Birds and Trees, Broken Things {closed}

ooc: this topic takes place directly after the "As You Wish" topic.

"You told me once you didn't know what you'd do when WindClan returned home." Finchstar mewed, padding into the medicine den. The sun was high in the sky, reflecting through the gorse ceiling and dotting the sandy ground with yellow circles of light. His pelt smelled of heather and peat grass. Finchstar had laid next to her grave for what seemed like sunrises, whispering little nothings into her ears. He had wanted to leave, and was so close. It would be sunhigh now across that Thunderpath. And Finchstar would be a loner. But he ran back, returned. He was waited on, and Brookclover sat in the sky watching him. And he would wait, he would wait until death found him eight more times. He would wait where she slept, he would wait with the clan she loved. Finchstar was WindClan's leader, and he would stay until his life was stripped away. There were things he had abandoned in his sadness, wanting to throw his commitments to the wind as he did his grief. It was unfair, cruel. He didn't pretend not to see their faces, hurt with his actions. It was a terrible thing, to ruin souls the way he had. But his grief had swallowed all. It still plagued Finchstar, and he had accepted it always would. He was still broken, sad. But each and every one of those emotions were her. And nothing bad could string from something so beautiful. Finchstar wouldn't allow his own grief to flood his friend's lives. The camp had been repaired, gorse walls stitched back together. And now he would mend his clanmates' hearts, probably getting some thorns in his paws along the way.

Aspenpaw sat in the medicine cat den, dapples of light reflecting off his gray tabby pelt. He had been injured, so much so that Finchstar had confined him to camp. But the leader had not once visited him there. It was evil, and cruel, as if sending him into capture. Mintwhisker had journeyed from SkyClan to diagnose his illness, as Briarpaw had stepped down from the medicine cat duty. But Finchstar's apprentice was a fighter, and even when told he would need to become an elder, he found a loophole.

"I never expected to lose her, Brookclover. And I'm sure you never expected to become WindClan's next medicine cat." The leader stopped before Aspenpaw, not wanting to sit just yet, feeling as if he was encroaching on something unseen. He had been a foxheart, so submerged in his own head. It would be wrong to pretend nothing had been torn between them. "Fate is a curious thing. Yet the best of us are able to twist and mend it into something beautiful." He nodded to Aspenpaw, refering to his former apprentice. He admired his drive, and bravery, even when all was torn from him. "It hurts, loss. And I am broken." He let out a sad smile, scuffling some sand with a paw. "But I should have visited you. You deserve an apology, friend. The wind has taken us to places unseen."

Aspenpaw had been cataloguing herbs and speaking their uses to himself when he recieved a visitor. He did not turn around to face his leader when he spoke. He felt he had a bit of a right to show Finchstar as little or as much respect as he chose, for three reasons. One, Finchstar had indeed been the smooth-talking, youthful Finchbreeze once, when Aspenpaw had barely grown out of his kitten fluff. Two, the toms had a very odd relationship between the two of them. They had a kind of understanding that transcended the usual relationship of mentor and apprentice. Something was different about the way they spoke to each other. They were both grown far beyond their years. The lines were only more muddled and skewed by Aspenpaw stepping down from the warrior life. Now, the silver tabby didn’t even feel bound by the code of respect one gave the cat that taught him.

And third, he was medicine cat now. So, if he gave Finchstar an attitude, he could just go cry to StarClan about it. Even so, there was a leak in his heart that bled for the ginger and white tom, and when he was called “friend,” the crack split wider. Aspenpaw swallowed it up.

“What?” he said calmly, fiddling with a sprig of sorrel. Gives strength, soothes joints. Twolegplace. “You’re not embarrassed to see your fine craftsmanship go to waste?” He huffed, a half-laugh, but not enough to mask the bite of his sarcasm. Setting the sorrel down with shaking hands, he pulled out another herb. Thyme. Warm places, eases troubled minds.

The silver apprentice turned around, against his better judgement, and his heart broke to see his old mentor after all this time. A mix of nostalgia, anger, and forgiveness threatened to tug him in every direction. “Is that why you won’t even come near me, even now? Look at me, Finchstar! Look at my legs, they're spazzing!” The young cat’s voice was more of a plea than a shout. He moved closer to the elder one, unsteadily, and with more uneven breath. “And just so you know, you’re the closest thing to a father I ever had, and the shell of a cat that came home that day was somehow worse than if you had one life like the rest of us and died wit-”

He halted more quickly than he ever had in his life. With Brookclover. How dare he think such cruel things, if not about Finchstar, but about her too? Aspenpaw coughed and withdrew, blinking back tears. Soften, soften, soften. His hardest task so far. “... with a little dignity. You made me feel like a stranger. I missed you. I thought I was going to die, if not by the sickness’s paws, then my own.”

