A Spark [only Dimmeh gets special treatment and can post]

"I wasn't there when she joined." Blacktwig said, standing up at Pepper's fury. "I can't talk to her, but you can ask her about it," he said, trying his very best to retain a positive attitude in the midst of the black-and-white she-cat's rage. He was worried that if he attempted to convince her to sit down and rest, she would get mad at him, too.

"Ask her? No. I never want to speak with her again."
Tears stung hee eyes now.
"You don't understand Blacktwig. If I didn't decide to stay with her I could have raised my kits! I could have gone with Scorchfrost and watched our family grow but I didn't. She promised to stay by my side and I promised the same. Now I know not to make that mistake again."

Blacktwig's ears drooped. "I wasn't even alive then, how would I know?" Blacktwig asked with a whimper. His gaze softened, and he looked down, fur flat but expression sorrowful and despairing. "I'm sorry, Pepper, I would've helped..." He said, afraid.

She sighed and shook her head.
"Don't do that, don't say you would've done something. Anyone can say that."
The she-cat closed her eyes.
"I just wish I could go back. Before the fire, before the clans came before Raven's death, before we were driven out of this barn.. I would have gone with the rest of the rouges. Gold kept me sheltered from how the forest saw me. How hard my life would be. The evidence weighed down the barriers that she put over me, now I have to learn it all in a matter of seconds."
Regret filled her eyes.
"I should have listened to him. He was right about everything, no matter how hard I tried to make it wrong. I'm so sorry Gray.."

Blacktwig looked more confused than angry, as he nearly always was. What did she mean 'the forest's view of her'? For a moment, Blacktwig took a long time to think. "Who's Gray?" Blacktwig asked. He honestly couldn't understand anything Pepper was saying.

"He was a friend of mine, he probably died by now but he warned me about seeing Scorchfrost, getting involved with the clans was only going to bring harm."
She mewed,
"He cared about me, but I was foolish and blind. The last thing I told him was that he was a terrible leader.. I've gotten myself into a hole I'll never escape, my denial of how things have always been just sealed my fate."

Blacktwig stayed silent for a moment, looking Pepper's words over. He couldn't imagine all the old she-cat had been through, yet thoughts lingered like an ever-growing fog in his mind. He then gazed at her blankly, tail-tip still. "Do you regret me?" He asked, tone not tainted with accusation, or any emotion at all.

"No."
She mewed firmly.
"I don't regret you. Nor your mother, your aunts, your uncle. I just.."
She sighed.
"I just regret how determined I was to try and link the clans to us. I regret that I will never know all the things that happened to my kits. I know Scorchfrost hid things from me. I regret a lot of things, Blacktwig, but you have never been one of them."
The cat began mull over her thoughts, good and bad. Mainly bad.

"No!" Blacktwig insisted, as the she-cat began to drag on. It was painful to hear, especially with Pepper's scrawny, mauled and injured state. He winced. "You don't have to regret everything. I just need to know what's going on!" It was all so unclear to him. He gave a pained sigh.

"I know that."
She mewed.
"I'm sure you can figure this out but, you've been sheltered as well."
Pepper paused
"What do you want to know? I might be able to tell you. You might not like my answers."

Blacktwig nodded slowly. "I'd like to know what the clans are doing, and why." He said sternly, a bit of his voice harsh at the mention of what the clans may be taunting these rogues with.

"If you're certain... When I was a kit, my mother left me in the fields just infront of here. I met some cats and stayed here for a few days. There were three clan cats there. Wisteriasky was one of them. A rouge clan had been living there for a while and were quite strong. She wanted the barn and had ThunderClan come and drive them out, they fought kits too. Without clan blood, they had no protection from it."
She said, looking up at Blacktwig.
"Later on, Wisteriasky died. I thought that the other two cats- Ashcloud and...Goldpaw...- would leave me so I followed them to a gathering. I was still a kit then. The cats there threatened to kill me, told me that I didn't deserve to be there."
She looked at him directly in the eye.
"Blacktwig are you sure you want me to go on? The next few things aren't going to be as easy to listen to."

Blacktwig's heart already wasn't at ease, not wanting to hear the cruel things that the clans had done to her. "I don't know..." He mewed, eyes closing for a short moment, before fluttering open again. "A-Alright." He stammered. He was a warrior, how bad could it be?

Pepper's gaze softened.
"Okay.. When the clans were driven out by the 'Dark Forest', I told Gray, the leader of our clan called Arcane, that we should let them have some territory. He agreed to do so, wanting to keep things as friendly as he could, there were kits in our camp. A cat named glass was murdered by some warriors nor long after. My friend Raven saw her brother get attacked by a patrol and tried to save him, they killed him in front of her but she managed to do the same with one of their own. They left him on the ground and went to bury their own cat."
She closed her eyes.
"Raven.. Raven didn't take it very well but I calmed her down for a few days. She stopped eating soon after and.."
Pepper fought back tears.
"I found her laying with her brother's body, she starved herself to death in hopes of being with him. They were both rotting already and crows as well as rats were crowded around them."
Pepper took in a shaky breath.
"I buried them together on the clan territory, the twolegplace had no safe place for them so I hid while I buried them. Gold left after that and that's around the time Scorchfrost stopped coming as well. Our camp burned down and Gray dissapeared shortly after his depression started. I tried to hurry to regain my herb supply so I could take care of rouges during the winter and that's when you found me."

Blacktwig listened, and tears began to sting his eyes too. He shook his head sharply to clear his vision of the watery drops. He then felt tingly. Memories came flooding back, from when he was an apprentice. "Raven?" Blacktwig asked. "I remember her... Nobody knew what she was going through." He gave a hiss, glaring at the light that was beginning to dim outside of the barn. He would be back at camp at the last sliver of light, the last minute of sundown. For now, he stayed.