A Meeting of Siblings [Closed]

Thistleblaze didn't like the fact that her clan was stuck to Sunning Rocks for the time being. She didn't like being so close to Thunderclan. It was hard for her to trust the fact that they wouldn't attack them especially in a time of weakness. The Riverclan warrior decided to get away from Thunderclan for the time being and away from the rest of her clan. Her walk was at a normal pace compared to most cats, but she wasn't normal at least her paw wasn't. It was slightly twisted showing where she had broken it as a kit. But she learned to deal with it and worked hard to become a riverclan warrior. While it was hard to use that paw for things, she still managed perfectly fine with just one.

The gray tabby stopped at the gorge, rather the shallower end of it. She didn't trust going to the deeper end seeing how she already fell in once. She could see her old home just across the gap. The place that betrayed her mother, along with the help of Shadowclan. She didn't like either of them. The only clan she could tolerate even slightly was Skyclan, even then she didn't trust them that much. She looked down at the ground in front of her holding out her twisted paw as she batted at a few rocks she saw out of boredom.

Nightheart was taking a small walk around the territory with the excuse of a border patrol, reason why she was on that specific place on that specific moment. The deep wounds caused by the death of her mother and mysterious disappearance of her younger sister were finally starting to heal, but the ghosts of her past still walked at her side, whispering to her ear during the day and filling her dreams with memories of old during the night.

The dark warrior sighed deeply as the whispers began while watching t the gorge. Several moons ago, during one of her solo searching missions she had found an old scent on one of the shallower ends of it, her sister’s scent. However, she found no body, no other traces of her at all, what caused her to wonder if it had been the wind carrying the scent from another location or her own desperate mind playing tricks on her senses. It was during one of the last days that she had been searching for her after all, before some clanmates forced her to snap out of it and drop all hope of finding her, filling her mind with all the possibilities of her disappearance, each one worse than the other.

The faint sound of rocks moving on the surface and the gentle breeze carried the scent of another cat. She recognized the Riverclan scent almost immediately, what made her feel somewhat confused. Yes, this was a border they shared with them, but didn’t they had a flood recently? Did they really recovered fast enough to send patrols to the borders again? She raised her head, and what she saw made her froze on her place. Several moons had passed, but she could swear that the cat that was playing with the small rocks on the other side of the gorge was none else than her long lost sister…

“Sootkit…” Tears started to fill her ice-blue yes, her voice was barely above a whisper, but it was enough to farce her paws to move again, causing her to start pacing restlessly, part of her even suggesting to try to jump to where she was to confirm her suspicions, though her rational side stopped her, knowing that she probably wouldn’t be able to reach the other end safely “Sootkit!!!” Her voice was a mix of confusion, hope and joy as she shouted her sister’s old name, unaware that it wasn’t how she was called anymore, the idea of the other cat not being her sister not even existing in her mind. She was her sister, she had to be…after all these moons…

Thistleblaze froze as soon as she heard someone shouting out her old name. She looked up and hoped that it would just be someone finding their lost kit in the middle of their territory but not the cat was staring at her. It took her a moment but she recognized that cat as her sister. Nightheart... She left her behind when she went to Riverclan.

"My name is Thistleblaze now." The gray tabby informed her older sister. "I'm a warrior of Riverclan." She said to her unsure of what else to say, she wasn't that great with emotions. She had missed her sister, but now that it finally came time to this moment she didn't know what to say to the black Windclan warrior.

Nightheart froze completely as her sister spoke to her, dropping what could only be described as a bomb of information on her. There was a short silence between them as Nightheart tried to put her thoughts in order and assimilate the information correctly “A RiverClan warrior…” The dark warrior’s voice was almost a whisper, a clear tone of confusion saturating each word thanks to the mixed feelings that fought for dominance inside her. She simply wasn’t sure of what she should be feeling like. Should she be happy for finding her sister? Sad because she had decided to stay in RiverClan instead of returning? There were many other questions roaming across her head, and none being easy to answer that the previous one.

“How you got there? Why you never came back to WindClan? I…” Nightheart lowered her ears as her voice became shaky as memories of the long days and nights she spent desperately looking for her “I couldn’t find you, nor clues of where could you have gone…I refused to give up and ignored the advice of the rest of the clan for so long until…I…I thought you were dead…that I had lost you too…” Her voice cracked often nearing the end of the sentence, making it somewhat hard to understand he words. However, seeing her in front of her, alive and healthy, made her feel a sudden wave of relief and joy.

She was in RiverClan, she didn’t came back home, she never even tried to look for her and let her know that she was fine…but she was alive and that was all what mattered for her right then and there.