Aspenpaw didn't turn to meet his eyes, and Finchstar didn't know where to look. He had always been so confident, from birth, and even now, as he stood broken. It was easy to speak to another's face and let his heart lie on display. But his former apprentice sat with his back to him. Rejection. Finchstar had never experienced such a thing before. Perhaps it was his honeyed words or handsome face, as Brookclover would say. But no cat had ever denied Finchstar anything. And perhaps he was entitled. Wincing softly, the leader opened his mouth to speak, wanting to say something, anything to meet Aspenpaw's eyes again. But no words came, and his apprentice turned.

His green eyes pooled with emotion, and the leader almost wished he hadn't shown his face. Aspenpaw's voice raised to almost a shout, the high syllables ringing with a nasally tone, and Finchstar felt his heart break. This was his apprentice. This was the cat he had first taken to Outlook Rock all those moons ago, before the flood, before Brookclover's death. He had hesitated as Brindlestar gave him a young tom to watch over, he remembered whispering with Brookclover in the night about the many adventures they had walked together. And Finchstar had broke him. "Aspenpaw I..." Finchstar started, but a claw was wedged into his heart.

"And just so you know, you’re the closest thing to a father I ever had, and the shell of a cat that came home that day was somehow worse than if you had one life like the rest of us and died wit-”

Each and every word shattered him again, slicing into his fragile façade he had only discovered this very morning. Finchstar's kits, dead. Aspenpaw, abandoned. And Ravenpaw, well he hadn't even spoken to Ravenpaw yet. The leader's yellow eyes began to moisten, and he struggled to grasp the emotion that stemmed from his apprentice's words. Maybe it should be anger, but Finchstar's only experience with anger was his searing fire towards fate for taking his mate. It couldn't be that. He had never shown another display of anger, and wondered if he would be capable now. But that wasn't it. Maybe it was sadness. Sadness for breaking Aspenpaw. Sadness for what their relationship had become. But Finchstar had already cried his tears away at dawn. There was no more to spare. And guilt, could it be that? He had felt guilt as he journeyed across the Thunderpath to meet his destiny, but it was commitment that brought him back. "That hurt." Finchstar rasped defeatedly. His voice was calm, level, but he meant Aspenpaw's eyes with those of his own, glazed over as he contemplated the conversation. He wanted to speak another tale, to whisper some soothing words to resolve the issue. But that had been his ploy all his life. And Finchstar was no better for it. Perhaps he should let it all shatter, perhaps he should throw down his mask and let his sadness rest next to his heart's display.

"...I thought I was going to die, if not by the sickness’s paws, then my own."

"Why would you do such a thing?" Finchstar mewed, voice strained and pleading. He couldn't imagine Aspenpaw falling to his own claws, and the thought of it made him forget the lethal words thrown at him just a moment ago. "You realize how many cats care for you? And you'd let them all down, just to not have legs that what... shake?" And they shattered. Finchstar and Aspenpaw, falling to the ground, cracking like ice in leafbare. "I care for you, Aspenpaw. I do. And I thought of you while I mourned, I thought of your sickness, your pain... And I did nothing. I was a foxheart. And I wanted to end it as well. I wanted to throw myself at a monster this morning, because I missed her. And maybe we'd both be cowards stuck in StarClan together, dying by our own volition. And our friends would hate us for it." No more silver-tongued words fell from his maw. Raw emotion flowed from Finchstar's heart, and he tore at the sand as he narrowed his yellow eyes, staring his apprentice in the face. "But we're not dead. We're very much alive, and we're yelling at each other because we're broken. And it hurt you, it hurt me." Finchstar lowered his voice, taking two wary pawsteps toward his former apprentice, lowering his head to look up at him slightly, dying to discover what went on in his head. "I'm not your mentor anymore, nor am I your father. But if you ask it of me, I will be your friend. And perhaps that's all I can give. Perhaps we're just two broken toms, trying to love as fiercely as we hurt. Yell at me more, if you wish, StarClan knows I deserve it. But promise me that once it's done, you'll help me pick up the pieces."

He felt like he was spinning out of control.

