious. It's worse if it makes her think you're a traitor. He tried to will the anxiety away, tried to keep the worries from creeping into his ears, but they wouldn't leave him alone. Murkyriver was from ThunderClan herself. She had no reason to judge him for his past even if she did somehow find it out. But he wasn't trying to hide his past--he was trying to understand it so that he could let it rest. He wanted to know whether it was important. Everything his dad had told him, he wanted to know what it all meant... because as much as he was starved for praise, and as much as those foggy moments had been everything he'd ever wanted, he did not know if he could trust a tom who walked in darkness.

Slowly he forced his eyes back over to his companion--only for his own gaze to widen in shock. Murkyriver stumbled. The normally graceful she-cat, silent and stoic as a shadow even at the loss of her own mother, had lost her footing when he asked about Starlingflare. Why had her eyes gone so wild, even momentarily? What on earth had caused such a reaction? He couldn't stop his thick pelt from bristling slightly at the way her eyes narrowed, and at the iciness of her voice when she finally spoke... but it was the words she said that sent a chill shuddering down his spine.

"Yes. I witnessed his execution."

"His... what?" He couldn't stop the dumbfounded echo from falling numbly out of his mouth. This finally stopped Dovetail's aimless wandering, stilling his paws. Starlingflare had mentioned something offhandedly about how he had been killed, but... executed? That word carried an entire host of different connotations, none of which were good. That meant either his father had lied, or... the entire Clan had gone crazy and sentenced an innocent to death. He wasn't sure which option was worse. Whichever it was, it had made his mother feel unsafe enough to flee... and destroyed his chance at a normal family. Of course he still had his siblings, and he loved his Clan, but--he couldn't help wondering. Couldn't help thinking about what it would be like to have a mother groom his fur before a ceremony, or have a father smiling down with pride when he did something right. Only... only he'd had the latter, hadn't he? But what if Starlingflare had lied? What on earth could he have possibly done to deserve execution? All these thoughts and more spiraled quickly through his head like a whirlpool, descending deeper into a void of concern and confusion and a nauseating need to know. A few moments later, he forced his stiff tongue to move again, though the rest of him remained still. "What happened." It was a plea rather than a question, or it would have been had the phrase not sounded so wooden. "Why was he executed?" He shouldn't be asking--but the part of him that could notice his denmate's physical reaction of discomfort had been far, far buried beneath the sickening suspicion that Starlingflare--the tom who reached into his dreams, the tom who'd gotten into the minds of even Swan and Pidge--did not rest among the stars.

She'd known this tone. It was the tone that rose in the throat of a cat whose world was on the brink of being shattered, of information that they had been raised with being thrust into the ether as a lie rather than truth. That leash that she held on her tongue was only being gripped with tighter and tighter claws, though it bucked harsher and harsher against her will to keep only the necessary from passing through. Murkyriver watched, closely, as her walking companion was forced to process the information. Why did it impact him so much? There was information here that she did not know. That ever-assessing gaze of flame took itself along every single tuft of fur of Dovetail's body, assessing and calculating just why he held the tension that he did. Why it seemed that, from the near-imperceptible twitches of his head his mind and heart were racing and spiraling from conclusion to conclusion. She had to remove herself from the emotion, had to not think or feel, simply stick to fact--

--huh. That was something she had never noticed in him before. Her eyes flared into a slight narrow once more, but this time, for a new reason. The molly had hardly paid any attention in truly looking at her Clanmates when she had first arrived, having had a one-track mind to staying focused on dedicating herself to her new Clan... and leaving the memory of him behind. It still panged her heart with pain to consider him, but it was growing duller. A dullness she wasn't quite sure she liked, but... Dovetail did not look as RiverClan as she had once perceived him to. Of course, his pelt had the sheen that was signature of any feline whose pelt had adapted to having a diet of fish and constant swimming, but that was not what she now saw. There were bulky cats in RiverClan, that was for sure, but this was not that sort of build. His firm legs and large paws accompanied by a somewhat-shorter torso compared to her own particularly lithe build, the thick tail that followed behind him... his frame was not built of RiverClan blood. It was ThunderClan. So did he have ties to the Clan of her birth? Ties that he never told her? There was no possible way he had been in ThunderClan at the same time as her, however. Though not by much, he was younger than she, and she had never seen him. What was he not telling her? Why did she look to be from the shadows, and him from the bracken and bramble? What was her befriended Dove not telling her?

A slight huffed exhale slipped through her nose as she released her assessment. Friendship had made her blind to this information, and yet another wall seemed to frost over her chest as she tucked that information away. "Convicted of the murder of three." Murkyriver answered his question quite simply. "Why?" It was her turn to ask a question. It was only fair, given that it had been an unspoken truce to not bring up her past life.