Thistleblaze's ears flattened at her sister's sadness. She didn't want to cause this but she felt more at peace in Riverclan. She felt like she wasn't being judged in Riverclan. She wasn't related to a Dark Forest warrior in Riverclan. She was taken care of by the Riverclan deputy for Starclan's sake! She was accepted there..

The gray tabby gathered her words for a moment before speaking. She knew this wasn't going to make anything better, but the truth was all she had. "I couldn't return. I fell into the gorge, and broke my leg." She said lifting up her twisted paw slightly. "They found me and took me in, they took care of me. They brought me back to good health. When I was healed they accepted me into the clan and made me an apprentice, and they gave me the name Thistlekit." The Riverclan warrior said.

"I couldn't just leave after all they had done for me.. I felt accepted there." Thistleblaze said to her sister. "I realized soon after that I couldn't go back to Windclan. With my paw the way it is, I could never be a Windclan warrior." The Riverclan warrior said. Riverclan was her home. She could be a warrior there. She could fish for her clan, and she could fight for her clan. She didn't have to run with her broken paw.

Nightheart listened to her sister’s words without interrupting her, ears low and trying her best to not feel negative emotions inside her. Being a cat that had the warrior code so high within her priorities she felt a part of her feel somewhat betrayed by Thistleblaze’s decision to stay within the ranks of a rival clan instead of returning to the place she used to call home during a good portion of her kithood as soon as she recovered from her injuries.

It took her some effort and time of trying to get rid of such thoughts from her head to be able to understand her sister’s point. They both were closely related to a Dark Forest loyalist and many cats couldn’t really see past that after the tragedies that occurred during the dark times of their reign, even herself still couldn’t help but feel the residual mix of that hate and betrayal she held for so long against Saltpelt after she found out about her loyalties, to the point where she even stopped considering her family for a long time even after her death, and that she still couldn’t get rid of. After the battle at Fourtrees she made clear that she was loyal to StarClan regardless of her family bonds, and even then she felt that several cats doubted her for a couple moons after said event, she couldn’t really imagine the pressure that Thistleblaze should’ve felt back then, not having the chance to prove herself to the rest of the clan like she did, as well as having to deal with the recent death of both her aunt and mother. She was sure she could’ve proven herself to them and get over their deaths if she decided to stay for long enough though…

Then came the point of the broken leg…yeah, it was true that having a twisted paw would definitely make life in WindClan fairly complicated given the prey they used to hunt and their way of battling, making the rank of Medicine Cat a lot more probable than the Warrior one, but maybe she could’ve achieved such thing with some extra effort? She, however, decided to bite her tongue and don’t say her thoughts out loud. After so long she finally had managed to find the sister she considered dead for so many moons, there was no need to turn this beautiful encounter into a fight for their beliefs and highly contrasting points of view.

“I…guess you won’t want me to tell anyone back in WindClan about you and your new clan, am I right?” Nightheart made her best effort to smile with such words, which were more of a fact than a question, but in her smile sadness could be detected way too easily. She wasn’t the only one that missed her in WindClan, she was sure of that, but revealing that she wasn’t only alive, but also within the ranks of another clan would only build up tension between the two clans as well as make both clans look down upon her sister. After knowing how terrible she felt when that was happening in WindClan, to the point of deciding to give up her old clan for RiverClan, she wouldn’t want to be the responsible of her going through that once more [b]“But…you think that we can still see each other from time to time?”[/b] In all sincerity, Nightheart wanted to make sure that her sister was healthy and happy now that she knew that she wasn’t between the ranks of StarClan, even if she was in another clan.

Thistleblaze shook her head. "I would prefer you not too.. Everything is better for me here in Riverclan.. I don't want that taken away." She hadn't even told anyone in Riverclan that she was actually a windclan cat. They all thought she was an abandoned rogue, and she would prefer to keep it that way. "And yes. I would like to see you often. Just because we are in different clans doesn't mean we have to stop being sisters." The gray tabby said.

Nightheart couldn’t hide her sadness when she heard her sister’s reply, knowing that she was doing better in RiverClan than in WindClan with her…but at the same time she felt happy to know that the small Sootkit that once had also been her clanmate had finally found the place where she truly belonged to as Thistleblaze, the RiverClan warrior, and she simply would hate herself for the rest of her life if she took that away from her. Her next words, however, managed to somewhat cheer her up “Thank you for thinking so, Soot…I-I mean Thistleblaze” The dark warrior looked around, paying attention to their surroundings for the first time since she had spotted her lost sister on the other side of the gorge.

“I don’t want this to end, but if we stay here talking to each other for longer we may be spotted and your secret may be at risk…but…I’ll make sure to come around fairly often, I hope we cross paths again soon” Nightheart gave her sister a sincere loving smile, trying to not let it get tainted by the mixed feelings inside her chest “Please…take care”.