Like a kit, he had cried and spat and thrown his little temper tantrum. He had been doing it for almost a moon, now. Everything that went wrong became everybody else’s problem but his own. Aspenpaw’s burdens got thrown onto anybody who crossed him as he used his venomous tongue to break them down. He did it to Mintwhisker, and he was doing it to Finchstar. What a coward he had become. He was no better for being a medicine cat. He was still the same old Aspenpaw, declaring loudly that nobody could ever understand, and then refusing to let them try. As he stood before his leader, he saw all the things Finchstar was not, and all the things Aspenpaw had thought him to be. The apprentice was wrong about so many things. To blame this poor cat for a destiny that neither of them had asked for was unfair. Aspenpaw considered the way things could have been, had the world marched on in tedium.

Perhaps Finchbreeze and Brookclover, in some other life, were blessed with kits. Perhaps Aspentail mentored one in the ways of the warrior. Perhaps Brindlestar would have chosen another to be deputy. None of it mattered. Finchstar chose to be deputy. He chose not to run when his beloved died. Aspenpaw chose to be medicine cat. He chose not to let another clanmate die in the jaws of a beast, and afterward, he chose not to let his sickness become him. It was his battle scar to bear, like the one on his old mentor’s heart. He was right, in the end. They were both broken.

Aspenpaw looked up, his teal eyes finally meeting Finchstar’s yellow ones. He hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do, feeling as though he had broken something beyond repair. It was foolish to try and defend himself anymore. All he wanted was to tell Finchstar everything, but nothing would come out of his mouth. He simply reached up and rested his head across the other's left shoulder. His body trembled with the weight of a sob.

“I don’t have words to say what I need to,” he bawled, “But I hope you can find it in that big, stupid heart of yours to forgive me. You probably think I’m stubborn and irritating and absolutely petulant, but I need you. I need you, friend." The young tom took a breath. The words were starting to come to him. They were alive, the two of them, after all. There were things to be done, kits to be born, an entire forest to keep spinning on. He couldn't miss it. "I don't want this pain anymore, of what could have been. There's so much we still have. There's a lot of cats, plagued with misery, eyes cast down.”

He pulled back and smiled at Finchstar. "With or without you, I'll keep my eyes fixed on the sun."

The leader braced himself as he shouted the final words, ready for another scathing comment from Aspenpaw. It hurt, like claws scoring blood across his chest, but Finchstar deserved every bit of it. He had abandoned his apprentice, left him to rot in the medicine den, and now they stood, throwing words at each other. But no yowl came from the gray tabby, instead only a heavy sob, and Aspenpaw's head was placed onto Finchstar's shoulder, and the leader's heart broke in two. His breathy words slickered past Finchstar's ear, and his yellow eyes glazed over as they traced the stripes down his former apprentice's back. And Finchstar was told he was needed. Those words shattered him into the floor, he felt as if his limbs would crumble into dust, and that the world he lived in could implode on itself. Perhaps the leader had been selfish, but never had he imagined himself as something to be needed. Finchstar was just another speck, just another small thing, but he yearned for that expendability, to be able to disappear and never break a single soul. And yet he would never truly be free. Not even with Brookclover gone. In the stars, she still waited for him, and the strings that tied his emotions together were still there. His mate held one end, and Aspenpaw another. And Ravenpaw. And Barleytuft. And his two stillborn sons who had reached StarClan. Commitments, everywhere. And he was needed. And while most cats would have died for such a thing, Finchstar held the knowledge with careful paws, worried to shatter something so pure. How had he been blind for so long? The leader had trampled the faith others had in him into the dirt, and now as Aspenpaw revitalized it, Finchstar found himself in a realization.

"Forgive you?" Finchstar heaved, fighting back the choking sob in his throat. "Friend, it is I who should be begging for forgiveness. You needed me, and I wasn't there..." Aspenpaw let his words seep into Finchstar's tabby pelt, and the leader could see better days. His apprentice pulled back, smiled, and the tom nodded. "I'll never leave you alone again. I promise to walk by your side as well as the rest of WindClan. Perhaps this is the beginning of the future, and as you watch the sun, Aspenpaw, I will be there. I will wait, as I do for Brookclover… And this pain that we feel... It won't go away and it won't disappear, but we will grow strong enough to blot it out, until the only sun in the sky is the hope that we have created." Tears streamed from the leader's eyes as he smiled. Fate was unpredictable, but he wouldn't face it alone. Slowly, the bridge the two had created would grow stronger, until it was more beautiful then it had been even before. This, Finchstar had faith in. And as he grinned at his medicine cat now, the future ahead of them seemed alright.